MQA is Vaporware

[The Computer Audiophile]

Back on topic please. I hate to say it but MQA talk would ease my headache compared to this bickering. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Back on topic please. I hate to say it but MQA talk would ease my headache compared to this bickering. 

Yes agree!! 10+ pages on a banned member and civility, and other schemata. Yawn.😎

[mansr]

Didn't someone predict the demise of this thread in the wake of Lee's banning?

[Axial]

When I was in philosophy school it was highly encouraged to have the two sides of any subject having open discussions. Of course that's the best way to advance intellectually. 

In science it is an art to discover through questions. 

 

MQA should have never seen the daylight, it should have remain in a black hole. 

It brought wars and falsified documents. 

 

It amazes me that in this beautiful music hobby (call it audio if you will), people are ready to die for what the gravity is pulling towards. Simply amazing. 

 

The scientific community of audio experts say that MQA is a fraud. This is our family. 

Everyone else is just another family, that is all. Western families love to battle for all kind of things; farmlands, crops, daughters and brothers, abuse, money, envy, power, horses, cows and audio. It's like the old western cowboy movies with John Wayne and the arrows from the Indians. 

 

Fast forward to 2019 and it's a whole different ball game; 5G. 

Who cares about MQA, I sure don't give a rat's tail dirt. I like vinyl. 

[Ralf11]

MQA  hath not so much brain as ear wax.

Taken from: Troilus and Cressida

 

 

http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/index.html?

[Archimago]

Hey guys...

 

Unfortunate behaviour from a member of the online audio "press". Interesting discussions around LeeS and the banning.

 

Two quick questions. Perhaps already discussed but given the long thread, I missed the outcome/answers...

 

1. Who's going to this at AXPONA 2019?

 

Quote

 

MASTER CLASS THEATER
Friday, April 12, 2019  |  3:00 PM - 3:45 PM

Open to All Attendees!

Achieving Authentic Studio Quality Sound

The Holy Grail of audio is to listen to the studio master of your favorite songs. Join MQA as they lead us through an end-to-end solution for capturing the original studio master recording, authenticating its bit perfect playback, and delivering the ultimate listening experience direct from the source to your home.

 

 

 

Amazing little abstract! Still going after key phrases like "bit perfect" but in the form of "bit perfect playback" instead of making allusions to the music itself being "lossless". And the idea of "ultimate listening experience" - after all this - that's some set of balls.

 

2. Did anyone mention what fora out there were overwhelmingly pro-MQA?

 

Just curious... Not personally interested in making a stink given that there is quite wide understanding about the issues with MQA from what I can tell. But wondering about the mindset of folks and who are the major influencers in such a milieu. Perhaps related, is that MQA Facebook forum with Peter Veth still running? I would imagine LeeS would be announcing the banning there as a start.

 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

32 minutes ago, Axial said:

When I was in philosophy school it was highly encouraged to have the two sides of any subject having open discussions. Of course that's the best way to advance intellectually. 

In science it is an art to discover through questions. 

 

MQA should have never seen the daylight, it should have remain in a black hole. 

It brought wars and falsified documents. 

 

It amazes me that in this beautiful music hobby (call it audio if you will), people are ready to die for what the gravity is pulling towards. Simply amazing. 

 

The scientific community of audio experts say that MQA is a fraud. This is our family. 

Everyone else is just another family, that is all. Western families love to battle for all kind of things; farmlands, crops, daughters and brothers, abuse, money, envy, power, horses, cows and audio. It's like the old western cowboy movies with John Wayne and the arrows from the Indians. 

 

Fast forward to 2019 and it's a whole different ball game; 5G. 

Who cares about MQA, I sure don't give a rat's tail dirt. I like vinyl. 

"MQA should have never seen the daylight, it should have remain in a black hole."

 

Not quite what was written on the tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain, but a close second.😃

[The Computer Audiophile]

13 minutes ago, Archimago said:

Hey guys...

 

Unfortunate behaviour from a member of the online audio "press". Interesting discussions around LeeS and the banning.

 

Two quick questions. Perhaps already discussed but given the long thread, I missed the outcome/answers...

