MQA is Vaporware

[Kyhl]

16 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

My View on Chris’ Computer Audiophile MQA Seminar at RMAF 2018

 

Here are some notes on the slides in Chris’ presentation that I found to show bias against MQA.  I will comment on select slides using the page numbers embedded in the pdf file.

 

Slide 6:

The “from-to” slide sets up early an anti-MQA theme even before we can discuss the detail on each point.  Then Chris proceeds to present evidence on each and other points that does not include an MQA counterpoint.  This is my biggest beef with the slide deck.  Many quality points and counter-evidence in favor of MQA are ignored in favor of the anti-MQA argument in my opinion.  I will address the most notable points slide by slide.

 

Slide 12:

MQA has presented MRI research that shows humans can perceive time phenomena in incredibly small amounts.  This is one reason that I believe MQA focused on the time smearing aspects so keenly because that will provide the biggest benefit.  My understanding is that this research was sent to Chris and Bob Harley and John Atkinson at the roughly the same time.  So it seems curious that Chris does not mention this research on timing.

 

Slide 14:

Chris mentions that it is not lossless from a standard PCM standpoint but Bob Stuart has admitted that publicly.  But here Chris is ignoring the MQA approach cleverness (imho) and the playback aspects of the file.  The MQA process uses triangular encoding so the bits that are discarded are in an inaudible region.  So the point that those bits don’t represent the music is missing from the slide.  In terms of capturing that music in the “triangle”, the process preserves that bit for bit.   The discarded information is essentially dead space.

 

Further reading:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mqa-time-domain-accuracy-digital-audio-quality

 

Slide 17:

This studio sound slide implies MQA are remixing the master.  In fact, the differences between the master file and MQA are very small.  MQA is applying filters to correct the time smear of ADC.  So there is a misunderstanding here as well about how studios operate.  Work is done on a mixing “console” and that console outputs (at the end of it all) an analog signal.  That analog signal is then converted to digital using and ADC.  All ADCs introduce time smear.  What happens is that MQA filters correct that time smear so that final analog signal is reproduced better in digital.  It’s a different algorithm than the apodizing filters Stuart has creat in the past but addresses some of the same sound phenomena.

 

If you have different tracks or stems that use different ADCs then they can also be corrected by the MQA process  before being mixed together but that’s extra work and not necessary arguably if you can correct the final analog product coming out of the console.

 

Slide 18:

On the Bruno Mars track, Chris is claiming that MQA is putting a “notch” in this track but MQA doesn’t add a notch in its process in this fashion so it’s unclear what happened in this mastering.  This appears to not be a product of the process so it’s up to the chart creator to explain the process and origin of files.

 

Slide 20:

Regarding MQA taking over all other formats.  Any new audio format wants to be accepted widely so the inventors can make money and pay back their investment.  However, this is not any different from PCM or AAC or other innovations.  Why would this MQA ambition be viewed negatively when every format aspires to the same thing?

 

Slide 23:

This again betrays an understanding of the studio process where a “final” analog signal gets converted at the end (discussed above) for distribution.  The MQA filters eliminate the time smear of the final ADC for the finished product.  MQA has now done this so many times that they were able to build a machine learning algorithm to quickly find the ADC signature and then apply the correct filter to eliminate the time smear.   Now on special recordings, MQA uses a so-called “white glove” process to do a fully custom approach.  The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper was white glove.

 

Remember, ADC is done off the mixing board.  Every studio you visit, they come out analog to drive effects.  Manley reverb, etc,. then on to digital and that A to D is what is done.   It’s the final ADC unless real-time, wherever ADC is done.  Stems are can be like each of the 48 channels, mix, fade, EQ.  Again, you could MQA each stem if you wanted.  So the concern from multiple DACs being used in the process is unwarranted as the artist hears that final analog signal.

 

Slides 25-27:

The implication is that MQA does not create size compression that is of value.  However, we have all seen situations at home where bandwidth becomes a problem.  I have fast U-Verse fiber and when my wife and I are on the laptops, watching a 4K movie sometimes stutters.  If you look at streaming services like Qobuz at 24/192, you need 9.2 mbps speeds which you often don’t find when traveling on trips or sitting at home.  I have noticed Qobuz, which I otherwise like, sometime stutters or “hangs” in my home office.  MQA, due to its compression, only needs 2.4 mbps to work so a quarter of the bandwidth.

