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MQA is Vaporware


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5 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

 

Sounds like the dude who told Stereophile that other speaker designers hadn’t made any significant advances in years. Came out of nowhere to become “the world’s best speaker designer”. Just ask him!

..he called other-speaker companies..”furniture makers”...lol

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20 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

ask your self why MQA needed to mobilize an army of internet shills to infiltrate the forums if process was so obviously superior?

 

Also ask your self if there is one true word in the bullshit name...

 

Master-we know for a fact the end result does NOT represent the master

Quality-we for a FACT there is REDUCED quality

Authenticated-we for a FACT nothing is authenticated 

 

Your reply doesn't really address what I posted. I was pointing out the different interpretations for the test results not arguing the definition or validity of the MQA acronym.

 

I will say tho that there appears to be a lot of self reinforcing attitudes going on and IMO it could be mistaken for intolerance and rant.

 

I don't disagree with what you said [edit- I can't comment on the "army of internet shills" tho] and chose the PCM files in the Archimago test.

 

 

Sound Minds Mind Sound

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

Yeah... At the end of the day, limitations are obvious for this kind of distributed testing. ABX would be good and any of those individuals who thought they heard a difference could have done the ABX themselves but I would not be able to compel them to do it.

 

Nonetheless, despite the limitations, we at least now have 2 independent sets of results that point to the same thing. Furthermore, these results are consistent with null tests / digital subtraction results between MQA-Core decoding and original lossless files showing little difference for the same mastering.

 

They converge on the same conclusion... There is no evidence of a "revolution" in sound quality. Folks do not seem to be "missing out" on some special level of auditory pleasure by not signing up for MQA. At best, MQA provides a bit of data compression for streaming of "hi-res" assuming one even hears an improvement compared to lossless 16/44.

 

I agree.

 

I will also have a look at the link, thanks.

 

Cheers

David

Sound Minds Mind Sound

 

 

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1 hour ago, beetlemania said:

 

Sounds like the dude who told Stereophile that other speaker designers hadn’t made any significant advances in years. Came out of nowhere to become “the world’s best speaker designer”. Just ask him!

We build loudspeakers, not furniture

Alon Wolf, Magico

 

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10 hours ago, Brinkman Ship said:

There was a very well known speaker manufacturer who had over 100 personas/monikers on various forums....there was a lot of pushback against his products after being elevated to God like status by a certain magazine.

 

Just hoping to qualify this... and the following replies, Crenca, et.al, to this first post.

 

So, accordingly, Alon Wolf, of Magico was very active on music based internet sites maintaining multiple aliases advancing his commercial interests.  Do I have it correctly?  

 

No snark here.  Just hoping for clarification.  Innuendo or fact?   No hands in the cookie jar but everyone knew?

 

 

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26 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

Many audiophiles who are still processing MQA have been puzzled by the emphatic insistence from some quarters that sound quality is not on the table when it comes to judging MQA's value to consumers. SQ now seems to be an acceptable topic for consideration on "MQA is Vaporware" and I was responding to the implication that all the enthusiasm for this aspect of the technology comes from the press.

 

 

 

I am not disputing (or misunderstanding) the conclusions Archimago drew from his Internet exercise. Rather, I looked at his data and noted that there were plenty of instances (78, to be specific) when a listener heard a "moderate difference" or "clear difference" between the high-resolution PCM file and the MQA-treated one. I mention them as examples of a perceived positive effect of MQA on SQ outside of the audiophile press.

 

 

 

There are differing levels of positivity and I do acknowledge the observations by Archimago, crenca, and Brinkman Ship that many of the most glowing assessments regarding SQ were presented early on in the American print magazines. But at these publications there has actually been a range of positivity, even at TAS. In my editorial last year ("The Politics of MQA") my conclusion was that "MQA is definitely different, and usually better. Not night and day better, but better" and the much-maligned Steven Stone has consistently characterized what he hears as the beneficial sonic effect of MQA as "subtle".