 

1. Who's going to this at AXPONA 2019?

 

 

 

Amazing little abstract! Still going after key phrases like "bit perfect" but in the form of "bit perfect playback" instead of making allusions to the music itself being "lossless". And the idea of "ultimate listening experience" - after all this - that's some set of balls.

 

2. Did anyone mention what fora out there were overwhelmingly pro-MQA?

 

Just curious... Not personally interested in making a stink given that there is quite wide understanding about the issues with MQA from what I can tell. But wondering about the mindset of folks and who are the major influencers in such a milieu. Perhaps related, is that MQA Facebook forum with Peter Veth still running? I would imagine LeeS would be announcing the banning there as a start.

 

I may stream it live if I can. 

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, Paul R said:

And this is indeed far easier to believe than to accept MQA is some kind of worldwide menace in collusion with the big record labels to curtail our freedom and lock up the market. 

 

 More likely they see it as yet another way to keep re-releasing older popular material from their back catalogue.

 I doubt that too many recent releases will end up being re-released many times over.

[Archimago]

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I may stream it live if I can. 

Nice. Hope you can...

 

I was tempted to check out AXPONA this year but unfortunately business trip to Toronto around same time :-(. Would have been interesting to see what a major N.A. show looked like!

 

[Paul R]

13 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I may stream it live if I can. 

Please do.

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

25 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I may stream it live if I can. 

Will it be "video origami"? Do I need a special device to view the "first unfold"? 😎

[Josh Mound]

I’ve been following this thread (and the MQA debate, more broadly) for years now, and it’s striking to me how MQA defenders have tied themselves into knots with ever-shifting justifications for the format. The “lossless” to “audibly lossless” or “data saving” to “superior sounding” moves discussed here are perfect illustrations. 

 

In another notable example, the head honcho over at ASR (putting aside his other debatable flaws) has defended MQA using arguments (subjective preference, appeals to authority, etc.) he otherwise rejects, resulting in a bizarre thread that had to be closed because his own followers were slamming him. 

 

I’m neither fully subjectivist nor fully objectivist. For example, I think some DACs that measure “worse” sound better (in part because I don’t think the existing suite of measurements capture all of the relevant info about DAC performance).

 

So, when MQA was introduced, I approached it with an open mind. I was fully willing to believe that there was something to the time domain claims. However, my own critical listening (making sure that masters and levels were the same, etc.) made me skeptical of the format. MQA sounded “different,” but it largely sounded like some type of digital processing that boosted a portion of the high frequencies. It sounded more digital, not less digital, to me.

 

Reading more about the mechanics of the format, including Archimago’s posts here, made me even more skeptical. As time has passed, more and more questions have been raised and few good answers have been offered by MQA’s defenders. Instead, we’ve received a shifting array of justifications.

 

As is unlikely to surprise those of you who’ve read my TBVO columns, the thing that worries me most about MQA is that good masterings may become trapped in the format. For example, as I discuss in the update to my Aja TBVO, the mastering on the new MQA CD is unique and very good. But I’d like to be able to hear it in DSD or PCM (it apparently was transferred in DSD) to compare it to the MQA format. 

 

Choice doesn’t bother me. If some people prefer MQA, that’s fine. But once new transfers and masterings start getting released in the MQA format alone, it’s time to worry. 

[crenca]

2 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

2. Did anyone mention what fora out there were overwhelmingly pro-MQA?

 

Just curious... Not personally interested in making a stink given that there is quite wide understanding about the issues with MQA from what I can tell. But wondering about the mindset of folks and who are the major influencers in such a milieu. Perhaps related, is that MQA Facebook forum with Peter Veth still running? I would imagine LeeS would be announcing the banning there as a start.

 

 

I have noticed the pro-MQA support on the Roon forum.  Now that Roon is itself pro-MQA (e.g. it privileges MQA over real hi res) it seems to be getting a bit less attention however, though there is a core contingent of British astroturfers and true believers however who keep up the good fight.

 

Now that the civility argument (with that added twist this time of Paul R completely making stuff up) has once again gotten under the skin of our host, perhaps we can tackle this "ringing" thing.  How is it that out of band frequencies, always extremely low in level, effect "transient behavior", exactly?

[crenca]

Also, WTF? 

