MQA is Vaporware

[asdf1000]

42 minutes ago, FredericV said:

 

The settings & library are open source:

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2018/01/musings-more-fun-with-digital-filters.html

 

Thanks Frederic

[asdf1000]

On 6/26/2018 at 2:30 AM, Rt66indierock said:

You will see efforts toward getting young people involved when MQA Ltd is liquidated. They are in the planning stages and have been for about a year. 

 

When you say 'young people' I assume you mean working young adults - because school kids will never pay for music or they'll be part of a family plan like Apple, Spotify etc have offered for a while now.

 

So, are people here not aware that young people have been well and truely involved already? Is the growth of 10's of millions these last years just old people?

 

What 'planning stages' is anyone waiting for exactly? The streaming numbers continue to climb up... young people aren't waiting for planning stages to kick in. They are well and truely in it.

 

 

Some (older?) people here seem to think streaming is the future. It looks like they've missed what's been happening these last few years.

[asdf1000]

On 6/2/2017 at 6:21 AM, Rt66indierock said:

I can live with that since my thoughts were have a vaporware thread until there were 10,000 albums, then start a thread about whether it is commercially viable and finally a thread about will MQA reach critical mass in terms of music availability .

 

While I'd prefer MQA go away, it may have just ticked past 10k albums this week (removing duplicate albums).

 

 

[asdf1000]

9 minutes ago, mansr said:

Did you account for minor differences in spelling and punctuation, various re-releases ("anniversary" and such), etc? I've previously found numerous such duplicates on that list, far more than the exact repetitions.

Absolutely not but it's a great point.

 

I spent about 10 seconds to just remove the duplicates using Excel's automatic function.

 

I'm not going to do any manual scanning/filtering.

 

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

Oh, I did it automatically using some elaborate regular expressions that I unfortunately didn't save.

 

Oh nice. You're a lot smarter than me though. You could probably whip up a macro with your eyes closed.

[asdf1000]

On 5/2/2018 at 10:42 AM, Dr Tone said:

 

Please don’t be Apple or Spotify and we’ll be alright.

 

This guy says he's heard whispers it's Apple:

 

https://forum.psaudio.com/t/will-spotify-ever-stream-hi-rez/6255/49

 

@The Computer Audiophile the same whispers you heard?

[asdf1000]

6 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

The MQA people have been whispering about Apple for a while. But MQA won't help Apple gain market share so what's the point?

 

Didn’t @The Computer Audiophile say it was about consumer psychology when he mentioned a large and wealthy company?

 

Substitute Apple for Google/Amazon/other...

 

His explanation, not mine ?

 

Don’t forget he said he knows something you (and I) don’t..

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

10000

 

This is no longer a vapourthread.

 

10k albums (the OP’s number) is likely < 200k tracks in Tidal?

 

Out of 40+ million Tidal tracks?

 

It's not my thread but if it were I would revise the (arbitrary) vapourthread number to 50k albums (which is < 1 million tracks)

 

[asdf1000]

On 5/2/2018 at 8:38 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

However, some VERY LARGE and VERY WEALTHY companies will give away or include stuff like this at no visible cost to the consumer, in order to one-up the other guys. 

 

Hey Chris

 

Have you heard any more recent whispers on this?

 

No need to mention the company but since May, have you heard they are going ahead with MQA plans and going to be giving it away to their customers?

 

Or have those talks/whispers fizzled since then?

 

[asdf1000]

37 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I haven’t heard anything but given the circumstances I doubt I’ll be receiving a holiday card from MQA this year. 

 

Hilarious! There's always next year to kiss & makeup.

[asdf1000]

9 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

?

 

 

?

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

Hilarious. While I'd prefer MQA go away, kudos to JA for sticking around this long - in the lion's den that is this thread.

 

[asdf1000]

7 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

USB Widgets, Linear PSUs, improved System Clocks, OS process reducing tools,  etc. etc. do not improve Signal Integrity but may improve the sound quality of Computer Audio in other ways (e.g. noise)

 

I have not seen anyone deny that such products could improve SQ in some situations, tho there is rightful derision directed at many of the claims made and money spent

 

Noise and signal integrity are probably related... a good topic for a different thread though...

 

Bob S is reading this and having a chuckle.

[asdf1000]

“But we see the awareness of high-res audio growing here in the U.S. and Europe as well. Those markets are starting to follow. We’re prepared to go worldwide.”

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/why-sony-is-launching-a-hi-res-streaming-service-in-japan-767021/amp/

 

 

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

A service like this from  Sony has the ability to take the wind right out of MQA's sails !

 The Japanese are more known for their like of high res formats such as BluSpec , SHM etc. and NOT formats which degrade Audio.

 

As Chris said above, MQA CD’s were pretty much made for the Japanese market. How popular? Who knows.

 

And we don’t know if Mora Qualitas (MQ) will use MQA.

 

No mention of MQA so far but that doesn’t mean it can be ruled out.

 

[asdf1000]

20 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

2019

MQA Promoters: Choice of either MQA or MQA-CD is a great thing. You don’t need that Redbook anyway. 

 

One problem is MQA-CD may be marketed as better than current 256kbps/320kpbs lossy streaming (AAC, MP3 etc).

 

And it probably is (slightly) better than those. But that doesn't help us fans of proper RBCD of course. 

 

[asdf1000]

On 5/2/2018 at 8:38 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

In a world without competition this offering would be tiered / more expensive. However, some VERY LARGE and VERY WEALTHY companies will give away or include stuff like this at no visible cost to the consumer, in order to one-up the other guys. 

