MQA is Vaporware

[Lee Scoggins]

14 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Can you please send me a link to some MQA content that has real content beyond 48 kHz that this magical second unfold uncovers?

 

 

I think you mean "beyond 96khz".

[Lee Scoggins]

16 hours ago, botrytis said:

No - the Nyquest Frequency for a 96KHz file is 48KHz. I think you need to learn about ADC/DAC theory before actually picking fights with these gents. 

 

I understand that.  It wasn't clear in his post whether he was discussing sampling rate or not.

 

Remember I worked on some the the earliest hirez releases at Chesky Records in 1993 and I have been doing professional hirez recordings since 1996.

[Lee Scoggins]

1 hour ago, Shadders said:

Hi Lee,

For the professional recordings since 1996, do you know what ADC was used ?.

If you know the ADC, then if it was a Delta-Sigma design, what was the analogue filter used, and any digital filter used thereafter ?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

 

I don't understand why this is relevant.  It's been a wide variety of gear from Benchmark to Sound Devices to Korg.

[Lee Scoggins]

32 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

According to AllMusic, your last credit was more than 20 years ago:

 

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/lee-scoggins-mn0001761138

 

What albums have you worked on since then?

 

 

It's not a complete list...I've done over 160 sessions (we average 8 per year) since then of local string quartets, jazz groups, and orchestras for CDs and local radio programs like WABE.

[Lee Scoggins]

2 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi Lee,

It is going back to the technology of ADC's. Fokus (i believe, or other) stated that since the mid 1990'2 that ADC's were delta-sigma designs. The filters used here will have a cut off frequency much greater than 96kHz (for a 192kHz sample rate), in fact, they will be nearer the 1MHz region. They will also be linear phase, or zero phase filters. This means the group delay is constant for all frequencies upto the cut off frequency - near the 1MHz region. That is, a 1Hz tone experiences the same amount of delay as a 20kHz tone, or 40kHz tone. No temporal blur. (technically - called dispersion in the real engineering world)

 

The crux of MQA is temporal blur. Since the mid 1990's, there is NO temporal blur due to the ADC designs. No temporal blur means MQA has no purpose. This s a real engineering fact.

 

This is why this is relevant.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

 

I don't believe this is true.  I think there has remained many ADCs and DACs with poor temporal performance.  Some like the Chord do better than others.

 

In any case, your stretching to bring up a new point that was not germane to the reference earlier.

[Lee Scoggins]

1 hour ago, Dr Tone said:

 

On the Hoffman forums he believes 17 bits is taken out of context because Stereophile said 23 bits in some past article.

 

That is not what I said. I said, "In other articles I have read like in Stereophile, Bob claims it is around 23 bits so I think I need to see if there is a way to reconcile and that we are not taking him out of context."

 

So I am saying we need to investigate why the discrepancy exists and make sure it is not taken out of context.  I am clearly open to the possibility that Stuart meant it on the 17 bits comment.

[Lee Scoggins]

5 hours ago, Fair Hedon said:

It is such a shame the Troll Scoggins still has a venue.

 

On Hoofman, he has even been flat accused by being a financially compensated MQA operative.

 

The fact is he is a LIAR,

 

This was established early on when he was confronted with the fact he was an Admin of a private industry MQA Facebook group which he denie, until confronted with a screen shot. He spun it like nobody's business and claimed it was an "enthusiasts" group..sure..with dealers, and reviewers and manufacturers, and Bob Stuart himself as members.

 

Right at that point he was exposed as a disingenuous liar with no credibility.  And the lies continue until this day.

 

This is total bullshit.  I explained what happened in detail. Peter Veth added me to the group as an admin without my permission as Facebook inexplicably allows. It took me a week to realize I was an admin at which point I immediately complained to Peter that I did not want to be an admin but I would participate as a member for learning reasons.

 

Also, this is just Peter’s page.  I have not seen any of the MQA team post on the page.

[Lee Scoggins]

3 hours ago, firedog said:

Don't agree with this at all. If MQA is what it is claimed, then even the ME2 should be more than good enough to reveal it. The Brooklyn is a good DAC. At least one feature he refers to is an optional add-on. It's way more than good enough for the purpose. 

Sorry, but that quote is real audiophile snobbery.

 

I found that part odd too as the Brooklyn is a very good DAC.  Mehow also is as good a digital designer as Charlie was, if not better.

