Another major look at MQA by another pro.

[Charles Hansen]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

I was about to say you could ask Gordon, but I imagine there’s an NDA in place.

 

Yes, I'm sure that there are NDAs in place, with ESS , MQA, and AudioQuest. I'm not sure what the point would be. We know that is one of two techniques. If I had to bet, I would bet that even the low-cost new ESS DAC chips have programmable filters, and that the MicroChip just sends the coefficients to the DAC chip. But Gordon is also a master programmer - if anybody could get the MicroChip to do the work of handling the asynchronous USB at the same time it was using the built in MAC to filter the data, it would be Gordon. Either way doesn't change what we know about MQA, how it works, and so forth.

 

At this point the main question (in my mind at least) are why the record labels signed up for MQA. My fear is that as MQA is basically a way to sneak in DRM that they are planning to either pull the plug completely on physical media and high-res downloads (as they did with the LP in 1989, despite LP having an equal market share with both CD and cassette), or else raising the price to astronomical levels. Think about it - in 1989 when they discontinued the LP it retailed for $7.99 and sold in massive volumes. Now it is just a niche market but they can sell it for $30 a pop - basically 4x the price it used to go for. (Back then CD's retailed in the US for $16 or $17 - now they are typically around half that price.)

[Charles Hansen]

7 minutes ago, mansr said:

The datasheet I have talks about a "normal" IIR filter setting and recommends using this with PCM input. It is possible that this gives an even higher bandwidth if used with high-rate PCM.

 

 

You can't compare things like that. Firstly, the MAC unit in the MIPS CPU can issue an operation only every two cycles. On top of this, instructions are spent moving data between memory and registers. This multiplies the instruction count by at least 2, probably more, with a typical compiler, and that's just for the filter core. Then there's some overhead in loop control etc, and we're still talking only about the filter itself. The CPU also has to handle the control bitstream parsing and (don't ask me why) dithering of the requested bit depth, which involves another, albeit shorter, filter for noise shaping. Doing all this on a 50 MHz microcontroller just doesn't seem likely. I hate to say believe me, but I have a lot of experience optimising similar algorithms for various CPUs. I know what I'm taking about.

Hi Mansr,

 

Yes, from reading the datasheet it is possible that "normal" has a higher bandwidth than 70kHz, but I have played around with the chip and know that is not the case. As you correctly note, ESS (like every DAC chip manufacturer I know of) only shows the theoretical response of the digital interpolation filters as a sub-system, and never the complete response of the complete chip with the modulators and current sources (or switched-capacitor filters).

Regarding the MicroChip, you have convinced me. Before I was fairly certain that even the new low-priced ESS parts had programmable filters, but after reading your detailed description, I am completely convinced. (I also doubt that AudioQuest are using a faster part than the advertised 50 MHz.)

 

Thanks!

[kumakuma]

39 minutes ago, Charles Hansen said:

At this point the main question (in my mind at least) are why the record labels signed up for MQA. My fear is that as MQA is basically a way to sneak in DRM that they are planning to either pull the plug completely on physical media and high-res downloads (as they did with the LP in 1989, despite LP having an equal market share with both CD and cassette), or else raising the price to astronomical levels. Think about it - in 1989 when they discontinued the LP it retailed for $7.99 and sold in massive volumes. Now it is just a niche market but they can sell it for $30 a pop - basically 4x the price it used to go for. (Back then CD's retailed in the US for $16 or $17 - now they are typically around half that price.)

 

I agree. This is the only explanation that makes any sense. 

[Charles Hansen]

30 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I agree. This is the only explanation that makes any sense. 

 

It is the best explanation I can come up with, and it scares me quite a bit. I come from the "boomer" generation, and we are used to buying and owning things that we care about - whether it is music, cars, or houses. In contrast the millennials have been so squeezed by the actions of the big banks (and the complicity of the US government) that if they have any money, it is all being used to pay off their college debts.

 

Millennials are used to renting everything - places to live, leases on cars, renting their phones (as part of a service subscription) and renting music (by way of streaming). I don't mind renting movies (either at the theater or online through streaming) or books (for free at the library) because I very rarely want to watch any given movie or book more than once. (I own about 100 books that are meaningful to me.) But for me music is different - I listen to my favorite music anywhere from 10 times to 1000 times or more. One of the problems with renting music is there is no guarantee that the prices will remain low.

