MQA is Vaporware

[mansr]

37 minutes ago, Ran said:

Speak with Mike @ Schiit, Mark @ AIX, John @ Benchmark, Bruno @ Mola-Mola and finally, you can reach out to mansr here at CA.

Add to that, in no particular order, Andreas Koch, Brian Lucey, Jim Collinson (Linn), and @Miska.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, daverich4 said:

 

Mostly I don’t. That’s the point I was trying to make. As anti MQA has taken over more and more space on CA there’s less here of interest to me. I suspect I’m not the only one that spends less time here than they used to because of it. As far as the childish taunts and name calling coming mostly from the pro MQA side, that isn’t even close to true. I don’t care enough to go back and count but if someone did and said it was 10 to 1 coming from the anti MQA folks I’d believe it. 

 

Actually I think you are wrong. CA is now bigger than The Absolute Sound's site and 2 1/2 times the size of the Part-Time Audiophile so people are actually coming here. And people will continue to come because of  the projects that will be launched when MQA goes away. 

 

As for the ground covered by the threads here we still have a ways to go on discussing all the technical topics about MQA so stay tuned.

 

And you have to admit if you have been paying attention that bashing the supporters of MQA has been effective. Go back and read comments to The Absolute Sound MQA articles by Andrew Quint and Robert Harley. Or the anger of the late Charles Hansen at Stereophile over their pro MQA stance.  

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, daverich4 said:

As anti MQA has taken over more and more space on CA there’s less here of interest to me

 

There are only a few MQA threads, no front page coverage, and an ignore thread feature that should suit people pretty well. 

[Lee Scoggins]

53 minutes ago, mansr said:

Add to that, in no particular order, Andreas Koch, Brian Lucey, Jim Collinson (Linn), and @Miska.

 

I will add Andreas, thanks.

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

Mark and John are already on the list but will add the others.  Thanks.

 

Could you do a 5 hour interview with Mans and publish an article on your website?

 

Similar to the 5 hour interview you did with MQA Ltd?

 

Only if @mansr wants to be interviewed for 5 hours (or whatever agreed amount of time) of course.

[Lee Scoggins]

39 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

Could you do a 5 hour interview with Mans and publish an article on your website?

 

Similar to the 5 hour interview you did with MQA Ltd?

 

Only if @mansr wants to be interviewed for 5 hours (or whatever agreed amount of time) of course.

 

I would love to interview him.  I may not have 5 hours though and neither might he. 

 

@mansr are you game?

[asdf1000]

16 minutes ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

I would love to interview him.  I may not have 5 hours though and neither might he. 

 

@mansr are you game?

 

 

The only reasons I bring up the suggestion:

 

1. I personally have no issues with someones website or publication gaining traffic and making money (why would I) with all this MQA discussion. But if both sides and in this case, the opposing side's arguments are properly conveyed, and the opposing sides arguments get a little more publicity than being buried in a computer audiophile forum, I think  it's win win for all, no?

 

Unless MQA detractors would prefer the discussion stays on the CA forum and comments sections on MQA articles elsehwere?

 

2. I think Mans mentioned he's only been contacted once by a publication/website. So this might be the 2nd time he gets asked for comments/opinions/interview (if he's interested?)

 

Cheers!

 

 

[Ajax]

Hi All,

 

Below is an extract from Mark Waldrep of AIX regular email. Apologies if this has already been referred to in previous blogs (I had a quick look at the last few pages but couldn't see any previous reference). He has finally completed his book on Audio and advises the following:

 

The Book Is Done!

The original plan for the Music and Audio book was to survey music basics and reflect on high-end audio — write a book about the same length as other similar books at 400-500 pages. The final pages count can in just short of 900 pages and includes almost 300 illustrations. The printer tells me that each book weighs about 3.1 pounds (and that's without the included Blu-ray disc). I should be getting 6 palettes weighing 8000 pounds late this month and will promptly begin sending them out to a group of very anxious and patient supporters.

 

................

 

Interestingly, I received an email from Robert Stuart as I neared completion and I sent him a copy of the chapter on MQA, which is titled MQA...A Solution To What?. As a friend and contributor to the book, I assured him that I would let him review his interview and the chapter on MQA. He expressed some concerns after having seen a few pages posted in a Kickstarter update. I also asked him about the MQA conversions that have been done of my files and promised to me (almost 4 years ago now). I have not heard back from him about any changes or when I might be able to evaluate the MQA's AIX Records audio files. The chapter stands as written.

 

This does not bode well for Robert Stuart's reputation. On a personal note nothing pisses me off more than when someone undertakes to do something and then despite repeated requests does nothing, and worst still does not have the courtesy to supply an explanation or an apology.

