MQA is Vaporware

[KeenObserver]

Hans Beekhuyzen and Peter Veth.  Brothers of a different mother?

 

If Tidal and MQA folded, would that be good for the future of music?  Would we not have the possibility of having even greater quality music?

 

Do we, in fact, have access to better quality music now?  Without MQA?

[R1200CL]

I had to look him up. 

https://www.haberfellner.net/2019/05/talk-with-bob-the-hightech-conservator-restorer/

https://disqus.com/by/peterveth/

[Daccord]

29 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

I had to look him up.

 

Well most of us didn't, so no need to include the big quote.

[botrytis]

I am sorry, it seems we are under attack from infidels from all side. I say that from living in the US and abhorred by what happened today. My heart is broken. 

 

MQA is no different. Snake oil salesmen pushing nonsense to line their pockets. It has to stop. The Laws of Thermodynamics applies to everything, even MQA. You cannot make a princess out of pig wearing lipstick.

[FredericV]

9 hours ago, R1200CL said:

I had to look him up. 

https://www.haberfellner.net/2019/05/talk-with-bob-the-hightech-conservator-restorer/

https://disqus.com/by/peterveth/

I believe there are several moles in his MQA fanboy club. As I never react in his group, he will never figure it out.

At least there is scientific proof for 432 Hz, and it's effects are much larger than the McGill U MQA study:

e.g.: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31031095/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32401941/

We are in no way affiliated with these researchers. When we launched in 2013 we were ridiculed by the Dutch press. They even organized listening tests using flawed conversion methods in trying to debunk us. The first years were very hard. But we did our own research earlier with focus groups, so we knew exactly what to expect. The effect that we found in our own private testing was almost the same as the 90% preference that Maria Renold found.

Can MQA show any study where 90% of the listeners prefer the MQA over the original PCM master? Jamais ....

I am not impressed by Peter Veth's rant, and in general, 432 Hz is a much larger phenomenom than MQA, and we did not invent it. There is a lot of BS as well about 432 Hz and stupid conspiracy theories, but I try to stick to the facts and the research including the pitch inflation which happened over centuries, and which is a fact.

Also when comparing MQA with 432 Hz, it does not look like MQA is doing a great job:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=3&date=today 5-y&q=432 Hz,mqa


Wie laatst lacht ;)

[MarkusBarkus]

9 hours ago, botrytis said:

You cannot make a princess out of pig wearing lipstick.

You take a pig, put lipstick on it and you call it a princess.

And you keep calling it a princess. You show pictures of the princess, sometimes beside famous people or places. You write interesting, exciting stories featuring the pig.

 

People begin to love the pig. Some wish they were the pig.

 

Companies market products used by the pig, so we can be more like the pig. We take pictures of ourselves looking like the pig, in famous "piggy places."
 

Eventually, people consider the made-up pig to actually be "a princess."  It takes time, a lot of repetition, and consistency. You have to stay on message at all times. This is more difficult than you may think. 

 

The transformation also requires participants. Forums like this become the resistance to the Cult of the Pig. Not sure if Chris is Morpheus or Neo. 

 

Is that too cynical? Maybe it's just the coffee talking. Or the red pill...

[lucretius]

10 hours ago, botrytis said:

The Laws of Thermodynamics applies to everything, even MQA.

 

LOL!  Reminds me of Creationism's (bogus) claim for the second law of thermodynamics.

[lucretius]

4 hours ago, FredericV said:

At least there is scientific proof for 432 Hz,

 

Next time I get a tooth extracted, I'll ask for 432 Hz music.  🙂

[lucretius]

5 hours ago, FredericV said:

I am not impressed by Peter Veth's rant

 

From a discussion on Audiophile Review:

 

**************************

MQA The Facts Versus the Fiction

Peter Veth -> botrytis . a year ago

 

I would like to challenge you to do a blind test indeed and compare a 330 Mb DXD 24/352.8 file against the 46 Mb MQA file - that's real fun! and I am really glad that the music industry is able to stop illegal copying by offering streaming music encoded in MQA.

**************************

 

Emphasis added.  Contrary to what is said, it's very easy to capture an MQA stream from Tidal and save it to an MQA flac file -- with all the MQA encoding in place.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Wow, it's like a cult. 

[KeenObserver]

57 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Wow, it's like a cult. 

 

A cult?  Why would you say that?

 

Just because MQA's world view is that all music going forward should be under the control of MQA?

 

Just because MQA wants you to believe everything that they tell you about mQA?

 

Just because MQA wants you to believe that anything non MQA is bad?

 

Just because MQA wants you to believe that Bob Stuart has created a new paradigm and is the new Messiah?

 

Just because MQA wants you to disbelieve all the scientific evidence refuting MQA's claims and just BELIEVE in MQA?

[KeenObserver]

Yea, all you believers in MQA, come forward and let us sing the praises of MQA!

 

Let us hear from the Prophet Bob Stuart, who has come down the mountain with the tablets: "MQA shall be lossless.  MQA shall deblur.  The stones shall fall from your ears and you will hear music as the Creator intended.  The music will unfold into a magic wonderfulness. From 24/44.1 we will bless these fruits of music and they will become 24/192. And we will provide music for all".

