MQA is Vaporware

[HalSF]

6 hours ago, Don Hills said:

 

Journalists tend to have certain character traits. One of them is to never admit being wrong.

 

I admire the way this invective retails a beloved trope of authoritarians and cynics everywhere — that the practice of ethical journalism is inherently corrupted by a depraved characterological tendency toward dishonesty and lack of accountability. Basically that there's a professional license to lie, and no meaningful mechanisms for self-correction.

 

The audacity is embracing this box-of-rocks obliviousness in the face of the millions of routine and major corrections and apologies that incessantly pour out of news organizations, not to mention successful libel lawsuits, firings of bad reporters, and scandals when journalists get major stories wrong.

 

But if beating MQA requires sliming good journalists everywhere, go for it.

[crenca]

3 minutes ago, HalSF said:

 

I admire the way this invective retails a beloved trope of authoritarians and cynics everywhere — that the practice of ethical journalism is inherently corrupted by a depraved characterological tendency toward dishonesty and lack of accountability. Basically that there's a professional license to lie, and no meaningful mechanisms for self-correction.

 

The audacity is embracing this box-of-rocks obliviousness in the face of the millions of routine and major corrections and apologies that incessantly pour out of news organizations, not to mention successful libel lawsuits, firings of bad reporters, and scandals when journalists get major stories wrong.

 

But if beating MQA requires sliming good journalists everywhere, go for it.

 

 

Are you a journalist HalSF? ?

 

I agree with you here, I don't see a crude narcissism as a character trait more common in journalists than say, cooks - on the contrary.

 

I think perhaps where Don Hills got it wrong is thinking that these trade publication writers under discussion are in some way, shape or form, "journalists".

[Brinkman Ship]

20 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

 

Are you a journalist HalSF? ?

 

I agree with you here, I don't see a crude narcissism as a character trait more common in journalists than say, cooks - on the contrary.

 

I think perhaps where Don Hills got it wrong is thinking that these trade publication writers under discussion are in some way, shape or form, "journalists".

Ask the question..how many writers at TAS, Stereophile etc actually have journalism degrees...the answer may or may not surprise you...virtually none.

 

Many, in fact, used to be HiFi salesmen. This is not a putdown or a joke, but a statement of fact.

 

And I agree with HalSF that this MQA episode should not be an indictment of the entire free press. That is a bridge too far.

 

I think where things went wrong with audiophile magazines is that as things progressed, and egos swelled, they started to blur the line between opinion and fact.

 

To your point about Fremer slamming Shaw for a sloppy, poorly researched story..well that is exactly how you could label his comments about MQA...sloppy, and poorly researched, if at all.

[tmtomh]

1 hour ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Are were reading the same piece?

 

He calls the guy dishonest, cynical, incompetent, and a liar.  He says his "career is over"..is that a threat?

 

He also "thinks" he was misquoted...

 

He also wrote, which apparently has been removed as a few months ago, "what an asshole", right in the text.

 

I wish I had done a screenshot.

 

If he he called the guy an "asshole," then I agree with you.

[Brinkman Ship]

Just now, tmtomh said:

 

If he he called the guy an "asshole," then I agree with you.

He did. That is a fact. It was in the linked post just up until recently..seemed to have been cleaned up after the acquisition.

[Ralf11]

magazine issues could be dealt with here:

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/43609-audiophile-magazines/

 

and leave this topic for MWA and It's Discontents 

[Brinkman Ship]

13 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

 

If he he called the guy an "asshole," then I agree with you.

Picture if you will, if a poster here had declared  "Stereophile/TAS writer (John Atkinson, Robert Harley, Jim Austin, Michael Lavorgna's (fill in the blank) Career is Over"

 

How long would that post stand?

[tmtomh]

1 minute ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Picture if you will, if a poster here had declared  "Stereophile/TAS writer (John Atkinson, Robert Harley, Jim Austin, Michael Lavorgna's (fill in the blank) Career is Over"

 

How long would that post stand?

 

People here have said worse about Atkinson and Austin.

[Brinkman Ship]

Just now, tmtomh said:

 

People here have said worse about Atkinson and Austin.

I don't think so. I could be wrong.