[Lee Scoggins]

3 minutes ago, mansr said:

That was funny. Got any more jokes?

 

I’m here all week. Try the veal.

[Lee Scoggins]

9 hours ago, Don Hills said:

Looks like Lee has taken his ball and gone home over on SH?

 

I honestly don’t know what happened. I dropped off around 9pm last night to watch a movie, then this morning could not find the thread.  I saw some comments from Agitater that people had hurled some personal epithets at me.  I am bummed because they gorts usually just remove the offensive posts and give a public warning.  Now we don’t have access to the articles, etc.

[Lee Scoggins]

9 hours ago, tmtomh said:

Holy moly - can't believe they nuked the entire thread! It was enormous. That sucks.

 

I'm absolutely not one of those unquestioning Hoffman acolytes. But I will say that Hoffman did post in the MQA thread saying he has no interest in MQA. And the thread didn't get nuked despite pages and pages and pages of comments disparaging not only Lee Scoggins, but also Bob Stuart.

It could be a coincidence, the the one new thing that happened today was that Lee made disparaging remarks about a deceased audio guy (I think with Ayre? Sorry, I can't remember), and that triggered a firestorm. That probably was the straw the broke the camel's back - although deleting the whole thread seems draconian to me.

 

I find it draconian as well.  Hopefully the Gorts just moved it to their discussion forum to clean it up.  Although it was contentious at times, there was some good information there from both sides of the coin.  And the discussion was civil at times between some of the participants.

 

Perhaps I could have worded my comment about Hansen better but there has been a lot of dismay about Hansen.  It would have been nice to interview him before he passed.

[Lee Scoggins]

10 hours ago, Indydan said:

 

If you're saying the Brooklyn is as good or better than the Ayre QB9 DSD, or even the Codex, you just lost all credibility (assuming you had any). 

 

And Charles Hansen said things about Bob Stuart that unless proven otherwise, were true. If Stuart looks douchey, it is because of his actions (lying about opamps in his gear, trying to steal a design from John Curl). Don't shoot the messenger Hansen. 

 

I have heard good stories from people in the business about Charles Hansen. I won't get preachy about it, but he was known for caring about his employees and conducting business in a very ethical manner. 

 

To make negative comments about him like you have, is just classless. 

 

Of course, there was no reference to the QB9 DSD in my comments. I have not done that comparison.

[Lee Scoggins]

1 minute ago, manisandher said:

 

I left it ambiguous purposely, to keep the scope open.

 

 

OK, you probably won't like this. From Stuart's Munich talk:

 

"Time is 5-13x times more important than frequency. Human discriminate acuity 5–8 µs."

 

[No, I don't know what "human discriminate acuity" is either ;-) ]

 

Mani.

 

I recently visited Dave Wilson in Provo and he also showed me research on the ear’s ability to hear timing differences which he used to design the Chronosonic flagship. He was excited about it because this ability of the ear to hear tiny timing differences holds true into one’s 70s.

[Lee Scoggins]

11 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

 

Awesome! So, at best, MQA is indistinguishable from PCM? And we get to pay more for DACs and content for this?

 

No, Mr. Scoggins, it's not academic. It's stupid! High end audio is shrinking and now everyone has to pay licensing fees to MQA for the thrill of having a blue light illuminated. Ugh.

 

But it's even worse than that given that people who hear worse SQ via MQA outnumber those who claim to prefer MQA.

 

Think about this for a minute.

 

The original 24/192 file is being folded into a 24/48 file, then unfolded, then played back while streaming with no loss of fidelity to experienced ears compared to the original file.

 

That seems to indicate the claimed “17 bits” contains all of the music.

 

The triangular encoding must be robust.

[Lee Scoggins]

4 minutes ago, Fair Hedon said:

Precisely.

Does this not blow out of the water the utter puke spewed by Atkinson et al, that the MQA'd file is "better" than the master file?

 

Because subjective preference for the sound is all they have left to cling to...the bandwidth and authentication nonsense have been blown out of the water...

 

Neither of these last two claims is true.

[Lee Scoggins]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Here's a follow up from @Fair Hedon that I received via the contact us form.

 

 

Classy.

[Lee Scoggins]

1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

Lee, you made a comment ~~ 2-3 pages back on temporal acuity in the auditory system, citing Wilson, who makes speakers.

