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MQA is Vaporware


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2 hours ago, vmartell22 said:

It would be better for the general public if the prevalent platform would not be DRM infected.

 

 

 

 

Very true.  He is now arguing that a small amount of DRM is not so bad, like a parasite with reduced virulence.

 

It would be better for the general public if the public would not be flu virus infected.

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4 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

I don’t disagree with much of this.  I am not an EE or DSP engineer.  But it’s also not correct to say I lack math skills as firedog said.

 

So, it would be correct to say you lack relevant math skills

 

This part of the thread makes me want to lasso you with a Lyapunov function... except for your discontinuities, and the need for a vector field that spirals inward towards a black hole.

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1 hour ago, firedog said:

No, this shows your naive lack of understanding of what many modern corporations do. They often operate in markets with little real competition and are very happy to make money based on marketing designed to fool consumers and based on the fact that consumers often have neither the skills nor ability to find out what is really going on. They thrive on fake value instead of actual value. 

 

The drug industry and the industrial food giants are good examples of this. They often make their money by sophisticated hoodwinking of consumers and an ability to control pricing and influence markets. Do some reading about how food giants intentionally make food addictive and then tell me this isn't true. 

 

The same thing is going on with the MQA, the record labels and streaming. What is necessary here is real investigative journalism, the kind where actual analysis is done and the industry marketing isn't accepted at face value. Unfortunately, other than on forums like this one, it doesn't seem to be happening.

 

 

 

well put - with some elasticity around the word "modern"

 

Besides vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders, I am also thinking of the tulip frenzy and John law's pump & dump scheme for the early colonization of "Louisiana" ...

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1 hour ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

It seems that Scoggins is perhaps a little sensitive to the appearance that McKinsey & Co. is compensating him for his M-F daytime posts here.  He's been making an effort lately to avoid posting during east coast U.S. business hours.  But his daytime posting history is out there for anyone to see, including McKinsey.

 

good analysis - maybe MQA will now buy him a troll bot to enable automated time-shifting

 

or shape-shifting

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3 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Very interesting that Hoffman himself (no doubt receiving a TON of PMs from Scoggins) made a statement that's basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

And having spent years reading the forums over there, I can say with confidence that once you've lost Metralla (one of the original forum members from 2002), you're done.  And it sure looks like even he is not impressed with Scoggins' MQA lovefest.

 

Scoggins has gone so far to suggest that cable skeptics are not qualified to evaluate MQA because, well, if they can't hear the increase in sound quality that happens when high end interconnects or power cables are used, they certainly won't hear the awesome benefits of MQA.

 

I really don't think Scoggins was expecting this level of push back on what he considered a "friendly" forum (Hoffman).  And the fact that all those critical posts about MQA are still there and threads are not locked or vanished tells me that Hoffman has decided to let MQA face withering fire.

 

 

Well said.

 

And that is why I think Scroggie will be chased out of one forum after another by facts, until he falls down into the lowest level of rational discourse about audio gear... Audiogon.

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15 hours ago, esldude said:

That is the problem with Hoffman forums.  They allow, well let me rephrase it, they encourage that sort of thing.  They do not allow any facts to deter whatever fantasy they are on about.  The fantasy just needs to be positive. 

 

Don't you think Audiogon is worse?

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Here is part of it - for posterity:

 

My new article series on MQA.

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by LeeS, Jan 9, 2018.

  1. Archimago

    ArchimagoWell-Known Member

    ricko01 said: 
    Call me a groupie if you want but I trust your opinion over others (or in the case of this thread "other" as in the singular) cause in fact your opinions arent opinions but observations backed with hard data.

    Cool... so my setup wont preclude a valid test and I already have identified albums that I have listened to 100's of times that I own on vinyl/cd/hi-res dvd-a and are also available on Tidal at CD and MQA quality.