[Brinkman Ship]

Our host might get a good laugh at this:

 

One comment from Fremer tirade, said the following-

 

by "reel"

 

"He (Shah) is just another one of those people (including Mr. Computer Audiophile Chris Connaker) out there that simply hate the vinyl resurgent. To them it's going backward in time and technology regardless of sound quality, because they never had a true transcendent sound experience in their lives like we all had."

 

I got a chuckle out of it..
 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Our host might get a good laugh at this:

 

One comment from Fremer tirade, said the following-

 

by "reel"

 

"He (Shah) is just another one of those people (including Mr. Computer Audiophile Chris Connaker) out there that simply hate the vinyl resurgent. To them it's going backward in time and technology regardless of sound quality, because they never had a true transcendent sound experience in their lives like we all had."

 

I got a chuckle out of it..
 

Ha!

[Brinkman Ship]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Ha!

Chris, when you call up to make restaurant reservation, and they ask you your name, do you say "Mr. Computer Audiophile"? ???

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Chris, when you call up to make restaurant reservation, and they ask you your name, do you say "Mr. Computer Audio" ???

Um, yeah.

[Rt66indierock]

8 hours ago, Don Hills said:

 

Journalists tend to have certain character traits. One of them is to never admit being wrong. If forced to retract a headline, do it with a small sentence hidden on an inside page. Realistically, you aren't going to get people in Andrew's position to "publicly" change their opinion.  The best you can do is reasonably counter his arguments and present a credible alternative viewpoint for the audience. Rabid anti-MQA sentiment and personal attacks destroy your credibility. He wins because of your lack of self control.

 

Don the best we can hope for is for journalists to walk away from MQA. Let me tell you about a concept called “talent acquisition.” This is where journalists are paid to mention products in the stories they write. It is prevalent in tech and financial reporting. The Huffington Post has fairly elaborate procedures in place to stop it they say. I say they did a pretty good job of slowing it down but it is a pervasive practice.

 

I’m not saying journalists are being paid to mention MQA but the pattern of how MQA is mentioned is similar to what goes on in the tech and finance publications and blogs where the journalists are compensated. And it’s not like journalists don’t get stuff. Andrew Quint told he gets Tidal free, CDs and SACDs show up at his mailbox every month, long-term loans of equipment and industry accommodation pricing make a pretty slippery slope. There must be some perceived benefit to writing and mentioning MQA above and beyond sound quality or they wouldn’t do it.

 

What I’ve found is I pass over this stuff because I have low expectations of journalists and direct access to information. If you have no direct access to information, some expectations of audio journalists and them having some ethical responsibilities to you the reader then I can see people getting angry and attacking them personally.

 

Finally do you think Andrew Quint would be here if Brian Lucey hadn’t attacked his editor verbally at the Los Angeles Audio Show and Charley Hansen didn’t attack him on Audio Asylum before he passed away? I don’t because I was there when Brian verbally attacked Bob Stuart and Robert Harley. Charley was a friend and he could have said far worse.  The anger directed at The Absolute Sound must be having an impact because that seems to be the only reason Andrew posts here.

[skikirkwood]

3 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Did you see the part where an EPA spokesman calls a reporter a 'piece of trash' in the part that wasn't Photoshoped ?  And Andrew Quint is worried about what has been said about Robert Harley and The Absolute Sound. 

 

As a very progressive/liberal person living in the United States, this is a really strange time.

 

But, not to bring up politics,  I believe there is a connection between MQA and Trump being elected. 

 

During the final round of email exchanges I had with our friend Michael Lavorgna, which was before Trump got elected, I told him that the bigger issue I had with what I concluded with the high end audiophile press was that there was a large amount of anti-science and anti-intellectualism being promoted by professional audio pundits.  And that was part of a larger trend, at least in the United States, where not enough people were trying to seek the truth and understand the facts in political issues.  Not enough questions were being asked.  

 

So while I had no issue with some wealthy fool spending $1000 on an Ethernet cable because he was conned into believing it would give him better sound quality, the real issue was that people were being fed a pack of lies and being trained to not look for facts, data, and use logic to determine the state of things.  That behaviour enabled Trump to get elected.  And I see exactly the same thing happening with MQA and other topics in the high end audio world.

 

I didn't mention to ML that I thought Audiostream was the Fox News of audio publications, but perhaps I should have.

[rickca]

15 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

There must be some perceived benefit to writing and mentioning MQA above and beyond sound quality or they wouldn’t do it.

