MQA is Vaporware

[ARQuint]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

Or from another point of view, there comes a moment when people have been bullied into being quiet. Sometimes on both sides of an argument. 

 

It is a puzzle to me why Chris is allowing such bad behavior, but this is his house and we all play by his rules, regardless of whether or not we agree with him. Everyone always has the option to go somewhere else or start their own forum. 

 

In this hobby, there is only one golden rule, and that is for each person to listen and decide for themselves.

 

The truth, whatever it may be, will always come out. 

 

-Paul 

 

 

 

 

Paul R’s presence on “Vaporwear”  appears to be profoundly annoying to at least some of the uber-partisans who have set the tone of this thread for over two years now.

 

• He has technical / math chops that are at least in the same realm as those who feel that MQA has been demonstrated to be fraudulent  on a theoretical and engineering basis—and surpass those of many of the loudest participants.

 

• He’s unequivocally anti-MQA.

 

• By no stretch of the imagination can he be considered a “shill”. Even the most conspiracy-minded have not maintained that he’s secretly in the employ of MQA, Inc.

 

And yet

 

• He has pointed out the sometimes anti-democratic nature of the atmosphere here—the attempt (increasingly successful, I think) to shut down dissenting voices by attacking not just what they have to say, but how they say it, as well their intellect, honesty and motivations. And, in addition to serving as a kind of conscience at this point in time for this long-lived thread, he also has taken pains to suggest that maybe the most vitriolic posters should lighten up a bit. Perhaps MQA does not represent the existential threat to our hobby that they maintain it is. As Paul says, when it comes Bob Stuart’s project: "The truth, whatever it may be, will always come out."

 

Which leads me to a question I’ve been meaning to ask for five months now.

 

I felt cheated by the course of events at Chris’s seminar in Denver last October—when he was derailed by the bad behavior of the MQA contingent, a group that showed up—it seemed to me and to plenty of others—expressly to shut him down.

 

The title of his session was MQA: The Truth Lies Somewhere in the Middle. Does this mean, Chris, that—had you been allowed to continue unimpeded—you would have described a middle ground? That you would have enumerated positive aspects of MQA in addition to the apparent negative ones? If so, that could have set the stage for a more productive discussion between those with differing viewpoints regarding the technology, both that afternoon in Denver and, more importantly, beyond—on forums like this one.

 

It seems that to me  that since the RMAF debacle, Chris has made less of an effort to give even the appearance of neutrality—that he no longer sees his role, as the boss of Audiophile Style, to broker a fair discussion. If the assault he endured at RMAF was the source of this change, I guess I can understand. But it is too bad. We were all cheated out of a chance to experience more light and less heat.

 

Andrew Quint

[Shadders]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

in the same realm as those who feel that MQA has been demonstrated to be fraudulent  on a theoretical and engineering basis

Hi,

MQA has been proven to be fraudulent. There is no "feel" in it.

 

Engineering is not subjective as you have inferred. Maybe that is the problem, those who continue to argue against the MQA criticism with the continued falsehoods, do not realise that engineering is purely objective.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[mevdinc]

Here's a small comparison piece on MQA vs DSD from the Lumin X1 review that might be of interest.

https://6moons.com/audioreview_articles/lumin7/5/
 

[mansr]

4 hours ago, manisandher said:

It's crazy that putting forward objective evidence and asking genuine questions based on that evidence can still get people riled up.

No, what gets people "riled up" is when we've spent the last couple of years assembling a mountain of evidence showing MQA to be a complete fraud, then someone like Paul R comes along and starts insisting there's actually something of to it, all based on god knows what information, 'cause he sure as hell ain't sharing his sources.

[mansr]

2 hours ago, ARQuint said:

He has technical / math chops that are at least in the same realm as those who feel that MQA has been demonstrated to be fraudulent  on a theoretical and engineering basis—and surpass those of many of the loudest participants.

Seems like you know more about him than the rest of us. Who is he? What has he accomplished? Why should we accept his word without evidence?

