MQA is Vaporware

[KeenObserver]

Keep in mind that there are a number of labels that are under the Warner umbrella.

[Teresa]

13 hours ago, firedog said:

...It's commerce, not art. It's always about the money. 

 

That's another reason I generally avoid the major labels as their focus is on the bottom line not in supplying the most realistic sounding recordings possible. I have 8 Warner Bros. recordings on SACD, all remastered by Analogue Productions, Audio Fidelity, and MFSL.

 

I usually prefer audiophile and naturally sounding recordings that are recorded by audiophile and boutique labels as opposed to audiophile remasters. However, there is rock music from the 1960s to 1970's, classical and jazz music from the mid 1950's-1960's that I love and couldn't live without so I usually purchase these as audiophile remasters.

 

What I find baffling, shocking and confusing is audiophile label 2L's support for MQA. They record in DXD (24bit 352.8 PCM) and I have a few pre-MQA 2L recordings on SACD and Blu-ray Audio and IMHO they sound excellent. With the appearance of MQA I'm now afraid to purchase 2L recordings as they might now be compromised. Are there any other audiophile labels embracing MQA? Thanks in advance. 😊

[firedog]

26 minutes ago, Teresa said:

 

That's another reason I generally avoid the major labels as their focus is on the bottom line not in supplying the most realistic sounding recordings possible. I have 8 Warner Bros. recordings on SACD, all remastered by Analogue Productions, Audio Fidelity, and MFSL.

 

I usually prefer audiophile and naturally sounding recordings that are recorded by audiophile and boutique labels as opposed to audiophile remasters. However, there is rock music from the 1960s to 1970's, classical and jazz music from the mid 1950's-1960's that I love and couldn't live without so I usually purchase these as audiophile remasters.

 

What I find baffling, shocking and confusing is audiophile label 2L's support for MQA. They record in DXD (24bit 352.8 PCM) and I have a few pre-MQA 2L recordings on SACD and Blu-ray Audio and IMHO they sound excellent. With the appearance of MQA I'm now afraid to purchase 2L recordings as they might now be compromised. Are there any other audiophile labels embracing MQA? Thanks in advance. 😊

At 2L they apparently like the sound of MQA. It's possible their MQA is superior as they can do boutique white glove versions, instead of the mass conversions a label like Warners does.

[daverich4]

2 hours ago, firedog said:

Apple won't refuse to take the Warner catalog. It's too big and commercial. If Warner says their catalog is MQA, Apple will sell MQA. 

I disagree. On their website, Apple claims they stream billions of songs to their various devices per day. Warner is going to kiss that off and count on a niche company like Tidal to keep them afloat? In any event, Warner’s is currently worth around 15 Billion and Apple is worth around 1.3 Trillion. If Tim Cook wants the Warner’s catalog without MQA he could buy them with the money he keeps in his sock drawer. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

I disagree. On their website, Apple claims they stream billions of songs to their various devices per day. Warner is going to kiss that off and count on a niche company like Tidal to keep them afloat? In any event, Warner’s is currently worth around 15 Billion and Apple is worth around 1.3 Trillion. If Tim Cook wants the Warner’s catalog without MQA he could buy them with the money he keeps in his sock drawer. 

Never happen. 
 

spotify is Apple’s competition. Who would sign up for Apple Music without millions of good songs if Spotify offers everything for the same price?

 

Just because Apple has the cash, doesn’t mean it’s a good move to purchase something. Why not purchase ARM? It didn’t make sense even though Apple’s business depends on ARM. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, daverich4 said:

I disagree. On their website, Apple claims they stream billions of songs to their various devices per day. Warner is going to kiss that off and count on a niche company like Tidal to keep them afloat? In any event, Warner’s is currently worth around 15 Billion and Apple is worth around 1.3 Trillion. If Tim Cook wants the Warner’s catalog without MQA he could buy them with the money he keeps in his sock drawer. 

Apple can buy any of the labels any day-that they haven't tells you something. It's not a business they want to be in. Better things to do with their money. Same for MQA itself. 

Apple especially isn't going to spend that money b/c of a minor issue like files sourced from MQA - an issue that 99% of their users will be both unaware of and uninterested in. MQA is a nothing issue to Apple. If the labels provide MQA, Apple will stream compressed lossy files derived from it and probably not even publicize the fact that the format is there in the background in the files they've turned into AAC. After all, Apple has already decided that hi-res itself is not a field they are interested in. So why would MQA interest them?

[Dr Tone]

Unfortunately, the streaming companies with clout are our only hope when it comes to slowing or stopping the infestation of MQA.

