MQA is Vaporware

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2 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

You can give constructive with criticism without the sarcasm. Your point would hit the mark without annoying people.

Noted. But Saracasm makes life worth living...

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1 minute ago, opus101 said:

 

For me its irony that makes online life worth engaging in.

Irony and Sarcasm...both tools of the trade......

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6 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

People tried it your way for about two and half years. Then at the LAAS we learned the only way to reach the supporters of MQA is to turn up the volume on everything.  They still won't constructively engage but the noise bothers them and they object to that.

 

Exactly. The nose in the sky finger wagging about decorum...they can kiss my ass....the audacity of what Stuart and his sycophants have brought upon us must be met with smash mouth offense. Being nice gets zilch. And the bullshit about driving people away from this thread is laughable.

 

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Just now, Indydan said:

 

Bob Stuart has lied at least once about MQA's capabilities (he said it was lossless, then backtracked when people realized it wasn't). His reasons for why MQA is necessary are bullshit (smaller files are needed to save bandwith, MQA sounds better). Bob Stuart and his gang refuse to address the technical arguments against MQA by Archimago and others.

 

The MQA product is one thing. But, the douchebag way it is being pushed on people, and the lies and bullshit surrounding the product are too much to accept. Being nice with the MQA people doesn't work. You don't wear white gloves and take the high road, when your opponent is willing to lie and bullshit, and drop into the gutter to win at all costs. You have to take the fight to them. 

dude, you are my brother from another mother...EXACTAMUNDO.

 

...a Picasso of a post...

 

 

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7 hours ago, shtf said:

Sorry, but I accidentally left an incomplete sentence above when I said, "BTW, as near as I can tell MQA"

 

I intended to say,

 

BTW, near as I can tell MQA could care less about the tiny high-end audio community as they were after monopolizing the entire music industry of which high-end audio makes up maybe 1%.  The only thing I suspect MQA ever wanted from high-end audio were a couple of raving endorsements from a couple of influential high-end audio representatives so MQA could then tell the world that MQA's performance claims were even substantiated by the high-end audio sector of the music industry, the supposedly most discriminating sector of music known to mankind, right?

 

Enter Harley and Atkinson.  IMO, MQA got exactly what they needed from the high-end audio sector to get MQA outta the barn.  A couple of tin-eared sell-outs' seemingly drug-induced endorsements.

 

And because of their intent to monopolize the entire music industry under the false premise of out-of-this-world performance, there is no reason to be civilized as these charlatans need to be held accountable for their actions.  Acting civilized only allows them to continue their pursuits unimpeded.

 

With out reservation, I agree with your blunt, and IMO, accurate assessment in this and the previous post..

 

Magnificently summarized.

 

"And because of their intent to monopolize the entire music industry under the false premise of out-of-this-world performance, there is no reason to be civilized as these charlatans need to be held accountable for their actions.  Acting civilized only allows them to continue their pursuits unimpeded."

 

Thank you, this sums up my view, and am sure the view of many others.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Sal1950 said:

And word is that Tidal is circling the bowl. May the big flush come soon, taking JayZ and his little crew of anti-social friends with it. 

"Tidal Mystery surrounds the number of subscribers the ostensibly artist-owned streaming service, which launched when Jay-Z acquired Aspiro, Norwegian parent company of a streaming service formerly known as Wimp, for $56 million in 2015. In September of that year, he tweeted that Tidal had hit the 1 million-member milestone, though internal payments to record labels cited in Norwegian publication Dagens Næringsliv said it was closer to 350,000;  around six months later, Jay claimed it had reached the 3 million subscribers, which the Norwegian paper said was closer to a million; no further numbers have been circulated. The company has played up its exclusive content — which includes videos, films and podcasts as well as music — and while it suffered some bumps with high-profile exclusives like Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo,” Rihanna’s “Anti” and Jay’s own “4:44,” the rollouts for Beyonce’s “Lemonade” in 2016 and Deadmau5’s “Where’s the Drop” last week went smoothly. Whatever Tidal’s future may be,  Jay is likely to come out ahead: Last year he was able to sell a third of the company to Sprint based on a $600 million valuation."