[Miska]

15 hours ago, manisandher said:

For a while, I've been wondering what MQA actually does to 24/96 (and below) resolution files. I mean, here's the difference between an original 24/96 hires and the equivalent decoded MQA from the same master:

 

 

The difference is pretty low in level. I totally accept that it's accurate to call MQA 'lossy', but looking at this difference, is it fair to describe MQA as some sort of lossy compression scheme? It just doesn't look to me as if that's what it's doing. Those 'humps' in the upper regions seem to be intrinsic to what MQA is doing. I'd be interested in knowing what sort of processing could be causing them. Removing aliasing products due to the ADC used perhaps?

 

There's no doubt that for files above 24/96 resolution, MQA is definitely lossy. As has been shown before, at these resolutions, decoded and rendered MQA doesn't reproduce any signal above 88.2/96 kHz in the original hires faithfully. But generally, all there is above 88.2/96 kHz in the original hires is noise (often at quite high levels). Does it matter that this noise is not reproduced losslessly, but is replaced instead by imaging artefacts above 88.2/96 kHz, due to the non-ringing filters used by MQA renderers?

 

These are genuine questions that I'd like thoughts on.

 

Mani.

 

What is peak-amplitude of the difference? What kind of spectrum is this? Because most of the difference seems to be noise-like, it's level in spectrum depends on number of FFT points and possible averaging. Apart from that, there are some discrete distortion peaks though.

 

Another challenge looking at the difference is that it heavily depends on content. More ultrasonics the content has, more the encoder needs to shave off bits from the base band to encode those ultrasonics. For example some content I have ends up having 14/15 bits of resolution left. So you really need to go through a lot of MQA content in search for content that stresses the encoder the most. That's what I did, I had a hunch of content that could be potentially challenging and then purchased lot of such content to go through.

 

Since we cannot encode test signals in MQA to analyze it's behavior, it is hard to estimate how bad it will get in worst case...

 

For example it would be interesting to encode 0 dBFS 96/24 white noise with it and see what comes out.

 

[tmtomh]

14 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

In my article, I never made a claim that hire would gain wide acceptance, only that there was a chance that more people would adopt it.  As well, I have never claimed that you could judge hirez demand by looking at people buying any kind of Tidal subscription or similar "bundled tier".  The only way you can judge hirez demand is by more specific metrics like # of hirez downloads and the like and, possibly in the future, the numbers of people buying a hirez tier of a streaming service.

 

@Lee Scoggins, I'm not responding solely to your original article - which you should understand given that the volume of your comments and claims in this thread alone is far, far more extensive than the entire content of your article.

 

That said, by your own admission the focus of your article - and a major focus of your comments here - is the "business case" for MQA, in which you repeatedly and explicitly state that MQA will result in a significant increase in the availability of high-res music. You also have responded to concerns about MQA here at CA, repeatedly and explicitly, with the argument that consumers will decide.

 

My point responds directly and specifically to these two claims you have made: The main venue for MQA currently is streaming. And because MQA is bundled in a streaming tier - which is not even just a general high-res tier but an even more broad lossless tier including redbook - there is absolutely zero evidence for your claims that (A) MQA spurs more high-res, and (B) that consumers have any ability to choose or not choose MQA.

 

MQA is a producer-side technology that (with exception of niche high-res downloads and hyper-niche Japanese MQA CDs) is not available for consumers to either choose or not choose.

 

MQA is like a cable channel: it's bundled in a tier, and so it's impossible to gauge demand or uptake unless you have additional, more specific evidence to determine whether it's a driver of that bundle (like ESPN, in this example) or just along for the ride (like Nat Geo or some such). And you have no such evidence.

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

That said, by your own admission the focus of your article - and a major focus of your comments here - is the "business case" for MQA

And he goes about this with the a priori assumption that business success for MQA desirable.

[Samuel T Cogley]

4 hours ago, ARQuint said:

I felt cheated by the course of events at Chris’s seminar in Denver last October—when he was derailed by the bad behavior of the MQA contingent, a group that showed up—it seemed to me and to plenty of others—expressly to shut him down.

 

Had you actually watched the tape, you would know where Chris was going.  "We've gone from a 'straight wire with gain' to 'audio origami'".

