MQA is Vaporware

[Charles Hansen]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Hi Charles - This raises a couple of topics of interest to me.

 

I find that in my system, with the Vandersteens, I tend to favor linear phase filters.  Perhaps 25+ years of owning Vandys (yes, I would have strongly considered Avalons had I been looking at that price range ) has gotten me accustomed to a particular type of imaging that comes with linear phase throughout the chain.  Or maybe I'm just accustomed to something in linear phase filters (having owned one of the early Theta DACs for quite a while).

 

You, as you say, have long experience listening to filters.  And I very much liked the QB-9 (listening at a friend's) and Pono Player (which I still own) which I assume both resulted from your listening process.

 

Now humans are very very bad at storing sounds in memory for more than a few seconds, so any time someone does listening comparisons, that's a rather fraught sort of thing.  We might well ask what really is being compared.

 

But one thing humans are really, really good at is pattern matching. We build up recognition of these patterns with long experience and/or training.  So we can legitimately say we may be able to recognize familiar patterns in sound.

 

When I recognize a familiar pattern of sound that for me includes linear phase filters, and for you includes minimum phase filters, as what sounds "right" to us, are we recognizing accuracy, some inborn preference, or simply what fits a familiar pattern?

 

And when listeners hear MQA or something else they think is new and great, are they recognizing greater accuracy, some inborn preference, or something that breaks out of the familiar pattern of what they've heard before?

 

Hi Jud,

 

In loudspeakers, everything is a tradeoff. It is not like the case of digital audio where one can escape the tradeoffs by going to a high-enough sample rate. There are several drawbacks to the use of first-order crossovers as used by Vandersteen. His very latest Model 7 overcomes one of them and achieves pistonic motion from the drivers, which I consider to be a "first order" problem in loudspeakers, meaning that non-pistonic motion of the diaphragms adds horrible amounts of noise to the music signal that is far worse than anything that aliasing might cause.

 

Even when he fixed that problem (at a very high price - much higher than the Avalons I designed), there is still the problem that the drivers are 90º out-of-phase at the crossover point. That means (assuming the tweeter is above the woofer) that there will be an excess of energy at the crossover point that is aimed downward, typically toward the listener's feet. Depending on the crossover frequencies used, that will result in changes to the tonal balance in the room which are quite audible. The only way around that problem is to either used a D'Appolito configuration (as did the Dunlavy's and Duntech's) or a coaxial solution (not used by anybody that I know of with a first-order crossover).

 

What I have found is that in an odd way that the Vandersteens make better listening tools for an electronics manufacturer than a "better" speaker such as an Avalon or the TADs with beryllium cones that operate pistonically. Specifically the Vandys only "sing" when everything is just right. In contrast, when the electronics are really good, the sound will be amazing with a pistonic speaker - to the point where one may overlook a minor flaw that would be exposed by the Vandersteens. I know because we have had all kinds of reference speakers in our sound room - Avalon Eclipses for about 6 years, Vandy 3 for about two years, Wilson W/P 7 for about 2 years, and now TAD Ref Ones for about the last 8 years. Plus another half-dozen that lasted only a few weeks or months each.

 

I have a different philosophy than most people. Specifically I believe that "system matching" is a bad idea. If you have dull speakers, you can achieve an "improvement" by adding bright speaker wires - for a few weeks. Then you realize that two wrongs do not make a right and now you have two problems with your system. I have always found that one approach is more "correct" than another approach, and not just that I "like" it better.

 

The reason that I believe this is simple. When I hear systems that are built like a house of cards by carefully matching the colorations of the various components, it can sound absolutely spectacular with certain recordings or even certain kinds of music. But when you put a different recording or a different kind of music, it just falls apart.

 

In contrast a system composed of "correct" (accurate, but not the way that term is normally used by audiophiles), one can play any recording of any type of music and forget about the recording and just be swept away by the music. If you have a Pono Player, I think you probably know what I am talking about, especially when used with balanced headphones.

 

Hope this helps,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

14 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

Jim Thiel's last designs used a coaxial midrange & tweeter of his own design with a first-order crossover.