 

When Miska and Mansr etc. began debunking MQA when it first came out I was actually annoyed at them for "raining on the parade" as it sounded like a great concept. I am now firmly in their camp.  This is bullshit.

[rickca]

22 minutes ago, Ajax said:

When Miska and Mansr etc. began debunking MQA when it first came out I was actually annoyed at them for "raining on the parade" as it sounded like a great concept. I am now firmly in their camp.

I really think @Miska and @mansr were among the MVP contributors to CA in 2017 for this work.

[Fokus]

"The sense I get is that Bob Stuart has created something clever here and the armchair engineers on CA can't keep up with his math."

 

There is not much math involved at the conceptual level. But anyway, with an engineering degree in micro-electronics, another one in computer science (which is rather mathy), and being a co-founder of two successful semiconductor companies I think I can keep up.

 

[Fokus]

6 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

Do you have any suggestions?

 

Study hard. Then ask questions.

 

Mind, this may take some years.

[Indydan]

9 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Don't feel too sorry for Mr. Scoggins.  He has an agenda here as he's telling the Hoffmanites:

 

 

 

He also criticizes CA on his Facebook page (see January 9). 

 

"Computer audiophile is a super unfriendly forum I must say. Why does every audio forum turn into a snake pit of personal attacks?"

 

Some of the replies to that post:

 

Lee Scoggins There is no floor on the stupid over there.

 

Lee Scoggins I like Chris but I think this is a true statement. I have witnessed him being very dogmatic at times and the moderation of discussions is often MIA.

 

Jim Spainhour That's a tough forum to moderate

1

Manage

 

Like

 · 2d

Lee Scoggins He could at least try.

 

 

Peter Veth It is a shame that after 10 years Computeraudiophile has become a click bait driven forum. Normal ethical rules are absent and fierce personal attacks are simply ignored. I know this from unfortunate personal experience. When I complained and revealed the true identity of the person who dared to threaten me in my business and private life, I got banned. To be honest, it feels like a relief!

 

He is friends with Peter Veth. Wasn't Veth banned from CA for arguing with someone about MQA (he was pro MQA), or something like that?

 

www.facebook.com/lee.scoggins.9

 

[semente]

8 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

There are only a few MQA threads, no front page coverage, and an ignore thread feature that should suit people pretty well. 

 

By the way Chris, have you been approached by MQA (or Meridian) for advertising here at CA?

Don't reply if you feel this may put you in a tricky situation.

[mansr]

8 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

I would love to interview him.  I may not have 5 hours though and neither might he. 

 

@mansr are you game?

I'm willing to answer some questions by email provided I get to preview and veto anything you intend to publish attributed to me.

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

I'm willing to answer some questions by email provided I get to preview and veto anything you intend to publish attributed to me.

 

Sounds like a fair request.

[FredericV]

5 hours ago, Indydan said:

Peter Veth It is a shame that after 10 years Computeraudiophile has become a click bait driven forum. Normal ethical rules are absent and fierce personal attacks are simply ignored. I know this from unfortunate personal experience. When I complained and revealed the true identity of the person who dared to threaten me in my business and private life, I got banned. To be honest, it feels like a relief!

 

He is friends with Peter Veth. Wasn't Veth banned from CA for arguing with someone about MQA (he was pro MQA), or something like that?

 

www.facebook.com/lee.scoggins.9

 

 

We had some very unpleasant encounters with Peter Veth. Even on facebook where he wrote that he would expose my company. Yes what we do is incompatible with MQA. Any vendor that sells DSP solutions is incompatible with MQA. He was also planning to boycot a trade show by threatening to making complaints to the organiser. We told him that if he would try to make a public discussion into a trade show room we pay for (these rooms typically cost thousands of euro's for 2 show days), he would be banned from the room.

This person always keeps repeating the same arguments, did not learn anything from the CA forum, and always uses the same fallback arguments:

- GO LISTEN ARGUMENT: when you fail at a discussion with more technical persons than your own skillset, use the go listen argument
- measurements are not important, our ears don't work digitally and other BS to revert to the GO LISTEN argument
- MORE RESEARCH IS NEEDED ARGUMENT: this tactic is used to delay the discussion by claiming you need more research
- BLACK BOX ARGUMENT: you don't understand MQA as you don't know what's in the encoder/decoder, so whatever you bring up are not the real facts, or emulation .....
- AUTHORITY ARGUMENT: I believe Stuart, he is more clever than you
- DON'T LIKE DON'T BUY argument, to silence critics
- TIME DOMAIN argument (which is already debunked so many times)

There are more tactics which seem to be used among all the MQA key opinion makers. They resort to ad-hominem tactics when the above arguments are being exposed and debunked, which is what Lee is now also doing on his own FB profile by making ridicule of CA.