    Of course the sticking point with any of these compares is that there are literally decades between the various releases from the original vinyl onwards so any remasterings need to be accounted for before I let the juice run down my leg after hearing MQA (noting the historical reference is via Robert Johnson and not the more derivative LZ one)

    Peter
    Click to expand...
    Great that you have the tunes ready to rock n' roll, Peter. Absolutely try to make sure you're comparing the same mastering. Would be interested to hear of your impressions and what music/gear you end up using.

    Oh yeah... No matter what, don't squeeze too hard, your family/friends might not be impressed :yikes:.

    Cheers!
     
    Archimago's Musings - A 'more objective' audiophile blog.
     
  2. Mel Harris

    Mel HarrisWell-Known Member

    Location:
    Petaluma, CA
    LeeS said: 
    Hansen really disgraced himself with some very personal attacks on Stuart. Friends say he was in a great deal of pain near the end of his life but still. Several prominent audio leaders have expressed to me that they lost a good bit of respect for the man.
    I think there's a certain camp in audiophilia that wants to vilify Hansen for standing up for consumers. Regardless of how many "prominent audio leaders" (sheesh :rolleyes:) allegedly lost respect, his stand against MQA makes him a bona fide hero to many!
     
    Last edited: Today at 3:34 PM
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  3. Agitater

    AgitaterForum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    Merrick said: 
    Well, Tidal is by all accounts on the verge of bankruptcy and Qobuz did in fact declare bankruptcy once before, so I wouldn’t say what they’re doing is exactly working. I’m pretty sure Jay-Z assumed some bigger entity would have bought Tidal by now like Apple did for Beats. Also whatever money they do have sure isn’t being spent on UI or discovery algorithms, and I suspect if any of the bigger services offered lossless for even $5 less per month than Tidal, subscribers will be scrambling to switch subscriptions.
    Depending on which publications you read, TIDAL will either be out of business before the end of 2018 or in the black in early 2019 (or have I got the years reversed?). 

    I’m suggesting that TIDAL and Qobuz know exactly what sort of business they’re in and have picked their respective minimum target market types and sizes needed to achieve profitability, and have geared up to hit and then exceed those targets in the time frame in which it all has to be done before core investors jump ship and tank both companies. Time will tell, and not much more time at that. Personally, as a TIDAL HiFi subscriber I’m rooting for both companies to succeed. 
     
    Merrick said: 
    Qobuz entering the US market will be an interesting thing. Their business model is a bit different in that you pay upfront annually for unlimited hi-res streaming but also discounts on hi-res purchases. You can pay monthly for 16/44 lossless or lossy streaming. If they were smart, they’d price their 16/44 tier lower than Tidal’s, and dangle free upgrades to the hi-res service for a month to get people hooked. I’m curious to see what they chose to do.
    Me too, especially if Qobuz hits Canada at the same time as it hits the U.S. market. As for dangling a lower price than TIDAL for its 16/44 stream, I have the sinking feeling that’s an approach that might never succeed, because in this market there’s a high probability that it could result in a race to the bottom. Both companies would still die, but one would die with a larger subscriber base. Lower subscriptions rates, at this point, I think just means a faster cash burn rate for the companies and a consequentially rapid cash flow crunch where they have to go back to VC’s for another round and to existing investors for yet another cash call. 

    I listen to an average of eight new albums - ones I’ve never heard before and that I’ve never owned in any format previously - every month on TIDAL HiFi, all at 16/44.1 at between 850-1411 kbps FLAC. At $20 a month, I’m getting more than my money’s worth. If TIDAL decides to raise its HiFi subscription to $25 or $30/month, I’ll pay it.