 

 

 

The observation has been made on this forum that an audiophile consumer with no connections to the audio industry who had strongly positive views about MQA would not find "Vaporware" to be the most hospitable place to express those views—and would stay away. That's why "civility" has been my subject, rather than sonics or the many valid non-SQ issues that have been raised regarding MQA. In both the "old guard" magazines (as Chris calls us) and at CA, I feel that all points of view should be treated respectfully so that the conversation remains useful to the widest possible constituency.

 

Andrew Quint

Senior Writer

The Absolute Sound

 

 

Hi Andrew,

Just to be clear "the quote" that I was referring to was that of Skikirkwood quoting Archimago. I believe I was aligned with what you were saying based on that selective Archimago quote. However I do agree with Archimago's clarification he subsequently posted. A little convoluted but hopefully that makes some sense.

 

As said, it would be instructive if the people that nominated a difference could undergo further ABX testing and I believe Archimago also agreed. I also agree that, on the face of it, they are the cohort that constitute " examples of a perceived positive effect of MQA on SQ outside of the audiophile press."

 

I personally have no problem with anyone preferring MQA if they honestly feel it is better SQ. I take your point that the press media coverage has not been universally glowing in this regard, especially the the non-sonic aspects.

 

I strongly agree that all viewpoints should be heard and that those that are most hostile should at least declare their industry affiliations, if present. I respect and appreciate you have included yours in your signature.

 

All that said, MQA makes little sense to me for pretty much the reasons that have been abundantly explained by others in this thread.

 

Cheers

David

Sound Minds Mind Sound

 

 

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1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

implication that all the enthusiasm for this aspect of the technology comes from the press

 

Jesus, dude! No one wrote that! Smh

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4 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

And yet repeated falsehoods and name-calling by this brigade of anonymous, Aspy wankers is allowed.

 

Jim Austin was correct; this is an official, certified, grade A, class 1 circle-jerk.  You guys likely need some tennis elbow bands to prevent an overuse syndrome.

@The Computer Audiophile ought to ban you for that.

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11 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Imagine if people are asked if they prefer chocolate to vanilla ice cream and the result comes back 50:50. Does that mean they were guessing or have no preference?

The answer to this is pretty clear if each person has consistent preferences. But if they choose which is in fact chocolate one time and vanilla another time, then we draw our own conclusions.

It's worth bearing in mind that in archimago's test the results showed

"9 listeners selecting all MQA and 12 listeners selecting all hi-res PCM" That's out of 83 listeners. This strongly suggests that  the results are more likely to be random than just spilt between mqa lovers and haters. If it were the latter than we would expect many more people to chose consistently. As it is  the results seem to match a random profile (ie about 1/8 for 3 MQAs or hi rezs.). It is also noteworthy that there was no tendency to prefer mqa amongst "experts" or the young. If there really were some interesting hi frequency/time domain accuracy effect at work you might expect this to show up amongst those who think they have better hearing, or even amongst those who actually do,.

 

It could of course be possible that preferences vary from track to track . If so I guess you might want to repeat the whole thing. My money would be that there would be considerable variation for individuals if it were repeated. In any event this seems a bit academic as either way MQA would not really be most people's first choice for most things.

 

 

You are not a sound quality measurement device

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3 hours ago, wdw said:

 

Just hoping to qualify this... and the following replies, Crenca, et.al, to this first post.

 

So, accordingly, Alon Wolf, of Magico was very active on music based internet sites maintaining multiple aliases advancing his commercial interests.  Do I have it correctly?  

 

No snark here.  Just hoping for clarification.  Innuendo or fact?   No hands in the cookie jar but everyone knew?

 

 

Essentially correct..more like audio hardware forums...he was there to address and control backlash from the over the top TAS reviews and to defend pricing, which at the time was shocking to many. He eventually ended up on one forum that had ultra wealthy members as himself to engage with fanboys, customers, and potential customers.

