MQA is Vaporware

[Fokus]

7 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

Er, https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-tested-part-2-fold

https://www.stereophile.com/content/more-mqa

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-some-claims-examined

Perhaps you missed these articles?

 

Mr. Atkinson, with all respect,

 

I find the quality of these articles rather low. You should be capable of better, although probably not with the current SP writing staff.

 

Investigative journalism? Not by far.

 

[firedog]

4 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The only way anyone will be able to answer with the real facts is if he was in on the meetings at Tidal with the labels and MQA ltd.

 

Anything else is speculation. 

That is true. The streaming services are in partnership/co-owned by the labels. It isn't hard to guess how a streaming service could be incentivized to adopt MQA, especially if it is the first, and has an exclusive for a period of time.

 

It's pretty clear that in the long term there is no free lunch. The labels and streaming services plan to monetize MQA - it won't be "free" forever. I'll leave out the speculation , but there are several ways to do this, and the DRM potential of MQA could be very valuable to the industry in this regard. 

The question remains whether the actual hi-res masters (or even Redbook)  will still be made available to the public if MQA becomes established. I'm guessing they won't be: there's a reason Robert Harley gushed about MQA allowing the labels to release "hi-res" yet still guard the "crown jewels". 

[firedog]

5 hours ago, Thuaveta said:

 

 

Always remember not to ascribe to malice what can properly be explained by incompetence.


 

We all know that high-end audio is a small world. Stereophile (and despite what I just wrote, and my snapping at @John_Atkinson earlier, what follows isn't an indictment of 'em) as a publication, and as writers, are, quite simply, probably a bit too chummy with the industry they're covering.


 

Even if they're in a generally dominant position within their market, it likely isn't as dominant as it was a few years ago. As has been said before, they have a huge vested interest in maintaining good relationships with the manufacturers, both for advertising, but more importantly, for stuff to review. There's probably millions to be made for the industry by pushing MQA, everyone interested in audio and in their right mind wants more HiRes, and I wouldn't be surprised if Stuart and some of writers who wrote about MQA, at Stereophile or elsewhere, went back, quite literally, decades.


 

These relationships are likely relationships of trust, built over, once again, decades. Trust not to break an embargo, trust not to leak a product to a competitor, trust from the writers that what's being described by the manufacturers is what it says it is. The financial relationships are likely secondary compared to what can only be called friendships.


 

This, to me, and it's something that speaks highly of many of the writers' characters, is likely a much more important factor than any advertising contract: they trust their friends to tell them the truth, and to be candid with them, and they, very understandably, don't want to hurt their friends' livelihoods. Once they started getting on the MQA bus, getting off became impossibly difficult, because it'd mean not only admission that they'd failed, professionally, and failed in a manner that greatly diminishes and undermines the authority of the publication (since it's been preaching the gospel of losslessness, and they'd very publicly declared a lossy codec to be equal if not superior) but that they'd been swindled by people they trusted both personally and professionally. Given that so much in high-end audio is about psychology ("do you hear the night-and-day difference between these power cables I'm about to bring to market ?"), this breach of trust is, for any of the writers who worked on MQA both for the magazine and elsewhere, effectively fatal to the ability to both carry out, and be trusted for any subjectively-articulated review in the future.


 

At this point, there are certainly others, but I generally see three ways out of this mess for Stereophile as a publication:


 

a) a serious, thorough, methodical dismantling of MQA, from all angles including financial, which I'm personally uncertain the Stereophile writers are capable of, in terms of investigative journalistic technique or, secondarily, financial ressources. This would be what would be expected of a publication that has the public good at heart, but is unlikely to happen for a variety of reasons.

 

b) doubling-down on MQA support, which is unlikely given the cost in terms of credibility to the readership.

 

c) a pseudo-critical position, where a few reservations are stated by some writers, disregarded by others, and the reader is left confused as to what to think about MQA in general, and, confronted with contradictory analysis from trusted authority figures, drifts into passive acceptance. Knowingly or not, this is straight out of a political propaganda playbook (see below), and it artificially recreates a divide similar to subjectivist vs objectivist lines, which is the second-best thing that can happen to MQA after widespread, unquestioning adoption. This is what we're seeing now, it's unnecessary in light of the evidence, infuriating, and below the standards credible publications should hold themselves to.

 

 

I think the general outlook of this post is correct. There doesn't have to be a conspiracy or any direct or indirect payments. It's a small chummy industry. The magazines rely on industry developments and new models to boost interest and the industry needs the magazines to push the new developments and models. Over time a symbiotic and friendly club is formed. People move back and forth between writing in the industry press and being in the actual industry. No one has an interest to rock the boat. Objectivity doesn't exist. The magazines are figuratively "captured" by the industry.

 

Specifically in terms of MQA: most of the media reports start with a listening session presentation of specific files chosen and curated by MQA for comparison to non-MQA.  The "objective" test is an old marketing ploy designed to produce the desired response in the audience. 

That together with carefully chosen and curated files, convinces the audience they've heard a significant step forward in SQ.

