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MQA is Vaporware


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31 minutes ago, FredericV said:

While Dolby is much bigger than MQA, and Atmos is certainly not a failed format in the digital cinema world, Universal will be releasing their music upmixed to Atmos:

https://www.whathifi.com/news/dolby-and-universal-partner-to-create-thousands-of-songs-in-atmos

Why another format? What does this show us? They tried MQA, it failed, let's try something else then?

 

You are correct formats are going to keep popping up because then you can get people to but new stuff and rebuy their music.

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39 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

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.

 

Unfortunate? I never said every vinyl recording has ultrasonic musical information. Only that it can. That was a from a rather old album mind you.

 

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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32 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

In my case transparency. Starting with specifications at least as good as a Khadas Tone Board.

 

By the way thanks for getting the thread over 700,000 views.

 

(Grin) Transparency is always good I think. But what makes your KTB “transparent?” The very flat FR?  

 

I have a buddy who uses one of those in his second system. He feeds it with i2s. Sounds nice with that ESS chip in there.  

 

Directly compared to an iFi iDSD Micro, we disagreed which one sounded better playing redbook material and DSD. But they both actually sounded very good. It does sound very transparent in that it did not seem to add much of any coloration to the material.  For those that are not familiar, these are both very affordable DACs. Right around the $200 mark. 

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

What do you believe makes a DAC better? 

 

  • Oversampling converter with specialized filters with good high-frequency performance in the region between 18 kHz and 22 kHz while reducing distortion at all frequencies
  • Interpolator that will not clip or overload

 

 

mQa is dead!

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Interesting article in many ways. Tragic story. But something potentially related to this thread:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html

 

Today Universal Music Group is a Goliath, by far the world’s biggest record company, with soaring revenues bolstered by a boom in streaming music and a market share nearly double that of its closest competitor, Sony Music Entertainment. Last year, Vivendi announced a plan to sell up to 50 percent of UMG. The sale is the talk of the music business; rumored potential buyers include Apple, Amazon and the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba. The price tag is expected to be hefty: In January, Deutsche Bank raised its valuation of UMG to more than $33 billion.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

 

Whoops, missed this. But, as above, the part maybe interesting (I thought) to this thread:

 

Today Universal Music Group is a Goliath, by far the world’s biggest record company, with soaring revenues bolstered by a boom in streaming music and a market share nearly double that of its closest competitor, Sony Music Entertainment. Last year, Vivendi announced a plan to sell up to 50 percent of UMG. The sale is the talk of the music business; rumored potential buyers include Apple, Amazon and the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba. The price tag is expected to be hefty: In January, Deutsche Bank raised its valuation of UMG to more than $33 billion.

 

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4 hours ago, Paul R said:

 

(Grin) Transparency is always good I think. But what makes your KTB “transparent?” The very flat FR?  

 

I have a buddy who uses one of those in his second system. He feeds it with i2s. Sounds nice with that ESS chip in there.  

 

Directly compared to an iFi iDSD Micro, we disagreed which one sounded better playing redbook material and DSD. But they both actually sounded very good. It does sound very transparent in that it did not seem to add much of any coloration to the material.  For those that are not familiar, these are both very affordable DACs. Right around the $200 mark. 

 

Dang - that should have said “directly compared to an iFi iDSD Nano” vice Micro. Sorry!

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Scorched earth I guess. They all be long retired by the time it really blows up in their faces. 

Funny you mention it..a friend of mine in LA. saw JVS and called me to tell me he looked SO Much older than his pics and headshot.

 

He also said their brief conversation helped him form an a very specific opinion, which I won't repeat. JVS was in a rush to see specific rooms, and he, and I quote, as the "#1 Stereophile writer at the show" had places to go.

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26 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Funny you mention it..a friend of mine in LA. saw JVS and called me to tell me he looked SO Much older than his pics and headshot.

 

He also said their brief conversation helped him form an a very specific opinion, which I won't repeat. JVS was in a rush to see specific rooms, and he, and I quote, as the "#1 Stereophile writer at the show" had places to go.

