crenca Posted December 15, 2017 Share Posted December 15, 2017 On 12/12/2017 at 11:10 AM, GUTB said: Let's be real for half a second -- the real reason why the forums are generally against MQA is because of the cultural death of high-end audio. The interest in and pursuit of high-performance audio is in the pits -- culturally. Every show I've been to has been nothing but graying old and middle aged men. Millenials and gen Z seem to have little or no interest in it. There's older people on this thread but they are more or less just going along with the cultural norms online. So it's "in" to pretend MQA is the enemy. Part in parcel with that is to dismiss quality gains. Anything but actually listen to it because we don't do that anymore in audio apparently. GUTB, are you really Steve Guttenberg? I have to say that this analysis of MQA reveals more about the culture of "high-end" than the consumer based rejection of it. I would call it adolescent, but I don't think it rises to that level sadly (i.e. "it's "in" to pretend MQA is the enemy") You did get it right however to recognize the line in the demographics... Rt66indierock 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted December 16, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 16, 2017 3 hours ago, GUTB said: All I'm saying is this: the younger generation has little to no interest in high-end audio. In the headphone world I would describe the high-end as hi-fi (vs lo and mid-fi). In 2 channel setups the quality scale seems broader so I use the high- mid- low- and ultra low-end scale. Remember when you were a teenager and into your 20s you would salivate over exotic cars? You would probably never have one but you loved them anyway. That's our car culture at work. There was such a thing as high-end audiophile culture, but that appears to be dead -- not only does the newer generations not care about it, they actively dismiss.... I gave you a thumbs up GUTB because I think you are right up till the point I stopped quoting you - "high end" is historically the successor to "high fidelity" and as such is a failure. It lost the consumer in its almost-no-value add ons of bling, voodoo and confidence/personality game based "art", etc. The newer generation is simply not interested in this scam (for several reasons), and only an older generation (that currently have deep pockets) is sustaining it. The older High Fidelity culture is returning, with its built in sense of value, more natural subjective/objective balance, and realism. This is a good thing of course. On topic, I would only add that today (my feelings change day to day) I feel pretty good about MQA in that its supporters are appearing more and more desperate with each passing month... mcgillroy, Nikhil, MikeyFresh and 2 others 3 2 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted December 17, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 17, 2017 16 minutes ago, monteverdi said: I talked to one speaker manufacture and he said most of his income is derived from selling 2-3 systems to China per year. I see that type of development is largely fed by reviews in the audio press... 4 hours ago, GUTB said: What’s the basis for differentiating between high-end and hi-fi? ... "high-end" is the body double of "hi-fi". Like that movie Body Snatchers, it seems to be the same thing but is an alien with ill intent. It takes the goals and values of hi-fi and stuffs it full of confidence/personality game nonsense (such as those Synergistic rooms that do indeed sound good). As ML and others have noted it is not something that has substance, it is like the art and wine markets and based on the ability to impress upon the consumer a perceived value. In other words, it is a luxury market and depends on other things that have nothing to do with how it sounds. Sure, most of it sounds real good - but that is only a part of it (maybe 25%), the rest is perception, bling, status, etc. etc. moteverdi said he is "surprised" at the trend - I am not. Which is "easier", selling a handful of overpriced "high-end" systems to billionaires in China or making a living selling things that have substance and value? Historically, it appears the transition into the current "high-end" market started in the 70's and was compleate by the oughts. Personal Audio (mostly digital based HP rigs) bucks this trend but not completely ($50k "shangri-la" nonsense, etc.). mansr, Don Hills and mcgillroy 2 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 7 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said: Thank you for this clarification. I wish you well in your MQA rehabilitation project. You've got a steep climb ahead of you. I actually agree with you here - MQA, at least for a significant portion of its target consumer base, is not a "sales" or "information" project but a "rehabilitation" project. Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted December 18, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 18, 2017 1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said: The current buzz word for MQA supporters is elegant. Bob Stuart used it in Manufacturers Comments in the January 2018 issue of Stereophile and John Atkinson picked it up in his "New World" defense. Watch for others to do the same. Such art and wine descriptors is indicative of Stereophile's approach and position in Audiophiledom (and thus to MQA). It is also why they don't get the consumer backlash against a DRM/IP protected format takeover of our digital audio ecosystems. John Atkinson's/Stereophiles approach has been more subtle than TAS's, and thus appears more even handed but I don't think it really is, not significantly. A while back (> year if I recall correctly) Jason Serinus wrote on the Stereophile blog that I was waging a "war" on MQA on the forums. I thought to myself that was a bit like Germany complaining that the a few disorganized Pole's were shooting back at them after their successful invasion. Stereophile/TAS are trade publications, and as such they just don't do "journalism" which would include looking at the pros and cons of MQA (or anything else) from a consumer perspective. Thus, when John Atkinson comes here and states "for the record" that Stereophile is not getting paid by MQA this does not mean that they suddenly have become something they are not - that they are neutral about MQA or are taking an objective look at it. This simply is not in their wheelhouse. What forums such as this one allow (despite their real drawbacks - witness that last few pages of whether so-and-so should be banned) is for consumer to network with other consumers and industry players and "cloud source" the real truth about MQA (or anything else). It's messy, inefficient, and unpublishable but it has the advantage of being truthful in a way a trade publication will never be. As the current art and wine, personality, confidence game based Audiophiledom runs it course Stereophile and TAS are becoming less and less relevant (on several levels). Sure, there is still a whole bunch of these types of guys with deep pockets sustaining the culture, and it will not go gentle into that good night, but that is OK. In a sense this thread and the Stereophile series is superfluous - what is it really going to say that we don't already know by our own sleuthing? Is Austin going to really reveal something from behind the NDA curtin? If he did, would it be anything more than a half truth designed with the best interest of MQA in mind? Is the consumer whose interest does not coincide with Stereophile's or MQA ever going to be described as "right" as opposed to "nasty" as Jim puts it? semente and rayooo 2 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 5 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said: The contest relating to Jim Austin's series in Stereophile has a simple purpose. I prefer to write in a style that includes other voices. The contest is my attempt to clean up and focus on what Jim writes about MQA and debunk it. Attacking people nobody has heard of doesn't carry much weight if you are writing for and audience wider than audiophiles and I am. And if you want to attack him or any other person at Stereophile do it in another post. In other words, Jim I disagree with .... in one post. And in the next one Jim it is clear you don't understand the technology involved in MQA .... There is very little in the two The Absolute Sound articles on MQA in the comments section that are easily used. I think I see better now the point of your contest. Still, that's the thing about forums - a thread flows this way or that Not sure what you mean by "attack". If you mean personally, I don't believe I did that. I of course think that Stereophile, its editors and writers are "trapped" (to pick a term) in their position vis-a-vis the industry in general and MQA in particular and are simply not going to objectively look at MQA. It is not that they are not capable, it's just not how they make a living. Consumers should never expect them to. In a sense, picking apart/debunking the writing of trade publications such as Stereophile is a political exercise - we already know they are anti-consumer so it becomes a contest (or "war" as Jason says) to try to control the narrative. The thing is, as Samuel says upstream with MQA they have already lost control of the narrative and their voice now has the air of desperation in it (all the attack the messenger stuff which Jim A starts in right away with). However, the current "high end" industry still has no where else to turn for exposure so JA/Stereophile are losing this war but they keep trudging on doing what the do. What excites me is the demographic trend in Audiophiledom of the younger, more "objectivist" and value based High Fidelity-ist who increasingly finds Stereophile/TAS as perplexing and irrelevant as art and wine magazines... Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 12 minutes ago, NOMBEDES said: This quote makes it sound like you are writing for an audience wider than audiophiles. What audience would that be? Forgive me if I don't understand..... He writes from the current Audiophile culture, the personal testimonial. He treats MQA as if it is just a SQ tweak and not all the other things it is. It is this kind of over-emphasized subjectivism that leads directly to art and wine "high end". What consumers have realized about MQA is not the convenient truth that it is a small SQ tweak for some (but not others), rather the much larger and important inconvenient truth that it is a DRM/IP end to end format of dubious value. In other words it has real cons (in the pro and con matrix) that Audiophile culture as represented by Stereophile, radical subjectivists, and so much of the rest of Audiophiledom simply do not even address... MikeyFresh 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 Oops, in the above post I lost track of who was responding to who. "He" in my post refers to GUTB Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted December 19, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 19, 2017 1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said: Maybe the word sounds nice to you, I don't have an opinion on that. But MQA's approach to digital audio data encoding, in theory reducing all the stages between the input of the A/D converter to the output of the D/A converter to a transparent "pipe," was a back-to-first-principles approach that I found elegant in the extreme. YMMV. See https://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa John Atkinson Editor, Stereophile As an ideal I see the attraction. BUT (but but but) MQA is in fact the opposite of "transparent" - legally, technically, as an "authenticated" thing in practice, etc. In every way that matters it is non-transparent, it is a "black box" which can not be peared into except by reverse engineering. This is so head slappingly obvious I stand with my mouth open at your publication/writers support of MQA. It is as if you liked an idea, but are constitutionally unable to see the reality (of MQA)... Tsarnik, Shadders, Fokus and 3 others 6 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted December 20, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 20, 2017 3 hours ago, firedog said: Questioning motives is fine if it is based on something other than name calling and invective, and has some kind of evidence behind it. Saying someone is a shill or beholden to advertising of MQA when, as JA said, there hasn’t been any MQA advertising in Stereophile, is not reasonable. If statements don’t hold up to scrutiny, that should be pointed out. It doesn’t necessarily follow that the author of the statement has nefarious motives. Sometimes people are just lacking knowledge or are mistaken. JA said "for the record" that MQA has not directly advertised in their publication, and I have no reason to doubt him. Yet it is true that he and his writers and his publication (indeed, most of the "audiophile press") can be reasonably described as "shill" or "beholden" to MQA. Nefarious? Yes and no. From a consumer perspective it is because MQA is contrary to our interests in several different and nefarious ways. JA and his staff are trying to make a living, and the culture of Audiophiledom is what it is and his publications relationship to the industry (and its essential non-relationship to consumers) is what it is. From his point of view it is not nefarious. Like he said he and many other audiophiles (including many of his readers) have fallen in love with an idea. This idea is a kind of Audiophile takeover of the end to end recording/mixing/production/delivery chain that would provide us with recordings equal to our substantially accurate playback chains. MQA has (falsely, it turns out - this is Brian Lucey's important message) promised this and the Audiophiles presses non-critical relationship to the industry set them up for failure as they were always going to swallow it hook-line-and-sinker. This idea has a problem that even MQA can not fix, and that problem is the sheer momentum of the much larger "music industry" that has no real financial motive to give Audiophiles what they want (i.e. this ideal, pristine, elegant end-to-end recording chain) My point is that while JA/Stereophile have not taken direct advertising dollars from MQA, they were always going to be a "shill" for MQA or anything like it. Further, when the next thing like MQA that comes along guess what Stereophile and the majority Audiophile press is going to do? It's as predictable as the sun coming up because they do have not consumer feedback mechanism to balance them from being shills for the industry and its interests. The "forums" could serve as the sorely needed feedback mechanism that Stereophile and the others need. Indeed, on a certain level I have doubt they in fact do. However explicitly Stereophile and the rest are in conflict with the forums (notice how quickly Jim Austin describes them as "nasty", or think of Michael L, etc.), and this just indicates how much they are in conflict with consumers. They are trying (and failing) to control the narrative... rayooo, PeterSt, mansr and 5 others 7 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted December 20, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 20, 2017 40 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: The thing about being beholden to MQA puzzles me. Not the idea that some people or publications are beholden to MQA, but the reasons why anyone would be beholden to MQA. Even the user seldomheard was scared to reveal his identity for fear of not being hired in the future because of his anti-MQA comments. If people like and support MQA that’s fine. If people dislike MQA that’s fine. People in the industry are looking at MQA as the MOB for some reason. Strange. Chris, I know I sound like a broken record but go back and contemplate Robert Harley's "MQA from 30,000" feet article. I don't think we (as consumers, and yourself as a consumer oriented forum owner) feel the pressure and anxiety that has infected the heart in this industry. Even though we see the literal falling-off-a-cliff sales decline, the fundamental changes (again, almost completely negative from a $income$ point of view) that digital, streaming, YouTube consumption of their product have brought, etc. - even though we understand all this, we don't feel it like they do. The industry is desperate - I mean really really desperate, as in crack whore desperate - for something, anything, to come along and change their fortunes. They look at video and want to emulate its DRM/IP/content protection schemes because they think that is part of Hollywood/video's success. MQA comes along and promises many things (too many to be true obviously) and thus to oppose it (for any reason) is to be disloyal to your very sick industry. Fokus and Nikhil 2 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 10 minutes ago, Norton said: I'm aware of the general use of the term, but wondered what you mean by a "shill" in this context? Are the quotation marks significant? Sorry Norton, I am just putting it in quotes to signal that I realize it is a loaded term and that one person's shill is just another persons reasonable supporter... Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted December 20, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 20, 2017 52 minutes ago, james45974 said: You sound like a marketers dream customer! MQA providing superior sound is still not a sure thing. Think about the "made in America" movement that still exists, but was more influential in the 80's and 90's. It is not just that realhifi (let's ignore the irony of his name for a moment ) would support/purchase equipment made of horse manure if JA/Stereophile told him to (although one wonders), it's that he really is loyal to an industry and hobby in a way that many are not. It is that kind of "what is good for the industry is good for me" thinking that led to some of my family members (we all had them) to purchase a Ford, or a GM, or a Chrysler when they knew perfectly well it simply could not compare to the equivalent "foreign job" (in the 80's - modern Ford/GM's etc. are much more competitive). Audiophiledom as the culture currently is constituted is full of this sort of thing. In this hobby there is this kind of belief in the new and progressive - and the feeling of being out front of not only the rest of consumer electronics, but even of science/engineering itself. The industry promotes this and even relies on it in its typical sales/marketing efforts and customers pay for that feeling of uniqueness and bleeding edge - a kind of "I have what you don't know about and is possibly forbidden"... Tony Lauck and Samuel T Cogley 2 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted December 23, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 23, 2017 6 hours ago, Rt66indierock said: What you are referring to used to be said behind closed doors, its now in the open. Playing the ball didn't work with MQA in 2014, 2015 and 2016, playing the man has in 2017. Let's review what playing the man did, dust up at CES, Brian Lucey calling Bob Stuart and Robert Harley liars at LAAS sending the MQA camp into hiding in the Wilson room, Brian Lucey and others (including me) were set to ambush MQA representatives at RMAF and they cancelled, Robert Harley and Andrew Quint being attacked on The Absolute Sound website about MQA (I got an earful from Andrew at RMAF), Charley Hansen knowing the end was near unloaded on the press and MQA on Audio Asylum, Jim Austin getting thrashed on gearslutz and finally my little contest is just a way to hold Jim Austin accountable to the same professional standards I'm held to with the added bonus of being able to criticize John Atkinson for assigning him the series in the first place. To add to the above, the problem with the complaint of "anti-mqa" is that before there was "anti-mqa" there was "pro-mqa". The apparatus of Audiophiledom (TAS, Stereophile, etc. & "the industry" in general) came out very very forcefully pro MQA first. When the backlash against the very false claims of MQA came out, this same apparatus then complains of "a war" (as Jason S of Stereophile put it) against MQA and they look for every reason (such as "the political" as Andrew Q did) except the truth about MQA itself. Of course, it is easier to blame a conspiracy - and a conspiracy is how these folks view the forums in general and the backlash against MQA in particular - then to admit they were snookered by those who are better at the confidence game than they are. These folks ask themselves: "What's wrong with these consumers? Are they not supposed to fall in line with whatever we decide is good for audiophiledom - we decide what is technically good and bad, and then we decide was is "political" and what is based on evidence!" The arrogance is all too obvious, but then that is the disease of audiohpiledom in that it stands on personality entirely too much. Sooo, this means that the man will be played because the reputations of "audio savants" like Bob, JA, Robert Harley, and the like were used first to promote what in reality is a