MQA is Vaporware

[firedog]

6 hours ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Ancient out dated thinking.

Let us know how your thriving audio business is doing, with it's large numbers of satisfied customers.....Really posts like these are why professionals in many areas don't want to engage at forums. It gets tiresome dealing with people who have little idea of what reality is like telling them how to run their career/business from their armchair at home. 

[firedog]

5 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

The feedback I get face to face says the opposite. 

Of course, your face to face feedback may not reflect what statisticians would call a representative sample. 

[4est]

10 hours ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Do you feel better after your screed? Why am I not surprised you are in Paul's "camp". Bird of a feather.

 

Back to MQA, It is without debate a step backwards in digital audio. It is a screw job for music consumers. I was taught to pass on the quick buck and do for the greater good. Selling MQA enabled products works against the greater good. 

Screed? Bird of a feather? Quick buck? How pathetic it is that you are so caught up in your own battle that you cannot fathom someone taking a different tack despite agreeing that MQA has to go. Unlike Paul, I do not care for MQA, and might even take up the fight against it if given the opportunity. As it stands, individuals such as you just alienate the entire room with these churlish/childish remarks- all under a silly pseudonym even.

 

If you are actually looking to make a change, it might be better to not alienate potential allies whilst looking like a nut job to the masses.

[Rt66indierock]

7 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

Stick with your Boots and Knuckler Dusters approach and sooner or later somebody bigger will knock you down.

 A better approach would be to use both Mansr and Archimago to represent you.

 

Alex I generally don’t do it myself but I didn’t object when my friend Charley Hansen did. It takes a combination of approaches to break up an  availability cascade. Which is what the promotion of MQA is. 

[Rt66indierock]

5 hours ago, firedog said:

Of course, your face to face feedback may not reflect what statisticians would call a representative sample. 

 

95%, 5%, large population is 384. I hit that at my second show in 2016. Before I wrote the original post.

[crenca]

4 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Alex I generally don’t do it myself but I didn’t object when my friend Charley Hansen did. It takes a combination of approaches to break up an  availability cascade. Which is what the promotion of MQA is. 

 

This.  This is the what/how of MQA (and Audiophiledom in general) promotion machine, and this is what Bob S understood and leveraged.  The sheep went exactly where they were supposed to go.

 

Because of this certain "high end" manufactures are in a pickle and are  were being "asked" if they offered MQA, and some of them went down that road.  However, beyond the most short term perspective MQA does not make any sense, and so in the end @Ishmael Slapowitzis right in that companies are wise to look beyond the shortest term.  @vortecjr, Schiit, and others who said no thanks to MQA and any other unicorns are the better for it, better for customers, and better for "the hobby" that the sheep are so concerned about.  Why?

 

Because MQA begins and ends with DRM  and that ain't good for nobody (well, perhaps a narrow few)...

[lucretius]

4 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

95%, 5%, large population is 384. I hit that at my second show in 2016. Before I wrote the original post.

 

There's always the question of randomness.

[firedog]

3 hours ago, crenca said:

 

This.  This is the what/how of MQA (and Audiophiledom in general) promotion machine, and this is what Bob S understood and leveraged.  The sheep went exactly where they were supposed to go.

 

Because of this certain "high end" manufactures are in a pickle and are  were being "asked" if they offered MQA, and some of them went down that road.  However, beyond the most short term perspective MQA does not make any sense, and so in the end @Ishmael Slapowitzis right in that companies are wise to look beyond the shortest term.  @vortecjr, Schiit, and others who said no thanks to MQA and any other unicorns are the better for it, better for customers, and better for "the hobby" that the sheep are so concerned about.  Why?

 

Because MQA begins and ends with DRM  and that ain't good for nobody (well, perhaps a narrow few)...

I have zero issues with companies like PSA or Roon that add first unfold and stop there. That allows Tidal subscribers who are getting access to MQA files to hear them without getting into the wacky universe of proprietary MQA filtering and upsampling. 

[crenca]

9 minutes ago, firedog said:

I have zero issues with companies like PSA or Roon that add first unfold and stop there. That allows Tidal subscribers who are getting access to MQA files to hear them without getting into the wacky universe of proprietary MQA filtering and upsampling. 

 

They still have to sign NDA, spend the time and money, and who knows what else contractionaly/technically for this unicorn/DRMed format.  It's a short term gain at best, and we have good reason to suspect it is not really even that.  So yes, there are issues...

[Sonicularity]

I would be more comfortable if Tidal offered MQA files for a separate premium cost rather than including them in the tier that gives Red Book FLAC versions.  The lack of choice for the consumer is annoying, and it is set up like cable TV where the option is to either go without or stick with the bundle because what you want and what you don't want are a package deal.

[FredericV]

On 5/10/2019 at 9:27 PM, #Yoda# said:

I've spend the whole day today at the Munich HighEnd show, attended a lot of presentations with MQA capable systems, but never noticed any mention of MQA nor any audio demonstration during my presence. I think, that is telling enough.

I can testify from the other side. Nobody asked me about MQA during the last 3 days in Marriot Munich at the Hifi Deluxe show.
The main question about this topic was surprisingly: is this hi-res (probably because they were amazed) and I always answered: no this is redbook ...

[esldude]

13 minutes ago, FredericV said:

I can testify from the other side. Nobody asked me about MQA during the last 3 days in Marriot Munich at the Hifi Deluxe show.
The main question about this topic was surprisingly: is this hi-res (probably because they were amazed) and I always answered: no this is redbook ...

We know you are making this up.  No way would a watering hole for serious audiophiles like the Munich show result in so many golden eared people mistaking Redbook for hi-res.  You just think we'll swallow whatever tale you wish to tell us don't you?