 

Let us hear from our brother Robert:" MQA is a new paradigm on the order of Copernicus".

 

Let us hear from our brother Lee: " The MQA ecosystem is wonderful".

 

Yea. all you believers!  Go forward and preach the word of MQA!

[KeenObserver]

Coffee again.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

 

A cult?  Why would you say that?

 

Just because MQA's world view is that all music going forward should be under the control of MQA?

 

Just because MQA wants you to believe everything that they tell you about mQA?

 

Just because MQA wants you to believe that anything non MQA is bad?

 

Just because MQA wants you to believe that Bob Stuart has created a new paradigm and is the new Messiah?

 

Just because MQA wants you to disbelieve all the scientific evidence refuting MQA's claims and just BELIEVE in MQA?

 

NDA's are MQA Ltd's way of quieting suppressive persons.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

NDA's are MQA Ltd's way of quieting suppressive persons.

You have to sign an NDA to get MQA to quote you a price that it will charge you per unit sold. Perhaps they don't want to anger the manufacturers who they actually charge, when they find out that others got sweetheart deals to bolster MQA's brand. 

[FredericV]

3 hours ago, lucretius said:

Emphasis added.  Contrary to what is said, it's very easy to capture an MQA stream from Tidal and save it to an MQA flac file -- with all the MQA encoding in place.

 

MQA does not solve the copying issue:

1. it is trivial to grab files from Tidal (there are even open source tools to do this)
2. it is trivial for a network engineer to intercept the Tidal traffic and write it back to a file - and Tidal won't even be able to detect this

Once you have the MQA encoded file, an MQA dac has no way to check if your are entitled to listen to the file or not.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Or just route Roon or Audirvana to through Audio Hijack and capture decoded MQA for those so inclined. 

[botrytis]

Why would I want to capture anything that is a bastardization of the original?

 

Not me, MQA can shove it right up their......... 'NUFF SAID!

[FredericV]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

Or just route Roon or Audirvana to through Audio Hijack and capture decoded MQA for those so inclined. 

The main problem with these approaches is that you usually lose the metadata.
Also the metadata in flac files on Tidal's CDN has been stripped. The actual metadata can be accessed via the API.

Tools exist which can access the metadata via the API, download the file from the CDN, and then encode the metadata back into the flac's.

MQA does nothing to solve the copying / downloading / ripping from streaming services.
The only thing it solves is to protect the original master by forcing you to listen to an approximated version, and deluding you that it is better than the original.

Like telling videophiles a 4K netflix stream is higher quality than a 4K ultra-hd blu-ray.
No videophile would believe these questionable claims.
 

[R1200CL]

If you can’t beat them, join them 😀

 

@Archimago and others that have the skills. 
How about join AES and publish a paper that reveal the truth about MQA ?

 

Is there anything in Bob’s AES papers that can be proved wrong ?

(we must of cause distinguish between AES papers and everything else said).

 

If one was allowed to publish an article against MQA, which magazine would be preferred ?

Maybe focus on 16 bit MQA. 

[KeenObserver]

Well, the 2019 financials are posted.

Looks like MQA Ltd lost another four million pounds plus for 2019.

While that may seem like a substantial amount to the average music consumer, it is small change to a billion pound financial group IF, and it is a big IF, they expect to reap huge money in the future.

The music consumer is expected to pay the huge money in the future.

MQA expects to have it's hand in the music consumer's pockets.

The music consumer is expected to pay, and pay, and pay for the "privilege" of being forced into MQA.

[Rt66indierock]

Time for an update since the 2019 financial statements of MQA Limited are now posted. MQA lost 4,176,743 in Pounds. Revenue was 492,291. Xiama Music will shut down on February 5, 2021 leaving only Tidal and nugs.net as the only music streaming services with MQA content. Neither has significant subscribers. Download services are sparse with only 2L, e-onkyo music, HiResAudio and nugs.net.

 

I don’t see enough MQA encoded music to drive demand for hardware and software able to decode MQA files especially in the United States.

[UkPhil]

39 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Time for an update since the 2019 financial statements of MQA Limited are now posted. MQA lost 4,176,743 in Pounds. Revenue was 492,291. Xiama Music will shut down on February 5, 2021 leaving only Tidal and nugs.net as the only music streaming services with MQA content. Neither has significant subscribers. Download services are sparse with only 2L, e-onkyo music, HiResAudio and nugs.net.

 

I don’t see enough MQA encoded music to drive demand for hardware and software able to decode MQA files especially in the United States.

Unless they get on board with a bigger streaming player or manage to have MQA files streamed on lossless sites as replacements to PCM I think it’s going to be a hard battle. 

[Rt66indierock]

2 minutes ago, UkPhil said:

Unless they get on board with a bigger streaming player or manage to have MQA files streamed on lossless sites as replacements to PCM I think it’s going to be a hard battle. 

 

I'm not seeing interest in lossless streaming. My estimate of the current market share of lossless is 1% of the paid subscribers.

[FredericV]

This would suggest that the McGill U MQA study also applies to MQA CD on a lot of audio systems.

I'm not saying it's impossible to hear the differences, but does the average MQA user has a system which makes these differences obvious?

Fresh from the fanboy group: