MQA is Vaporware

[mav52]

37 minutes ago, mansr said:

Imagine if this guy had to pay the MQA tax.

 

70 years old in Syria

[Jud]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

Is it the goal or do they want to sell both versions with the high res version selling at a markedly higher price ?

 

They don't need that.  If MQA achieved "critical mass" so that the 3 big industry players would feel comfortable offering nothing but MQA, they could simply charge a markedly higher monopoly price for MQA and avoid any possibility of losing sales to lossless digital copies.  Make no mistake, the Big 3 and RIAA are still blaming piracy to this very day for the industry's failure to sell more than it does.  Read quotes from RIAA brass sometime.  If the Big 3 could pull back hi res and Redbook and substitute MQA, and thought the market would accept that, they'd do it in a minute.

[Jud]

30 minutes ago, mav52 said:

70 years old in Syria

 

Quite sad.

[Daccord]

2 hours ago, Hugo9000 said:

I imagine there will be an unprecedented bidding war for my carefully chosen, Pre-MQA-Era, 3000 CD classical music collection upon my death.

 

😱😂

 

 

The reality is that my collection will end up in a landfill, I'm sure, as no one I know cares for this music haha!

 

Did I ever make it clear how much I appreciate your taste in music?

[MikeyFresh]

4 hours ago, Paul R said:

But that is making one heck of an unfounded assumption - that music will only be available in MQA format and nothing else.

 

Your assertion to the contrary is just as unfounded, you simply don't know that will be the case.

 

4 hours ago, Paul R said:

SACD is dead, and everyone buys there high-resolution music online now.

 

Absolutely false, I still buy SACDs to this day and many of them are recently released reissues, both from the likes of Mobile Fidelity and Analogue Productions, and as well as both Sony and Warner Japan, not to mention various smaller labels. Is that a niche? Sure it is, I'm not sure SACD was ever anything but a niche, but to say that "everyone" buys their high resolution music online now is incorrect.

 

4 hours ago, Paul R said:

Mostly, MQA will probably die on its own, without any help from us. 

 

But that's no reason not to push hard for that to happen sooner than later, I'll try to help that along as best I can, and it doesn't matter whether or not you think it's a life or death situation, nor one that has any real impact on someone's wallet. You aren't the arbiter of such things, everyone's wallet is different.

[Tintinabulum]

Life's too short...

 

 

[Jud]

3 hours ago, Tintinabulum said:

Life's too short...

 

 

 

And then you die.

 

Edit: 😁

 

(This being the internet, I had better put a smiley to show a joke was intended. Deadpan doesn't always work well electronically.)

[Shadders]

8 hours ago, Paul R said:

Did you also agree that that everyone was going to be financially effected by MQA too? That is the part which I do not really understand and I think I disagree with.  Unless what is meant by financially effected just refers to what I would call "beer money."

Hi,

In the MQA Ltd and Meridian Ltd patents, MQA has the future capability to degrade music and ensure that one album/song can only be played on one device.

 

The problem with your statement is that MQA locks out small audio hifi design business - they will have to pay the MQA tax and possibly onerous development costs.

 

So MQA Ltd could implement a draconian system that costs more to remove the degradation, and even more to allow it to play on more than one device.

 

Your last statement maybe shows your attitude towards others. What is "beer money" for you, is significant for others. Here in the UK the median wage is £28k ($36.5k). When you see the costs of housing, energy, food and all the other costs, then £28k is not sufficient to have a basic standard of living. There are 1 million people in the UK using food banks.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[Jud]

10 minutes ago, Shadders said:

There are 1 million people in the UK using food banks.

 

To be quite fair, this is not exactly the core demographic of the high end audio hobby.

 

Besides that, I doubt if MQA "ruled the world" that there would be any sort of 2-tiered system as the goal. As I pointed out previously, at that stage monopoly prices could be charged for MQA without making unadulterated Redbook or hi res available at all.

[Shadders]

9 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

To be quite fair, this is not exactly the core demographic of the high end audio hobby.

 

Besides that, I doubt if MQA "ruled the world" that there would be any sort of 2-tiered system as the goal. As I pointed out previously, at that stage monopoly prices could be charged for MQA without making unadulterated Redbook or hi res available at all.

