Another major look at MQA by another pro.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

45 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

 

I undestand your reserve and it would be helpful if you'd list up the questions you see unanswered or only partially answered. Thx!

Too many to list, and some may not be answerable.  The key goes to issues of credibility and the possibility of error or misinterpretation - on both sides, pro and con.  That key problem is not easily solved, in my view, in spite of claims made in this thread and others.

 

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

6 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Hi Fitzcarraldo,

 

This is one of the problems of the corporate press. You think you know a lot about Bob Stuart and Meridian, because of what the corporate press and Meridian brochures tell you. But what you really know about Meridian and Bob Stuart?

 

Thanks to the internet you can now access a lot of information on Meridian, including financial statements required by  UK law that are nearly as strict as what public companies in the US must publish. With a bit of detective work you can find out that Meridian has basically lost money in every single year of its existence. They almost went out of business in 1991, but BS is married to the heiress of a US publishing Empire and her family trust bailed them out. After continuing to lose money for many more years BS finally convinced Luxembourg-based luxury group conglomerate Richemont (Cartier, Dunhill, and so forth, worth about $10 billion) to purchase Meridian. The idea was to sell Meridian hi-fi to the super-rich. After a few more years of losing money, Richemont spun off all of their less profitable "luxury-tech" companies into a sub-corporation called Reinet Investments, S.C.A.(still worth about $2 billion on paper).

 

At this point the story becomes murkier, but it appears that Reinet pumped about $20 million into newly-formed  MQA. The paper deals started with MQA "purchasing" all of the technology from Meridian for around $14 million - apparently the only profitable year for Meridian. I put "purchasing" in quotes as Reinet owns both companies and Bob Stuart sits on the board of both companies, so the distinction is largely clerical.

 

As far as Bob Stuart, he is known to have misled his customers as noted in this early Stereophile review, "Meridian states in their literature that there are no ICs in the signal path of the modified unit. I traced the Meridian circuit with the Signetics linear data book in hand, and the Signetics 5534 op-amps are definitely in the signal path. And op-amps are quite definitely ICs. I have nothing against 5534s they are about the best op-amps around. I only mention their presence because it would seem to contradict one of Meridian's claims for the MCD."

 

Plus Meridian doesn't seem to know a lot about analog circuit design as DIY'er and reviewer George Graves was also able to significantly improve the sound of the Meridian MCD by replacing some coupling caps in the signal path: "From the moment that I saw those two tantalum electrolytics in the output, I wondered if they couldn't be the culprit; one Sunday afternoon I could stand the suspense no longer. I carefully bypassed the two tantalum capacitors, and connected the Meridian up to the outboard box containing the two 20µF polypropylene caps I use for my Magnavox. The Meridian's high end just opened up! The strings became sweet and effortless. The top became light and airy The darkness was gone. Curiously, the soundstage became deeper, while maintaining the extraordinary height and width noticed earlier. Now the Meridian lives up to its promise and is the best-sounding player I have ever heard."

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/meridian-mcd-mcd-pro-cd-players-george-m-graves-ii

 

To be frank, I am baffled at how the "MQA" paper passed the JAES review board. It is truly an embarrassment that should never habe been allowed to see the light of day in the form it was published.  http://www.aes.org/e-lib/download.cfm/17501.pdf?ID=17501

And the material put out to the general public is far, far worse. It was bad enough on the face of it, but now that mansr and soxr have done a lot of reverse engineering, it reveals complete outright lies in the published MQA material.

 

A lot of people heard of Bernie Madoff before, too. Do you remember the name of the guy(s?) who exposed him? Don't let fame (or lack thereof) interfere with facts.

 

Hope this helps,

Charles Hansen

I have no doubt, Charlie, that you have your detractors, too.  I do not believe that Bob Stuart = Bernie Madoff.  Taking that tack destroys the credibility of your tirade against him.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I have no doubt, Charlie, that you have your detractors, too.  I do not believe that Bob Stuart = Bernie Madoff.  Taking that tack destroys the credibility of your tirade against him.

 

I guess the difference is Bernie's Ponzi scheme operations used dot-matrix printers and computers from the 80s?

[mansr]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Very possible MQA will be the only thing available. 

And you don't seem to have a problem with that.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

And you don't seem to have a problem with that.

I'm just calling it like I see it. 

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I'm just calling it like I see it. 

You keep saying that, but that's not how I see it.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

You keep saying that, but that's not how I see it.

You think I am lying about this and not calling it like I see it?

[mansr]

15 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

You think I am lying about this and not calling it like I see it?

Maybe you need to look harder.

[mcgillroy]

Chris, is your opinion an informed guess based on the interpolation of the MQA debate so far or based on something else?

