Stereophile Series on MQA Technology

[Rt66indierock]

I will be offering a prize for the person who does the best job debunking each part of Jim Austin’s series on MQA technology. The first part is scheduled to hit the newsstands later this week with the January issue of Stereophile. The prize will be a $10.00 gift card of your choice that I can acquire in The Valley of the Sun (greater Phoenix Arizona metro area).

 

There is a lot of information to get you started on this site. Have fun.

[Rt66indierock]

57 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

Over on Audioasylum, John Atkinson wrote:

 

So, now that MQA has developed the "perfect filter", any POS DAC will sound like a million bucks as long as it can decode MQA files! I look forward to seeing the Audioquest Dragonfly being equally ranked with a $100K dCS stack in the pages of Stereophile.

 

Ugh, I'm not sure if I can bring myself to read Jim Austin's thesis . . .

 

Problem is MQA Ltd. hasn't developed the perfect filter. Charles Hansen was a friend and we recently had phone conversations about digital filtering. The last one seemed to be a brain dump on his filtering ideas shortly before he passed away. 

 

There does seem to be a hope in the industry that a single solution like MQA could be sold to younger people and that solutions like Audiolense Mitch wrote about are too complicated. 

 

I'm going to hold Jim Austin to the same professional standards I'm held to. In other words I'm going to hold him accountable. I encourage everyone to do the same. 

[Rt66indierock]

38 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

I do not know why people call those in opposition to MQA, as haters.

The MQA technical claims have been shown to be false.

If MQA Ltd is using engineering to create MQA, and this engineering is shown to be false, then either MQA have their maths completely wrong, or MQA are not the experts that they claim to be, or MQA have lied.

Exposing this does not make anyone a hater, they are just exposing the truth for others.

Regards,

Shadders.

 

The math of digital audio is fascinating. And I am deeply indebted to those who have spent many hours this year especially Charles Hansen and Rob Watts explaining parts of it to me.

 

Those who oppose MQA are called haters because it is a way to try and present a majority position as a minority position.

[Rt66indierock]

10 minutes ago, darkmass said:

 

This contest would be a lot more fun if you made the prize a Mytek Manhattan II.

 

Remember The Absolute Sound MQA articles a couple months back. I got a lot of criticism from Andrew Quint at RMAF 2017 about the responses to his and Robert Harley's articles. 

 

I think a small prize will help people focus their displeasure on what Jim Austin writes so I can use it later. I understand it is a lot of fun to attack Jim Austin personally but this a perfect opportunity to attack the technology of MQA since MQA Ltd is going to need more money in the near future.

[Rt66indierock]

30 minutes ago, darkmass said:

 

This contest would be a lot more fun if you made the prize a Mytek Manhattan II.

 

Why would I give a prize with MQA? I didn't call MQA vaporware and make it stick without good reasons.

[Rt66indierock]

12 hours ago, mansr said:

The phrase shooting fish in a barrel comes to mind.

 

True but they still need to shot.

[Rt66indierock]

Calling me a troll is pretty weak. I still laugh to myself when I remember Jason Victor Serinus called me "the most dangerous man in audio" at RMAF 2017. 

 

I've done better reporting and encouraged others to do the same about MQA than Stereophile has. That has to bother John Atkinson.

[Rt66indierock]

15 hours ago, Indydan said:

 

Was Jason Victor Serinus serious when he said that? Or, was it just a joke?

 

From what you are saying, some of the Stereophile people know you. Did Stereophile know your true identity when they called you a troll? If they did, that would make it kind of personal...

 

You seem to be in the audio business, probably at the studio level, engineering, etc. But, I admit I don't know your true identity. I don't know if it is common knowledge for other posters. I am not trying to make you identify yourself; that is your business if you do or don't. 

 

 

 

Jason was serious. Certainly John Atkinson, Jason Victor Serinus and Herb Reichert of Stereophile know me. I knew it would become personal when facts that MQA Ltd didn’t want to be discussed in public started to be. The supporters of MQA have nothing left other than to attack opponents of MQA.

 

I’m not in the audio business. I did consult in the broadcasting industry mainly radio for 15 years. Today I spend my time musical professional time time with emerging acts and try and match people to get the best recording environment. Many people know who I am but I use Rt66indierock for a reason. I don’t like people to appeal to authority in hi-end audio so I don’t want people to appeal to me. My words, reasoning and analysis should be able stand on their own.  

[Rt66indierock]

20 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

I read some of the comments from Jim Austin - and there is not one aspect which criticises MQA in the texts i read.

MQA is meant to be how the mastering engineer heard it - yet he states "almost always", MQA is better. How would he know if it is better - he was not at the mixing desk.

If current technology is the best (it has to be, else it would not be current), what exactly is MQA fixing, that Jim Austins states makes it better ?

I still don't see how anyone can continue to state MQA improves everything, and for some reason, no one in the recording industry or audio engineering design (including IC manufacturers), have discovered the flaws in existing recordings or equipment..

Regards,

Shadders.

