MQA is Vaporware

[KeenObserver]

4 hours ago, R1200CL said:

They is Warner. I wonder why they not just do the same process with all these other albums that is red book. Now it seems albums just been been passed through a highly questionable MQA process. I’m even not sure Bob is happy with it either.  These recent articles on MQA site is very unclear to me. Somehow Bob is admitting errors will occur. Warner is using MQA in a way Bob originally didn’t intended MQA to be used. 
 

I think Warner is more to blame than MQA. They could do a much better job.

 

It will be interesting to see how they handle Bob Dylan catalog. At the moment it’s not MQA.

 

You cannot praise BS as an engineering genius, give him the Prince Phillip award, and then say that he did not know what the outcome would be!  Bob Stuart knew exactly what he was doing.

[MikeyFresh]

5 hours ago, R1200CL said:

It will be interesting to see how they handle Bob Dylan catalog. At the moment it’s not MQA.

Warner has nothing to do with Bob Dylan. The recent news surrounding his catalog being sold to Universal Music has exactly nothing to do with the recorded albums. Universal bought the rights to the publishing, i.e. the compositions themselves. So while you could now see a lot more Bob Dylan songs used in commercials, TV, and movies, that announcement has no bearing on the recorded albums or how those are released, that continues to be co-owned by Sony/Columbia Records and Bob Dylan. 

[lucretius]

7 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

I have the 24/192 version.  It's just noise above 20.5 kHz.  I also have an early CD, which coincidentally cuts out at 20.5 kHz. Also, there is no clipping in the CD version contrary to what the MQA article said.  Both versions (24/192 and CD) have good (and similar) dynamic range.  The CD version offers more headroom.  I don't have access to Tidal, so I cannot check the MQA version but I seriously doubt that it is better in any way than the CD or the 24/192 download:

 

CD:  Like a Virgin_dr.txt

 

24/192:  Like a Virgin (2012 Digital Download)_dr.txt

 

 

Re: Madonna's Like A Virgin album

 

CD = white

 

24/192 = blue

 

 

 

[KeenObserver]

With a legacy extending back over 200 years, Warner Music Group today is home to an unparalleled family of creative artists, songwriters, and companies that are moving culture across the globe.  At the core of WMG’s Recorded Music division are four of the most iconic companies in history: Atlantic, Elektra, Parlophone, and Warner Records.  They are joined by renowned labels such as Asylum, Big Beat, Canvasback, East West, Erato, FFRR, Fueled by Ramen, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Roadrunner, Sire, Spinnin’ Records, Warner Classics, and Warner Music Nashville.  Warner Chappell Music - which traces its origins back to the founding of Chappell & Company in 1811 - is one of the world's leading music publishers, with a catalog of more than one million copyrights spanning every musical genre, from the standards of the Great American Songbook to the biggest hits of the 21st century.

 

In case anyone wants to know.  I was unaware that Erato was part of Warner Music Group

[mevdinc]

5 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

 

You cannot praise BS as an engineering genius, give him the Prince Phillip award, and then say that he did not know what the outcome would be!  Bob Stuart knew exactly what he was doing.

I don't think BS would've embarked on a big venture like this without the backing and support of enough labels. 

[Jud]

19 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Actually, half the population is below the median intelligence.  

If you believe there is such a singular quality as "intelligence." (Think about it: Would you rate all athletes on the basis of a single quality/number called "athleticism"? Who would have more of it - weightlifters, sprinters, basketball players, rock climbers...? Now think about whether you believe human mental capabilities are more various than our physical ones.)

 

Apologies for the OT, it's a long time pet peeve.

[Kal Rubinson]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

If you believe there is such a singular quality as "intelligence."

No more than for "musicality." 

[sphinxsix]

 

22 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

I can start to understand this fellow when I realize that half the population is below average intelligence.

 

22 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Actually, half the population is below the median intelligence.  

