MQA is Vaporware

[Rt66indierock]

11 hours ago, ARQuint said:

 

Cookie Marenco is a respected engineer and producer with 5 Grammy nominations. She has recorded Brad Mehldau, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Mary Chapin Carpenter and uses her real name. It's highly doubtful that "Ishmael Slapowitz" has any qualifications as an audio professional and has exactly one criterion for who is worthy in the field and who isn't. Most, me included, recognize that Slapowitz gets his jollies by riling people up and is here for his entertainment value. But I also feel it doesn't reflect well on AS for an especially conscientious and generous member of our industry like Marenco to be subject to preadolescent name-calling.

 

It also doesn't help the case of more thoughtful critics of MQA.

 

Andy Quint

 

 

Andy what about the thoughtless supporters of MQA? And as far as who is an audio professional I stand by my two sentence review of the Okto stereo DAC in Stereophile. COVID hurt my recording activities in 2020. I’m hopeful later this year I can get a new favorite in a studio. 

[Rt66indierock]

3 hours ago, firedog said:

People can convice themselves of all sorts of things - and believe them - when profit is involved.

 

The hope of profit not profit. Bob Stuart has reached a unique milestone in high end audio. He has managed to lose $100 dollars this century operating Meridian and MQA. Sorry I didn't post them here but I had my reasons. The current numbers are on Real HD Audio if you want to see them.

 

Tidal is also at an interesting point. Before Jack Dorsey bought a majority share, Tidal revenue and current liabilities were almost equal. Tidal funds its operations by not paying its bills. 

 

MQA is simply a bad business decision. The investors made a bad decision investing in MQA, manufacturers made a bad one by supporting it, Roon, Tidal, nug.net and others made a bad one by providing content.

[Rt66indierock]

Just another bit of evidence John Darko is trying convince people he has an objective viewpoint when the weight of evidence shows he writes ad copy.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

 

John,

Since you're here on this thread, let's talk candidly. I appreciate all that you've done for the audiophile community over the decades. You can certainly be proud of many successes you have brought to Stereophile over the years. The measurements and continued focus on objective performance has made the magazine unique certainly in North America and among the magazines I've had access to during my "formative years" as an audiophile.

 

However, I suspect that the the time ahead for you as Technical Editor isn't going to be all that long. Honestly, how many more years are you keen to measure equipment? In fact, the age of most of your "top" writers are certainly up there and human auditory physiology has a universal trajectory. I hope you're well on the way to training the next person you'll be passing this baton on to for the Technical tasks. I'm sure there are many other things one would want to enjoy in retirement...

 

Your legacy however, IMO, is tainted in recent years by MQA. When you wrote the infamous article claiming to have witnessed the "birth of a new world" and comparing MQA with the dawn of consumer digital audio (CD), is this honestly what you expected to happen? Face it. MQA has done a horrendous disservice to the audiophile hobby. It has created a schism between those who feel that "we" care about "fidelity" at a level that can be technically demonstrated and proven (you're the Technical Editor, right?) versus those like Hans B above who offer weak words and admissions of "guessing".

 

I do not expect a reply to this. All I ask is that you think about not what MQA is since evidence is there for all to see, but at a "meta" level what MQA has done to the hobby and what it represents. Yes, I think MQA has opened up a "new world". But it's not the world you wrote about in December 2014. I think it has become a more honest world for audiophiles. MQA unintentionally may have brought audiophiles back into the technical side of the hobby; a side that I trust you are comfortable with.

 

There is an opportunity here to do the right thing IMO. Have a good look at MQA again as the Techical Editor all these years since 2014. Re-evaluate what you think of that "new world" and MQA's place in it. There's no shame in changing opinions. If you think this is necessary/appropriate, certainly many of us here would respect the integrity.

 

 

John has had a standing invitation to visit and explore Arizona Highways. Maybe spend some time on Rt 66 and visit the wild burros in Oatman Arizona. But I don't think he will change his mind.