Hi,

Everyone has the right to enjoy music at a high standard. It should not only be for the rich. Good luck to you if you have a lot of money.

 

There is a proposed one format that is only available - MQA. I do not see why they would not implement a tiered system. You already acknowledge "high end" is not for the poor. So why not music too - MP3 or AM radio quality for those with basic income, and MQA full for those who have high end systems - the rich.

 

The aim of MQA Ltd is to extract as much money as possible from as many people as possible - tiered system is a way of doing that. That is why they charge higher price for high resolution downloads. If it was one size fits all, then everyone would be getting MQA high resolution.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, Shadders said:

The aim of MQA Ltd is to extract as much money as possible from as many people as possible - tiered system is a way of doing that. That is why they charge higher price for high resolution downloads. If it was one size fits all, then everyone would be getting MQA high resolution.

MQA could, given its closed nature, potentially be used to offer basic playback quality on a cheap device and better quality on devices where a higher royalty has been paid. This is all described in various patents of theirs. To be clear, there is no indication that they are doing this at the moment, but that doesn't mean it can't be added later.

[John_Atkinson]

19 hours ago, crenca said:

Ishmael Slapowitz said:

"Hmmm. A review from Paul Miller's mag of the Naim streamer..

NO mention of lack of MQA decoding...no mention of MQA interesting contrast to Mr. Dudley.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/naim-audio-nd5-xs-2-network-attached-dac"

 

Mr. @John_Atkinson, you sure your trade publication does not have a product placement contract with MQA Ltd.??  Are you sure?  

 

Ah, the peanut gallery heard from. No, Crenca, there is no product placement at Stereophile any more than there is at Audiophile Style. And to respond to Mr. Slapowitz's posting, I think that to report whether or not it decodes MQA data is a relevant fact with a streaming product. Of more interest, however, is something that both Paul Miller and I reported on in our reviews, which is that the Naim restricts the bandwidth with 2Fs and 4Fs data.

 

BTW, if you compare the URL of the HiFi News review with that of Stereophile's - https://www.stereophile.com/content/naim-nd5-xs-2-media-player - you will see that they are very similar. This is because we have migrated the Hi-Fi News site on to our platform and are actually administering it for our English sister magazine.

 

John Atkinson

Editor (for 3 more days), Stereophile

 

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

In the MQA Ltd and Meridian Ltd patents, MQA has the future capability to degrade music and ensure that one album/song can only be played on one device.

 

The problem with your statement is that MQA locks out small audio hifi design business - they will have to pay the MQA tax and possibly onerous development costs.

 

So MQA Ltd could implement a draconian system that costs more to remove the degradation, and even more to allow it to play on more than one device.

 

That that is simply a dystopian view that will never come to pass. It has been tried time and time and time again. Always failed, always will. 

That’s because there are simply too many people who don’t care about music or audio or audio gear the way audiophiles do. 

 

But audiophiles in general have more higher income and more discretionary income to spend.  They will always represent a lucrative and high profit margin market. Save for automobiles and art collectors, few groups spend as much money on non essentials as audiophiles do.

 

That in fact, is the only leverage that audiophiles have in this fight period. And with the bad attitude you and others present to the rest of the world, you are gonna loose.

 

 

Quote

Your last statement maybe shows your attitude towards others. What is "beer money" for you, is significant for others. Here in the UK the median wage is £28k ($36.5k). When you see the costs of housing, energy, food and all the other costs, then £28k is not sufficient to have a basic standard of living. There are 1 million people in the UK using food banks.

 

You assumed a lot there.  “Beer money” is slang for insignificant discretionary funds. Of course that is different for everyone, but it is stupid to assume it says anything about how I or anyone else view people in general.  If someone one can not afford a beer, then choosing to spend the price of a beer on a CD is stupid. If they can afford a beer, then choosing to buy the CD instead of a beer is something also.

 

Probably a wise choice. At least you won’t just literally piss away the cost of the CD. YMMV. 

 

“Beer money” to *me*, is an LP or CD find at the thrift shop for $1. Or a box of CDs or albums at a garage sale for $5. Or indeed, about the cost of a beer. 

