MQA is Vaporware

[KeenObserver]

4 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Chris and others. Thanks for taking time to enlighten me 😀

 

 Feel free to read the 832 pages in this thread, any other thread, and even Archimago's blog.  MQA promoters have brought up the same BS hundreds of times.  If after this you have questions that have not been examined and refuted a hundred times, feel free to call Bob Stuart.

[KeenObserver]

7 hours ago, firedog said:

Only that one in Brooklyn.....

 

I just realized why I have been unsuccessful in selling that bridge in Brooklyn all these years.  I didn't advertise it on Peter Veth's blog!

[KeenObserver]

If you buy the bridge I'll throw in a free MQA CD.

[KeenObserver]

"By designing MQA based on how sound travels through air – the purest distribution platform – MQA puts great emphasis on the preservation of natural dynamic range and timing information. "

 

My God, that Mike Jbara is a true genius!  And Bob Stuart, he has crossed over into a new paradigm! He designed MQA to be listened to in AIR! My God, no wonder they gave him the Prince Phillip award!

 

That has been our problem all along, we have been listening to music in a vacuum! We have not been getting the full sound (or any sound).  And, we died!

 

Yes, I think Mike Jbara was brought over to MQA for his connection to Warner music. And maybe his ethical standards.  It was definitely not for his intelligence.

[KeenObserver]

Well, I guess I'll be selling off my Audiophile Air business. I'm sure the new MQA Air is going to be the big hit.

[KeenObserver]

I think it is this coffee.

[KeenObserver]

I am utterly baffled by this! People actually believe what MQA puts out and what people like Peter Veth puts out!

 

P T Barnum and H L Mencken were right.

[KeenObserver]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Yes. He absolutely has the music label mindset and lack of tact. Ask people who he has bullied in HiFi. Makes everyone excited to do business with him and MQA. Said nobody ever. 

 

The fact that MQA has gotten this far astounds me.  It is testament to the fact that Warner and MQA want to ram this down the music consumer's throats.

MQA wants to force the contaminated brandy on the music consumer.

[KeenObserver]

9 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Yes. He absolutely has the music label mindset and lack of tact. Ask people who he has bullied in HiFi. Makes everyone excited to do business with him and MQA. Said nobody ever. 

 

Perhaps we need to post a link to the RMAF 2018 seminar so that people can actually see who it is pushing this scheme.

[KeenObserver]

If he keeps putting stuff out there, Mike Jbara will become our new Margaret Dumont.

[KeenObserver]

"This is theory of course. No one has the tools or ability to verify it without the participation of MQA"

 

Therein lies our problem. No one has the tools or ability to verify it without the the participation of MQA.  Only Bob Stuart has the singular capacity to understand these matters.  Every other  engineer in the world cannot comprehend what Bob Stuart, who was bestowed the Prince Phillip award, understands. We must all bow down and worship Bob Stuart.

[KeenObserver]

For some reason I'm reminded of the scene in the movie No Country For Old Men between Woody Harrelson and Javier Bardem.

[KeenObserver]

5 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

1. If the stated purpose isn't correct, than what was the real purpose? How did you determine it?

2. I don't know what temporal blurring is. Time domain is the flip side of the frequency domain.

3. I'm not familiar with the "McGill study". I have verified through my own testing using Tidal, MQA-CDs and downloaded MQA albums that MQA has the potential to sound better. I downloaded multiple versions of an album I found with an pamplet which lists the engineers, studio and the audio formats (this is a multi-channel 192 kHz album). There's no reason to believe that MQA was mastered any differently than the stereo PCM version. I got a MQA-CD sampler from CDJapan which includes the CD version of the same MQA-CD tracks for comparison purposes. Now, mind you MQA-CD also uses UHQCD which is a new CD media technology that improves signal quality -- but in my testing with that format the quality increase is minor.

 

So, how did you verify that MQA didn't make a difference? DAC? System? Albums?

 

You've been drinking the contaminated brandy.

[KeenObserver]

7 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

1. If the stated purpose isn't correct, than what was the real purpose? How did you determine it?

2. I don't know what temporal blurring is. Time domain is the flip side of the frequency domain.

3. I'm not familiar with the "McGill study". I have verified through my own testing using Tidal, MQA-CDs and downloaded MQA albums that MQA has the potential to sound better. I downloaded multiple versions of an album I found with an pamplet which lists the engineers, studio and the audio formats (this is a multi-channel 192 kHz album). There's no reason to believe that MQA was mastered any differently than the stereo PCM version. I got a MQA-CD sampler from CDJapan which includes the CD version of the same MQA-CD tracks for comparison purposes. Now, mind you MQA-CD also uses UHQCD which is a new CD media technology that improves signal quality -- but in my testing with that format the quality increase is minor.

 

So, how did you verify that MQA didn't make a difference? DAC? System? Albums?

 

Do you have any idea...........

[KeenObserver]

28 minutes ago, mevdinc said:

Currently I live in Turkey and suddenly I lost access to Tidal, it is blocked here!
Apparently Tidal is trying to acquire a license to provide its streaming service in Turkey.

So, I have started using Spotify Premium. I must say, it is so much better in terms of choice of music and UI. No hi-res streaming (best is 320Kbs and it does sound quite reasonable), but Spotify allows me to access my local files as well, where I have lots of hi-res music.
Since I don't much care for MQA I don't miss Tidal one bit.
I won't be worrying about MQA format until it becomes the only format available (I am sure this is what it was designed for ultimately).

