MQA is Vaporware

[MikeyFresh]

2 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

Once people have a collection of MQA music, you know that someone will come out with a newfangled scheme that will offer "re-blurring".

 

Maybe even BS/MQA themselves, any authenticated re-blurring will be designated by a chartreuse colored LED on proper (licensed) playback (3rd unfold = DAC display 32-bit 1536kHz sample rate).

 

New galaxies are birthed, and GUTB gushes (so does JVS). Audioquest, Berkeley, iFi, and dCS quickly decide to offer future firmware updates enabling re-blurring.

[MikeyFresh]

I've sometimes wondered if that iDSD Pro is a prime example of consumers having to pay more for MQA.

 

That unit was very delayed in release, and while we'll never know for sure all of the different factors that caused it, one wonders if stupid MQA implementation represented a good portion of that delay in product release. Moreover, the original target retail price of $1,500 ended up being $2,500, which is not an insignificant increase.

[MikeyFresh]

25 minutes ago, jabbr said:

No one can tell the difference, so who cares?

 

I wouldn't say no one, but I also don't wish to have an argument about that.

The mass market certainly doesn't seem to notice a difference between 256AAC and ALAC, and that's all Apple cares about.

[MikeyFresh]

26 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Slippery slope in my opinion.

 

Absolutely, although watch how fast Apple changes that stance if another heavyweight like Amazon (the 800 lb. gorilla in the streaming room) decides to offer lossless as @Em2016 suggested earlier today.

[MikeyFresh]

12 minutes ago, firedog said:

Okay, are we agreed now that the MQA renderer/filters distorts the waveform?

 

I'd like to think we can all agree on that one, but I'm not an engineer, so perhaps I've missed something.🤑

[MikeyFresh]

36 minutes ago, Jim Austin said:

Should I have chosen a more neutral phrase than "it must be acknowledged"? Yeah, probably. 

 

No that's a perfect soft pivot.

[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.

[MikeyFresh]

22 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

It doesn't change their history though

 

Which history would that be, the one where Meridian lost a cumulative £40 million with their fantastic product offerings and savvy business acumen?

[MikeyFresh]

29 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

I don't think you're the target market. More installer, which is quite profitable

 

Thats a big nothing burger, everyone knows the traditional HiFi sales channel has been tilting towards custom install since the early 90s with the advent of home theater and 5.1 systems. Thats true for nearly all brands, not just Meridian.

 

That said, I'm not sure how to lose £40 million while supplying that profitable installer market, unless of course you've done a very bad job of it.

[MikeyFresh]

29 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

They do indeed make excellent 5.1 systems, ever heard one? I doubt it. How much of the £40m was installer related?

 

It doesn't matter, there was no profit, only losses each year totaling over £40m. Giant failure of a company in HiFi marketplace terms, without significant and repeated cash infusion they'd be long gone by now.

 

I agree the DSP speakers are both very good sounding and were early trend setters, I first heard them in 2004 and they had already been around a while. However I don't think they represent any kind of substantial value, they are quite expensive and so taken in that context, not as impressive at all.

 

No I haven't heard any Meridian 5.1 systems ever, and that's by choice, I have zero interest in 5.1 in general and that's not at all limited to Meridian product.

[MikeyFresh]

23 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

Get a pair of 6ks, get someone to re-cap the PS, possibly other caps. Probably $2500, stunning for the money. 

Hate blinds (and deafens).

 

Who cares, now your just blathering on about buying used HiFi at a bargain price. Thats off topic in this thread.

 

28 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

List prices are mainly for the brand imaging...

 

Umm, no...list prices are generally what you'd pay if you walk into a dealer and wish to buy high-end audio brand new in box.

[MikeyFresh]

10 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

Hate to interrupt a rant with facts, but Meridian's 203 DAC was introduced in 1990.

 

How many years did they go with no standalone DAC in their lineup at all?

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

A little while back I was under the impression that the "Old Guard" was walking back some of the fawning praise and corporate dreck that they had spewed about MQA.  This led me to believe that they were trying to recover their credibility in the face of MQA failure.

 

I thought similar, some faint signs of a soft pivot on MQA by both JAs, in recent weeks. It would have been a smart move, though I'm not really sure it's possible to fully recover their credibility at this point, however the public does seem to have a fairly short memory and even badly wrecked reputations have been restored in other circles.

 

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

Now, it seems, they are doubling down on their push for MQA.  And, the "Influencers" are coming out of the woodwork again.

 

Indeed, perhaps the soft pivot was a figment of my imagination then. Or perhaps that softest of pivots was all we'll ever see in that regard.

 

2 hours ago, firedog said:

How does he claim that MQA has become a standard when basically it is only available at Tidal, and for a small minority of even the Tidal catalog.

 

Great point, and I might add that Veth isn't actually an influencer, as best I can tell he's really a nobody.

 

1 hour ago, firedog said:

Wow, overreact much?

 

1 hour ago, FredericV said:

Mansr did not even mention Stereophile, but your reaction speaks volumes.

 

Touched a raw nerve, evidently.