 

After that, expectation bias is unavoidable. 

 

I find it extremely curious that multiple professional reviewers seem unable to find a single MQA file that they think doesn't sound as good as a non-MQA version. That belies belief of objective listening. Especially as many audiophiles and non professionals who blind test MQA have found such examples. 

 

JA's links to article that he says show their investigative chops is weak. There isn't much real investigation there.

As a specific example, Jussi (Miska) from HQP showed that a properly dithered 18/96 flac version of a 24/96 master is smaller than an MQA version of the file and preserves more of the original file (and all the actual sonics).  This example blows out of the water the "need" of the streaming services for MQA to save bandwidth. Yet though this has been bandied about for months, it's been ignored by "the industry".

[esldude]

14 minutes ago, firedog said:

snip.....

The question remains whether the actual hi-res masters (or even Redbook)  will still be made available to the public if MQA becomes established. I'm guessing they won't be: there's a reason Robert Harley gushed about MQA allowing the labels to release "hi-res" yest still guard the "crown jewels". 

Yet one more area MQA is trying to have its cake and eat it too. 

 

If the MQA were perceptually better than or equal to masters, they haven't actually guarded anything.  If they aren't equivalent to the masters then the whole thing is a sham.  A con to convince the public they have the master sound without having the master sound. 

[firedog]

2 minutes ago, esldude said:

Yet one more area MQA is trying to have its cake and eat it too. 

 

If the MQA were perceptually better than or equal to masters, they haven't actually guarded anything.  If they aren't equivalent to the masters then the whole thing is a sham.  A con to convince the public they have the master sound without having the master sound. 

And the even more amazing part is Lee Scoggins report that the Chesky's told him blind testing "proved" MQA is "indistinguishable" form 24\192. Let's say that's true. What happened to the MQA and audio press claims that MQA sounds superior, and is a great step forward, and is giving us something we didn't already have? 

[esldude]

5 minutes ago, firedog said:

And the even more amazing part is Lee Scoggins report that the Chesky's told him blind testing "proved" MQA is "indistinguishable" form 24\192. Let's say that's true. What happened to the MQA and audio press claims that MQA sounds superior, and is a great step forward, and is giving us something we didn't already have? 

Well Chesky only records binaurally now. 

 

So maybe he had MQAB. 

[manisandher]

10 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

Other than the scant examples on 2L, I've not found instances where a >44.1kHz/16bit version can be compared apples-to-apples with the MQA version.

 

Not easy to find, but I compared the original 24/88.2 to the MQA and 16/44.1 from the same master here:

 

 

Listening to these files directly  (i.e. not the captures from the outputs of my DAC that I linked to in the thread) I actually prefer the sound of the unfolded MQA file over the original 24/88.2. And it's this experience that's led me to keep an open mind to date.

 

I linked the captures to give others a sense of what I hear, though I doubt that's really possible.

 

Mani.

[gdpr]

As I am very suspious about the new member Brinkman Ship, and as I am not native english speaking, I googled the meaning of "brinkmanship"  

This is what wikipedia tells me : Brinkmanship (also brinksmanship) is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict.

So not only his email adres is specifically made up for participation to this topic on CA, his chosen nickname is also indicating that he is only here to create conflict.

 

Just my appreciation

 

Dirk 

[FredericV]

7 hours ago, Brinkman Ship said:

I still say that in some way MQA offers high value to listeners who have not invested in hi rez digital libraries, expensive NAS units, and hard drives. If MQA albums are starting with hirez masters and there is some bits thrown out, I am not sure that is a deal killer.

This is the classical fanboy / shill argument, also used by the now banned Peter Veth. MQA does not offer this value, but streaming services do.

You could say the exact same about Qobuz: it offers true highres (lossless, not lossy like MQA) and customers don't have to invest in their own library / hardware.

 

[FredericV]

34 minutes ago, ddetaey said:

As I am very suspious about the new member Brinkman Ship, and as I am not native english speaking, I googled the meaning of "brinkmanship"  

This is what wikipedia tells me : Brinkmanship (also brinksmanship) is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict.

So not only his email adres is specifically made up for participation to this topic on CA, his chosen nickname is also indicating that he is only here to create conflict.

 

Just my appreciation

 

Dirk 

I don't believe in coincidence.

Brinkman Ship is obviously a fake name, as he also uses random IP's. It would not be logical to use random IP's to hide one's true identity and location but keep his real name to post here.

So why did this member use a fake name with a known MQA vendor in it? Brinkmann makes MQA dac's.

 

Whoever Brinkman Ship is, he is most likely affiliated with MQA. Forum rules require that affiliation needs to be put in the signature.

 

 

[adamdea]

13 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

Er, https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-tested-part-2-fold

https://www.stereophile.com/content/more-mqa

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-some-claims-examined

 

Perhaps you missed these articles?

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

Why is the claim to remove time blur , or otherwise to target the time domain response not subject to any proper questioning?

