MQA is Vaporware

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

 

did you do a t-test on the chickens?

 

"So what do you think's good?"

 

"I like the burritos - wait, what are you doing?"

 

"Entering your information into a database I'm keeping on all my friends' recommendations, for later statistical analysis."

[Jud]

32 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Up until recently (30yrs) media was a major issue, but now, it can be as perfect as the electronics -- then the quality issues become aspects of production....

 

Seems things are moving in the other direction.  Happened to be browsing in the DR Database for something else, and just look at how they've murdered R.E.M.'s oeuvre: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/album/2?artist=R.E.M.

[firedog]

2 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Seems things are moving in the other direction.  Happened to be browsing in the DR Database for something else, and just look at how they've murdered R.E.M.'s oeuvre: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/album/2?artist=R.E.M.

Pretty bad. But I’ve seen worse, unfortunately. Some of those 80’s and early 90’s CDs are looking pretty good these days. I’m not replacing any of my old Talking Heads CDs, either. 

[John Dyson]

12 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Seems things are moving in the other direction.  Happened to be browsing in the DR Database for something else, and just look at how they've murdered R.E.M.'s oeuvre: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/album/2?artist=R.E.M.

Your observation  is exactly correct (unfortunately.)  The really good stuff (in the past) was often afflicted by missing NR decoding, but that can easily be corrected now.

 

The kind of damage (compression/limiting) being done now has no inverse.  They have been pretty much 100% successful at removing all hints for dynamic range recovery.  Back until about yr2000, we were pretty safe, and even truly compressed (instead of latent NR compression) material could be at least partially recovered.  NR compression alone is (in a relative sense) 'a piece of cake' to deal with.

 

The BIG mistake (sorry for sounding like a 'broken record') that we made in the 1980s/1990s is that we didnt' realize that we had diamonds in the rough but no way to decode them.   Knowing what I know now, and  having what I have now, I probably would have kept my audio listening hobby -- but would have needed a time machine to get a CPU fast enough to decode the material.  Or, I could have purchased a DolbyA unit (YUCK -- really painful to use in a stereo system.)

 

I quit my old hobby because the CDs sounded so bad, and vinyl was tiresome to me.  We didn't realize that the CDs were fixable -- but, even designing and buidling a compatible DolbyA unit would not be fun (nearly impossible.)   Such good quality and no way to access it.

 

Remember that comment about 'harsh digital sound' -- it was the sound that caused me to quit.  My intellect said that 'digital' wasn't at fault  -- but SOMETHING was wrong with the recordings.   Now we know.

 

John

 

[rwdvis]

21 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The fact that the old guard won't agree 2+2=4 if they don't know who said it, is comical. 

 

The MQA camp might learn something from this movie clip.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTihpkHkqlU

 

 

 

 

[rwdvis]

 

Evidently, Chris, Archimago and Doug are the only industry heads who have refused to be bought by BS and MQA.

 

In contrast, based on what is known, it is reasonable to assume that any audio publication/forum owner who has argued for MQA, has most certainly been bought and could care less about you the consumer, the music, or the industry.  This is an important point to remember.

 

For those who’ve become enamored by their favorite industry figure, this realization could be a tough pill to swallow.

 

[Currawong]

On 8/27/2019 at 12:55 PM, rwdvis said:

 

From what I recall, the only reason he did this was because he thought he had found an error in Mans testing and was looking for a “gotcha” moment.  There was no real interest in any testing or analysis of MQA.

 

 

I would, if I were @John_Atkinson, given such an experience, be very keen to see if I can repeat the rest of the measurements and tests done by people here to find out the truth. John: Have you? Are you going to?

 

On 8/27/2019 at 1:23 PM, lucretius said:

 

After sever hours, finally the link is working for me. Very strange.

 

International DNS has been screwy lately. I couldn't access a site using Cloudflare's DNS, and the site was using Cloudflare!  Since most of the significant, and much of the less significant web is now mirrored/distributed by Cloudflare and similar companies, a single f-up by one can break a lot of the internet.

 

On 8/27/2019 at 7:51 PM, mansr said:

And then he proceeded to not know how to read a scope display, not understand resampling, and misconfigure his own measurement gear.