 

1 hour ago, firedog said:

You and your magazine are supposed to be some kind of journalism with standards of objectivity, but you continually shade the truth and misinform about MQA:

 

Show some character: Admit you and your writers are wrong, and correct (at least from this point on) your misinformation about MQA.

 

Now that would be news/journalism, as opposed to thinly veiled trade promotion.

 

1 hour ago, botrytis said:

It is not enough that you repost the lies and nonsense MQA posted in their marketing ads (almost word for word too), but the Audio magazines seem to be doubling down on it. For what purpose?

 

To serve their customers (read: not subscribers).

 

[MikeyFresh]

9 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

This was examined on this forum/ I don't see why I need to repeat it all when you are as capable of using a search engine as I am. My point was that neither Jim nor I have defamed Archimago, as was stated as fact by another poster.

 

Right, but you continue to try and use his anonymity as a means of disagreeing and/or to create the illusion of it being a real point of contention when it is not.

 

Go ahead, keep going to that well. It's quite transparent the only thing that's accomplished is you and Stereophile being guilty of a weak deflect, just try to change the subject rather than actually address any of the actual points that Arch, Mans, Frederic, or others have made using actual measurements.

[MikeyFresh]

27 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

So many keystrokes spent on moaning the anonymity, so few on refuting the actual test results.  Kill The Messenger!

 

The pattern continues to repeat itself, eh @John_Atkinson?

[MikeyFresh]

43 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

As I haven't mentioned Archimago in a long time other than today, in response to another poster's misleading accusation, your use of the word "continue" is plain incorrect.

 

 

There's no set/exacting time frame for what would constitute a continuance versus not. Moreover, you've once again decided not to address this being an obvious deflection technique and nothing more. 

 

Go ahead, keep deflecting, that strategy has proven to be ineffective at best. The soft pivot was a better idea, over time if properly implemented it likely would aid in salvaging some semblance of credibility, the public has a relatively short memory.

[MikeyFresh]

7 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

I was recently told by a retailer that he is seeing MQA evolve from push marketing to pull marketing, ie, he now has would-be customers who ask if a DAC they are thinking of buying decodes MQA

 

Not too terribly surprising given the heavy promotion of MQA in the trade press, I can see some Stereophile or TAS readers having that conversation with a retailer based on that.

 

That's called FOMO, driven my proclamations of paradigm shifts and new digital eras having been entered... a whole new world being birthed.

[MikeyFresh]

10 hours ago, Jim Austin said:

This disproportionality between their rabid online persona and the meek, cowardly choice is itself is reason for concern. And here I am not speaking of Archimago, who as far as I know has generally been more measured, but of anonymous posters more broadly.

 

Yet another false narrative/deflection. There are neither any rabid online personas causing concern, nor any other more broad connection to such among anonymous posters as you've claimed. Fake news.

 

People have various good reasons for wishing to maintain anonymity, and they need not provide them for your review/approval, however being meek and cowardly is not one of them.

[MikeyFresh]

15 minutes ago, Doug Schneider said:

Really, to know that, you must, as you've done, be at the recording session.

 

Darn-it, so we can't just use the hamburger batch encoder in the sky to fully correct the flaws of all ADCs, and once that time smear has been deblurred, won't we then have the authenticity of the original session?

 

Or is that only possible with the white glove treatment, and if so, who gets to wear those white gloves?

[MikeyFresh]

23 minutes ago, Jud said:

That is to say, MQA DAC filters, to a mathematical certainty, cannot “deblur” anything!

 

Damnit, so even the white glove treatment can't fully ensure the deblurring authenticity?!!!

 

[MikeyFresh]

56 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

It was rather pleasant.

 

Yes, your relative absence from this thread of late has been quite pleasant.

[MikeyFresh]

16 minutes ago, rickca said:

Wasn't Onkyo Music one of the few streaming sources of MQA other than TIDAL?

 

In their case it was downloads, I don't believe they ever launched an actual streaming service.

 

Still quite interesting, they are powered by 7digital, could this be a bit of foreshadowing?

[MikeyFresh]

12 minutes ago, firedog said:

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/hi-res-democratization/

 

Robert Harley continues his fanatic (and yes, the word fits) promotion of MQA. Note how he makes this corporate centric format somehow democratic, continues the lie that it has all those smaller file sizes needed for streaming, and calls it "true" hi-res. 

 

That piece might just be the biggest accumulated pile of crap the hifi press has published on MQA to date.

 

It does nothing but mislead TAS readers, a very thinly veiled advertisement for MQA.

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, botrytis said:

I would think so. That means he needs to put a disclaimer on the editorial (that MQA is a sponsor of TAS).

 

I think so too, those pages should be labeled "advertising supplement".

[MikeyFresh]

47 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

MQA NEW PARTNERS, PRODUCTS, MUSIC RELEASES AT RMAF / CEDIA 2019

https://www.stereonet.co.uk/news/mqa-new-partners-products-music-releases-at-rmaf-and-cedia-2019

 

 

Great, I just placed each and every one of those manufacturers on my do not buy list.