MQA is Vaporware

[crenca]

2 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

Keep in mind this is a series of articles to explore the format.  I have not commented on the technical elements yet.

 

The elegance of the MQA business model is that it does not look at hirez availability from the audiophile perspective but instead looks at what the record labels recognize is important...

 

Ha!  You used the word "elegant". This in no way helps your cause to convince us that you are not an anti-consumer shill for the industry.

 

As to the quote above, everything you say there after is at  best the wistful dreams of some (but not all) in the industry, and often just plain wrong.

[ARQuint]

By way of noting some positive news for MQA, I saw that that IRiver, the large Korean manufacturer of digital players that owns Astell&Kern will be taking up the technology. So the commercial progress for MQA continues incrementally. If you choose to look at it that way.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

1 minute ago, ARQuint said:

By way of noting some positive news for MQA, I saw that that IRiver, the large Korean manufacturer of digital players that owns Astell&Kern will be taking up the technology. So the commercial progress for MQA continues incrementally. If you choose to look at it that way.

 

 

Yes. I posted the press release above.  I think hardware accessibility further improves adoption.

[vmartell22]

9 minutes ago, crenca said:

Ha!  You used the word "elegant". This in no way helps your cause to convince us that you are not an anti-consumer shill for the industry.

 

 

That is curious indeed - "elegant" seems to be the keyword indeed - for whatever reason it seems to be that MQA owners, promoters and backers have agreed on that. And it may be - it may be an elegant solution to the problem of introducing DRM back , many years after the worst offenders did away with it. But that's not an elegant I want.

 

v

[Lee Scoggins]

7 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

Ha!  You used the word "elegant". This in no way helps your cause to convince us that you are not an anti-consumer shill for the industry.

 

As to the quote above, everything you say there after is at  best the wistful dreams of some (but not all) in the industry, and often just plain wrong.

 

I stand by that word.  I think it sums up the value of cleverly using a convenience-driven audience to drive better sound quality adoption.  I don't think we have seen that before except to a lesser extent the current LP phenomena which can offer better sound quality than CD.  But with LPs, there is not enough money to remaster the whole catalog.  With digital, though, we have the ability.

[psjug]

13 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

Ha!  You used the word "elegant". This in no way helps your cause to convince us that you are not an anti-consumer shill for the industry.

 

Even better he said it was an elegant business model.  That is what I said in response to JA using the word, but I was intending to be a smart-ass!

[crenca]

3 minutes ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

I stand by that word.  I think it sums up the value of cleverly using a convenience-driven audience to drive better sound quality adoption.  I don't think we have seen that before except to a lesser extent the current LP phenomena which can offer better sound quality than CD.  But with LPs, there is not enough money to remaster the whole catalog.  With digital, though, we have the ability.

 

 

Lee, I gave you a thumbs up because your explicitly honest about who is manipulating who in your scenario. 

 

On this board however you're dealing mostly with audiophiles and we know that in MQA is not an increase in sound quality over and above non-drm PCM.  So just to let you know what you are asserting is simply not true.  Allow me to spare you any attempts to convince us of bandwidth savings, problems with FLAC, "debluring" magic, etc etc

[Fair Hedon]

49 minutes ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

I stand by that word.  I think it sums up the value of cleverly using a convenience-driven audience to drive better sound quality adoption.  I don't think we have seen that before except to a lesser extent the current LP phenomena which can offer better sound quality than CD.  But with LPs, there is not enough money to remaster the whole catalog.  With digital, though, we have the ability.

This is has been the audiophile so called "press" approach..double down, and dig deeper into hole, regardless

of what the reality of the technology is. MQA has NOTHING to do with sound quality.

 

 

[Fair Hedon]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Sorry, you're late to that party.

LOL!!! Does he know Lincoln was shot?

[Fair Hedon]

1 hour ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

Your repeated use of the term "shill" is completely unwarranted.  It is a shame that Computer Audiophile even allows such personal attacks.  I have made a good faith effort to report what I have found works in audio.  Having a different opinion is not cause for belittling my hard work to interview a variety of folks working in the industry and report what I find.

 

As for Shunyata, Black Cat, and Audioquest, I post enthusiastically about some of their products because I have first-hand experience with the sound quality improvements they offer.

If the term Shill offends you, and you consider a personal attack, you are entitled to voice that.

 

But one thing you clearly are, and this is not name calling, just a statement of fact based on your conduct, posts, and articles, is an industry sycophant. Your name dropping, rose colored view of anything manufacturers print in their marketing material does not serve your reader. It just gets you more gear to "review".

[Don Hills]

4 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

... The elegance of the MQA business model is that it does not look at hirez availability from the audiophile perspective but instead looks at what the record labels recognize is important and that is streaming.  We may disagree but this idea around enhancing existing files for better quality in streaming is sort of, in my view, a way to piggyback hirez quality onto a way into non-audiophile's homes.  Best of all, it seems to have worked as the three big labels and the independent community have signed up for the whole catalog.    ...