 

It is unclear to me how that has anything to do with MQA.

 

Nonetheless, here is a recent paper on the issue:

 

Oppenheim, J. N. and M. O. Magnasco.  2013.  Human Time-Frequency Acuity Beats the Fourier Uncertainty Principle.  Phys. Rev. Lett. 110(4): 44301 -44306.

 

Thanks.  Will try to get a copy to read.

[Lee Scoggins]

7 hours ago, hineni said:

What I'd like to see from MQA proponents is some acknowledgment that we have to give something up to get whatever MQA offers. They can maintain the trade-offs are worth it, but the denial of any downsides or dangers blows their credibility, IMO.

 

I'd like to see them acknowledge and address:

 

1) the possible loss of end-user DSP functions such as bass management, room correction and digital equalization,

 

2) the loss of freedom to choose the digital filter of one's choice for all digital files,

 

3) the prospect that MQA files may become the ONLY digital format available, even outside the streaming world, and MQA's efforts to extend beyond streaming, and

 

4) an accurate reporting of the DRM capabilities in MQA (not what people have promised or not promised to do, but the worst case scenario built into MQA). 

 

The market will decide if MQA is, on balance, good. But there has to be a balanced presentation of the facts. 

 

These are decent points. I will do my best to address them.

[Lee Scoggins]

14 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

A little housekeeping here are four reasons to dismiss MQA without listening to it.

1.      You object to the use of Peter Craven’s patented method to degrade files and then reconstruct them in any commercial recording process.

2.      Can’t use DSP with MQA

3.      Can’t stream a decoded MQA signal to multiple locations making multi-room impossible without multiple licenses. This problem resulted in the first MQA clone.

4.      You’ve read the financial statements of Meridian Audio and MQA Ltd and concluded the market has rejected their ideas.

 

So far I have only seen UK statements on Meridian UK and not all the subsidiaries.  What if there are more profitable subsidiaries? Is Meridian America profitable?

 

Also, what about all the Meridian license revenue from Jaguar and others?

 

Also, MQA is a separate company that is a startup. Capital matters more than early operating performance.  The labels and other investors can inject money as equity holders

 

Also, to say “the market has rejected their ideas” ignores the history of digital innovation.

 

Also, isn’t Stuart married to an heir of the Boston Globe fortune?

[Lee Scoggins]

1 minute ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

Is it true that companies that make a loss can reduce their taxes ?.

Maybe their accounts need to be examined to discover the truth about losses or other ?

Regards,

Shadders.

 

Often firms will employ tax strategies to minimize taxes, all legal of course.

 

We cannot claim Meridian is in any financial trouble without having a look at all the statements.

[Lee Scoggins]

6 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

This is incorrect.

 

The financial statement freely available from Companies House are the consolidated results ("Financial Statements for Meridian Audio Limited and its subsidiary undertakings")

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

Just for the UK though.  How much money does MAI make?

[Lee Scoggins]

On 1/30/2018 at 2:56 PM, mansr said:

Of course it's not Lee. It's just another troll for hire.

 

It's not me. I'm just on break.

[Lee Scoggins]

Just now, firedog said:

Good for you. Smart move.

 

Still researching here and experimenting with A/B files.

[Lee Scoggins]

On 11/24/2018 at 7:16 AM, firedog said:

My point is that you have Michael Fremer and many like him that have high end digital reproduction and listen to hi-res, but still generally prefer the vinyl, even when digitally sourced. 

 

My view is that you need both.  On classic rock albums made from an analog master ("AAA") then that's typically the best way to listen.  With a digital recording, you probably want the hirez even if it's been upsampled.  

 

But of course, the mastering process and quality matter a lot so the rule of thumb often doesn't work.  Things like current condition of tape, quality of mastering chain itself, new tape sources, etc. all matter.

[Lee Scoggins]

16 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

On January 6, 2017 I said when MQA reached 10,000 albums it would no longer be vaporware.

 

In a telephone call recently, Mike Jbara CEO of MQA Ltd told me around 1.1 million tracks had been processed. This is well over 10,000 since the rule of thumb is to divide tracks by ten or twelve to get the number of albums. Interestingly many have not made their way to the distribution channels.

 

I’m going to update the original post topics then it is time to move on to the next phase, MQA is not commercially viable.  

 

So it seems roughly 100,000 albums have been done, some of which are not released.