MQA is Vaporware

[Mordikai]

7 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

 

Yes.

Really? Mr Kim looks so much cooler and hip than this guy sounds. No slight intended witchdoctor.

[Indydan]

2 hours ago, christopher3393 said:

 

I'll wait for Chris C. to weigh in. I may have crossed a line.

Don't worry. You have done a good thing in outing him.

[Indydan]

1 hour ago, witchdoctor said:

Do you ever go to Galaxy Studios in Mol Belgium? If so tell Wilfried the witchdoctor loves auro 3D and to stop by my immersive thread here on CA. They are mixing in 9.1 for music and 14.1 for movies a lot over there.

 

https://www.galaxystudios.com/

Did you get a research grant from Galaxy Studios? From MQA or Bob Stuart?

[Ralf11]

Don't the TOS require disclosure of commercial interests?

[witchdoctor]

15 minutes ago, Indydan said:

Did you get a research grant from Galaxy Studios? From MQA or Bob Stuart?

LOL

 

[mansr]

21 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Don't the TOS require disclosure of commercial interests?

They do.

[witchdoctor]

One of my favorite MQA/Tidal features...playlists. Sunday night playing Bossa Nova Vibes but look at some of these others. It is a helluva lot easier than trying to make this many hirez playlists yourself:

[witchdoctor]

Breaking it down, the Motown MQA Playlist:

 

[esldude]

8 minutes ago, witchdoctor said:

One of my favorite MQA/Tidal features...playlists. Sunday night playing Bossa Nova Vibes but look at some of these others. It is a helluva lot easier than trying to make this many hirez playlists yourself:

One could say the same about mp3 streaming too.  If one favors a lossy format.  

[witchdoctor]

3 minutes ago, esldude said:

One could say the same about mp3 streaming too.  If one favors a lossy format.  

If you have a favorite on Tidal or Spotify please post a link or something

[esldude]

7 minutes ago, witchdoctor said:

If you have a favorite on Tidal or Spotify please post a link or something

Don't have such favorites, and don't have Tidal.  

[Ralf11]

Tidal sucks - they use Class D amps!!

[PeterSt]

9 hours ago, crenca said:

In other words, MQA relies on their being "no conceivable manifestation" of aliasing artifacts because it has removed the signal that would lead to them by design.  How far off am I?

 

With different wording I said the same, somewhere yesterday. And it would be the only way that I am not really bothered by the sound of MQA (I can stand it) while all the faked / flawed Hires (I gave HD-Tracks as the example) is unlistenable for me. All re-recordings are also flawed to these ears (tapes too old, too much de-noise etc. used) and this is how I end up with 2000 "Hires" albums, of which play maybe 5 (in my genres).

And now there's MQA and I have collected 700 or so which I can play throughout. And it is not that there is no difference (jury stays out so far on absolute SQ ratings).

 

Two days ago I revisited Houses of The Holy and Physical Graffiti (LZ) to try out that strange hollow colored cymbal sound on these two, with my current settings and everything. Well, it seems to be gone. Mind you, this is so strange already on the LP, but MQA manages to remove it. And didn't I tell about a "too white" sound of MQA ?

[Miska]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

Two days ago I revisited Houses of The Holy and Physical Graffiti (LZ) to try out that strange hollow colored cymbal sound on these two, with my current settings and everything. Well, it seems to be gone. Mind you, this is so strange already on the LP, but MQA manages to remove it. And didn't I tell about a "too white" sound of MQA ?

 

Maybe MQA reduces the resolution enough to remove disturbing extra details? A bit like MP3/AAC can do for really bad recordings by removing some of the distortions by deciding those are not worth encoding.

 

You could probably get similar result with similar noise shaped dithering to 13-bit resolution or so. No need for MQA. Try with iZotope RX6?

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, Miska said:

A bit like MP3/AAC can do for really bad recordings by removing some of the distortions by deciding those are not worth encoding.

 

You could probably get similar result with similar noise shaped dithering to 13-bit resolution or so. No need for MQA.

 

I must admit that there has been a time that I (publically) have been tinkering about how MP3 could solve "digitus" issues because of its implied means of filtering. I soon stopped with that idea because it would be too far out, but what you now say reminds me of it again.

 

Btw, I'm not saying that these albums now sound "better" in MQA fashion. But they are more tolerable (for me). This only counts for these too; I, II, III, IV lose with MQA all over. But the LZ's are typical "first MQA trials" as how I see it. Start out with those and you will ditch MQA right away (I virtually did that too, at the time). But then try Tusk. Or the now disappeared Neil Young's Peace Trail.

 

OK, never mind. MQA is vaporware. But possibly this thread can be closed soon because MQA reaching 10,000 albums (which might be the case already, seeing that I dug up quite some more for certain artists than the public list (of ~7,000) shows).

[lucretius]

6 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Tidal sucks - they use Class D amps!!

[psjug]

9 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Tidal sucks - they use Class D amps!!

I don't get the joke...?