 

If the labels pull the plug on physical media, there is no limit to how much they will charge - and I would be very surprised if the streaming rates didn't rise soon after. Look at how much people pay for their cable TV bill these days compared to 20 years ago - I would guess that the average bill had doubled. And that ignores the extra money that MQA is tacking on at each step of the way. I may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean that they aren't out to get me... 

[Charles Hansen]

Adding on to the previous post, I think this is one of the reasons that people get worked up about MQA. If my fears are realized, then to the degree that anybody participates with MQA - manufacturers, magazines, streaming services, and customers - increases its chance of success, along with the likelihood that digital physical media will disappear.

 

I just read that Sony is investing many millions of dollars to build new LP pressing plants in Japan. It appears that they are happy to sell analog physical media - for $30 a pop and that cannot be easily duplicated.

[mansr]

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

Yes, I'm sure that there are NDAs in place, with ESS , MQA, and AudioQuest. I'm not sure what the point would be. We know that is one of two techniques. If I had to bet, I would bet that even the low-cost new ESS DAC chips have programmable filters, and that the MicroChip just sends the coefficients to the DAC chip.

There is some indirect evidence pointing that way which I've been meaning to write about. Maybe tomorrow...

 

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

But Gordon is also a master programmer - if anybody could get the MicroChip to do the work of handling the asynchronous USB at the same time it was using the built in MAC to filter the data, it would be Gordon.

Gordon has demonstrated a remarkable ignorance regarding the internal workings of MQA. I doubt he's been anywhere near the source code of the MQA processing.

[Don Hills]

28 minutes ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

... One of the problems with renting music is there is no guarantee that the prices will remain low. ...

 

Worse, there is no guarantee that the music will remain available at all.

[Charles Hansen]

39 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

Worse, there is no guarantee that the music will remain available at all.

 

True, I hadn't even thought of that. We like to think that an Apple would be around "forever". But what about a Tidal or a Spotify - that to the best of my knowledge has never made a profit? I guess if one service goes out of business, there will presumably be another one to take its place. But it's a hassle changing services that may not offer you the things your old provider offered. (Like with Apple streaming, anything you upload to their "cloud", regardless of resolution can be replaced - at their discretion - with 256kb/s AAC files.)

 

When Ayre was founded in 1993 the statistics were that only half of all start-up companies made it to 5 years. The average lifespan back then was (I believe) around 25 years. I read somewhere recently that the average lifespan for a company is down to 12 years.

[rickca]

1 hour ago, Charles Hansen said:

If my fears are realized, then to the degree that anybody participates with MQA - manufacturers, magazines, streaming services, and customers - increases its chance of success, along with the likelihood that digital physical media will disappear.

So what is Ayre's current position regarding MQA support on your products?

[firedog]

And the above posts are why even though I use Tidal extensively, I still buy albums (either disc or download) that I know I am going to listen to repeatedly. That way, if only MQA versions are available or if Tidal disappears, I will still have copies of music that I have more than a passing interest in and will be able to listen to it as I please. 

[soxr]

7 hours ago, firedog said:

And the above posts are why even though I use Tidal extensively, I still buy albums (either disc or download) that I know I am going to listen to repeatedly. That way, if only MQA versions are available or if Tidal disappears, I will still have copies of music that I have more than a passing interest in and will be able to listen to it as I please. 

 

This is the real problem. They want to make everything cloud based, so you no longer own a copy that you can play offline, but instead license you the copy via streaming. They can pull the plug at any time. Albums can disappear. Streaming providers can disappear. They can change albums from one encoding format to another without notice.

I recently saw this happen with LMS + Spotify. Spotify decided no longer to support LMS. So this is proof providers can pull the plug at any time and revoke your rights.

At the same time they now have protection against piracy as you don't have access to the real studiomaster.

I see the same with Tidal. Tidal has all their content in 2 flavors: encrypted and non-encrypted. As a former network engineer HTTP has no secrets for me. They could kill one of both.

MQA is not any better: having a file with encrypted and non-encrypted data combined.

Banks and governments have their war on cash, for streaming we have MQA.
The war on our well known lossless formats (including the real studiomasters the engineer worked on) to be replaced by a DRM scheme that includes strong crypto.
 

