MQA is Vaporware

[MikeyFresh]

9 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

 

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

 

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

 

Well when you've ushered in a new era in audio... no, make that birthed a whole new world, jaws do tend to drop.

[rwdvis]

3 hours ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

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/

 

I wonder what he finds so great about it?  A lot has been learned since that FB post in 2017.  It would be nice if he could provide some detail as to how he reached such a conclusion.

[rwdvis]

JA, RH, and JVS during the infamous, jaw-dropping MQA listening session.

 

[Ralf11]

I can't see the dollar bills - did they scarf them up completely?

[The Computer Audiophile]

I can’t wait to write about Neil Young’s opinion of MQA now. The publisher asked that I hold off until the book is published, so I’ll honor that. 

 

I’m reading good stuff now and was happy to read what he said. Seems like Charley educated him on it. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

OMG, Neil saw, what people have been saying here from the beginning, with respect to Bob and MQA. 

 

Ill stop now and just keep reading. 

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

OMG, Neil saw, what people have been saying here from the beginning, with respect to Bob and MQA. 

 

No more warm hugs then I guess.

[psjug]

I really like Neil Young but he has said some pretty nutty things about audio.  I assume he's not talking math in the book, that he is writing about what he hears.  So while I am very interested in having you post some quotes from the book, I'm not sure I would give much weight to his opinions, given that he has said things like 

 
AM radio kicked streaming’s ass. 
Analog Cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming’s ass, 
and absolutely rocked compared to streaming.

Streaming sucks. Streaming is the worst audio in history. 

 

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/11/04/neil-young-streaming-spotify/

 

Edit:  Maybe he discusses the greed in this business.  That could be interesting.

[firedog]

23 minutes ago, psjug said:

I really like Neil Young but he has said some pretty nutty things about audio.  I assume he's not talking math in the book, that he is writing about what he hears.  So while I am very interested in having you post some quotes from the book, I'm not sure I would give much weight to his opinions, given that he has said things like 

 
AM radio kicked streaming’s ass. 
Analog Cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming’s ass, 
and absolutely rocked compared to streaming.

Streaming sucks. Streaming is the worst audio in history. 

 

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/11/04/neil-young-streaming-spotify/

 

Edit:  Maybe he discusses the greed in this business.  That could be interesting.

Pretty sure Neil was talking about streaming fairly low res mp3. So not so crazy.

 

On the other hand, in the promotion for PONO, he highly exaggerated the improvement hi-res gives over other formats, so most people listened and said, "I don't hear anything like what you are talking about". 
So he actually did a disservice to hi-res. 

[psjug]

3 minutes ago, firedog said:

Pretty sure Neil was talking about streaming fairly low res mp3. So not so crazy.

 

Who knows what he was talking about since he lumps it all together.  But if I were to assume I would think he was talking about 320kbps lossy streaming.

[mansr]

Just now, psjug said:

Who knows what he was talking about since he lumps it all together.  But if I were to assume I would think he was talking about 320kbps lossy streaming.

Which is far better than any mass-market tape format.

[esldude]

I'll guess Neil saw MQA as a power and greed grab to be a man in the middle between artist and listener. That would have rubbed Neil very much there wrong way. 

[StephenJK]

13 hours ago, mansr said:

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.

Of course, Ayre.  

 

I had a Pono, I was a Kickstarter supporter and managed to order one of the spiffy clear acrylic versions.  It was everything it was supposed to be but I found the programming of the buttons on the touchscreen needed some work. 

 

I guess they were concerned about pocket dialing so every button push had a built in delay.  You would push a button, nothing would happen.  Push the same button or another, nothing would happen.  Then there would be furious activity as all the delayed button pushes activated at the same time.  Mind you, a minor annoyance and one that was easy to manage.  

 

I think I got to the point where I wasn't using it in the truck and when on the road started carrying a USB drive with all my music.  The Pono became redundant and was sold quite some time ago.  