 

I took the underlying meaning as, "Audiophilia has always been about fidelity of signal.  How can MQA justify adulterating the source material? Isn't that the antithesis of fidelity?"

 

The answer, sadly, is that MQA is about marketing, not audio.  The marketing pitch to consumers who care about fidelity originally was "lossless and better than PCM".  MQA has backpedaled from the lossless and "better than PCM" claims now, and public dissent (including this forum) is likely a reason for that.  The pitch to the record companies was/is, "don't sell lossless files to consumers, sell MQA instead".

 

I'm not sure what to make of your presence in this thread.  So here's a question: what if (just a hypothetical) MQA turns out to be just the scam that (what you call) the "partisans" claim it to be, does that make you reconsider any of your life or career choices?

 

And I think you should acknowledge that while it's easy to heap eloquent derision on the voices who speak out against MQA, those very voices have actually forced MQA to change their public claims.  I'm struggling to understand how a "nice" approach would have accomplished that.  As a writer, have to covered, at all, how the public claims by MQA have changed, the underlying reasons for the change, and how those changes potentially affect MQA's credibility?  Or are you just going to keep posting feel good, "can't we all just get along?" fluff?

 

EDIT: I think we need to put your MQA views in perspective:

 

Quote

It should be acknowledged that some MQA demonstrations at shows and in dealer showrooms have been highly controlled events that have been structured to elicit a positive response from the audience in attendance. But to suggest that Bob Stuart’s diligent efforts to assure that his invention is heard and understood represent some sort of hucksterism is simply bizarre.

 

Here's a helpful hint:  It isn't hucksterism, it's unmitigated greed.

 

[Paul R]

2 hours ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

MQA has been proven to be fraudulent. There is no "feel" in it.

 

Engineering is not subjective as you have inferred. Maybe that is the problem, those who continue to argue against the MQA criticism with the continued falsehoods, do not realise that engineering is purely objective.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

Engineering is not really subjective, though any engineer will tell you they often make subjective choices in implementation.  But real engineering - in every field - stresses and depends upon accuracy.  Even when - or especially when - implementing subjective choices. 

 

MQA the company has been proven fraudulent in its claims about MQA the technology. Conflating the company with the technology though is just sloppy thinking, not engineering. Conflating MQA the engineering with MQA the theory is again, sloppy thinking. The theory for instance, is not fraudulent. It can be right, wrong, or even both, but it can not be fraudulent. Only people (or things like corporate entities led by people) can be fraudulent.

 

Justifying such sloppy thinking, with even more sloppy thinking about MQA being the tool the evil record empires plan to use to lock up your music is just, well, paranoia. The chances of such a plot succeeding are about as close to zero as anyone can measure. But it makes a great rallying cry. 

 

I do find it amusing when someone accuses me of jumping into the conversation at the last minute. I think  I was one of the first people to post in this thread years ago. I do not think I have changed my opinion much since then. Some of course, from looking at the real research that was done  and even doing a little bit of my own. 

 

-Paul

 

By by the way,  thanks to someone here (Thank you. You know who you are...) pointing out that people actually feel betrayed by the audio press, I can understand some of the anger. But the adolescent fury, petulance, and general nastiness is not born from anger, it is simply unacceptable  bad behavior. Apparently it is great “fun” for the people who are engaging in it. But it has to go before any real discussion can take place. And you need discussion before any healing will happen. 

 

[Shadders]

18 minutes ago, Paul R said:

Engineering is not really subjective, though any engineer will tell you they often make subjective choices in implementation.  But real engineering - in every field - stresses and depends upon accuracy.  Even when - or especially when - implementing subjective choices. 

 

MQA the company has been proven fraudulent in its claims about MQA the technology. Conflating the company with the technology though is just sloppy thinking, not engineering. Conflating MQA the engineering with MQA the theory is again, sloppy thinking. The theory for instance, is not fraudulent. It can be right, wrong, or even both, but it can not be fraudulent. Only people (or things like corporate entities led by people) can be fraudulent.