    I also listen to JazzFM 91.1 FM radio in Toronto. It’s a non-profit, it’s superb, its signal is astonishingly good, and because it’s a non-profit there are a bare minimum of commercials. The station runs quarterly on-air fund raising campaigns. I contribute $20 a month to Jazz FM as well because I love the station and because I love the whole feeling that they’re curating jazz across a couple of dozen different programs and hosts just for me. Of course, that’s one of the great attractions of a great radio station. Anyway, again, I’m personally not looking for the lowest price but rather the best possible quality at what I consider to be a sensibly profitable price for the company providing the music to me. If Jazz FM pleads for a bump, I’ll raise my monthly contribution to $30. Well worth it. I’m happy that I can afford it. 

    I hope TIDAL and Qobuz make it.
     
     
  4. Merrick

    MerrickForum Resident

    Location:
    Portland
    Agitater said: 
    Depending on which publications you read, TIDAL will either be out of business before the end of 2018 or in the black in early 2019 (or have I got the years reversed?).

    I’m suggesting that TIDAL and Qobuz know exactly what sort of business they’re in and have picked their respective minimum target market types and sizes needed to achieve profitability, and have geared up to hit and then exceed those targets in the time frame in which it all has to be done before core investors jump ship and tank both companies. Time will tell, and not much more time at that. Personally, as a TIDAL HiFi subscriber I’m rooting for both companies to succeed.



    Me too, especially if Qobuz hits Canada at the same time as it hits the U.S. market. As for dangling a lower price than TIDAL for its 16/44 stream, I have the sinking feeling that’s an approach that might never succeed, because in this market there’s a high probability that it could result in a race to the bottom. Both companies would still die, but one would die with a larger subscriber base. Lower subscriptions rates, at this point, I think just means a faster cash burn rate for the companies and a consequentially rapid cash flow crunch where they have to go back to VC’s for another round and to existing investors for yet another cash call. 

    I listen to an average of eight new albums - ones I’ve never heard before and that I’ve never owned in any format previously - every month on TIDAL HiFi, all at 16/44.1 at between 850-1411 kbps FLAC. At $20 a month, I’m getting more than my money’s worth. If TIDAL decides to raise its HiFi subscription to $25 or $30/month, I’ll pay it.

    I also listen to JazzFM 91.1 FM radio in Toronto. It’s a non-profit, it’s superb, its signal is astonishingly good, and because it’s a non-profit there are a bare minimum of commercials. The station runs quarterly on-air fund raising campaigns. I contribute $20 a month to Jazz FM as well because I love the station and because I love the whole feeling that they’re curating jazz across a couple of dozen different programs and hosts just for me. Of course, that’s one of the great attractions of a great radio station. Anyway, again, I’m personally not looking for the lowest price but rather the best possible quality at what I consider to be a sensibly profitable price for the company providing the music to me. If Jazz FM pleads for a bump, I’ll raise my monthly contribution to $30. Well worth it. I’m happy that I can afford it.

    I hope TIDAL and Qobuz make it.
    Click to expand...
    Sounds like you and I use streaming differently. I use streaming to hear an album once or twice and see if it’s worth owning, and then for in the car listening so I don’t have to try and fit my whole library on my phone or keep a DAP in my car. Neither of those use cases requires that I pay a lot of money for the highest quality sound possible. And I suspect my use case is more common than those who use streaming for continuous critical listening.
     
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  5. Bubbamike

    BubbamikeForum Resident

    Back in the early days of the Gramophone they did demonstrations, they would have a singer behind a curtain and a Gramophone behind an adjoining curtain. The audience would then sit and the singer would sing and they would switch to the Gramophone and apparently no one could tell the difference between them. They were just alike. Or so the tests claimed. 

    So Bob Stuart is running the same dog and pony show as they did at the turn of the last century. Barnum was totally correct.
     
     
  6. Agitater

    AgitaterForum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    LeeS said: 
    Hansen really disgraced himself with some very personal attacks on Stuart. Friends say he was in a great deal of pain near the end of his life but still. Several prominent audio leaders have expressed to me that they lost a good bit of respect for the man.
    However incautious Charles Hansen’s comments may have been, he wasn’t wrong. Implying that Hansen’s criticism doesn’t count because it was rude is inappropriate. Hansen was right to speak out, and he spoke truthfully and accurately on several occasions on the matter. 

