MQA is Vaporware

[Archimago]

On 9/29/2021 at 11:08 AM, bambadoo said:

Regarding distrokid.

 

 

 

This is retarded. Purposely handicapping 48kHz music when they full well could stream it bit-perfect. 

 

Interesting that they're characterizing Tidal as "most popular streaming service for audiophiles".

 

Don't know if true these days (or even ever since "audiophile" is rather vaguely defined). Ultimately the fate of mQa rests with the fate of Tidal. With this kind of nonsense I hope audiophiles make it very clear that in fact Tidal is NOT the favoured service unless major changes happen! That's probably the most powerful attack strategy if there is one these days against mQa.

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, Archimago said:

Don't know if true these days (or even ever since "audiophile" is rather vaguely defined). Ultimately the fate of mQa rests with the fate of Tidal. With this kind of nonsense I hope audiophiles make it very clear that in fact Tidal is NOT the favoured service unless major changes happen! That's probably the most powerful attack strategy if there is one these days against mQa.

 

IIRC, the labels (or maybe just Warner?) have been slipping some mQa files to Qobuz. They could make it the only format available for distribution to any streaming service.  I don't think Tidal is a big player here -- they just happen to be the pilot project.

[UkPhil]

2 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

IIRC, the labels (or maybe just Warner?) have been slipping some mQa files to Qobuz. They could make it the only format available for distribution to any streaming service.  I don't think Tidal is a big player here -- they just happen to be the pilot project.

This is mQa’s  only way through if the majors feed these files to other companies do we know which titles have been given out, the only ones I know are 2L with Morten being pro mQa?

[bogi]

9 hours ago, Archimago said:

This is retarded. Purposely handicapping 48kHz music when they full well could stream it bit-perfect.

The older MQA argument was that it preserves "crown jewels" owned by labels and thus allows to release hi-res content which otherwise wouldn't be  released.
But in this case there is no label to be protected and the author wishes to stream his original 48k content. The party profiting on this is MQA business pushing consumers to buy MQA enabled devices. The distrokid pages don't explain the author what will happen on Tidal.

[FredericV]

OMG comparing different DSD rates to upsampled PCM, and not realizing that MQA x4 or MQA x8 is just upsampling from 88.2K or 96K in the renderer.




 

[Cebolla]

Oh the irony - perhaps if the MQA renderer were renamed to 're-modulator', he'd finally see through MQA's 'explanation'.

[botrytis]

[JoeWhip]

1 hour ago, FredericV said:

OMG comparing different DSD rates to upsampled PCM, and not realizing that MQA x4 or MQA x8 is just upsampling from 88.2K or 96K in the renderer.




 

Sounds to me that it is Mr. Veth who is doing his own research.

[KeenObserver]

Is Veth that ill informed or are his followers that gullible?

 

Does critical thinking and independent thought  still exist or are the masses slaves to the screen in front of them?

 

MQA has spent seven years repeating the same BS, BS that has been picked apart and shown to be pure smoke and mirrors, and yet there are still followers.

 

Seems like the only way MQA will end is when Bob Stuart gathers all the believers together and they all drink the grape punch.

 

It is just incredible to me that people would accept crippled music.

[firedog]

3 hours ago, FredericV said:

OMG comparing different DSD rates to upsampled PCM, and not realizing that MQA x4 or MQA x8 is just upsampling from 88.2K or 96K in the renderer.




 

What did the "expert" with the "golden ears" think? How did he compare to MQA and find the MQA superior?

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

How did he compare to MQA and find the MQA superior?

 

Who cares?

[firedog]

52 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Who cares?

Heard of sarcasm?

[Rt66indierock]

Qobuz bought e-onkyo recently. I wonder if they will continue to offer MQA as a download format?

[Patrick Cleasby]

2 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Qobuz bought e-onkyo recently. I wonder if they will continue to offer MQA as a download format?

 

I would think it unlikely once it has been rebranded. Not believers.

[FredericV]

As a side (hobby) project, I recently started with software emulation of famous synths including the Roland Jupiter 8 and the Fairlight CMI (known for the T2 soundtrack, and the CMI has it's fair share of aliasing artefacts due to down pitching over several octaves), and I'm also looking into DAW software packages and VST plugins.



A long time ago I used the Amphion One 18 speakers for critical listening to an MQA DAC (a Mytek Brooklyn) and found it to strip certain raw qualities in female voices - which were present in the DXD files from 2L.no, but not in the MQA versions. These days my nearfield setup is based on the same speakers, but now with a Metrum Adagio DAC without the MQA module & a NAD eigentakt power amp (EISA winner). Diffusors as seen in the picture is a DIY test project based on a shape which cannot be crafted using traditional manufacturing.

Then looking around for what is available in the plugin / VST scene, when you google "MQA VST plugin" it seems there are NO plugins for music creators to hear the impact of the MQA encoding. There are tons of VST for every possible effect that music creators want to apply, but there is no MQA VST so how can a mastering engineer or music creator hear the different encoder settings in realtime?

Also a lot of 80's and 90's music was created on the Fairlight CMI, which has audible aliasing which is part of the specific sound signature of the machine. This effect is shown at 07:44 and can be heard in the official T2 soundtrack in many instances:
 

How will the sound of 90's instrument such as the CMI interact with a lossy format, which has it's own share of aliasing in the end-to-end process? It's remarkable that only the T1 soundtrack is in Master quality on Tidal, while I did not find the T2 one. Curious how MQA will handle tracks which already have audible aliasing as an effect.

Will it neutralize the existing aliasing? Will it make it worse? More research is needed ;)
But as we do not have a VST plugin, that research will be extremely hard.

