MQA is Vaporware

[Vincent1234]

I'd imagine you've read about the DEG CES presentation on hi-res. While HDtracks did not speak at this press event, there was a slide from them with this quote:

 

"HDtracks is excited about the opportunity to bring studio quality music, along with exciting new features, to a whole new group of serious music fans and streaming enthusiasts."

 

Those last two words are interesting.

 

Interesting indeed. It does fit this time and age that our kids are apparently less interested in 'owning things', which includes music files. Streaming is a way to listen to music without 'owning' any of it. The word is that most of our kids will also not own a car anymore. They don't want to own a car; the only thing they need is 'transportation'. There are many other ways to fulfill that need.

 

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[Vincent1234]

You shouldn't run with the assumption that I couldn't black box all of this and leave it in your listening environment for a few months.

 

Why would 'Easily Discernible' and 'Readily Apparent' not survive quicker A/B testing? What is your definition of 'Clearly Discernible' and 'Readily Apparent'?

 

 

 

 

Anyone that starts ban hammering the likes of Archimago, John Sully when they are making very valid points because is challenges your understanding of how this actually operates. That's the provenance of cowardice.

 

Anyone that says they can listen to 3-4 different Ethernet cables and establish, for their hearing as baseline, 'Easily Discernible' and 'Readily Apparent' differences. Add to that, and I quote you directly:

 

 

 

 

and

 

 

 

My test is based on your own words for pete's sake.

 

Your backtracking, your circular logic, your complete lack of understanding of buffered, multiple-copy stacks, non-realtime systems, your descriptions of depth of field, audio blossoms, (even though data arrives in spurts and plays out of buffer 100% of the time) even in the face of you having been an I.T. person make you a hack.

 

 

 

 

Its called exposed.

And there we go again..

 

My God, don't you ever grow extremely tired of yourself..? Don't even your friends grow tired of you? I know I do.

 

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[Vincent1234]

Ya, all the people howling at the moon drove JRiver off the site.

Don't forget to take your lithium

 

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[Vincent1234]

You shouldn't run with the assumption that I couldn't black box all of this and leave it in your listening environment for a few months.

 

Why would 'Easily Discernible' and 'Readily Apparent' not survive quicker A/B testing? What is your definition of 'Clearly Discernible' and 'Readily Apparent'?

 

 

 

 

Anyone that starts ban hammering the likes of Archimago, John Sully when they are making very valid points because is challenges your understanding of how this actually operates. That's the provenance of cowardice.

 

Anyone that says they can listen to 3-4 different Ethernet cables and establish, for their hearing as baseline, 'Easily Discernible' and 'Readily Apparent' differences. Add to that, and I quote you directly:

 

 

 

 

and

 

 

 

My test is based on your own words for pete's sake.

 

Your backtracking, your circular logic, your complete lack of understanding of buffered, multiple-copy stacks, non-realtime systems, your descriptions of depth of field, audio blossoms, (even though data arrives in spurts and plays out of buffer 100% of the time) even in the face of you having been an I.T. person make you a hack.

 

 

 

 

Its called exposed.

Request nr. 7. [emoji1]

Anyone...?

 

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[Vincent1234]

Look, I readily and wholeheartedly admit that I contributed greatly to the pollution of this thread and I humbly apologize. Mr. Audiostream clearly feels defending his "reputation" justifies asymmetric responses and I realized (admittedly much, much too late) that he was only here to protect said "reputation" and will answer valid technical queries with only sarcasm and ad homenim.

 

You're not helping by appointing yourself some kind of surrogate for Mr. Audiostream. He's a big boy, I'm sure he'll confirm this.

 

Based on your apparent affluence, I predict that you have a high enough level of intelligence to understand that the $2k that was offered would be consumed by round trip airfare to Europe. You're being childish to keep harping on it.

 

Thank you for your honest response. I do mean that.

 

Let me make very clear again that I'm NOT some kind of surrogate for Michael at all. I only liked many of his comments (not all) because I sincerely did like 'em for their content and/or irony, no matter if you did or not. And yes, I certainly do think some counterweight was in order during the heavier storms of personal attacks occurring here. That doesn't mean I think he can't do his own defence. He's a big boy indeed and I'm sure he doesn't need me. I hope my girlfriend does, but that's a different story altogether. [emoji6]

 

The 2k offer was and is frankly simply ridiculous. By the way: I only referred to it twice here and I will leave it at that. Unfortunately I cannot say the same of Mr. plissken. I'm not affluent by the way; I built my current system in the course of about 40 years. 2k Is a serious amount of money also to me. But... I really don't care about his offer and I also don't need it, especially not from someone who keeps on pushing his own 'truth' down the throats of his 'non-believers'.

 

Having said that, I really do appreciate your apologies and personal insight on the last 72 hours. I will try to be as transparent as possible going forward. Just let me know when I'm out of line. I'm a big boy too. [emoji4]

 

 

 

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[Vincent1234]

Without wishing to create additional turmoil, I do have one question for plissken:

 

Do you have any personal experience with Ethernet cables like the ones manufactured by AudioQuest or Wireworld?

