Stereophile Series on MQA Technology

[firedog]

Of course he isn’t SG. Someone posted that speculation with zero evidence, and it’s taken off from there. I seriously doubt SG would post here under a pseudonym. And anyone who reads his column would understand that the persona and post content of GUTB are nothing like those of SG.

[firedog]

3 hours ago, FredericV said:

I noticed Brian Lucey's posts are being deleted in the comments section of the Stereophile article.
He also was not mentioned in the article.

Brian exposed the fake authentication of MQA, as MQA encodes existing masters not approved by the mastering engineer, and the MQA user will think it's authenticated when the blue light shines. He also exposed the audible degradation, making MQA not master, not quality, not authenticated.

This indicates:

_ stereophile articles are a paid series by MQA
_ otherwise they would not censor the truth

MQA also hired Hans Beekhuyzen for very similar reasons. Hans even pasted emails from Bob in his video's, as if this was proof MQA does not contain any DRM. Guess he did not read the patent which includes the deliberate degrading which MQA offers as a feature.

In one of the early comments I mentioned BL's claims. The response of the author was basically that his claims are irrelevant, and BL is just upset that HIS master isn't the version that was authenticated. He also indicated that BL's claims about changes to the sound didn't coincide with measurements. 

[firedog]

15 minutes ago, seldomheard said:

Stereophile's Editor has proven himself over and over again to be a total industry whore and slime bucket. This latest foray into pimping for MQA is a clear and convincing example. And it is this blatant shilling coupled with a total intolerance for any questioning/challenges that is at the heart of the demise of the "audiophile" industry here in the states. The morons and freaks at Stereophile have been puzzled for the past several years as to why attendance at shows has essentially dried up to the point that the "audio press" and exhibitor personnel numbers rival the number of attendees from the public. One of the primary reasons has to do with the fake shill crap they have been swimming in for the past 2 decades. Speaker cable  "suspenders"? Power conditioners? Seriously???  Ever corner a guy like Nelson Pass to ask why anyone would need a "power conditioner" to plug one of his $20,000 amps into? What's wrong Nelson? Your amp's built in power supply chain can't feed clean enough power to all stages? This latest "article" by Stereophile should seal the deal for anyone but the utterly clueless. And the rag should change its name to Snakeoil-o-file. The clueless moron who did the write up is so freakin stupid, he didn't know the pre and post ripple is SUPPOSED to be on the DAC output. If it's missing, it's not faithful to the original input signal! How utterly freakin' pathetic!!!

Another example of an overwrought response with unnecessarily aggressive and insulting language. An industry professional comes here and again gets nothing but insults, ad hominem attacks, etc. No wonder they don’t want to participate here.

BTW, the “clueless moron” has a PhD in physics; so he may have misunderstood some of what he is writing about, but he clearly isn’t a moron. 

Your position and argument would be much more effective if they stuck to the issues...but I guess that’s too much too expect in this day and age.

 

...Waiting now for the flaming, name calling response...

[firedog]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Why? He says he has no current industry affiliations. Do you have proof otherwise?

He just wrote that he can’t say who he is b/c he won’t be hired again for consulting. I’d say that qualifies as being in the industry.

[firedog]

44 minutes ago, rwdvis said:

 

 

Did @TheComputerAudiophile get another call from Bob Stuart? He's suddenly pushing back quite hard against MQA critics using the usual guises of faux neutrality and "friendly" advice (to stop saying bad things about MQA).

 

Most recent:

 

 

 

 

Record breaking response time, Chris.  Within mere minutes?  It usually takes at least a few months before you come to realize and act against the pro-MQA shills.  The MQA critics, on the other hand, within minutes.  Also, seems the more effective and knowledgeable the critic, the quicker you respond.  Interesting to witness.

 

 

Sorry, your post is ridiculous. The fellow was banned not because of his opinions, but because he refused to acknowledge his identity as an industry worker, which is against forum rules. Simple as that.  The rest of your post also has a tenuous  connection to reality.  The only thing your post proves is your inability to see past YOUR prejudices. 

