MQA is Vaporware

[The Computer Audiophile]

Or just route Roon or Audirvana to through Audio Hijack and capture decoded MQA for those so inclined. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

27 minutes ago, FredericV said:

This would suggest that the McGill U MQA study also applies to MQA CD on a lot of audio systems.

I'm not saying it's impossible to hear the differences, but does the average MQA user has a system which makes these differences obvious?

Fresh from the fanboy group:

 

He won't be around long in that group. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

21 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

The people that stream MP3's and other lossy music might not care about the quality of the music, but they may care about the added cost for every aspect of the music.

 

That huge payday that MQA is expecting is going to cost someone.  The music consumer will pay.

There's no free lunch MQA

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, KeenObserver said:

MQA wants to become to music what Dolby is to video.  MQA wants to control the distribution of music.

Will we see the need for protected interconnects like HDMI to play music? With all the problems that these special interconnects cause?

Will we be able to play non MQA music if MQA becomes the norm and all new equipment is MQA certified?

 

MQA is a scheme that might have made sense twenty years ago, but its time has passed.  The genie has been let out of the bottle and MQA is trying to put it back in.

The people that have experienced high quality music are not going to accept MQA.  The problem with that is that they are a smaller part of the market.

The cool thing about Dolby ATMOS is it offers something I can't get any other way.

[The Computer Audiophile]

15 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

Since its inception MQA Ltd has lost somewhere in the order of thirty million pounds. While this may seem like small "seed" money to a multi billion investment firm, it is still big money to put out unless they expect substantial returns.

What leads them to expect the huge returns?

For them to expect substantial returns they would have to expect that MQA was going to become THE music distribution method.

For them to expect that MQA was going to become THE music distribution method, what promises have they extracted from the backing studios?

Have the studios promised MQA that they are going to force MQA on the music consumer?

Reminds me of the people saying, “I get MQA through Tidal so it’s free.” Think about that. A company is blowing tens of millions of dollars and some consumers still like to use the “it’s free” argument as if the chickens aren’t going to come home to roost some day soon. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

This is truly amazing. As of December 4, 2020, MQA is still using the lossless term and at the same time suggesting its better than lossless. Wow, can we get just a tiny bit of honesty from this company. 

 

https://mqa.jp/article/is-mqa-lossless/

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

That's nice that a CD transport can do this... Billions of CDs out there to play!

 

But these days, it's not like CDs are hot items. I don't know what cost-benefit equation would compel the record label to purposely mass encode MQA into standard 16/44.1 for the sake of the few consumers who might have this CD transport or MQA-capable CD player.

 

Seriously guys, MQA-CD has to take the cake for being the most ridiculous thing they could do with MQA. What a waste of a perfectly good data bit which could be used for real audio instead of MQA control/"authentication" content!

 

Reminder: 

"MQA-CD x UHQCD" Listening Test by Agitater.

One never knows, the letter carrier could be changing bits on those CDs during delivery. Only a blue light will enable the consumer to know the music was hand delivered authentically. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

And, I think the worst part is looking at that video of RMAF 2018 and thinking that these are the people that want to control the future distribution of music.

I wouldn’t want them washing my car. I can see it now, “that scratch was there before you came in” “you never said don’t use sandpaper” etc...

[The Computer Audiophile]

https://us.auralic.com/pages/auralic-vs-drm

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

“To enable everyone here to form their own picture of the facts, the following is an excerpt from the relevant chapter. By the way, this was not written by Neil Young, but by his co-author Phil Baker, an experienced manager for the development of consumer electronic products and responsible for the PonoPlayer:”

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/tidal-to-add-millions-of-master-quality-mqa-tracks/127573/460

 

more details here:

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

14 minutes ago, GUTB said:

So, ESS released a new chip a little while ago, the 9068AS. This part is unique as it is the first DS-style DAC chip which has MQA unfolding built into the silicon. The Gustard DAC-X16 was the first product on the market to use this chip for $500 -- so I just had to pick one up. After a day of burn-in I sat down to test it out...and found that is wasn't detecting MQA-CD from the coax input. Reading the spec sheet for the chip it says that it unfolds "decoded MQA streams"...meaning that it doesn't decode them. It needs a first decode stage first, and as usual with these Chinese DACs that's on the copy-pasted XMOS controller. Very disappointing, I was hoping this would be a good alternative for getting MQA on all the inputs except for a few products that do it right like Mytek DACs. Anyway, maybe the on-silicon unfolding performs substantially better than doing it externally off-die? I'll have to test this, stay tuned for my findings.