And if someone tries to upload test signals with added samples of the fairlight CMI being played at a lower octave (which triggers the aliasing as shown in the above video) to distrokid, there's a risk the file will be taken down on Tidal. Those samples could be easily obtained from a redbook CD containing the T2 soundtrack.
 

[Josh Mound]

On 9/22/2021 at 1:21 PM, Pierre LeMonf said:

Forgive me, but after parsing through this thread, isn't the quote below pure merde?

 

 

"When music is playing, the EVO's screen displays, along with the album cover, the song and album titles, the artist's name, the stream resolution, the file format, the track's total and elapsed time, and—if the track is MQA—the MQA logo accompanied by either a green or a blue dot indicating whether that MQA recording is engineer- or artist-approved (blue, "MQA Studio"). If the dot is green, it means that the file being streamed is intact MQA, but it may not be the most recent or definitive version of the recording.

 

I got a kick out of seeing my first blue authentication dot. I thought: "This recording is the real deal!" It appeared on the 24/192 MQA version of John Coltrane's cover of "My Favorite Things" (Atlantic/Qobuz) which I heard after I'd heard that same track on a green-lighted 16/44.1 MQA mix."

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/cambridge-audio-evo-150-streaming-integrated-amplifier

How do I get them to include a golden dot for the versions I recommend in my TBVOs? 😂

[KeenObserver]

With Tidal having hitched its wagon to MQA, and vice-versa, one has to wonder how it is working out for the parties involved.

Has Tidal gained any market share since its recent acquisition?

Do they think that offering MQA is going to propel them into the mainstream ?

Does MQA think that Tidal is going to be their savior?

Does MQA see any possible chance of ever becoming a de-facto standard?

 

Having lost money since its inception, I am curious to see the financial postings for MQA Ltd at the end of the year.

I keep checking the financial posting of MQA Ltd to see if they have folded their tent and moved on to that place where bad ideas go to die.

[bambadoo]

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 hours ago, bambadoo said:

 

 

Good to see Doug talking truth. He makes a great point about mQa and comparisons. If the technology was really that good, mQa would've hired a few studio musicians (like Qobuz did for its Q Sessions), recorded using an A to D converter known to have issues, then ran the mQa process on the files. If mQa was good, consumers would've went crazy for it. Remember the SD vs HD comparisons back in the day when companies were promoting high definition TV? No talking or marketing was necessary, the comparison spoke for itself. 

 

Heck, I'd even enjoy mQa using the worst A to D known to man to make a recording, then run its process, and let us listen to before and after versions. That would at least be a starting point. 

 

However, white gloving and "juicing" the version used in a demo doesn't help anyone, unless that's standard operating procedure for all mQa material. 

[MikeyFresh]

20 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

However, white gloving and "juicing" the version used in a demo doesn't help anyone, unless that's standard operating procedure for all mQa material. 

Which of course it is not, their SOP is the sausage maker in the cloud. The white gloved juiced versions were simply the bait used for the switch.

[GregWormald]

The 'hiring own musicians' pathway is nonsense. Copyright allows the use of excerpts for review and the A-->B comparison seems to fit that well.

 

Besides if MQA isn't straight forward with its claims I wouldn't trust their own 'before' processing.

 

And while MQA (maybe) doesn't harm the music, it sure harms the wallets of all but MQA.

 

For me it comes down to the old saying "put up or shut up".

[Archimago]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Good to see Doug talking truth. He makes a great point about mQa and comparisons. If the technology was really that good, mQa would've hired a few studio musicians (like Qobuz did for its Q Sessions), recorded using an A to D converter known to have issues, then ran the mQa process on the files. If mQa was good, consumers would've went crazy for it. Remember the SD vs HD comparisons back in the day when companies were promoting high definition TV? No talking or marketing was necessary, the comparison spoke for itself. 

 

Heck, I'd even enjoy mQa using the worst A to D known to man to make a recording, then run its process, and let us listen to before and after versions. That would at least be a starting point. 

 

However, white gloving and "juicing" the version used in a demo doesn't help anyone, unless that's standard operating procedure for all mQa material. 

 

Yeah, Doug's a good guy. One of the few willing to call out BS when he sees it although we all have to be diplomatic in our ways of course...

 

We had a chat about mQa back in 2018 shortly after the article appeared here.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

Yeah, Doug's a good guy. One of the few willing to call out BS when he sees it although we all have to be diplomatic in our ways of course...

 

We had a chat about mQa back in 2018 shortly after the article appeared here.

 

You fellow Canadians :~)

[FredericV]

It's remarkable he is no longer ridiculing FLAC:



The lossy MQA and lossless FLAC versions are the same price.

https://www.highresaudio.com/en/album/view/9nx89c/pink-floyd-the-wall-2011-remastered-version

[Archimago]

31 minutes ago, FredericV said:

It's remarkable he is no longer ridiculing FLAC:



The lossy MQA and lossless FLAC versions are the same price.

https://www.highresaudio.com/en/album/view/9nx89c/pink-floyd-the-wall-2011-remastered-version

 

Hmmm, I wonder when lossy mQa will become cheaper than the lossless HD FLAC.

 

Only then do things really start to make sense and mQa is in its correct place. They might even want to spin this as saying "Since you spent extra money on the mQa DAC, let's reduce the price of your music!" ;-)

 

Here - I fixed the pricing tiers for them:

 

Maybe then they'll make a few bucks on mQa from those who still drink the Kool-Aid... And that's assuming mQa is at least the 24/48 data, not worse-than-CD quality 16/44.1 "MQA-CD" of course.