 

My intuition guess in the same direction as your take and if that is indeed is the case we will have a bleak situation to deal with.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Maybe you need to look harder.

 

I'll look harder after you provide facts that disprove my opinion. About artists signing contracts. You said I was naive and wrong but could provide zero facts. 

 

Your comments here are similar. Little snipes without any substance. 

 

You'd only be satisfied if I came out against the product. I'd rather provide fertile ground for discussion than stifle it with my opinion. 

 

 

37 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

Chris, is your opinion an informed guess based on the interpolation of the MQA debate so far or based on something else?

 

My intuition guess in the same direction as your take and if that is indeed is the case we will have a bleak situation to deal with.

 

 

My opinion is based on everything you read here and many personal discussions with people on all sides of this issue. 

 

I'm not saying I like where things are headed, just trying to provide facts and seek information. 

[mcgillroy]

The irony of the whole MQA-marketing debacle is that if they just would have sold the whole thing as "DRM you can live with while it gives you high-rez-streaming" they'd probably saved themselves a lot of trouble.

 

But getting on the stand, claiming "Shannon-Nyquist is wrong" and "btw. we are fixing temporal-blur (in the air)" and "no this DRM is not DRM" really was asking for having half the internet breathing down their neck.

 

That won't go away anymore and even though MQA might just be forced through by the major-labels this episode will have interesting mid- and long-term effects for the audio-industry and audio-press. The latter lost a lot of reputation, the former will have to come to terms with rent-seeking licensing schemes and probably begin to compete on that. MQA may only be the beginning and I am just waiting for somebody to merge this idea with the block chain.

 

 

[crenca]

39 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

MQA may only be the beginning and I am just waiting for somebody to merge this idea with the block chain.

 

 

 

Block chain?  You mean as a way to distribute strong crypto protected files that contain music?

[The Computer Audiophile]

I've been watching this one

 

Blockchain Music - http://dotblockchainmusic.com

[crenca]

7 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I've been watching this one

 

Blockchain Music - http://dotblockchainmusic.com

 

Thanks!  What's the 30 second sale?  "Rights management" and format together = DRM no?

[Fokus]

9 hours ago, mcgillroy said:

The irony of the whole MQA-marketing debacle is that if they just would have sold the whole thing as "DRM you can live with while it gives you high-rez-streaming" they'd probably saved themselves a lot of trouble.

 

That. And open-sourcing (at least the unfolding part of) the decoder, so that by now just about every software-based player (PC, Mac, RPi/Cubox/..., LMS, phone apps, ...) could do something with the embedded data and send it through DSP. Less people antagonised. Less landfill.

 

Like I said two years ago, with such a scenario they would have had a chance. But of course they would also have had to find less obvious ways for making much money out of it. I suppose.

[Charles Hansen]

On 9/1/2017 at 6:49 AM, mav52 said:

Maybe mansr and soxr will be MQA version of Harry Markopolos.   In the end, the truth did come out.  But it amazes me how the big recording labels can get duped into this and DAC makers give up their souls to promote MQA. 

 

Hi Mav,

 

Nobody is duping the labels - they can do that all by themselves far too easily. The reason the labels are supporting MQA is because it sneaks in DRM ("copy protection").

If MQA is successful, the labels think they will have "won" because all you will be able to buy is MQA and vinyl - both impossible to pirate.

 

Time will tell if they have actually "won" or simply made themselves completely and utterly obsolete as artists sell open-source music directly to their fans (think Bandcamp).

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

On 9/1/2017 at 3:34 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

I'm not saying I like where things are headed, just trying to provide facts and seek information. 

 

Hi Chris,

 

And I (for one) am going to call you out on this. You act as if you are just an observer with no power to influence the situation. That is wrong and you know it.

 

The only reason that MQA has any traction at all is because of TAS and Stereophile. So it is clear that the press has in impact in the way the market moves.

 

And if you truly don't like the way the market is headed, be a man and stand up and tell the truth. MQA is a scam, pure and simple. Any real sonic benefits it provides can easily be provided with a free, open source digital filter. Any sonic benefits beyond that are just cheating by MQA, either by using different masters, or by re-mixing, re-EQing, and compensating for the known microphone problems of the files supplied by John Atkinson and Peter McGrath.

 

All that leaves is a reduction in file size due to lossy compression, which is also a complete fraud, as Jim LeSurf has already pointed out that a standard FLAC in 96/18 is both smaller than MQA and more audio data (= information = resolution).

 

The thing that Bob Stuart keeps lying about is DRM. Now that doesn't surprise me as he is known to be a liar and you can never trust a liar. But somebody needs to call him out on this.