    Consider too, that when one engineering peer calls out another he does a service to all other peers in engineering by pointing out flaws, faults and misrepresentations in a paper that was not properly peer reviewed before publication. That’s a critical error on the part of JAES and it’s shame that Stuart submitted the paper in the shape it was in. Several other engineers came out in direct support of Hansen’s critique even if they didn’t agree with the Hansen’s tone. 

    Confrontation is frequently painful, moreso when a person is confronted for his obfuscations and moreso when a company or organization is taken to task for its misrepresentations. I am unsympathetic. They bring such difficulties on themselves.
     
  7. Merrick

    MerrickForum Resident

    Location:
    Portland
    I would argue that Stuart’s craven cash grab in the form of MQA is far, far more disgraceful than Hansen’s rebuke of it.
     
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  8. Agitater

    AgitaterForum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    Merrick said: 
    Sounds like you and I use streaming differently. I use streaming to hear an album once or twice and see if it’s worth owning, and then for in the car listening so I don’t have to try and fit my whole library on my phone or keep a DAP in my car. Neither of those use cases requires that I pay a lot of money for the highest quality sound possible. And I suspect my use case is more common than those who use streaming for continuous critical listening.
    I agree and I’d bet real money that your use case is more common than mine, without a doubt. Just as uncommonly, I don’t use a DAP of any kind. The only things I stream in the car (from my iPhone 7s) are podcasts, all spoken word such as In Our Time from BBC 4, Skeptics Guide to the Universe from the SGU based in New England, and a couple of others. The only music I listen to in the car comes through FM radio including the aforementioned Jazz FM 91.1 and Classical FM 96.3 (another excellent, albeit more commercial, FM station in Toronto). 

    Friends and I regularly curate and assemble TIDAL HiFi playlists that we share in advance of Scotch & Jazz listening sessions. We go through LP binges too, but TIDAL HiFi predominated in 2016 and 2017. Superb service. 

    All that said, every so often I too come across something on TIDAL that sets me on a search to find either the LP or the CD. Finding a new copy or a good used copy in either format is relatively easy in Toronto because we’re lousy with music stores in the city. From Grigorian Music for a massive classical selection (and a very respectable jazz selection), to Cosmos West for a massive used jazz LP selection, to Tonality for a comprehensive selection of new age, electronica and you-name-it that-is-current and cutting-edge, to Sonic Boom with its huge inventory of new and used pop, rock of all kinds, indie and everything else, to June Records, Soundscape, Play Da Record, the very excellent Rotate This, and the European-connected Quixotic Records where I get all the great jazz and avant-garde releases from Europe that never otherwise make it over here, and a dozen more music stores that I don’t regularly visit, the search can be a real blast. Toronto is great for LPs and CDs, no question about it. I’m lucky to have this sort of access.
     
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  9. Rt66indierock

    Rt66indierockNew Member

    Location:
    Scottsdale Arizona
    Charley Hansen was a friend. Any audio leader that lost respect for him in 2017 is support for why we need new audio leaders.
     
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  10. LeeS

    LeeSRoll Tape!Thread Starter

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Rt66indierock said: 
    Charley Hansen was a friend. Any audio leader that lost respect for him in 2017 is support for why we need new audio leaders.
    If Charlie had good arguments, he could present them without personal attacks.
     
    Contributor, Part-Time Audiophile
     
  11. rbbert

    rbbertForum Resident

    Location:
    Reno, NV, USA
    LeeS said: 
    If Charlie had good arguments, he could present them without personal attacks.
    Maybe he was frustrated at metaphorically beating his head against a wall (MQA and Stuart’s supporters) and in unreasonable physical pain. The combination could cause anyone to lash out; it doesn’t mean he was wrong.
     
