MQA is Vaporware

[John_Atkinson]

1 minute ago, botrytis said:

Directed listening, no double blind. Sorry, but your assertion means squat.

 

In that case, doesn't that mean that all sighted listening is "squat."

1 minute ago, botrytis said:

I have done a blind listening at a dealer and I can say mQa sounds worse. Period.

 

And I wrote earlier in this thread that I organized a blind test of MQA that gave the opposite result, only to have other posters on this forum say that a single test doesn't mean anything. I assume they will point that out to you also.

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

[Iving]

3 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

less ambiguity in the spatial relationships between the performers and the surrounding acoustic with the MQA version

 

3 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

flies in the face of various other such tests, including the McGill study, which employed a much larger sample size.

 

2 hours ago, firedog said:

There's only one reason a properly setup listening test of MQA hasn't occured: MQA won't allow it.

 

37 minutes ago, firedog said:

Changing the sound of our source material is a non-trivial event.

 

8 minutes ago, botrytis said:

I have done a blind listening at a dealer and I can say mQa sounds worse. Period.

 

Lucey [Mastering Engineer]: “It’s distorted. Messes with eq and mid side balance”

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

Is Stereophile that desperate for clicks?

Yes, and thats nothing new based on the apparent fire sale that occurred, TEN dumped it to AVTech Media and I'd always thought at that time one of the reasons JA et al. were so adamantly promoting MQA was due to it's controversial aspect, which would drive clicks that might in turn prop up the sale value of the magazine.

[kumakuma]

47 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

And I wrote earlier in this thread that I organized a blind test of MQA that gave the opposite result, only to have other posters on this forum say that a single test doesn't mean anything.

 

Actually, I'll go even further.

 

Your test results have ZERO value to me as there is NO amount of sound quality improvement that would convince me to purchase music that is locked up in a lossy proprietary data format like this.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I wonder how things would’ve went if mQa said, “we worked with labels to get master tapes and make new white glove transfers of a handful of tracks. Listen and see what you think. For the other several million tracks we will just batch convert and you’ll likely lose access to original lossless content and the 16/44.1 will be worse than CD.”

[kumakuma]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I wonder how thing’s would’ve went if mQa said, “we worked with labels to get master tapes and make new white glove transfers of a handful of tracks. Listen and see what you think. For the other several million tracks we will just batch convert and you’ll likely lose access to original lossless content and the 16/44.1 will be worse than CD.”

 

You mean tell the truth?

 

BS and the boys don't roll that way...

[Archimago]

5 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

The context for my "birth of a new world" comment - I haven't written "paradigm shift" - was this, written 7 years ago: "In almost 40 years of attending audio press events, only rarely have I come away feeling that I was present at the birth of a new world. In March 1979, I visited the Philips Research Center in Eindhoven, Holland and heard a prototype of what was to be later called the Compact Disc. In the summer of 1982, I visited Ron Genereux and Bob Berkovitz at Acoustic Research's lab near Boston and heard a very early example of the application of DSP to the correction of room acoustic problems. And in early December, at Meridian's New York offices, I heard Bob Stuart describe the UK company's MQA technology, followed by a demonstration that blew my socks off."

 

See https://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa, where I concluded that "Judging by the recordings I heard in Manhattan, some dating back to the early 1950s, I feel the launch of Meridian's MQA is as important to the quality of sound recording and playback as digital was 40 years ago."

 

I thought it obvious that my comments were based on the sound quality of the demonstrations I experienced, and my views haven't changed as result of the further comparisons that I have performed. I recently arranged a blind comparison of one of my own recordings in original 24/88.2k form and the MQA-encoded version for a visiting engineer. His preference for the MQA version was the same as I had originally reported in 2016: that there was less ambiguity in the spatial relationships between the performers and the surrounding acoustic with the MQA version (See https://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-mqa.)

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

 

Thanks John for the response. I've certainly seen the other link over the years.

