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MQA is Vaporware

Rt66indierock

By Rt66indierock
in General Forum

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

Posted
Posted

4) MQA's Sound Quality promises have been promoted/hyped by your site, your publication, and the "Audiophile Press" in general in a way the defies proper description. Perhaps John A said it best: "In almost 40 years of attending audio press events, only rarely have I come away feeling that I was present at the birth of a new world." Why? What are you missing in your tool bag as it were, that allows such a pro-industry and anti-consumer stance?

 

Plenty there you can work with...

 

There we go again, assumptions and accusations galore.. Could you please try and translate this into a normal unprejudiced question..?

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

Posted
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Please do.

 

It's not arrogant if I can back it up however. What is arrogant is stating that you have experienced plainly audible differences in Ethernet cabling but are simply afraid of what it means for you to have your sighted evaluation variable removed from the listening session.

 

Here is the issue: Outside of power supply pollution on a switch CAT5/6 cabling is incredibly noise resistant. Immune even.

 

Siemons paper on susceptibility of Ethernet to gross error, as related to electric field interference over a 100 meter in total scenario shows no gross error even though they used a transceiver (in addition to a hand drill and microwave oven) in the 3-18v/m range.

 

Their conclusion ""No packet errors were detected for either the ‘generic' or ‘enhanced' category 5 channel configuration regardless of EMI source type, source location, or duration of exposure."

 

Keep in mind the cabling is UTP and not shield twisted pair.

 

Siemons other paper "The antenna myth" provides some other useful information:

 

"Magnetic field coupling occurs at low frequencies (i.e. 50Hz or 60 Hz) where the balance of the cabling system is more than sufficient to ensure immunity, which means that its impact can be ignored for all types of balanced cabling"

 

And

 

" 60 Hz signal results in an electric field disturbance that can only be measured in the thousandths of mV range, while sources operating in the MHz range can generate a fairly large electric field disturbance. For reference, 3V/m is considered to be a reasonable approximation of the average electric field present in a light industrial/ commercial environment and 10V/m is considered to be a reasonable approximation of the average electric field present in an industrial environment."

 

And

 

"This means that screened and fully-shielded cabling theoretically offers 100 to 1,000 times the immunity protection from electric field disturbances than UTP cabling does!"

 

And

 

"Well balanced (i.e. category 6 and above) cables should be immune to electromagnetic interference up to 30 MHz."

 

T.I also has some really fascinating technical papers that I'll get to in another post.

 

I welcome and encourage responses that are backed up with credible sources.

You're almost funny. Again: audible differences many times cannot be measured. This doesn't fit in your cosmos, I know. But it's true. [emoji4]

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

Posted
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I've answered your other question which to my mind answers this one as well. To clarify, while I understand the stated concerns regarding MQA and "DRM", I do not see how these concerns affect consumers today.

 

Perhaps it makes sense to also point out that I'm talking about and interested in what actually happens. Tidal/MQA being the most relevant point of discussion for me.

 

So, I am interested in understanding how a Tidal HiFi user is being negatively affected by MQA/DRM - today.

Well guys, it seems we have a reasonable, content-based discussion going on now after all.

 

Now, that wasn't so hard to do, was it..?

 

Thanks for keeping this discussion a constructive one! [emoji4]

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

Posted
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So...What about DRM? The limit of your thoughts/opinion on MQA as a legal entity and the consumers digital ecosystem (and the industry's also - Linn, Schiit, Benchmark, etc. have all spoken to this) is "all good"...ok, so no substantial opinion on your part. What is your opinion on having no opinion on this aspect of MQA and DRM in digital music?

 

DRM? Until now there's only MQA streaming on Tidal. There's no DRM there. I think that's Michael's point.

 

 

 

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

Posted
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Says WHO?

 

I've just provided information about the ability for CMNR data cabling to reject gross amounts of noise from 50Hz to 30MHz.

 

Find me one source where it was empirically shown that a group of people heard something, with all the proper controls in place, and the researcher couldn't measure and find out why.

 

Says I. I'm using my ears just as you wanted me to do and still you keep on talking about measurements. You're not reading what I'm posting. That's fine.

We're off topic, so please move your discussion elsewhere.

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

Posted
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If Michael actually made an cognizant point in this thread you should have no problem quoting it. He used a lot of words to say nothing.

I didn't comment on Michael, but on you. Maybe I will get to that later, if I still want to spend the energy. BTW: he certainly was right about one thing. You are annoying to discuss with.

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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It's because I'll badger a person to either actually construct a point they are trying to make or it will make them exit the thread.

 

You're no daisy yourself.

 

I have made my point but you don't accept any other views than your own. It's all fine. Do trust your scope and keep the faith there's no more to it than just that.

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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I think your apparent adoration of Mr. Lavorgna might be coloring your objectivity a little. He was pretty annoying as well.

Adoration..? Hahaha, no..! I don't adore anyone, but I do like to keep an open mind to arguments, be they coming from him or from you.

'as well'..? Yeah, you should indeed look to yourselves too.

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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Streaming and DRM makes perfect sense to me... For example, content over HDMI is "streaming", and it has DRM in the form of HDCP.

