MQA is Vaporware

[firedog]

3 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Do you have information that the AKM 4497/4499 have that function on the chip implemented as well?

Just what I was told. Don't know what's accurate. I looked at the 4497 data sheet and didn't see anything about it. 

[DuckToller]

10 minutes ago, firedog said:

I looked at the 4497 data sheet and didn't see anything about it. 

That is about as much as I have read about the AKM's as well.
It seems mainly the XMOS programming with the "not" latest DAC chip generations that provides BS "oeuvre" and the MQA part.

[UkPhil]

Universal has bought Dylan's back catalogue, this will be another good marketing angle for MQA as I am sure Universals MQA processing is going on behind the scenes at the moment and this scoop will be just what MQA needs to keep the ball rolling

 

https://news.sky.com/story/bob-dylans-entire-back-catalogue-bought-in-nine-figure-deal-12154238?fbclid=IwAR0fRufgsqAmTwInHxfrECSXseZjUhAudqCZfxjHsqqkV-TLDyZXOPeT8Yo

[mocenigo]

3 hours ago, FredericV said:

I found his quote here:

https://www.stereonet.co.uk/features/inside-track-bob-stuart-mqa

Is real PCM as we know it soon dead and being replaced by a crypto DRM scheme? How does this benefit the consumer in any way?

 

Well, it does not.

It helps content providers milk the customer.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Such a tragedy. Fantastic album, only available in 13 bit with leaky filters. Thanks Bob Stuart, Ken Forsythe, Mike Jbara and the rest of the crew at MQA.  Buy the CD while you can or visit the pirate sites to hear the real thing. 

 

[dmackta]

39 minutes ago, UkPhil said:

Universal has bought Dylan's back catalogue, this will be another good marketing angle for MQA as I am sure Universals MQA processing is going on behind the scenes at the moment and this scoop will be just what MQA needs to keep the ball rolling

 

https://news.sky.com/story/bob-dylans-entire-back-catalogue-bought-in-nine-figure-deal-12154238?fbclid=IwAR0fRufgsqAmTwInHxfrECSXseZjUhAudqCZfxjHsqqkV-TLDyZXOPeT8Yo

Universal Music Publishing has nothing to do with the audio. They bought the compositions. Not the recordings. 

[dmackta]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Such a tragedy. Fantastic album, only available in 13 bit with leaky filters. Thanks Bob Stuart, Ken Forsythe, Mike Jbara and the rest of the crew at MQA.  Buy the CD while you can or visit the pirate sites to hear the real thing. 

 

 

Or....https://open.qobuz.com/album/0075596077460

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, dmackta said:

 

Or....https://open.qobuz.com/album/0075596077460

Absolutely!

 

Let me make that screenshot a bit larger. It's a no-brainer. The 13 bit MQA version or pure PCM lossless version from Qobuz. 

 

[mevdinc]

3 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

Back many years ago when video was changing from VCR to disc, from analog to digital, space was a critical matter.  Digital video was orders of magnitude more space hungry than audio.  It still is. Compression is still a critical issue with video.  It is in reality of little matter with audio and is becoming less so by the day.

Dolby made it's bones with compression and bought out Meridian's MLP.

It is apparent that Bob Stuart saw the success of Dolby and figured that a similar scheme involving audio processing would be a money maker.  The problem is that the scheme is at least twenty years behind the times.  The Genie has already been let out of the bottle.  People have been listening to Hi-Rez for years.  And file size has become a non issue.

How do you sell it? You claim it is lossless. You claim it corrects recording problems.  You claim it "deblurs".  You claim it sounds better than the original.  All BS that was not widely accepted.

So now what do you do?  You conspire with Warner to force it on the music consumer.

 

I have come to despise Bob Stuart for what he is doing to the music consumer.

I think it is a mistake to think that this is all just Bob Stuart's doing. He may have come up with the idea/format suggestion etc., but without the support and endorsement of the big music labels and content providers he couldn't have gotten very far.
It now seems even more obvious that he had the backing of probably all of the major music labels and the hardware manufacturers. This could also be seen by the massive and unquestionable support by the main music press.