 

I bet at this point you must be a bit tired about the "birth of a new world" quote (as I said in my original post, the whole "paradigm shift" thing refers to Harley). Alas, this quote from the first sentence of the article does make for quite an impressionable "sound bite". I appreciate that time has passed and it's possible that you've modified your position since then.

 

So just to be really clear about your stance in 2021 so those of us discussing MQA today do not misrepresent how you currently feel, perhaps you can just respond with YES/NO/MAYBE to these questions... I trust this should not be too difficult and take only a few minutes out of your day. More nuanced responses of course would be appreciated given your experience (especially for "MAYBE" answers).

 

1. Do you still think in 2021 (seeing that streaming audio has expanded to include lossless Qobuz, Apple, Amazon, upcoming Spotify) that the MQA codec (generally limited to Tidal, with some MQA-CDs out there) is "the future of streaming" that audiophiles should pay special attention to?

 

2. You mentioned in the article that the 1982 visit to Acoustic Research allowed you to hear DSP correction of "room acoustic problems", right before being blown away by MQA (thus implying some connection). Do you believe MQA has DSP technology that improves room acoustics?

 

3. After seeing what is known about MQA now, are you still thinking "WTF", and just as impressed by what was revealed to you that day on a technical level?

 

4. In your "Correcting the Source" section, you said, and quoted Meridian:

Meridian describes this as "taking an original master further, toward the original performance, in an analogous way to the processes expert antique picture restorers use to clean the grime and discolored varnish from an Old Master to reveal the original color and vibrancy of the work."

 

Do you think that this is true? That the technology has the ability to take a hi-res "original master" and move it towards this concept of an "original performance"?

 

5. With hindsight then, would you still say that the "launch of Meridian's MQA is as important to the quality of sound recording and playback as digital was 40 years ago"?

 

As a respected member of the audiophile press, writing for decades, exploring the technical performance of all kinds of devices over your lifetime career, I think many of us would appreciate your candid assessment of MQA in light of what clearly was extremely positive testimony laid out in 2014. As far as I can tell, I don't believe you have since said anything to question those impressions in that article.

 

Thank you for your consideration to have hopefully an open discussion and clear up any confusion/misconceptions.

[KeenObserver]

10 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

You mean tell the truth?

 

BS and the boys don't roll that way...

 

Watch an old Professor Irwin Corey performance and then watch a BS performance.

[JoeWhip]

Gee, what processing was done to the file JA is talking about in his test? I am sure there are many folks here that can take a recording, play around with it to change the sound so that it sounds better subjectively.  I would need a detailed analysis of that file vs the non MQA file to even start to make any assessments.

[Archimago]

41 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

Gee, what processing was done to the file JA is talking about in his test? I am sure there are many folks here that can take a recording, play around with it to change the sound so that it sounds better subjectively.  I would need a detailed analysis of that file vs the non MQA file to even start to make any assessments.

 

It's a shame that mQa/BS did not take up Mark Waldrep's request to have his 24/96 samples converted for him to analyze. How convenient again that mQa thwarts attempts for open A/B comparisons by someone who might end up being critical!

 

One cannot but wonder why were John Atkinson and Peter McGrath the only folks well known among audiophile circles (as far as I am aware, leaving 2L out of this for a second), given the opportunity to have their recordings "treated" by mQa?

[JoeWhip]

Yes, I know Mark and we have talked about this. Perplexing.

[Confused]

14 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

What comes after quadrupling down?

Four times upsampling and a blue light.

[MarkusBarkus]

...this will help with SQ.

[Confused]

39 minutes ago, MarkusBarkus said:

...this will help with SQ.

It’s probably just as good as MQA for deblurring too

[The Computer Audiophile]

Interesting recent post from an engineer on Pearl Jam’s album Ten. Not related directly to mQa, but I couldn’t help but see his phrasing “make sure the record sounded exactly the way that it was intended.” This was back in 1991. 
 

Anyone want to put money on all the mQa batch processed albums having gone through this same double / triple check that they sound “exactly the way that it was intended?”

 

Not a chance. 
 

