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MQA is Vaporware


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15 hours ago, christopher3393 said:

Many of you no doubt caught the " SiriusXM + Pandora Present Lady Gaga At The Apollo" show the other day celebrating the merging of the two companies. At one point Gaga quipped, "“Did you all hear that Sirius XM and Pandora are uniting? That’s fucking hot. I wonder what kind of sex they’re gonna have?"  Food for thought.

 

So horrible-sounding Sirius has acquired Pandora (currently 192kbps for premium service).  And MQA is hoping to hitch themselves to this.  Sounds like we can expect another dumbed down version of MQA, something with worse than MQA-CD quality.

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43 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

So is it official that choice has now been taken away from us as consumers? The company (MQA Ltd) that said it was all about choice and giving consumers the option, then said they it had no control over how its technology is used, just put a dagger in the hearts of many of its defenders. I think pretty much all the MQA fans who defended it for years here always said there was no evidence that our choice to stream pure PCM will be removed. Well, I just tried to play the non-MQA version of  The Black Keys new album Let's Rock and if using Roon there is no way to stream a non-MQA version from TIdal. I even went into the Tidal app, changed my settings to HiFi (not Master) and favorited the album as a hail mary to see if I could get the pure PCM version and it was a no-go. 

 

Thankfully Qobuz still offers pure PCM. 

 

Screen Shot 2019-06-28 at 8.25.03 AM.png

Honestly, did we think it was going to turn out any other way?🙄

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4 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The Black Keys new album Let's Rock and if using Roon there is no way to stream a non-MQA version from TIdal. 

 

So your issue is with Tidal, who still streams the PCM version, or Roon, who does not stream the PCM version of this album as of this morning?

 

Sample size of one, maybe.  Long term change, maybe.  A fluke that means nothing, again maybe.  I'd hardly call what you presented conclusive evidence, but you along any other member are free to vent their frustrations.

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Just now, rando said:

 

So your issue is with Tidal, who still streams the PCM version, or Roon, who does not stream the PCM version of this album as of this morning?

 

Sample size of one, maybe.  Long term change, maybe.  A fluke that means nothing, again maybe.  I'd hardly call what you presented conclusive evidence, but you along any other member are free to vent their frustrations.

Um, OK.

 

I've done much more looking into it. Perhaps your jump to a conclusion based on the sample size of one (me) was too quick.

 

My issue is with both Tidal and Roon. Tidal may be streaming only MQA even when CD quality is selected in its app, and Roon maybe only presenting MQA to users through its interface. There is no transparency here. It takes digging around to find out what's going on. 

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

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16 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Perhaps your jump to a conclusion based on the sample size of one (me) was too quick.

 

Truly hilarious.  Of course this was a personal attack on my part.  By no reasonable means of interpretation could the "sample size of one" refer to the album.  What really tickles me about this is the response to being questioned.  Impersonally, with the door wide open to further investigation without insulting or demanding.  

 

Now my daddy always reminded me pointing a finger at someone points three back at you.  So I'm going to politely suggest a reexamination of your post I was replying to for signs of jumping to conclusions.  ☝

 

Edit: By no means was there any intent to develop internal strife.  Let's see how this pans out and then revisit if anyone came to hasty or unfair conclusions.

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5 hours ago, mansr said:

Of 14 Bluray discs on my shelf, only one has Dolby TrueHD audio. That hardly qualifies as "almost every."

 

Um - I hardly think that 14 BluRay discs is representative, however - if your disc are encoded with DTS Master HD then a similar argument applies. Not exactly the same, since DTS of any variety can be lossy, but still applies since it sends higher than 48k audio. Also, you will probably find uncompressed LPCM on those blu-Ray discs. 

 

-Paul

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

Robert A. Heinlein

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3 hours ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

For our friend @Rt66indierock

 

Why Hi-Res Audio Doesn’t Actually Offer a Higher Quality Sonic Experience

We can blame the iPod and its signature earbuds for this demise

https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/why-hi-res-audio-doesnt-actually-offer-a-higher-quality-sonic-experience/

 

Well I agree with him that the vast majority of people don't listen in environments where even CD quality matters. But I disagree with him that in a quiet environment like my office at night the difference between mp3/AAC and a high resolution file is huge and demonstrable.

 

It isn't with well recorded material like John Atkinson's Portland State Chamber Choir recordings. 

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12 minutes ago, rando said:

 

Truly hilarious.  Of course this was a personal attack on my part.  By no reasonable means of interpretation could the "sample size of one" refer to the album.  What really tickles me about this is the response to being questioned.  Impersonally, with the door wide open to further investigation without insulting or demanding.  

 

Now my daddy always reminded me pointing a finger at someone points three back at you.  So I'm going to politely suggest a reexamination of your post I was replying to for signs of jumping to conclusions.  ☝

 

Edit: By no means was there any intent to develop internal strife.  Let's see how this pans out and then revisit if anyone came to hasty or unfair conclusions.

I don't take this stuff too serious. It's HiFi, not brain surgery. 

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

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10 minutes ago, new_media said:

This article basically says that hi-res audio actually does offer a higher quality sonic experience, you just need the right system and room to appreciate it, so the title is very misleading.

 

Shelly Palmer is wrong about  the hi-res sonic experience. It takes a lot training (think years) and very quiet amplifier to even have a chance to hear a difference. 

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48 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Please try to stream the pure PCM version of these albums in Roon. It isn't possible. 

 

The Black Keys - Let's Rock

Beyonce - Homecoming The Live Album

The Raconteurs - Help Us Stranger

Dawnbreaker - Daughter of Swords

Doobie Brother - Live from the Beacon Theater

Foy Vance - From Muscle Shoals

Gucci Mane - Delusions of Grandeur

 

Since I'm going to an audio show tomorrow, I like to lead off with a good audio conspiracy and Roon is forcing you to listen to MQA tracks is a good one. 

 

Fortunately Rhino is not promoting MQA versions of Live from the Beacon Theater on their site. 

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