MQA is Vaporware

[daverich4]

19 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

For example, five artists I love are Rhiannon Giddens, Melody Gardot, Alison Krauss, Madeleine Peyroux, and Cecile McLorin Salvant. None of these release their music on Bandcamp.

 

 

Most of those artists are available on HDTracks if their music is hiRez, if not, Amazon has them all.

[kumakuma]

12 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

 

Most of those artists are available on HDTracks if their music is hiRez, if not, Amazon has them all.

 

Yes, I understand that current releases are available from HDTracks in non-proprietary formats.

 

My strongest objection to MQA is that new releases from these and other artists I like may only be available in the future in MQA format.

 

[Thuaveta]

4 hours ago, daverich4 said:

Has that happened to you? I don’t know about 16/44 MQA files but I have yet to find a higher rez MQA album that wasn’t available as non-MQA hiRez on HD-Tracks or elsewhere. 

 

Not DSOTM or Diana Krall, of course, but Muse's Simulation Theory, Kanye West's Ye, Troye Sivan's Bloom, for example ?

[daverich4]

4 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Yes, I understand that current releases are available from HDTracks in non-proprietary formats.

 

Amazon only sell CDs and lossy downloads.

 

My strongest objection to MQA is that new releases from these and other artists I like may only be available in the future in MQA format.

 

 

That's not been my experience for releases in hiRez so far. If Tidal has it in hiRez MQA, HDTracks has it without the MQA. At least anything I've looked for. YMMV.

[daverich4]

6 minutes ago, Thuaveta said:

 

Not DSOTM or Diana Krall, of course, but Muse's Simulation Theory, Kanye West's Ye, Troye Sivan's Bloom, for example ?

 

HDTracks has all three of those albums in the same resolutions as Tidal, just without the MQA.

[kumakuma]

11 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

 

That's not been my experience for releases in hiRez so far. If Tidal has it in hiRez MQA, HDTracks has it without the MQA. At least anything I've looked for. YMMV.

 

While I believe that the probability is low, there is simply no guarantee that the major labels (who are also shareholders in MQA) won't, at some point in the future, decide that all new HR releases will only be available in MQA format. 

 

This is certainly what MQA Ltd. would like to see happen.

[daverich4]

2 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

While I believe that the probability is low,, there is simply no guarantee that the major labels (who are also shareholders in MQA) won't, at some point in the future, decide that all new HR releases will only be available only in MQA format. 

 

This is certainly what MQA Ltd. would like to see happen.

 

There's also no guarantee that they won't decide to skip hiRez music altogether and release it only in .mp3. My crystal ball is pretty cloudy on that subject so instead of speculating on all kinds of "what ifs" I think I'm going to log off for now, pour a glass of Lagavulin and spend some time on a rainy Friday afternoon listening to my non-MQA music.

[kumakuma]

1 minute ago, daverich4 said:

 

There's also no guarantee that they won't decide to skip hiRez music altogether and release it only in .mp3. My crystal ball is pretty cloudy on that subject so instead of speculating on all kinds of "what ifs" I think I'm going to log off for now, pour a glass of Lagavulin and spend some time on a rainy Friday afternoon listening to my non-MQA music.

 

Enjoy!

[Kal Rubinson]

5 hours ago, daverich4 said:

Has that happened to you? I don’t know about 16/44 MQA files but I have yet to find a higher rez MQA album that wasn’t available as non-MQA hiRez on HD-Tracks or elsewhere. 

No, it has not happened to me yet.  I was expressing  my concern that a time may come when the MQA versions are the only ones available anywhere and that it would make me very unhappy.  (Underlining added for emphasis.)  

 

[garrardguy60]

4 hours ago, bluesman said:

...But I have a bit of trouble with the Carpenters and ABBA as reference source material  .  I'd suggest checking out Wes Montgomery's California Dreamin' album on A&M to hear what they could do with a heartbreakingly dull set of performances. It's a Van Gelder / Creed Taylor production with one of the greatest studio bands in history - Herbie Hancock, Wayne Andre, Bucky Pizzarelli, Richard Davis, Grady Tate, Ray Barretto etc.

