MQA is Vaporware

[witchdoctor]

When you think about it what makes MQA even more amazing is that all of these premier audio brands got in as early adopters. Imagine what it's like to walk into Harman International or Krell and say "Hey, you guys are doing it all wrong, let me show you my new invention that you MUST put in your new products". They would laugh 99.9% of the companies approaching them right out the door. Even if they gave you an opportunity the level of due diligence they would do before licensing it would be almost insurmountable. Yet all of these premier brands raised their hands and said you know what? This MQA ROCKS and we want to be a part of it. That's how we roll, oh yeah!!
 

[witchdoctor]

Let me think, what should I do about MQA?

You have the most esteemed brands in audio with the best engineers money can buy doing meticulous due diligence on a product they are evaluating called MQA which they then license to enhance their brand and meet the demand of the most discerning audiophiles in the world on the one hand.

On the other hand you have some hobbyists (I'm being polite) who have decided MQA is not for them, which is of course 100% fine.

Hmmm, let me think about this, which group should I roll with? I'll get back to you

[witchdoctor]

15 minutes ago, FredericV said:

I know several designers at brands who do MQA:

- one does not believe in it, but wants to implement it, not to lose business if MQA would become a success
- another does not believe in MQA either, but their CEO believes in it, but only for streaming

One of them even tells me: our latest dac is much better than the previous model, but not because of MQA.

So a lot of the MQA implementors are doing it all for the wrong reasons. They do it not to miss the train, for the fear of going out of business, .... not because of any actual SQ improvement or because they believe in it. In Munich 2017 the above reasons where also the talk of the week. I also talked to Xivero's CEO, very enlightening.

One neighbour in Munich did not even care about SQ, but they offer OEM boards to big companies and MQA is just a checkbox on their feature list. They sell their own linux platform and OEM embedded boards and they don't care about SQ.

Do you ever go to Galaxy Studios in Mol Belgium? If so tell Wilfried the witchdoctor loves auro 3D and to stop by my immersive thread here on CA. They are mixing in 9.1 for music and 14.1 for movies a lot over there.

 

https://www.galaxystudios.com/

[witchdoctor]

15 minutes ago, Indydan said:

Did you get a research grant from Galaxy Studios? From MQA or Bob Stuart?

LOL

 

[witchdoctor]

One of my favorite MQA/Tidal features...playlists. Sunday night playing Bossa Nova Vibes but look at some of these others. It is a helluva lot easier than trying to make this many hirez playlists yourself:

[witchdoctor]

Breaking it down, the Motown MQA Playlist:

 

[witchdoctor]

3 minutes ago, esldude said:

One could say the same about mp3 streaming too.  If one favors a lossy format.  

If you have a favorite on Tidal or Spotify please post a link or something

[witchdoctor]

2 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Perhaps this is a fringe opinion, but I've always believed the existence of tape hiss on a digital transfer was a good sign that the digital restoration didn't overdo it on the noise reduction.  In other words, tape hiss = fidelity.

 

In the 2000s, too many remasters had way too liberal amounts of NoNOISE applied, which tended to suck the life out of the music.

Agreed, it was like the old dolby noise reduction on cassette tape players, it reduced the hiss but muffled the playback as well

[witchdoctor]

48 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

 

Wow.

 

The way Dolby B works does not muffle the playback. Dolby encoded tapes had the tape hiss frequencies recorded about 9dB louder than normal. Then, when played back with Dolby B on on the tape player, those frequencies were played 9dB quieter than normal. The net effect was lowering tape hiss by about 9dB.

 

But you knew that, right?  

Uhhh, I think that was like in the nineties? My cassette player had a button it for "dolby", I didn't use encoded tapes, I had no idea how it worked, I just knew I didn't like the dolby button and preferred some hiss.

I still have some cassettes but no player.

 

[witchdoctor]

2 hours ago, realhifi said:

Thank god we moved on from cassettes eh?  Now we have streaming MQA! 

+1  

[witchdoctor]

41 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

The modern music is so completely sh*t that it is very hard to imagine that any youngster can be interested in good quality music (which includes the recording process), that there's no space for them to investigate any MQA or Hires for that matter. The exception is our own son who is day in day out confronted with the music his dad plays, and so his repertoire is that of his father's youth; when he goes out for a trip and loads his phone with music it's Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and the like (and btw no Ray Brown's because no youth is catching that, while I sure do play such music 10% of the time).

I'm afraid that our son is no reference for reality.

 

More freakin' is that he has learned to listen the same way as I do (his mom learned it too), just because he is subject to it continuously. But if he has the opportunity to obtain a nice stereo, he says No to it. It has to fit in his pocket or something.

So no MQA for him, or at least not for the reason of SQ. In the end he won't care less. Loose running Audiophile.

This is just wrong. ALL modern music is completly sh-t? Like you have even listened to a tenth of it.
If you want evidence that "youngsters" want better SQ just look at headphone sales. "Beats", "JBL", "Skullcandy" etc all cost $$$ more than a pair of earbuds. Do you think they are wasting money on headphones to make a fashion statement?

As far as modern music the ears can't hear when the mind is closed. There is a LOT of good stuff if you try the "new releases" feature on Tidal, Spotify, etc. Try "global music" too. 
 

[witchdoctor]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Interestingly I have none on my list. This is personal of course, but the youth which may have dozens on their list, will really not care because of the poor music (quality) to begin with.