 

In audiophile terms, Nobody *needs* oh, $40,000 speakers driven by $30,000 amps, connected by $20,000 cables, driven by a source which is a $15,000 DAC, connected to a $25/month streaming music service. But if someone wants that, and can afford it, more power to ‘em. If they feel they must have it or they can’t enjoy music any longer, then that is what we call a first world problem 

 

That kind of stuff is not beer money to me, but it is to someone else. Else they would use it to put a couple kids through college.  But that crowd is going to be willing to pay for Non-MQA, and the market will service them. MQA will never be that dystopian future some here fear; there just is far too much money to be made. So fhe dystopian future is just scare tactics, and provides excitement for some.

 

Another way of saying that? People who choose audio and music as their hobby are far from stupid, and as a group command outsized financial resources in relation to their population size. 

 

Me personally? Heck  $2k for a turntable is an unjustifiable expense for *me*, save there is still enough cheap old vinyl out there to satisfy my music collecting hobby. without spending  more than I can afford. In other words, $70 for a 180g pressing of an album might be beer money for someone else, just not for me. 

 

Besides, when the hipsters tire of vinyl and move on, all those 180g pressings will be rich pickings at flea markets and thrift stores. Digitizing all those finds is a ton of fun and very rewarding too.

 

None of that, or my existing digital collection of about 4000 albums, or years worth of recordings I made and still have to digitize, will ever be locked in by a DAC that requires MQA to sound good. You guys do not seem to realize that. Nor will Non-MQA new releases ever stop being available. At the worst DACs are not that hard to build in a garage. 

 

 

 

Quote

 

Regards,

Shadders.

 

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

Everyone has the right to enjoy music at a high standard. It should not only be for the rich. Good luck to you if you have a lot of money.

 

There is a proposed one format that is only available - MQA. I do not see why they would not implement a tiered system. You already acknowledge "high end" is not for the poor. So why not music too - MP3 or AM radio quality for those with basic income, and MQA full for those who have high end systems - the rich.

 

The aim of MQA Ltd is to extract as much money as possible from as many people as possible - tiered system is a way of doing that. That is why they charge higher price for high resolution downloads. If it was one size fits all, then everyone would be getting MQA high resolution.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

 

MQA isn't needed for this.  The Big 3 have a monopoly position in Redbook and hi res downloads for the most popular music right now.  What's the price of a typical 24/44.1 download at HD Tracks?  About $17.98, right?  That isn't "beer money" for people using food banks right now!  And as far as @mansr's concern regarding more expense for what is purportedly better quality - what do you think is the case right now?  Do you pay more for 24/96 than Redbook, still more for 24/192, still more for DSD (if that's available)?  Of course!

 

Are these prices truly reflective of expenses, or is this monopoly pricing?  I can't be absolutely certain, but prices for Redbook or even hi res downloads at places like Bandcamp (usually in the $7-$10 range for an album) are certainly suggestive, or more than suggestive.

 

So no need to worry about the Big 3 using MQA to rip you off - you're being ripped off as we speak by an industry where market concentration has allowed monopoly pricing.  (Who among the labels competes on price these days?)

 

The *only* thing limiting the price of music right now isn't that we don't have MQA, it's what the core demographic for hi res is willing to pay.  That wouldn't change with MQA.  What *would* change is that we'd have music technically of inferior quality, so the music company execs could tell their bosses and boards they did something to prevent piracy.

[mansr]

13 minutes ago, Jud said:

And as far as @mansr's concern regarding more expense for what is purportedly better quality - what do you think is the case right now?  Do you pay more for 24/96 than Redbook, still more for 24/192, still more for DSD (if that's available)?  Of course!

The difference with a tiered decoder is that you can copy (pirate) the files, but you still have to buy a licensed decoder to unlock the full quality. In a sense, they are already pushing this with MQA. You can listen without a decoder, with "core" decoding only using licensed software, or with full decode/render which also requires licensed hardware. The last step is fake, as we know, but they are still selling the idea that it is better.