 

MQA compression is also useful when you want to offload the music to a phone.  A 60-minute 24/192 file needs 4 gigabytes versus around 1 gigabyte in MQA form.  There is a limit to the amount of phone storage you can have and so far none have things on the order of terabytes.  So the advantage here is that you are taking up 1/4 of the space with the MQA file.

 

Slide 29:

This slide shows bias in that it doesn’t mention a critical fact: no DRM files have been issued by MQA or their partners.  It also defines DRM to include even MQA’s desire to create an authentication process, not for nefarious reasons of taking away customer freedom but to make sure if the file is certified MQA then the end consumer is assured they are getting the genuine article.  I think there are two reasons for this:

 

1. (audit) It creates a quality check on the overall file integrity.
2. (marketing) It creates a feature on the hardware that tells the consumer that the file is full MQA authenticated via a light and the thinking is that consumers could desire that light to know they were listening to a better sound experience.

 

It seems that many here conflate authentication with DRM but they are two different things.  And this was the point I brought up in the seminar, if no one is issuing DRM on the music then why do we care?  The consumer is protected from DRM.  Files can be copied and shared.

 

Even when we look at outside evaluation, we see a conclusion there is no DRM.  See the Electronic Frontiers Foundation. And as we saw today, the ASA team studied MQA and did not find MQA had many any exaggerated claims.

 

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/closed-proprietary-felonious-toxic-rainbow-locked-technology

 

Slide 30:

To me this slide ignores economic reality.  Each participant must make money to be interested in investing time and money, whether to release new hirez files which require retrieving masters and running the process or redesigning chip implementation at hardware manufacturers.  As my friend JB says, “people gots to be paid.”

 

Slide 33:

“We no longer matter.”  I think this is true on one level as major corporation will decide the success level of MQA in the near term.  But I also believe that, in the long run, MQA will succeed mostly on how the consumer acts in terms of demand.  Will they pay for a premium tier like Tidal Masters to get MQA quality?  Will they reward device makers by buying MQA-embedded product?  Will they pay for another major streaming service to offer better sound quality?  I don’t have the answers to these questions but it’s got to be perceived by the customer to be of enough value to purchase or participate in.  If that falls flat then record label, streamer, and hardware device manufacturer interest will wane and MQA will fade out.

 

Other general comments:

There is also no mention of the success MQA has had in getting all the major record labels on board, the dozens of hardware manufacturers now including MQA in the process, and success in the mobile and automotive worlds.  If Chris is going to present the financial losses the firm has had as a startup then it’s only fair to objectively present their successes too.  We also don’t have a current set of financial statements so it’s impossible to judge what progress they have had over the past several months.

 

My conclusion is that Chris did not give MQA a chance to present their side of each point in the argument and, more importantly, did not present the MQA counterpoints we have been discussing all year or even include some of the relevant studies that were sent to him and other journalists.  So any person perusing these slides is only seeing half the information needed to make an informed judgment.  Of course, one should also partake in arguably the most essential event of all: that of a good MQA demo so one’s own ears can decide.

This has all been refuted over and over.  Honest question, did you go to The Onion School of Journalism? 

 

I am still trying to understand why you keep spreading false information after it has been pointed out to you over and over that it is false.  This is so wrong and you know it is wrong that it isn't worth discussing again.  Instead it is time to question your motives.

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Kyhl said:

Honest question, did you go to The Onion School of Journalism?

He's not funny enough for that.

[John Dyson]

11 hours ago, Jud said:

 

This is factually incorrect.

 

This is marketing.

 

What has actually happened is this (a little bit of the longer tech piece I still haven't had time to write):

 

- The MQA filters don't "ring" (the more common name for what MQA calls "blurring" - what it really is you can find here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbs_phenomenon ) themselves.  f "deblurring" anything (but do produce some amount of distortion), with lossy compression applied to the results.

 

It is possible for any filter that chops off the spectrum to cause a Gibbs type effect -- but it is kind of a smoke and mirrors type thing anyway.  (There aren't going to be any Gibbs effect if living in a world of sine waves, but if there is a square wave as an entity, then the missing harmonics will result in something that looks like ringing -- like I wrote -- smoke and mirrors.)  The serious negative effect is that if there is nearly a full scale square wave, then a low pass filter is used (assuming 2nd order, Q greater than 0.5), there will be a bit of a peak that might overshoot.  In the extreme, with a fairly narrow filter, there will be something that looks like ringing (given the square wave), even if it isn't really ringing (in an indirect way, it is kind of like ringing -- but not caused by resonance, but by similar mathematical behaviors.)

In the context that you are writing (and essentially agreeing with you), the idea of 'blurring' is nonsense other than a low pass or a jitter or amplitude noise  type thing (either a kind of noise or removal of detail.)  Both of these types of things (noise or frequency response) are both well understood, and once information is lost, or uncorrelated noise is added -- there isn't much that can be done either than artificially doing something to add back in fake detail, or find some kind of correlation in the noise so it can be mitigated.  (One kind of correlation can be described as a spectrum of the noise, so some of the noise might be able to be removed by filtering out that part of the spectrum -- however crude and destructive that might be.)

I regret the gullibility of the customers and/or the inability of those who understand the technology to help educate the gullible.  The technical side obviously doesn't have the patience to deal with the insults from the indoctrinated and the anti-truth advocacy, and frankly it is much easier to 'give up.'  On the other hand, the 'customers' are more interested in convenience than seeking out the real-world facts...  That lack of patience is understandable, because even technically savvy people can have glitches in their own understanding (including me.)

If there is money to be made, there will be sellers either living honestly (needing to be patient), or cheating (including dishonesty with the customers).  I don't care about the cheaters, but I am concerned about the hurt being perpetrated against the normally honest (but gullible) customer.

 

(This is not meant to be to the person that I am replying to -- rather to everyone reading this):

This is not a matter of 'lets just all get along', but rather I suggest listening to those who might know the TECHNICAL and UNBIASED facts about a subject.  Usually such people don't have a financial interest and doing generally show a financial or political benefit by conveying the honest facts.  Wishful thinking that the technically accurate facts not be true is not helpful.

Sadly -- sometimes an incompetent or agenda driven person will seem to be an authority -- no real formula for detecting such miscreants.

 

[Kyhl]

4 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Lots of action today. Here's an example where the artists don't want their music streamed but labels and most streaming services are going ahead anyway....

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/de-la-soul-catalog-streaming-services-tidal-801064/

Let me get this straight.  The group that gave away free downloads of their albums is against streaming their albums?  D'oh Kay.

Does Lee manage De La Soul? 

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

In the news today, with Spotify's launch in India:

 

https://www.recode.net/2019/2/28/18244964/spotify-warner-music-india-lawsuit-streaming-cardi-b-ed-sheeran

 

It covers geo restrictions, artists (not just particular albums) not being available and piracy.

 

It even covers how future contracts disputes between streaming services and labels could result in large chunks of your streamed collection (not just tracks and albums but artist collections) disappearing overnight while disputes are ongoing... yikes.
 

 

 

The MQA solution has finally found its problem to address. Oh wait, just kidding. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Norton said:

 

In the UK we have an expression “Can’t see the wood* for the trees”.  Always amazes me that some of the people  who get het up about the potential of DRM in MQA seem to be enthusiastic,  unquestioning users of streaming services, where the issue is not so much the management of rights,  but whether the user has any rights to anything specific in the first place.  

 

AFAIK  no streaming service guarantees its paid-up users continued, let alone perpetual, access to any specific album or track; which (along with SQ) is why I’d only ever use a streaming service to supplement, rather than replace, my own library.

 

*forest.

 

I love streaming services and I don't care that there's no guarantee. I only pay monthly. If music I like isn't there I stop paying. What's the issue? I I can no longer stream something I want, I'll buy it. I see no need to pay twice (streaming and purchase) when there's no need. 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 hours ago, Don Hills said:

 

... in spite of MQA files being delivered in FLAC format.

OMG!

[Paul R]

Slightly off topic, but this is the angriest forum on the system. This article is perhaps, appropriate. Not willing to discuss it here, but my friends, take  a couple mins to read it and think about it please.

 

 

Anger can be contagious — here's how to stop the spread
NPR

Emotions circulate through social networks — the good, bad and ugly. And these days, the feeling that seems most viral is anger. Sometimes it takes just one act of kindness to stop the vicious cycle. Read the full story

 

Shared from Apple News

 

Sent from my iPad

[Paul R]

58 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

The MQA solution has finally found its problem to address. Oh wait, just kidding. 

 

 

 

What really stuck out to me is that the media companies are following in the footsteps of big pharmaceutical companies. The billion people in India pay significantly less than we do to stream the same music, and once again, we are subsidizing the rest of the world. 

 

That is a DRM application that MQA could address, I suppose. Had not thought of that aspect in quite that way, even though I know you were joking. 

 

 

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

1 hour ago, Kyhl said:

This has all been refuted over and over.  Honest question, did you go to The Onion School of Journalism? 

 

I am still trying to understand why you keep spreading false information after it has been pointed out to you over and over that it is false.  This is so wrong and you know it is wrong that it isn't worth discussing again.  Instead it is time to question your motives.

 

Every response from Scoggins is to use that opportunity to parrot MQA marketing fluff.  That's why he's here.

[Lee Scoggins]

14 hours ago, crenca said:

 

Thing is, you don't have the foggiest idea what this even means (in truth it's technobabble).  Guys have sold (or given you) thimbles full of "nanotechnology" and you really believe you have thimbles with "nanotechnology" in them.  The only "innovation" in all this is...I don't know, something to do with a confidence game...

 

Actually I do.  I have been building predictive models since 1996 and I have won two competitions for machine learning applications, one with gated neural networks and one with cluster weighted modeling from MIT.  It's literally my job but now I have the luxury of leading data engineers and data scientists and finding more problems to solve.

[ARQuint]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

Slightly off topic, but this is the angriest forum on the system. This article is perhaps, appropriate. Not willing to discuss it here, but my friends, take  a couple mins to read it and think about it please.

 

 

Anger can be contagious — here's how to stop the spread
NPR

Emotions circulate through social networks — the good, bad and ugly. And these days, the feeling that seems most viral is anger. Sometimes it takes just one act of kindness to stop the vicious cycle. Read the full story

 

Shared from Apple News

 

Sent from my iPad

 

This isn't as "off-topic" as some think. The behavior of the MQA people at CC's RMAF seminar was unacceptable—they certainly would have had their chance to have their say if they'd just let Chris finish his presentation. (I'm pretty sure that Chris had built time for discussion into his session, plus it was the last seminar of the day and a dialogue could have continued indefinitely.) But, as I've suggested before, they came "loaded for bear" because, I think, they conflated Chris's approach to MQA with that of the most rudely extreme, take-no-prisoner participants on this forum. It was a disappointment to me, as I would have liked to witness a true back-and-forth debate. Probably, a superior format would have been a panel of (well-informed) pro- and anti-MQA partisans, with Chris as the moderator who could have held the panelists' feet to the fire and assured that questions really got answered - both the "who is Archimago, why is he anonymous and what are his possible motivations?" and the "tell me why MQA isn't DRM?" varieties.

 

So I think Paul R's point is well taken. More kindness, respect, civility—whatever you want to call it—would have allowed for a more meaningful MQA discussion at RMAF, and elsewhere in our small universe.

 

Andrew Quint

The Absolute Sound

[Lee Scoggins]

14 hours ago, crenca said:

 

Thing is, you don't have the foggiest idea what this even means (in truth it's technobabble).  Guys have sold (or given you) thimbles full of "nanotechnology" and you really believe you have thimbles with "nanotechnology" in them.  The only "innovation" in all this is...I don't know, something to do with a confidence game...

 

The thimbles are actually small horns that house a chemical that resonates and creates air flow that gets amplified.  There is no nanotechnology in a Synergistic Research HFT.  But it is effective and I have tried it in four different listening rooms, two of my own (old house and new house) and they are quite effective.  HFTs were recently used to fix some room problems in the Wilson Audio room at the Florida Audio Expo.

 

But what would you know, you have never even tried the HFTs.

[mansr]

26 minutes ago, Lee Scoggins said:

The thimbles are actually small horns that house a chemical that resonates and creates air flow that gets amplified.  There is no nanotechnology in a Synergistic Research HFT.  But it is effective and I have tried it in four different listening rooms, two of my own (old house and new house) and they are quite effective.  HFTs were recently used to fix some room problems in the Wilson Audio room at the Florida Audio Expo.

 

But what would you know, you have never even tried the HFTs.

You have obviously never been in the same room, nay, same county as a physics textbook.

[JoeWhip]

Just a thought but let’s not turn this thread into a HFT debate.😀

[MikeyFresh]

39 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

Probably, a superior format would have been a panel of (well-informed) pro- and anti-MQA partisans

 

You mean the kind of thing that was originally planned for RMAF 2 years ago, which MQA initially accepted an invitation to participate in, and then suddenly without warning or explanation backed out?

 

That kind of thing?