And they are still doing it.  Why?  If you think a group is a bunch of fringe nut cases,  you dismiss them and move on.  Yet the trade publication writers continue to engage with people they consider misguided fanatics on this thread.  Why?

[beetlemania]

21 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Finally do you think Andrew Quint would be here if Brian Lucey hadn’t attacked his editor verbally at the Los Angeles Audio Show and Charley Hansen didn’t attack him on Audio Asylum before he passed away?

 

This piqued my curiosity. Not sure I found what you referenced but here are two gems:

https://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/8/88679.html

https://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/8/89632.html

[rickca]

26 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Andrew Quint told he gets Tidal free, CDs and SACDs show up at his mailbox every month, long-term loans of equipment and industry accommodation pricing make a pretty slippery slope.

I expect he got all that stuff even before MQA made the scene.  What's so particularly attractive about promoting MQA?

[Rt66indierock]

34 minutes ago, skikirkwood said:

 

As a very progressive/liberal person living in the United States, this is a really strange time.

 

But, not to bring up politics,  I believe there is a connection between MQA and Trump being elected. 

 

During the final round of email exchanges I had with our friend Michael Lavorgna, which was before Trump got elected, I told him that the bigger issue I had with what I concluded with the high end audiophile press was that there was a large amount of anti-science and anti-intellectualism being promoted by professional audio pundits.  And that was part of a larger trend, at least in the United States, where not enough people were trying to seek the truth and understand the facts in political issues.  Not enough questions were being asked.  

 

So while I had no issue with some wealthy fool spending $1000 on an Ethernet cable because he was conned into believing it would give him better sound quality, the real issue was that people were being fed a pack of lies and being trained to not look for facts, data, and use logic to determine the state of things.  That behaviour enabled Trump to get elected.  And I see exactly the same thing happening with MQA and other topics in the high end audio world.

 

I didn't mention to ML that I thought Audiostream was the Fox News of audio publications, but perhaps I should have.

 

A lot of people on both sides of politics in the US don't know each other. 

 

As for audio things have gone too far to the subjective side but the typical audiophile is never around the more objective side of sound evaluation so they don't even know what the facts are or what data is relevant. 

 

I think Bob Stuart counted on the ability to push nontechnical audiophiles toward his product. I don't think he realized until the middle of 2017 that there were too many technical types to stop. And the press is wondering where did we all come from?

[Confused]

1 hour ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Our host might get a good laugh at this:

 

One comment from Fremer tirade, said the following-

 

by "reel"

 

"He (Shah) is just another one of those people (including Mr. Computer Audiophile Chris Connaker) out there that simply hate the vinyl resurgent. To them it's going backward in time and technology regardless of sound quality, because they never had a true transcendent sound experience in their lives like we all had."

 

I got a chuckle out of it..
 

And does Mr Computer Audiophile actually hate the vinyl resurgent?  (or should that be vinyl resurgence?)

[Rt66indierock]

48 minutes ago, rickca said:

And they are still doing it.  Why?  If you think a group is a bunch of fringe nut cases,  you dismiss them and move on.  Yet the trade publication writers continue to engage with people they consider misguided fanatics on this thread.  Why?

 

We are the majority and at some point you have engage us.

[Rt66indierock]

40 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

 

This piqued my curiosity. Not sure I found what you referenced but here are two gems:

https://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/8/88679.html

https://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/8/89632.html

 

Those are indeed gems.

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, Confused said:

And does Mr Computer Audiophile actually hate the vinyl resurgent?  (or should that be vinyl resurgence?)

 

I don’t hate it at all. I just think the sound quality of vinyl is vastly overstated when almost all recordings originate on a hard drive. I also think the resurgence is a fad. That’s all. 

[Rt66indierock]

40 minutes ago, rickca said:

I expect he got all that stuff even before MQA made the scene.  What's so particularly attractive about promoting MQA?

 

The press is hierarchical. I think many members of the press saw it as a way to advance up a level or two. After all  most of them have day jobs in many cases good ones or are professionals.

[Rt66indierock]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I don’t hate it at all. I just the sound quality of vinyl is vastly overstated when almost all recordings originate on a hard drive. I also think the resurgence is a fad. That’s all. 

 

Digital was created because of the limitations vinyl.  And in the UK 72% of vinyl is bought by people who spend 400 Pounds or more on records (about 19) a year.