MQA is Vaporware

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

6 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

 

Why?  Just ignore the MQA stuff.  There is little of it, still, on Qobuz and there's lots of great music in lossless formats.

If there is "so little" of it, and it adds so little value...then I would love to have someone explain Stereophile's obsession with it as a  "feature"; on digital products, and why they continue to lament if a DAC or streamer does not offer it...

 

Any thoughts???????

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

3 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

I acknowledge all that and, frankly, I listen mostly to my own collection for those reasons.  I prefer hi-resolution multichannel for which there is no streaming source (yet).

 

That said, I can discover music and performances via streaming and then make informed purchases for my library.  Streaming is only an adjunct but an important one.

I also uses streaming to make purchasing decisions....I still buy a lot of downloads..but I use FREE streaming sources, of which there are endless choices....

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

12 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

1.  Each of the writers and editors is free to express his opinions in print and I will not speak for them.  

2.  Over the years, I have disagreed with many statements made by my colleagues and, I suspect, they have returned the compliment.  

3.  I see more obsessiveness about MQA around here than at Stereophile.

1-Clearly they are free to express their own opinions, but their impressions, opinions, and observations about MQA are amazingly similar  Almost like they got Fox News style talking points.

 

2-No doubt.

 

3-No one here markets MQA and positions it as an essential feature and "technology". And no one here called it the Birth Of A New World.  So a big fail for # 3 Kal.

 

In no way to i expect you to have the answers or to be responsible for the absurd MQA coverage by the magazine. It

seems you have made your position about MQA clear, and it is that it serves little or no purpose.  I would expect nothing less from a scientist, and from someone who clearly understands how digital audio works. 

 

Unfortunately the same thing CANNOT be said about your new editor. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

1 minute ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

Careful, you've just described yourself very well.

 

 

Neither does anyone else, but you misquoted the OP in your reply, he said legend in your own mind, which is a different thing altogether.

 

 

Again, we'd love to know what brand of crystal ball you are using to arrive at these dead-on accurate assessments.

 

 

Pot calling the kettle black.

You sum up the Paul's posting history, style, and credibility on the subject of this thread quite nicely. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

3 hours ago, Archimago said:

I see this announcement for AXPONA on TAS:

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/mqa-champions-master-quality-sound-at-axpona-2019/

 

Looks like primarily the Mike Jbara Show... 

 

Why doesn't Bob Stuart show up anymore?

I think it is pretty clear why Stuart won't attend. When MQA blows up and the shit flies far and wide, he can pretend to be immaculate and carry on unsullied. I think that is also the reason MQA was ultimately spun off from Meridian. I bet once MQA dies they will try to pump life back into Meridian as an upscale "respectable" brand that London Hedge Fund managers would want in their flats. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

I actually do know why he isn't showing up.

....he doesn't like tomatoes? 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

35 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

 

I think you’re wrong about the “importance and leverage” of this thread and the posters to it. MQA may or may not be successful but it won’t be determined because of one single word posted here. 

Is there any anti MQA you don't "Disagree" with? Do you have anti MQA alert app?

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

6 minutes ago, Indydan said:

"OMG, it's music" is the first thing I wrote down in this room. "So much of what I've missed at this show is here." 

 

JVS once again proclaiming his enthusiasm for MQA...

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/vtl-s-400-series-ii-reference-amp-stenheim-alumine-five-speakers-dcs-rossini-player-nordost

Wow.....septuagenarians proclaiming a lossy format is true musical ecstasy. How did we live without it?

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

19 minutes ago, firedog said:

His consistent over the top descriptions of every MQA track he listens to certainly lead one to think there’s a lot of confirmation bias involved in his reports. 

Your gift for understatement is truly exceptional. 😎 Cheers.

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

14 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

A couple people stopped me in the hall to tell me about it. Hopefully they’ll post here. 

 

There red was a fiery discussion today I was told. 

If it is not on YouTube, it never happened...😃

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

10 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Even if it is on YouTube it never happened according to some people.

True enough! 🤩

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

21 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

 

I wasn’t posting for or against MQA, I was just pointing out that I don’t think the people raging against MQA on this forum are going to affect it’s success or failure one way or another. 

..and as usual you would be incorrect...😎

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

18 minutes ago, FredericV said:

OMG they still believe there are 3 unfolds ... so he quotes Archimago's article but clearly he has understood nothing, as he would have known better ....

Really hard to believe. I mean absurd. But then as has been stated ad nauseam we live in a post truth era.

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

11 minutes ago, FredericV said:

 

Let's use @mansr tools to educate him a little bit, shall we?
 

 

So he claims MQA can contain 4 resolutions, but he obviously is mistaking resolution and upsampling.

The first unfold can achieve 17/88.2 or 17/96
Then the second unfold can upsample to any value set by the orig_rate field as shown in the output of @mansr tool.