 

Justifying such sloppy thinking, with even more sloppy thinking about MQA being the tool the evil record empires plan to use to lock up your music is just, well, paranoia. The chances of such a plot succeeding are about as close to zero as anyone can measure. But it makes a great rallying cry. 

 

I do find it amusing when someone accuses me of jumping into the conversation at the last minute. I think  I was one of the first people to post in this thread years ago. I do not think I have changed my opinion much since then. Some of course, from looking at the real research that was done  and even doing a little bit of my own. 

 

-Paul

 

By by the way,  thanks to someone here (Thank you. You know who you are...) pointing out that people actually feel betrayed by the audio press, I can understand some of the anger. But the adolescent fury, petulance, and general nastiness is not born from anger, it is simply unacceptable  bad behavior. Apparently it is great “fun” for the people who are engaging in it. But it has to go before any real discussion can take place. And you need discussion before any healing will happen. 

 

Hi,

You are splitting hairs here. MQA claims, is said meaning MQA Ltd. They claimed it was lossless, when in fact it was lossy. This has been proven, yet people here a few months ago still claimed it was lossless.

 

Not sure why you have referred to paranoia in regards to locking up the music. How many times have the music industry tried to implement copy protection ?. We have such technology on DVD's and Blu-ray discs now - for region coding and copying etc. We have the inherent copy protection in the audio of DVD's and Blu Ray :

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

 

This is happening now. They don't seem to be stopping do they ?.

 

People react badly to the persistent lies from MQA supporters.

 

Look at the MQA AES paper - they claim that they reverse dispersion or "blurring" as they like to call it, yet their filters cause blur. The MQA AES paper has been peer reviewed - so, are the AES people incompetent or fraudulent in supporting/approving the MQA AES paper ?

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[Sonicularity]

You have it backward.  No real discussion is taking place, and this is what is causing what you are calling bad behavior and anger.

[MikeyFresh]

43 minutes ago, Paul R said:

even more sloppy thinking about MQA being the tool the evil record empires plan to use to lock up your music is just, well, paranoia. The chances of such a plot succeeding are about as close to zero as anyone can measure.

 

Thats not paranoia, that's a reality-based conclusion given all that we know about how the labels have operated over the years, where they are attempting to go with this isn't a far-fetched fantasy, it's quite the opposite. Just because you or anyone else is of the opinion that it has a low chance of success doesn't mean that it won't succeed, or that it shouldn't be vehemently opposed by the consumers who stand to be screwed.

 

43 minutes ago, Paul R said:

But the adolescent fury, petulance, and general nastiness is not born from anger, it is simply unacceptable bad behavior.

 

No one here has acted in any "adolescent" way, there you go again trying to place yourself on some sort of higher ground while denigrating anyone who you deem to be uncivil. Further, we've already been over this notion of yours that members here find great fun in bashing MQA, that too is absurd, you give people far too little credit for how they conduct their lives and find fun and enjoyment. You don't know bunk about how others have fun, so please just end that line of BS.

 

43 minutes ago, Paul R said:

But it has to go before any real discussion can take place. And you need discussion before any healing will happen. 

 

Really? So in your mind the "real discussion" can't take place until when? Until the MQA cadre actually reacts and responds to various fact based criticisms? Or until such time as the civility police are more comfortable with the tone of things?

 

 

[MikeyFresh]

17 minutes ago, Sonicularity said:

You have it backward.  No real discussion is taking place, and this is what is causing what you are calling bad behavior and anger.

 

So well said, and not a complicated concept either.

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

What is peak-amplitude of the difference? What kind of spectrum is this? Because most of the difference seems to be noise-like, it's level in spectrum depends on number of FFT points and possible averaging. Apart from that, there are some discrete distortion peaks though.

 

This was a real-time capture using MusicScope's UHR set to 1.46 hz/bin. I just picked a random point during the track.

 

Here's the difference file itself - feel free to analyse with your software of choice:

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r21Qtf-Ji9tXloY63Wus2vE8vIecPC5I

 

Mani.

[Shadders]

10 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

This was a real-time capture using MusicScope's UHR set to 1.46 hz/bin. I just picked a random point during the track.