 

As you have seen on this thread (and many others) people like Fitzcarraldo think I am just trying to sell my own equipment and they don't trust any manufacturer (although for some unknown reason he trusts Bob Stuart - LOL!). But they will trust you, as they generally believe the magazines are unbiased. I think it's time for you to man up and stand up.

 

Thanks,

Charles Hansen

[Charles Hansen]

16 hours ago, Fokus said:

Like I said two years ago, with such a scenario they would have had a chance. But of course they would also have had to find less obvious ways for making much money out of it. I suppose.

 

Hi Fokus -

 

It seems to me that the one desperate to make money is Bob Stuart. You can look at all the financials for both Meridian and MQA courtesy of the Queen's government:

 

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09123512/persons-with-significant-control

 

You can spend a few hours poking around there and learn that:

 

1) The only time Meridian made a profit is when MQA paid them $14 million for the rights to the technology.

 

2) Reinet Investments owns both Meridian and MQA, and Bob Stuart is on the board of both, so any distinction between the two is largely just a matter of paperwork.

 

3) Bob's rich heiress wife's family bailed out Meridian from bankruptcy in 1991.

 

4) The wife's family apparently got tired of losing money for the next 20 years and Bob talked the Luxembourg-based  Richemont group (Cartier, Dunhill, etc, worth $10 billion) into buying Meridian.

 

5) After continuing to lose money the Richemont group spun off the less-profitable tech-luxury portfolio as Reinet Investments.

 

My guess is that dealing with Richemont is a lot like dealing with the Mafia. Reinet gave Bob his (likely final) $20 million to make a go with MQA. For Bob it's likely do-or-die (literally), so he is pulling out all the stops. While nominally he has a $2 billion company behind him, I think they are pretty tired of flushing money down the toilet, tens of millions at a time. This is likely his last chance. You can learn more about Richemont and Reinet on Wikipedia.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen

[Ralf11]

personal attacks on Bob Stuart are beyond the pale

[Charles Hansen]

39 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

personal attacks on Bob Stuart are beyond the pale

 

Hi Ralf,

 

Thanks for showing us your double standard. You recently made a post mocking someone's name and insulting them personally:

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/?do=findComment&comment=713635

 

I would classify that as a "personal attack", yet you are happy to do so and apparently pleased with your "cleverness".

Yet when I post facts that are verifiable and join dots with words such as "likely", you act as if I slapped Bob Stuart in the face and insulted his ancestry.

 

Whatever,

Charles Hansen

[Ralf11]

typos are not equal to personal attack, chucko

 

you have really made me avoid ayre products too

[firedog]

Just now, Ralf11 said:

typos are not equal to personal attack, chucko

 

you have really made me avoid ayre products too

You really are trying to back out of this by saying lasagna was a typo for lavorgna?

Not buying it. It's a insult that ML has probably been hearing since he was 5 years old and has been used at this forum before.

At least have the "internet anonymous"  courage to either stand behind your words or apologize.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Hi Chris,

 

And I (for one) am going to call you out on this. You act as if you are just an observer with no power to influence the situation. That is wrong and you know it.

 

The only reason that MQA has any traction at all is because of TAS and Stereophile. So it is clear that the press has in impact in the way the market moves.

 

And if you truly don't like the way the market is headed, be a man and stand up and tell the truth. MQA is a scam, pure and simple. Any real sonic benefits it provides can easily be provided with a free, open source digital filter. Any sonic benefits beyond that are just cheating by MQA, either by using different masters, or by re-mixing, re-EQing, and compensating for the known microphone problems of the files supplied by John Atkinson and Peter McGrath.

 

All that leaves is a reduction in file size due to lossy compression, which is also a complete fraud, as Jim LeSurf has already pointed out that a standard FLAC in 96/18 is both smaller than MQA and more audio data (= information = resolution).

 

The thing that Bob Stuart keeps lying about is DRM. Now that doesn't surprise me as he is known to be a liar and you can never trust a liar. But somebody needs to call him out on this.

 

As you have seen on this thread (and many others) people like Fitzcarraldo think I am just trying to sell my own equipment and they don't trust any manufacturer (although for some unknown reason he trusts Bob Stuart - LOL!). But they will trust you, as they generally believe the magazines are unbiased. I think it's time for you to man up and stand up.

 

Thanks,

Charles Hansen

 

Hi Charles - Interesting comments. I obviously see things differently, but that's ok. 

 

The thing for me is this, just because I can be influential, doesn't mean I think it's appropriate to use this influence with respect to MQA. I've though about it many times, but it just doesn't feel right. 

 

I do my best to provide an unedited platform for people to talk about MQA. 

