MQA is Vaporware

[KeenObserver]

Again, it is truly sad that Audiophiles have spent time and effort to refine their equipment to reproduce music as close as possible to live sound, only to be told that they will only get broken recordings.

[KeenObserver]

I will never be a part of the "blue light" cult.  I will never drink the contaminated brandy.

[KeenObserver]

35 minutes ago, Confused said:

The thing is, you can try doing a few internet searches re MQA, and the vast majority of results are positive.

 

OK - You can deliberately look for the bad stuff, say by doing a search on "is MQA bad", and you'll find some links for content critical of MQA, it is out there.  But do a general search on say MQA sound quality, and the vast majority of links will be to content that is incredibly positive about MQA.  Fake news, mis-selling, poor journalism just repeating press release content, call it what you will, but there is an awful lot of it out there.

 

Not everyone is fanatical enough to fully check the facts, and I think the end result is that a lot of people are being thoroughly, but perhaps understandably , mislead.

It is how marketing and the internet work now.

When a product is put out there marketing companies use AI computer robots to generate comments, reviews,and influential "reports".

If you understand how search engine algorithms work you can flood the search engine with specific search requests which prompt the search engine to respond in a certain way. A factor in search engine algorithms is the number of search requests.

You might also see search engines in a darker light.

[KeenObserver]

15 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/MQA/origami/ThereAndBack.html
 

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/MQA/bits/Stacking.html

 

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/MQA/cool/bitfreezing.html
 

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/MQA/intoshape/NoiseShapingHighRez.html

 

Let me know if you find any errors or misleading information in these articles. 

 

 

Is Tidal popular in Norway?

[KeenObserver]

The bottom line is that MQA damages the original recording.  If you play it on a non MQA playback system you are getting a very damaged copy of the original.  If you play MQA on a MQA playback system you are still getting a damaged copy of the original.

 

MQA tells you that MQA is better than the original master. That is pure marketing BS.  The only way you could convince people that MQA is to their benefit is to tell people that it is "better".  PURE BS. 

 

Sadly, there are a number of people that actually believe the MQA marketing BS.

[KeenObserver]

Let me see if I get this. 16 bit MQA is not sixteen bit.  24 bit MQA is not 24 bit. And the higher play rates are just up sampled from the corrupted MQA file?

Does that about explain the situation?

 

The bottom line is that the music consumer is being screwed and is being forced to pay for it.

[KeenObserver]

Tell me something.  If you took a 12/32 recording from an old computer file and ran it through MQA "authentication", when it was unfolded and up sampled, would it light up the blue light and the 24/192 light?

[KeenObserver]

Perhaps Robert Harley and John Atkinson were right.  Perhaps we are at a paradigm shift.  Perhaps true Hi-Rez will no longer be available in the future.  Perhaps we will only be able to get MQA garbage.

 

We can thank The Absolute Sound and Stereophile for being in the forefront of promoting this new paradigm.

[KeenObserver]

“There’s no problem in principle using lots of data, but it is unethical to advocate inefficiency born of lack of understanding.”  

 

My God!  Bob Stuart is preaching ethics?

[KeenObserver]

"With the arrival of MQA, the provenance of the master would be the better standard for the industry to promote – not sample rate or bit depth. As demonstrated by TIDAL Masters, MQA ensures that the Original is the Best."

 

Yes!  Do not waste your time seeking Hi-Rez music! MQA has spent millions of hours "authenticating" the Original!

 

Seriously.  Are there people that actually believe the MQA BS?

[KeenObserver]

Does anybody think that recording studios record at less than the maximum bit rate available to them?

Does anyone think that is inefficient?

Has FLAC suddenly disappeared?

[KeenObserver]

Provenance is important! "Warner gave us a million files from their catalog.  We threw them in the hopper and voila, out came authenticated MQA files. And of course they sound better, because, well, they're MQA!

[KeenObserver]

The studios themselves have stated that MQA is not an archiving format.  Nobody is going to archive their files on a lossy format.

[KeenObserver]

"MQA was designed with the music industry in mind. "

 

As Jbara says MQA was designed with the music industry in mind.

