MQA is Vaporware

[abrxx]

One thing comes to mind: Brian Lucey's comments regarding what MQA does to sound brings to mind the impact of using minimum phase filters. The way he describes MQA seems similar to the way I have heard others discuss minimum phase EQ. Perhaps MQA's insistence of only using minimum phase filtering is the cause of this sonic signature.

 

I'm curious as to what others think. As he said, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Minimum phase must have its downside.

[beetlemania]

38 minutes ago, labjr said:

If DSD is so transparent, why do we need anything else?

 

Because MQA is BETTER than the master tapes?

[firedog]

1 hour ago, labjr said:

 

 

You beat me to it. Didn't Bob Ludwig say he couldn't tell the difference between the Rolling Stones master tapes and DSD? If DSD is so transparent, why do we need anything else?

 

The big publications are the same way. Whatever pays the biils. If it's passable they'll endorse it. 

Bob Ludwig’s DSD masters of the Stones on ABKCO sound fantastic. If you find better sounding versions, let us know. 

[Fair Hedon]

20 minutes ago, firedog said:

Bob Ludwig’s DSD masters of the Stones on ABKCO sound fantastic. If you find better sounding versions, let us know. 

FYI. He did not do the DSD transfers. He did the mastering only.

[labjr]

2 hours ago, beetlemania said:

 

Because MQA is BETTER than the master tapes?

DSD128 & DSD256 is better than DSD. However, I wonder if analog source material would sound better than it does on DSD64? 

 

Most of what I listen to comes from analog source tapes.

 

I wonder if Bob Ludwig thinks analog tape transfers sound better on MQA than DSD?

[labjr]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

Bob Ludwig’s DSD masters of the Stones on ABKCO sound fantastic. If you find better sounding versions, let us know. 

 

Agreed. sounds pretty darn good.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Fair Hedon said:

FYI. He did not do the DSD transfers. He did the mastering only.

I’m wondering why you are correcting a claim I didn’t make.

In any case, do you think the mastering has nothing to do with the sound of the result?

[Brian Lucey]

 

3 hours ago, beetlemania said:

 

Because MQA is BETTER than the master tapes?

 

 

All kidding aside ... nothing is better than a master, ever.

 

The commercial games used to create fear and thus to sell high res to music consumers are all corrupt.  The master is what it is.  

 

I often print at 44.1 with the Pacific Microsonics AD.  This is not inferior to 96k or higher in a modern piece.   Production CHOICES are more important than slices per second and cutoffs above human hearing.  44.1 has a density in the low end that 96k does not.   HF details are not the prime currency of music, they are only one form of ear candy in a cocktail of musicality.

[beetlemania]

4 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

All kidding aside ... nothing is better than a master, ever.

 

Yes, I didn't use the sarcasm font 'cuz I thought it was plainly silly.

5 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

The commercial games used to create fear and thus to sell high res to music are all corrupt.  The master is what it is.   I print at 44.1 with the Pacific Microsonics AD.  This is not inferior to 96k or higher in a modern piece.   Production CHOICES are more important than slices per second and cutoffs above human hearing.

I mostly agree . . . if there's a 24-bit file of the same master I find a small but worthwhile sonic difference compared to CD resolution - not so much "more information" but "more relaxed and musical". Thanks for stopping by. Many insiders end up getting flamed around here (and on other fora) and quit visiting after too much abuse . . . Best wishes.

[labjr]

Unless we're buying a bit perfect copy of  the master from a digital recording, I'm sure we're not hearing sound of the master .

 

Analog systems have generational loss. Analog transferred to digital is gonna have loss. But I'm never going get to hear the master tape. unless one of you mastering engineers invites us into your studio.

 

Only one sample rate of files should be sold. And they should be well engineered from the best source available sources. There's a lot of crap being sold over and over again.

