MQA is Vaporware

[synn]

The last thing I want is for Audio equipment to suffer the fate of AV receivers.

 

a plethora of proprietary tech logos in the front, which means a significant chunk of the purchase price goes into licensing costs, which in turn means that the internals of the devices will suffer from budget cuts. A decade or so ago, mid price receivers had excellent sound quality, all the inputs you wanted and a shorter spec list. Now most have ho hum sound quality, a bare minimum of inputs and spec sheets longer than a polar summer day. And it drops resale value like a bad habit two weeks after launch because Dolby whatever or DTS whatchamaycallit is out and your brand spanking new receiver doesn’t support it. Any receiver that has fancy features AND good sound quality is stratospherically priced.

 

this is why I am still a firm believer in separates for Audio. I like my amp to be simple and do one thing: sound fantastic for years. Everything else is secondary.

[esldude]

7 minutes ago, synn said:

The last thing I want is for Audio equipment to suffer the fate of AV receivers.

 

a plethora of proprietary tech logos in the front, which means a significant chunk of the purchase price goes into licensing costs, which in turn means that the internals of the devices will suffer from budget cuts. A decade or so ago, mid price receivers had excellent sound quality, all the inputs you wanted and a shorter spec list. Now most have ho hum sound quality, a bare minimum of inputs and spec sheets longer than a polar summer day. And it drops resale value like a bad habit two weeks after launch because Dolby whatever or DTS whatchamaycallit is out and your brand spanking new receiver doesn’t support it. Any receiver that has fancy features AND good sound quality is stratospherically priced.

 

this is why I am still a firm believer in separates for Audio. I like my amp to be simple and do one thing: sound fantastic for years. Everything else is secondary.

Amen to that.  I too don't want the AVR effect.  Some have so many logos to display they use up the entire box they come in to show them.  

[MetalNuts]

3 minutes ago, esldude said:

Amen to that.  I too don't want the AVR effect.  Some have so many logos to display they use up the entire box they come in to show them.  

Funny, they are not the logo of sponsors but those licence fee collectors.  It makes you feel the AVR should worth more.  LOL!

[asdf1000]

7 hours 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.

 

Thanks Brian. Interesting to hear that MQA Ltd are aggressive behind the scenes, behind what we see as the general public.

 

People seem to think that Apple's recent iOS support of FLAC is the first step to lossless streaming. Whether that's CD quality (not a bad thing at all) or Hi-Res, who knows. 

 

But as you pointed out, their Apple Music subscriber numbers continue to climb even with just 256k. And Spotify's numbers continue to climb with just MP3320k, so it's no wonder neither of those companies is in a rush for Hi-Res streaming.

 

The next 12 months will be interesting.

 

I expected the past 12 months to be interesting but it's been pretty quiet in terms of Hi-Res streaming gaining momentum.

 

[mansr]

7 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

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 if Apple were to get on board, wait for it to become widely accepted, then buy MQA? This would give Apple control of the whole chain, and I'm sure they'd love that.

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, synn said:

I really hope that Spotify and Apple start CD quality streaming very soon.

 

Spotify started a trial, limited to some lucky people, at the start of the year (~ March). But talk about it has been quiet the last few months.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/1/14776780/spotify-hi-fi-preparing-launch-lossless-audio-tier

 

[synn]

Yes, I read about that as well. I really hope that the delay has to do with getting the licensing sorted out rather than because of a lack of interest from the test group.

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, synn said:

I really hope that the delay has to do with getting the licensing sorted out rather than because of a lack of interest from the test group.

 

Ha yeh i was (and still am) worried about the latter too.

[synn]

On Apple’s front, apart from the limited FLAC support they introduced, Airplay 2 specs suggest a serious push into high res wireless audio. One can only hope that this is in preparation for either the sale or streaming of high res audio.

 

re: Apple and MQA, Apple is traditionally very protective of the innards of their hardware. They don’t even publish the amount of RAM the iPhone has. Pretty much nothing inside their devices is user replaceable or upgradable. There’s no way in hell that they will let MQA (the company) take a looksie into their DAC implementation.

[PeterSt]

If Mr Lucey holds on to his stances and improves the word with it then

a. it is clear that MQA can do the same for $;

b. MQA will not sound better than the compressed sh*t fed to it.

 

I wonder whether we should bother; I personally am so old that with the combination of my collection habits, I have sufficient music for the rest of my life. Additionally this music (playback) improves each month or so, while all else goes downhill. And as I understand it, quite explicitly.

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 hours 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.

Zero truth to this one. 

[synn]

It might just be me, but desiring the MQA LED on a dCS product after plonking down that much cold hard cash is like wanting a “SUPER WOOFER SURROUND SOUND” sticker on a pair of B&W floor standers. Or “TURBO DOHC LIQUID COOLED” decals on a Porsche 911.

[Confused]

19 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Zero truth to this one. 

Thanks, I did ask if anyone knows the facts as I was not too sure of the quality of my source for this one.  I have crossed his name of my trusted source list and will have him suitably punished, when nobody is looking.

[Confused]

17 minutes ago, synn said:

It might just be me, but desiring the MQA LED on a dCS product after plonking down that much cold hard cash is like wanting a “SUPER WOOFER SURROUND SOUND” sticker on a pair of B&W floor standers. Or “TURBO DOHC LIQUID COOLED” decals on a Porsche 911.