 

Hi Bob,

 

Good catch. I forgot about those as the company has essentially been out of business since his death. Latest information here, with an interview of the 5th CEO in the last 4 years:

 

https://www.strata-gee.com/strata-gee-interviews-elyse-mckenna-thiel-newest-ceo/

 

If you go to the Thiel website, even their "Legacy" products have dropped any pretense of anything as expensive and difficult to make as the custom driver shown in your photo. The CS-3.7 was pretty much Thiel's swan song. There is an excellent review of the 3.7 on the Stereophile website by Wes Phillips (RIP):

 

https://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1208thi/index.html

 

He was one of Stereophile's best reviewers ever, with excellent ears, an always engaging writing style, plus he almost always compared the DUT to other relevant products. In this case, he loved the 3.7 - and one of his comparison speakers was the Avalon Indra - a non-phase coherent design. He made zero comments on the sound of the two that one might expect between a true "time and phase coherent" design and a more conventional design. Which simply furthers my (current) belief that this design goal is at best, a third- or fourth-order effect in terms of actual audibility (and thus importance when designing a loudspeaker). There are many, many other parameters which are far more important. The Indra and the 3.7 both address many of them equally successfully, hence WP's admiration for both designs.

 

However, after reading WP's review of the Avalon Indra:

 

https://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1008ava/index.html

 

and looking at JA's measurements, I definitely would have bought the Thiels, given that they were significantly less expensive. Thiel was a measurement kind of designer and not so much of a listener. But opening up the Thiels and replacing the internal wiring and some critical crossover components would have cost well under $1000 and have elevated those speakers to a completely new level, where they likely would have trounced the Indras.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

On 9/1/2017 at 1:11 PM, Milt99 said:

I may be totally wrong regarding your reference, but I always had my suspicions about how "WA" got so big so fast considering their pricing\product line. When I actually heard their, at the time,  bread n' butter product, I was even more mystified as to why anyone would spend that kind of coin on what was to me a mediocre at best product.

 

Hello,

 

If  you mean "Wilson Audio", that is not how they became famous. Their story is more complicated than that, although evidence that many "listen with their wallets".

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

On 9/1/2017 at 1:17 PM, Rt66indierock said:

1) Apple is abandoning portable music players and Sony Pioneer and Onkyo are embracing them? It will be interesting to see who is right about that.

 

2) This looks to me like a concerted effort to establish a position in the Korean market and leverage it to enter other Asian markets.  LG is not a big player in the US smartphone market and the V30+ is going to only be available in Korea. Groovers are Korean based and e-onkyo has a selection C-Pop on its site.

 

3) Finally how many panels do we need this year on the future of hi-res audio? SXSW was a bust. Midem 2017 had a similar panel and left a reporter wondering if there was any interest in h-res audio beside people with something to sell. As I told Marc Finer of the Digital Entertainment Group at the Los Angeles Audio Show you are going to find selling hi-res audio very tough. Nothing has changed since then.

 

1) I think this is related to the fact that for most of the Japanese majors, roughly half of their sales is to their home market. I was shocked when I first found out that a small island nation of 100 million bought as much electronic gadgets as the rest of the world combined.

 

But this explains why Sony and Onkyo/Pioneer (now the same company) are bringing out music players. Japan is about the only country in the world where people will  purchase and carry an extra gadget just to get better sound quality. However MQA is in a weird positioin in Japan. It is of interest simply because all new technologies are of interest. Yet the fact that it is lossy automatically disqualifies it from serious interest - this is a country that won't buy a DAC just because it doesn't offer quad-rate DSD! (Tell me how many quad-rate DSD titles exist...)

 

I would be willing to bet that the only reason that MQA exists on any Japanese player is to increase its desirability to Western markets. It's pretty trivial to add MQA, and most Japanese products are "feature-rich" (to say the least), and that way they can increase the chance of selling a few extra units to Western countries.

 

2) If this is true, it is doomed to failure. Korea has an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Japan. They are constantly trying to prove that they are at least as "good" as Japan, if not better. The truth is that they are heavily influenced by Japan, and since they measure their success in Japanese terms, they likely will never "beat" Japan. (They will do almost anything to try, which is what led to the Samsung bribery scandal and the resignation of the otherwise-popular President.) But if Japan rejects MQA (which so far they seem to have), it is likely that Korea will too.