 

This is how Roon tonight is seeing and decoding the second track (and only the second track) entitled "Emerald Rush" from my personal 24/44.1 copy of Jon Hopkins "Singularity" which I purchased a few days after it came out.

 

Possibly some corruption to the metadata of the file....OR...MQA 2.0 is out and it does DSD, or something....😂

[Ralf11]

54 minutes ago, crenca said:

perhaps we can tackle this "ringing" thing.  How is it that out of band frequencies, always extremely low in level, effect "transient behavior", exactly?

 

https://phys.org/news/2019-03-big.html

[Ralf11]

we're all guilty

 

 

MQA is the door to the serfdom of DRM, reduces SQ, and doesn't save appreciable space

[firedog]

6 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I may stream it live if I can. 

I think you should go there and scream and bang on the table every time they start to speak.....

[mansr]

6 hours ago, crenca said:

Also, WTF? 

 

This is how Roon tonight is seeing and decoding the second track (and only the second track) entitled "Emerald Rush" from my personal 24/44.1 copy of Jon Hopkins "Singularity" which I purchased a few days after it came out.

 

Possibly some corruption to the metadata of the file....OR...MQA 2.0 is out and it does DSD, or something....😂

They had a bug a while back where random tracks would get misdetected as MQA. I thought it had been fixed. Try running my scanner on the file (or send me a piece of it) and see what it says. I suspect they might not be looking for the full MQA 36-bit signature and hitting false positives. The MQA bitstream format is capable of encoding ridiculously high original rates.

[daverich4]

13 hours ago, mansr said:

Didn't someone predict the demise of this thread in the wake of Lee's banning?

 

I did. After two or three days of everyone patting themselves on the back for once again saving the earth from the scourge of MQA. Let’s see how active the thread is next week. 

[John Dyson]

Suggestion to everyone -- none of this is a zero-sum gain (except for a few specific subjects.)  People's personal attributes, political opinions, race or country of origin aren't really important here.  Trying to benefit (and avoid damage to) the music and delivery of music to the audio lover is the 'good' thing that we all have in common.  I'd suspect that 2/3 of the people reading this would not like my politics, but who cares?  I am fat -- but used to be nice looking, but who cares?  I am brilliant (well, that is important :-)).

Bottom line -- audio/music lovers can get *more* of what they want (or avoid losing it), if they tend to work more together and support each other (no matter their backgrounds.)

My project partner and I have different politics -- but I deeply respect him.  I don't have to hate (or even dislike) to kindly disagree.  Lets not develop dislikes are overly strong disagreements when a lot of this stuff is a matter of opinion.  (Dont dismiss this as the subject not being important to me -- it very much is important to me.  However, my friends are MORE important to me.)

 

This is NOT a 'lets all just get along'' message, rather it is meant to suggest a focus on mutual benefit (and mutual help) when needed.

Sometimes, I feel like there is too much cage rattling going on -- not needed.  As I have mentioned before, I got involved with some overly heavy discussions in the past, where I had sincerely complimented someone, but it was accepted only as sniping.  (For example, one person who is now moderately famous clearly, (purposefully) misunderstood my statements of fact and acknowledgement of his success on a matter .)  Back in the day, I didn't know how to deal with that matter.  Becoming angry or dismissive wasn't helpful, but that is what I did.

 

Lets not get to the point of assuming everything is negative.

[The Computer Audiophile]

13 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Suggestion to everyone -- none of this is a zero-sum gain (except for a few specific subjects.)  People's personal attributes, political opinions, race or country of origin aren't really important here.  Trying to benefit (and avoid damage to) the music and delivery of music to the audio lover is the 'good' thing that we all have in common.  I'd suspect that 2/3 of the people reading this would not like my politics, but who cares?  I am fat -- but used to be nice looking, but who cares?  I am brilliant (well, that is important :-)).

Bottom line -- audio/music lovers can get *more* of what they want (or avoid losing it), if they tend to work more together and support each other (no matter their backgrounds.)

My project partner and I have different politics -- but I deeply respect him.  I don't have to hate (or even dislike) to kindly disagree.  Lets not develop dislikes are overly strong disagreements when a lot of this stuff is a matter of opinion.  (Dont dismiss this as the subject not being important to me -- it very much is important to me.  However, my friends are MORE important to me.)

