MQA is Vaporware

[lucretius]

1 minute ago, kumakuma said:

 

Why not? 

Proprietary format and compatibilitly with file tagers and some hardware devices.

[kumakuma]

2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

Proprietary format and compatibilitly with file tagers and some hardware devices.

 

Ok. I've never had any issues with the format though.

[lucretius]

5 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Ok. I've never had any issues with the format though.

IIRC, even HQPLayer  couldn't play ALAC files.

[kumakuma]

8 minutes ago, lucretius said:

IIRC, even HQPLayer  couldn't play ALAC files.

 

Fortunately you can easily convert any lossless PCM format to any other with no loss in quality.

[danadam]

24 minutes ago, lucretius said:

Proprietary format

Not since 2011 (according to wikipedia).

https://macosforge.github.io/alac/

Quote

The Apple Lossless Audio Codec sources are available under the Apache license.

 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

With these recent developments, I honestly do not see a way Tidal can survive. Unless Apple or Spotify acquire it..which is unlikely. So goes Tidal, so goes Maser Quack.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

Fortunately you can easily convert any lossless PCM format to any other with no loss in quality.

That is fortunate. But if we kept it in flac, we don't need to convert.

 

Just checking the software on my computer at the moment, the following does not support ALAC: Audacity, Sound Forge, MAAT DR Meter offline. I remember trying out some DAW software (e.g. FL Studio) as well as DJ software (e.g. TRAKTOR) and no support for ALAC.

 

[lucretius]

2 hours ago, lucretius said:

IIRC, even HQPLayer  couldn't play ALAC files.

Just checked the HQPlayer page and I see that the current version of HQPLayer does not support ALAC files.

[lucretius]

37 minutes ago, lucretius said:

That is fortunate. But if we kept it in flac, we don't need to convert.

 

Just checking the software on my computer at the moment, the following does not support ALAC: Audacity, Sound Forge, MAAT DR Meter offline. I remember trying out some DAW software (e.g. FL Studio) as well as DJ software (e.g. TRAKTOR) and no support for ALAC.

 

Steinberg (creators of ASIO) software, e.g. Cubase, WavLab Pro and WaveLab elements, does not support ALAC. 

[lucretius]

2 hours ago, danadam said:

Not since 2011 (according to wikipedia).

https://macosforge.github.io/alac/

 

Not before a bunch of folks had spent a lot of time and effort reverse engineering it, LOL.

[GregWormald]

With a reported 60 million subscribers, Apple Music already kills Tidal at 4.2 million. It's hardly a fair fight.

 

Of course my martial arts teacher maintains that if you find yourself in a fair fight your strategy sucks.

 

It will be interesting to see how the user interface works. Apple traditionally hasn't integrated because Jobs  found other UIs to be sub-par.

[FredericV]

4 hours ago, GregWormald said:

With a reported 60 million subscribers, Apple Music already kills Tidal at 4.2 million. It's hardly a fair fight.

When Tidal MQA users realize they are on the Titanic ....



Even if they lower the non-MQA tier to the same price point as Apple, for that amount competitors are offering real hi-res without the origami. The shelf life of proprietary origami has expired a long time ago, as Edholm's law predicts that the bandwidth and data rates double every 18 months, which has proven to be true since the 1970s.

Furthermore, since 5G, we are starting to see unlimited data plans, e.g. in Belgium we now have unlimited 5G plans from Proximus, for which the fair use is defined as 100GB. At 5 mbit for 24/192 lossless, you would reach this limit after 44 hours.

And this is just the beginning of those new mobile plans, and the fair use limit will also follow Edholm's law.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I appreciate Audirvana Studio labeling this MQA track as a "Dubious HD Recording."

 

[MikeyFresh]

49 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I appreciate Audirvana Studio labeling this MQA track as a "Dubious HD Recording."

 

I was very curious how that new feature would work with MQA, for example would the presence of some MQA garbage HF content trick the software into calling it "hi-res" or not?

 

Can you try it with 24-bit MQA and see what happens?

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

12 hours ago, GregWormald said:

With a reported 60 million subscribers, Apple Music already kills Tidal at 4.2 million. It's hardly a fair fight.

 

Of course my martial arts teacher maintains that if you find yourself in a fair fight your strategy sucks.

 

It will be interesting to see how the user interface works. Apple traditionally hasn't integrated because Jobs  found other UIs to be sub-par.

"Apple traditionally hasn't integrated because Jobs  found other UIs to be sub-par. "

 

Me thinks not. It is clear as day that Jobs goal was to keep everything in a closed Apple feedback loop. Sell more devices, get richer. His MO has been well documented...he put consumer needs last in many cases. Only after he croaked did they start to play nice with other devices.  As much as he was a visionary, he was wrong about a lot of things,

[The Computer Audiophile]

24 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

he was wrong about a lot of things

As are most of us. 

 

24 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Me thinks not. It is clear as day that Jobs goal was to keep everything in a closed Apple feedback loop. Sell more devices, get richer. His MO has been well documented...he put consumer needs last in many cases.

That doesn’t make much sense. Piss off consumers so they buy more and make you rich. 

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

7 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

As are most of us. 

 

That doesn’t make much sense. Piss off consumers so they buy more and make you rich. 

Yes, we are all wrong. But Jobs had an insufferable smugness where he never thought he was wrong..

