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MQA is Vaporware


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4 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Doesn't dash my hopes. Mr. Waldrep says a lot I find myself disagreeing with. Seems to me to be marketing of a certain type.

 

Other than revisions to his book what he is doing that will put money in his pocket?  The rest of his working life will be teaching and liquidating an impressive amount of equipment.

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3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Interesting numbers. I always thought Pandora was way bigger than the streaming services. Looking at the Pandora specific numbers it looks like it's larger than the monthly numbers suggest. 

 

Screen Shot 2019-06-10 at 12.30.06 PM.png

 

 

Screen Shot 2019-06-10 at 12.29.57 PM.png

John Darko says 41% of his 594 Twitter followers use Tidal.

https://darko.audio/2019/06/global-feedback-which-music-streaming-service-do-you-mostly-use/

 

 

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2 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

By 2018, It's all US.

 

Can you clarify?

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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13 minutes ago, esldude said:

So getting on topic, if MQA works it doesn't mean much.

 As far as hi res content goes. However, there's still the claim that MQA can correct time smears.  I'm not even sure what that means and have absolutely no idea how MQA is supposed to achieve the goal.

mQa is dead!

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1 hour ago, esldude said:

Well let me see on the higher sampling rates.  You can make a case for 96 khz.  40 khz analog bandwidth.  Few microphones have response past this.  Quite a few that are only spec'd to 20 khz have some response up to 30 khz or a bit more.  Few instruments produce sound higher than this and what there is will be really down in level.  So the microphones and instruments are all going to drop out in this general area effectively.  Even ol'Bob says so which is how he encodes this wonderful MQA.  So microphones are a bottleneck, then speakers usually, and then audiophile ears absolutely.  Any ringing in transition bands or other yucky processing effects are too high to matter to us.  There just isn't a reason to go higher.  

 

There is very little reason to go that high.

 

If I rated sound quality with high speed RTR as a reference, I'd rate super excellent cassette as maybe 75%.  Regular cassette maybe 40%.  I'm not sure on LP.  It actually is just an odd beast.  No higher than 80% and I could be persuaded it is 50%.  

 

How would you rate high rate PCM or MQA vs 48/24 or 4816?  I don't think there is 5% gained.  Or no more than that.  You have no problem at all hearing the differences in the analog mediums I mentioned above.  Hearing these hires vs regular res digital files isn't so easy.  

 

So getting on topic, if MQA works it doesn't mean much.  It is not clear it is a transparent process (we know it is lossy and we know undecoded it isn't transparent).  So like said probably hundreds of thousands of times now it is a solution in search of a problem.  I mean if the encoding/decoding end to end process took the streamed 96 kbps mp3 and made it sound like CD for the same bit rate, it would be obvious and maybe it would catch on.   

 

So it isn't vaporware as it exists somewhat.  It might be termed irrelevant-ware.  Do we need a new fresh MQA thread.  MQA is irrelevant.  Somebody might have missed this one.  🧐

 

There will be a new thread probably in July. I want to see if 7digital survives, how RealNetworks 2nd quarter works out, run down another streaming service rumor and work out a couple of DRM things.

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5 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

That statista link (stats are as of March 2018) says 49M

 

The various reported numbers vary due to differences in any given report using U.S. vs. worldwide, and also paid vs. total subscribers.

 

Various news outlets reported in late April that worldwide Spotify now has over 100 million paid subs, while Apple has 50 million paid subscribers worldwide.

 

However in the U.S. only, Apple had recently pulled into the lead with 28 million paid, vs. 26 million paid for Spotify. 

 

Tidal's subscriber numbers, worldwide or otherwise, paid or free, absolutely pale in comparison... MQA evidently not a magic bullet in competing with the big boys of streaming, they are getting crushed.

 

Even with a big lead in paid subscribers worldwide, Spotify still bleeds money every quarter.

 

From The Verge on April 29th:

 

Spotify is still losing money despite its subscriber growth. The company posted a loss of €142 million ($158.3 million) for the January to March quarter, compared with a loss of €169 million in the same period last year.

no-mqa-sm.jpg

Boycott HDtracks

Boycott Lenbrook

Boycott Warner Music Group

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44 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

The various reported numbers vary due to differences in any given report using U.S. vs. worldwide, and also paid vs. total subscribers.

 

Various news outlets reported in late April that worldwide Spotify now has over 100 million paid subs, while Apple has 50 million paid subscribers worldwide.

 

However in the U.S. only, Apple had recently pulled into the lead with 28 million paid, vs. 26 million paid for Spotify. 

 

Tidal's subscriber numbers, worldwide or otherwise, paid or free, absolutely pale in comparison... MQA evidently not a magic bullet in competing with the big boys of streaming, they are getting crushed.

 

Even with a big lead in paid subscribers worldwide, Spotify still bleeds money every quarter.

 

From The Verge on April 29th:

 

Spotify is still losing money despite its subscriber growth. The company posted a loss of €142 million ($158.3 million) for the January to March quarter, compared with a loss of €169 million in the same period last year.

Good information-

 

This then prompts several important questions and observations:

 

-First, the addition of MQA has not helped Tidal's numbers one iota, and other lossless services like

Deezer and Qobuz clearly see this and have thankfully bypassed it.

 

-How long can the streaming services aside from Apple continue to bleed like a stuck pig before the streaming industry collapses?

 

The fact is the vast, VAST majority of music consumers do not want to pay for it, or they want to pay as little as possible. Unfortunately, there may be no solution for this.

 

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1 hour ago, MikeyFresh said:

Spotify still bleeds money every quarter.

 

Previous quarter was profitable...

 

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/6/18214331/spotify-earnings-financial-announcement-profits-music-streaming-podcast

 

That was their first ever and yes most recent quarter was another loss but as paid subscriber numbers continue to climb and their year on year losses get smaller, it's not rocket surgery to guess where they're heading...

 

 

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33 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

Point taken, but one quarter does not a company make.

 

Noted and this is why I acknowledged that this was their only quarter of profit and not even their most recent (as you pointed) but I also emphasised their year on year losses continue to reduce, as their paid subscriber numbers continue to climb... 

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21 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

How do you reconcile this with Dennis''s post? Did you listen to the file he shared?

 

I am on an iPad, which makes it a tiny bit difficult to get the zip file down. But I have no doubt that Dennis is right in what he says. But I do not think that he is saying much of anything that contradicts what I said either. Just asking for an example where the higher frequencies are audible. Not sure how to provide that, since I can not hear to 20khz. 

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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57 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

I am on an iPad, which makes it a tiny bit difficult to get the zip file down. But I have no doubt that Dennis is right in what he says. But I do not think that he is saying much of anything that contradicts what I said either. Just asking for an example where the higher frequencies are audible. Not sure how to provide that, since I can not hear to 20khz. 

 

Dennis's method seems to offer a way to hear what's above 20kHz. It appears to involve use of a high-pass filter then slowing the tempo of the file down to bring the higher frequencies down into the audible range.

 

That's unfortunate that you can't hear the file as it shows that there was nothing of interest above 20kHz in your needle drop, perhaps due to the instrument involved (piano) as @John_Atkinson said.

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby
Edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley
Through the middle of my skull

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