[Rt66indierock]

4 hours ago, GregWormald said:

May I suggest that to be taken seriously we need to avoid the same denigrative tactics and exaggeration (lies?) that MQA has used. They are already having to back down from some of their more suspect claims due to the diligence of some "auditors". If that can be kept up they may well have to back down to just being a lossy compression algorithm that may sound better than MP3 .

 

Remember that while "fighting fire with fire" can be tempting, the real professionals mostly use water.

 

Greg, we thrashed this out in 2017 after the LA Audio Show so don't say anything Charles Hansen didn't say on Audio Asylum before he died, point out the lack of consumer acceptance of MQA and question the expertise and powers of observation of every supporter of MQA.

 

As for fighting fires, fight them the way we do in Arizona. The Hotshots use picks, shovels and chainsaws. These tools are effective fighting MQA too.

[Rt66indierock]

A gift from Duncan Rolfe and Peter Veth via mQa developments and reviews Facebook page. As a long time member of the group I appreciate them documenting the failure mQa to be a significant part of the HiFi tier of Tidal Music.  

MQA_List 16th May 2021.xlsx

[Rt66indierock]

On 5/7/2021 at 1:46 PM, John_Atkinson said:

 

Agree. And one of the participants, Vicki Melchior, is one of the most respected DSP experts around.

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

 

John did you think nobody would check a few places like LinkedIn and Vicki Melchior’s article High-Resolution Audio: A History and Perspective? Vicki has four activities on LinkedIn and two of them reference Mike Jbara. Her article has many references to Bob Stuart articles too many for the number of streaming users with access to MQA as of the article’s date.

[Rt66indierock]

On 6/7/2021 at 1:10 AM, jparvio said:

 

Not sure who this was targeted to..?  Me?

 

When it comes to MQA I don't use it. I even moved from Tidal to Qobuz the minute they officially offered service in Finland since I don't accept Tidal´s MQA policy (replacing originals with MQA-versions). I believe people should be left with freedom of choice but they need to be educated so that they can select wisely.  

 

I'm not for foisting anything to anyone. Except for the truth when it comes to MQA. Saddens me to see where this all has lead; stationary War between the sides, much like the WW1.

 

What a shame, really.   

 

Jussi, here is how it looks to me. Investors put in $52 million and are committed to put in in another $13 million. The labels contributed $11million in services and about 200 plus members of audio press actively supported MQA. The oposition was a few real professionals, some very good engineers and more than a few audiophiles thought things seemed fishy.  

 

I never liked WW1 analogies but if this is staionary war, the casulaties are investors money and audio journalists. The investors can spend all the money they want but it won't change the outcome. And if we lose 300 to 400 audio journalists I don't have a problem with that. They all have nice portfolios of ad copy, what you call reviews to for their next employers.

[Rt66indierock]

17 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

Can there really be as many as 400 "audio journalists" on the planet?  Seems like a high number.

 

Opposing mQa has at least one of those "audio journalists" using words like "partisans".  The implication being that their whole-hearted endorsement of mQa is something that's deserved and proper, and that the purveyors of this latest bit of lossy-encoder-meets-DRM should be believed without question.  But any skepticism or open analysis of the codec is dismissed out of hand as the work of anonymous, unskilled "partisans".

 

Isn't this like the very first thing you learn in Propaganda School?  Like the first day?  I mean, they're hardly even trying to hide it.

 

 

 

I've heard some big numbers at Munich, more than 500 press credentails issued. 

 

If you question MQA you are questioning the authority structure of high end audio. Which is to influence audiophiles not inform them.

 

If you know American history this is obvious. Calls for civility are used to silence dissent. Calls for fairness are used to manipulate debate.  See Jim Austin's  column and Armir's lates adventures with his readers about MQA for examples of the new fairness tactic.

[Rt66indierock]

12 hours ago, Fast and Bulbous said:

Hi Phil

Great to hear from you here. And to see Neil continuing his efforts with integrity.