 

You are the leader in the clubhouse but each contest runs 30 days from posting on Stereophile's site.

[Rt66indierock]

4 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

 

They could probably get reliably more traffic over there if commenting wasn't so cumbersome. It's super difficult to scroll thru to find new posts.

 

But your Stereophile comment also reminds me of something a college prof once told me: "A good way to get a lot of citations is to be wrong."

 

That line reasoning works exceptionally well in the golf industry.

[Rt66indierock]

37 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

I am not sure of what you mean regarding the clubhouse etc.

My intention was that for someone to state nothing but good regarding a product (same as saying nothing but bad - seen it online with regards to a speaker bake off) indicates extreme bias.

Regards,

Shadders.

 

Leader in the clubhouse is the first person to finish a golf tournament with a competitive score someone who might win the tournament. The last time I won a stroke play golf tournament I finished four hours before the guy who finished second did and waited an entire afternoon. In your case you have to wait until January 11th. 

 

Bias is part of the checklist I made after I read Jim Austin's article. If you read my Dear Jim and Dear John posts on Audio Asylum you can get an idea of the standards I'm holding Jim to. My professions standards.

[Rt66indierock]

54 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

OK - but sorry, still none the wiser regarding the 30 day rule and January 11th. I have not posted on Stereophile.

 

Although - this does remind me when i went golf, and was in the clubhouse, sitting down, having a pint, and they had just cleaned/polished the patio doors.

 

No doubt you can guess, a bloke proceeds to walk through the glass with pint in hand, and smack his head on the door, pint going all over the place. He did need some assistance.

 

OK - i did start to laugh. Was this wrong of me ???.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

 

People can post their entries here if I can find them in an MQA thread.

 

In my case less funny because I've walked into glass doors twice very late at night after setting alarms from an unfamiliar part of a building I was working in three time zones west of where I was living. 

[Rt66indierock]

42 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

This thread has gone horribly off the rails. More so than the "MQA is vaporware" thread when many posts were criticizing Brian Lucey for compression!

 

My own assessment of Austin's latest article is that it says hardly anything new or noteworthy. I get the sense that upcoming articles will utterly fail to mention, never mind address, the many criticisms (sonic and otherwise) raised by multiple manufacturers, engineers, and industry professionals.

 

You are correct and I have a bunch of items on my check lists people haven't mentioned yet. 

 

 

[Rt66indierock]

On 12/17/2017 at 6:10 AM, mcgillroy said:

So I tried to get a grip on the ownership structure of Stereophile and that's a wee bit complicated.

 

They are owned by a holding called Source which manages a consortium called TEN standing for "The Enthusiast Network."

 

TEN publishes number of consumer interest titles ranging from sufer mags over baseball to audio. 60 mags and about a 100 online titles all together. These titles deal mostly with medium to high priced hobby consumer goods.

 

I could not find any good info on the financial structure and ownership makeup of Source but then I didn't look to hard.

 

Anybody able to shed some light on this?

 

Particularly if there are any investments or stakes in Source by Warner or any of the other big media-conglomerates. 

 

A little housekeeping.

 

The Enthusiast Network was Source Interlink Media. They are owned by Golden Tree Asset Management.

 

Goldentree Asset Management manages funds for institutional investors, pension funds and countries.

 

TEN is a coordinated marketing approach to reaching men under 50, guys who like cars of all ages, a few women who surf, snowboard, skateboard etc.

[Rt66indierock]

7 minutes ago, GUTB said:

Please step away from the deep end. Stereophile has been in print for over 50 years, and John Atkinson has been at Stereophile for over 30.

 

I told you who owned Stereophile, public information. TEN is primarily a group of auto publications that's where the advertising dollars are. The audio parts of TEN are a tiny part of their operation. Think Motor Trend, Hot Rod, and a personal favorite Street Rodder. If you aren't thinking about things like the DEW Tour, drag racing and surfing you aren't in their demo either.

[Rt66indierock]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I don't doxx people.

 

 

Let's try to get this thread back on point. There are still issues that could be a winning entry which is the purpose of this thread. 

 

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.

 

And finally Aurrender may be in software licensing jam. If true I would insist they brick all the products (make them inoperable) if it was my software.

 

Carry on 

[Rt66indierock]

6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Got any more info on this one?

 

It involves some really old versions of software.

[Rt66indierock]

33 minutes ago, Ryan Berry said:

 

Not trying to be too particular, but SOX's filter is a filter somewhat representative of Ayre's, though it's not Ayre's filter exactly.  I just wanted to point that out before everyone starts calling the SOX filter the "Ayre" filter as there's other nuances of the filter that makes it what it is that isn't seen in an impulse response, but make surprising differences to the sound.  Perhaps just calling it a minimum phase filter would be more appropriate.