 

It certainly was not designed with the music consumer in mind.

[KeenObserver]

25 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Wow! I need to put on my boots, the BS is just too deep. Mike Jbara is classic for the self defeating argument / arguing against a previous point with a subsequent statement. He has done it again in spectacular fashion. 

 

Maybe his move to MQA was like the European Royals intermarrying to cement relationships. It doesn't seem to be for his intellectual abilities. Maybe it was for his ethical standards.

[KeenObserver]

Was this guy the male cheerleader in high school?

[KeenObserver]

I can start to understand this fellow when I realize that half the population is below average intelligence.

[KeenObserver]

Other than MQA and the studios (and the fanboys), does anyone think that MQA will be good for the future quality of music?

[KeenObserver]

Chris

Can I change "average" in the post above to "median"?

 

Just kidding

[KeenObserver]

4 hours ago, R1200CL said:

They is Warner. I wonder why they not just do the same process with all these other albums that is red book. Now it seems albums just been been passed through a highly questionable MQA process. I’m even not sure Bob is happy with it either.  These recent articles on MQA site is very unclear to me. Somehow Bob is admitting errors will occur. Warner is using MQA in a way Bob originally didn’t intended MQA to be used. 
 

I think Warner is more to blame than MQA. They could do a much better job.

 

It will be interesting to see how they handle Bob Dylan catalog. At the moment it’s not MQA.

 

You cannot praise BS as an engineering genius, give him the Prince Phillip award, and then say that he did not know what the outcome would be!  Bob Stuart knew exactly what he was doing.

[KeenObserver]

With a legacy extending back over 200 years, Warner Music Group today is home to an unparalleled family of creative artists, songwriters, and companies that are moving culture across the globe.  At the core of WMG’s Recorded Music division are four of the most iconic companies in history: Atlantic, Elektra, Parlophone, and Warner Records.  They are joined by renowned labels such as Asylum, Big Beat, Canvasback, East West, Erato, FFRR, Fueled by Ramen, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Roadrunner, Sire, Spinnin’ Records, Warner Classics, and Warner Music Nashville.  Warner Chappell Music - which traces its origins back to the founding of Chappell & Company in 1811 - is one of the world's leading music publishers, with a catalog of more than one million copyrights spanning every musical genre, from the standards of the Great American Songbook to the biggest hits of the 21st century.

 

In case anyone wants to know.  I was unaware that Erato was part of Warner Music Group

[KeenObserver]

MQA is a solution looking for a problem.  If there is no problem you create one.

 

The only thing MQA is a solution for is the creation of a money stream for MQA.

[KeenObserver]

22 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Let’s say there is an error in the MQA decoding SW. (Maybe it was not written for 16 bit MQA). 
 

Maybe they totally screwed up, and now there’s a lot of DAC’s out there that can’t be corrected by a firmware upgrade. 
 

If you haven’t contacted MQA yet, maybe time to do. I hope they haven’t closed the door yet to you. 
 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-core-decode-16-bit-mqa-to-what/131491/9
 

 

This must be of great concern to you, keeping you up these late hours.  What is it, like 3 AM there?

[KeenObserver]

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

You have a valid point. 
Now let’s go back to the basic. He (BS) claimed there was an “error” with the early ADC there was time smear and many other words used.  (Not sure if it can be compared to those Dolby issues, but to me it seems part of same problem). 
 

So this encoding process (where early ADC errors is compensated/corrected), is this also considered an issue among those of you that is very critical to the whole MQA thing. Is that specific part of MQA just BS as well, or does these guys with 35 years of experience etc. revealed something that is possible to agree up on ?

 

How they “solved” it, is as another issue. (We will come there soon, depending of your answers).

 

If Bob was right about those early ADC’s issues, how can it still be valid with todays equipment, and MQA encoding is still needed. To me that doesn’t make sense. 

 

 

Would you like to buy a bridge?

[KeenObserver]

7 hours ago, firedog said:

Only that one in Brooklyn.....

 

Wow!  I've been trying to sell that for years!  I finally have a buyer!