Typical is that they use canned resources and copy paste the marketing lies from MQA, like this article:

It contains the usual MQA marketing BS like

 

Quote

What is this MQA?  It’s Master Quality Authenticated which means in MQA-speak that the sound is authentic to the “studio master.”  Many of these studio masters are high-resolution files the label has already created.  Some are just 16/44 but even there MQA applies Bob Stuart’s temporal de-blurring filters that eliminate one of the biggest monsters of bad digital: pre and post ringing.

Lee should look at this figure until he understands it:

 

[Andyman]

On 1/10/2018 at 1:09 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Telling people to shut up and calling them idiots isn’t allowed here at CA. 

 

If if you have evidence that someone is in fact an idiot, please put that forth and address the subject matter. 

 

What if it's really really obvious, like certain presidents for example...

[Samuel T Cogley]

48 minutes ago, FredericV said:

This person always keeps repeating the same arguments, did not learn anything from the CA forum, and always uses the same fallback arguments:

- GO LISTEN ARGUMENT: when you fail at a discussion with more technical persons than your own skillset, use the go listen argument
- measurements are not important, our ears don't work digitally and other BS to revert to the GO LISTEN argument
- MORE RESEARCH IS NEEDED ARGUMENT: this tactic is used to delay the discussion by claiming you need more research
- BLACK BOX ARGUMENT: you don't understand MQA as you don't know what's in the encoder/decoder, so whatever you bring up are not the real facts, or emulation .....
- AUTHORITY ARGUMENT: I believe Stuart, he is more clever than you
- DON'T LIKE DON'T BUY argument, to silence critics
- TIME DOMAIN argument (which is already debunked so many times)

There are more tactics which seem to be used among all the MQA key opinion makers. They resort to ad-hominem tactics when the above arguments are being exposed and debunked, which is what Lee is now also doing on his own FB profile by making ridicule of CA.

Lee should look at this figure until he understands it:

 

Scoggins is playing the people here who believe he might actually turn out something objective regarding MQA.  Part Time Audiophile is clearly in the tank for MQA, and Scoggins' history of audiophile "journalism" demonstrates with crystal clarity how he values his relationships with vendors above all else.  There's no way he's going to play nice in CA after trashing it on Hoffman and Facebook.  His sycophants are expecting him to slay the "flat earthers" (as he calls those who question his assertions) and he knows he must show them he is worthy of their sycophancy.  Scoggins is here to show audiophile vendors that he can put forth their marketing propaganda in the most hostile of environments, and that's exactly what he's doing here.

 

I like your list of MQA talking points and I think it's fairly complete.  Scoggins used "he's against MQA because he's not getting paid" to dismiss Brian Lucey's valid concerns, of course without actually acknowledging any of the issues.

 

 

[Shadders]

1 hour ago, FredericV said:

Quoted Text "Bob Stuart’s temporal de-blurring filters that eliminate one of the biggest monsters of bad digital: pre and post ringing."

Hi FredericV,

Thanks for this - this establishes what temporal blur actually is, when MQA state it - pre and post ringing of a filter.

 

Did this quote come from the MQA site, or is this someone else's statement of what they think MQA temporal blur is ?

 

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

[FredericV]

20 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi FredericV,

Thanks for this - this establishes what temporal blur actually is, when MQA state it - pre and post ringing of a filter.

 

Did this quote come from the MQA site, or is this someone else's statement of what they think MQA temporal blur is ?

 

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2018/01/09/mqa-a-fresh-take-why-the-big-labels-are-converting-their-catalogs/

 

When you kill all pre-ringing and limit postringing to 1 cycle, you get aliasing. This filter sounds very tight with bass, and the attack of the bass kicks more, but you miss a sense of depth and sounstage is thin.

This is both observed when using SoX as described in part 4 here:
 

http://archimago.blogspot.be/2017/12/howto-musings-playing-with-digital_23.html

 

and when listening to MQA on a Mytek vs the source DXD.

It sounds like the decay of instruments and voices are shortened with less depth.

Using Archimago's intermediate phase filter with a tiny bit of preringing and mainly postringing, this proves independent researchers can design a better sounding filter than corporations like Meridian / MQA.

http://archimago.blogspot.be/2018/01/musings-more-fun-with-digital-filters.html

This filter just sounds so more fluent and natural than MQA's filter. The decay of instruments and soundstage is better. And the best part: filter can be implemented using open source.
 