 

Hi Chris

 

Have you heard anything more on this?

 

Is 2019 the year MQA Ltd signs a big contract with one of these wealthy companies you mentioned above?

 

Or has this fizzled out?

 

[asdf1000]

18 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi em - Given that I’m no longer on MQA’s Christmas card list I don’t get any inside information now days. 

 

I’ve talked to a few people about what I originally heard and got some interesting feedback. Nobody seems to think these big companies will bite on MQA.

 

For example, MQA Ltd gave a demo to Amazon. Amazon was interested in MQA because it could light the blue light on Amazon devices. Amazon said it couldn’t explain high resolution to its customers but that blue MQA light was all it needed. 

 

However, nobody seems to think Amazon will ever pay MQA to include its technology when Amazon could just create its own blue light and play regular flac or something similar.  

 

 

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.

 

 

 

[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.

 

[asdf1000]

3 hours ago, Thuaveta said:

 

There's a scarier question here: "what does it say of Tidal / Qobuz if their UI is so bad that customers have to pay an extra $10 a month to have something workable ?"

 

I have Roon but I'm really liking the Tidal app these days.

 

Tidal's "suggested new albums" and "suggested new tracks" is starting to work really well for me, for recommendations based on artists I follow, listening habits and tracks I add to my playlists.

 

[asdf1000]

45 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

@Lee Scoggins I think the music industry is going to be just fine without MQA.

 

 

U.S. Music Industry Generated $9.8 Billion in 2018, Third Straight Year of Double-Digit Growth: RIAA

 

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8500502/riaa-us-music-industry-2018-revenue-streaming-cds-vinyl-digital-growth

 

True. Below is probably the only good news Bob sees in today's reports (if DRM is part of the record labels' future plans). See highlighted part below, by RIAA's CEO:

 

 

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/streaming-services-push-music-business-highest-revenue-decade-n977751

[asdf1000]

10 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Wow, what a joke. Stream-ripping! Recording audio in real time is such a joke. Just like movie studios who go after people using camcorders in movie theaters. The people buying those movies wouldn't have paid anyway. The people stream-ripping aren't paying anyway. The people buying from the stream-rippers aren't paying full price anyway. 

 

Get over it people.

 

It is a joke to us but if one guy stream-rips a popular album and shares it illegally and 1,000,000 people (or more) around the world download it free, then I guess it's not a joke to labels, artists and the RIAA?

 

I guess that's where he's coming from?

 

As you know, I would prefer MQA would go away, but I still try to look at things objectively.

 

The CEO of RIAA wouldn't be talking about these concerns if these weren't also the concerns of the labels... I'm sure they've had lots of private chats. I assume he's just echo'ing the concerns of the major labels...

 

If they perceive it to be a concern, then it doesn't matter what we think?

[asdf1000]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The person purchasing the stream-ripped files from a Russian site was never going to pay for them from a legit source anyway. The person using a torrent client to get the stream-ripped files wasn't going to pay either. 

 

I disagree. This may apply moreso to the early Napster days perhaps, where it was apparently so easy for everyone to get stuff free?

 

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the big growth in streaming MAY be due to those people saying 'can't be bothered anymore' with going to the illegal sites anymore. So they stopped getting stuff free and just took up paid streaming...

 

Also young kids getting stuff free eventually turn into working adults and MAY pay later at some point (also the same 'can't be bothered' factor with sourcing illegal stuff, when you're a busier adult).

 

I don't think it's easy to generalise so easy?

 

But anyway, if the labels perceive it to still be a concern (RIAA CEO's words above, not mine and I assume he's echo'ing their thoughts) then obviously they are still looking at ways  to further reduce illegal downloads. 

 

 

[asdf1000]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

The only people still going through the hassle of sketchy download sites are those who aren't going to pay. 

 

Again, that 15 year old illegally downloading may not be paying today... but in 5 years , when they start earning and can no longer be bothered with the effort to source stuff illegally for free, maybe they do end up paying...

 

Don't think you can generalise the way you have...

 

PS: I would prefer MQA go away....

[asdf1000]

11 minutes ago, mansr said:

Many buy legally when they can, but when hindered by geographical restrictions, release windows, and other nonsense, they will turn to piracy. That's all the music and film companies' own doing. If you refuse to sell, don't act surprised when people don't buy.

 

Hopefully the labels see these same studies you talk about.

 

And hopefully they re-do old contracts with silly geographic restrictions and open the floodgates to make everything accessible to everyone willing to pay for streaming. More revenue for them and the artists hopefully.

 

And hopefully new deals don’t have these silly restrictions.

 

And hopefully MQA goes away.

[asdf1000]

10 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Oracle attempted to put its own, proprietary, version of an online system out there, just as the Internet started to gather steam

 

Interesting since MQA was conceived before these last 3 years of industry double digit growth. 

 

So hopefully that means the labels are less motivated with MQA today, compared to when the idea of MQA was initially pitched to them.... as long as this chart keeps heading up, it should be good news for us that want MQA to go away.

 

Obviously from the CEO of RIAA’s comments, some form of future DRM may still be on the labels’ minds, but if the chart keeps going up, there should be less and less motivation to do anything drastic...

 

The bad news is, as long as the chart keeps heading up and up, less motivation for Spotify or Apple Music to offer CD quality or better. Can’t have ya cake and eat it too I guess hehe