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11 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

I agree the difference stats do not support obvious differences. It would have been interesting to further test the cohort that nominated clear or moderate difference in a straight up ABX comparison to see how they fared but understandably beyond the scope of what could be achieved . That said I am on record as challenging the scientific validity of such test methodologies (as yet) but am open to the possibility. Kudos on what you did achieve, there should be more taking the time and effort to establish objective methods.

Whether or not one objects to ABX (and I'm not convinced there is any reason to), it might not be necessary. Since the number of people choosing 3 of either looks consistent with chance, why not just get them to repeat? If they don't consistently  come up with the same results second time then I wouldn't bother testing further.  Obviously the sample isn't very large, and it isn't entirely foolproof, but it might be a useful and fairly easy to perform  threshold test. If more than (say) 6 of them got the same result twice, it might be worth checking them. 

You are not a sound quality measurement device

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12 hours ago, Archimago said:

?

 

I'd love to see the text of the McGill University study:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=19396

 

While the methodology is of course different, sounds like the result is similar with listeners unable to overall significantly discriminate MQA vs. unprocessed file.

 

They were asked to assess the relative clarity of the two formats. They did not do so consistently ie there was no consistent preference.

Lots of analyses are done for particular types of music and categories of listener. There was ultimately no clear evidence of any individual having a consistent preference. There was a suggestion of a significant result for casual listeners preferring MQA for jazz on headphones,  but PCM speakers, but it's not clear whether a bonferri correction was done for it, and it seems a bit half hearted.

 

You are not a sound quality measurement device

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16 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

All this has already been addressed:

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/?page=334

 

 

 

 

Well, perhaps by you. But if we are talking about the relevance of SQ to a consideration of MQA, in recent days many CA posters have been ringing in on the issue. For those on either side of the issue or those who are undecided, this is clearly a metric that's worthy of discussion.

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1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

Ralf- "Looks like MQA Control Central has re-activated the Shill Brown account..."

"Do you have any disclosures to make?"

 

Me- "I have disclosed tons about myself here, including my complete lack of affiliation with anything in the audio business."

 

Crenca- "For Norton, or "Shill Brown"...... is trolling behavior straight up."

 

Audiophile Neuroscience said:

"people unwilling to declare no industry affiliations must be assumed to hold them ..."

 

Ralf- "like bill"

 

Audiophile Neuroscience- "who is bill"

 

Ralf- "see upthread - only comes out to support MQA"

 

I find all of this tiresome, childish, and, frankly, unacceptable.  I suppose Ralf's approach is in the belief that if you repeat a complete fabrication often enough it becomes true.  I am one of the few who posts using my real name, and earlier in this thread gave my legal name, profession, and state of residence.

 

I would also ask Ralf to find ONE instance in anything I have written that is supportive of MQA.  Just one!  If he can't he should retract his nonsensical accusations or simply STFU.

 

I say at one point that Brinkman Ship is ignorant of a subject and he cries to Chris (I assume so anyway, as he jumped right in, could have been someone else).  And yet repeated falsehoods and name-calling by this brigade of anonymous, Aspy wankers is allowed.

 

Jim Austin was correct; this is an official, certified, grade A, class 1 circle-jerk.  You guys likely need some tennis elbow bands to prevent an overuse syndrome.

Bill - You haven’t used the Report Post function a single time. 

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4 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

 

Well, perhaps by you. But if we are talking about the relevance of SQ to a consideration of MQA, in recent days many CA posters have been ringing in on the issue. For those on either side of the issue or those who are undecided, this is clearly a metric that's worthy of discussion.

Hi,

I am ok with the discussion of sound quality. As long as everyone is equal, and all views are taken for what they are - an opinion.

 

The problem has been, with the people who are journalists who respond on this site, is that they do not answer those questions which are difficult, or show MQA to be a false solution. This is not because they are incapable of understanding, they choose to not answer. Hence the suspicion that they are not being open and honest.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

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