 

2 hours ago, Jud said:

If you believe there is such a singular quality as "intelligence." (Think about it: Would you rate all athletes on the basis of a single quality/number called "athleticism"? Who would have more of it - weightlifters, sprinters, basketball players, rock climbers...? Now think about whether you believe human mental capabilities are more various than our physical ones.)

 

Apologies for the OT, it's a long time pet peeve.

 

There is no other place on the internet that would stimulate my intellect as much as this thread. And it's probably not only me, judging by the number of views which astonishingly quickly approaches number of atoms in the universe. 

Anyway, back on topic - I understand that Kal's brilliant remark was mostly of statistic nature. As for the singularity of intelligence, as far as I know the median of different types of intelligences is more or less 9 (notice musical one!).

 

 

 

 

[R1200CL]

9 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

 

You cannot praise BS as an engineering genius, give him the Prince Phillip award, and then say that he did not know what the outcome would be!  Bob Stuart knew exactly what he was doing.

You have a valid point. 
Now let’s go back to the basic. He (BS) claimed there was an “error” with the early ADC there was time smear and many other words used.  (Not sure if it can be compared to those Dolby issues, but to me it seems part of same problem). 
 

So this encoding process (where early ADC errors is compensated/corrected), is this also considered an issue among those of you that is very critical to the whole MQA thing. Is that specific part of MQA just BS as well, or does these guys with 35 years of experience etc. revealed something that is possible to agree up on ?

 

How they “solved” it, is as another issue. (We will come there soon, depending of your answers).

 

If Bob was right about those early ADC’s issues, how can it still be valid with todays equipment, and MQA encoding is still needed. To me that doesn’t make sense. 

 

[R1200CL]

1 hour ago, sphinxsix said:

I understand that Kal's brilliant remark was mostly of statistic nature.

If you know a little of the subject statistics, I hardly think the readers and contributes of this tread or site is considered as a population you can use to measure intelligence. However we may be great for something like measure our musical intelligence (however that’s done), or as a reference against others in certain questions the scientists like to explore.

 

The scientists may find “true believers” in many other areas they much more like to explore. 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

23 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

You have a valid point. 
Now let’s go back to the basic. He (BS) claimed there was an “error” with the early ADC there was time smear and many other words used.  (Not sure if it can be compared to those Dolby issues, but to me it seems part of same problem). 
 

So this encoding process (where early ADC errors is compensated/corrected), is this also considered an issue among those of you that is very critical to the whole MQA thing. Is that specific part of MQA just BS as well, or does these guys with 35 years of experience etc. revealed something that is possible to agree up on ?

 

How they “solved” it, is as another issue. (We will come there soon, depending of your answers).

 

If Bob was right about those early ADC’s issues, how can it still be valid with todays equipment, and MQA encoding is still needed. To me that doesn’t make sense. 

 

It’s all double speak and planting ideas in people’s heads, so they fill in the blanks with what they imagine the issues to be and a magic that can fix them. 
 

In the history of recorded music, there’s a small time period where some recordings used A to D converters that were less than stellar. The BS solution is to hand pick a few of those recordings, talk about them like he fixed them, then send millions of tracks through the automated MQA cloud digital signal processing. 
 

What about all the tracks using multiple A to D converters? All the tracks that started with analog? All the tracks using good A to D converters? The solution is to ruin everything under the guise of pretend fixing a few recordings?

[The Computer Audiophile]

P.S. Does anyone think the MQA “fixed” version is being used as the archival copy of Like a Virgin or any other album? Of course not. Because it’s smoke and mirrors. If stuff was fixed, it would be the new standard for archiving. Instead, it’s a delivery format that makes no sense to anyone other than the labels and BS who needs to monetize his intellectual property. And, all the investors who understand an MQA tax on all audio playback devices is a huge boon. 

[R1200CL]

On 12/8/2020 at 5:28 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

That's probably a question for the Roon team. 

Let’s say there is an error in the MQA decoding SW. (Maybe it was not written for 16 bit MQA). 
 