[mansr]

30 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

This isn't as "off-topic" as some think. The behavior of the MQA people at CC's RMAF seminar was unacceptable—they certainly would have had their chance to have their say if they'd just let Chris finish his presentation. (I'm pretty sure that Chris had built time for discussion into his session, plus it was the last seminar of the day and a dialogue could have continued indefinitely.) But, as I've suggested before, they came "loaded for bear" because, I think, they conflated Chris's approach to MQA with that of the most rudely extreme, take-no-prisoner participants on this forum.

This started out so well, but then you just had to go and turn it around to blame this forum, and thus by extension Chris, for the behaviour of grown(?) men(?).

[Rt66indierock]

21 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

 

This isn't as "off-topic" as some think. The behavior of the MQA people at CC's RMAF seminar was unacceptable—they certainly would have had their chance to have their say if they'd just let Chris finish his presentation. (I'm pretty sure that Chris had built time for discussion into his session, plus it was the last seminar of the day and a dialogue could have continued indefinitely.) But, as I've suggested before, they came "loaded for bear" because, I think, they conflated Chris's approach to MQA with that of the most rudely extreme, take-no-prisoner participants on this forum. It was a disappointment to me, as I would have liked to witness a true back-and-forth debate. Probably, a superior format would have been a panel of (well-informed) pro- and anti-MQA partisans, with Chris as the moderator who could have held the panelists' feet to the fire and assured that questions really got answered - both the "who is Archimago, why is he anonymous and what are his possible motivations?" and the "tell me why MQA isn't DRM?" varieties.

 

So I think Paul R's point is well taken. More kindness, respect, civility—whatever you want to call it—would have allowed for a more meaningful MQA discussion at RMAF, and elsewhere in our small universe.

 

Andrew Quint

The Absolute Sound

 

Andy the pro MQA people won't accept a panel discussion we tried in 2017. Since the MQA Ltd approach is to attack the messenger a smart strategy would be send up an anonymous source that writes well and have many other anonymous sources behind them. Then at some point send out sources that aren't anonymous. The technical message will of course be the same.  The result is MQA Ltd  representative looks foolish.

[Samuel T Cogley]

35 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

 "who is Archimago, why is he anonymous and what are his possible motivations?"

 

Quint, like the MQA executives, and Scoggins, is still trying to shoot the messenger.  Archimago's meatspace identity is utterly irrelevant to the technical issues he has highlighted.

 

If speculation about Archimago's motivations is fair game, why not the motivations of Scoggins or Quint?  Not understanding the asymmetry (hypocrisy?).

[MikeyFresh]

30 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

"who is Archimago, why is he anonymous and what are his possible motivations?"

 

This is somehow more important to you than the lack of any credible response whatsoever to the various technical questions/examinations and debunked marketing-speak of MQA et al? 

 

When Mans, Archimago, Frederic, and various others have spent time and effort in looking behind the curtain, and presented facts that are uncomfortable for MQA, it is completely disingenuous,/unacceptable (but hardly surprising) for MQA and their trade publication PR arm, or anyone else to suggest that someone's anonymity is the real topic needing clarification.

[new_media]

13 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Many audiophiles who won’t even use FLAC (WAV is more pure to them) are lining up for MQA. 

 

We went from straight wire with gain to audio origami. 

 

What kind of crazy f’d up world do we live in. 

 

I have also been amazed to see people who claim that "everything matters" settle for a lossy format.

[botrytis]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

 

This isn't as "off-topic" as some think. The behavior of the MQA people at CC's RMAF seminar was unacceptable—they certainly would have had their chance to have their say if they'd just let Chris finish his presentation. (I'm pretty sure that Chris had built time for discussion into his session, plus it was the last seminar of the day and a dialogue could have continued indefinitely.) But, as I've suggested before, they came "loaded for bear" because, I think, they conflated Chris's approach to MQA with that of the most rudely extreme, take-no-prisoner participants on this forum. It was a disappointment to me, as I would have liked to witness a true back-and-forth debate. Probably, a superior format would have been a panel of (well-informed) pro- and anti-MQA partisans, with Chris as the moderator who could have held the panelists' feet to the fire and assured that questions really got answered - both the "who is Archimago, why is he anonymous and what are his possible motivations?" and the "tell me why MQA isn't DRM?" varieties.

 

So I think Paul R's point is well taken. More kindness, respect, civility—whatever you want to call it—would have allowed for a more meaningful MQA discussion at RMAF, and elsewhere in our small universe.