 

3) There will likely be panels on high-res as long as the record labels see them as a potential source of revenue. I think that the thing that would actually make them the most money is to do exactly as Neil Young suggests and sell all music for the same price, regardless of resolution. It's not as if music from great artists ever cost more than music from mediocre artists. Or that music recorded by great engineers with great sound quality in great studios cost more than music recorded in someone's basement "studio" using ProTools. So why charge more for high-resolution files?

 

I think it was just because it was proven that audiophiles would pay extra for re-issued LPs or re-mastered CDs or SACDs. But that is exactly why high-res will never achieve mainstream success - unless they introduce price parity. The definition of an audiophile is a person who will pay more for better sound quality. It is a fact that only 1 person in 1000 is willing to do so. Therefore the existing high-res paradigm is simply pissing in the wind.

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

Of course hopes of this happening are nil.  The industry constantly tries to maximize profit per unit rather than looking to the health of the overall market.  If Apple hadn’t dragged them into it, the industry would still be labeling many of their biggest potential customers pirates instead of - hey! - making it convenient and cheap for people who love music to buy it.  Crazy idea, eh?

 

Hi Jud -

 

And ironically, Apple is responsible for the huge decline in music revenues. In the old days one could by an LP for $4 with 12 songs or a 45 single with one good song and one throwaway song for $1. If they did the same today (adjusted for inflation) everything would be fine. But iTunes allowed the buyer to pick all of the best songs for a flat 1/12th the price of the album. The result is that everyone bought the best 1 or 2 (or sometimes 3) songs. Before buying the best song cost 1/4 the price of the album and should be $3 today. Instead, album sales were killed and almost all pop music is sold as singles for 1/3 of the old pricing model. Is it any wonder that revenue declined by 2/3?

 

The people that run the record labels are apparently complete idiots.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

23 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

What is your definition of "cheap" for an integrated amp/DAC/network player/headphone amp/phono pre?

 

Hi Michael,

 

Nice to see you posting here. Just to put things into context, in my opinion $2500 to $3000 is definitely "cheap" for something that does everything except include the loudspeakers. Ayre is looking at doing something along those line, and to do it to our performance standards will cost over 2x that price.

 

It always boils down to "Performance, features, price. Pick two." I'm sure there are Chinese made boxes from "brand name" companies that will do that for $1000. But that will most certainly not provide "high-end" performance. If it could, it would put the "high-end" out of business overnight.

 

It's no different than cars (to use an example familiar to most of us). The latest Mazda MX-5 can provide amazing performance for around $25,000. But it's simply not going to compare to a $250,000 Ferrari. Of course the Ferrari isn't 10x better, but it is hand made in limited quantities, and that's how much it costs to make things that way. The closest we saw to combining mass-production techniques to high performance design was the 3rd  generation Mazda RX-7 ($30,000 20 years ago and easily the equal of any $100,000 car) and the Acura NSX ($100,000 20 years ago and easily the equal of any $250,000 car).

 

But those kinds of things are only possible when a giant company will sell the car for the manufacturing cost and write off all of the R&D investment to advertising for building up the brand's reputation. Sony did the same with their very first DVD player and also with their very first SACD player. Two of the very few times this has happened in audio.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

Hello Michael,

 

I just exposed Ralf's double-standards in another thread:

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/34750-another-major-look-at-mqa-by-another-pro/?page=24&tab=comments#comment-713642

 

Enjoy your movie!

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

No it wasn't. You don't get that as an autocorrect for lavorgna, at least on two devices where I just tried it.

 

Hi Firedog,

 

And you could try it on a million devices - if even one  of them made that "auto-correction", it still couldn't explain the word "stale" in Ralf's personal attack on Mr. Lavorgna.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

4 hours ago, mansr said:

That would imply he's made of wood. Witches are made of wood. Where's my duck?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g

 

LOL!

[Charles Hansen]

3 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

Pretty much the same boat I saw an MQA version of American Beauty yesterday on Onkyo Music but do I need a third version of it?

 

Hi Rt66,

 

Especially when the DVD-A remixes were so god-awaful. I think Mickey Hart (or whomever did those) forgot to take enough acid. They made the Grateful Dead sound like the Osmond Brothers.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

54 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

I see this as part of the picture and feel I was doing my job contacting Warners for an answer.  Just as I view it as part of my job to ask Bob Stuart directly whether or not there's a DRM component in MQA (He said "no").