 

Is your view the same as the labels' view? Think very carefully about what value proposition MQA offered the labels. Hint: It's not to bring higher quality to non-audiophile consumers. The consumers don't care and won't pay for it.

 

Edited to add:

Look carefully at how the labels expect to recoup their investment. They've paid the license fees and paid for the work of encoding their back catalogues. They wouldn't do that if  they didn't expect to profit in some way.

 

[rickca]

22 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

Look carefully at how the labels expect to recoup their investment. They've paid the license fees and paid for the work of encoding their back catalogues. They wouldn't do that if  they didn't expect to profit in some way.

The labels are investors in the MQA business.  So they were kind of paying themselves to encode their catalogs, and will share in MQA profits should they materialize.  I'm not sure how big a stake in MQA they got for their very modest capital injection.

 

How do you distinguish between collusion and cooperation of 3 firms that dominate the industry?

[Ralf11]

There's something happenin' here

What it is ain't exactly clear

There's a man with DRM over there

I'm tellin' you, we got to beware

 

I said HEY! Who's that clown?

Shilling aroun'

Puttin' the MQA out all over town

...

 

 

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/my-new-article-series-on-mqa.723574/

 

[Don Hills]

41 minutes ago, rickca said:

The labels are investors in the MQA business.  So they were kind of paying themselves to encode their catalogs, and will share in MQA profits should they materialize.  I'm not sure how big a stake in MQA they got for their very modest capital injection.

 

How do you distinguish between collusion and cooperation of 3 firms that dominate the industry?

 

That doesn't answer the question, where do they expect the profits to come from? (I have my own opinion, but I'm not in a position to know so I'm interested in Lee's thoughts.)

 

As for distinguishing between collusion and cooperation, I don't see either as having played a part. Can you expand on your thinking?

[asdf1000]

A CES video on HiRes Audio. MQA gets a couple of shout outs, including by the Ford rep....

 

[rickca]

3 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

Can you expand on your thinking?

Well, I probably shouldn't promote more conspiracy theories.  I'll see whether the idea resonates with other people.

[Bob Stern]

2 hours ago, rickca said:

The labels are investors in the MQA business.  So they were kind of paying themselves to encode their catalogs, and will share in MQA profits should they materialize.  I'm not sure how big a stake in MQA they got for their very modest capital injection.

 

If the labels invested capital, I can’t imagine it would be for the measly profits of MQA.  It would be that the labels want DRM.

[fung0]

Our current generation of journalists has been trained to believe it's possible to be perfectly objective and perfectly rational. And, moreover, that new products, new technologies will always get better and better. So when they encounter MQA - brand new, backed by somewhat plausible theory, sold by a somewhat reputable company, adopted across the industry they love - they immediately hear an improvement. That's how the mind works.

 

Subsequently reversing that first impression is nigh impossible. When they see theoretical proofs that MQA can't possibly sound better than high-res PCM, they are... skeptical. When they read A/B tests showing that MQA sounds no better than PCM, and possibly significantly worse... they discount them as being the product of inferior, less-discerning listeners. And when the industry tells them "there's no DRM," they simply can't see what's in plain sight... even though "authentication" is obviously a dictionary synonym for "digital rights management." (Which in turn, is not a synonym for "copy protection.")

 

Will any of these journalists have the humility, the integrity, and the simple good sense to eat crow and admit they've been (quite understandably) led astray? Those very few that do will certainly have my respect.

[Lee Scoggins]

6 hours ago, crenca said:

 

 

Lee, I gave you a thumbs up because your explicitly honest about who is manipulating who in your scenario. 

 

On this board however you're dealing mostly with audiophiles and we know that in MQA is not an increase in sound quality over and above non-drm PCM.  So just to let you know what you are asserting is simply not true.  Allow me to spare you any attempts to convince us of bandwidth savings, problems with FLAC, "debluring" magic, etc etc

 

I don't just accept any prevailing opinions of this board, regardless of how many audiophiles are on it.  I've been doing professional recordings since 1989 and was on the cutting edge of hirez before it even launched.  And my opinions will be informed by my recording work, research, interviews with industry experts, and listening test.  If my thoughts on the topic don't please members of CA then I really don't care.  

 

I have read all 249 pages of this discussion over the past year and it's quite clear that many here have an axe to grind.  If the evidence against MQA was so obvious, there wouldn't be literally dozens of members here responding with personal attacks.  It takes the CA community down that respectful debate does not occur here.  The reputation of this community is pretty low I am hearing from friends that are very experienced but gave up posting here.

 

So in summary, I will share my informed thoughts on MQA and I don't really care how popular they are.

 

It's really sad that a community of computer audiophiles can't see the benefit of a deeper collection of hirez music that only requires am affordable DAC or software app to play back.