very bad deal for the audiophile (i.e. MQA)... Fokus, Nikhil, mansr and 2 others 4 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted January 7, 2018 Share Posted January 7, 2018 I want to give a shout out to @John_Atkinson for the "More on MQA" article. As I said on your site, I could quibble (as some do above) but your recognition that MQA (or anything like it) is not just another audio product - that it has Net Neutrality like impact on consumers and their digital ecosystems is refreshing. semente 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted January 8, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted January 8, 2018 1 hour ago, Shadders said: Hi, I too, am interested in the reversal of dispersion that MQA claims to have perfected (we are told, we will be hearing it as per the mixing/mastering engineer, or artist). If MQA have perfected the reversal of dispersion, then that patent alone is worth billions, and every communications entity (product makers and designers, suppliers, service providers, commercial, military, etc etc etc) will praise MQA for delivering the communications holy grail. Well done MQA. Or it could be purposefully added distortion and equalisation, which everyone knows about. Regards, Shadders. You know, I had a bit of a "doh!" reaction when I read this. Anyone else want to chime in? If MQA is truly doing what it claims to be doing, would it not be as impactful as Shadders says - IOW even an "end to end" takeover of the musical recording chain would be small potatoes next to its other industrial applications? MikeyFresh and Shadders 2 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted January 8, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted January 8, 2018 21 minutes ago, Norton said: But is an MQA download any more "intangible personal property" than other music downloads (ITunes for example) Your point may be well made, but its not a MQA-specific point and is thus misleading when phrased as such. Yes. MQA is first and foremost a legal and technical entity. This is what it means to be DRM. Putting aside the details of copyright a consumer owns a PCM file (or any other open format music) in a way that he does not with MQA. Thuaveta and MikeyFresh 1 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted January 9, 2018 Share Posted January 9, 2018 2 minutes ago, knickerhawk said: Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Copyright is THE dispositive detail here. Moreover, ownership is a legal concept, not a technological one. A consumer no more “owns” any copyrighted PCM file than a MQA file. The distinction is a practical one related to control of playback, copying and the ease of violating the (normally) identical limited license that applies to any format applicable to the underlying intellectual property encoded into the files. Replace the crossed out sentence with something like: "Copyright is NOT the detail that accounts for consumer rejection of DRM" and your mostly right. The "limited license" of the music is simply does not rise very high on the problem with DRM - rather it is all the other legal aspects that comes with DRM (i.e. the "Digital" and the "Management") aspects. Indeed, the wrong focus on copyright is one of the prevailing tactics used to obfuscate the reality and debate around DRM... Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted January 9, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted January 9, 2018 5 minutes ago, knickerhawk said: What are the “other LEGAL aspects that comes with DRM” to which you are referring? The only “digital” and “management” aspects I can think of are technological and practical ones (which can, indeed, be onerous and frustrating for legal use as well as use that violates the license/copyright). They are not legal ones, unless what you are referring to are the added legal consequences of violating/hacking the DRM scheme itself. Unfortunately, the "other" legals aspects are both obvious quite impactful on the consumer. For example, by agreeing to the license of MQA, I am giving the licensor the ability to encrypt, phone home, change (in some future version, say MQA 2.0) what equipment I can play my file on, etc. etc. etc. I am granting none of these rights to the licensor when I purchase an "open" format such as PCM. In other words, while copyright is relevant in both cases, the legal and technical methods of both "digital products" could not be more different... mansr, Thuaveta and MikeyFresh 2 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted January 9, 2018 Share Posted January 9, 2018 1 hour ago, firedog said: Some of you will love this: https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2018/01/09/mqa-a-fresh-take-why-the-big-labels-are-converting-their-catalogs/ Go on over there and slag the guy.... I can hardly get through the evangelical tent personal testimonial angle of stuff like this, but I did. It made me think of the "Hi Res" claim of MQA and how that is all part of this Big Fat Lie. Think of it, the future (where MQA or something like is IS the standard) where a lossy, 13-17 bit software is the only "Hi Res" available... Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted January 9, 2018 Share Posted January 9, 2018 1 minute ago, Ron Scubadiver said: I am starting to think that unfortunately MQA is here to stay. It allows streaming delivery of higher quality than would ordinarily be available from a 24/48 stream, and streaming is now the main way music is delivered. Whether it replaces non MQA high res downloads is yet to be seen. I hope that doesn't happen. I am starting to believe the opposite Ron. A 24/48 stream that is actually 13-17 bits of lossy, upsampled, poorly filtered mashing of real Hi Res is not "higher quality", and since only audiophiles are interested in sound quality/Hi Res they can't sell it to us. FLAC is actually more efficient Hi Res container bit for bit. True, the labels have an interest to foil DRM on an unsuspecting consumer, but even they have to see value and I don't think MQA offers it. They can just as easily DRM their streams without MQA. In any rational market, MQA dies rather quickly. Not that irrational forces could prevail but I suspect (this is all crystal ball stuff) MQA time to stick against the audio wall has come and gone... Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted January 9, 2018 Share Posted January 9, 2018 2 hours ago, knickerhawk said: But what you are referring to as “legal aspects” are actually technology aspects..... Sorry, but those rights were never absolute, just as your “right” to perfect, painless fair use copying of IP you’ve licensed is not absolute... Um, no. You make several errors, including confusing lisensor with licensee (or your sentence is off). Besides, you said it yourself - "copying" or cracking, or in any way technically "getting around" IP "is not absolute". Why? Not because it can't be technically done, rather because I am legally prevented from doing so. DRM, IP, etc. etc. - these are first and foremost legal realities that are then "managed" through technical ways. It is not all about copyright - rather, it is about the legal (and technical) burdens placed on the consumer over and above copyright... MrMoM 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
crenca Posted January 9, 2018 Share Posted January 9, 2018 20 minutes ago, knickerhawk said: It’s usually a good idea when pretending to know what you’re talking about to at least spell the terms correctly. It’s “licensor” not “lisensor.” Ah, you see there, you get an F in internet comment box community standards. Look if you like MQA that is fine but I will not be buying it, nor can you obscure the legal reality of D......R.....M. ? Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted January 10, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted January 10, 2018 2 hours ago, Dr Tone said: That’s brutal, now it’s a moving target of “sound quality”. You certainly don’t want to purchase your MQA content. MQA has been a moving target since the beginning. Is it about a SQ tweak for Audiophiles, the only people with playback chains that can take advantage of anything over 320 mp3/AAC? Is it about DRM and the legal/technical protection of the "crown jewels" of the labels original masters (no matter what the resolution is)? Is it about an "end to end" recording and delivery chain enforcement of standards that can then be "authenticated"? Today, @Lee Scoggins is saying it is about "cleverly using a convenience-driven audience to drive better sound quality adoption." I appreciate his honesty (and his naivete about it's real SQ, DRM, and market aspects) - at least he is admitting that the vast majority of musical consumers are just fine with 320 (their playback chains can't do anything with higher quality encoding) and that they have to be manipulated into it for...what, exactly? Our host Chris Connaker noted 3 years ago (going from memory) that MQA was "a solution looking for a problem". I still believe Robert Harley of TAS got it right in his "MQA from 30,000 feet" article when he admitted that what MQA is really about is piracy (what "the industry" blames their decline on) and protection of the only thing of value the labels have. In other words, MQA is from beginning to end about DRM and controlling the consumer. All the rest is simply a sales job - a hook at best, but now we are into the 3rd year of debunking it is all proving to be a sleight of hand - repackaged existing tech in an IP/DRM package... MrMoM, tmtomh, Fokus and 1 other 2 2 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Popular Post crenca Posted February 9, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted February 9, 2018 46 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: Hey Guys - No personally attacks allowed here. You can question someone and his/her motives etc... but be careful about speculating about one's person, mental state, etc... Also, I see quite a bit of speculation under the guise of concluded fact. Be careful here as well. It can work in the opposite way you'd like. If your argument is that someone is in the pocket of MQA and is getting paid for it, you better show some evidence. If all you have is circumstantial evidence, you best not state your opinion as fact. Doing so will only hurt your credibility on this topic and potentially others. Carry on :~) Chris, It's not Hans affiliated with the industry? His YouTube channel is a for-profit business, just like a Blog is. MikeyFresh and MrMoM 2 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now