Maybe they totally screwed up, and now there’s a lot of DAC’s out there that can’t be corrected by a firmware upgrade. 
 

If you haven’t contacted MQA yet, maybe time to do. I hope they haven’t closed the door yet to you. 
 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-core-decode-16-bit-mqa-to-what/131491/9
 

[KeenObserver]

MQA is a solution looking for a problem.  If there is no problem you create one.

 

The only thing MQA is a solution for is the creation of a money stream for MQA.

[KeenObserver]

22 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Let’s say there is an error in the MQA decoding SW. (Maybe it was not written for 16 bit MQA). 
 

Maybe they totally screwed up, and now there’s a lot of DAC’s out there that can’t be corrected by a firmware upgrade. 
 

If you haven’t contacted MQA yet, maybe time to do. I hope they haven’t closed the door yet to you. 
 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-core-decode-16-bit-mqa-to-what/131491/9
 

 

This must be of great concern to you, keeping you up these late hours.  What is it, like 3 AM there?

[KeenObserver]

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

You have a valid point. 
Now let’s go back to the basic. He (BS) claimed there was an “error” with the early ADC there was time smear and many other words used.  (Not sure if it can be compared to those Dolby issues, but to me it seems part of same problem). 
 

So this encoding process (where early ADC errors is compensated/corrected), is this also considered an issue among those of you that is very critical to the whole MQA thing. Is that specific part of MQA just BS as well, or does these guys with 35 years of experience etc. revealed something that is possible to agree up on ?

 

How they “solved” it, is as another issue. (We will come there soon, depending of your answers).

 

If Bob was right about those early ADC’s issues, how can it still be valid with todays equipment, and MQA encoding is still needed. To me that doesn’t make sense. 

 

 

Would you like to buy a bridge?

[R1200CL]

1 minute ago, KeenObserver said:

MQA is a solution looking for a problem.  If there is no problem you create one.

 

The only thing MQA is a solution for is the creation of a money stream for MQA.

I do understand you’re totally against MQA. Your last 20 post or whatever tells us that. Maybe time for a brake ? 
Several here just hate MQA out of principal. Others have added very good statements and evidence why one probably shouldn’t endorse MQA. 
 

I’m trying to debate more on a technical base, not so much about feelings.
 

There is also trained ears out there that are against MQA that admit they like or prefer MQA over other formats. 
But maybe those ears was feed with those very special MQA tracks that sound good, and not albums gone though an automatic process. If it exist. (Will we ever know ?)

 

Maybe lack of MQA tracks in the early days was just because there was a few chosen once, that was meant to sound better.

I’m just asking some (simple) critical? questions. I don’t own a hight end MQA DAC. (I have a Cobalt and a Explorer2), but the first unfolding should be equal either SW (Roon or Audirvana) vs HW. 

[R1200CL]

25 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

What is it, like 3 AM there?

 Watching Coumo Prime Time on CNN 🤓

[MikeyFresh]

13 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

I’m trying to debate more on a technical base, not so much about feelings.

But it's been stated and proven over literally years time that there is no technical debate, if there were then BS and others representing MQA would have already answered questions and gladly presented their side of the story to prove their scheme's efficacy.

 

But the scheme has no technical efficacy, and your proof lies in the fact MQA have never produced any rebuttal whatsoever to the debunking that took place here and elsewhere now years ago. They have nothing.

 

So you keep trying to suggest there is some kind of technical debate to be had when we know there isn't, and all you cite in trying to create a technical debate is MQA's bullshit marketing speak, which has been demonstrated to be false. This is why some here might be growing tired of your posts, because all you do is cite their marketing speak which is not worthy of any further debate.

[The Computer Audiophile]

42 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

I do understand you’re totally against MQA. Your last 20 post or whatever tells us that. Maybe time for a brake ? 
Several here just hate MQA out of principal. Others have added very good statements and evidence why one probably shouldn’t endorse MQA. 
 