 

-Wrong about market demand for larger screens

-wrong about market demand for a file system, removable storage

-wrong about market demand for compatibility

-wrong about keeping ALAC closed

 

I could go on

 

i have read every book on jobs, and I have a relative who worked in the Apple inner circle for 15 years Jobs would call meetings and would tell his top staff "Consumers don't tell us what they want, WE tell them what they want"...He rejected many consumer friendly changes that were instituted after his death,

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

Just a reminder that in the corporate world there are no good guys...just like a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western..you just root for the less evil bad guy.  Even the supposed "White Hat" mega corps put profits and shareholders above human decency.

 

https://www.axios.com/apple-china-human-rights-privacy-violations-810dd6fa-bbbb-45d9-b855-f51783b69bee.html

[The Computer Audiophile]

43 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Yes, we are all wrong. But Jobs had an insufferable smugness where he never thought he was wrong..

 

-Wrong about market demand for larger screens

-wrong about market demand for a file system, removable storage

-wrong about market demand for compatibility

-wrong about keeping ALAC closed

 

I could go on

 

i have read every book on jobs, and I have a relative who worked in the Apple inner circle for 15 years Jobs would call meetings and would tell his top staff "Consumers don't tell us what they want, WE tell them what they want"...He rejected many consumer friendly changes that were instituted after his death,

 

4 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Just a reminder that in the corporate world there are no good guys...just like a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western..you just root for the less evil bad guy.  Even the supposed "White Hat" mega corps put profits and shareholders above human decency.

 

https://www.axios.com/apple-china-human-rights-privacy-violations-810dd6fa-bbbb-45d9-b855-f51783b69bee.html

 

I certainly hear you about all of it. Jobs had the reality distortion field and many other traits I don't consider good. His successes are legendary though.

[Ishmael Slapowitz]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

 

I certainly hear you about all of it. Jobs had the reality distortion field and many other traits I don't consider good. His successes are legendary though.

No doubt, he changed the landscape. His successes are virtually impossible to top. But he also had massive failures. Being booted out of the very company he founded for being childish and without even basic business acumen...visionaries are often this way, And he was a visionary.

[lucretius]

2 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

I was very curious how that new feature would work with MQA, for example would the presence of some MQA garbage HF content trick the software into calling it "hi-res" or not?

 

Can you try it with 24-bit MQA and see what happens?

I've tried it with some 24bit MQA files I had. Audirvana Studio reported "Confirmed HD recording".  ☹️

 

I bet that the software reports all 16bit files as "dubious HD""  but I cannot confirm this, since I refuse to continue using Audirvana Studio.

[vmartell22]

Regarding all the comments about Apple - indeed,  very often I don't like what they do, I don't like what they have turned into and definitely avoided them for  a long time. Up until recently, there was no Apple or Windows at Vic's office - that changed recently though; my kid went to college and I inherited the Mac Book Pro. That was actually the main catalyst to try Roon. But I digress.

 

It's obvious that Apple is no white hat cowboy to the rescue. BUT there are difference between that and the MQA effort.

 

Main is that Apple aims to establish not standards BUT market domination - most of the people I know will use ALAC not  because is being forced, but because Apple's size, market and mind share. They want to use Apple, regardless of disadvantages or doing so, or the advantages of not doing so. 

 

BUT - you can reject it.  Like I said, I did not use Apple. Even with its market dominance, I only started using their products because I wanted to.

 

They don't want the backlash that MQA generated. They also have no need to risk it. I hate it that they removed the audio jack and that everyone is following.   So big they don't care. All that obviously very NOT desirable.

 

The problem with MQA was that is a consumer rights eroding effort through the means of industry adoption. BAD. Then you add all the claims, the lossy issue and so on. In fact, I thought I did not care about MQA until I new of the existence of MQA CDs. That made me go, wow! they are also going after physical media. THEY WANT TO CONTROL EVERYTHING. That will not do.

 

v

[JoeWhip]

Long time Mac user. I never use ALAC, just WAV, FLAC and AIFF. Most of my files and all of my rips are AIFF, Apple’s version of WAV.

[WAM]

3 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

Long time Mac user. I never use ALAC, just WAV, FLAC and AIFF. Most of my files and all of my rips are AIFF, Apple’s version of WAV.

 

Moi aussi. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

21 minutes ago, vmartell22 said:

Regarding all the comments about Apple - indeed,  very often I don't like what they do, I don't like what they have turned into and definitely avoided them for  a long time. Up until recently, there was no Apple or Windows at Vic's office - that changed recently though; my kid went to college and I inherited the Mac Book Pro. That was actually the main catalyst to try Roon. But I digress.

 

It's obvious that Apple is no white hat cowboy to the rescue. BUT there are difference between that and the MQA effort.

 

Main is that Apple aims to establish not standards BUT market domination - most of the people I know will use ALAC not  because is being forced, but because Apple's size, market and mind share. They want to use Apple, regardless of disadvantages or doing so, or the advantages of not doing so. 

 

BUT - you can reject it.  Like I said, I did not use Apple. Even with its market dominance, I only started using their products because I wanted to.

 

They don't want the backlash that MQA generated. They also have no need to risk it. I hate it that they removed the audio jack and that everyone is following.   So big they don't care. All that obviously very NOT desirable.

 

The problem with MQA was that is a consumer rights eroding effort through the means of industry adoption. BAD. Then you add all the claims, the lossy issue and so on. In fact, I thought I did not care about MQA until I new of the existence of MQA CDs. That made me go, wow! they are also going after physical media. THEY WANT TO CONTROL EVERYTHING. That will not do.

 

v

Apple is the worst, except for all the others :~)