 

I would hope Apple would tell them they don’t want MQA.  When they go to create their AAC files using MQA 2 issues arise: MQA CD is less than the 24/44.1 they want for mastered for iTunes and to unfold the MQA created from higher sample rates, Apple would need to pay MQA for the rights to do that.

[daverich4]

43 minutes ago, firedog said:

Apple can buy any of the labels any day-that they haven't tells you something. It's not a business they want to be in. Better things to do with their money. Same for MQA itself. 

Apple especially isn't going to spend that money b/c of a minor issue like files sourced from MQA - an issue that 99% of their users will be both unaware of and uninterested in. MQA is a nothing issue to Apple. If the labels provide MQA, Apple will stream compressed lossy files derived from it and probably not even publicize the fact that the format is there in the background in the files they've turned into AAC. After all, Apple has already decided that hi-res itself is not a field they are interested in. So why would MQA interest them?

That’s not been their business model so far. They have very specific requirements for how music is to be provided to them. They’re a big enough customer they can stipulate the terms of the sale. Just like Walmart tells the farmers that provide them with produce what they’ll grow, how it will be packaged, how it will be delivered and what they can charge for it. Don’t like the terms? Sell somewhere else. 
 

https://www.apple.com/itunes/docs/apple-digital-masters.pdf

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

That’s not been their business model so far. They have very specific requirements for how music is to be provided to them. They’re a big enough customer they can stipulate the terms of the sale. Just like Walmart tells the farmers that provide them with produce what they’ll grow, how it will be packaged, how it will be delivered and what they can charge for it. Don’t like the terms? Sell somewhere else. 
 

https://www.apple.com/itunes/docs/apple-digital-masters.pdf

 

This is vastly different from farmers. 

 

Apple provides requirements to help the labels and itself. If Taylor Swift provides apple a 320 Kbps MP3, they're taking the 320 Kbps MP3 and converting it to AAC. Without Taylor Swift, millions of people are moving to Spotify. It's the same for the labels. Apple isn't the only game in town. Plus, the labels own a big chunk of Spotify. It's better for them if Apple has problems because people will switch. Nobody is going back to piracy. They'll switch to Spotify and call it a day. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Also notice the word requirements isn't in Apple's document. 

[firedog]

39 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

That’s not been their business model so far. They have very specific requirements for how music is to be provided to them. They’re a big enough customer they can stipulate the terms of the sale. Just like Walmart tells the farmers that provide them with produce what they’ll grow, how it will be packaged, how it will be delivered and what they can charge for it. Don’t like the terms? Sell somewhere else. 
 

https://www.apple.com/itunes/docs/apple-digital-masters.pdf

 

Not a parallel situation. 

Farmers - lots of small producers. No single farmer is signifcant.

The 3 big labels control virtually all the music that matters to Apple. Apple doesn't tell them who to record, what kind of music to record, how to arrange it, how to record it, etc.

And the "specific requirements" you refer to are nothing that is a issue for the labels. If Apple gets MQA, they will simply not care. Why would they? Their "requirements" will still be met. MQA doesn't violate them.  They will just convert it to AAC as if nothing has changed. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Dr Tone said:

 

I would hope Apple would tell them they don’t want MQA.  When they go to create their AAC files using MQA 2 issues arise: MQA CD is less than the 24/44.1 they want for mastered for iTunes and to unfold the MQA created from higher sample rates, Apple would need to pay MQA for the rights to do that.

Not really. Record labels will just say: this (the MQA "release master" file) is the highest quality master we have. Anything else isn't "the master". Apple can't say otherwise, just as they don't now. Apple doesn't demand the labels give them Bruce Springsteen in 24/192 or 24/96, even though the production processing might have been done in those rates.  The label says the release master is 24/44.1 and Apple thinks that's fine. 

 

MQA CD is irrelevant in this equation, just as Redbook is irrelevant today.  No difference. 

 

Labels can just supply MQA hi-res after the first unfold. It meets all the requirements Apple needs. No payments necessary. 

[PeterSt]

17 hours ago, Teresa said:

What I find baffling, shocking and confusing is audiophile label 2L's support for MQA. They record in DXD (24bit 352.8 PCM) and I have a few pre-MQA 2L recordings on SACD and Blu-ray Audio and IMHO they sound excellent.

 

This is merely logic;

2L records in DXD and they don't apply any filtering at it, because they explicitly deem that not necessary (this was in their statement 13 years or so ago, when I created the first 24/352.8 playback possibility via software). This is THE chance for the MQA guys to create from there a non-ringing filter because there's no ringing in the original to begin with.

For this reason, 2L was probably the first test case for MQA (and I recall it like that).