 

http://variety.com/2018/music/news/as-spotify-goes-public-how-do-its-competitors-measure-apple-music-amazon-1202741460/

 

 

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1 hour ago, HalSF said:

 

Art Dudley is covering the Munich show for Stereophile and takes a "controversial" [his word] stand in favor of the "I just like the sound" school of subjective MQA boosters Waldrep is referencing. Art is all in with a fairly ringing endorsement calculated to inspire a renewed Brinkman Shipstorm of ridicule in this thread:

 

 

It was only a matter of time. Dudley was the last Atkinson loyalist to hold out.  REALLY coincidental that the three remaining full time Stereophile employees, all 70 years old or close, "prefer" the sound of MQA, and Dudley's sell out comes based on the recordings of one man, no real world comparison to commercially available music...and that man had distinct business ties to Stereophile.

 

What a shameful report, based on "short segments"...he should stick to vinyl, tubes, and vintage.

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if there is any one from CA at Munich, and have attended the same demo Dudley did..

 

Can you verify the music was more "human", and that it was more "focused, musically and spatially"...

 

I would love to know....

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...it's actually the H.M.S. Brinkman....

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13 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

You know what one of the important takeaways of this picture is?  If there is anyone in it below 55 (including all the people in the background) I will eat my socks.  

 

These folks are set in their ways, and trying to disprove their Art & Wine Voodooism is vanity.  Art Dudley and all the rest will be gone before we all know it, and we will remember them for the things they got right...no matter how short the list 

 

Edit:  Recently I have been spending a bit of time at some HP/personal audio/value "high fidelity" (vs. art & wine "high end") sites and it is a real pleasure not to hear much about Stereophile, TAS, or much of anything of "high end", and when they are mentioned it is almost always to laugh at the absurdities.  These folks are in a hole they are never going to get out of and I am increasingly coming to a "let the dead bury the dead" attitude towards them...

Thanks for making my night with your post..

 

P.S. these two REALLY get me excited about audio..oh yeh...

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1 hour ago, miguelito said:

No doubt!!! I am convinced it should be called MeQA!!!

Then I was actually not harsh enough. Charlatans and frauds must be exposed.

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26 minutes ago, miguelito said:

Friday was the 100th birthday of Richard Feynman. May I quote him here:

 

”For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”

I likes how you asked Dudley how YOU can listen to the same MQA samples he did..I can't wait for his non-answer...

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1 hour ago, JoeWhip said:

I have to agree with Andrew, who is a very nice bloke btw.  Focus on the actual BS that MQA is and lay off the name calling. 

Sometime you have to kill the messenger(s) and the message..that is just the way it is.

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34 minutes ago, shtf said:

 

I won't speak for others but for me it's a perception thing.  Better yet, it's a marketing / used car salesman type thing and regrettably it / they ain't got nothin' to do with "high-end" audio performance nor the betterment of the industry.  No matter how many may hold these types as knowledgable leaders.

 

For some time I've perceived Harley and Atkinson as tin-eared sellouts playing charades with their readers.  In fact, I attribute much of what's wrong with "high-end" audio to them specifically.  They've taken what should be a respectable performance-driven and performance-oriented industry for those seeking the very best performance from their playback systems and instead became frontrunners to manipulate mainstream "high-end" enthusiasts into thinking that measurements and price determine real performance.  This business model may have helped keep the magazines afloat and kept some from having to downsize their lifestyes but in so doing are destroying the industry from within.  As a result, instead of garnering more respect from those within and without, high-end audio with it's now stratospheric prices and measurements galore, is becoming more a laughing stock to all.  Imagine when somebody says "high-end" audio amplifiers start at $10k and anything less is mid-fi or when somebody drools over pictures of somebody's $500k system and says, "Wow, I'll bet it sounds awesome."  That's just naive nonsense and it's a dead giveaway that these types most likely lacks any listening skills, what it takes to build a truly musical playback system.  But I've no doubt those types read TAS and Stereophile every month.  I call this mainstream hgh-end audio.

 

Now along comes Bob Stuart with his MQA format promising every last music lover in the world that when that little green light is illuminated we're all essentially guaranteed to hear exactly what the recording engineers heard in the studio.  Regardless of associated playback equipment if one were to take Stuart literally.