 

 

[labjr]

In this article, Spencer Chrislu of MQA contradicts himself:

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/spencer-chrislu-master-quality-authenticated

 

"It's important, though, to protect the interests of studios. If a studio does their archive at 24-bit/192kHz and then uses that same file as something to sell on a hi-rez site, that is basically giving away the crown jewels upon which their entire business is based. "

 

Followed by:

 

"So MQA comes along, and can take that tape from the archive, make it sound better than ever, "
 

 

 

 

[Fair Hedon]

17 hours ago, firedog said:

I’m wondering why you are correcting a claim I didn’t make.

In any case, do you think the mastering has nothing to do with the sound of the result?

Sorry to confuse. Yes the mastering has a lot to do with the end result, but I also fee the quality of the original

digital transfer of the analog tapes is a massive factor.  Compare these Stones SACDs to the Queen remasters

Ludwig did. I find those to be very difficult to listen to.

[labjr]

I don't quite understand what Bob Ludwig did with the Stones SACD re-mastering. If he received digital files that were already converted to DSD. Did he convert to analog and back to digital?

 

When he re-mastered Queen for SACD did he work with the analog tapes?

[Fair Hedon]

4 minutes ago, labjr said:

I don't quite understand what Bob Ludwig did with the Stones SACD re-mastering. If he received digital files that were already converted to DSD. Did he convert to analog and back to digital?

 

When he re-mastered Queen for SACD did he work with the analog tapes?

 

Ludwig had two options. Convert to analog and recapture to DSD. Or use something like Sonoma/Pyramix to convert to DXD for edits and EQ then back to DSD.

 

Ludwig did not do the Queen SACDs. Only the CDs, 24/48 Orb USB files, and the 24/96 downloads.

 

The Queen SACDS were done in Japan unfortunately using 24/96 files.  Not the analog tapes.

Just like the Yes Higher Vibration SACD box.

[mansr]

7 minutes ago, synn said:

Not sure what the latest promo material for MQA says, but will it magically make up for the dynamic compression implemented at the mastering stage?

MQA will turn on the blue LED of reassurance. That's all you need. And all you need to know.

[synn]

I hear that with the next version of MQA, “mixing errors” will be fixed in-dac as long as the name of the mixing engineer is provided to MQA inc. A purple LED will light up when this takes place.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Guys - Nov 15 and 16, I’ll be on a panel for a two night event taking place in Atlanta called Streaming Music Matters at HiFi Buys. 

 

I just had had a look at the questions they will ask us and saw a number of them are about MQA. 

 

I believe representative(s) from MQA will be there as well. 

 

Would love to see everyone in the area come out to the event. I’ll publish more on the front page next week. 

[synn]

Back on topic, has anyone compared MQA unfolded on an MQA certified DAC vs on an up scaling DAC?

[Rt66indierock]

41 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi Guys - Nov 15 and 16, I’ll be on a panel for a two night event taking place in Atlanta called Streaming Music Matters at HiFi Buys. 

 

I just had had a look at the questions they will ask us and saw a number of them are about MQA. 

 

I believe representative(s) from MQA will be there as well. 

 

Would love to see everyone in the area come out to the event. I’ll publish more on the front page next week. 

 

At least Ken Forsythe of MQA probably. He is from Atlanta.

[asdf1000]

10 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

Anyone else want to personally attack me and go off topic ?

 

There is clearly no moderation here.

 

lol

 

What a mess.

 

 

 

No, let's get back on topic. I really like having you here.

 

Have you heard anything from the inside about if the labels are talking about OTHER options like 24-bit FLAC streaming? Other than MQA.

 

Any whispers of that from the inside?

 

Or if the streaming companies themselves are considering non-MQA 24bit options? At the moment it's just Qobuz I think

 

And any whispers about Apple Music's plans and Spotify, regarding lossless? Or are you not allowed to say (probably the latter, but worth asking). I know Spotify are/were trialling CD quality recently. But whispers of Hi-Res from the biggest 2 streamers?

 

[Brian Lucey]

33 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

No, let's get back on topic. I really like having you here.

 

Have you heard anything from the inside about if the labels are talking about OTHER options like 24-bit FLAC streaming? Other than MQA.