Even if people like mQa that’s fine, but it is the antithesis of high fidelity because it isn’t what the artist intended. It’s different. It’s changing history. 

 

 

[firedog]

40 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Anyone want to put money on all the mQa batch processed albums having gone through this same double / triple check that they sound “exactly the way that it was intended?”

Oh, Chris, you still don't get it: The MQA version is "better" than the master. It's the way the artists meant it to be, it's just that till MQA came along, every record sounded "smeared".....

[KeenObserver]

3 hours ago, firedog said:

Oh, Chris, you still don't get it: The MQA version is "better" than the master. It's the way the artists meant it to be, it's just that till MQA came along, every record sounded "smeared".....

 

And the new thing is symphony halls will have an MQA sound isolation system installed in front of the orchestra. The music will be processed through a real time MQA encoding system and then played to the hall. This will ensure that the music is played as the composer intended.

[botrytis]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

 

And the new thing is symphony halls will have an MQA sound isolation system installed in front of the orchestra. The music will be processed through a real time MQA encoding system and then played to the hall. This will ensure that the music is played as the composer intended.

 

I reacted as laughing because there was no emoji like this.....

 

[kumakuma]

2 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

I reacted as laughing because there was no emoji like this.....

 

 

For future use:

 

 

 

[botrytis]

17 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

For future use:

 

 

 

I need a hotkey for it, rather than searching when they mention mQa.

[wdw]

On 8/21/2021 at 11:40 AM, John_Atkinson said:

In that case, doesn't that mean that all sighted listening is "squat."

 

And I wrote earlier in this thread that I organized a blind test of MQA that gave the opposite result, only to have other posters on this forum say that a single test doesn't mean anything. I assume they will point that out to you also.

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

John,

have loved and followed your career since those great days of HiFi News and Record Review (name may be incorrect but hoping in the ballpark)….had to source from a newsmarket here in Canada (remember those glorious days of stores filled with every magazine, on every subject, and newspapers from around the globe…oh how I miss them) but this is a strange hill to chose to die on (ie: lose so much love and respect you have earned and so easily deserve)

in my case, as posted far earlier in this thread, my sweetie and I made a serious effort to hear MQA based on your and Harley’s accolades….went to a HiFi show in Vancouver, BC, where the Meridian/MQA guy, a bit too sniffy for my taste, refused to play any musical sample other than the one professed to be MQA.  Even after repeated requests from the audience.

even more extraordinarily he stated, when we were talking privately before his demo, that the bigger problem they, in their organization, had was to stop BS from just offering this to the public without concern for profit or cost…like some loaves and fishes shenanigan….why?

[Currawong]

On 8/21/2021 at 11:40 PM, John_Atkinson said:

I thought it obvious that my comments were based on the sound quality of the demonstrations I experienced, and my views haven't changed as result of the further comparisons that I have performed. I recently arranged a blind comparison of one of my own recordings in original 24/88.2k form and the MQA-encoded version for a visiting engineer. His preference for the MQA version was the same as I had originally reported in 2016: that there was less ambiguity in the spatial relationships between the performers and the surrounding acoustic with the MQA version (See https://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-mqa.)

 

John, recently I've had the opportunity to spend some time with a Chord DAVE and MScaler, a set-up that, if I recall correctly, you've experienced as well. What was apparent to me was that the effect of the MScaler was the opposite of what I had expected in that, instead of the instruments becoming more separate and individual in the acoustic space, you ended up with more of a sense of the actual space and how the sounds of instruments bounce off their surroundings, including the other instruments!

 

I have observed, like you, that MQA'ed versions of classical music tended to lower the amount of noise and bring clarity to the individual instruments. However, unlike you, I realise that this is actually unnatural and does not represent the reality of the acoustics of the venue. If anything, this processing -- a kind of sharpening of the acoustic image -- can seem impressive at first, but is no more real than applying sharpening to an actual image -- it more so alters it to be more like what you imagine is, or was, there.