 

I am with you on ABBA and the Carpenters [though the latter isn't at the same level of abject suckitude, since Karen Carpenter had talent], but I have to step in and defend Wes Montgomery's California Dreamin'  [which was on Verve, not A&M]. I'll agree with you that, as easy listening/smooth jazz, we're not talking about breaking any ground here. But I'd argue that the [unique, wonderful] tone he got out of his guitar makes anything by Wes Montgomery worthwhile. Doubly so since he died so young. Interestingly, that album, which charted in 1966, has just been reissued on vinyl by Impulse Records, though it seems to be available only in Europe.  OK, sorry for off-topic.

[Sonicularity]

Just 5-10 years ago I was finding CDs on Amazon for about $6 (USD).  They are not as easy to find anymore.  I had to resort to Discogs to find Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica a few months ago.  If online and streaming options are the only place to acquire music, MQA having too much control will create an undesirable situation for consumers.  My concern is that costs will increase while overall quality and availability of content will decrease as a result.  Only time will tell if this uneasiness is justified; but, it is a significant reason for the vitriol directed toward those that seem to support MQA's success.   I do think it is rational to be worried at this time.

 

[sandyk]

Quote

     4 hours ago, bluesman said:

...But I have a bit of trouble with the Carpenters and ABBA as reference source material

 You guys are missing the point here. John is developing new techniques to correct the distortions created by Dolby Encoding and Decoding as used in MANY (most ?) releases of the era. He is using those as they are particularly challenging to correct.

These recordings that he is working on now will be archived and preserved so that future generations will be able to hear them as they were meant to be heard.

The techniques being  used by John now, which have resulted in MAJOR improvements over the source material could also be used to great benefit with numerous recordings of the Dolby era.

[Sonicularity]

I welcome most attempts to improve the sound quality from disastrous studio decisions, as long as nobody comes up with a plan to remove the feedback from Jimi Hendrix's guitar solos. 🙉

[John Dyson]

46 minutes ago, garrardguy60 said:

 

I am with you on ABBA and the Carpenters [though the latter isn't at the same level of abject suckitude, since Karen Carpenter had talent], but I have to step in and defend Wes Montgomery's California Dreamin'  [which was on Verve, not A&M]. I'll agree with you that, as easy listening/smooth jazz, we're not talking about breaking any ground here. But I'd argue that the [unique, wonderful] tone he got out of his guitar makes anything by Wes Montgomery worthwhile. Doubly so since he died so young. Interestingly, that album, which charted in 1966, has just been reissued on vinyl by Impulse Records, though it seems to be available only in Europe.  OK, sorry for off-topic.

The problem for my project about material with natural instruments and unprocessed vocals is that they make very poor, non rigorous test material.  Sounding 'nice by default' doesn't help my project.  (BTW, my best friend just recently had been working at the Walker Theater on Indiana Avenue (short street where Wes M played).)  Nice sounding music to begin with is SO VERY EASY to deal with -- way back when R Dolby created his DolbyA, I am sure that he didn't forsee the stuff that was going to be fed to his NR system.

 

This kind of unforseen limitation is the reason why schemes like MQA, mp3, opus and other lossy systems will tend to limit the choices for the future.  I am working hard to help mitigate the previous damage by DolbyA (as much as possible.)

 

Using nice, mellow music just does NOT test the dynamics processing, doesn't usually stress the attack/decay enough to intermodulate sufficiently to even produce much audible damage.  (The worst kind of bad thing that DolbyA did against typical, natural music was to fuzz up complex combinations of sources and also blunted the transients.)  DolbyA  can lose intensity in cymbals, and vocal choruses lose clarity/individual voices.  Typically, vocals turn into a 'blob'.

The way that my processing works is to do some very complex mathmatical tricks to keep the 'blob' from being so very bad.  There are the obvious 'tricks' like limiting the gain control slew rate -- that is trivial.  There are other techniques that treat the audio signal as being modulated -- and does some processing that removes undesired modulation sidebands (often called IMD, but it is a specific kind of IMD associated with gain control devices.)

 

I didin't intend to bring up the 'clarity and cleanness' of ABBA recordings (or their sophisticated lyrics), or the perfectly clean recordings made of Karen Carpenter (very sad, actually) -- but that my decoder can actually deal clealy with the damage -- and actually sound relatively clean, being able to more clearly hear individual voices, etc. (big smiley for the humor impaired.)

 

The processing DOES work on more normal chorus and instrumentals also -- some of my professionally sourced test recordings are complete, professional DolbyA  in a full 192k/24bit unmastered form.  (I do have some relatively well known professional recordings by moderately well known arties, some soon to be released -- I use them for testing, but it does NO-ONE any good to talk about them in detail.)  The clean, jazz type material is damaged by normal DolbyA decoding, but not enough to be used for anything except final quality control and estimate quality improvement.