 

Hi Michael,

 

Why would you take the words of a known liar at face  value, especially when there is independent proof from Utimaco (the company that worked with MQA to put the DRM into it)?

 

Thanks,

Charles Hansen

 

EDIT: PS - You may as well as asked Richard Nixon if he was a crook.

[Charles Hansen]

8 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

Like I said, Charley, I ask questions you can do whatever you like with the answers. Or are saying you'd  prefer if I simply said to anyone who you feel is not trustworthy, "liar, liar, pants on fire" and leave it at that?

 

Hi Michael,

 

Look, you are the journalist - not me. But even I know that you don't just print "Bob Stuart is a known liar, so take everything he says with a grain of salt." But you don't have to be a rocket surgeon to figure out that the correct way to handle it is to either:

 

a) Confront Stuart with the Utimaco case study and ask him to explain, or;

b) Print his comments and also print the link to the Utimaco case study and put a note in your article that there seems to be a clear contradiction between what Stuart keeps saying and what the actual facts are.

 

I suppose it depends on the size of  your stones as to which. But doing neither suggests a total lack thereof.

 

Thanks,

Charles Hansen

 

PS - Did the audio press give George Tice a free pass with his "magic clock"? Why should it be any different for Bob Stuart. The things he claims are just as ridiculous.

[Charles Hansen]

7 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

Makes perfect sense....here on the CA forum. In the real world, I'm not so sure that'll stick.

 

Hello Michael,

 

You and the rest of the audio press (including Chris Connaker) should wake up on this one. Mansr is not just blowing smoke out of his ass. He has measurements to prove every single thing he claims about MQA. All  Bob Stuart can do is set up completely unfair comparison where you have absolutely no idea what he has done with the files, and he just says "Listen."

 

His house of cards is going to fall soon, as there are too many people like Mansr who are telling the truth about how MQA actually works and how all of the things that Stuart claims can be verified to be false.

 

Thanks,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

Just now, Michael Lavorgna said:

I'm not in the habit of putting much stock in someone who does not use his/her real name. Call me old fashioned.

 

Hello Michael,

 

If that is your concern, why don't you just try asking him? He has already told everyone in this thread that it is Måns Rullgård. Now will you publish his findings?

 

Thanks,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

6 minutes ago, Miska said:

And DSD really only took off after it was freed from SACD's DRM. I'm quite sure record companies make more by selling plain DSD downloads instead of SACDs.

 

Hi MIska,

 

Exactly. The major record labels have no clues - just bean counters looking at quarterly earnings..

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

2 minutes ago, crenca said:

MQA/meridian/Bob S understood that there is nobody in the "audiophile press" who is competent with the core issues of software, IP, patents, software formats and digital ecosystems, DRM, or even basic math/information theory (witness the so called "debate" about what the significant bit depth of an MQA encoded file is).  Thus, he knew (putting aside whether they are actual journalists or simply trade/marketing  writers) that they could not even begin to question the actual technical and digital merits of MQA.

 

Hi Crenca,

 

Yes, Stuart's test case was getting his "paper" (better used as "toilet paper") published in the AES Journal. If the peer reviewers there gave him a pass, he knew he could get away with any and all bullshit he wanted to spew with the "audio" press.

 

Thanks,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

20 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

Today, this is not the case and outside of forum speculation, there's no indication this is going to happen.

 

Hi Michael,

 

I disagree on this one. I think one of the main jobs of a journalist is to join the dots and speculate. And it doesn't take much to so so.  Check out this post from "Gearslutz", the forum for people in the "pro" audio industry:

 

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/12732261-post17.html

 

As to people speculating as to why Sony is investing tens of millions of dollars to install new LP pressing plants in Japan.

 

Thanks,

Charley

[Charles Hansen]

21 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

Are you saying Charley is not a "real engineer"? And since you have no idea who else I spoke to, how (in the world) do you know they are also not "real engineers"?

 

This is why I prefer not dealing with you, Crenca. I have to wade through too much nonsense to get at some semblance of a valid point.

 

Hi Michael,

 

I have to apologize as there were people at Ayre that either never passed on an invitation to give critiques of MQA to AudioStream to me or else actively blocked them. Suffice to say that they are no longer employed at Ayre.

 

As far as credentials, I think it is one reason that print magazines are in difficulty these days. It used to be that the barriers to entry were such that a publisher would only hire credible people. The internet lowered these barriers dramatically. Now the question seems to be more of "whose opinion is being influenced by what?"