     
  12. Rt66indierock

    Rt66indierockNew Member

    Location:
    Scottsdale Arizona
    New
    LeeS said: 
    If Charlie had good arguments, he could present them without personal attacks.
    Charley had good arguments in 2014. Nobody listened in 2015 and 2016 so he turned up the volume until people did. In any case I was in the room when Bob Stuart was called a liar at the Los Angeles Audio Show and talked with him afterward. As opponents of MQA have found since then personal attacks are effective. MQA had no presence at RMAF 2017 for example.
     
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  13. Archimago

    ArchimagoWell-Known Member

    New
    LeeS said: 
    If Charlie had good arguments, he could present them without personal attacks.
    I don't think the majority of us want to get personal. But there are times when it's perhaps warranted, maybe even necessary to go beyond usual etiquette and political correctness. Avoidance of conflict is just as damaging in the long run in many situations in life when cowardice leads to stagnation.

    For Mr. Hansen, in retrospect, perhaps there was recognition that time was short and things needed to be said.

    Remember that his comments were not just about MQA. He had concerns about the broader context of audiophilia and the media systems built around the hobby; how it was being reported, marketed, and by whom. About an industry that he spent much of his life helping to build...

    Full disclosure: I don't agree with Charlie on everything he said... In fact, I've told him that I didn't like his digital filtering in the PonoPlayer and everything was still cool! :)
     
    Archimago's Musings - A 'more objective' audiophile blog.
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  14. soundQman

    soundQmanIdealist of the Musical Apocalypse

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    New
    Archimago said: 
    Remember that his comments were not just about MQA. He had concerns about the broader context of audiophilia and the media systems built around the hobby; how it was being reported, marketed, and by whom. About an industry that he spent much of his life helping to build...
    This reminds me of how bitter J. Gordon Holt became toward the end of his life. In interviews I read he had completely despaired of what he thought the hi-fidelity audio industry had become. He regarded it as a total betrayal of what he had envisioned, and had labored for so many years to establish. He essentially thought that his life's work had come to naught. I'm not sure he had an objective or an unchanging view of things throughout, but one thing he did lament near the end was the audio magazines' (including his own, Stereophile) rejection of blind listening tests as a reviewing method. I know he was also profoundly disappointed at the relative lack of attention to and acceptance of properly implemented multi-channel systems.
     
    Last edited: Today at 5:19 PM
    "Do not go gentle into that good night.
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light." - Dylan Thomas
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  15. ricko01

    ricko01Member

    Location:
    New Zealand
    New
    LeeS said: 
    Hansen really disgraced himself with some very personal attacks on Stuart. Friends say he was in a great deal of pain near the end of his life but still. Several prominent audio leaders have expressed to me that they lost a good bit of respect for the man.
    Your an egotistical little bugger arent you... like to drop "names" here and there.

    I would suggest that you made more of a disgrace of yourself with this comment... the guy is dead for crying out loud.

    But when he was alive he was a straight shooting, extremely well liked and successful audio engineer.... I have never seen anyone bitch about his products being voodoo.

    He would be one of a handful of people that would be in the best position to judge MQA and he has my respect for calling it the way he saw it and along with a group of other manufactures made a public statement about how they wouldnt contaminate their product lines with MQA.

    He didnt attack Bob.... he attacked MQA .

    Peter
     
  16. tmtomh

    tmtomhForum Resident

    New
    LeeS said: 
    Hansen really disgraced himself with some very personal attacks on Stuart. Friends say he was in a great deal of pain near the end of his life but still. Several prominent audio leaders have expressed to me that they lost a good bit of respect for the man.
    While I disagree with @LeeS vigorously on many things in this long thread, I've repeatedly tried to avoid the more overheated rhetoric and attacks that some of his other critics have employed.

