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MQA is Vaporware


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For a group that controls their music to the extent that Pink Floyd does, I find it appalling that they put an MQA version out. 

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18 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

If I had to guess, I'd say the band has no clue and the label was under contract with mQa to put out its entire catalog in mQa. 

The hi-rez is published under Pink Floyd Records.  As much as they both pontificate on the audio quality and the work they do to re-master, I find it difficult to believe that Mr. Gilmour or Mr. Waters do not have total control of the distribution.... But I have been wrong previously and will almost certainly be wrong at some point in the future.  And in the end I really do not know much about distribution...

 

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2 hours ago, ralphfcooke said:

Does this mean that we now ostensibly have two copies that come from the same master? If so can we now make technical comparisons and see what

differences there actually are?

Ostensibly. But that's one of the issues with MQA - it's so "authenticated" that you can't know what master it came from. No guarantee it's the same one. 

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4 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

If I had to guess, I'd say the band has no clue and the label was under contract with mQa to put out its entire catalog in mQa. 

This topic was one of my 'ignored topics', I can see it again now, have you removed this option?

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In a logical world, brand loyalty has a lot to do with how well a company delivers on it's basic, promises. Since mQa ltd. fails to deliver, I must conclude that mQA fans are irrational. Rabid fanboyism appears to be their defense mechanism.  I am left to wonder how far this irrationality has spilled over into other areas.

mQa is dead!

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2 hours ago, FredericV said:

What a big mess these double standards, and not even from the same master - but both MQA?

image.png.95bd527f7849182c1a563700dd395a4c.png

He shows a video where his MQA DAC is jumping in between samplerates within the same album ... probably this is what the artist intended, as the blue MQA dot is active 🤣

I wonder if the FLAC version also has different sample rates between the tracks from The Wall, which used to be one my favorite albums in the 90's. I even went to the Pink Floyd concert in Belgium, which had surround effects! They were years ahead. Used to be a big fan at the time.

Yes indeed:
https://www.prosoundnetwork.com/archives/pink-floyd-quad-concert-desks-to-be-auctioned

I believe the European release by Warners has effected both MQA and FLAC PCM the error is clearly noticeable on Qobuz and Amazon in the UK too, what a mess and a bit of embarrassment for such a high profile bands hi res releases. Dark Side Of The Moon allegedly has mixed sample rates too giving rise to bad segues when the DAC switches between them 

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1 hour ago, UkPhil said:

I believe the European release by Warners

This is a Warner release in Europe? I thought this was EMI/Harvest/Capitol worldwide ever since the rights that Sony/Columbia once held in various regions expired in 2000. The 1997 Sony remastering was then used by EMI until 2011, when the current reissue was remastered.

 

1 hour ago, UkPhil said:

both MQA and FLAC PCM the error is clearly noticeable on Qobuz and Amazon in the UK too, what a mess and a bit of embarrassment for such a high profile bands hi res releases.

I'm not seeing any of that on the Qobuz release in the U.S. That one plays absolutely perfectly at 24/96 with no hiccups or glitches. Additionally, these all show as Pink Floyd Records releases in the U.S.

 

My only real question there was why is The Wall at 24/96, when it seems the rest of the catalog was done at 24/192, and I'm not hearing that those are clearly just upsampled. Even if they were upsampled, the question would then be why they didn't also offer The Wall at an upsampled 24/192 as well.

 

Lastly, I see on the U.S. HDtracks download store as well as the U.S. Qobuz download store that The Wall is available only in 24/96 for hi-res download.

no-mqa-sm.jpg

Boycott HDtracks

Boycott Lenbrook

Boycott Warner Music Group

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Maybe the mission of mQa Corp. is to diminish sound quality, otherwise next releases of old recordings could not be better. They need something - either propaganda or sound quality improvement - that people buy the same content again.

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7 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

This is a Warner release in Europe? I thought this was EMI/Harvest/Capitol worldwide ever since the rights that Sony/Columbia once held in various regions expired in 2000. The 1997 Sony remastering was then used by EMI until 2011, when the current reissue was remastered.

 

I'm not seeing any of that on the Qobuz release in the U.S. That one plays absolutely perfectly at 24/96 with no hiccups or glitches. Additionally, these all show as Pink Floyd Records releases in the U.S.

 

My only real question there was why is The Wall at 24/96, when it seems the rest of the catalog was done at 24/192, and I'm not hearing that those are clearly just upsampled. Even if they were upsampled, the question would then be why they didn't also offer The Wall at an upsampled 24/192 as well.

 

Lastly, I see on the U.S. HDtracks download store as well as the U.S. Qobuz download store that The Wall is available only in 24/96 for hi-res download.

I believe Sony are distributing for other countries and I have been made aware that those versions are ok it seems it’s a Warner issue in Europe but Tidal seems to have got a clean version for all territories though which is the puzzling part 

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On 10/23/2021 at 7:59 AM, MikeyFresh said:

My only real question there was why is The Wall at 24/96, when it seems the rest of the catalog was done at 24/192, and I'm not hearing that those are clearly just upsampled. Even if they were upsampled, the question would then be why they didn't also offer The Wall at an upsampled 24/192 as well.

It's somewhat of a moot point, as anything off tapes isn't going to have any meaningful high-res content, and regardless, many, if not most ADCs output a lot of noise above 48 khz, ie: the 96 kHz file limit. 

On 11/3/2021 at 7:55 AM, Archimago said:

 

Yeah, for sure, just reading how Veth responds in threads like this from earlier this year:

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/comparison-of-pcm-and-mqa/149787/269

 

indicates this guy must be a company salesman. I mean, seriously, the way he talks about mQa and pulls out links to company papers, and speaks as if he's authoritatively in-the-know about the "3 folds and unfolds" I find hard to imagine to be comments coming out of the mouth of an independent audiophile!

 

Of course, he might just be highly delusional, but even delusional people are more believable ;-).

 

I'm thinking being an mQa salesman must be a rather lonely, meaningless, soul-destroying job these days. At least one can listen to music and watch videos "on the job", which is nice...

 

A quick search of LinkedIn shows that he is indeed, a sales manager.

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