 

Of all the internet audio webzines, I personally think only a handful (yours being one of them) has more experience/credibility than many of the more knowledgeable/experienced posters on random forums. The advantage (and disadvantage) of random forum is is that usually the posters have no particular agenda nor any particular constraints. On the other hand, random forums are also quite susceptible to attacks by paid "astro-turfers" - something I've heard a lot of rumors about regarding MQA and seems to me the most logical explanation for many pro-MQA posts.

 

Hope this helps,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

1 minute ago, crenca said:

FredericV, think about that statement:  a "presentation" of "an original"...what does appending "lossless" mean in such a gobbledygook statement?  It means whatever their lawyers tells you it means   

 

HI Crenca,

 

Prezactly. Which is why Bob Stuart and MQA are just a bunch of hacks trying to fool everyone. The amazing thing to me is that anybody (even the people at the AES who reviewed the original paper) falls for MQA's nonsense.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

6 minutes ago, crenca said:

Thankfully, we have a root/standard format that is digital, which means it's just software/math.  So on this level at least there can be a bit of sanity.

 

Hi Crenca,

 

I don't think the fact that we don't currently understand everything about the universe in which we live is to blame for people falling for MQA. I believe there are two different things going on:

 

1) Reality is so complex that all we humans can do is tell stories about it. Math is one of those stories and digital audio is based on math. But it is important to keep in mind that even math is just a story. It's a more satisfying story than previous stories humans told (eg, "lightning happens when Zeus is angry and throws things at the other gods"), as it explains many more things. And in the end math is still just a made-up story. If you disagree, please show me where infinity exists outside of our imagination. Or zero. Or imaginary numbers. (Just to name a few.)

 

People become seduced by the beauty of the story of math precisely because it is so beautiful. But it is still just a story humans tell each other and not reality.

 

2) When it comes to audio, digital engineers (in general) are so steeped in the beautiful story of math that they begin to think that it actually describes the reality of audio. But it doesn't. One way to say this is that there is no such thing as digital audio in the real world. Another way to say this is that all the problems of digital audio are actually analog problems. Because there is no such "real thing" as mathematics nor digital audio. They are both imaginary constructs made up in our heads. That's not to say that they are not useful, simply that they cannot (and likely never will) explain everything about the universe in which we live.

 

Getting back to MQA, I think the reason that many people fell for it was one of the typical logical fallacies - eg, "appeal to authority" or whatever. Other reasons include outright bribery (especially when the bribed person justifies his actions because he is not smart enough to see through the fallacies of MQA's claims), "group think", fear of "rocking the boat", and any of a dozen other all-too-common human foibles.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

1 hour ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

I've spoken to many people about MQA and not one of them, including people with PhDs in physics, raise any of the speculative stuff I see here. Of course, these people are not as qualified to call other people liars ;-)

 

Hi Michael,

 

This is getting old. Stuart is a proven liar - he lied about the Meridian MCD not having op-amps in its signal path, he lied to John Curl and tried to patent a circuit John sketched for him at a "friendly" dinner meeting, and he continually lies about MQA - that it is "lossless" (and then changes it to "perceptually lossless"), or that it doesn't have DRM, or that 16 bits provides 144 dB S/N ratio (later changing that to 120 dB S/N ratio).

 

This list is practically endless. But if you want to believe Pinocchio, that is your prerogative.

 

Best,

Charles Hansen

 

PS - Or if you want to catch him on a more "sane" day, when he was apparently not in such desperate need of money, you can hear him tell you why nobody needs MQA here: 

 

[Charles Hansen]

42 minutes ago, Michael Lavorgna said:

What do you make of this: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mqa-time-domain-accuracy-digital-audio-quality

 

Hi Michael,

 

It's fairly obvious that every single word was written by MQA. If you think this passes for "journalism", think again. Regurgitating press releases (likely for pay) is shabby and deceitful. It would be no different than if Ayre were to release a "new" product that was an exact copy of a competitor's product - except for the logo.

 

Best,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

18 minutes ago, Andyman said:

I had presumed (hoped) that was the point he was making

 

Hi Andy,

 

After re-reading his post, I think you are right. And in that case it was a pretty pathetic "point". The only reason I put the phrase "the forum for the "pro" industry" is simply because if one was not familiar with the site "Gearslutz", one would have no idea what it was about and might dismiss it out-of-hand (just as I'm sure that many dismiss the brand "Schiit Audio" out of hand).

