MQA is Vaporware

[KeenObserver]

Step up one and all to see the wonders of MQA!

 

It folds!  It unfolds!  It's magical algorithms correct time and turn a 17/96 sows ear into a 24/384 silk purse!

 

Please sir, do not look behind the curtain!  Pay attention to this chart!

[KeenObserver]

Sad thing is that we look at that BS and see it for the BS that it really is. There are people out there going: " Wow man, Tidal puts out this tiny file that unfolds into super high resolution 24/384!  It's some kind of magic!"

 

And people fall for it.

 

Sad.  Truly sad.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I see many similarities between people's beliefs about MQA and the latest Coronavirus. Many people believe what they hear first, and don't change their beliefs no matter what information comes subsequently. 

 

People were told MQA is the best thing ever, by MQA ltd and by the old guard press. This sealed in their minds that MQA is truly remarkable.

 

MQA is really an exercise in consumer psychology, not demand driven by product superiority or  meeting a consumer need.

[botrytis]

 

[danadam]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

MQA is really an exercise in consumer psychology, not demand driven by product superiority or  meeting a consumer need.

Thank goodness the rest of audiophile market is not like that. 😉

[botrytis]

One could hope it is not like that, at least, the audiophile market.

[FredericV]

MQA is lossy just like AAC and M4A, but "can sound even better than lossless" ?
Do they have any scientific study which proves this claim?
Where is the proof?
And what is end-to-end certified?


You don't have the same acoustics and speakers as in the studio where is was mixed / mastered, so how is this even possible?



 

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, FredericV said:

You don't have the same acoustics and speakers as in the studio where is was mixed / mastered, so how is this even possible?

 

It is of course impossible, just like it is not possible for MQA to correct for any/all deficiencies in every ADC ever designed/produced.

 

Moreover, their little word game with M4A shows complete ignorance as well, M4A is a container format, and can used with a lossless compression codec such as Apple Lossless, not just AAC.

 

 

[KeenObserver]

6 hours ago, danadam said:

Thank goodness the rest of audiophile market is not like that. 😉

 

The fact of the matter is that there are a number of products out there that are of dubious utility.  However, it is my choice to buy it or not buy it.

The business plan of MQA is that all music would be processed and played through MQA licensed equipment.  And the music consumer would be forced to pay the tax for each step.

[KeenObserver]

I'll be glad and relieved when they finally pound a stake through MQA's heart.  We will all be able to breathe a sigh of relief when MQA is finally dead and buried.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

8 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I see many similarities between people's beliefs about MQA and the latest Coronavirus. Many people believe what they hear first, and don't change their beliefs no matter what information comes subsequently.

People were told MQA is the best thing ever, by MQA ltd and by the old guard press. This sealed in their minds that MQA is truly remarkable.

 

People believe what they want to believe.It is important to believe in something; the some thing is often less important than the belief. Once believed, one looks for confirmation biased to that belief

 

Quote

MQA is really an exercise in consumer psychology, not demand driven by product superiority or  meeting a consumer need.

 

Thus defines 'good' marketing

[MikeyFresh]

57 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Thus defines 'good' marketing

 

You mean bullshit marketing, because there is nothing behind the curtain.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

2 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

You mean bullshit marketing,because there is nothing behind the curtain.

 

 

[lucretius]

12 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Quote

MQA is really an exercise in consumer psychology, not demand driven by product superiority or  meeting a consumer need.

 

Thus defines 'good' marketing

 

If the product is sub-par, then no amount of marketing will save it in the long run.

[KeenObserver]

5 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

If the product is sub-par, then no amount of marketing will save it in the long run.

 

The music consumer, when given an educated choice, can give an educated decision.  There have been many who have endeavored to bring out the truth about MQA.

 

Imposing an unwanted standard on the music consumer is an entirely different matter.  This is what MQA would seek to do.

 

MQA attempted to create a demand for their scheme.  They made extravagant claims.  One by one, each of their BS claims were exposed.  As seen above, they continue to make extravagant claims.

 

Now, in collusion with music producers, they would impose their scheme as the new standard.  And all music consumers would pay for the "privilege".

[FredericV]

They must be very annoyed by topics like these ...



What misinformation?

MQA contains DRM: check
MQA does file compression: check

All this group, MansR, Archimago and several others including myself did, was fact check MQA, and try to understand & peer review their claims.

When we check the facts, not much of the magic remains.All the claims were deblurred

Furthermore they cannot show any study which proves their claims, that this is a proven better sounding format. For that they need to use the golden standard of blind testing, and so far, none of the blind tests have shown that MQA sounds better.

But the magic and suggestive power of the blue light may trigger placebo, combined with the artefacts of minimum phase upsampling and aliasing which alter the sound. Some may like this effect and then claim it sounds better.