 

BTW (not), I listened to piles of HiRes, and 2L is above it for sound quality by miles (in the DXD versions). This will not be so because it is 352.8, but because it was not tampered with (which downsampling is);

MQA tampers even more than downsampling would be (the DSP thing) and that is why I can-not like it.

 

Peter

[FredericV]

16 hours ago, firedog said:

Labels can just supply MQA hi-res after the first unfold. It meets all the requirements Apple needs. No payments necessary. 

Transcoding from one lossy format to another makes no sense, it would degrade the audio quality even more.

 

[firedog]

27 minutes ago, FredericV said:

Transcoding from one lossy format to another makes no sense, it would degrade the audio quality even more.

 

And what makes you think that would stop them from doing it anyway?

[R1200CL]

22 hours ago, firedog said:

If Warner says their catalog is MQA, Apple will sell MQA. 

At the moment we can have both with or without MQA. But maybe some are afraid MQA will be the only format offered ? (With DRM added). 

[PeterSt]

10 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

At the moment we can have both with or without MQA.

 

That is the whole point of the past two weeks. Tidal is replacing the Warner RBCD catalog with MQA ...

[R1200CL]

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

Tidal is replacing the Warner RBCD catalog with MQA ...

I’m afraid you’re correct.
 

Is there any way to get this confirmed officially? I understand Tidal added, but a google search doesn’t say replace. Or remove. Yes, I noticed (some) albums is only MQA. Now actually 2 versions of MQA. 16 and 24 bit. This doesn’t make sense at all. Why this 16 bit version ? Anyone has a good explanation ?
 

I hope we can get some official statements, cause Tidal or Warner doing this without actually telling people isn’t acceptable.

 

 

 

[John Dyson]

21 hours ago, firedog said:

At 2L they apparently like the sound of MQA. It's possible their MQA is superior as they can do boutique white glove versions, instead of the mass conversions a label like Warners does.

If they start with true master tapes instead of the mangled stuff that we normally get, then MQA will most likely sound better.   My guess is that we will end up with the nasty CD sound on top of MQA in the longer term.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

If they start with true master tapes instead of the mangled stuff that we normally get, then MQA will most likely sound better. 

Not sure how removing content and using leaky filters can make something sound more like the original without anything removed. 

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Is there any way to get this confirmed officially? I understand Tidal added, but a google search doesn’t say replace.

 

I checked it myself; The albumID's which previously represented normal 16/44/1 are now MQA 16/44.1. Thus if you have an album (ever back RBCD) in your playlist (this stores by the AlbumID), then if you play it now, you'd play the MQA version.

 

This brings me to an again even worser aspect: You played that album through your normal DAC before, while now it requires MQA decoding to be at its "best" ? I am not even sure about this (yet) as I the adjustments to my own software regarding this are in the works (no result known yet).

So you play your beloved NHØP once again, and suddenly he plays the bass poorly. You suddenly need an MQA capable DAC (or software). ... So it gets sneakier and sneakier.

[PeterSt]

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Not sure how removing content

 

John refers to DolbyC.

[firedog]

58 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

? Anyone has a good explanation ?

This is what we've been afraid of since 2015. 

The only real justification for the existence of MQA is that the labels will use it to replace the "crown jewels"- the original master recordings, especially those in hi-res. That way they can make money and not worry that their "jewels" are downloadable and subject to copying. With MQA they can do this and still claim to be giving us "hi-res". 

We were told when MQA came out that this would "never" happen. Both versions would continue to be provided. 

 

That obviously didn't make sense for both logistic and economic reasons (from the labels point of view). Why would they provide both, when they can sell fake hi res - MQA - as a premium, high priced product? Look at download prices- high res MQA is being sold at a premium price over regular hi-res. 

The Tidal-Warner situation is the first step: Get rid of non MQA in CD quality streaming. Then it will be in high res. Next comes only MQA in downloads and physical media. 

That's what we've been talking about here for the past week or two.

[R1200CL]

.....and nothing about this in the press. (Yet) Horrible. 
 

@Kal Rubinson

I hope your magazine looks into this.

[firedog]

32 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

.....and nothing about this in the press. (Yet) Horrible. 
 

@Kal Rubinson

I hope your magazine looks into this.

Don't hold your breath.

It'a niche issue that the general press has no interest in.

And most of the audiophile press has long ago sold out to MQA (not Kal); but it seems the controlling editors of TAS and Stereophile have. For the most part all we hear from the audiophile press is repeats of MQA marketing speak (propaganda); occassionally we get an acknowledgement that MQA is controversial. The Soundstage Group is an exception to this. 

 

It took years for Stereophile to acknowledge that 4X sample rates in MQA are all upsamples, and that MQA isn't lossless. They still don't properly inform their readership about this.