MQA is Vaporware

[crenca]

Just read Jim Austin's futile defense of his own and his magazines promotion of the untrue marketing claims MQA.  Now we already knew that consumers - audiophiles - are not their customers, but his dismissiveness is something that even today is still surprising.  Truly he is a captain willing to go down with the Old Guard ship.   

 

I am realizing that Stereophiles (and the rest) technical incompetence is not accidental - rather it is required to do what they do.  Technical incompetence as a professional attribute, who would have thunk it....

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

1 hour ago, crenca said:

 

Which conspiracy theory has been proven false?

 

The one where McGrath (or JA, or fill_in_the_blank) are "directly compensated", or the one where they directly promote the fraud that is MQA?

To be clear, I never posted, nor do I think that JA or PM are directly compensated. I pointed out the following facts:

 

McGrath is one of the very few who had his own recordings encoded, along with JA, and has been an avid MQA enthusiast. He got the benefit of demoing Wilson speakers piggybacking on to numerous MSB demos, where that particular manufacturer was very keen on promoting their MQA implementation. 

[kumakuma]

5 minutes ago, crenca said:

Just read Jim Austin's futile defense of his own and his magazines promotion of the untrue marketing claims MQA.  Now we already knew that consumers - audiophiles - are not their customers, but his dismissiveness is something that even today is still surprising.  Truly he is a captain willing to go down with the Old Guard ship.   

 

I am realizing that Stereophiles (and the rest) technical incompetence is not accidental - rather it is required to do what they do.  Technical incompetence as a professional attribute, who would have thunk it....

 

 

 

Quote

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

[crenca]

3 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

To be clear, I never posted, nor do I think that JA or PM are directly compensated. I pointed out the following facts:

 

McGrath is one of the very few who had his own recordings encoded, along with JA, and has been an avid MQA enthusiast. 

He got the benefit of demoing Wilson speakers piggybacking on to numerous MSB demos, where that particular manufacturer was very keen on promoting their MQA implementation. 

 

I can't confirm/deny some of the details, but the overall picture looks right.

 

So what explains the con-spiracy, the 'with/for + spirit' of these industry insiders such a McGrath and MQA?  Are they just naive true believers, really buying into the original alleged benefits (now proven false)?  John Atkinson says that this is his story and I actually believe him to an extant...

[KeenObserver]

4 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

I can't confirm/deny some of the details, but the overall picture looks right.

 

So what explains the con-spiracy, the 'with/for + spirit' of these industry insiders such a McGrath and MQA?  Are they just naive true believers, really buying into the original alleged benefits (now proven false)?  John Atkinson says that this is his story and I actually believe him to an extant...

 

I think it may be a sense of control , having the power.  " WE can make the music industry go in this direction".

 

That may have been true in the past, before the internet.  Now, there is open discussion on every web site.  People are questioning those that were unquestioned.

[KeenObserver]

This whole MQA fiasco strikes me as a Monty Python skit.

 

I can picture John Cleese "riding" up to a castle in chain mail armor ( with his manservant behind him banging coconuts).   " We are searching for MQA".

French soldiers up on the parapets: " We don have no MQA.  Begone English pig.  Your father was a Bose engineer and your mother was a deaf hamster".

[jabbr]

22 hours ago, esldude said:

You have to spin the spin now.  MQA is so good even though lossy with additional unfolding it becomes Pure lossy.  i.e. it has lost everything.  So upon reconstruction the sound can be improved with a carefully shaped noise to enhance the deblurring beyond what random noise would have done.  MQA's loss is therefore the listener's gain. 

 

Actually it’s so lossy it will lose your crappy music in crappy MP3 and replace with good music (using a code and an alternate channel) — steaganographic reconstruction - 5G phones enable this without detection 😉

[asdf1000]

8 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

. What do ya know, I crack it open to a page in the middle of the book and see a mention of Bob Stuart and MQA

 

No surprise though

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.whathifi.com/news/exclusive-neil-young-visits-meridian-pono-hi-res-music-link-imminent

[StephenJK]

6 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

 

No surprise though

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.whathifi.com/news/exclusive-neil-young-visits-meridian-pono-hi-res-music-link-imminent

You lost me there.  What does Neil Young and Pono have to do with MQA?

 

Meridian designed the electronics for the Pono player, but MQA wasn’t even a thing back in 2014.

[asdf1000]

3 minutes ago, SJK said:

You lost me there.  What does Neil Young and Pono have to do with MQA?

 

Meridian designed the electronics for the Pono player, but MQA wasn’t even a thing back in 2014.

 

It looks to me like they are very good friends.. that's what I guess from the very tight hug anyway.

 

So it's no surprise to me he's mentioned in the book....

 

[mansr]

Just now, SJK said:

You lost me there.  What does Neil Young and Pono have to do with MQA?

 

Meridian designed the electronics for the Pono player, but MQA wasn’t even a thing back in 2014.

They hadn't dreamt up the MQA name yet, but the format existed. Pono were going to use it, but for reasons we'll never know, changed their mind and went to Ayre instead.