Anyone with skills could write or configure an upsampler with similar artefacts as what MQA is doing, and you can even use sox for that.
 

Quote

There are about less than a dozen naysayers who proliferate the audiophile forums who have a particular aspect they question in their repetitive rants.

Please buy a mirror. MQA influencers always repost the same canned articles which were already debunked several times.
 

[WAM]

2 hours ago, FredericV said:

When we check the facts, not much of the magic remains.

 

There wasn't any magic in the first place... Their claims were too good to be true/too ridiculous from the beginning. 

[FredericV]

1 hour ago, WAM said:

 

There wasn't any magic in the first place... Their claims were too good to be true/too ridiculous from the beginning. 

My quest into understanding MQA, was the following red herring:

_ the format is claimed to be end-to-end
_ the format improves the master by correcting time domain errors, so it is claimed to be better than the orginal master

These statements contradict each other (both can't be true at the same time), so that's why we started looking into MQA's claims.

[sphinxsix]

On 8/24/2020 at 5:24 PM, danadam said:

On 8/24/2020 at 3:48 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

MQA is really an exercise in consumer psychology, not demand driven by product superiority or  meeting a consumer need.

Thank goodness the rest of audiophile market is not like that. 😉

 

When I was a dealer I used to think that a consumer is in a really quite hopeless situation, with the audio press in my country (and not only there) more or less corrupted, to a smaller or bigger some degree without the possibility of checking out its claims about the SQ of particular gear (IMO in most cases a 'good' or rather clever dealer can demonstrate the superiority of a particular device over almost any other without the need to reverse phase in one speaker to demonstrate their superiority over other speakers on which the dealer's margin is lower - I personally experienced such situation before I started my audio business), the only possibility of really testing gear is IMO using it for at least for a couple of days at your own home which not always is possible, with internet forums full of BS written by people who can be compared to the car experts who have driven 2 or 3 cars in their life and who review 'expertly' the fourth one, etc.. I still think it's quite difficult for a consumer to tell a BS gear from a good one, I think it usually takes years of experience (not only with the gear itself but also eg the credibility of different 'expert' sources) and unavoidably a smaller or bigger number of mistakes which are sometimes painful not only to one's wallet but also to his ears.

With MQA it's luckily quite easy though.. 

 

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

13 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

If the product is sub-par, then no amount of marketing will save it in the long run.

Let's hope so.

[KeenObserver]

11 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Let's hope so.

 

There were equipment builders that refused to implement MQA.  They could see that the MQA scheme was not good for the music consumer and said so.  There were other equipment builders that implemented MQA in order to " give the buyer what they want".

 

I have to wonder how much demand there is today for MQA.  Do people still believe that MQA is good for music?

 

I do not have any equipment that is infected with MQA, and will never have any equipment infected with MQA.

[daverich4]

And you thought MQA was gone....

 

https://www.whathifi.com/us/news/the-first-mqa-headphones-are-nearly-here

 

[sandyk]

On 8/25/2020 at 5:18 AM, FredericV said:

MQA is lossy just like AAC and M4A, but "can sound even better than lossless" ?
Do they have any scientific study which proves this claim?
Where is the proof?
And what is end-to-end certified?

 They don't need their systems certified, they need their owners certified ! 😉

High Bit rate .aac can sound quite reasonable , but it needs to be at something like the YouTube hidden 529kb/s .aac stream which appears to be the highest available .

[KeenObserver]

26 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

And you thought MQA was gone....

 

https://www.whathifi.com/us/news/the-first-mqa-headphones-are-nearly-here

 

 

The desperation is palpable.

[John Dyson]

On 8/24/2020 at 4:46 PM, MikeyFresh said:

 

It is of course impossible, just like it is not possible for MQA to correct for any/all deficiencies in every ADC ever designed/produced.

 

Moreover, their little word game with M4A shows complete ignorance as well, M4A is a container format, and can used with a lossless compression codec such as Apple Lossless, not just AAC.

 

 

Most deficiences in most consumer recordings are not related to digital or ADC at all.  It is all about the aggressive dynamic range compression.   It is stealthy, and does't really sound like normal DRC, but it IS there, and it DOES twist the sound.

 

Once they fix that, then the other problems might become more significant.

 

Now, if you get the really good, natural recordings that are out there -- then it is time to peel the onion (High res doesnt solve the problem, but GOOD mastering and a GOOD recording does.)   I can qualify a recording for being natrual or being stealthy compressed if you want.  Until really experienced, it is very difficult to detect what is going on.   I just tested some of those super wide dynamic range Telarc disks -- they were similarly damaged recordings, but with slightly different parameters.  The scheme is NOT well known and has taken me almost 10yrs to reverse engineer.

 

John