Stereophile Series on MQA Technology

[arcman]

30 minutes ago, NOMBEDES said:

Oh boy.  Here is my take on why younger people don’t indulge themselves in higher end Audio equipment.

 

As wealth accumulated to fewer and fewer families,  wages became stagnant.  After all the money that goes to the vampire squid has to come from some place!

 

Add on student debt, housing costs, and the general expense of existence.....they just don’t have the money. 

 

Of of course there are other factors ...... but I like to follow the money.

 

I see what you are saying, however, i don't believe audiophiles are different than they were 30 years ago. I think there are more 1 percenters now, thus the growth of exotic pieces (example $100,000 amplifiers, etc). I think you have same (relative) quality levels (low, mid, high) than we ever have. Sure, debt levels are higher now, but that is not stopping younger people from buying X-boxes, $500 phones, 65 inch flat screens, subscription based services (netflix, etc). My business has a large Real Estate client base. Regular income younger people are not going for large homes that their baby boomers purchased (or purchased outside their means) beforehand. Younger people may not want monoblock amps and numerous separates with large speakers. Same as younger people do not want large cases for thousands of books, records and cds (due to streaming, kindle, etc). One could maybe call it the "ikea" effect. 

Just like any other industry, audio companies have to change with the tastes of the audio consumer just like they did many years ago. McIntosh has receivers back then as they have integrateds now. So really not much has changes as it may appear. Many companies are really expanding their headphone lines. Back in the 70's and 80's, high end companies offered various tape formats as they offer streaming, digital storage devices to fill the same void.

 

Quote

 

I see what you are saying, however, i don't believe audiophiles are different than they were 30 years ago. I think there are more 1 percenters now, thus the growth of exotic pieces (example $100,000 amplifiers, etc). I think you have same (relative) quality levels (low, mid, high) than we ever have. Sure, debt levels are higher now, but that is not stopping younger people from buying X-boxes, $500 phones, 65 inch flat screens, subscription based services (netflix, etc). My business has a large Real Estate client base. Regular income younger people are not going for large homes that their baby boomers purchased (or purchased outside their means) beforehand. Younger people may not want monoblock amps and numerous separates with large speakers. Same as younger people do not want large cases for thousands of books, records and cds (due to streaming, kindle, etc). One could maybe call it the "ikea" effect. 

Just like any other industry, audio companies have to change with the tastes of the audio consumer just like they did many years ago. McIntosh has receivers back then as they have integrateds now. So really not much has changes as it may appear. Many companies are really expanding their headphone lines. Back in the 70's and 80's, high end companies offered various tape formats as they offer streaming, digital storage devices to fill the same void.

[mansr]

14 minutes ago, arcman said:

there are more 1 percenters now

Insofar as the population has grown, yes.

[semente]

21 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 and attack it. They could go to a show and listen for themselves but they just don't care to. Millenials aren't spending a few thousand on a VPI, Rega or Clearaudio, they're spending a hundred bucks on some ultra low-end AT, Crosley, etc. and putting them in the corner just to look cool. If they get interested in better audio it typically goes no further than a $200 pair of lo-fi headphones and some USB stick DAC. They won't lust after Utopias or HE1Ks. They won't get excited over the latest Cavelli or Woo amp.

Times have changed and this new generation, in fact all those that succeeded the baby boomers', just aren't as well off. Pocket money has been shrinking for decades and the middle class is getting poorer.

Besides they have a broader range of interests.

 

 

[semente]

12 hours ago, GUTB said:

1. There are no MQA supporters on this forum. I'm essentially the only one. Some of you guys have an extrodinarily misplaced sense of oppresaion.

 

2. MQA haters are named such because they have an emotional response against MQA. My support for MQA comes simply from subjective factors. 

 

3. The younger generation not only dismisses high-end audio they also show no interest in mid-end sound unless it can be had for less than $1000 in which case they will sometimes show passing interest.

Hasn't it crossed your mind that perhaps you are preaching to the wrong audience here. No one really bought into your concepts of what Audiophile or High-End means...

[GUTB]

1 hour ago, semente said:

Hasn't it crossed your mind that perhaps you are preaching to the wrong audience here. No one really bought into your concepts of what Audiophile or High-End means...