[firedog]

33 minutes ago, mansr said:

He said he was retired. Do you know the meaning of this word?

And then he said he was still consulting in the industry. I think consulting counts as work. Or in your dictionary of “meanings” is it something else?

[firedog]

1 hour ago, rwdvis said:

At times, the dishonesty of some here is astounding.  Did you miss the point(s) on purpose?  Did I say anything about banning, industry worker, or forum rules?  Read again.

Zero dishonesty from me. But you are clearly clueless and lack basic reading comprehension skills - apparently especially if what you read doesn't fit your preconceptions. 

[firedog]

On 12/18/2017 at 11:25 PM, GUTB said:

Instead of taking Austin's words at face value and see what he comes up with

Why should we take what he says at "face value"? Whatever he writes should be analyzed and evaluated critically.

That said, there is no reason for personal attacks on him or his motives.

[firedog]

13 hours ago, mansr said:

Personal attacks are never called for. Questioning someone's motives is, however, reasonable, especially when their statements do not hold up to scrutiny.

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. 

[firedog]

18 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

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.

 

I don't in principle disagree. I don't think most of these people are "shills", which implies being intentionally deceptive, but I do think there is a strong tendency in the audiophile press to positively promote anything that will help the industry economically. I still remember "quadrophonic" sound. (not that I have anything against multi-channel, but Quad was basically an inferior version of multi used an excuse to get consumers to buy 2 more speakers and a more expensive amp/receiver.)

 

I think this sort of answers Chris' question about why Stereophile would be beholden to MQA. They aren't literally beholden to them, but I think the above applies. 

[firedog]

https://www.stereophile.com/content/more-mqa

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-tested-part-2-fold

 

Interesting that they seem to think the first MQA article showed that the time response of MQA is doing what it claims-I’m not sure it did.

 

At least JA does understand that there are DRM and consumer choice issues involved.

 

 

[firedog]

4 hours ago, GUTB said:

Jim Austin's latest article seems to admit that MQA is lossy, as per CA's analysis. In that case, displaying the sample rate of the original in an MQA stream is both literally and subjectively deceitful. If MQA doesn't offer lossless, than don't suggest you do. We can content ourselves with "very good lossy" and if it sounds better than it sounds better.

 

Also. "Lossless compared to what?"....compared to a FLAC, ALAC, APE, or any other lossless format. Why is Jim tying himself into a rhetorical knot over this topic? Just say: "It's lossy" and then move on to discuss the nature of the lossy format.

 

What's "spectral components above 48kHz"?

Austin's argument is the same as MQA''s: that what is lost is only noise, so it is functionally (SQ wise) lossless. MQA also claims. of course. that their process improves the sound over the original. 

[firedog]

22 hours ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

With digital downloads there is no inventory.

 

The files on the server are the inventory.

Do you think there is no cost involved in maintaining and distributing a  library of tens of thousands (or even millions) of files for download (including duplicate/redundant servers) and efficiently serving them to customers (which includes server and bandwidth costs)? Or for the record labels in storing and maintaining them? 

 

There are albums that appear in the high -res download sites in 6-8 versions in various types of hi-res. Some of them are quite large in size. One of the attractions of MQA for the industry is that if it becomes the standard, your inventory would be one file instead of those multiple files you store and sell today 

[firedog]

4 hours ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

It isn't inventory because it is intangible personal property.  Inventory is required to be tangible.  The costs of distributing digital downloads are miniscule.  Even now, the same file is offered in multiple formats.  If you are a fan of MQA please accept my condolences.  You are definitely not one of my fans.

 

I do view the hi-fi industry with skepticism.  Is that bad? 

Your first few points are all incorrect, especially about costs.

Offering multiple formats is clearly a cost. If you can use MQA and then only offer one      

File instead, it saves money. That’s one of the reasons the labels like it. 