 

I think a small part of my hesitation also comes from the media bias found everywhere today. I wish CNN, Fox News, and the NY Times just reported the news, rather than gave us such a slanted view of the world. I loved Vice when it was first on HBO years ago, but even that is getting to me. Media outlets making news and being influential, doesn't impress me. 

 

Bringing this back around, to audio, I see small similarities with the MQA situation that I saw when DSD was making a big push a few years ago. I talked to countless manufacturers who said DSD sucks and frequently talked negatively about it. I was lobbied to come out against it. I chose to seek more information and provide a forum for people to talk about it and for users to provide feedback. It turns out, tons of people love DSD and many are oversampling to DSD to work around DAC chip / filter implementations.

 

Had I railed against DSD years ago, what good would have come of it? Had I supported it, what good would've come from that? 

 

All things, including MQA, are temporary if given enough time. MQA is a solution looking for a problem. I said this to Bob years ago, on video, while moderating a panel at RMAF. Its success or failure has absolutely nothing to do with the HiFi market. It's all about the record labels. Sure Bob has been all over the HiFi market pushing it to gain some traction, but that's his comfort zone. Nobody would know him if he pushed MQA at Coachella. 

 

If the labels want to sell / stream MQA, they'll do it no matter what anyone says. They hold the cards. Streaming services are just a conduit to the consumer. If the big labels tell Spotify, no more "standard" streams. It's MQA or nothing. What is Spotify going to do? They can invent their way out of it. Nobody wants to stream Sort of Blue, when they can get the original Kind of Blue. Plus, nobody is going back to pirating. 

 

I'm in this for the long haul. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I'm here for the CA Community, they aren't here for me. 

[wushuliu]

Hate to go there but factoring Hansen's viewpoint and the facts as we know them, I see a lot of parallels in other areas the world is dealing with right now in terms of privacy and security vulnerabilities. Do we really need another piece of proprietary software that tracks and 'validates' for DRM purposes via who knows what means? Software that isn't even the most effective for its purpose and basically unnecessary as a lossy format?

 

No matter which way you turn there's something about the MQA narrative that doesn't add up. Even the Tidal association is suspect given Tidal's money troubles and four (FOUR) CEOs. It will probably be bought outright by a Telecom soon. Do the math.

[Charles Hansen]

39 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi Charles - Interesting comments. I obviously see things differently, but that's ok.

 

Hi Chris,

 

Thanks very much for engaging. I am completely sincere about this. I understand where you are coming from but still disagree that (at least collectively) your voice matters and can make a difference.

 

To dig in a little deeper, let's touch on the DSD thing. Because one thing that is true about DSD is that a DSD transfer of an analog recording will sound better than a PCM transfer of the same recording even at 192kHz.* The reason is very simple. There are no anti-aliasing filters in a DSD A/D converter and the only filtering needed for playback is a third-order (ie, relatively gentle) analog filter.

 

DSD has been a wonderfully instructive tool for showing us all the sonic damage caused by the brickwall filters typically used in PCM recordings. After all, that is the entire premise of MQA's claims for being able to "improve" the sound of the original recordings.

 

The reason that DSD will always be a commercial failure is as Bruno Putzeys (one of the Philips engineers who helped develop DSD) says, "DSD is phenomenally clumsy as a recording format". So it was a reasonable distribution format for the digitization of already-existing analog recordings, but it required all brand-new hardware for the labels, the studios, and the consumers, and was impossible to back up (at least for 99.9% of the users who are not computer experts).

 

And DSD was actually a new format. MQA is not. It is just PCM. The parallels between DSD and MQA are practically non-existent. A much better example to use than DSD is HDCD. There the parallels are much more clear. You can read about that story here:

 

https://www.audioasylum.com/audio/digital/messages/18/184385.html

 

Again, it was the audiophile press that "made" HDCD successful (to whatever degree one calls it successful). The parallels between HDCD and MQA are almost eerie. If HDCD had been as successful as Pacific Microsonics had wanted, they would all be billionaires (it only takes a few pennies per disc), and we would be stuck in a locked-down, closed system where the only innovations could come from Pacific Microsonics (and Keith Johnson).

 

Do you really want to live in a world where every digital player has digital filters designed by Bob Stuart?

 

Do you really want to live in a world where every digital player pays royalties to Bob Stuart?

 

Do you really want to live in a world where there are no more unencrypted digital files, and no legal way to back up the music you bought?

 

Do you really want to live in a world where you can't buy music any more (except in vinyl for $30 a pop) but only rent it?

 

If you just want to sit back and watch this happen, and "observe" or "report on it", that is up to you.

 

I refuse.

 

I will do everything I can to stop this madness of deception and lies. As Benjamin Franklin said, " Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

 

You have a voice. Use it. You can make a difference.

 

Cheers,

Charles Hansen