 

Any whispers of that from the inside?

 

Or if the streaming companies themselves are considering non-MQA 24bit options? At the moment it's just Qobuz I think

 

And any whispers about Apple Music's plans and Spotify, regarding lossless? Or are you not allowed to say (probably the latter, but worth asking). I know Spotify are/were trialling CD quality recently. But whispers of Hi-Res from the biggest 2 streamers?

I don't have a lot of help on this.    24 bit is so easy it's boring I'm afraid, yet that is a guess, no real data.

 

Many of the label heads these days are recently graduated A&R people under 50, so they have no idea about MQA ... it's others in the machine who are making these decisions.

 

MQA is very aggressive.   I'm hoping that Apple will say no to them and put an end to it.  If it's not more convenient then Apple is generally not a fan.

[The Computer Audiophile]

7 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

MQA is very aggressive.   I'm hoping that Apple will say no to them and put an end to it.  If it's not more convenient then Apple is generally not a fan.

I don't see Apple ever accepting MQA. Its customers haven't even asked for anything better than 256 kbps AAC. If something isn't broken, why fix it. 

 

On the other hand, even though Apple is a powerful player in this world, the company can only sell/rent what is provided to it by the labels. If the labels said, "it's MQA or nothing" Apple would have to cave. The company can't invent itself out of this situation. What I mean is, Apple can't create a record called Sort of Blue and offer it as an alternative to Kind of Blue. 

 

Apple could say no and stop selling music and its streaming service, but I don't see it happening. 

[synn]

Apple traditionally doesn’t bend to publishers. When Jobs first talked about 99c downloads, everyone laughed. And yet it happened. Same thing with ebooks. Amazon had to adjust its pricing downwards after Apple announced theirs.

 

Apple dragged their heels for more than a decade about FLAC and even now, in iOS 11, only support it in a limited way. They still don’t directly support Blu Ray. So yes, I don’t see them embracing MQA any time soon.

 

what would be hilarious is if they ask MQA to bugger off, create their own version called Apple Quality Authenticated or something and start offering that in iTunes (And publishers follow suit). Maybe even offer a glowing blue Apple logo in the iTunes and Apple Music apps.  

[Confused]

Nudging this thread gently back onto the topic of MQA...... 

 

I picked up a rumour that the reason dCS have delayed their promised firmware update to include MQA decoding in some products is due to a dispute over monies with MQA.  Apparently MQA want dCS to pay them a license fee for every unit sold, (or has been sold?) even if the user does not use MQA.  I am guessing this could be tracked by whether or not a user downloads a particular plug-in or something, I'm not sure.  If dSC are effectively absorbing the licence fee costs, the difference between some and all users could be significant.  To be clear, this is just a rumour that I have picked up third hand, I cannot vouch for it's accuracy.  Does anyone know the facts?  I know Roon's MQA implementation is also delayed, so as pure speculation I do wonder if similar issues are involved.  OK, there could be technical issues, but it is not a giant leap to wonder if there is some dispute over the money.

[MetalNuts]

8 minutes ago, Confused said:

Nudging this thread gently back onto the topic of MQA...... 

 

I picked up a rumour that the reason dCS have delayed their promised firmware update to include MQA decoding in some products is due to a dispute over monies with MQA.  Apparently MQA want dCS to pay them a license fee for every unit sold, (or has been sold?) even if the user does not use MQA.  I am guessing this could be tracked by whether or not a user downloads a particular plug-in or something, I'm not sure.  If dSC are effectively absorbing the licence fee costs, the difference between some and all users could be significant.  To be clear, this is just a rumour that I have picked up third hand, I cannot vouch for it's accuracy.  Does anyone know the facts?  I know Roon's MQA implementation is also delayed, so as pure speculation I do wonder if similar issues are involved.  OK, there could be technical issues, but it is not a giant leap to wonder if there is some dispute over the money.

In a commercial reality, money plays a significant role and it would not surprise me at all if it is about money.