 

 

[Lee Scoggins]

58 minutes ago, fung0 said:

Our current generation of journalists has been trained to believe it's possible to be perfectly objective and perfectly rational. And, moreover, that new products, new technologies will always get better and better. So when they encounter MQA - brand new, backed by somewhat plausible theory, sold by a somewhat reputable company, adopted across the industry they love - they immediately hear an improvement. That's how the mind works.

 

Subsequently reversing that first impression is nigh impossible. When they see theoretical proofs that MQA can't possibly sound better than high-res PCM, they are... skeptical. When they read A/B tests showing that MQA sounds no better than PCM, and possibly significantly worse... they discount them as being the product of inferior, less-discerning listeners. And when the industry tells them "there's no DRM," they simply can't see what's in plain sight... even though "authentication" is obviously a dictionary synonym for "digital rights management." (Which in turn, is not a synonym for "copy protection.")

 

Will any of these journalists have the humility, the integrity, and the simple good sense to eat crow and admit they've been (quite understandably) led astray? Those very few that do will certainly have my respect.

 

Oh shut up.  We are plenty experienced to not be at the whim of a first impression.  I've heard valid MQA demos on several occasions.  And you don't even understand how process standards like authentication differ from DRM. 

 

The real problem here are armchair idiots like yourself who can't respect a differing opinion.  Go back to school and take a Debating 101 course and learn how to present some points backed up by some evidence before slamming the journalists who are working hard to explore audio.

[Lee Scoggins]

1 hour ago, Bob Stern said:

 

If the labels invested capital, I can’t imagine it would be for the measly profits of MQA.  It would be that the labels want DRM.

 

Where is there evidence that any DRM would enhance profits more than simply selling more product but offering streaming fees for a large catalog?

 

From a business or technical standpoint, DRM doesn't make any sense.

 

This is about having a library of high quality music you can play back from a smartphone.

[Thuaveta]

6 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

Your repeated use of the term "shill" is completely unwarranted.  It is a shame that Computer Audiophile even allows such personal attacks.  I have made a good faith effort to report what I have found works in audio.  Having a different opinion is not cause for belittling my hard work to interview a variety of folks working in the industry and report what I find.

 

 

Lee, if anything, "shill" might be on the polite side to describe what you're doing.

 

Since you seem to fancy yourself an investigative, critical writer, know this: how much time you spent with a source is irrelevant, as is how much effort you put into that conversation. While your effort is appreciated (and, in this case, it truly is, here, have a participation trophy), please have the dignity not to come crying a river if some of your readers feel like you're giving a pair of conmen a platform. Rather, put a good faith effort into asking yourself where you went wrong, and correct it.

[Lee Scoggins]

5 hours ago, Fair Hedon said:

If the term Shill offends you, and you consider a personal attack, you are entitled to voice that.

 

But one thing you clearly are, and this is not name calling, just a statement of fact based on your conduct, posts, and articles, is an industry sycophant. Your name dropping, rose colored view of anything manufacturers print in their marketing material does not serve your reader. It just gets you more gear to "review".

 

One thing you clearly are is a useful idiot.  You are being manipulated by bad mastering engineers like Brian Lucey who stand to lose money from the MQA approach.  By attacking honest journalists, you are creating large amounts of bad information that obscure the good news of more hirez music.  As a result many readers of the CA community will be uninformed about MQA and may miss the advantage of large catalogs of music.

 

Perhaps even worse, your constant attacks on those with a different opinion is scaring away good people from even wanting to participate on the board thereby lowering the quality of good discussion and exploration.

 

When a community has a widespread reputation for having biased discussion and personal attacks, very few people with experience want to participate. And that is what has happened here.

[Lee Scoggins]

8 minutes ago, Thuaveta said:

 

Lee, if anything, "shill" might be on the polite side to describe what you're doing.

 

Since you seem to fancy yourself an investigative, critical writer, know this: how much time you spent with a source is irrelevant, as is how much effort you put into that conversation. While your effort is appreciated (and, in this case, it truly is, here, have a participation trophy), please have the dignity not to come crying a river if some of your readers feel like you're giving a pair of conmen a platform. Rather, put a good faith effort into asking yourself where you went wrong, and correct it.

 

You have 5 posts and joined just a couple of weeks ago.  Have you even followed the whole discussion and understand the basics of the topic?

 

You need to put a good faith effort into asking yourself why you don't have more experience and why others have a different opinion.

[Fokus]

31 minutes ago, Lee Scoggins said:

The real problem here are armchair idiots like yourself who can't respect a differing opinion.  Go back to school and take a Debating 101 course and learn how to present some points backed up by some evidence before slamming the journalists who are working hard to explore audio.

 

The real problem here are industry idiots like yourself who can't respect a differing opinion.  Go back to school and take a Debating 101 course and learn how to present some points backed up by some evidence before slamming the hands-on amateurs (I hope you understand Latin?) who have worked hard to explore what MQA really is.