 

I find that when people don’t agree that high end means exactly what the words imply (high end audio) it’s for self-serving purposes. For example, the ODAC is "high-end" because it was designed by some guy that ran a blog who was popular. The popularity of the ODAC was cultural and based on reasons besides sound quality. The issue isn’t that low-end gear like the ODAC or O2 are popular — it’s that the culture that likes the ODAC also rejects the possibility of anything being significantly better. They not only reject the price, they reject the concept of the high-end itself.

 

Anyone who isn’t deaf can walk into an audio show and be exposed to high end sound. I’m 100% confident not a single one of them won’t walk out amazed at the heights of quality that are possible. They don’t want to, however — not because of the price, but because they’re not even interested in learning about high end sound. They aren’t even curious about it. They just don’t care. If the high-end enters thier consciousnesses it’s just to belittle it and re-enforce social and philosophical group norms against it.

[semente]

15 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

I find that when people don’t agree that high end means exactly what the words imply (high end audio) it’s for self-serving purposes. For example, the ODAC is "high-end" because it was designed by some guy that ran a blog who was popular. The popularity of the ODAC was cultural and based on reasons besides sound quality. The issue isn’t that low-end gear like the ODAC or O2 are popular — it’s that the culture that likes the ODAC also rejects the possibility of anything being significantly better. They not only reject the price, they reject the concept of the high-end itself.

 

Anyone who isn’t deaf can walk into an audio show and be exposed to high end sound. I’m 100% confident not a single one of them won’t walk out amazed at the heights of quality that are possible. They don’t want to, however — not because of the price, but because they’re not even interested in learning about high end sound. They aren’t even curious about it. They just don’t care. If the high-end enters thier consciousnesses it’s just to belittle it and re-enforce social and philosophical group norms against it.

Amazing. Do you make that up by yourself?

[GUTB]

24 minutes ago, semente said:

Amazing. Do you make that up by yourself?

 

What’s your explanation for why they don’t believe in or care about high end audio?

[semente]

20 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

What’s your explanation for why they don’t believe in or care about high end audio?

I don't know who they are but they're definitely not Audiophiles.

[Don Hills]

51 minutes ago, GUTB said:

...

Anyone who isn’t deaf can walk into an audio show and be exposed to high end sound.

 

I'd rather be exposed to high fidelity sound.

 

I’m 100% confident not a single one of them won’t walk out amazed at the heights of quality that are possible.

 

You're well wrong there, after every show the audio enthusiast fora are replete with posts by people complaining that the quality in the "high end" rooms wasn't up to their expectations. Granted, being enthusiasts they have high standards. The people you had in mind, the "great unwashed", may have lower standards but are even less interested in audio jewellery.

[GUTB]

9 minutes ago, semente said:

I don't know who they are but they're definitely not Audiophiles.

 

Obviously.

[kumakuma]

46 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

What’s your explanation for why they don’t believe in or care about high end audio?

 

Probably for the same reasons why model trains as a hobby is dying out.

 

Sound familiar?

 

Quote

Once thought of as every boy’s dream toy, model trains have become a domain mainly for old men. At clubs devoted to the hobby, members below 60 years old are the young bucks. Some retirement homes provide model-railroading rooms for their residents.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/end-of-the-line-for-model-trains-aging-hobbyists-trundle-on-1455157546

[GUTB]

8 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

I'd rather be exposed to high fidelity sound.

 

 

You're well wrong there, after every show the audio enthusiast fora are replete with posts by people complaining that the quality in the "high end" rooms wasn't up to their expectations. Granted, being enthusiasts they have high standards. The people you had in mind, the "great unwashed", may have lower standards but are even less interested in audio jewellery.

 

After looking at your profile...can you guess what I’m going to ask you?

 

What’s the basis for differentiating between high-end and hi-fi? Is it that you’re interested hi-fi, but that interest doesn’t extend into the high end of the audio quality spectrum? Or is it that you believe that there is no qualitative distinction re high-end?

 

Yes shows have a lot of poor sounding rooms...usually the smaller guys setting up in little hotel rooms with little effort to tune them. AXPONA this year was really bad — but there were still some major show rooms in which you got a major treat such as the stunning MBL room. The reel-to-reel system in the Skogrand room was VERY nice. The Synergistic Research room was extremely nice as usual. So high-end audio was available even there.

[GUTB]

9 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Probably for the same reasons why model trains as a hobby is dying out.

 

Sound familiar?

 

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/end-of-the-line-for-model-trains-aging-hobbyists-trundle-on-1455157546

 

So, in your view they just don’t care that much about audio quality?

[kumakuma]

Just now, GUTB said:

 

So, in your view they just don’t care that much about audio quality?