 

Now I already knew for a fact when I first read about MQA in TAS in 2014 that it was impossible for MQA (nor any other new format) to generate, over and above currently available formats) a level of musicallity even remoted close to what Stuart, Harley, and Atkinson claimed.  So when Harley and Atkinson and a few other insiders jumped on the MQA bandwagon 4 years ago endorsing MQA performance claiming cows are now jumping over the moon, that wasn't just a little much, it was so frickin' over-the-top, it was as though editors-in-chief were now taking hallucinogens during working hours.

 

Mature adults simply don't speak/write this way when endorsing superior products / technologies and seasoned professionals in positions of influence who really care about and know the industry would normally never write such drivel unless they had outside influences. 

 

I'm 100% convinced that Atkinson has near zero ability to discern / interpret what he hears and that goes for much of his staff too.  I'm also convinced that Harley has or had some ability in time past to discern / interpret what he hears.  It was Harley who said in the Mar/Apr 2009 TAS issue, "I am convinced that something catastrophic is occurring at the microphone diaphragm that prevents much of the music from ever reaching the recording."  Paraphrased.  Not that Harley reached this conclusion by his lonesome as in that same article he went on to briefly describe a rather cheap experiment conducted by Ed Meitner that led Meitner to that conclusion and hence Harley followed suit.

 

About a year earlier, Valin said, "We are lucky if even our very best SOTA playback systems are able to capture even 15% of the magic (I interpret magic as believability) of the live performance."

 

Even Atkinson admitted near as much in Stereophile's Sept 2009 issue when comparing a recorded piano to a live piano performance saying much of the musc was lost between the 2 and was not in the recording.

 

Those are all intellectually honest and reasonbly accurate assessments and admissions of the industry's performance levels then and now and as far as I can tell are the last time any from these magazines have made such admissions.  Perhaps they realized that intellectual honesty doesn't increase subscription numbers.

 

But I digress.  My point is that these guys have abandomed their care and concern (if they ever had any) for the industry itself and instead now seek to influence and direct the industry in directions that keep them and their magazines afloat and usually at the expense of the industry's health and the consumer's wallet.  Shills and charlatans if you will.  And if there's any truth to that, now we're talking serious personality flaws that include deception, conspiracies, etc.

 

IMO they developed similar strategies with DVD-A and SACD in the early 2000's and shortly after that they tried to convince us that multi-channel was the cat's meow and TAS even went so far as to retitle its publication cover to include "multi-channel".   But after a few years of consumers spending millions going the multi-channel route, that too died off and eventually TAS removed the "multi-channel" from its cover.

 

IMO, these past events are nothing compared to what I perceive is a 100% sellout for MQA.  And I don't see what these two have done for the industry as an opportunity to approach them with a "come let us reason together" type of demeanor.  I see this more as an opportunity to expose them as shills, charlatans, and the blind leading the blind.  However, none of this could have been exposed to this degree if it were not for MQA.  For that perversion, I offer a perverted thank you, MQA.

 

With the majority of "high-end" enthusiasts now more enamored with price and measurements than audible performance, mind you in an audio-only industry, I have no desire to discuss or reason with used car salesmen types nor their followers who might blindly follow them. 

 

For me, I'm pretty convinced that both Harley and Atkinson were presented with an offer from MQA neither could refuse (it had to be both or it wouldn't work) to provide off-the-charts endorsements so while MQA was getting its industry monopolizing horse outta' the barn, they could tell the entire world that "high-end" audio sector confirms their performance claims.  And like with DVD-A, SACD (reasonable formats) and multi-channel, there was pretty much a guarantee that if MQA should succeed there'd be an influx of new / upgraded products flooding the market and needing to be reviewed.

 

But that's me.

Um...nailed it.

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5 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

How is this relevant?  Just because this market has not accepted multichannel does not prove that it is inferior or that its promotion is an attempt to fool the consumer.  The situation is similar to that of active loudspeakers which have obvious technical and, often, obvious subjective advantages over passive loudspeakers but both are generally rejected by the audiophile market for a variety of reasons.  As most here have argued and accepted, the technical basis of MQA is entirely a different matter.

I agree with you that there is no correlation with MC. It delivers what is says it does. it has not been adopted widely because it is a matter of taste convenience, not due to technical deficiencies.

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30 minutes ago, Jim Austin said:

 

Hey, thanks for the invite. 