[DuckToller]

44 minutes ago, UkPhil said:

Universal has bought Dylan's back catalogue, this will be another good marketing angle for MQA as I am sure Universals MQA processing is going on behind the scenes at the moment and this scoop will be just what MQA needs to keep the ball rolling

 

https://news.sky.com/story/bob-dylans-entire-back-catalogue-bought-in-nine-figure-deal-12154238?fbclid=IwAR0fRufgsqAmTwInHxfrECSXseZjUhAudqCZfxjHsqqkV-TLDyZXOPeT8Yo

On a sidenote:

"Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that" ( Steve Earle )

"I've met Bob Dylan's bodyguards, and if Steve Earle thinks he can stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table, he's sadly mistaken"
(Towns van Zandt )

[UkPhil]

20 minutes ago, dmackta said:

Universal Music Publishing has nothing to do with the audio. They bought the compositions. Not the recordings. 

Good to know thanks :-)

[firedog]

18 minutes ago, mevdinc said:

I think it is a mistake to think that this is all just Bob Stuart's doing. He may have come up with the idea/format suggestion etc., but without the support and endorsement of the big music labels and content providers he couldn't have gotten very far.
It now seems even more obvious that he had the backing of probably all of the major music labels and the hardware manufacturers. This could also be seen by the massive and unquestionable support by the main music press.

The record labels are helping finance MQA's losses by accepting MQA stock in exchange for injecting cash into the company.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 hours ago, firedog said:

The record labels are helping finance MQA's losses by accepting MQA stock in exchange for injecting cash into the company.

Yes. 

 

"Give us stock in the company, then we'll force everyone to use the technology."

 

Sounds like a great thing for everyone. Said nobody ever.  

[UkPhil]

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Absolutely!

 

Let me make that screenshot a bit larger. It's a no-brainer. The 13 bit MQA version or pure PCM lossless version from Qobuz. 

 

Covering the release of Warner’s red book conversions on Tidal, MQA has released their latest info on the project 

http://bobtalks.co.uk/blog/provenance/provenance-and-containers/

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

7 minutes ago, UkPhil said:

Covering the release of Warner’s red book conversions on Tidal, MQA has released their latest info on the project 

http://bobtalks.co.uk/blog/provenance/provenance-and-containers/

 

Holy $#!+. That's like a political rally speech! You have to really twist it to find the truth rather than seeing the truth twisted a bit for marketing purposes. 

 

 

Even bob has admitted on video that this is not true. 

 

"MQA always encapsulates the full dynamic range of musical information with the highest possible precision."

[John Dyson]

On 12/6/2020 at 3:07 PM, R1200CL said:

@John Dyson

My Theta Generation VIII S3 is limited to 24/192. I hope it’s qualities is good enough even at today’s standard.
Where is the best place I can get some examples of “hearing more non-processed pure recordings.”

2L maybe ?
I use Roon with Qobuz and Tidal. Doesn’t any of those have some recording with your suggested quality ?

(I usual don’t listen to classical, though I like Bond when they do Vivaldi😀)
 

Maybe I misunderstood your last post. 

 

ADD=ON:   virgin material -- at the bottom of the www page below, listen to the music test.   THIS is the kind of sound that my decoder produces (or tries to), and is VERY different than most consumer recordings.   The example is VERY short -- but I'll keep on looking:
https://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php

 

I am very frustrated about showing demos of clean recordings, because most of what I have are effectively under NDA (instead of just copyright.)   I'll look around and see if I can find any others that are clean.   Once in a while, I do find a recording that isn't FA encoded, but those are few and far between.   Also, I cannot afford to purchase significant numbers of boutique recordings to find good ones -- and by far, most examples sent to me privately have also been compressed* -- but the documentation state otherwise.  It is hard as h*ll to find clean, pure recordings.   Just because a vendor gives some kind of DDD designation, it doesn't really mean that the recording is pure.   REALLY FRUSTRATING!!!!