[foodfiend]

I certainly hope that we do not get forced into a subscription service as the only way to "consume" recorded music, although I believe that the major record labels are trying to change their financial model, as well as our views on the listening to music.

 

Subscription services can easily make changes to the music without prior consultation. Examples of this, include when recording artistes decided to pull their music from a particular streaming service. Also, services can easily insert DRM into the mechanism of streaming and playback, since the consumer no longer owns any copy of the music, but only the right to access the music.

 

While music streaming subscriptions may seem a space saving idea, I hate the idea that not only do you not own anything once the subscription ends, I also hate the idea that you have no control over the music (and its quality). I also do not like the idea of streaming when one goes travelling, when data costs can become exorbitant. Worse, there are many places without Internet or Mobile Cellular access.

[mcgillroy]

On 8/6/2017 at 3:56 AM, Charles Hansen said:

 

True, I hadn't even thought of that. We like to think that an Apple would be around "forever". But what about a Tidal or a Spotify - that to the best of my knowledge has never made a profit? I guess if one service goes out of business, there will presumably be another one to take its place. But it's a hassle changing services that may not offer you the things your old provider offered. (Like with Apple streaming, anything you upload to their "cloud", regardless of resolution can be replaced - at their discretion - with 256kb/s AAC files.)

 

 

My working hypothesis on MQA is that the major-labels view it as a hedge against Apple, Amazon and other tech-giants. They missed the boat with Napster in 2001 and for the following decade Apple made huge profits with a music only device: the iPod.

 

During this decade the majors were at Apples mercy and they were not happy with the iTunes pricing model nor with the fact that Apple grew while the music market shrunk.

 

These days both Apple and Amazon have streaming services and sell music hardware.

 

With Alexa/Echo Amazon became the biggest speaker company of the world.

 

Apple has the iPhone + the gigantic ecosystem of headphones, speakers and streamers attached. Last not least they payed 3 billion (!) to acquire Beats which certainly turned some heads in the music industry. They didn't only acquire a headphone company, they acquired Dr. Dre, a major Hip-Hop artist and producer as well as Jimmy Iovine, former chairman of the Interscope major label. They now have Apple Music and are approaching 30 million subscribers.

 

Apple thus combines capacity for music production, distribution and consumption under one roof. Amazon has done similar for the TV-series market and could easily copy this recipe to their music-division.

 

But unlike TV-Series which are watched once or maybe twice music gets consumed over and over again. And herein lies the big asset the majors have: they own the important catalogs with the all-time favorite artists and without them Apples & Amazons services are worthless. 
 

These catalogs + MQAs DRM could prove potent to get additional revenue from the tech-industry into the majors accounts.

 

MQA offers at least two potential instruments to tap into the revenue streams of Apple, Amazon or any other tech-company. Firstly they would need to obtain a MQA license for any hard- or software instance that plays MQA, secondly they could require royalties for any piece of MQA music played. They could also price discriminate against level of audio quality.

 

Audiophiles are just the beta-testers for the stealth-DRM of MQA. It's a small market, easily influenced by marketing and served by a variety of small and fragmented hardware-makers. None of the audiophile-hardware companies is big enough to be a threat for the majors - rather the opposite. If the majors go behind this they will have no choice.

 

In the Audiophile market MQA can implement their format and see how it scales,  learn lessons about marketing and get a handle on consumption metrics. In the big pictures audiophiles are small change - the real money is in tech versus majors.

 

My prediction though is that Apple and Amazon will never let MQA into their ecosystems. They will buy out big artists and their catalogs if they must and they might even start high-rez-tiers in their streaming services - with their own DRMed formats...

[lucretius]

45 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

 

My working hypothesis on MQA ...

 

Interesting analysis!

[crenca]

2 hours ago, mcgillroy said:

My prediction though is that Apple and Amazon will never let MQA into their ecosystems. They will buy out big artists and their catalogs if they must and they might even start high-rez-tiers in their streaming services - with their own DRMed formats...

 

Yep.

 

One advantage MQA gives us audiophiles is a chance to learn about DRM, as it has been apparent to me that even most don't really understand what DRM is all about or the market conditions in our digital world that lead to its acceptance...

[PeterSt]

38 minutes ago, crenca said:

One advantage MQA gives us audiophiles is a chance to learn about DRM, as it has been apparent

 

I, for one, am curious how DRM could be hurtful to us, in the land of streaming.