 

But I did not like Tidal much when I tried it.  Nothing to do with sound quality, I just thought the Tidal  player apps  seemed not very good compared to the competition.

[PeterSt]

18 minutes ago, psjug said:

I don't get the joke...?

 

You are not alone.

 

19 minutes ago, psjug said:

I just thought the Tidal  player apps  seemed not very good compared to the competition.

 

May I ask, what you deem competition ? (IOW, does this really have to do with Tidal ?)

[james45974]

5 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

You are not alone.

 

 

May I ask, what you deem competition ? (IOW, does this really have to do with Tidal ?)

There is a Tidal equipment company too that makes amplifiers.  I don't know what technology they use.

[psjug]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

 

May I ask, what you deem competition ? (IOW, does this really have to do with Tidal ?)

I was talking about Tidal not MQA so I meant all the other music streaming services.  I'm using Deezer Elite/HiFi (better than Tidal I think but I'm not completely happy with Deezer either).  I was put off that I had to buy a Sonos Connect to stream Deezer FLAC but I've come to like Sonos.  (This was last year due to exclusive Deezer-Sonos deal that is ending)

 

I agree that this is straying from the topic.  I'm happy to talk about it in a new thread if anyone wants to start one.

[PeterSt]

4 minutes ago, psjug said:

I agree that this is straying from the topic.

 

I am sorry. I was not hinting at that at all. It is just that Tidal "player apps" should refer to the Tidal produced playback software (at least that is what I got from it), but which may s*ck according to you because of the SQ streaming implies (for the worse).

But there is more playback software around.

 

Thanks.

[psjug]

6 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

I am sorry. I was not hinting at that at all. It is just that Tidal "player apps" should refer to the Tidal produced playback software (at least that is what I got from it), but which may s*ck according to you because of the SQ streaming implies (for the worse).

But there is more playback software around.

 

Thanks.

No, I was saying my gripes are unrelated to sound quality. Biggest problem for me was Tidal's poor way of managing offline music on my phone (for listening on long drives).

[sullis02]

On 10/22/2017 at 5:27 AM, Em2016 said:

 

"no scientific listening tests have been done so far"

 

I'm definitely not an MQA supporter. But what Is a scientific listening test?

 

Does this mean double blind testing with 1500 or more randomly selected people?

 

Are speakers and DACs designed that way?[/quote]

 

 

 

An effect of the magnitude claimed by Meridian, if real,  would not need anywhere near 1500 subjects to demonstrate conclusively in a DBT, do you understand that?

[Samuel T Cogley]

22 hours ago, christopher3393 said:

 

He has published research on immersive sound, has done research with people like Sean Olive, attends international AES conferences, where he presents research and moderates panels. He is a researcher in the field. I would be curious as to how some of his research is funded and if there might be some conflict of interests regarding some of what he promotes. This is not an accusation, just a concern. He did  promote on at least 2 threads a recent immersive audio event at AES in which he was a presenter, but he won't acknowledge this. I find his posting behavior somewhat baffling for a pro. 

 

 

I'm not seeing what you're seeing, but based on a quick read through the last 4-5 pages of this thread, the most likely scenario I can come up with is that he is peripherally related to an esteemed audio engineer/scientist.  Perhaps a child or young adult that gets to come along to the shows and conferences with his father?  That would explain why he's so good at name dropping companies, people, and tech without seeming to have the slightest clue what he's talking about.

 

[Rt66indierock]

10 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

I must admit that there has been a time that I (publically) have been tinkering about how MP3 could solve "digitus" issues because of its implied means of filtering. I soon stopped with that idea because it would be too far out, but what you now say reminds me of it again.

 

Btw, I'm not saying that these albums now sound "better" in MQA fashion. But they are more tolerable (for me). This only counts for these too; I, II, III, IV lose with MQA all over. But the LZ's are typical "first MQA trials" as how I see it. Start out with those and you will ditch MQA right away (I virtually did that too, at the time). But then try Tusk. Or the now disappeared Neil Young's Peace Trail.

 

OK, never mind. MQA is vaporware. But possibly this thread can be closed soon because MQA reaching 10,000 albums (which might be the case already, seeing that I dug up quite some more for certain artists than the public list (of ~7,000) shows).

 

I have to ask why you need to mention “digitus.” John Atkinson showed in his latest release of the Portland State University Chamber Choir (released in August )that the iTunes and Mp3 versions can sound excellent with a great performance, an excellent recording job by John and top notch mastering.

 

Moving on to your second paragraph it is hard to make a case for a format if Led Zeppelin’s first four albums sound worse to you. I can only imagine what Led Zeppelin’s fan think and there are a lot of them.

 

If you have additional albums post them in the same spreadsheet format we have been using to count Tidal and other albums. Anybody can post they dug up some more MQA albums. I’m asking you to show us.

 

Be careful of what you wish for with the MQA is Vaporware thread. The next one will be “MQA is not Commercially Viable” do you really want that? In any case it was made clear to me at RMAF 2017 I have been given complete freedom  to act in any way I see fit to stop MQA. Carte Blanche