More the fact they have no time, no money, and no space for audio components combined with a hundred other possible ways to spend their time. 

 

BTW, how old are you?

[monteverdi]

Listening to (recorded) music was much more a social thing but now listening to music especially via headphone is a much more isolating experience. And spending money is influenced by social acceptance. Most high end systems presently are used in isolation or if one is lucky shared by one's family. If you want to show off cars or phones are much more noticeable status symbols. I enjoy listening to music, in concerts but daily through my system independent of the approval of my friends.

Wealth is accumulating in smaller and smaller portions of society, so the 1% will be soon the 0.1% so I am still amazed of the trend of escalating  ultra expensive equipment. 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. 

[crenca]

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.).

[PeterSt]

4 hours ago, kumakuma said:

Probably for the same reasons why model trains as a hobby is dying out.

 

I live in my second house with a basement especially made for model railroading. First house was built like that for myself, this one for our son, now 19 yo. First time failed because I never got round to it for 19 years in a row, second time I was going to do it better. I bought everything (or most) for it, like over 300 locomotives, countless wagons and ~ 5 miles of track.

It is never going to happen, but now why ...

 

Once or twice a year our son openly regrets that I never set up something for him. He is doing that with consciousness for 10 years or so, by now (we live in this house for 14 years).

Once or twice a month I explicitly do not regret that I never started it for real, because the huge amounts of time in it would have been a waste because of two reasons :

 

1. At this large scale (total length of 150ft) all would have to be controlled by computers and thus also the tracks and all would have to be "emulated" to make this control possible; this emulation is a game in itself and I'd like the game better.

2. Every youngster (boy) likes games better than whatever physical means. No wait, they require gaming for a living.

 

Both are very similar. So I myself already would have difficulties in not liking Simcity etc. (or Railroad Tycoon) for the better, at infinitely less effort, but the boy would never look at the physical railroad after two weeks.

And so I regard it is super waste of effort.

 

Btw, it was my hobby from of when I was conscious of being alive at 4 or so, because it was my father's hobby. At 11, once per year (for a month) I laid out a track in and around the living room and it was fully (electrically) automated with 5 locomotives. That is also where my soldering started. 

So I very well know what I am talking about and explicitly decided not to continue with it.

 

Once in a while I look into selling all the stuff, but I don't think I will ever be able to find anyone interested. The hobby is quite dead and I helped with that.

 

[Don Hills]

6 hours ago, GUTB said:

 

After looking at your profile...can you guess what I’m going to ask you?

 

You want to ask about the quality of my system? My answer would be the same as the answer that Rolls-Royce used to give when asked about the horsepower of their engines: Adequate.

 

What’s the basis for differentiating between high-end and hi-fi? Is it that you’re interested hi-fi, but that interest doesn’t extend into the high end of the audio quality spectrum? Or is it that you believe that there is no qualitative distinction re high-end?

 

Crenca said it well just above. My own view is that high-end and high-fidelity are not synonymous. By high-end,  I mean cost-no-object components and circuit topologies in "jewellery" cases. By high-fidelity, I mean state-of-the-art performance in accuracy and ability to interface well with other equipment in the chain. So high-end can be high-fidelity, but it's not guaranteed.

[FredericV]

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.

[semente]

58 minutes 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.

 

Nothing new there, except for the newcomers and the deluded.

 

Most audio magazines are a profit-driven business and that is fine, but because they're also the most effective way of advertising they make fertile ground for biased "journalism" where, in many cases, some self-appointed gurus to stimulate craving and create misplaced, biased expectations. And they charge dearly for it too.

Those who believe that magazines take the consumer side are misleading themselves.

[mcgillroy]

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. 

[mansr]

Just now, mcgillroy said:

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.

It is obvious from the TEN website that the collection of publications exists solely for the purpose of selling ads. Glowing "review" on one page, ad on the next.

[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. 

[John_Atkinson]

4 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.

I deleted a small number of posts by Brian and by another poster that did not conform to our rules. All of Brian Lucey's other comments are MQA are still there on the Stereophile website. Brian's original comments on MQA were not posted online until after the 2 articles in the January 2018 issue were at the printer. You should note that the online reprint of my essay on MQA does include links to some others who have criticized MQA

Quote

_ stereophile articles are a paid series by MQA

Not true.  - John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

[Samuel T Cogley]

It looks like MQA's Charm Offensive is trying to establish a beachhead at CA...