[crenca]

Just now, PeterSt said:

 

I, for one, am curious how DRM could be hurtful to us, in the land of streaming.

 

Control.  It is hard to predict, but manufactures and "rights owners" are nothing but jealous of your rights to your own behavior.  In the car industry, manufactures attempted to shut down the independent mechanic by claiming that since the software in the vehicles is copyrighted only they and their approved dealers have the right to fix a modern car (on which you can't do anything significant anymore without touching the software/digital).  Thankfully, a court here in the U.S. ruled against that.

 

Perhaps they will limit playback to "approved" devices (which would never include Linux), or perhaps they will demand certain things (like advertisements) such that you can not listen to music without it.  Who knows, but you can be sure they will try...

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

I, for one, am curious how DRM could be hurtful to us, in the land of streaming.

It depends on where it is applied. If confined to the data transfer between the server and streaming client, it's not so big a deal. This is how all streaming services already work. Things get ugly when DRM extends beyond the DAC input since this takes away our ability to apply digital processing to the audio. This is how MQA wants it to be.

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 hours ago, mcgillroy said:

My prediction though is that Apple and Amazon will never let MQA into their ecosystems. They will buy out big artists and their catalogs if they must and they might even start high-rez-tiers in their streaming services - with their own DRMed formats...

 

I have a different take on this.

 

Remember when Steve Jobs wrote that open letter to record labels to get rid of DRM and allow Apple to sell DRM-free downloads?

 

It was because Apple is only an outlet that sells these "goods." It can't dictate when products are offered it for sale, especially with download sales dwindling.

 

The record labels have all the power. If they say it's MQA or the highway, Apple, Spotify, Pandora, etc... will all have to bow down or close up shop. It's not like Apple can invent its way out of this predicament. It can't create Sort of Blue to compete with Kind of Blue. 

 

I hope it doesn't come to this, but I believe it could if the record labels want it to. 

 

 

 

[andifor]

15 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

I, for one, am curious how DRM could be hurtful to us, in the land of streaming.

 

Not streaming related, but books and DRM: Amazon deleted and removed some already downloaded books from customers book readers (sorry, only a German source: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Amazon-zahlt-150-000-US-Dollar-wegen-Loeschung-von-E-Books-807776.html)

 

DRM could stop us listening to the music we bought (again, not streaming related, but not all of us are in the streaming business).

[kumakuma]

6 minutes ago, andifor said:

 

Not streaming related, but books and DRM: Amazon deleted and removed some already downloaded books from customers book readers (sorry, only a German source: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Amazon-zahlt-150-000-US-Dollar-wegen-Loeschung-von-E-Books-807776.html)

 

DRM could stop us listening to the music we bought (again, not streaming related, but not all of us are in the streaming business).

 

The first thing I do after purchasing an ebook from Amazon is download it, strip out the DRM, and then add it to my Kindle via USB. Once the DRM has been removed, I can do what I want with it including reading on my desktop or converting to epub format for viewing on my iPad or my Sony ebook reader.

 

I want the same freedom with the music I purchase.

[crenca]

2 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

The first thing I do after purchasing an ebook from Amazon is download it, strip out the DRM, and then add it to my Kindle via USB. Once the DRM has been removed, I can do what I want with it including reading on my desktop or converting to epub format for viewing on my iPad or my Sony ebook reader.

 

I want the same freedom with the music I purchase.

 

And this DRM is all Amazon's doing - the author's are not demanding this in any way and don't benefit from it.

 

This is why Chris's take on DRM and the label's being the only one with motivation and power to implement it in our musical digital world is not the whole story in my opinion.  Other players (Amazon included) have proven themselves to be attracted to it as well...

[mcgillroy]

41 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I have a different take on this.

 

Remember when Steve Jobs wrote that open letter to record labels to get rid of DRM and allow Apple to sell DRM-free downloads?

 

It was because Apple is only an outlet that sells these "goods." It can't dictate when products are offered it for sale, especially with download sales dwindling.

 

The record labels have all the power. If they say it's MQA or the highway, Apple, Spotify, Pandora, etc... will all have to bow down or close up shop. It's not like Apple can invent its way out of this predicament. It can't create Sort of Blue to compete with Kind of Blue. 

 

I hope it doesn't come to this, but I believe it could if the record labels want it to. 