The irony of Pono and the failure to deliver the intended initial file format for it, by what would become MQA, is not lost in all of this. That Neil chose Ayre and Charley H as the eventual designer of much of the internals for the PonoPlayer led to the meetings and dialogues between Neil and Charley, online and face to face, that very early on accurately saw through MQA - technically and commercially and exposed their overall strategy. 

This ain't over...

ian

 

I think Charles Hansen would happy with the resistence to MQA. I've been fighting it and all the misinformation about Bob Stuar's track record for five years. I have another ten years left in me.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

 

In this field I think there are very few that I would consider journalists. There are many that repeat the talking points and ad copy and are given status by the manufacturers.

 

Journalism died March 13, 2006 in Durham North Carolina. Duke Lacrosse

 

I'm sure I will have a sheep or shill moment or two this weekend at T.H.E. Show.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

 

Please do not suggest that we have ten more years of this BS!

 

I was told last month I'll be working for 10 more years. Easy enough fight whatever licensesing schem someone comes up with in that time.

[Rt66indierock]

Let the fun begin at T.H.E. Show.

[Rt66indierock]

Another day at an audio show and another MQA demo failure.

 

Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald You Can’t Take That From Me my notes were why bother, still too much noise.

[Rt66indierock]

2 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

Hope you're having fun down there man!

 

Heard it's pretty small as expected this year so lots of time to savor your favourite rooms and even take in more MQA demo ;-).

 

Wondering, when they demo mQa these days, are they switching between a standard 16/48 or "hi-res" version and the mQa decoded version or is it just... "Here's the MQA! Ain't it awesome?", any A/B comparison?

Just dealer playing an MQA file. Stand alone, he just said it was MQA after the song.

[Rt66indierock]

28 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

Would love to hear from @Rt66indierockif this was an actual MQA demo or just some off-the-cuff dealer "show and tell".

 

Likewise, over the years, whether I've attended actual demos to show off MQA or at dealers, the test materials used really have not been true-hi-res stuff (once I heard a 2L recording in a demo in 2016, that was basically it).

 

Of course for mQa, they want to imply that the codec is "Good for any music!" but by not selecting tracks that even could benefit from the technology, it just doesn't speak well about the knowledge/awareness of what it is they're selling nor consistent with the advertising claims. I suspect the "knowledge gap" between many informed audiophiles and the professional demo/sales people can be uncomfortably wide.

There was an information gap, my SO Sheri asked me why are we are listening to tape hiss. She will never attend another show with me.
 

I’m enjoying myself and catching up with people but anybody who writes they are listening to great systems is fooling themselves.

[Rt66indierock]

I was told by Emiko Carlin the shows marketing person that ticket sales are higher this year than 2018 and 2019.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

I haven’t read the last 50 pages in this tread. The link beneath is a good summary of everything that’s bad with MQA. Maybe Chris can add this to the first post, so people don’t have to read 1000 pages. 

MQA REALLY IS A FRAUD!

 

 

This thread is working as I intended it to. A running commentary where I can say that was discussed or debunked years ago.

[Rt66indierock]

20 hours ago, UkPhil said:

Although not directly on topic I found this quote interesting from Barry Grint mastering engineer of Alchemy Mastering in UK in 2019.

 

“Warner Records, for example, go to extraordinary lengths to digitize their analog masters. They seek out the best possible copy, are meticulous in the transfer to 24bit 192 KHz, and make copious quality control notes. There is every opportunity for a mastering engineer to deliver this audio to a higher standard than was possible before.”

 

if that’s the case why would they market the sausage machine MQA conversions as master quality “better than lossless and an enhanced  than what was heard in the studio” unless it wasn’t driven by money with the hope they can lock the true master away from the consumer in the future. 

Why just give consumers a 24/96 or a 24/48 version for streaming I am sure that would suffice or if everyone is so worried about data amounts create a 20/96 file which no doubt will be reasonably average size and will hold most audible music anyone would need to consume 

 

 

 

Actualy we have talked about this before. And a Warner Music Rep at the LA Audio Show gave me the exact breakdown of the high files they had as of that date. Almost none were 24/192.