 

I encourage you to read the article--my little interview. I mean actually read it--because it says most of what I have to say, and it doesn't say what you seem to think it says. This is a problem you guys have, I notice: You question everyone's motives (and competence) and assume everything is freighted with conspiracies and hidden meanings. 

 

I'm not shocked to discover that you seem to think sampling theory ended with Shannon, because you smugly assume you know everything. It didn't. Shannon's work was remarkable and brilliant and extremely important--decisive for digital audio--but it was almost an afterthought for Shannon, a thing that needed doing so that he could accomplish some other thing (I forget exactly what). Even when Shannon's paper was published, others were already moving the field forward. Post-Shannon sampling theory is a real thing. 

 

Does it circumvent Shannon? No. Shannon was correct, so his theory can't be "fixed." Did I claim it did? Did I imply it? Since you folks seem to be hard of reading, or of honest thinking, I'll answer my own question: No, I did not. Did Bob Stuart make that claim? Not that I'm aware of, at least not in our interviews. You still cannot perfectly reconstruct a non-band-limited signal.

 

But the post-Shannon formulation does reframe things in interesting and important ways--and in science (including applied science), reframing issues often leads to new advances. Plus, once you realize there's a post-Shannon formulation--that it exists--it's sensible to stop worshipping at the Nyquist-Shannon altar and rethink things. You can't understand what's happening here without learning something about post-Shannon sampling theory. So, go read some Michael Unser; he has (at least) two papers on the subject. You'll need to know some math. 

 

Post-Shannon intrinsically incorporates the fact that most signals you want to convert are not strictly band-limited--hence, do not satisfy Shannon's most fundamental criterion. To make it satisfy that criterion, you have to do destructive filtering--so why not factor that into the theory directly and count your errors on both sides of the ledger? You replace the myth of perfection with an approach that balances time-domain errors with frequency-domain errors--a more honest accounting. So you think it through, you figure out the implications, and you conceive a new approach to audio just as others have conceived a new approach to several areas of image-related science. Why not? 

 

When you generalize Shannon, you get end up with a new mathematical formulation with deeper symmetries. It leads to a wider range of possibilities for sampling and reconstruction functions, including possible replacements for  the sinc function, which you folks view as the only correct way of doing things but the imaging people have recognized for decades as defective because it's very long in the time domain--sinc(x) extends out to infinity and damps out slowly. Fortunately it can be replaced by new functions including combinations of splines--which are, if memory serves (I read this months ago) the answer to the question, "what's the shortest set of functions subject to the appropriate constraints?" You really should do your homework before trying to destroy peoples' careers. 

 

Rethinking Shannon has made a huge difference in several areas of imaging science. Real, practical advantages have resulted. Take a look at the work of Michael Unser. Could an application of post-Shannon sampling theory do the same in audio? It appears that no one has tried it before now. So why not try it? 

 

The main problem with MQA in the eyes of folks like you is that it's proprietary and not 'open'. That's fine--a reasonable objection, as I wrote last month. But beyond that you're being dishonest--perhaps even with yourselves.  When someone points out that Shannon's may not be the best standards to judge by, you react indignantly like someone has just questioned Newton's Second Law, or gravity, and keep pointing out that it violates Shannon.

 

Sure, there is a chance that Bob Stuart is making this up. Post-Shannon sampling theory is real, an potentially important, but maybe they're not actually using it. Maybe he's lying in that interview (although the formulation outlined in publications and patent applications fits). I don't have the access (nor, perhaps, the expertise) to ensure that he's implementing a new codec based on a rethinking of Shannon. But to judge whether he's doing that or not, you need need to consider that it might be real. You haven't done that. When I consider who's likely to be more reliable--AES Fellows with long and distinguished careers or some self-important, anonymous Internet trolls with a cheap audio interface and Adobe Audition--the answer seems obvious to me. 

 

The question you ought to be asking is how much difference this makes in an audio context. I think it's a better way of doing things--but is it enough better to justify the overhead? That's the crux of the issue--not whether it's all fake.

 

I've given you what you asked for, now I'm done. Arguing with you folks is pointless. I've already wasted an hour or so of my life writing this; I'm not going to do it again. I prefer a more open-mined audience. Besides, it seems that anyone on this forum who dares go against the prevailing view ends up getting banned. 