 

Being able to cleanly decode DolbyA encoded ABBA is an achievement, because a DolbyA does it so very poorly.

Who really cares if ABBA might suck in some people's opinion -- I know people who think the opposite (E. european females of the 40-60yr age group) - music taste is based upon individual perceptions & experience.

Frankly, there is material that I know a lot of 'elite' listeners might like, but I totally dislike -- however, you'll NEVER hear me condemn or criticize their taste.   BTW -- ABBA for music quality doesn't rate super high on my scale either -- but that isn't the main reason for using it for test material.  I only have about 70-80 96k/24bit DolbyA ABBA recordings -- imagine needing to listen for IMD for every internal release/test pass that I do?  I am very tired of ABBA, Carpenters and almost every other copy of DolbyA material that I do have.

One thing that I can say for sure -- when the decoder actually makes something from ABBA sound clean/clear, it makes me feel really good, like I have achieved something -- will help other people also, who listen to much more popular groups than even ABBA was at one time.

 

Processing like SR is much worse than A -- and Dolby B/C being relatively unsophisticated, also has lots of quality issues.  Lots of damage went on back in the past.

 

John

[bluesman]

43 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 You guys are missing the point here. John is developing new techniques to correct the distortions created by Dolby Encoding and Decoding as used in MANY (most ?) releases of the era. He is using those as they are particularly challenging to correct.

These recordings that he is working on now will be archived and preserved so that future generations will be able to hear them as they were meant to be heard.

The techniques being  used by John now, which have resulted in MAJOR improvements over the source material could also be used to great benefit with numerous recordings of the Dolby era.

Sadly, there's no emoji with its tongue in its cheek - and I was afraid the only image I have expressing this phenomenon would take up too much screen. But you force my hand.....

 

 

So I guess I'm wasting my good humor to suggest that the real challenge is to make ABBA and the Carpenters swing.  If "sonic Sominex" didn't tip my hand, I'll have to be more forthright: I understand and appreciate the hard work you're putting into improving sound quality by overcoming the limitations of previous generations of processing.  I only hope that once you fix Dolby aberrations, you can find a way to improve boring, generic progam material.

 

 

...and there are a lot of 40 to 60 year old eastern European women up my family tree, so let's show some love!

[John Dyson]

I have put up a demo of the DA decoder to show the difference -- if you notice that the Polar version has swishy percussion and generally softer sound.  I don't know if vocals are cleaner on this example (sometimes there is already distortion in the recordings.)  There is a bit of compression in the polar version, so it isn't 100% fair.  But notice the positive, clear sound of the dhnrds, but the polar version is softer than even the compression should cause.

BTW -- I found that my copy of the Waterloo album has lots of noise glitches in  it (haven't heard them before, but the DHNRDS cleans up the material so much that they become obvious.)  Then, I listened to the Polar digital copy, and could JUST BARELY hear the glitches.  A normal DolbyA device fuzzes over the detail.

 

The dhnrds HAS been compared against other original master tapes also -- but not in this specific case.  All I have for ABBA are several properly DolbyA decoded examples of each song.  The DHNRDS USUALLY compares fairly well with an original -- and USUALLY blows away DolbyA HW.  DHNRDS isn't always perfect -- FOR SURE!!!

 

Sorry for using mp3, but it does show most of the differences.  The DHNRDS really does need .flac or lossless to show the quality -- mp3 does miss a LOT of detail.  The player on dropbox isn't very good -- so I don't know if will gloss over the differences.  I normally use sox or convert it with one of the mp3 tools.

 

The quality IS NOT GREAT -- but I think that you can see how difficult that ABBA is to process.  I know that the DHNRDS IS pretty accurate -- the quality of pop recordings is generally pretty low.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/prkz8ghg4jwqw2w/nameofthegame-dhnrds.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ey502pue7kr1nk4/nameofthegame-polar.mp3?dl=0

 

[John Dyson]

Wont post any more links -- just wanted to show that the DHNRDS can sound pretty good also (th ABBA stuff is really a mess, REALLY.)