[psjug]

2 hours ago, firedog said:

Pretty sure Neil was talking about streaming fairly low res mp3. So not so crazy.

 

Sorry to go on too much about this, but I can't help but ask the question:

If streaming sucks because there are poorer quality low bitrate options, then does vinyl suck because of this?

https://www.clashmusic.com/news/neil-young-makes-entire-album-in-jack-whites-recording-booth

 

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, psjug said:

Sorry to go on too much about this, but I can't help but ask the question:

If streaming sucks because there are poorer quality low bitrate options, then does vinyl suck because of this?

https://www.clashmusic.com/news/neil-young-makes-entire-album-in-jack-whites-recording-booth

From that article: "You can make a lo-fi, analog record, direct to vinyl, transfer it to 192, and you have a high res copy of a lo-fi vinyl record."

Sure, but to what end?

[psjug]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

From that article: "You can make a lo-fi, analog record, direct to vinyl, transfer it to 192, and you have a high res copy of a lo-fi vinyl record."

Sure, but to what end?

So you can stream it?

[lucretius]

18 minutes ago, psjug said:

So you can stream it?

Actually, you could already stream analog ... on FM radio.

[mansr]

21 minutes ago, psjug said:

So you can stream it?

Why do you need high-res for that?

[psjug]

8 minutes ago, mansr said:

Why do you need high-res for that?

Was joking

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, psjug said:

Was joking

Oh, good. For a moment there, I was afraid we'd lost you.

[crenca]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

I'll guess Neil saw MQA as a power and greed grab to be a man in the middle between artist and listener. That would have rubbed Neil very much there wrong way. 

 

MQA = man in the middle

 

Should be a t-shirt

[Teresa]

4 hours ago, psjug said:

Who knows what he was talking about since he lumps it all together.  But if I were to assume I would think he was talking about 320kbps lossy streaming.

 

Neil Young could have been talking about 64kbps lossy streaming from the 1990's. 64kbps music files produced the absolute worst sound quality I've ever heard in my life. Computers have come a long ways since then.

[beetlemania]

17 hours ago, mansr said:

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.

 

I think that Pono was, in part, scared off by the proprietary format Meridian wanted. Also, I heard that NY listened to a half-dozen or more high-end DACs and said "that one", pointing to an Ayre.

 

EDIT: I see an earlier post from JA suggesting that the MQA unfold was too hard on the battery!

[mansr]

9 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

I think that Pono was, in part, scared off by the proprietary format Meridian wanted. Also, I heard that NY listened to a half-dozen or more high-end DACs and said "that one", pointing to an Ayre.

Here's Charley's summary (from an old email):

"Meridian were desperately trying to figure out some way to make money and at that time, portable audio (eg, iPods) looked like the lowest-hanging fruit. Neil Young had heard the improvements available from high-res, but of course the larger file size was antithetical to the limited storage on portable players. Somehow Pono got connected to Meridian, who was working on the MQA ideas, but had not yet even come up with the name MQA. The Pono team became more and more frustrated with the Meridian team (for numerous different reasons) and decided to get advice from other companies with expertise in digital audio technology.

 

"I don't know whom else Pono contacted, but when they contacted Ayre they asked "Isn't there some way to downsample the file for storage, and then upsample it during playback to achieve true-high res without the large storage requirements?" Of course they were told there was no possible way of doing it. Information theory sets a limit which simply cannot be broken. After some discussion with Ayre Pono broke off the relationship with Meridian and turned the audio design over to Ayre."

[crenca]

29 minutes ago, mansr said:

"Isn't there some way to downsample the file for storage, and then upsample it during playback to achieve true-high res without the large storage requirements?" Of course they were told there was no possible way of doing it. Information theory sets a limit which simply cannot be broken. After some discussion with Ayre Pono broke off the relationship with Meridian and turned the audio design over to Ayre."

 

Interesting how they put that question - down/upsample.

 

Ayre told them the truth.  Meridian and MQA seem to have a problem with the truth (as does Jim Austin, etc.).