 

If he then is trying to make a "point" that the post I linked should be disregarded because he found a paid ad disguised as an article on a completely different website, that is a much farther stretch than I can handle. It's as silly as saying that since Bob Stuart is a known liar that all persons named "Bob" should also not be trusted.

 

Thanks,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

The music companies will want to sell MQA to everyone they can, meaning 99% of the target market are kids listening to mp3 and AAC through earbuds, or Beats if they’re kewl.  Who among these folks wants to hear anything about “unfolding”?  Nope, the music companies want to sell them something shiny and new that they can say is hi res and sounds great, period.  It will be left to equipment manufacturers to try to tell the kids they have to spend another hundred or couple hundred for even better sound than “regular” MQA.

 

Hi Jud,

 

As far as I can tell, the main plan for the record labels is to find some way to convince people to spend $20 per month for streaming instead of $10 per month. Simply offering CD resolution has been a spectacular failure The numbers I have heard is that Tidal Hi-Fi is only around 100,000  subscribers - a literal drop in the bucket compared with Apple's 20 million subscribers and Spotify's 70 million (I think) paid subscribers. (Please feel free to correct number that may be wildly off, although it doesn't change my point.)

 

Best,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

2 hours ago, miguelito said:

However, I fully agree with this:

"My assessment is that MQA is definitely different, and usually better. Not night and day better, but better. Think about it. This is music arriving in your room via the Internet, for a fairly minimal monthly charge—an exponentially increasing body of recordings for playback with sound quality that’s, at the very least, as good as the best present  high-resolution digital files."

 

Hello Miguelito,

 

I can't disagree with anyone's opinion of the sound quality of MQA - "better" is in the ear of the listener. However I would prefer to purchase a DAC with better sounding digital filters than to buy a new DAC plus pay a monthly rental fee so that only a small percentage of the music from one source (and nothing that I actually own) sounds "better".

 

As far as $240 per year being called "fairly minimal" is again a matter of opinion. One could purchase 10 or 20 high-res downloads, or 60 used CDs, or some combination of the two for the same amount and own them forever. Five CDs a month is a lot of new music to assimilate. Even 1 or 2 high-res downloads will keep many busy. One can listen to all the new music one wants at Spotify to figure out what is worth buying.

 

Finally, there is a factual error in the quote. Please look up the meaning of "exponential". It means that the number of releases each month is increasing every month. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was a dump by Warner's of around 2500 albums  starting in late January and ending mid-March. Then pretty much nothing until a recent dump of another 1000 albums from Universal. Still nothing from Sony. This hardly qualifies as "exponential"growth.

 

Instead it is the exact same thing that we saw with Pono - some third party comes along and offers free beer to the record labels. They try it out. If it makes them money, they move forward - as rapidly as possible. If it doesn't make them money, they back off - as rapidly as possible.

 

When DVD was released to the video world, nearly every single release made money for both the movie studios and the content producers.. They liked making money so within 6 months there were 10,000 titles and within a couple of years there were 50,000 titles. In contrast, with both DVD-Audio and SACD, each release made no money for the labels whatsoever (despite Sony Electronics - not Sony Music - subsidizing the production and manufacturing of SACDs). Both formats died almost instantly. It's just that it took the end user another two or three years to realize how bad the dead bodies smelled - like a small child begging a dead pet to come back to life.

 

Currently we are at the point where MQA is already dead. It will just take another year or two for the consumers (being bamboozled by cheerleaders like TAS) to realize that fact. The reality is that Tidal has added essentially no new subscribers by adding MQA. It definitely costs more to provide MQA to their customers - the file size (and therefore both storage and streaming costs) are double that of CD, plus there is the cost of having to start with ia high-res master file (several thousands of dollars) plus the MQA processing (another several thousands of dollars).

 

Somebody has been paying for this, and it hasn't created any ROI to date. Nothing appears on the horizon to change this equation, so it is clear that MQA is already dead. We will just have to wait for people to notice the stench of the dead bodies. I hope it isn't another two or three years as it was for SACD and DVD-Audio.

 

Best regards,

Charles Hansen