 

Here's the difference file itself - feel free to analyse with your software of choice:

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r21Qtf-Ji9tXloY63Wus2vE8vIecPC5I

 

Mani.

Hi,

Can you perform a time domain difference between the two songs ?

 

That would indicate the actual differences between the tracks. Do the tracks have the same master ?

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[Miska]

15 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

This was a real-time capture using MusicScope's UHR set to 1.46 hz/bin. I just picked a random point during the track.

 

Here's the difference file itself - feel free to analyse with your software of choice:

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r21Qtf-Ji9tXloY63Wus2vE8vIecPC5I

 

Mani.

 

Thanks!

 

Signal Max  : 2.66631e+06 (-9.96 dB)

 

 

Pretty high level. Not sure how accurate the diff is...

 

 

[Paul R]

16 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

You are splitting hairs here. MQA claims, is said meaning MQA Ltd. They claimed it was lossless, when in fact it was lossy. This has been proven, yet people here a few months ago still claimed it was lossless.

 

So? People still claim the Earth is flat as well. I can assure you nobody is falling off the edge of the world. I am also pretty confident the world is not sitting on the backs of four elephants, standing on the shell of a giant turtle flying through space. 

 

 

16 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Not sure why you have referred to paranoia in regards to locking up the music. How many times have the music industry tried to implement copy protection ?. We have such technology on DVD's and Blu-ray discs now - for region coding and copying etc. We have the inherent copy protection in the audio of DVD's and Blu Ray :

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

 

This is happening now. They don't seem to be stopping do they ?.

 

Really? You think anyone really cares about 9 year old BluRay protection schemes?  If I want to buy a movie, I buy it from Apple. Not only do I not have to worry about copy protection, I can also download the thing and store it locally if I wish.  If one should be an App,e hater, there are other companies, like Amazon who do the same thing. Let them worry about it. I am confident that in any battle of wills, Amazon and App,e will somehow manage to humble their opponents. 

 

16 minutes ago, Shadders said:

People react badly to the persistent lies from MQA supporters.

 

Look at the MQA AES paper - they claim that they reverse dispersion or "blurring" as they like to call it, yet their filters cause blur. The MQA AES paper has been peer reviewed - so, are the AES people incompetent or fraudulent in supporting/approving the MQA AES paper ?

 

Regards,

Shadders.

 

People also react just as badly or worse to persistent lies from MQA opponents. This person or that person is a shill in the employ of a MQA, etc. All, so far as I can see, utterly untrue here.

 

Or the hate filled rhetoric and personal attacks. Especially from people who claim special influence.  Who really got MQA to “recant” their claims?  Names and contact information please? While you are at it, how about names, credentials, and contact information on those who claim such expertise or special inside contacts with MQA? The press people make it clear who they are. Their rabid opponents here do not. Who is lying?  

 

You you certainly do not educate or convince people with the tactics some of  the self proclaimed experts here employ. You do generate a lot of hate and self publicity, at least within a limited group of followers, and only for a  short time. Which, I would surmise, is the purpose. Some kind of short term gain, not love of the hobby by any means. 

[Miska]

1 minute ago, Paul R said:

Really? You think anyone really cares about 9 year old BluRay protection schemes?  If I want to buy a movie, I buy it from Apple. Not only do I not have to worry about copy protection, I can also download the thing and store it locally if I wish.  If one should be an App,e hater, there are other companies, like Amazon who do the same thing. Let them worry about it. I am confident that in any battle of wills, Amazon and App,e will somehow manage to humble their opponents. 

 

I guess what you get is still DRM protected? You can store and copy the file as much as you like, but if you want to play it, you need the decoding key... Try to play the file with VLC on Linux for example...

 

This is just like the MQA files.

 

Sure, you can download unprotected, illegal versions of the movies anyway.

 

But what purpose does the MQA serve? I only see it serving purpose of license money for the encoders and decoders.

 

[Paul R]

39 minutes ago, Sonicularity said:

You have it backward.  No real discussion is taking place, and this is what is causing what you are calling bad behavior and anger.

 

Only one side here is shouting and launching rhetoric, the other sides are not.  Obviously, lack of communication must be the fault of those not shouting or launching rhetoric or personal insults.