 

This is obviously a problem, given my previous question to him. 

 

On 8/27/2019 at 9:31 PM, botrytis said:

I would prefer magazines to be more detached so the reviews are more objective rather flouncy and flowery. But then, the writers wouldn't have so much to write about.

 

Some people like the flowery stuff, such as 6moons. But there is still plenty to write about without it. For example, the latest product I have in for review is a Bluetooth Audio receiver, which has just been updated with LDAC. One of the things I can test and write about is whether or not there is any real benefit to using LDAC, and under what circumstances I noticed any difference, if at all, compared to APTx.

 

One of the nice things is that I can interact with people who own the product, either prior, or as a result of my review. I ask people to say if their experiences match mine, or if not, with what music and set-up. Then I try and duplicate that (if possible) and we get another data point to update the review, and use for future reviews so that people will get a clearer idea if a product is suitable for them or not. It benefits everyone, including the manufacturers, who only want happy customers. Unhappy customers make a lot of noise, so they actually don't want people to buy their products if they are going to rant online about how they don't like them. This in an age where many people who buy things do so online, and not through dealers.

 

On 8/27/2019 at 11:40 PM, ARQuint said:

MQA, Ldt. is a legally incorporated entity doing business in a legal fashion,

 

I really wish that they had been an Australian company. Consumer protection laws are brutal in my home country, and their fake advertising of MQA as lossless, high-res etc. would probably have seen them receive extensive fines and put them all over the news for the wrong reasons. 

 

On 8/28/2019 at 4:10 AM, KeenObserver said:

I took the simple approach.  I bought a Benchmark that is not infected by MQA.

 

"DON'T TOUCH ME! I DON'T WANT YOUR COOTEES!"

 

7 hours ago, Tintinabulum said:

Oh yes it does...

You really should get out more...

 

Oh, FFS. 

 

Nobody cares if people like tube amps. We know they have added even-order harmonic distortion in many cases and nobody has an issue with this, nor does anyone deny it. Some manufacturers even state that they design them this way and provide measurement graphs showing it.

Nobody cares if you like non-oversampling DACs, even though they measure terribly. Nobody denies this.

 

The problem is not that people like the sound with their MQA files or set-up, but that MQA lied.

They lied about it being lossless.

They lied about the actual file resolution.

They lied about the de-blurring.

They are lying about the sound differences being the result of the MQA process on TIDAL by using different Masters to the non-MQA files, obviously to fool consumers.

And there are people, especially audio reviewers who are denying all of this.

 

If they had started off with a truthful representation of what MQA was in the first place none of this discussion would have come up.

 

4 hours ago, shadowlight said:

Question for the group:

 

1. Outside of Tidal, what other way is MQA available?  I have seen MQA CD mentioned but how much of those cd are being bought?
2. Are the folks who are demanding MQA in DAC are they streaming Tidal or are they insisting on it because it's a new buzz word generated by the press and they believe they are going to get left behind when they discuss new toys with folks that they know.  Oh, you do not have MQA on your DAC, that's just not right 😆
3. I would also like to find out the ratio of folks who have the lower price (<$2000) MQA DAC with Tidal v/s higher priced DAC with Tidal usage.  The low price was picked randomly and if I as looking at low price it would be in the range of under a grand so that number is likely to change based on your preference.

 

I think there are a number of customers out there who have been dragged into the hype, taking the claims at face value, not yet having been informed of the facts. Drawn into the hype, they pester the manufacturers to include it. I don't think that there is a good summary out there for consumers that don't want to think about the technical details. Much of the blame can arguably be laid at the feet of the people who generated the hype -- audio writers who seem unwilling to rock the boat by publishing the facts.  It'd probably only happen if a significant number of manufacturers approached the writers in person and had some hard words.

[lucretius]

 

1 hour ago, Currawong said:

On 8/27/2019 at 12:23 AM, lucretius said:

 

After sever hours, finally the link is working for me. Very strange.

 

International DNS has been screwy lately. I couldn't access a site using Cloudflare's DNS, and the site was using Cloudflare!  Since most of the significant, and much of the less significant web is now mirrored/distributed by Cloudflare and similar companies, a single f-up by one can break a lot of the internet.