 

 

I'm out. 

 

 

jca

 

It is really hard to believe that someone who positions them selves as a scientific academic could possibly believe any of this drivel.  it takes a heck of a nerve to post this. You are "done" arguing in more ways than one..because you don't have a leg to stand on, and your magazine continues to have it's credibility melt away.

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11 minutes ago, adamdea said:

Lots of hot air. No attempt to explain how you can be "post" something which is "correct".

Also, of you concede that you strictly aren't circumventing Shannon, why use an expression calculated to imply that you are?

Or to put it another way, why (as usual) use grandiose sciencey -sounding  marketing spiel?

The arrogance is shocking...if he won't be posting here any more, no loss. Good riddance.

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12 hours ago, miguelito said:

BTW... I am listening to the Four Last Songs... Didn’t know this piece, seriously beautiful music and Gundula Janowitz is incredible... And yes, I am listening to the MQA version.

Incredibly convenient that Dudley raves about MQA recordings that are "private"...what a hoot.

 

..and the master cheerleader comes right to the defense...

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9 minutes ago, adamdea said:

 

 

If there is a "bullshit wagon"..not hard to see who is driving it, and who the co-pilots are..

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18 minutes ago, Jim Austin said:

 

I'll answer you because you're considerate. No, technical arguments against MQA are not off the table. But those who criticize it on technical grounds should endeavor first to understand MQA, and like any good scientist, should carefully consider opposing points of view instead of using cheap rhetorical techniques to de-legitimize it. 

 

To address a couple of other points: 1. I'm not an "academic". 2. That we don't need MQA is a valid opinion, but only that. The other answers to my post--the ones I noticed--are substance-less and inflammatory--an possibly in violation of the CA rules. Not that I particularly care. Do your worst. 

 

jca

I'm not an "academic"...

 

Really?

 

From your website-

 

"My Ph.D. work involved detecting correlated gamma-ray emissions from radiotracers, an approach that turned atomic nuclei into little sensors detecting interactions between those radiotracer impurities and other defects. After the Ph.D., I became a postdoc and then took on the title of Research Professor."

 

and

"During my scientific career, which lasted about 10 years, I wrote or collaborated on some 20 peer-reviewed articles, all published in top-tier journals. I also co-edited a book, Accelerator-Based Atomic Physics Techniques and Applications."

 

 

 

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Jim Austin said:

I used to be an academic, years ago. I'm not anymore. Why is this hard to understand? 

Your background is impressive and accomplished..which makes it impossible to understand how you have fallen under the spell of Charlatans like Bob Stuart. And clearly John Atkinson has led you down the primrose path.

 

Boggles the mind.

 

In the end the only answer one can find is commerce.  The HiFi industry is looking for a magic wand.

 

The Pro audio and it's publications have totally ignored MQA. Respected magazine Sound On Sound has published exactly ONE article about MQA in 4 years. ONE.

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10 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

 

Others more capable are addressing what is essentially a "hey, unicorns could exist folks" technical argument (one that, as we are all too aware, is a hinge of the "High End" confidence game).  I wonder @Jim Austin, are you even aware that the hinge you are working above (again, from the same "High End" confidence game) relies on authority that in our post Enlightenment world is not assumed or inherited but is earned?  Do you know just who you are willing to denigrate (i.e. "internet trolls") in the attempt to shore up the game you play?  Not only do average consumers take advantage of non-industry perspectives found here, but many actual EE's who understand and utilize signal processing/Shannon in their daily work post here as well.  Some of these folks are in industries/sectors that have real research dollars behind them.  For example, the government/military satellite communications sector would just love to hear about these unicorns you speak of, and have already spent real money and effort (as in $billions$) looking for them.  You write of "software libertarians" but the truth is that some of these folks work in jobs that much more closed (as in classified) than the legal/IP/DRM world Bob S and company are trying to leverage.  Others simply have to day and day out make real encodings, software, hardware and consumer electronics work and sound good.  As usual the trade publications don't even know who your readers actually are, but then readers are just the commodity you sell.