Please guys, don't give him more airplay.. This is way off-topic..

 

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[Vincent1234]

I completely disagree.

 

Those that abhor political correctness and use that term might as well state, "I give up, I am tired of trying." Sure you are right, you don't want to be civil and I completely understand the level of honesty that you are trying to promote. What is lost by those rejecting civility and political correctness is that that the type of discourse that you want, while indeed valid, does not allow for listening and critical consideration of the opinions and facts presented by others. You just want to yell. You just want to set it on fire. You just want to see it burn down in hopes that truth will be left in the ashes.

 

Yes. You can be confrontational, civil, AND listen all at the same time. These things are not mutually exclusive. The most important of these three is listening and attempting to learn BEFORE banging on the keyboard to get your point across.

 

Anybody heard any good tunes on MQA? You know, music. That's why we are here, right?

 

Music...?! I must have been on the wrong forum then.. Sorry, my mistake! [emoji1]

 

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[Vincent1234]

No worries. I was just trying to illustrate why communication is always a bit of a bumpy ride (even - especially, on forums). Your point is taken - we all could do better. However, in reality is is always messy...

 

I think it doesn't need to be messy at all. You just need to make valid arguments in the comments based on proof or at least clear and well-founded observations. As soon as comments are only based on personal assumptions, accusations and what if's, combined with big egos and apparent individual anti-bias the herd jumps off the cliff.

 

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[Vincent1234]

I am late in the party because we Europeans need also to sleep.

IMO the big players Pandora and Rhapsody will not use MQA for streaming hires content because MQA requires specific hardware to fully access the hires content. That's IMO the weakest point of MQA.

 

I found somehow missing in this thread (I wrote it on the beginning) that usual DSP like room acoustic treatment, headphone crossfeed or simple equalization is not possible with hires MQA content above 24/96. Once DSP is done, resulting digital stream will not be 'authenticated' and no further unfolding occurs in MQA capable DAC. People who are inetrested in hires > 96k are those who own dedicated DACs and who possible use room equalization DSP etc. I see that as weak point of the MQA concept.

 

So ... IMO MQA company did their hires solution too complicated and IMO that's the reason why the big streaming players are coming to stream pure hires.

 

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if someone comes with a different DRM scheme which will not restrict hires to dedicated HW and which will allow DSP on hires content.

 

The question is: How much are audiophiles important for the market to get special treatment for hires? That's the point where I am feeling myself uncertain.

 

That's a fair point. In general bandwidth will also become less of a problem over time. Just look at your internet bandwidth now compared to 10 years ago. So MQA's file compression technique will lose some of its advantage over time too.

I think that MQA's unique selling point however is (or should be) in the 'time smearing' area. I would very much like to be able to fully judge that aspect myself, but I will have to wait for dCS's update.

 

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[Vincent1234]

Easy to do with the 2L test bench files. I did a comparison on the "Belezza crudel" album, would be interesting to have another opinion...

For me unfortunately that would mean software decoding only for now. Just checking: you also only used software to decode?

 

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[Vincent1234]

You might appreciate this:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]32475[/ATTACH]

[emoji1] [emoji1] [emoji1]

 

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[Vincent1234]

Wht not? 96/24 sounds great to me vs buying anew dac.

I don't mind using software decoding only for now. But I would like dCS to come up with their MQA update soon, so I can judge MQA's SQ even better. So no, certainly no new DAC for me. This one is 1 month old. ;-P

 

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[Vincent1234]

your a subjectivist all the way, I lean towards an "objectivist" understanding, etc.

 

If you do lean towards an "objectivist" understanding I think you should really have more affinity with "proof" than you have displayed in this thread. I would say you have a strong tendency to prefer assumptions above proof.

 

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[Vincent1234]

Yeh, I even had to put up with all that annoying advertising that kept popping up. At least they should show the movie without that!

And I also hated that open ending. So now we still don't really know if MQA is vaporware or if it was just one big lie..

 

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[Vincent1234]

On 18-1-2018 at 10:50 PM, FredericV said:

I believe this is per design, to cripple redbook more.

If you're paranoid this is probably true. ? In real life my dCS has no such thing as screwing up regular non-MQA files by applying the specific MQA filtering for those files too. In practice MQA does sound easily better than Redbook, at least when streamed.

[Vincent1234]

On 8-3-2018 at 9:46 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Speaking of dCS, I have a Rossini right now and I can confirm that what nobody thought was possible is most certainly possible. When I play MQA music, I can select any of the dCS filters that I wish. The user isn't forced to use the MQA filter. But, I don't know of any other DACs, outside of dCS, on which this is possible.

Correct. This only needs to be set once, as the Rossini remembers the user preferred filter setting for each file type (MQA, non-MQA, DSD, regular PCM Redbook, PCM HD etc.).

[Vincent1234]

On 8-3-2018 at 9:54 PM, mansr said:

Are you sure the setting actually has an effect on MQA playback?

It has.