MQA is Vaporware

[Ralf11]

Paul R did make one good point: That Bob Stuart has made a number of good contributions to audio.

 

That is why I was extremely surprised to see all the MQA bad info here when I first encountered it.  But the technical data cannot be argued with.

[KeenObserver]

And the cycle starts all over again.

 

If you say the world is flat a million times you may convince a number of people.  There are gullible people and people that are intellectually lazy who will believe.  You will even have bloggers that will repeat it in order to look like they are in the know.

However, repeating it a million times does not make the world flat!

There are people who have sailed all the way around the world and will testify that the world is not flat.  One then has to look at the people that are saying the world  is flat and question their motives.  Cui Bono.

[KeenObserver]

TAS and Stereophile have gone all in on MQA.  They have staked their professional reputations on it.  They have no choice but to play the hand.

[ARQuint]

On 2/9/2019 at 7:57 PM, rickca said:

OK @KeenObserver are you @Brinkman Ship?

 

OMG.

I hear it too!

 

Read the last 4 or 5 of his posts. If its not him, it's  as pitch-perfect an imitation as I could have imagined possible—and I'm full of admiration

[asdf1000]

On 2/11/2019 at 12:40 PM, Em2016 said:

 

 

Thanks Chris. The Amazon blue light story made me chuckle.

 

Spotify and Apple Music subscriber numbers continue to grow, so I don't see either of those in any rush to change anything in terms of sound quality. But no rush doesn't mean they're always looking at ways to get some sort of competitive advantage.

 

We know Spotify trialled CD quality streaming in 2 years ago. 

 

Apple Music getting into headphones (first with Beats and soon their own branded headphones, it is rumoured), they might want better 'end to end' sound quality - from 'Mastered for iTunes' to the headphones. They can probably do that skipping MQA, even offering better AAC quality than presently offered. Beats headphones sound quality has improved a lot the last years, so the trajectory is good, even though I still much prefer my MrSpeakers Aeon Closed cans.

 

Of 'the big 4' that leaves Amazon and Google, who have the cashola but lacking in paid music streaming subscriber numbers.  Let's see where things go.

 

 

 

 

I've known about the Mastered for iTunes program with Apple (they recommend submitting 24bit/96kHz).

 

But for Spotify I always thought the labels delivered the lossy ogg Vorbis files to Spotify.

 

Not the case it seems.

 

So both Spotify and Apple Music are sitting on a massive lossless collection. While I've said they wouldn't be in a rush (subscriber numbers continue to grow healthily), it seems only a matter of time that they push the button on lossless streaming.

 

It's all there ready to go for both Spotify and Apple Music, whenever they feel like it. I don't see MQA Ltd having ANY chance with these Big Two.

 

[KeenObserver]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

 

OMG.

I hear it too!

 

Read the last 4 or 5 of his posts. If its not him, it's  as pitch-perfect an imitation as I could have imagined possible—and I'm full of admiration

 

That is incredibly lame!

 

But then, look who you write for!

[crenca]

After going back and forth on the Roon forum over a feature request for a way to focus on 16/44 when browsing Tidal (right now, MQA is privileged - you have to drill down several clicks to find the album/track in 16/44), I want to give credit where credit is due:

 

MQA and the audiophile trade publications did their job in selling MQA to many.  They come out of the woodwork with a real desire to protect MQA from any and all who reject it (or simply want a choice).  

 

Bob S for president!

[Tintinabulum]

My impression is that people come out of the woodwork with a desire to do it down. They do a fantastic job! I suppose it depends on your point of view.

 

It's when the detractors start threatening those with different opinions its gets a bit murky..don't you think crenca?

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

My impression is that people come out of the woodwork with a desire to do it down. They do a fantastic job! I suppose it depends on your point of view.

 

It's when the detractors start threatening those with different opinions its gets a bit murky..don't you think crenca?

Threatening someone on Audiophile Style is against the rules and leads to a user ban. 

[crenca]

59 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

My impression is that people come out of the woodwork with a desire to do it down. They do a fantastic job! I suppose it depends on your point of view.

 

It's when the detractors start threatening those with different opinions its gets a bit murky..don't you think crenca?

 

For some folks, facts and reality are threatening in of themselves 😂

[loop7]

If MQA ultimately fades away, will anyone be surprised if another company invents yet another technology with similar goals?

[Dr Tone]

2 hours ago, loop7 said:

If MQA ultimately fades away, will anyone be surprised if another company invents yet another technology with similar goals?