[Jud]

6 minutes ago, mansr said:

The difference with a tiered decoder is that you can copy (pirate) the files, but you still have to buy a licensed decoder to unlock the full quality. In a sense, they are already pushing this with MQA. You can listen without a decoder, with "core" decoding only using licensed software, or with full decode/render which also requires licensed hardware. The last step is fake, as we know, but they are still selling the idea that it is better.

 

And we don't have more expensive DACs being sold on the promise that they'll get you better sound quality right now?

 

Again, MQA is plainly not necessary for pricing purposes in what is already a monopoly situation.  ( @wgscott used to have a great Hunter Thompson quote about the music industry, which I can't remember now, in his sig.) It allows two things: (1) The industry to think, or at least claim, it is doing something about piracy; (2) marketing something as hi res that isn't.

[mav52]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

And we don't have more expensive DACs being sold on the promise that they'll get you better sound quality right now?

 

Again, MQA is plainly not necessary for pricing purposes in what is already a monopoly situation.  ( @wgscott used to have a great Hunter Thompson quote about the music industry, which I can't remember now, in his sig.) It allows two things: (1) The industry to think, or at least claim, it is doing something about piracy; (2) marketing something as hi res that isn't.

You mean this one "" which is really what he said.  Someone added "the music industry"

“The TV business is uglier than most things.  It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2013/04/24/thompson/

[mansr]

19 minutes ago, Jud said:

And we don't have more expensive DACs being sold on the promise that they'll get you better sound quality right now?

The difference is that none of the money spent on an expensive non-MQA DAC goes to the music labels. With MQA it does, what with the labels being part owners of the MQA company.

[mav52]

6 minutes ago, mansr said:

With MQA it does, what with them being part owners of the company.

 

You are not saying that MQA since the manufacturers bought the secret sauce and paid MQA the fee to use it are part owner of the manufacturing company of the audio component ? 

[mansr]

1 minute ago, mav52 said:

You are not saying that MQA since the manufacturers bought the secret sauce and paid MQA the fee to use it are part owner of the manufacturing company of the audio component ? 

The music labels are part owners of MQA. Part of the licence fees paid by the hardware manufacturers thus goes to them. Post edited to clarify.

[Jud]

18 minutes ago, mansr said:

The difference is that none of the money spent on an expensive non-MQA DAC goes to the music labels. With MQA it does, what with the labels being part owners of the MQA company.

 

True enough, but I seriously doubt with the number of high end DACs sold that this would even pay for the pool at a music company VP's vacation home in Barbados.

 

A better play would be to try to get it into AV receivers and especially phones, but good luck convincing consumers they need it either of those places.

[Jud]

28 minutes ago, mav52 said:

You mean this one "" which is really what he said.  Someone added "the music industry"

“The TV business is uglier than most things.  It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2013/04/24/thompson/

 

Yes, but my favorite part is the line that comes next: "There is also a bad side."

[Paul R]

52 minutes ago, mansr said:

The difference is that none of the money spent on an expensive non-MQA DAC goes to the music labels. With MQA it does, what with the labels being part owners of the MQA company.

 

That may be a difference that is no difference at all really.

 

Does it effectively matter if a label collects their “pound of flesh” from the cost of a 24/192k download, or from a MQA license? I guess that depends more on who wins the internal battle at the label  - Corp execs who are  accountants or  Corp execs who are lawyers.  (No insult to any audiophile lawyers! Completely different breed of cat!) 

 

[mansr]

5 minutes ago, Paul R said:

That may be a difference that is no difference at all really.

 

Does it effectively matter if a label collects their “pound of flesh” from the cost of a 24/192k download, or from a MQA license? I guess that depends more on who wins the internal battle at the label  - Corp execs who are  accountants or  Corp execs who are lawyers.  (No insult to any audiophile lawyers! Completely different breed of cat!)

Labels have an irrational fear of piracy. MQA can be perceived as a remedy for this, just as the stupid levy on blank CDs some countries have.

[mav52]

4 minutes ago, mansr said:

Labels have an irrational fear of piracy. MQA can be perceived as a remedy for this, just as the stupid levy on blank CDs some countries have.

 

All I know, a record label will make their money from someone, be it the artist, the streaming company and the customer who pays them all.  And I agree the label will protect ( via DRM) that incoming dollar any way they can.