 

I think you misunderstand this point. Tidal is streaming MQA now. There is no DRM involved there, because it doesn't make sense. MQA is being accused here of having DRM, but until now you can only use it as a Tidal stream.

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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It seems that qobuz was already streaming high/rez without messing with the files and without trying to create a problem where no one was seeing one (the deblurring of timming errors)..

Have you heard MQA?

Even Darko thought MQA sounded clearly better than the original HD files in his comparison. Or is he now a suspect too, after the 'discussion' here with Michael yesterday? After all, 'you cannot trust the audio press'..

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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Below the Meridian Explorer prominently displayed in the "media kit" is something like a mission statement:

 

 

That sure sounds like the opposite of consumer advocacy to me.

 

And then, this:

 

 

 

This media "network" exists purely for advertisers. I don't see how that can be disputed.

We already had the discussion that all media need adds to survive. We also had several posts to explain the segregated organization of commercial and editorial activities. You can find a ghost under every bed when you look well enough.

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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It seems perfectly reasonable to me to use cryptography to verify that a music file is exactly the same as the original version released by the record label. If it helps check the provenance of music files, then as far as I'm concerned it is a feature, not a bug. DRM (aka Digital Restrictions Management) is about preventing copying, and not aimed at doing something useful to the end user in verifying provenance.

 

To me it is just the same as using using an md5 checksum to verify that my installed Free Software Debian packages are the ones built by Debian and haven't been interfered with. Yet nobody would accuse Debian of using DRM and as a consequence the content of the packages isn't Free Software.

Good comparison!

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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Yes, check Darko's site for details.

 

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From Darko's site:

 

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/06/an-inconvenient-truth-mqa-sounds-better/

 

"Why then would I want to keep hold of Gaucho’s first cut in MQA?"

 

"Put simply: because it sounds convincingly better than the normal, non-MQA’d 24bit/96kHz file. Lest you thought MQA was just a way to pack, transmit and then unpack hi-res audio via what Bob Stuart calls “audio origami” or “encapsulation”, it isn’t. It’s that. But also more."

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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You could easily add a standard cryptographic signature (e.g. PGP) to a FLAC file. The format allows arbitrary fields in the header that will simply be ignored by decoders that don't recognise them.

 

Since you make the analogy with software distribution, let's take that one step further. Many devices, for instance most phones, will refuse to run software that doesn't pass the signature verification, meaning you can't replace the vendor's software with something else. This is something free software advocates strongly object to. Would you like a DAC that will only play music with a valid signature? I can easily see MQA making it a licensing condition that DACs be limited to CD quality if no signature is found. Obviously, they'll have to wait for the format to catch on first.

 

If you think this seems far-fetched, look no further than to HD video. To produce a Blu-ray player, you must agree to limit the picture to DVD resolution if the display connection doesn't have HDCP encryption. MQA could become the music industry's equivalent of HDCP.

 

I think it's pretty far-fetched indeed. First off, it would mean a severe restriction of their current policy to only allow CD quality (for non-MQA users) in a later stage. You shouldn't underestimate the market response if this would be the case. People would get mad and rightfully so. It could simply mean the end of you. As far as I can recall it would be a first in history for any sound format if such a restriction would happen later on and again, it would go completely against the technology trend of the last years. Standards are regularly set right from the off. Changing them later doesn't give you much credit.

Secondly: I have never heard anyone here complain about the fact that you also need to pay now for your dts and Dolby Digital decoders in your Blu-Ray and DVD players. Why is everybody mad about a standard that acts similarly, but at least doesn't FORCE you to buy it..?

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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The page of the TEN site you are looking at, "AudioStream Media Kit" is a page designed by corporate for potential Advertisers. You can read about AudioStream's Editorial policies on our About page.

Thanks, Michael. I studied journalism myself and based on that background I have already explained the usual practice of segregation of commercial and editorial activities when we are talking 'proper' journalism several times.

However, it doesn't seem to be accepted by many members here. It's what it is.

 

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Vincent1234

Vincent1234

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They already restrict playback to "CD" quality for non-MQA DACs.

 

No, and I think you know very well this is not correct, unless you missed a lot of the previous discussions. It's 24/96 max based on the current (partial) Tidal MQA software decoding. That's far beyond CD quality. It's actually called hi-res. And you don't need an MQA DAC for that at all. You do however for resolutions above that.

 

Not if they get to a point where the bulk of music is distributed as MQA.

 

As discussed here earlier that's not very likely at all. Again a lot of if's here.

 

Dolby Digital and DTS didn't replace anything that existed before. They provided something new: surround sound. Some form of compression was necessary to provide this feature within the physical bitrate limitations of the DVD medium (~10 Mbps).

 

As for nobody complaining about the locked-down nature of the DVD format, that's flat-out wrong. The creators of the DeCSS program were even put on trial (and acquitted) in Norway.

 

I'm not talking about hacking DVD encryption here. That's illegal, whether you like it or not.

My comment is about lots of people here pointing at MQA for its proprietary nature while it doesn't even force you to buy it. Dolby Digital and dts do. You are already paying for it for many, many years with each player you own or have owned in the past.

 

 

 

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