If your MQA dac does not support that resolution (e.g. you try 352.8 kHz but your dac is a 24/192 dac, it may actually try to use 24/176.4 instead), but that does not make MQA a format which contains 44.1, 88.2, 176.4 and 352.8K resolution in the same file format.

MQA is not DXD resolution, it can only do a fraction of DXD.

Also notice that MQA files have similar data rates independent of the original being e.g. 24/96, 24/192, 24/384 or 24/768 as it decimates to 17/96 in this case and tries to pack that in a 24/48 container.

For 44.1K multiples like DXD, you can clearly see the limitations of MQA:

 

Unfortunately, you are dealing with this:

 

 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

4 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

 

https://audiophilereview.com/authors/steven-stone.html

First, that is a 25 year old old picture lol. Second, he apparently has all his gear under a desk. And that is the tip of the iceberg of why I think he is a charlatan. 😎

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

1 minute ago, crenca said:

 

He's just trolling you.  He does not care about the truth though he might very well know what it is. He is promoting MQA. It's why I say we are "post technical".  The confidence men in audio never have been about truth, only $promoting$ things.

I promise a new classification for those who blindly support MQA without regards to reality-

 

" PTPT"

 

Post Technical Post Truth club. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

4 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

 

7digital will require material further equity and/or debt funding by the beginning of June 2019. “Without such funding, the Company is unlikely to be able to continue as a going concern.” From the London Stock Exchange April 11, 2019

 

It will be hard for HDTracks to launch its MQA streaming service without 7digital.

Wow.7digital is actually a really good FLAC download store. It would be a shame.

 

It also is further proof that even LOSSLESS Redbook music in a non physical format is dying a death. To the mass of consumers Mp3 IS lossless.

 

 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

3 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

 

7digital will require material further equity and/or debt funding by the beginning of June 2019. “Without such funding, the Company is unlikely to be able to continue as a going concern.” From the London Stock Exchange April 11, 2019

 

It will be hard for HDTracks to launch its MQA streaming service without 7digital.

That streaming service is DOA. Never gonna happen. 😥

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

2 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

I purchase quite a bit of my downloads from 7digital...

Me too. Lots of world music, jazz, and some 24 bit stuff available no where else. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

1 minute ago, daverich4 said:

 

Those things might all be true, I have no idea. You said you didn't know who he is, that's who he is.

All true. FYI it was another poster who said he did not know who he was. I know him as long time reviewer with the Absolute Sound.

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

34 minutes ago, WAM said:

Got mail from Bluesound:

 

Experience live music at home like never before.

With nugs.net now available with BluOS, you can browse and listen to over 30,000 hours of live concert recordings from artists like Pearl Jam, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Beck and dozens more. Hi-Fi subscribers of nugs.net will be able to enjoy their favorite concerts on Bluesound in lossless FLAC, with many of the concerts also encoded and available in MQA^® for the best possible listening experience.

 

What a pity I do not use a Bluesound product anymore ...😎

This his actual a bit of old news regarding nugs.net. Maybe new to Bluesound users. 🤠

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

32 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

geesh, I have been putting together a beautiful demo for the ABBACHAT group, and tried to encode it into mp3 format (lame, in insane 320k mode, with all of the checks enabled, and carefully limited bandwidth to avoid any kind of possible artifacts.)  Mp3 sounds kind of bad (actually fairly bad, definitely not great.)  The material that I can produce is SIGNIFICANTLY better than mp3 (with 40yr old ABBA), let alone the more recent studios that could totally blow it away.  (I did careful processing & mastering -- much better than any demo that I might have done here.)

Mp3 might be okay for cars or listening while running, but it is really not all that great IMO.  And I do NOT have 'golden ears' at all.

 

John

 

 

Of course you are correct. But what i was saying is that to the masses of music consumers lossy encoding to them IS lossless...it is and all they know. Ask the average person what a WAV, FLAC, AIFF, or DSF files You might as well ask them about Relativity. Apple did a great job convincing tens of millions that lossy AAC or MP3 encoding was all they would ever need. I have friend who love music who have not listened to anything but a lossy stream for a decade. 😥

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

Meridian's massive losses are very important because it provides very specific motive for brining to market the scam

that is MQA. It was a last ditch effort. No difference than Wall Street criminals fabricating scam derivatives and exotic

financial instruments that have zero value but providing trading revenue by foisting them on unsuspecting fools. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

5 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

Not sure they ever made any real money. What a ridiculous fantasy. 

Not a fantasy. Companies and executives who have bled out money often come up with various absurd schemes to climb out the hole. Bob Stuart is the John DeLorean of audio. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

Minus the cocaine.

 

Even I think this is a stretch.

 

Yes, minus the cocaine. But like DeLorean, Stuart made a desperate move to save his sinking ship. 

 

Any audio engineer not drunk or high would look at MQA and know it is a hilarious joke on a technical level.