 

However, the main issue with MQA processing is not so much what you, and other audio writers experienced when MQA was demonstrated to you, but how it compares to what is going on with the batch processing at TIDAL. How do you know that the average TIDAL user who listens to an MQA-processed album, is experiencing the same processing as you had done to the files you offered MQA?  The answer is: You don't.  In fact, it is clear from listening to a variety of processed music that the effect applied to different albums can change radically, and not for the better.

 

What is more, your "birth of a new world" comment has issue in that not only is the processing that MQA is doing to music likely to be nothing a great deal more than some clever DSP work (for which, there is no issue if declared as such) but the technical aspects they have claimed at various stages have are any of a: impossible, b: contradict other claims, or c: flat out untrue.  Is this "new world" one where the truth is whatever one imagines it to be, regardless of the reality?

[opus101]

5 hours ago, wdw said:

...the bigger problem they, in their organization, had was to stop BS from just offering this to the public without concern for profit or cost…

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_cop/bad_cop

[Archimago]

On 8/21/2021 at 12:52 PM, Archimago said:

 

Thanks John for the response. I've certainly seen the other link over the years.

 

I bet at this point you must be a bit tired about the "birth of a new world" quote (as I said in my original post, the whole "paradigm shift" thing refers to Harley). Alas, this quote from the first sentence of the article does make for quite an impressionable "sound bite". I appreciate that time has passed and it's possible that you've modified your position since then.

 

So just to be really clear about your stance in 2021 so those of us discussing MQA today do not misrepresent how you currently feel, perhaps you can just respond with YES/NO/MAYBE to these questions... I trust this should not be too difficult and take only a few minutes out of your day. More nuanced responses of course would be appreciated given your experience (especially for "MAYBE" answers).

 

1. Do you still think in 2021 (seeing that streaming audio has expanded to include lossless Qobuz, Apple, Amazon, upcoming Spotify) that the MQA codec (generally limited to Tidal, with some MQA-CDs out there) is "the future of streaming" that audiophiles should pay special attention to?

 

2. You mentioned in the article that the 1982 visit to Acoustic Research allowed you to hear DSP correction of "room acoustic problems", right before being blown away by MQA (thus implying some connection). Do you believe MQA has DSP technology that improves room acoustics?

 

3. After seeing what is known about MQA now, are you still thinking "WTF", and just as impressed by what was revealed to you that day on a technical level?

 

4. In your "Correcting the Source" section, you said, and quoted Meridian:

Meridian describes this as "taking an original master further, toward the original performance, in an analogous way to the processes expert antique picture restorers use to clean the grime and discolored varnish from an Old Master to reveal the original color and vibrancy of the work."

 

Do you think that this is true? That the technology has the ability to take a hi-res "original master" and move it towards this concept of an "original performance"?

 

5. With hindsight then, would you still say that the "launch of Meridian's MQA is as important to the quality of sound recording and playback as digital was 40 years ago"?

 

As a respected member of the audiophile press, writing for decades, exploring the technical performance of all kinds of devices over your lifetime career, I think many of us would appreciate your candid assessment of MQA in light of what clearly was extremely positive testimony laid out in 2014. As far as I can tell, I don't believe you have since said anything to question those impressions in that article.

 

Thank you for your consideration to have hopefully an open discussion and clear up any confusion/misconceptions.

 

Paging @John_Atkinson.

 

Since you're around here, mind answering a few basic questions on your stance on MQA these days and make sure there are no misunderstandings? Looks like there are a number of longtime readers here...

[KeenObserver]

Looking at the original rollout of MQA. it looks like it was intended to be an overwhelming media blitz designed to create an instant and overwhelming demand for the product. Unfortunately for MQA, people looked behind the curtain.

For this media blitz to happen, it would appear that there was coordination amongst all the parties involved.

The benefit to MQA is obvious.

The benefit to the studios is clear.

What was the benefit to the pundits that swooned over MQA?

Were promises made to them?

Was it a sense of power, that THEY had the power to dictate the future of music distribution?

 

This sudden coordinated rollout of MQA was not a coincidence. It was too well planned, with all the talking heads and influencers already having all the talking points in hand.