 

[Rt66indierock]

6 minutes ago, nycaudiolistener said:

In summary, if digital is inherently "unnatural" more digital doesn't make it more "natural."

 

Digital isn't inherently unnatural. The MQA encoding process thins the edges of the soundstage and deepens the center, All well known years before you ever heard of MQA. 

 

The vast majority of recording and mastering engineers have rejected it. And the only ADC with MQA is now a legacy product. 

 

It almost looks like a few folks in NYC got suckered by MQA and they think well if I like it must be good. I just got back from the T.H.E. Show in Long Beach, CA, only sunny Components was demoing MQA becasue  nobody else cares.

[Rt66indierock]

6 hours ago, Fokus said:

 

But that amounts to the use of a different master, perhaps even a different mix, and is not an innate part of the MQA technology.

 

Nope, Bob Stuart told me it changes the sound at the Los Angles Audio Show in 2017.

 

In any case, there are no alternate masters or mixes with thin sounding edges and a thicker middle of Dr Dog’s B Room yet they are in the MQA version.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Some interesting mQa info. 
 

I’m out in Los Angeles this week and had an opportunity to talk to a “civilian” who recently got interested in HiFi. He has some very basic but wisely selected gear. 
 

Out of the blue he asked me about mQa. Wanted to know my opinion. He said he was looking at differences between Qobuz and Tidal, and that sparked his interest in researching mQa. 
 

He found @GoldenOne’s videos right away. Unsurprisingly he didn’t connect the Chris in the RMAF snippet with me. Nonetheless, he wasn’t thrilled with mQa, after doing a little online research. 

You can hit all of the boulevards in “I Love LA” and fun places for children.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

What I would like to know: Is MQA still trying to foist this horrid scheme on the music consumer?

 

With all the recent examination is MQA conceding "We've been exposed".

                                   OR

Is MQA working still to implement their scheme?

Bob Stuart won't give up until he runs out of money. The question is will the investors will notice MQA Ltd has no market share and not fund them for 2022.? Or notice that the maket is not interested in paying a premium for audio quality above AAC or 320k MP3? 

[Rt66indierock]

3 hours ago, RichardSF said:

Tidal hasn't released subscriber numbers in recent years, but it probably has less than 1% market share of streaming music, and Qobuz is even much smaller than Tidal. If you look at charts of market share, Tidal and Qobuz are usually not listed, and lumped into the "Others" category. As a point of reference, in 2019 Roon said they had 100K subscribers (equivalent of 2 football stadiums). In summary, audiophiles make up a very, very small portion of total market share.

 

https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/global-music-subscriber-market-shares-q1-2021

On the Hifi tier the market share is less than a tenth of a percent.

[Rt66indierock]

4 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

The OP has made this point many times: consumer audio at sample rates and bit depths above 44kHz/16 bits is a hard sell to consumers.

 

The fact that mQa is now infecting CD quality audio (and oddly, driving down the effective resolution to below that of CD), to me proves that mQa is about consumer chain domination and not about sound quality.

 

I'm still a little surprised that Spencer Chrislu's "crown jewels" sales pitch now extends all the way down to CD quality audio.  Funny how mQa never discusses why we need lower resolution CDs or lower resolution 44/16 files.

 

The mQa emperor truly wears no clothes.  Why would anyone want mQa to exist?

 

The OP is now seeing lossless streaming to be a hard sell. It looks like you can keep 99% of people happy with 256k AAC or 320k Mp3 streaming.

 

The labels have been dumping some MQA files lately. I think most were converted prior to 2019 but not given to Tidal because of back royalties due. Square Inc bought Tidal for Hip Hop and access to artists with a good pitch we can help you sell stuff and pay you faster.

 

There doesn’t seem to a market for the “crown jewels” sorry Spenser Chrislu.

 

MQA should be liquidated and put this attempt to license the music chain from artist to consumer to bed. But the wrong side of the audio bell curve men like Ted Green, Bill Leebens, Jim Austin and Lee Scoggins are trying to keep a discussion about MQA alive.