 

Right, makes sense to someone I suppose. 

 

[manisandher]

7 minutes ago, Miska said:

Signal Max  : 2.66631e+06 (-9.96 dB)

 

What's the signal min? (Should give us an idea of how good the diff is.)

[Shadders]

4 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

So? People still claim the Earth is flat as well. I can assure you nobody is falling off the edge of the world. I am also pretty confident the world is not sitting on the backs of four elephants, standing on the shell of a giant turtle flying through space. 

 

 

 

Really? You think anyone really cares about 9 year old BluRay protection schemes?  If I want to buy a movie, I buy it from Apple. Not only do I not have to worry about copy protection, I can also download the thing and store it locally if I wish.  If one should be an App,e hater, there are other companies, like Amazon who do the same thing. Let them worry about it. I am confident that in any battle of wills, Amazon and App,e will somehow manage to humble their opponents. 

 

 

People also react just as badly or worse to persistent lies from MQA opponents. This person or that person is a shill in the employ of a MQA, etc. All, so far as I can see, utterly untrue here.

 

Or the hate filled rhetoric and personal attacks. Especially from people who claim special influence.  Who really got MQA to “recant” their claims?  Names and contact information please? While you are at it, how about names, credentials, and contact information on those who claim such expertise or special inside contacts with MQA? The press people make it clear who they are. Their rabid opponents here do not. Who is lying?  

 

You you certainly do not educate or convince people with the tactics some of  the self proclaimed experts here employ. You do generate a lot of hate and self publicity, at least within a limited group of followers, and only for a  short time. Which, I would surmise, is the purpose. Some kind of short term gain, not love of the hobby by any means. 

Hi,

Not sure what you are trying to achieve. MQA Ltd made claims that were proven false.

 

Copy protection - it has always something that the audio and video industry will pursue, from LP's in the 1980's, CD copybit, watermarking, rootkits etc. Same for DVD and Blu-ray. Copy protection schemes will never stop being designed or introduced.

 

Not sure about the personal attack, people names who got MQA to recant their claims etc. The evidence of the lies stated by MQA supporter is what has been refuted and proven wrong - lossless, special glove treatment of every album, signed off by the artists, deblurring when in fact it causes blur, the claimed ADC errors causing blur, when in fact it does not actually exist, the aliasing which is quite simply extremely bad audio engineering - all this purported to be High Resolution and a A New World Order.

 

Self proclaimed experts - again, not sure what you are referring to here. Either dispute the evidence presented, or accept it.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[manisandher]

11 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Can you perform a time domain difference between the two songs ?

 

Sorry, not sure how I'd do that.

 

11 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Do the tracks have the same master ?

 

I'd say so:

 

 

 

 

 

Mani.

[Lee Scoggins]

33 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

Thats not paranoia, that's a reality-based conclusion given all that we know about how the labels have operated over the years, where they are attempting to go with this isn't a far-fetched fantasy, it's quite the opposite. Just because you or anyone else is of the opinion that it has a low chance of success doesn't mean that it won't succeed, or that it shouldn't be vehemently opposed by the consumers who stand to be screwed.

 

This doesn't make since, because the labels are also giving hirez music to Qobuz.  

 

If MQA was some nefarious record label conspiracy then they would not let out 24/96 files of thousands of albums.

[Paul R]

2 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

I guess what you get is still DRM protected? You can store and copy the file as much as you like, but if you want to play it, you need the decoding key... Try to play the file with VLC on Linux for example...

 

This is just like the MQA files.

 

Sure, you can download unprotected, illegal versions of the movies anyway.

 

But what purpose does the MQA serve? I only see it serving purpose of license money for the encoders and decoders.

 

I agree. I was just pointing out that copy protection on BluRay discs does not really present a problem today for most people. It has zero impact, except perhaps on some cinema-philes. I am sure they are up in arms over any visible or audible imperfections added by copy protection.  

 

And BRPs play unprotected unserialized disks just fine, which are largely sold to the high end enthusiast market at astronomical prices. A lot of indie content, just like audiophile 45rpm vinyl!