    In regard to this particular comment of his quoted above, though, I have to say I think that folks have gone far to easy on Lee. In my view this is an appalling comment. There's the repulsive cowardice of asserting (not opining, but flat-out asserting) that a dead man who can't defend himself "disgraced himself" at the end of his life. Add to that the incredibly condescending, and boundary-violating, claim that the man was in a lot of pain and so maybe that's why he lost his mind with those "disgraceful" comments. And then the finish: invoking countless unnamed "prominent audio leaders" to further damn the man with what is tantamount to gossip.

    I don't care how apparently civil your tone might seem, Lee. That's disgusting. You should be ashamed.

    (Edit: I see @ricko01 /Peter and I were typing similar thoughts at the same time. :righton:)
     
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  17. soundQman

    soundQmanIdealist of the Musical Apocalypse

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    New
    Apparently the pronouncements and sentiments from "industry leaders" as well those from MQA personnel and promoters function for Lee like that little blue light that he thinks is supposed to assure customers of "authentication" and inspire trust.
     
    "Do not go gentle into that good night.
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light." - Dylan Thomas
     
  18. Merrick

    MerrickForum Resident

    Location:
    Portland
    New
    LeeS said: 
    If Charlie had good arguments, he could present them without personal attacks.
    Actually the two things are not related. Hansen's arguments were solid, and additionally he also was blunt in his delivery. It's very convenient for you to attack his character instead of discussing the content of his arguments.
     
     
  19. Rt66indierock

    Rt66indierockNew Member

    Location:
    Scottsdale Arizona
    New
    rbbert said: 
    Maybe he was frustrated at metaphorically beating his head against a wall (MQA and Stuart’s supporters) and in unreasonable physical pain. The combination could cause anyone to lash out; it doesn’t mean he was wrong.
    Many people were frustrated by the press reaction to MQA in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Charley was no exception. He talked with me a couple of times about how I got people to listen with the Vaporware thread. But generally I got brain dump on digital audio when we talked in 2017.
     
     
  20. New
    Agitater said: 
    You wrote Auralic Aries in your post, not Auralic Aries Mini. So I was speaking to what I know. I own the Aries; you own the Aries Mini. One contains a DAC; the other does not. Sorry - I can only respond to what someone writes, not what I think they might have meant to write.
    Puh-leez! I’ve written that I have an Aries Mini many times. The rest of your post about the Aries (any Aries with the new firmware) not being able to do MQA was completely wrong as well. Just admit you were wrong and move on. Too many snowflakes on this forum! :laugh:
     

    Eric
    Ad lib to fade . . .
     
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Lee, you made a comment ~~ 2-3 pages back on temporal acuity in the auditory system, citing Wilson, who makes speakers.

 

It is unclear to me how that has anything to do with MQA.

 

Nonetheless, here is a recent paper on the issue:

 

Oppenheim, J. N. and M. O. Magnasco.  2013.  Human Time-Frequency Acuity Beats the Fourier Uncertainty Principle.  Phys. Rev. Lett. 110(4): 44301 -44306.

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1 hour ago, esldude said:

Oh this is too funny.  Or pathetic.  Or both.  

 

mqatruth..................that must be the mqa truth hit squad.  

 

Be careful Chris.  You might be on their hit list. 

 

 

 

 

it would be more efficient to just assign them numbers, e.g. Scrog-2, Scrog-3, etc.

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12 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

Because these magazines report on what they are given by the industry. There is no investigative journalism, technical research or perspective. Because of that, you as the reader has to take things as face value. If you need the education, do the research yourself or use forums like CA. Bear in mind that most of these magazines lack real understanding of digital technologies, computer audio, math and algorithms.  

 

 

Exactly.  Also, They are getting "paid" indirectly via ad $$ to hawk it.  It is as plain as the nose on your face.

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29 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

I still say that in some way MQA offers high value to listeners who have not invested in hi rez digital libraries, expensive NAS units, and hard drives. If MQA albums are starting with hirez masters and there is some bits thrown out, I am not sure that is a deal killer.

 

 

ok, what is that value??

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