 

Here is a short Linda R snippet (I haven't massaged it -- this is raw, and not tweaked):

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v34yepx63x1n7zy/Pitiful-dhnrds.mp3?dl=0

 

You'' maybe notice that there is a spot where the vocals are a little odd sounding -- that is because I didn't set the calibration quite right.  Also, the DHNRDS has lower quality modes that sound VERY SIMILAR to a real DolbyA.

 

No more space wasting and off topic.

 

Bottom line -- it is SOOOO important to keep from doing things that will be regretted in the future (e.g. DolbyA, MQA, etc.)

 

John

[sandyk]

43 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

The quality IS NOT GREAT -- but I think that you can see how difficult that ABBA is to process.  I know that the DHNRDS IS pretty accurate -- the quality of pop recordings is generally pretty low.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/prkz8ghg4jwqw2w/nameofthegame-dhnrds.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ey502pue7kr1nk4/nameofthegame-polar.mp3?dl=0

 

If only all .mp3 sounded as good as the markedly improved version.

 

  Brought to you by the makers of :

[sandyk]

28 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Bottom line -- it is SOOOO important to keep from doing things that will be regretted in the future (e.g. DolbyA, MQA, etc.)

 

it IS  SOOOO important to keep from doing things that will be regretted in the future (e.g. DolbyA, MQA, etc.)   !!!

 

 

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, John Dyson said:

Here is a short Linda R snippet (I haven't massaged it -- this is raw, and not tweaked):

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v34yepx63x1n7zy/Pitiful-dhnrds.mp3?dl=0

 

 Overall, It more than gives the CD version that I have a run for the money despite being only 320kbps .mp3  !

They should be ashamed for calling this what they have at the top.!

I can  only imagine how the DHNRDS version would sound as a 1411kbps .wav file though.
 

 P.S.

I am not using the Dropbox player. I am downloading them, converting them to .wav using Foobar 2000 if in .flac format , then playing them with JRiver.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Ok, I’m back from vacation with my family. Anything happen in this thread over the last week? Fill me in 😁

[Paul R]

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

I haven't seen a single person here making a blanket statement like this.

 

 

It took me less than 30 seconds to find this. I am sure there are a lot more.  It may be a case of familiarity with the subject you know - seeing things from a specific perspective. Not a bad thing necessarily, but it is surprising that you would not see things like this. There is a lot of follow up along the lines of MQA the evil empire and such. 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

Bandcamp is only an option if the artist releases their music via Bandcamp or similar platforms.

 

Few, if any, major artists do.

 

For example, five artists I love are Rhiannon Giddens, Melody Gardot, Alison Krauss, Madeleine Peyroux, and Cecile McLorin Salvant. None of these release their music on Bandcamp.

 

It people stopped buying their MQA albums because of - whatever reasons -  or people were willing to pay more on Bandcamp for non-MQuilated music, then you bet they would be selling there. 

 

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

 

How do you propose finding facts about what might happen in the future?

 

 

The same was as one does for any other subject, one deals with the most probable outcomes. How one deals varies across the entire range of human behavior, from ignoring it to building MQA proof bomb shelters. (Perhaps crazy at both extremes.) 

 

 

[Paul R]

6 hours ago, Sonicularity said:

Just 5-10 years ago I was finding CDs on Amazon for about $6 (USD).  They are not as easy to find anymore.  I had to resort to Discogs to find Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica a few months ago.  If online and streaming options are the only place to acquire music, MQA having too much control will create an undesirable situation for consumers.  My concern is that costs will increase while overall quality and availability of content will decrease as a result.  Only time will tell if this uneasiness is justified; but, it is a significant reason for the vitriol directed toward those that seem to support MQA's success.   I do think it is rational to be worried at this time.

 

 

Yes,  very well put except for where you used it as justification to level vitriol at folks who just do not agree with you. 

 

Rather than an irrational reaction like leveling vitriol, what are you thinking of doing about this possible situation?  Building up your permanent library instead of just streaming everything? That would seem like a more sensible and effective course of action. Same an encouraging independent artists to release MQA free, by -oh for example -buying their music. 

 

-Paul 

 

[Don Hills]

9 hours ago, Paul R said:

... Is this study public, and do you have have a link to it by any chance? ...

 

The State Of The YouTube Music Economy

[firedog]

11 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

The completist in me likes dead artists...

Why? The labels just release more stuff for decades after the deaths: e.g., Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Mavin Gaye, just a few recent examples. They've all had more than one "new" album released.