 

I wouldn’t be surprised at all.  But if one succeeds. ☹️

[KeenObserver]

MQA was conceived and spent its early life in murky darkness while its shills touted it as paradigm change.  It was all rainbows and unicorns.

Then, people dragged it out into the bright sunlight and closely examined it.

This upset all the MQA shills.  How dare these people show the truth!

 

If you cannot show the truth about a product, how terrible is that product?

[KeenObserver]

6 hours ago, Tintinabulum said:

My impression is that people come out of the woodwork with a desire to do it down. They do a fantastic job! I suppose it depends on your point of view.

 

It's when the detractors start threatening those with different opinions its gets a bit murky..don't you think crenca?

 

Have you watched the video from Chris' seminar?

[KeenObserver]

4 hours ago, loop7 said:

If MQA ultimately fades away, will anyone be surprised if another company invents yet another technology with similar goals?

 

There will always be people coming up with schemes to suck money out of the pockets of consumers.  Whether they are successful is another matter.

[wdw]

13 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

 

There will always be people coming up with schemes to suck money out of the pockets of consumers.  Whether they are successful is another matter.

 

Brinkmanship?

[KeenObserver]

6 minutes ago, wdw said:

 

Brinkmanship?

 

Intellectual deficiency?

[crenca]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

MQA was conceived and spent its early life in murky darkness while its shills touted it as paradigm change.  It was all rainbows and unicorns.

Then, people dragged it out into the bright sunlight and closely examined it.

This upset all the MQA shills.  How dare these people show the truth!

 

If you cannot show the truth about a product, how terrible is that product?

 

MQA, MQA shills, and audiophile trade publication writers can't handle the truth!!

[BrokeLinuxPhile]

Sony has been more than willing to shove proprietary media down our throats for decades now.  It's practically their business model.  As long as they exist, we'll still have  a new shiny "betamax" being shilled all over the press.

[The Computer Audiophile]

15 minutes ago, BrokeLinuxPhile said:

Sony has been more than willing to shove proprietary media down our throats for decades now.  It's practically their business model.  As long as they exist, we'll still have  a new shiny "betamax" being shilled all over the press.

The only positive back in the day was that Sony couldn't say it's Mini Disc or nothing. That just wouldn't fly. Now Sony can say it's MQA or nothing and everyone must accept it or stop listening to Sony music that's only available as MQA.

[Jud]

23 minutes ago, BrokeLinuxPhile said:

Sony has been more than willing to shove proprietary media down our throats for decades now.  It's practically their business model.  As long as they exist, we'll still have  a new shiny "betamax" being shilled all over the press.

 

At least Betamax was technically better for picture quality.  Friend owned one back when, best thing I saw until the Faroudja line doublers and such came along.

[Ralf11]

57 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

... until the Faroudja line doublers and such came along.

 

I thought we wiped those out along with the other ISIS troops?

[BrokeLinuxPhile]

Remember dad being so proud of his betamax and mom not having a clue why.  And getting yelled at if I even thought about touching that rewind button out of fear of ruining the machine.  Thing was the size of my marantz processor.  Video store trips coming back empty handed because all the beta content was loaned out.  Good times.

[Paul R]

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The only positive back in the day was that Sony couldn't say it's Mini Disc or nothing. That just wouldn't fly. Now Sony can say it's MQA or nothing and everyone must accept it or stop listening to Sony music that's only available as MQA.

 

Do you really think there is a chance of that happening? 

 

I see Sony adding in capability for MQA decoding in all it’s hardware of course. But I don’t know that Sony Media would take the drastic and expensive step of publishing all their music in MQA only format. 

 

As it stands today, that would make Sony the target of rather intense hacking efforts. Inevitably, whatever form of MQA Sony was using, and probably every MQA Implementation in the world would be forever broken.  That might be a good thing in the long run of course. 

 

If anything, I would worry more about new cars and trucks coming with MQA options for “hi res”  listening. That has more potential to cause havoc  in the audiophile world than much of anything else I can think of, in some ways at least...

 

 

[mansr]

5 minutes ago, Paul R said:

Do you really think there is a chance of that happening? 

2L, an obscure label, already did this. If they can do it, why couldn't Sony, given their strength in the market?

 

5 minutes ago, Paul R said:

I see Sony adding in capability for MQA decoding in all it’s hardware of course. But I don’t know that Sony Media would take the drastic and expensive step of publishing all their music in MQA only format. 

If they publish MQA at all, dropping the clean releases would be a saving, not a cost.