 

 

 

No disagreement here on the importance of the catalogs and their control being in the hands of the majors. But Apple has $250 billion in the bank, not sure about Amazon but if they need money the capital market throws it at them.

 

You don't need to buy a whole catalog, just some select artists to gain leverage.

 

Spotify is the other hedge of the majors btw. Ever wondered how they can stay afloat without making money?! Check their backers, majors own 20% of Spotify and would prevent any takeover by Facebook or any other platform company.

 

MQA on any of those platforms is not going to happen. But MQA as a lever to force these platforms to develop other DRM-formats that meet majors approval is a likely outcome.

[Rt66indierock]

4 hours ago, mcgillroy said:

 

My working hypothesis on MQA is that the major-labels view it as a hedge against Apple, Amazon and other tech-giants. They missed the boat with Napster in 2001 and for the following decade Apple made huge profits with a music only device: the iPod.

 

During this decade the majors were at Apples mercy and they were not happy with the iTunes pricing model nor with the fact that Apple grew while the music market shrunk.

 

These days both Apple and Amazon have streaming services and sell music hardware.

 

With Alexa/Echo Amazon became the biggest speaker company of the world.

 

Apple has the iPhone + the gigantic ecosystem of headphones, speakers and streamers attached. Last not least they payed 3 billion (!) to acquire Beats which certainly turned some heads in the music industry. They didn't only acquire a headphone company, they acquired Dr. Dre, a major Hip-Hop artist and producer as well as Jimmy Iovine, former chairman of the Interscope major label. They now have Apple Music and are approaching 30 million subscribers.

 

Apple thus combines capacity for music production, distribution and consumption under one roof. Amazon has done similar for the TV-series market and could easily copy this recipe to their music-division.

 

But unlike TV-Series which are watched once or maybe twice music gets consumed over and over again. And herein lies the big asset the majors have: they own the important catalogs with the all-time favorite artists and without them Apples & Amazons services are worthless. 
 

These catalogs + MQAs DRM could prove potent to get additional revenue from the tech-industry into the majors accounts.

 

MQA offers at least two potential instruments to tap into the revenue streams of Apple, Amazon or any other tech-company. Firstly they would need to obtain a MQA license for any hard- or software instance that plays MQA, secondly they could require royalties for any piece of MQA music played. They could also price discriminate against level of audio quality.

 

Audiophiles are just the beta-testers for the stealth-DRM of MQA. It's a small market, easily influenced by marketing and served by a variety of small and fragmented hardware-makers. None of the audiophile-hardware companies is big enough to be a threat for the majors - rather the opposite. If the majors go behind this they will have no choice.

 

In the Audiophile market MQA can implement their format and see how it scales,  learn lessons about marketing and get a handle on consumption metrics. In the big pictures audiophiles are small change - the real money is in tech versus majors.

 

My prediction though is that Apple and Amazon will never let MQA into their ecosystems. They will buy out big artists and their catalogs if they must and they might even start high-rez-tiers in their streaming services - with their own DRMed formats...

 

Sony, Universal and Warner have hedged their bets with MQA they own 21% of the stock in MQA Ltd. A pretty simple 27,000 Pound hedge really.  But not enough to matter unless they end up with control of MQA and direct licensing and royalty payments to them or receive dividends.

 

Could the major’s buyout Reinet Investments SCA? Yes they could but there is nothing in the market to indicate there will be revenue in 2017 and 2018 for MQA Ltd to cover operating costs for those years and losses up to December 31, 2016.

[The Computer Audiophile]

28 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

No disagreement here on the importance of the catalogs and their control being in the hands of the majors. But Apple has $250 billion in the bank, not sure about Amazon but if they need money the capital market throws it at them.

 

You don't need to buy a whole catalog, just some select artists to gain leverage.

 

Spotify is the other hedge of the majors btw. Ever wondered how they can stay afloat without making money?! Check their backers, majors own 20% of Spotify and would prevent any takeover by Facebook or any other platform company.

 

MQA on any of those platforms is not going to happen. But MQA as a lever to force these platforms to develop other DRM-formats that meet majors approval is a likely outcome.

 

It's tough to see a label selling its catalog of money making artists to amazon or Apple so it could make money. Music is the gift that keeps giving to the rights holders. Sure anything can be bought though.