 

The way Warner, MQA, and Tidal implemented this is leaving questions in many peoples minds.

But then, look at MQA's actions since it's inception. Nothing is forthright and in the open. It has all been smoke and mirrors.

[KeenObserver]

Reduced to its absolute simplest terms, all the benefits of MQA are on one side of the equation, all the costs are on the other side of the equation. The music consumer ultimately pays for the cost of MQA.

MQA tells you that there are benefits to MQA. But they are terrified of anyone independently testing for those benefits.  They put on demonstrations where they control absolutely every aspect of the demonstration.  When independent tests are done, they contradict MQA's tests.

There is just a smell to MQA. Their attempts to force it on the music consumer should provoke the music consumer.

[KeenObserver]

This thread must have touched a nerve somewhere. It's brought out the REAL heavy hitters!

[KeenObserver]

17 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Here is one album both red book and MQA. Those that like to compare. I hope it’s the same master. 
 

 

 

12 tracks...24 tracks.  Is one of them the Rhino version?

[KeenObserver]

6 hours ago, GUTB said:

 

I appreciate the reaction image, but if you have a better understanding of the process please share. I understand that MQA Ltd. doesn't want to tell the public how exactly it works because it would be stolen. So we have no choice to go by what Stuart says in interviews and other industry people who have an inside track, for example Roon.

 

It's been repeated several times that time domain correction was the driving motivation of MQA. The business aspect of it, providing a compression technique to make hi-res content delivery more economical is there to bring the streaming services onboard. The authentication aspect is for labels. These are things which MQA, a for-profit company, will try to market to consumers. How they chose to market it isn't relevant to me, I only care about the sonic benefits. Don't you care about the sonic benefits?

 

What MQA is giving you is "TOT".

MQA is supplying you with contaminated brandy.

 

It's a metaphor.  Look it up.

[KeenObserver]

52 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Attached the response from Eudora Records, for everyone who wants to know the truth:
"thank you for your email and your interest. Yes, you can buy it at our website, you have the "BUY SACD" button next to the cover:) It is a hybrid SACD disc, one layer is the SACD/DSD version, and the other layer the MQA-CD. Let me know if you still have doubts!"

Case closed ?
 

 

Why would anyone that buys a hybrid SACD want the MQA  layer?

That guy that made the video and GUTB are the only people that I am aware of that have MQA CD's and equipment.

It's like discovering a Dodo bird, although I have heard that there may be a cluster of them in Japan.

[KeenObserver]

19 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Will it that’s true, MQA have some explanations to do. Cause there isn’t anything to unfold. Then some sort of upsampling must happen, which is also hard to believe. 

 

That contaminated brandy is strong stuff!

It can distort your perception of reality!

[KeenObserver]

7 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

What sonic benefits? Have you had a moment to look into that McGill study?

 

Why would anyone look into a scientifically valid study when you can refer to carefully orchestrated presentations from MQA?

Have you not drank the contaminated brandy?

[KeenObserver]

2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

And, checking on the DAC, Roon does send the DAC an 88.2k-24b file.

 

Even though "Bob" says that bit depth is not the final criteria, it is important that MQA gives the user the perception that they are getting high bit rate and artificial "Hirez".

[KeenObserver]

Smoke and mirrors.

Smoke and mirrors.

[KeenObserver]

15 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

It has not been confirmed what the decoder actually do. Unfolding, upsampling, adding 8 zeros etc.

I think the encoding and decoding process is described in these AES papers. I don’t know. And I think whatever the code is doing, it’s a MQA secret. 

 

It’s noted your definition is upsampling. I disagree. I’m very confident it’s an display error in Roon. But those that truly knows, won’t tell. That’s very annoying.

MQA is an end to end process. Whatever that actually means. But I think they’re very keen on keeping the original file bits and rates. Nowhere is up and down sampling said to happen during the MQA process. 
 

MQA website says:

“A full decoder is able to indicate MQA Provenance and other information such as Original Sample Rate on its UI.”

 

“Origami is always used when the input sample rate is higher than the ‘transmission rate’.”

(So one may suggest it’s not used in some cases, like when transmission rate equals sample rate)

 

“When the input is PCM, the output stream will have the same bit-depth as the input unless either a) Origami is used or b) the input is DSD or floating-point; in these cases, the MQA stream output will always be 24 bit. So an original at 44.1 kHz/24b will create a 24b file and 44.1kHz/16b will create a 16b file. However an original of 96kHz/16b) will generate a 48kHz/24b MQA file because Origami was used.”

 

The last statement tells me that a transfer rate must be 48kHz/24 if Origami is in use.

 

Under is one explanation that says how 16b can be 24b, but that explanation can’t apply to Roon. It’s totally impossible. (Well in my system, as I use a Sonictransporter). 
 

“But there is one harmless way it can be changed and that is if a 16b MQA stream is extended to 24b by the addition of zeros to the bottom 8 bits. The zeros contain no information and the MQA decoder will ignore them.

There is no benefit to this word-width extension, but it can happen benignly and automatically if a 16b MQA stream is passed over a 24-bit link such as SPDIF/optical or HDMI. 16-bit MQA goes in, 24 PCM bits come out, but the audio information in the top 16-bits is not changed – and that is all we care about.“

 

Do you have another interpretation of Bob’s words, that can point us in the direction that decoder is upsampling ? If so, please tell us. 

 

Seriously?

 

Did you study with Lee?

 

Or...