 

I was using Cloudfare's DNS. Perhaps that explains it.

[lucretius]

5 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Seems things are moving in the other direction.  Happened to be browsing in the DR Database for something else, and just look at how they've murdered R.E.M.'s oeuvre: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/album/2?artist=R.E.M.

 

Going down the list I see that an HDTracks 24/192 version (2016) of Lifes Rich Pageant has a DR score of 7, 7, & 9. That tells me that you cannot necessarily rely on hi res or HDTracks, LOL.

[Doug Schneider]

1 hour ago, Currawong said:

Much of the blame can arguably be laid at the feet of the people who generated the hype -- audio writers who seem unwilling to rock the boat by publishing the facts.  It'd probably only happen if a significant number of manufacturers approached the writers in person and had some hard words.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head here and I think this is also what any discourse on this has become so polarized. These audio writers came out of the gate with this thing that it automatically had those more critical taking a BIG step back and saying "hold on, what's going on here?" Now, there are two sides, far apart.

 

What needs to be found out, however (and it's probably impossible now to get anyone to admit anything), is how these writers became the champions of the format that they didn't bother to scrutinize.

 

Doug Schneider

SoundStage!

[Rt66indierock]

34 minutes ago, Doug Schneider said:

 

I think you hit the nail on the head here and I think this is also what any discourse on this has become so polarized. These audio writers came out of the gate with this thing that it automatically had those more critical taking a BIG step back and saying "hold on, what's going on here?" Now, there are two sides, far apart.

 

What needs to be found out, however (and it's probably impossible now to get anyone to admit anything), is how these writers became the champions of the format that they didn't bother to scrutinize.

 

Doug Schneider

SoundStage!

 

This is my explanation.

[botrytis]

I am not so sure. I think they started to believe what they were writing and didn't think about anything else. Of course they were right. They are audio writing professionals. They know when something is a scam. I think that is all that happened. I think they are embarrassed now and trying to save face is all.

[esldude]

Question for  @John_Atkinson and @Jim Austin, do you feel like you were mislead by what MQA promised/claimed early on vs what it actually is?

[botrytis]

13 minutes ago, esldude said:

Question for  @John_Atkinson and @Jim Austin, do you feel like you were mislead by what MQA promised/claimed early on vs what it actually is?

 

I don't think they will admit anything. I think they will obfuscate and deflect, like they have been doing. They think they know what is best in this situation.They don't realize the cat is out of the bag.

 

This is how anti-vaxxers react and why they really never admit they were wrong (very few do really).

[The Computer Audiophile]

18 minutes ago, esldude said:

Question for  @John_Atkinson and @Jim Austin, do you feel like you were mislead by what MQA promised/claimed early on vs what it actually is?

Come on. I looked for a person named esldude in the phone book and couldn't find anyone with that name. Your question is thus invalid. Dang pseudonyms!

 

😁

[esldude]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Come on. I looked for a person named esldude in the phone book and couldn't find anyone with that name. Your question is thus invalid. Dang pseudonyms!

 

😁

Could I use 867-5309?  When Jenny answers, ask for me.

[lucretius]

50 minutes ago, esldude said:

Could I use 867-5309?  When Jenny answers, ask for me.

https://genius.com/Tommy-tutone-867-5309-jenny-lyrics

[Jud]

7 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

Going down the list I see that an HDTracks 24/192 version (2016) of Lifes Rich Pageant has a DR score of 7, 7, & 9. That tells me that you cannot necessarily rely on hi res or HDTracks, LOL.

You know that you can put Tidal, MQA, HDTracks, Qobuz, etc. into the Album field search and pick up usage of those words, right?

[Jud]

7 hours ago, Doug Schneider said:

how these writers became the champions of the format that they didn't bother to scrutinize.

Depends what you mean by scrutinize. If you mean technical knowledge of how the thing works, who among the writers had the chops to do what people here have done? And even if they did, or had the capacity to ask others to do so, that level of analysis would have been considered at least impolite, and perhaps might even have been met with discussion of legal action.

 

I think a very nice example of how subjective and objective, technical reviewing can live together with equal billing is given by the Dragonfly Cobalt reviews here at AS. Nothing to that extent  was done anywhere for MQA. And if it had been, my guess is that MQA and various manufacturers would have been royally PO’d.