So it just does the final upsampling. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

16 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Gumby:

 

Thank you for being the useful village clown...It keeps this thread going...and provides a good laugh!😅

Don’t be a jerk. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

MQA removes data. In 2021, why does any consumer who cares about sound quality want data removed?

[The Computer Audiophile]

This comes to mind. 
 

 

Sealioning

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

 

 

Rhetorically, sealioning fuses persistent questioning—often about basic information, information easily found elsewhere, or unrelated or tangential points—with a loudly-insisted-upon commitment to reasonable debate. It disguises itself as a sincere attempt to learn and communicate. Sealioning thus works both to exhaust a target's patience, attention, and communicative effort, and to portray the target as unreasonable. While the questions of the "sea lion" may seem innocent, they're intended maliciously and have harmful consequences.

— Amy Johnson, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (May 2019)

[The Computer Audiophile]

53 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

It is utterly ridiculous to remaster a recording and then damage it by applying MQA.

Unless you’re in on the grift. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

57 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

The only way these people are going to reverse course is if the public relations effect costs them money.

This is 100% true. 

 

If the labels thought piracy would return because of MQA, they'd drop it in an instant. Piracy scares the hell out of them. 

 

If the labels thought they'd get bad PR because of MQA, they'd drop it in an instant. 

 

The success or failure of MQA has nothing to do with technology or music and everything to do with money. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

52 minutes ago, UkPhil said:

Jeez 

Guess what’s wrong with this  advertising campaign, answers on a postcard please, the cheek of it 

That’s quite a reduction in bandwidth. From uncompressed WAV at 9216 kbps to proprietary MQA at, wait for it, 9216 kbps. I can feel the globe starting to cool and the winds calming. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

10 minutes ago, David Wiblin said:

 

Ooo . . . I just know I'm setting myself up for a beat-down here but isn't that poster referring to the unpacked bit rate (9216) and not the MQA container transmission rate (of say 1200kbps)? 

Don’t worry about beat-downs from this crowd :~)

 

How can MQA be unpacked to 9216 kbps without 24 bits and 192 kHz worth of information? Remember, it’s lossy and can’t recover it all. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just so we’re all on the same page. 
 

 

24 bits per sample x 192,000 samples per second = 4,608,000 bits per second x 2 channels = 9,216,000 (9216 kbps) bits per second of stereo.

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

MQA is 17 bits maximum and 96 kHz maximum. 
 

17 bits per sample x 96,000 samples per second = 1,632,000 bits per second x 2 channels = 3,264,,000 (3264 kbps) bits per second of stereo.

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, David Wiblin said:

 

Oh, I was not aware MQA was limited to 17 bits and 96k?  I thought that only applied to non-MQA devices.
 

No, MQA removes data to decrease file size. The encoded file just tells the DAC to upsample the audio to 192 or whatever high rate was the original. No data is expanded or gotten back. Given that 99% of DACs upsample internally to much higher rates than that, it’s kind of comical. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

It's probably far too late, but start sending your comments to Daniel Ek about Spotify going lossless and the strong possibility it will use MQA. 

 

https://twitter.com/eldsjal

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Two things from the Spotify announcement. One good, one equivocal. 

 

 

Equivocal - "Beginning later this year, Premium subscribers in select markets will be able to upgrade their sound quality to Spotify HiFi and listen to their favorite songs the way artists intended (emphasis mine)."

 

Good - "Spotify HiFi will deliver music in CD-quality(emphasis mine), lossless audio format to your device and Spotify Connect-enabled speakers, which means fans will be able to experience more depth and clarity while enjoying their favorite tracks."

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

7 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

In my view, MQA may only be regarded as success if it substitutes existing formats, any decade-long coexistance with non-discriminating alternative & bitperfect formats (for all releases) would damage MQA.

Yes. And, the only reason I care about MQA is its goal of "one deliverable" and its effect of removing consumer choice. If it was always an option for people who could also stream pure PCM, I couldn't care less. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 minutes ago, Shimei said:

Well you definitely live in the wrong time. 

There used to be a time when contradictions were indicators of illogic, irrationality, or hypocrisy. However, nobody really cares anymore. Welcome to the new norm. 

 

Couldn't disagree more strongly. There have always been Walmart shoppers and always will be. That doesn't mean the rest of us don't exist.