[mcgillroy]

30 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

  Scoggins is here to show audiophile vendors that he can put forth their marketing propaganda in the most hostile of environments, and that's exactly what he's doing here.

 

 

+100!

 

Interesting & important observation! This makes a ton of sense.

[Shadders]

5 minutes ago, FredericV said:

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2018/01/09/mqa-a-fresh-take-why-the-big-labels-are-converting-their-catalogs/

 

When you kill all pre-ringing and limit postringing to 1 cycle, you get aliasing. This filter sounds very tight with bass, and the attack of the bass kicks more, but you miss a sense of depth and sounstage is thin.

This is both observed when using SoX as described in part 4 here:
 

http://archimago.blogspot.be/2017/12/howto-musings-playing-with-digital_23.html

 

and when listening to MQA on a Mytek vs the source DXD.

It sounds like the decay of instruments and voices are shortened with less depth.

Using Archimago's intermediate phase filter with a tiny bit of preringing and mainly postringing, this proves independent researchers can design a better sounding filter than corporations like Meridian / MQA.

http://archimago.blogspot.be/2018/01/musings-more-fun-with-digital-filters.html

This filter just sounds so more fluent and natural than MQA's filter. The decay of instruments and soundstage is better. And the best part: filter can be implemented using open source.
 

Hi FredericV,

Thanks. I have not read the articles, but, i thought that the temporal blur has already occurred to the master file - and as per the MQA wikipedia listing, that MQA had used a image sharpening algorithm (http://icms.org.uk/downloads/BtG/Dragotti.pdf) to removal the "temporal blur" - or is the wiki mistaken ?

 

If all MQA is, for the claimed correction of temporal blur, is a different filter applied to the existing master (MQA encoded) - then this is a complete con. It is irrelevant whether SoX or anyone else can produce a better filter - since MQA is committing fraud. (temporal blur still exists in the MQA file).

 

Is there any evidence that they process the master file to remove the temporal blur ?

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[FredericV]

 

18 minutes ago, Shadders said:

 

If all MQA is, for the claimed correction of temporal blur, is a different filter applied to the existing master (MQA encoded) - then this is a complete con. It is irrelevant whether SoX or anyone else can produce a better filter - since MQA is committing fraud. (temporal blur still exists in the MQA file).

 

I believe MQA claims that you'll need to use products which can do the second unfold (=upsampling + dithering + killing postringing).

 

18 minutes ago, Shadders said:

 

Is there any evidence that they process the master file to remove the temporal blur ?

 

Regards,

Shadders.

 

What I believe is happening is the fact that MQA has mapped all kind of transient response errors into a map of 32 pre-defined filters, where the encoder detects which one will be the best estimate, and the first unfold passes this parameter to the second unfold, which is what makes the MQA sound thinner than the original master file that was used to encode the file.

 

As MQA is a black box, we will need further reverse engineering.

[Shadders]

2 minutes ago, FredericV said:

 

 

I believe MQA claims that you'll need to use products which can do the second unfold (=upsampling + dithering + killing postringing).

 

 

What I believe is happening is the fact that MQA has mapped all kind of transient response errors into a map of 32 pre-defined filters, where the encoder detects which one will be the best estimate, and the first unfold passes this parameter to the second unfold, which is what makes the MQA sound thinner than the original master file that was used to encode the file.

 

As MQA is a black box, we will need further reverse engineering.

Hi FedericV,

OK- thanks. So, we will never know until reverse engineered whether they are implementing any processing on the master file. The references to image sharpening study may be just a red herring - to make it look involved and detailed - subterfuge.

If the SoX filters at least have the same subjective effect, then MQA is not required.

Maybe DAC manufacturers can implement the SoX filters and claim pseudo-MQA without the cost, DRM, and lossy coding, and phones have an app that does the same.

Regards,

Shadders.

[FredericV]

2 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi FedericV,

OK- thanks. So, we will never know until reverse engineered whether they are implementing any processing on the master file. The references to image sharpening study may be just a red herring - to make it look involved and detailed - subterfuge.

If the SoX filters at least have the same subjective effect, then MQA is not required.

Maybe DAC manufacturers can implement the SoX filters and claim pseudo-MQA without the cost, DRM, and lossy coding, and phones have an app that does the same.

Regards,

Shadders.

 

I've added several linear phase, minimum phase, minimum phase with aliasing and intermediate phase sox filters to my own product.
In the past the only upsampler was linear phase, with 2 variants. Now we have a much larger choice.

I let the customers decide which filter they like the most.

Pushing minimum phase with one cycle of postringing as the ultimate filter, which MQA is doing in all MQA dacs, is clearly wrong. I don't like this filter for all music genres.