 

Andrew Quint

The Absolute Sound

 

Why kindness, when we Chris saw nothing but contempt? Civility is a 2-way street. There was supposed to be an AXPONA MQA discussion panel with Dr. Mark Waldrep being on the panel. Guess what, NO MQA PERSON WOULD SHOW UP. So, the panel discussion never happened. This is the issue. If they want to discuss, discuss. Let's discuss the positives and negatives, not hide behind veil, like the MQA proponents have been.

 

As far as anonymity is concerned and journalism, most of the important 20th century news stories were started because of anonymous sources. Does that mean the information is invalid? NO IT DOES NOT. Archimago has been straight forward with his reporting on MQA and what he has discovered. As a matter of fact, he even gave out all the information so anyone with the proper equipment can repeat what he has done and actually welcomed that. Why it is a big deal to you who Archimago is? He has stated he does not work in this industry  and does it because he loves audio. You want people to take what MQA says at face value but you do not what to take what Archimago has done at face value? Sorry, it is a 2-way street.

 

I think this is another case of, obfuscation by the MQA proponents while giving no information as to why we need it? We do not and this has been proven time and time again.

[ARQuint]

45 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Quint, like the MQA executives, and Scoggins, is still trying to shoot the messenger.  Archimago's meatspace identity is utterly irrelevant to the technical issues he has highlighted.

 

If speculation about Archimago's motivations is fair game, why not the motivations of Scoggins or Quint?  Not understanding the asymmetry (hypocrisy?).

 

I agree with you! In a calmer, less emotionally-fraught atmosphere—without shouted remarks from the floor and, as a result, Chris getting knocked off a line of argument he was trying to establish—that point (regarding Archimago) could have been made.

[Samuel T Cogley]

3 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

 

I agree with you! In a calmer, less emotionally-fraught atmosphere—without shouted remarks from the floor and, as a result, Chris getting knocked off a line of argument he was trying to establish—that point (regarding Archimago) could have been made.

 

Thanks for the response, but it's still not apparent why you brought up something that you now seem to be saying is irrelevant.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, ARQuint said:

 

I agree with you! In a calmer, less emotionally-fraught atmosphere—without shouted remarks from the floor and, as a result, Chris getting knocked off a line of argument he was trying to establish—that point (regarding Archimago) could have been made.

Hi Andrew - I don't believe there is a point to be made about @Archimago. Objective data is objective data.

 

If he had claimed that MQA reimbursed the editor of your magazine well beyond his travel expenses, then I'd say let's dig into who he is and see why he made such a claim and if there's truth to it. 

[KeenObserver]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

 

This isn't as "off-topic" as some think. The behavior of the MQA people at CC's RMAF seminar was unacceptable—they certainly would have had their chance to have their say if they'd just let Chris finish his presentation. (I'm pretty sure that Chris had built time for discussion into his session, plus it was the last seminar of the day and a dialogue could have continued indefinitely.) But, as I've suggested before, they came "loaded for bear" because, I think, they conflated Chris's approach to MQA with that of the most rudely extreme, take-no-prisoner participants on this forum. It was a disappointment to me, as I would have liked to witness a true back-and-forth debate. Probably, a superior format would have been a panel of (well-informed) pro- and anti-MQA partisans, with Chris as the moderator who could have held the panelists' feet to the fire and assured that questions really got answered - both the "who is Archimago, why is he anonymous and what are his possible motivations?" and the "tell me why MQA isn't DRM?" varieties.

 

So I think Paul R's point is well taken. More kindness, respect, civility—whatever you want to call it—would have allowed for a more meaningful MQA discussion at RMAF, and elsewhere in our small universe.

 

Andrew Quint

The Absolute Sound

 

He is the same person that wrote this:

"Your actions certainly suggest you and a few others here definitely have an agenda.  I wish you well, but doing bad things like you are doing will inevitably lead to unpleasant consequences.  That isn't a threat by the way, just a prediction. 

 

Have a nice life"

 

What I think the MQA shills mean is that the people that are closely examining MQA should shut up and say nothing.

People should accept the decrees issued from on high from the demi-gods john Atkinson and Robert Harley, even though Harley's paradigm change article was the most laughable article ever published.

 

Those days are gone.  It is a whole new world, where everything is closely examined.

 

If you think that critics can be silenced by accusing them of being "uncivil" when they criticize your sacred cow, you have a warped perspective.