[rwdvis]

The MQA strategy?  Some interesting similarities in this story.  The 12:00 and 17:00 minute marks in the video sum things up pretty well.

 

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/14/apple-responds-to-battery-locking-issue/

 

"a new feature"
“with the aim of protecting customers from "damaged, poor quality, or used batteries."
“authentication”
“proprietary”
“dormant locks”

 

Hmm, sounds familiar.

[Ralf11]

33 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geezer-Fest

[rwdvis]

Perhaps Peter McGrath would care to join the conversation and explain why he continues to promote MQA in spite of the evidence that MQA is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem and bad for consumers?  Would be interesting to hear his perspective.

 

 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

13 minutes ago, rwdvis said:

Perhaps Peter McGrath would care to join the conversation and explain why he continues to promote MQA in spite of the evidence that MQA is nothing more than a solution in search of a problem and bad for consumers?  Would be interesting to hear his perspective.

 

 

Here:

 

From the Wilson Facebook page:

 

Peter calls MQA  “one of the greatest developments in the history of digital.”

 

https://www.facebook.com/WilsonAudio/posts/peter-mcgrath-of-wilsonaudio-mqa-presentation-covered-by-the-absolute-sound-at-t/10156158417332656/

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

Ok folks it just does not get better than this:

 

Here is the Stereophile piece again:

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-laas

 

and from TAS:

 

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/from-the-editor-mqa-on-the-threshold/

 

From John Atkinson:

 

"When Peter then played the MQA version, my jaw dropped...."

 

From Robert Harley:

 

"Then, seconds into the MQA version, my jaw dropped—literally..."

 

Incredibly similar pieces, incredibly similar tone. Any one who denies there is coordinated marketing effort between manufactures and the two print mags is utterly in denial. 

 

 

 

[asdf1000]

8 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Incredibly similar pieces, incredibly similar tone. Any one who denies there is coordinated marketing effort between manufactures and the two print mags is utterly in denial. 

 

Bob Stuart created "my jaw dropped" as part of the MQA marketing campaign?

 

That's never been used before, even just in this hobby?

 

I want MQA to go away and not a fan of TAS but this is getting a bit silly.

 

[Ralf11]

not necessarily -- they could be on a peer-to-peer network

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

4 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

 

Bob Stuart created "my jaw dropped" as part of the MQA marketing campaign?

 

That's never been used before, even just in this hobby?

 

I want MQA to go away and not a fan of TAS but this is getting a bit silly.

 

Perhaps there is a market of an audiophile jaw strap that will keep your face from bouncing off the floor when MQA files

are played?😎

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

The Atkinson Harley MQA Jaw Protector?

 

Instructions: Where when listening to MQA if you are an audio magazine editor

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

44 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Ok folks it just does not get better than this:

 

Here is the Stereophile piece again:

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-laas

 

and from TAS:

 

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/from-the-editor-mqa-on-the-threshold/

 

From John Atkinson:

 

"When Peter then played the MQA version, my jaw dropped...."

 

From Robert Harley:

 

"Then, seconds into the MQA version, my jaw dropped—literally..."

 

Incredibly similar pieces, incredibly similar tone. Any one who denies there is coordinated marketing effort between manufactures and the two print mags is utterly in denial. 

 

 

Add this to your conspiracy theories. 

 

I’ve said it before and it bares repeating, there is no coordination or conspiracy with the old guard and MQA for the same reason 9/11 wasn’t an inside job. The folks involved could never keep it a secret or coordinate it perfectly. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Add this to your conspiracy theories. 

 

I’ve said it before and it bares repeating, there is no coordination or conspiracy with the old guard and MQA for the same reason 9/11 wasn’t an inside job. The folks involved could never keep it a secret or coordinate it perfectly. 

So by coincidence McGrath's recordings are transformed from ordinary PCM dreck to magical, heavenly audio holographs and jaws are bouncing off the walls right and left. Ok.

 

9/11? C'mon man. I know you are using to make a point, but it is not clever. Nobody is dying here.

[The Computer Audiophile]

13 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

So by coincidence McGrath's recordings are transformed from ordinary PCM dreck to magical, heavenly audio holographs and jaws are bouncing off the walls right and left. Ok.

 

9/11? C'mon man. I know you are using to make a point, but it is not clever. Nobody is dying here.

This has zero to do with his recordings. It’s just that you think there’s a conspiracy going on. If this was the case we’d all know about it. The answers to why two guys say the same thing are much easier. They’ve been using this language for 50 years!

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This has zero to do with his recordings. It’s just that you think there’s a conspiracy going on. If this was the case we’d all know about it. The answers to why two guys say the same thing are much easier. They’ve been using this language for 50 years!

Agree with your last point. please note, I was not including McGrath in any point I was trying to make here. It just happened to be his recordings.  Of course his facebook quote was obviously marketing nonsense, but as far as Harley and Atkinson's reactions that was purely their own doing. The manufactures I mean are those that are "MQA Partners". 

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

They’ve been using this language for 50 years!

 

Bob's marketing has even made it to the Cambridge Dictionary!

 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/someone-s-jaw-drops