 

You also act as if this culture of "High End", "AES Fellows", and the like have contributed something significant, something that would cover the errors of an anti-consumer trade publication and all too often voodoo "high end" culture.   You don't seem to get that our consumer-beware-skepticism is not based on some idealic "libertarianism", but rather from hard won experience.  We apply the "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me" dictum because even average "audiophiles" and music lovers have been fooled not once, not twice, but many times by the games you play.

 

Perhaps what I find most remarkable about your tin ear attitude is your complete disregard of knowledgeable and skeptical voices within your own industry.  These are the very same authorities to which you would appeal.  Just upstream a person posted the words of the late Charles Hanson where he listed just a few of the lies Bob S has told and continues to tell.  That is just one of many examples. So which is Jim, is Bob S just an innocent and respected Fellow of High End being "victimized" by the proverbial internet, or is he a Big Fat Liar trying to $squeeze$ all he can from the High End confidence game?  Do you really think you are going to bully folks around here with false claims of authority?!?  

 

Our conversation was cut short on the Roon forum a few months back so tell me, what is it like to lose control of the narrative?  

 

 

 

"Perhaps what I find most remarkable about your tin ear attitude is your complete disregard of knowledgeable and skeptical voices within your own industry.  "

 

PRECISELY!!!  And Austin wrote on AA that he is NOT a digital designer, but a physicist..would it not actually be intelligent to actually listen to digital designers? Going back over old threads, it is remarkable how Austin kept brilliant and successful designers like the late, great Hansen and others in tiresome circular arguments? More than likely because his ego could not hand the fact that he was out flanked technically and intellectually.

 

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32 minutes ago, Jim Austin said:

 

Thanks. 

 

 

It's at times like this that you need to reconsider your previously unquestioned assumptions: "Gosh, maybe I was wrong. Maybe there's something to this after all." I've seen too many of your posts to expect it though. 

 

 

Not true. First, it's wrong to consider me an MQA advocate. I am, rather, someone whose background gives them (me) a certain obstinacy when it comes to accepted norms, a tendency to reject bandwagons, to question what everybody else thinks they know. That obstinacy is paired with a deep commitment to logic and actual evidence. I think, does it really make sense that two scholars would risk their reputations by becoming charlatans late in their lives? I don't think so--so then it makes sense to dig in and try to figure out what they're really up to. It's hard, because it's proprietary and they haven't been forthcoming--but that doesn't mean their tech is bullshit, as you and some others maintain. This is the foundation of what I write: a desire to air out the details, to push back against the zealots who are either ignorant or blinded by their zeal. The result, I hope, is an even-handed look at the technology, its problems, and its promise. 

 

Your inability to entertain the possibility that there's something to MQA makes it obvious that you are not thinking clearly. The facts call for reevaluation. Are you up to it? 

I can see this is hopeless. Your double speak is disingenuous to the core. There is nothing one can consider you but an MQA advocate. 

 

You talk about even handed? Stereophile and MQA? The irony is as thick as molasses.

 

Stuart is life long failure in the business world .What ever "reputation" he had is an illusion.

 

The bottom line is MQA came to market based on lies. And that should have been enough for you to dismiss it..not even including the dossier that has been assembled by the best and the brightest in this hobby.

 

 

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1 hour ago, FredericV said:

Heard a very similar story about a well known video journalist who parrots for MQA. A lead designer and writer of the bible on digital audio once flanked him technically, and this journalist admitted to a peer that he's very mad because of that incident.

Because..it is a credibility destroyer...I don't think anyone would hold it against a well meaning journalist if they understood their place in the hierarchy concerning theory and design.

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1 hour ago, firedog said:

Jim Austin came  back trying to have a reasonable discussion. Why do some of you feel you have to fling insults? Do you not even notice you are doing it?  Why is it necessary to use phrases like "tin ear"? 

I get no sense he trying to bully people - quite the opposite. He has his approach and point of view (some of which I don't agree with). 

So argue with him on the merits of his ideas and his approach. Asking him why his appeals to authority only seem to include MQA advocates is a reasonable question. Accusing him of being an intellectual bully doesn't seem to be a reasonable approach, and starts to be an ad hominem attack instead of an argument/discussion about technical aspects or economic aspects of MQA.

...sorry it is the same old TIRED circular blather. NOTHING new to the table...

 

His "just give it a chance" stance is a joke. And should be treated like one.