 

🤪

[FredericV]

1 minute ago, esldude said:

We know you are making this up.  No way would a watering hole for serious audiophiles like the Munich show result in so many golden eared people mistaking Redbook for hi-res.  You just think we'll swallow whatever tale you wish to tell us don't you?

 

🤪

Mocking Questions Allowed ;)

[asdf1000]

4 hours ago, firedog said:

I have zero issues with companies like PSA or Roon that add first unfold and stop there.

 

As previously mentioned a few times, PSA sent a unit to MQA Ltd for them to do impulse response measurements (at the analogue output...) and the other crap that they do. So in the case of PSA with their network card, it’s more than the 1st unfold (more than Core/software decoder).. it does MQA unfolding (leaky upsampling) up to 192kHz with MQA content... 192kHz is the max supported sample rate of the ConversDigital network card that they use...

 

Of course we don’t need to repeat how crap MQA is - and anyone can read Paul’s own words that I shared above about how MQA performance is worse than Ted Smith’s DSP (according to PSA)..

 

But this should also make it obvious by now, why non-MQA content is not affected by MQA filtering with their DirectStream DAC...

[rando]

Swabbing < Bobbing !??

 

Tut tut, miscalculations on this order exact a cost that grows harder to justify as they steadily accrew.  

[asdf1000]

On 5/11/2019 at 11:13 AM, Rt66indierock said:

There was pressure in 2017 to have MQA. Then people found out how much money Bob Stuart lost at Meridian. And we all could listen to enough MQA files to see that it wasn’t any different than any other format, some good, most no different and some worse. In 2018 we also got a better understanding of how MQA files were different.

 

Not ruled out in 2019, for PS Audio's next DAC (Ted Smith Signature - TSS) by the way, with the streamer - similar to DirectStream's FPGA not having any MQA code either, as previously explained... So I'm not sure your theory about 2017 MQA pressure has any relevance...  If it doesn't happen it will be for technical reasons associated with their new custom in-house streamer... with their previous streamer for the DS DAC, the ConversDigital board took care of it, as I previously explained...

 

[Siltech817]

12 hours ago, rando said:

Swabbing < Bobbing !??

 

Tut tut, miscalculations on this order exact a cost that grows harder to justify as they steadily accrew.

 

Cryptic nonsensical shtick is notable only for it's infamy... "accrew" is not a thing.

 

 

 

[rando]

Phoned it in. 

Accrue.

 

Not sure why my post didn't get erased along with the rest.

 

 

[christopher3393]

1 hour ago, Siltech817 said:

 

Cryptic nonsensical shtick is notable only for it's infamy... "accrew" is not a thing.

 

 

 

 

Cryptic? Hidden, yes, but hidden in plain sight for those that have eyes to see it.

Sil,  looks like you've lost that oceanic feeling.  🌌

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Paul R]

On 5/11/2019 at 4:54 AM, 4est said:

Screed? Bird of a feather? Quick buck? How pathetic it is that you are so caught up in your own battle that you cannot fathom someone taking a different tack despite agreeing that MQA has to go. Unlike Paul, I do not care for MQA, and might even take up the fight against it if given the opportunity. As it stands, individuals such as you just alienate the entire room with these churlish/childish remarks- all under a silly pseudonym even.

 

If you are actually looking to make a change, it might be better to not alienate potential allies whilst looking like a nut job to the masses.

 

LOL!  Hi Forrest - I didn't realize that [person] was still making noise around these parts. Best to just ignore his crazy raves. 

 

I am actually going back and forth a little - just a very little - about MQA. It occasionally sounds very good, but I do not think MQA is needed, wanted, or a good thing, given the potential for DRM embedded in it. 

 

I am glad to see that some people are encountering little or no interest in MQA at Munich.  I suspect however, that instead of spending money on technical advances and research, MQA will simply spend more money on PR. Its all grist in the mill. 

 

The facts about MQA, other than the purely technical ones, are not clear. Smoke and mirrors from all sides, and [people] like Slaphappy over there churning up even more muddy water with their teenaged angst... 

 

 

-Paul

 

[Ralf11]

2 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

 I didn't realize that jerk was still making noise around these parts. Best to just ignore his crazy raves. 

 

 

 

best not to call people jerks or make other personal attacks

[Paul R]

1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

best not to call people jerks or make other personal attacks

 

Seriously?  That is good advice, but with people like that, giving them any break or respect just ends up with more and more personal attacks. 

 

It's crazy - and over a crazy subject too.  But in any case, you are correct. 

 

-Paul

.

 

 

[FredericV]

Remember that Bose does not provide specs for it's consumer products?

Bob now does the same:

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6517


Off course, providing specifications would mean that customers would discover:

- 17/88.2 or 17/96 actual max resolution
- with upsampling to fake indication value on DAC, so customers believe it's 24/whatever like 24/192 or 24/352.8
- frequency domain is horrible
- not the master, not the quality, not authentic

[asdf1000]

8 minutes ago, FredericV said:

Remember that Bose does not provide specs for it's consumer products?

Bob now does the same:

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6517


Off course, providing specifications would mean that customers would discover:

- 17/88.2 or 17/96 actual max resolution
- with upsampling to fake indication value on DAC, so customers believe it's 24/whatever like 24/192 or 24/352.8
- frequency domain is horrible
- not the master, not the quality, not authentic

 

I know you've posted that graph many times before but can you kindly remind me what track (and album it's from) that is?

[FredericV]

2 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

I know you've posted that graph many times before but can you kindly remind me what track (and album it's from) that is?

 

http://www.2l.no/hires/

 

2L-053 = bottom row