 

I’m not sure how any of this translates to me being a fan of MQA -seems like you are making all sorts of assumptions based on your own preconceptions, but not based on any facts. 

 

In spite of that, I probably agree that I won’t be a fan of yours.

 

Nothing bad about skepticism, as long as it doesn’t develop into weird conspiracy theories and the like. 

[firedog]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

 

How would MQA help that? They could as well just sell one version - the original. Instead of multiple versions. There's no point in selling anything else. For selling the original, MQA doesn't help.

 

I never understood point in selling multiple non-original versions  of the same.

 

In the present market, selling multiple versions lets you price segment the market, increase sales, and make more money than if you sold only one version.

 

Not everyone is focused like you on having only “the original”- in fact that doesn’t particularly interest them at all. 

 

In an MQA only market, the labels can segment the market by price and mark the download so that you get a level of quality on playback reflecting the price you play. And they actually don’t want to sell the original. They’d much prefer to sell you an MQA version, which they can claim is the original, or even an improved original, and never release the actual master. 

[firedog]

45 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

iTunes is simplest in this when syncing to iOS devices, you have simple checkbox to select conversion when syncing to the device. And you can optionally configure target properties to some extent.

 

Lots of people like to just buy whatever format they want - converting themselves or even looking in their software for “properties” is more work or more challenging than they are willing to deal with. You may find that hard to believe, but it is reality.

[firedog]

26 minutes ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

I actually have professional expertise in just what the definition of inventory is, but I am not going to waste any more time on you.  Believe what you want.  Do you have any facts?

You are probably referring to some accounting type definition of inventory, which is irrelevant to the discussion. Just as most of accounting tends to have little relation to reality. 

[firedog]

50 minutes ago, #Yoda# said:

 

It is quite naive to think that the download stores hold any offered resolution or codec in store. E.g. Qobuz.com offers all files in the main formats and all usual resolutions below the best one (hopefully not upsampled). I'm quite certain, that they store only the best resolution they've got from the labels in FLAC, convert and downsample them, if required, to the requested format and resolution. When you download a different format or resolution than the "original" stored one, you can notice always a delay until the download is available. I'm sure the other providers handle this storage issue similar. An exception to this is for sure MQA because it cannot be simply encoded by providers, MQA files must be stored additionally.  

You may be right in some cases. Some of the download managers can be seen converting the files.  But I don’t think it is true of DSD (conversion) and it’s not true at all the sites that don’t use some type of download manager. Not all of them have a delay.

[firedog]

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....

[firedog]

22 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

Where is the music?

There's lots of it if you like classical. Or folk and second rate Jazz. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Spacehound said:

To them it's just another label on the box. It doesn't signify that they think it's any good. 

Berkeley is on record being heavily in favor of the sound of MQA saying it gets music listeners close to the sound of well recorded 24/192, without actually having the 24/192.

They see it as a positive development which, while not quite as good as 24/192, is capable of improving the overall sound of what listeners generally listen too.

[firedog]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

temporal smear is usually made on a bagel - I suggest toasting them and choosing something taxonomically distant

Correction: on a bagel, the correct term is "schmear". Let's not insult bagels by associating them with MQA.

[firedog]

8 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

We had bagels with a schmear, too.

Actually, I did too. But I cheated and used a nice gooey French style cheese. Those multicultural influences....

[firedog]

4 hours ago, mcgillroy said:

An MQA-ADC?! Where? Nobody has seen any in the wild and it’s questionable if they exist.

 

Prediction: that Mytek device if it ever appears will only lead to further disenchantment with MQA.

Probably intended for the pro market, like Mytek's other well regarded ADCs.

[firedog]

16 minutes ago, Galileo365 said:

 

I can spot a BS artist from a mile away, regardless of his or her background. mansr has already undermined his own credibility beyond repair from the perspective of any truly sensible and open-minded person.

How?