I think poor "mastering" quality is more accurate. Too much level boosting is a problem.

[witchdoctor]

2 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Absolutely, no doubt about it!!!

 

And even an audiophile company like Audeze tries to cash in on that:

 

 

I agree that there is an attempt to make them appear more fashionable but SQ is the prime motivator. 

[witchdoctor]

13 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Generally not with Beats, where fashion is the point.  Beats (Apple) now has a higher end to try to give themselves some audiophile cred.  Too little, too late.

Look at their marketing page, they have a line of headphones that target niches
"Take Sound Seriously: is one of the taglines:

 

https://www.beatsbydre.com/headphones/pro

[witchdoctor]

1 minute ago, Fokus said:

 

Beats, Skullcandy, and countless other new headphone brands have nothing to do with SQ.

They are selling based on looks, sorry, bassed on looks and marketing alone.

 

Those brands are making the top 10 reviews based on looks??

http://www.toptenreviews.com/electronics/headphones/best-stereo-headphones/

[witchdoctor]

2 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Really?  The "Top Ten Reviews" site?  Did you just pick the top Google search result?  Web sites like that are pure click bait (at best).  Best to avoid them completely.

Picky pickey, did you notice sennheiser made the list? How wromg can they be.

If you want to make a million all you gotta do is make headphones with feathers in them?

This sin't a headphone thread. My point is millenials spend money on SQ or they would just keep ear buds (which are also more fashionable than a pair of cans on our head BTW)

[witchdoctor]

7 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Perhaps I'm not so easily impressed by marketing slogans as you.

 

Apple wants you to believe they "take sound seriously"?  No surprise there.  In my experience, their approach to "sound" is mass market consumer, period.

Are obsessed or possesed? I believe millenials want better SQ so they pay more for headphones. You think they would rather buy headphones than new shoes, OK.

[witchdoctor]

8 minutes ago, jabbr said:

My kids: got my son (15) senns: won’t wear them, rather buds or beats, SQ is not really relevant over some minimum

 

My daughter (the musician) could care less — the only SQ she cares about is her instrument & bow and there is zero recorded music that comes close to the SQ of her orchestra (s)

 

Slight incremental SQ differences are irelevent to them, AAC vs ALAC on the iPhone, FLAC vs DSF on land. The terabytes of music on our home media server are streamed via Roon/HQPlayer. Works great. 

 

We have unlimited data so minuscule compression formats are meaningless. MQA vs FLAC is meaningless in my bandwidth unlimited world. That’s the future.

I 100% agree, slight incremental differences are meaningless to most consumers.

However they are monumentally important to the ARTISTS! If an artist puts their music out they want it to be heard as intended, period.

 

Now if you want a hit over your head, in your face, improvement in SQ that people from 8 to 80 will appreciate come visit my thread on immersive audio (or just go down and experience it yourself at your local theater).

[witchdoctor]

37 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

 

Maybe I was putting comprehension problems in your shoes, but you also seem to confuse people and twist things around.

 

I also have news for you : in this house 3 or 4 Sennheisers float about, which is for one reason only : it is known as a good brand. OK, reason two : we can afford them. This means that instead of that you think such a great reviewer website is dedicated to 1 million Mellinials, it could have his data from 10 million Generation X (that would be me btw).

 

Oh, I forgot : the Sennheisers are here so people can watch Youtubes without disturbing others, or wear them again watching Youtubes while I play music. So you see, this is hardly related to SQ in the first place. Ear damage maybe.

But I noticed they don't help against MQA.

You want to put MORE problems in my shoes? LOL    

[witchdoctor]

10 minutes ago, jabbr said:

I think there is potential for immersive audio. The experience I am looking for would be something like “being there”. I get to be there up front and close and our systems aren’t there yet. (Complex issue) that said, I don’t see MQA as being relevant to this solution — immersive multichannel is an entirely different kettle of fish.

That's why I have another thread, please stop by to discuss, thanks  

 

 

[witchdoctor]

How the witchdoctor "rolls" with MQA-  mobile, agile, and high style:

 

https://twitter.com/MeridianAudio/status/923134305680928769

[witchdoctor]

One of the BEST musical sources in the world dCS Vivaldi One does MQA (of course)

 

Reflecting the unique nature of Vivaldi One, each piece is personally supplied to the customer by an expert dCS engineer, who will configure it to get the best possible sound.

 

https://www.dcsltd.co.uk/news/

[witchdoctor]

12 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

And indeed WD could be one of the names on that list!

This is an MQA thread, and that car and that dCs player represent absolute pinnacle audio quality.

Top quality products include MQA- get it? That is the path of best SQ. Those companies wouldn't degrade those products at those prices right? 

[witchdoctor]

13 minutes ago, Indydan said:

That is because DCS knows there are a lot of gullible people who will complain that a 30 000$ component does not even have MQA. That is also why some manufacturers have included DSD in their DACs, so they do not lose sales to people who do not know better.

 

It does not mean they love DSD or MQA. 

As a general rule wealthy people who buy $30K dacs aren't gullible, they are discerning.

[witchdoctor]

9 minutes ago, rickca said:

I'd bet that Berkeley and dCS got a special deal so MQA would have the cache of some high-end brands.

 

Nearly all of the apparent momentum in MQA is attributable to business development investment by MQA.  It's not like they have revenue pouring in.  It's all demand generation.

I thought the MQA momentum was because of this thread?