[John Dyson]

7 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

Going down the list I see that an HDTracks 24/192 version (2016) of Lifes Rich Pageant has a DR score of 7, 7, & 9. That tells me that you cannot necessarily rely on hi res or HDTracks, LOL.

I have been mentioning the HDtracks downloads for quite a while.   I think that I have at least 3 (out of 3 or whatever) that I have purchased that are not 'right'.

Frankly, you cannot rely on anything at all now.   Remastered might mean (cleaned up/fixed) or (further damaged.)  Hi-res might mean 'same as before, 'better' or 'worse'.

'Bits' and 'sample rate' don't make the recording.  It is all a combo of the 'music', 'recording' and 'mastering' (whatever that means.)  The 'bits' are simply a transport -- not all that important, really -- unless it falls below a certain quality threshold.

A recording engineer friend of mine told me -- you never know what they have done to the recording.  (It is almost a quote, I cannot remember the *exact* words.)

 

John

[Jud]

2 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

I have been mentioning the HDtracks downloads for quite a while.   I think that I have at least 3 (out of 3 or whatever) that I have purchased that are not 'right'.

Frankly, you cannot rely on anything at all now.   Remastered might mean (cleaned up/fixed) or (further damaged.)  Hi-res might mean 'same as before, 'better' or 'worse'.

'Bits' and 'sample rate' don't make the recording.  It is all a combo of the 'music', 'recording' and 'mastering' (whatever that means.)  The 'bits' are simply a transport -- not all that important, really -- unless it falls below a certain quality threshold.

A recording engineer friend of mine told me -- you never know what they have done to the recording.  (It is almost a quote, I cannot remember the *exact* words.)

 

John

If you really want to see something:

 

 

[lucretius]

27 minutes ago, Jud said:

You know that you can put Tidal, MQA, HDTracks, Qobuz, etc. into the Album field search and pick up usage of those words, right?

 

I did not know that. Thanks for the tip!

[lucretius]

23 minutes ago, Jud said:

If you really want to see something:

 

 

 

Jud, did HDtracks.com ever respond to your last post in the thread above?

[John Dyson]

15 minutes ago, Jud said:

If you really want to see something:

 

 

Yea -- 2012 frustratingly was about the time I started realziing that a lot of the defective CDs and other digital releases were defective at least partially because of a latent DolbyA footprint.  (I use that term specifically because sometimes they do further processing -- 'mastering' -- that destroy the precise relationships needed to accurately decode material.)

 

It took me another few years to realize that simply a 'really good' expander wasn't going to undo DolbyA adequately accurately.  I have a super-duper 8 band design that does work, but doesn't fit the curves very closely.  It probably does more NR than a DolbyA decoding could ever do.

 

Then another year to fumble around realizing that there was NO WAY that I could reverse engineer the DolbyA schematics because of the selected components.

 

Finally, some very expert recording engineer took pity on me, but realized that I was capable of completing the job (about 3yrs ago) of doing a DolbyA decoder.   After a lot of teases, now there is one -- and can undo even some of the mildy damaged DolbyA material.

 

---

 

We are getting cr*p material from the various sources, and I agree with some of the sentiments on the quoted messages -- the damage  isn't really HDtracks fault -- they distribute literally what is given to them to sell.  They SHOULD be better at quality control and never claim something to be of extra superior quality when it is not.

 

I'd suspect if HDtracks did the full due diligence on the technical quality of their material, they wouldn't have much to sell.   Maybe only have a list of a few 10s of recordings like a lot of esoteric outfits have.

 

If someone REALLY wants good quality, then decode the DolbyA stuff yourself.  Maybe people don't want the quality that they supposedly seek, right?   They want to buy something that is represented as high quality instead of actually being able to listen to the material in the way it is supposed to sound?

 

John 

[John Dyson]

Just now, lucretius said:

 

Jud, did HDtracks.com ever respond to your last post in the thread above?

(Chiming in -- I had email conversation with HDtracks a few years ago)

 

The answer was -- they resell what is given to them to resell.  They don't do mastering.

 

John