I tend to agree, but there are different ways of looking at this.  I do know of some dCS customers that are super keen to have MQA compatibility.  So there is an argument for dCS simply providing an option that some customers want.  I am not a fan of MQA, but I must admit that if I was spending dCS Vivaldi type money on a source or DAC, I would pretty much want it to be compatible with anything that I ever wanted to feed it with.  A case of being there if I need it, if there was a scenario in the future where a piece of music I wanted to listen to was in MQA format only, I would want something that would at least be compatible and make the best of it.  In fact I think this is at the root of why I find MQA so annoying, with how things have developed with PCM / FLAC etc, there is no need to even worry about this kind of stuff, but MQA lurking out there is a different story.

[The Computer Audiophile]

13 minutes ago, Confused said:

Thanks, I did ask if anyone knows the facts as I was not too sure of the quality of my source for this one.  I have crossed his name of my trusted source list and will have him suitably punished, when nobody is looking.

Ha!

[Charles Hansen]

14 hours ago, synn said:

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

 

Yes, many time by Frederic V. Using the some of the highest resolution playback systems in the world, he has both done personal listening tests and done demos at shows where nobody could tell the difference. The caveat is that the upsampling has to be done with a minimum-phse, slow-rolloff digital filter, similar to the digital filter used in MQA. See this link for more details:

 

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/07/kih-46-mqas-missing-link

[synn]

Thanks, Charles!

 

so in theory, if I use something like the DacMagic plus that upconverts everything to 384Khz with the minimum phase filter, the end result would be virtually indistinguishable from one of them blue LED equipped DACs...

[PeterSt]

32 minutes ago, Charles Hansen said:

15 hours ago, synn said:

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

 

Yes, many time by Frederic V. Using the some of the highest resolution playback systems in the world, he has both done personal listening tests and done demos at shows where nobody could tell the difference. The caveat is that the upsampling has to be done with a minimum-phse, slow-rolloff digital filter, similar to the digital filter used in MQA. See this link for more details:

 

I am sorry Charles, but I don't see how this answers the question. I'd like to put some money on a dose of sarcasm here, but I could lose.

If that really is supposed to be an answer, I have one too :

 

I compare Redbook or Hires and what not with MQA every day for months now, and the difference is huge in each single occasion, no matter the filter I use. One must be totally deaf to not hear the differences.

The comparison you refer to is not valid. I am not going to elaborate again, because Frederic will find my boss and tell him I am posting on forums during my work.

 

[PeterSt]

Oops @Charles Hansen, I now read the other posts. What happened suddenly ?

Anyway, my previous post was not in the context of further posts at all. So I really only reacted to the Frederic test.

Peace.

[Charles Hansen]

4 hours ago, synn said:

The last thing I want is for Audio equipment to suffer the fate of AV receivers.

 

a plethora of proprietary tech logos in the front, which means a significant chunk of the purchase price goes into licensing costs, which in turn means that the internals of the devices will suffer from budget cuts.

 

Yes, but it's way, way worse than that. In the world of A/V receivers, everything is dominated by video. There are basically three organizations which control everything in the video industry - the DVD and Blu-ray Forum founding companies (about 7 mega-multi-national corporations), HDMI, and Dolby (arguably DTS also). When any of these changes anything or updates to a new standard, immediately the buying public has been trained to regard the old as "obsolete" and that they are now "missing out" on something.

 

This is all a deliberate plot to create planned obsolescence, which in turn creates product "churn", which in turn boosts corporate profits.

 

MQA is the first step in this happening to the audio industry, and why it must be stopped at all costs - if you care about music at all.

[Miska]

3 hours ago, Em2016 said:

But as you pointed out, their Apple Music subscriber numbers continue to climb even with just 256k. And Spotify's numbers continue to climb with just MP3320k, so it's no wonder neither of those companies is in a rush for Hi-Res streaming.

 

Spotify uses free Vorbis codec, not MP3...

 

[Charles Hansen]

2 hours ago, synn said:

Yes, I read about that as well. I really hope that the delay has to do with getting the licensing sorted out rather than because of a lack of interest from the test group.

 

I cannot believe that this concept is so hard for people to understand. The only reason Spotify exists is to make money. When they run a test (such as they did with the lossless streaming), they simply crunch the numbers and see if the added costs of both storage and streaming more data are higher or lower than the money they will make by adding a new feature.

 

Since they have run the trial and not switched, it is 100% clear that streaming in lossless is currently a money-losing proposition compared with streaming in lossy. What is so hard about that to understand?

[Charles Hansen]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Zero truth to this one. 

 

Since you clearly have some "inside" information, why don't you share it rather than simply tease?

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Since you clearly have some "inside" information, why don't you share it rather than simply tease?

Because I honor my word not to share inside information and reveal sources. 

[synn]

Actually Charles, Spotify has been losing money for quite some time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/business/media/streaming-radio-spotify-pandora.html

 

Their revenues continue to rise and so does the subscriber base, but they are not making any money. But the former two are enough to continue securing investments, so they continue to exist. Not sure what the situation will be once they go public.