Jason has always been a very nice guy to me. I won’t comment on his professional practices. 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

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8 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

What a bizarre comment... What does he mean "back, back, back to the pre-MQA era"?! Considering there is no "MQA era" other than a few words here and there among magazine people who still think MQA has some kind of traction.

 

Is he referring to the ancient days before December 2014 when MQA was infamously introduced at a party at The Shard?

 

Is this guy "okay"? Seems to be losing perspective... "Hebrew Shrink" - I think you need to set this man up for an assessment 🙂.

Precisely

 

As i said, my friends conversation with about several reviews he has done (my friend owns gear JVS reviewed) and some of his other comments left a very specific impression.  I will leave it at that. 

 

i will also add when they compared notes about listening impressions of certain rooms, you would have thought they at different shows. 

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3 hours ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Strereophile...All MQA, All the time..no matter the time, place or venue!

 

Mr. MQA at the Long Beach show:

 

"A 96K MQA file of Muddy Waters’ “Never Go Back Again” revealed just how much depth this lovely-sounding system could produce (even if MQA-haters are praying we go back, back, back to the pre-MQA era)."


https://www.stereophile.com/content/vandersteen-quatro-loudspeakers-and-m5-hpa-monoblocks-jeff-rowland-corus-stereo-preamplifier#tHMXfVrqVGvISCj0.99

 

I talked with Jason briefly Saturday night. Told him the rooms didn't sound good and the high frequencies were AOL. He may have fallen for the demo tricks some of us were laughing about on the third floor.

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3 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

What a bizarre comment... What does he mean "back, back, back to the pre-MQA era"?! Considering there is no "MQA era" other than a few words here and there among magazine people who still think MQA has some kind of traction.

 

Is he referring to the ancient days before December 2014 when MQA was infamously introduced at a party at The Shard?

 

Is this guy "okay"? Seems to be losing perspective... "Hebrew Shrink" - I think you need to set this man up for an assessment 🙂.

 

It a meet people show not a listening show. The empty press room Friday morning was the quietest I found at 33-36 dB.

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16 minutes ago, garrardguy60 said:

The vast majority [all? ] are only a few paragraphs long, with their most notable characteristic being the bold-faced names of multiple manufacturers/products concatenated in the respective headline, which I guess is aimed at the advertising community.

It is intended to assist in search efforts for those who want to find such reports in the future.

Kal Rubinson

Senior Contributing Editor, Stereophile

 

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4 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

It is intended to assist in search efforts for those who want to find such reports in the future.

Duh. Thanks, Kal. As a web guy, I should've picked up on the keywording. I still have a quibble with the fact that most of the posts are content-free. I would analogize that readers who are referred to his posts by Google will have the search equivalent of a meh date -- when they get there, there's no there there. 

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1 hour ago, garrardguy60 said:

 

What 'reviews'?  By my count, Jason has posted 31 stories'on Stereophile between June 7 and today. The vast majority [all? ] are only a few paragraphs long, with their most notable characteristic being the bold-faced names of multiple manufacturers/products concatenated in the respective headline, which I guess is aimed at the advertising community.

 

Regardless, Jason knows nothing of Ohm's or Kirchhoff's laws, thinks cables impart [indeed can 'improve'] sound at baseband, and is, he has said, immune from expectation and confirmation bias. Why we put any stock in what people without any technical education have to say about electronics is beyond me. Jason is legit to review records, given his music background, but as for the other stuff, well. . .  At least Fremer [another non-engineer] is entertaining.

 

When I was young, I used to enjoy Audio magazine [in the pocket of industry but still trying to do good tech articles] and Hi Fidelity [hackish but fun] and most of all Popular Electronics [Hirsch-Houck Labs, wonderful but with a business model that would be unsustainable today; what, they'd get $99 a pop per freelance review]. Today, and I mean this in all honesty, the best audio outlets in terms of delivering value are this site and Archimago's site [followed by Patrick Turner's, but Turner's is for archival tube gawking value not journalism].

How about this one?

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/jadis-ja200-mkii-monoblock-power-amplifier

 

My friend asked him about this review and JVS responded he found the amps unsatisfactory...because he was using speakers that dip below 1Ohm...with tube amps...and he blamed the manufacturer who should have"known better"...

 

you judge. 

 

The C word come to mind. No, not the curse word.

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