Why no analysis of whether time blur exists in actual music? 

Why the tired old reliance on visual inspection of impulse responses?

 

I know you know that time domain and frequency (with phase) domain are mathematically interchangeable, so why allow the idea that you can be wrong in the frequency domain but right in the time domain to go unchallenged? You might thereby be able to target some aspect of the time domain response at the cost of some other aspect of the time domain response. That claim would not sound so snappy for marketing , but investigative journalism might involve saying things that don't sound so good in marketing terms.

 

There some people out there who are prepared to ask the questions, and they get clicks. 

[Norton]

3 hours ago, FredericV said:

Forum rules require that affiliation needs to be put in the signature.

 

In the interests of fairness I  think you too could be clearer as to your industry affiliations.

 

[FredericV]

1 minute ago, Norton said:

 

In the interests of fairness I  think you too could be clearer as to your industry affiliations.

 

 

My industry affiliation is very clear from my signature. We are one of the many vendors against MQA.

[mansr]

33 minutes ago, adamdea said:

Why the tired old reliance on visual inspection of impulse responses?

Especially when it is meaningless and misleading.

[Norton]

6 minutes ago, FredericV said:

 

My industry affiliation is very clear from my signature. We are one of the many vendors against MQA.

 

If by signature you mean what appears on forum posts, then nothing appears to me if  am not  logged in.

 

When logged in I see the signature "Discoverer of the independent open source sox based mqa playback method"

 

Apologies if I am mistaken, but I thought you were a designer or reseller of music servers.  I think that could be clearer - eg your company name/logo in your avatar etc. 

[Shadders]

14 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

Er, https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-tested-part-2-fold

https://www.stereophile.com/content/more-mqa

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-some-claims-examined

 

Perhaps you missed these articles?

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

Hi John,

I searched each article for any discussion on the blur aspect. Only comments i could find were in the comments section.

 

Are you or your colleagues going to study how it is possible to deblur (reverse dispersion) an analogue signal ?.

 

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

[Dr Tone]

It's pretty obvious, when Bob Stuart bobs and weaves when asked about deblur and all audiphile press avoid the topic in any way other than promotion, that it's not to be discussed.

 

It's the golden egg that "justifies" the 2 step MQA process.  The magic money maker for Bob.

 

[psjug]

43 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi John,

I searched each article for any discussion on the blur aspect. Only comments i could find were in the comments section.

 

Are you or your colleagues going to study how it is possible to deblur (reverse dispersion) an analogue signal ?.

 

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

Jim Austin did say that there will be a part of the series that discusses this.  I really doubt that Bob Stuart/MQA will give him much information to work with though.

[adamdea]

1 minute ago, psjug said:

Jim Austin did say that there will be a part of the series that discusses this.  I really doubt that Bob Stuart/MQA will give him much information to work with though.

Who knows? It would be interesting enough if he were asked  the right questions and if any failure to answer them were spelt out in the article.

[adamdea]

55 minutes ago, mansr said:

Especially when it is meaningless and misleading.

And especially especially so when apologies have to be made in Stereophile measurements section for the MQA filters' inability to deal with high level tones at high frequency. Of course, we are told, real music doesn't have HF at high amplitude (true); whereas an impulse response......

[Shadders]

Hi All,

It was semi-rhetorical.

Dispersion not only delays higher frequencies, but it also attenuates them too. Without knowing the exact dispersion function, you can never reverse the delays, and can never replace lost information.

As others have stated, i doubt this aspect will be covered, or any information provided on how the AES papers references which are stated to be used in MQA, are actually used.

I expect that the referred algorithms in the AES paper have been implemented, but, this does NOT reverse dispersion, it is just an effect that happens to make the audio sound different.

In any case, if the recording used Delta-Sigma ADC, then dispersion does not exist.

Regards,

Shadders.

[FredericV]

22 minutes ago, Dr Tone said:

It's pretty obvious, when Bob Stuart bobs and weaves when asked about deblur and all audiphile press avoid the topic in any other way than promotion, that it's not to be discussed.

Bob & weave .... sounds like de-interlacers. Didn't Bob buy Faroudja?
 

 

 

[Fokus]

26 minutes ago, psjug said:

Jim Austin did say that there will be a part of the series that discusses this.  I really doubt that Bob Stuart/MQA will give him much information to work with though.

 

From the errors and misunderstandings in his most recent MQA articles I doubt Mr Austin is qualified for such a discussion. In other words, Bob will wind Jim around his finger, and Jim will spread the good news and subsequently will declare all critique invalid.

 

[adamdea]

Hang on a second. Why do we need a new format?

[Brinkman Ship]

32 minutes ago, Fokus said:

 

From the errors and misunderstandings in his most recent MQA articles I doubt Mr Austin is qualified for such a discussion. In other words, Bob will wind Jim around his finger, and Jim will spread the good news and subsequently will declare all critique invalid.

 

Can you point out specifically what errors and misunderstandings Mr. Austin was guilty of in his articles..I believe there was Part One and Two?