 

 

Thank you.  You're pretty much spot-on in your posts (which I'm sure there was no doubt!).  Like you said, there's a lot to do with the filter in the figures 10 and 11.  For figure 9, as you also rightly said, the QX-5 has a bit more THD than other products may due to its circuit design.  With no feedback as we use in our circuitry, you see higher THD than people would like that are judging how something will sound through pictures; and if we were comparing similar circuitry designs, comparing measurements like these may be valid to the assessor.  However, that's not the case here.  We have designed using both traditional feedback designs and  without feedback as we currently use and feel strongly that the latter just sounds better despite the measurement.  We could design gear to look good on a graph as many people have proven that it can easily be done, or we can design it to sound the best possible.  Most of our customers prefer the latter solution, so here we are.  

 

Charles talks about measurements briefly here: https://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/8/89995.html.  Of course, it's easy debunk his statement by saying you can't release some product with massive amounts of distortion and expect it to sound good or some other argument designed to discredit the view, but the his viewpoint remains.

 

Hey Ryan,

 

Glad to see you on the MQA posts. Charley and I were friends. Some of our final discussions involved zero feedback and feed forward designs. There are advantages to these types of designs and drawbacks. Implemented properly I prefer these types of designs.

[Rt66indierock]

31 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

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?

 

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. 

[Rt66indierock]

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.....

 

You're forgiven of course but but what I write is aimed at studio people and some producers when it comes to MQA. Add a few artists for good measure. 

[Rt66indierock]

Probably time to go back to the beginning. This is what I posted on Audio Asylum on November 14, 2017.

 

Dear Jim Austin,

 

On October 21, 2017 you said you don't understand the technology behind MQA and yet you are going to write a series about it?

Your series should make interesting reading because in that same October 21, 2017 response to stehno you called him an idiot "for not at least considering that they (Peter Craven and Bob Stuart) might understand things better than you do." For you to be intellectually consistent you now have to consider others may understand things better than Peter Craven and Bob Stuart do.

 

In your series on MQA Technology I would like the following addressed at a minimum.

1. I want you to look at the research supporting the technology of MQA and tell me if it supports the claims MQA Ltd is making. Next I want you to tell me if the math supports the claims MQA makes. To write objectively about the research and the math you will have to analyze both sides pro MQA and anti MQA.

2. Moving on the filters MQA uses they are not new so I want to know why MQA Ltd decided to use these filters when so many others have chosen not to use these types of filters.

3. MQA uses Peter Craven's patented method for degrading files and reconstructing them. Why is this step necessary? Following this train of thought why aren't other methods of file compression equally as valid as the method MQA uses?

4. People in studios who were shown MQA found that it changed their masters in 2014. It took until last month at the AES convention in New York City for MQA Ltd to acknowledge the problem and promise a solution so engineers could hear how the final product would sound. I want to know why MQA needs to change the master when other high resolution files don't change the master.

 

You have made a few comments defending the industry and the press for its lack of technical rigor concerning MQA. You actually indicted the industry and the press. This is why people outside the industry realized if the technology behind MQA was going to be examined that we would have to do it ourselves. And we did on the Computer Audiophile site starting January 2, 2017.

 

Sincerely,

Stephen

[Rt66indierock]

And this is what I posted on Audio Asylum on December 7, 2017

 

Dear John,
 

As the time for the January issue of Stereophile approaches I want to remind you and Jim MQA technology has already been analyzed and discussed. The agenda for debating MQA was set in January of this year so there was no need for me to frame the debate about MQA and its technology for Jim's series. As I said in my Dear Jim post a decision was made that MQA would have to be analyzed by people outside the audio industry.

What I put in my November 14, 2017 Dear Jim post are hurdles. The same hurdles my profession uses. Are you competent to write this series? Next hurdle will you look at both sides of the claims made by MQA Ltd for and against their technology and look at other alternatives? Third hurdle can you exercise professional judgement about the facts and the claims made? Only if you can clear these hurdles can you write an article and have the possibility of arriving at an objective conclusion. 

I gave Jim some examples of topics that need to be covered. You wrote about Charley Hansen's alternative to some of the issues MQA is claiming to solve. Peter St maker of XXHigh End wrote about his filters and mitchco wrote about Audiolense software and its filters on Computer Audiophile in the past week. It doesn't seem to be hard to find alternatives to MQA.

Take care,

Stephen

[Rt66indierock]

3 minutes ago, GUTB said:

Jim Austin said he’s going to be exploring and analyzing MQA claims. Do any of you guys have a reason to believe that he’s lying?

 

Have you been following the Audio Asylum discussion about MQA? 

[Rt66indierock]

2 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

Can someone kindly share a link

 

 

Critics Corner there a lot of threads there about MQA and Stereophile.

[Rt66indierock]

4 hours ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

My interpretation is that if Stereophile is a journalistic publication, then they should cover the pros and cons of any new product or system etc.

 

If they are entering into a technical analysis, then they should also have the capability to understand the subject matter, and report the downsides or errors on the claims by the vendor.

 

Any series of articles should provide a balance. If no such presentation is given, then you have to question if there is bias.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

 

As you said earlier about Jim Austin's article. It is biased. Jim has not shown me he understands the subject matter. He is just checking off boxes on my MQA marketing checklist.