 

* The commonly used compression scheme is really stealthy and vicious.   The reason why it is stealthy is that it has ZERO effect on the recording at -10dB and above, and very little effect until below -20dB or even -30dB or lower.   Also, it is vicious because it has super fast attack/release, conforming closely to the envelope of the signal, producing very little distortion and almost zero pumping because of the super high speed.  (Pumping happen partially due to audible release times -- but the compression is soooo fast -- as fast as 40msec release time, that you hear ZERO pumping.)   There is an intermod effect (not true distortion) to the compressed sound, once learned -- it becomes obvious.   It is best not to learn to detect the 'tells' for the compression -- it will ruin your hobby.

 

Our problem (as consumers) isn't about inadequate sample rates, e.g. 192/24 or better -- it is that the recordings are often *heavily* signal processed.   In fact, very few 'digital' recordings are purely digital all the way through (even though they claim it.)   I just checked out a 'boutique' recording mentioned on another forum:  Discovering the music of Robert Johnson or somesuch -- the Youtube copy was definitely compressed.   There seems to be almost NO WAY to evaluate materials before purchase.   I do check out the HDtracks demos, and I should probably check out some of their demos of esoteric materials some day -- my hearing is super well atuned to detecting the ubiquitous compression, and would love some day that the compression GOES AWAY.   I just might find a good recording -- it is just that I haven't had time (working on my project, sleeping or doggysitting for my sister :-)).

 

I'll see if I can find something that is super good.   Other than the master tapes, I do have some material that REALLY DOES *sound* unprocessed, but they were cleaned-up by me, therefore not a valid demo.   The problem with reviewing such material is that our hearing (as audiophiles) has adapted to the 'standard' compressed processing.

 

I WILL look around for clean recordings that I can share (simply under copyright where I can show snippets.)   Under NDA, I cannot even privately share snippets (because they are also a personal promise on top of it.)

 

*  My own project is NOT about selling decoders as I care NOTHING about making money, but to expose the severe damage in most of our beloved recordings in our libraries.   The frustration for me is that I have found significant amounts of 'accomodation' in many listeners/testers hearing.*   When I happened into this quest of figuring out what was wrong, I had the advantage of starting with essentially 'virgin' hearing almost 10yrs ago, after ending my audiophile hobby 20yrs earlier than that because the CDs sucked so badly.   When reviewing recordings in the 2012 timeframe, I found that the CDs still sucked, but in 2012 I had the tools, time and CPU resources to do a full analysis of why the recordings were grainy, swishy highs, horn-sounding/woody midrange, and distorted bass.   I found the 'distortion' mechanism, but still trying to perfect the recovery mechanism.   (Claims that I had been biased in finding the technology are totally wrong -- It took me well over 1-2yrs to figure out even the basic damaging mechanism...)

* Most of my frustration has been about the accomodation of the 'woody/horn-sounding' midrange, and mismatched expectation that a natural recording not sounding with the 'woody' midrange that we have come to expect.   There have been other technical challenges mostly related to the necessary SUBJECTIVE evaluation, and almost ZERO objective basis for measurement.   Subjective measurement is frought with problems -- avoid at almost all costs, avoid wasting your time!!!

 

Bottom line -- as soon as I can find something that is 'provably untouched' (not just cleaned up by me), and not a recording under NDA/master-tape that I have promised not to divulge, then I'll definitely make something available.   I'll start this a quest in a focused way, after I get done with the current phase in my project.

 

John

 

[R1200CL]

4 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Holy $#!+. That's like a political rally speech! You have to really twist it to find the truth rather than seeing the truth twisted a bit for marketing purposes.

http://www.bobtalks.co.uk/blog/science-mqa/16b-mqa-what-is-it/

 

I’m a bit confused with this 16 bit MQA. If I remember correctly, it was not the intention in the beginning to produce 16/44.1 MQA. (Even not with 16 bit masters).  Now I think he’s even saying use a 24 bit to get 16 bit. But I think he’s saying this is meant for MQA-CD’s (only?). Warner obviously sees it differently.

He use the term “different optimisations”. I guess that’s filters. 
 

I think in any case a 16 bit MQA, can’t qual a 24 bit MQA. This is really confusing. 

 

If it hasn’t been done yet, I’m looking to results from those of you that decode MQA, so we can see the difference between 2 MQA versions from same master. 

