MQA is Vaporware

[The Computer Audiophile]

Based on @BassFace's other "contributions" to the community, he just might be that guy who walks into a party and tells everyone they are losers for not having a conversation in his own style. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, BassFace said:

But I could be wrong..

Based on the numbers, you are. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

The ageism is quite strange, especially given most of your ages are unknown to everyone here. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Oh yes, in typical mQa fashion making things clear as mud, there are of course two colored lights. Blue and green, and of course they must be approved by the engineer or artist. Who knew Miles Davis and Rudy Van Gelder could hit the stamp of approval from the grave. And, who knew the batch converter in the cloud could also obtain those approvals. 

 

I had a Judy Collins album from mQa Ltd and I asked why it was "only" a green light mQa file. An hour later I had a blue light version. I'm sure it had nothing to do with flipping the mQa light switch in the metadata, and everything to do with obtaining the proper approval. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 minutes ago, firedog said:

Go back and read JA2's post in reaction to mine under that article.

He's totally bought in to MQA, and accepts their claims at face value. 

Wow, not on his watch will mQa be talked about truthfully. 
 

I liked the comment about “those other HiFi discussion forums.” Rich indeed. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Good to see Bluesound is offering a choice between lossy mQa and lossless CD Quality. 
 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 hours ago, bambadoo said:

For lousy 18USD you can have a tag guaranteeing lesser quality of your album. 

https://distrokid.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360059827614-How-I-Can-get-the-MASTER-badge-on-TIDAL

 

Deal of the century

Wow. 
 

“Your masters will then be verified and encoded so your tracks will display the “MASTER” badge on TIDAL.”

 

Verified? That’s a new one. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, mfsoa said:

Distrokid doesn't even mention MQA. You'd think that if there was an MQA conversion involved that they would mention it. Is MQA sufficiently toxic now that you can't mention it even if you are selling it?

 

 

Not mentioning it makes it harder to Google and see the info about it. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

I also noticed they didn't mention whether this was the GREEN or BLUE light.

 

$18 for BLUE light is worth it since it takes away all my stress that maybe I'm not listening to the "real deal". But GREEN light barely eases my anxiety so I would not pay a penny over $10 for that.

 

Yup, deal of the century. Almost as good as Machina Dynamica products.

The great mQa sausage grinder in the sky uses AI to know if the album is artist or engineer approved. It just knows this stuff man. 🤣

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 hours ago, bambadoo said:

 

 

Good to see Doug talking truth. He makes a great point about mQa and comparisons. If the technology was really that good, mQa would've hired a few studio musicians (like Qobuz did for its Q Sessions), recorded using an A to D converter known to have issues, then ran the mQa process on the files. If mQa was good, consumers would've went crazy for it. Remember the SD vs HD comparisons back in the day when companies were promoting high definition TV? No talking or marketing was necessary, the comparison spoke for itself. 

 

Heck, I'd even enjoy mQa using the worst A to D known to man to make a recording, then run its process, and let us listen to before and after versions. That would at least be a starting point. 

 

However, white gloving and "juicing" the version used in a demo doesn't help anyone, unless that's standard operating procedure for all mQa material. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

Yeah, Doug's a good guy. One of the few willing to call out BS when he sees it although we all have to be diplomatic in our ways of course...

 

We had a chat about mQa back in 2018 shortly after the article appeared here.

 

You fellow Canadians :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

Same price for a version that will be unplayable in the way it was designed. Even if people love mQa, it makes no sense to pay for the mQa version because it will go away someday (soon?). Perhaps those are the people who love to re-purchase their libraries for a new format. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, jcbenten said:

For a group that controls their music to the extent that Pink Floyd does, I find it appalling that they put an MQA version out. 

If I had to guess, I'd say the band has no clue and the label was under contract with mQa to put out its entire catalog in mQa. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, Rexp said:

This topic was one of my 'ignored topics', I can see it again now, have you removed this option?

Temporarily while I debug another issue. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Nice to see the new 2L email blast talks about every format except mQa. 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

A recent "Spotify vs. TIDAL" article appearing in Android Authority stated this:

 

"Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) promises high-resolution (96kHz/24bit) audio delivered via FLAC or WAV file. Any media labeled as MQA under Tidal means that the artist directly authenticated it."

 

True or false?

Let's cut over to Miles Davis and ask him about the sound ... oh wait. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Has Tidal finally come to its senses and decoupled MQA from lossless streaming?

 

I just recede an email saying I was upgraded to HiFi Plus. So, I checked to see what HiFi without the Plus was. IT certainly appears that lossless without MQA is now only $10.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Now, we need to test the HiFi tier (not HiFi Plus) to see if the lossless 44.1 is in fact lossless, not some mQa CD without the mQa label. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, UkPhil said:

But these will be 16/44.1 MQA files with the flag turned off so MQA in disguise,  they dumped all the Warners and Sony original ones in the bin so no one could compare 

Will need to use the bit perfect test to see.

[The Computer Audiophile]

36 minutes ago, bambadoo said:

Now we could face that artists actually support this program and make MQA an selling point.. 

 

But access to lossy MQA now costs the double. 

That program starts sometime in 2022 and if it's successful the other services will do it too. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

54 minutes ago, new_media said:

Is Roon's identification of MQA based solely on a flag? It does identify tracks as MQA even though they don't have the "Master" label on Tidal.

 

I believe so.

 

54 minutes ago, new_media said:

I see that my account was automatically upgraded to HiFi Plus. If they do indeed have lossless CD-quality streams in the HiFi tier, will I have to downgrade to access them?

 

I believe so. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

26 minutes ago, Stereo said:

Deezer has been trying to do this for a couple of years now already:  https://en.deezercommunity.com/product-updates/27

Yes, but hasn’t been able to get the rights holders to sign off. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, Stereo said:

Right but that begs the question; how is Tidal able to do it and in a seemingly shorter timetable?

To hit the time table Tidal has over one year to do it. Who knows if the company will. Being owned by Square likely won’t hurt. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, rn701 said:

(I still don't get the point of 16/44.1 MQA.)

It's about money and control.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

 

I don't see this as surprising, given that Australian TIDAL users reported such when the new TIDAL tier structure was first introduced there about 6 months ago:

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/tidal-hifi-plus-introduced/157461/15

 

To summarise (again):

If you happen to select an MQA labelled track for streaming, the HiFi quality connection sources that very same MQA track for the stream - it does not magically provide a lossless version in its place:

- If it's an MQA-CD track then it streams unhindered;

- if it's a 24-bit MQA track then its bit depth is truncated to16 bits;

- if the MQA track's (undecoded) sample rate is 48kHz then it's downsampled to 44.1kHz.

 

The track will be lossless only if you have selected a true lossless CD-res track, ie, one that isn't labelled as MQA - not many of those left on TIDAL.

That's quite a DSP hamburger grinder in the cloud.