 

This is NOT a 'lets all just get along'' message, rather it is meant to suggest a focus on mutual benefit (and mutual help) when needed.

Sometimes, I feel like there is too much cage rattling going on -- not needed.  As I have mentioned before, I got involved with some overly heavy discussions in the past, where I had sincerely complimented someone, but it was accepted only as sniping.  (For example, one person who is now moderately famous clearly, (purposefully) misunderstood my statements of fact and acknowledgement of his success on a matter .)  Back in the day, I didn't know how to deal with that matter.  Becoming angry or dismissive wasn't helpful, but that is what I did.

 

Lets not get to the point of assuming everything is negative.

More of this please 🙂

[tmtomh]

10 hours ago, JoshM said:

the thing that worries me most about MQA is that good masterings may become trapped in the format. For example, as I discuss in the update to my Aja TBVO, the mastering on the new MQA CD is unique and very good. But I’d like to be able to hear it in DSD or PCM (it apparently was transferred in DSD) to compare it to the MQA format. 

 

Choice doesn’t bother me. If some people prefer MQA, that’s fine. But once new transfers and masterings start getting released in the MQA format alone, it’s time to worry. 

 

This is it, spot on. Without this aspect, most folks would not consider MQA a problem, and while there might be a good deal of discussion about it, there would not be any of the heat.

[The Computer Audiophile]

10 hours ago, JoshM said:

I’ve been following this thread (and the MQA debate, more broadly) for years now, and it’s striking to me how MQA defenders have tied themselves into knots with ever-shifting justifications for the format. The “lossless” to “audibly lossless” or “data saving” to “superior sounding” moves discussed here are perfect illustrations. 

 

In another notable example, the head honcho over at ASR (putting aside his other debatable flaws) has defended MQA using arguments (subjective preference, appeals to authority, etc.) he otherwise rejects, resulting in a bizarre thread that had to be closed because his own followers were slamming him. 

 

I’m neither fully subjectivist nor fully objectivist. For example, I think some DACs that measure “worse” sound better (in part because I don’t think the existing suite of measurements capture all of the relevant info about DAC performance).

 

So, when MQA was introduced, I approached it with an open mind. I was fully willing to believe that there was something to the time domain claims. However, my own critical listening (making sure that masters and levels were the same, etc.) made me skeptical of the format. MQA sounded “different,” but it largely sounded like some type of digital processing that boosted a portion of the high frequencies. It sounded more digital, not less digital, to me.

 

Reading more about the mechanics of the format, including Archimago’s posts here, made me even more skeptical. As time has passed, more and more questions have been raised and few good answers have been offered by MQA’s defenders. Instead, we’ve received a shifting array of justifications.

 

As is unlikely to surprise those of you who’ve read my TBVO columns, the thing that worries me most about MQA is that good masterings may become trapped in the format. For example, as I discuss in the update to my Aja TBVO, the mastering on the new MQA CD is unique and very good. But I’d like to be able to hear it in DSD or PCM (it apparently was transferred in DSD) to compare it to the MQA format. 

 

Choice doesn’t bother me. If some people prefer MQA, that’s fine. But once new transfers and masterings start getting released in the MQA format alone, it’s time to worry. 

Agree Josh. 

[Samuel T Cogley]

11 hours ago, JoshM said:

As is unlikely to surprise those of you who’ve read my TBVO columns, the thing that worries me most about MQA is that good masterings may become trapped in the format. For example, as I discuss in the update to my Aja TBVO, the mastering on the new MQA CD is unique and very good. But I’d like to be able to hear it in DSD or PCM (it apparently was transferred in DSD) to compare it to the MQA format. 

 

Choice doesn’t bother me. If some people prefer MQA, that’s fine. But once new transfers and masterings start getting released in the MQA format alone, it’s time to worry.

 

Aja has been a bit of a white whale for me for decades.  So much that I've been able to track the tape dropout in the words "you were high" in Black Cow in masterings from the original LP to all the masterings since (the tape dropout is more pronounced with each successive pass).

 

I haven't heard the MQA CD as I have no way to decode it.  And besides, I thought MQA CD has mathematically less resolution than Redbook CD (is this incorrect?).