Anyway that specific album was recorded in 16 bit. (A Mitsubishi 850 32-track 16-bit digital recorder.)
https://www.facebook.com/notes/tracy-chapman-online/how-fast-car-was-recorded-producer-david-kersehenbaum-recalls/10155004154183902/

 

 

[KeenObserver]

Bob Stuart's written output is as convoluted as his video BS.  He hits every buzz word and in the end says nothing.

What in essence he is saying is: "We irretrievably damage the original recording.  You cannot have the high definition recording".

 

People already have had the high definition FLAC recordings, without the MQA BS.  Without paying for the MQA BS.

 

MQA tells you that it is " better than the original".  PURE BS.

 

The studios involved in this simply do not want you to have the high definition recordings.

[KeenObserver]

Again, it is truly sad that Audiophiles have spent time and effort to refine their equipment to reproduce music as close as possible to live sound, only to be told that they will only get broken recordings.

[KeenObserver]

I will never be a part of the "blue light" cult.  I will never drink the contaminated brandy.

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

I will never be a part of the "blue light" cult.  I will never drink the contaminated brandy.

 

Watch out for those blue lights:

 

 

[FredericV]

12 hours ago, UkPhil said:

Covering the release of Warner’s red book conversions on Tidal, MQA has released their latest info on the project 

http://bobtalks.co.uk/blog/provenance/provenance-and-containers/

 

Interesting bit:

 

Quote

When the input is PCM, the output stream will have the same bit-depth as the input unless either a) Origami is used or b) the input is DSD or floating-point; in these cases, the MQA stream output will always be 24 bit. So an original at 44.1 kHz/24b will create a 24b file and 44.1kHz/16b will create a 16b file. However an original of 96kHz/16b) will generate a 48kHz/24b MQA file because Origami was used. [1]

 

In a nutshell, if an MQA output stream is only 16 bits (MQA CD, 16 bit MQA, truncated 24 bit to 16 bit files), origami is NOT possible, as the crypto DRM part to do the unfold is not being stored, as it is normally the bottom 8 bits of a 24 bit MQA file.

This is what I already figured out by doing my experiments, and now Bob confirms this.

Note that 24 bit MQA does not mean actual 24 bit audio data, as it allocates several bits to do origami, and it also has a bit with a metadata stream stored, so MQA licensed products can recognize it's MQA.

While MQA is a 24 bit format, it's not a 24 bit audio format.

It's like saying MP3 is 16/44.1 even though the theoretical 20 khz input bandwidth is no longer there there, and usually MP3 has a 16 Khz cutoff.

MP3 outputs 16/44.1 while the actual audio is more like 16/32

24 bit MQA which unfolds to 24/96, 24/192 or 24/384 is 17/96 at best, and cannot encode analog frequencies beyond 48 Khz
24 bit MQA which unfolds to 24/88.2, 24/176.4 or 24/352.8 is 17/88.2 at best, and cannot encode analog frequencies beyond 44.1 Khz

Just like MP3, MQA is cutting off high frequencies and not storing all of the audio data in order to save bandwidth.

[Currawong]

On 11/19/2020 at 3:35 AM, hmartin said:

Out of ~800 tidal albums in my library ~150 had been converted to Mqa, was a real pain deleting them with Roon user interface. So stupid!

 

I've been converting Roon playlists over to Qobuz, where possible. Found that a couple of my regular tracks has been MQA, though whether they were switched or not I'm not sure.  A funny side to that is me wondering why the mastering on Miles Davis Mystery was so boomy in the bass!  The non-MQA sounded much clearer! So much for "de-blurring".

[R1200CL]

4 hours ago, FredericV said:

truncated 24 bit to 16 bit files), origami is NOT possible

Actually it’s unfolded to 88.2/24 bit. Tested with Tracy Chapman album on Roon.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

14 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Actually it’s unfolded to 88.2/24 bit. Tested with Tracy Chapman album on Roon.

 

It’s not unfolded. Folding requires that there’s something to fold. It’s a 16/44.1 album. If it plays at 24/88.2 it’s just upsampling.