I’m trying to debate more on a technical base, not so much about feelings.
 

There is also trained ears out there that are against MQA that admit they like or prefer MQA over other formats. 
But maybe those ears was feed with those very special MQA tracks that sound good, and not albums gone though an automatic process. If it exist. (Will we ever know ?)

 

Maybe lack of MQA tracks in the early days was just because there was a few chosen once, that was meant to sound better.

I’m just asking some (simple) critical? questions. I don’t own a hight end MQA DAC. (I have a Cobalt and a Explorer2), but the first unfolding should be equal either SW (Roon or Audirvana) vs HW. 

As others have said, all the technical issues have been debated and MQA debunked here on Audiophile Style. If you think you’ve come up with something new, just do a search to see it debunked. 
 

two other topics. 
 

1. With respect to the early MQA days. Most people were excited to love it and gave MQA the benefit of the doubt. It started to turn sideways when Bob Stuart and Ken Forsythe would only demonstrate white glove MQA content against MP3. Trust me, I was there and presented a laptop containing music to “test” MQA.  All the nonMQA tracks were 256 Kbps MP3. When questioned about this, they claimed that was because the streaming services offered that and that was MQA’s competition. Plus, for years, the MQA team refused to do A/B demonstrations for anyone that asked. 
 

Think about how those confident in a product act. Does it jibe with this behavior? Also make sure to note how Ken Forsythe and Mike Jbara acted during my RMAF presentation. Do innocent people act like that? Not a chance. 

 

2. There’s no such thing as a format being better. Anyone suggesting that MQA is better than anything else is just plain wrong. Same goes for pure PCM vs DSD etc... You’ll find terrible stuff in every format. 

[Allan F]

2 hours ago, R1200CL said:

I’m trying to debate more on a technical base, not so much about feelings.

 

What has been demonstrated time and time again in this thread and elsewhere is that there no longer is any technical basis to debate. The only people for whom it's about "feelings" are those who still argue in favour of MQA.

[firedog]

6 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

 

Would you like to buy a bridge?

Only that one in Brooklyn.....

[firedog]

6 hours ago, R1200CL said:

I do understand you’re totally against MQA. Your last 20 post or whatever tells us that. Maybe time for a brake ? 
Several here just hate MQA out of principal. Others have added very good statements and evidence why one probably shouldn’t endorse MQA. 
 

I’m trying to debate more on a technical base, not so much about feelings.
 

There is also trained ears out there that are against MQA that admit they like or prefer MQA over other formats. 
But maybe those ears was feed with those very special MQA tracks that sound good, and not albums gone though an automatic process. If it exist. (Will we ever know ?)

 

Maybe lack of MQA tracks in the early days was just because there was a few chosen once, that was meant to sound better.

I’m just asking some (simple) critical? questions. I don’t own a hight end MQA DAC. (I have a Cobalt and a Explorer2), but the first unfolding should be equal either SW (Roon or Audirvana) vs HW. 

No one here has an issue with someone saying " I like the sound of MQA". That's taste.

 

Of course it's also true that MQA uses a certain type of reconstruction filter that you can apply without an MQA DAC and get basically the same result.

 

Unfortunately, all sorts of other claims-both technical and SQ related- are made for MQA. We do have a problem with that. The technical ones are all basically demonstrably false, and claiming MQA "sounds better" means zip. Means it sounds better to one person, generally in sighted listening sessions. Means nothing in the broader scheme of things.

 

Many of us also don't like the idea of a closed proprietary format being marketed instead of something open source and free like FLAC. There really isn't any SQ, technical, or marketing case that can be made for MQA - it's only purpose is to extract more money from consumers without providing any demonstrable benefit that can't be obtained without it.
 

[Confused]

I have found the forth unfold......

 

[mevdinc]

It is interesting that whenever a long MQA discussion starts there's always someone defending the MQA with the same arguments.
Is there any point in engaging with them in such debates? It seems pointless to me.