Stereophile Series on MQA Technology

[seldomheard]

There's a reason why the account name chosen is "seldomheard". You probably aren't smart enough to see the irony here but that certainly makes sense given this is an "audiophile " forum. (joke is on you)

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, seldomheard said:

There's a reason why the account name chosen is "seldomheard". You probably aren't smart enough to see the irony here but that certainly makes sense given this is an "audiophile " forum. (joke is on you)

 

Um, ok. 

[Norton]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi @seldomheard, do you care to reveal your real name and credentials? 

 

I suspect that is a question well worth asking of a number of other posters in the MQA threads.

[mansr]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Ok. Your account is now banned. 

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

[NOMBEDES]

7 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Ok. Your account is now banned. 

 

oh crap now he won't be to comment on my brilliant post above..........

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, mansr said:

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

 

Its like saying you can comment anonymously on the weekend because you aren’t working for anyone. His language and some searching lead me to believe he has violated the rules of CA. This has zero to do with the subject matter. 

[Norton]

15 minutes ago, mansr said:

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

 

I would have hoped the abusive  language  used  alone would have been enough to merit a ban.  

[mansr]

9 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Its like saying you can comment anonymously on the weekend because you aren’t working for anyone.

Not at all. Any one of us could at some future time end up working for an audio company, so by your logic we should all be "disclosing" this.

 

9 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

His language and some searching lead me to believe he has violated the rules of CA.

If you found something to suggest he's dishonest about his non-affiliation, you should disclose that. However rarely you ban people, the reasons should be transparent.

[mansr]

11 minutes ago, Norton said:

I would have hoped the abusive  language  used  alone would have been enough to merit a ban.  

That's a separate issue and wasn't mentioned by Chris as grounds for a ban.

[christopher3393]

22 minutes ago, mansr said:

Not at all. Any one of us could at some future time end up working for an audio company, so by your logic we should all be "disclosing" this.

 

If you found something to suggest he's dishonest about his non-affiliation, you should disclose that. However rarely you ban people, the reasons should be transparent.

 

20 minutes ago, mansr said:

That's a separate issue and wasn't mentioned by Chris as grounds for a ban.

 

Respectfully, this seems like straining out a gnat only to swallow a camel.

[Samuel T Cogley]

3 hours ago, mansr said:

Let's see how long this one lasts. He doesn't seem quite as hot-tempered as Lavorgna though.

 

I don't think JA came here to answer questions or engage in any dialog.  He came here to explicitly say his publication is not getting paid to say positive things about MQA.  But MQA is an advertiser there, so that's perhaps a bit ambiguous, maybe even disingenuous.  I would be really surprised if he was willing to engage in any back-and-forth that could explore that question in detail.  FWIW, I think Chris made the right call on that ban.

 

While @seldomheard was objectively rude, I suspect many who revere JA perceived an amplified coarseness in that post.  The elephant in the room is the cozy relationship the audiophile press enjoys with manufacturers.  And I suspect that's where @seldomheardwas coming from.

[John_Atkinson]

1 minute ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

@seldomheardI don't think JA came here to answer questions or engage in any dialog.  He came here to implicitly say his publication is not getting paid to say positive things about MQA.  But MQA is an advertiser there, so that's perhaps a bit ambiguous. 

 

For the record, MQA has never advertised in Stereophile, though they have occasionally done so in The Absolute Sound.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

[Samuel T Cogley]

1 minute ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

For the record, MQA has never advertised in Stereophile, though they have occasionally done so in The Absolute Sound.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

Thank you for this clarification.  I wish you well in your MQA rehabilitation project.  You've got a steep climb ahead of you.

 

[Bystander]

It's pretty impressive to me that MQA continues to receive all of this attention in audiophile circles (even if it seems to be mostly of a negative nature these days) instead of being long forgotten, considering the technology, if you want to call it that, seems like a solution to a completely non-existent problem – like so many other things beloved by audiophiles. Oh wait... 

[GUTB]

Does anyone have any evidence of Stereophile shilling for MQA? Even hearsay?

 

@seldomheard repeated the not-ringing-you’re-dumb statement that was addressed by Austin in the comments section, possibly he’s someone who’s been embarrassed by that? I hope he comes back and posts his industry affiliation — that would give him credibility and I seriously doubt an experienced engineer/designer will be out of a job because he said mean things about Stereophile.

[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.

[kumakuma]

11 minutes ago, GUTB said:

Does anyone have any evidence of Stereophile shilling for MQA? Even hearsay?

 

@seldomheard repeated the not-ringing-you’re-dumb statement that was addressed by Austin in the comments section, possibly he’s someone who’s been embarrassed by that? I hope he comes back and posts his industry affiliation — that would give him credibility and I seriously doubt an experienced engineer/designer will be out of a job because he said mean things about Stereophile.

 

Do you have any industry affiliation?

 

Multiple people have asked you if you are Steve Guttenberg with no response from you.

[beetlemania]

3 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

For the record, MQA has never advertised in Stereophile, though they have occasionally done so in The Absolute Sound.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

To your credit, you have maintained far more integrity that than Mr. Harley. In fact, I apologize for including his name with yours.

 

Regarding MQA, it defies logic that a lossy file can be better than the original but, sure, it's possible some will prefer the modified sound. It would be interesting to compare an MQA encoded file with a 192/24 transferred with your QA-9.

 

And I hope that Mr. Austin's series includes the non-sonic issues raised by Linn Audio, among many others.

[esldude]

5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Its like saying you can comment anonymously on the weekend because you aren’t working for anyone. His language and some searching lead me to believe he has violated the rules of CA. This has zero to do with the subject matter. 

I would assume had he PM'd you with his past affiliations and confirming none are currently active you would have left the account intact if that satisfied you.  Or depending upon what you learn perhaps not.  That way he wouldn't have torpedoed future employment publicly. 

[esldude]

3 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

 

To your credit, you have maintained far more integrity that than Mr. Harley. In fact, I apologize for including his name with yours.

 

Regarding MQA, it defies logic that a lossy file can be better than the original but, sure, it's possible some will prefer the modified sound. It would be interesting to compare an MQA encoded file with a 192/24 transferred with your QA-9.

 

And I hope that Mr. Austin's series includes the non-sonic issues raised by Linn Audio, among many others.

My initially impulse about lossy being better than original would be to agree.  However it is possible to be the reverse.  One could consider 48khz/24 lossy in a sense it filters out higher frequencies.  Yet doing so allows a format which is highly accurate at reproducing the sounds humans can hear.  So it isn't impossible for partial lossy encoding with particular filtering which has some advantages to work within the constraints of a given format to be humanly heard as better.  That is something of the claim of MQA.  I am not convinced it is true, but it can't be ruled out purely on the basis of simple logic.  That logic would be over-simplifying things potentially.  

 

In this case of MQA, I think the claims about blurring in time is conflating several things to fix a problem which isn't perceived aurally by humans at the expense of some imaging contamination and other factors.  Meaning MQA probably is of lesser rather than greater fidelity to masters vs getting those masters in the native sample rate and bit depth. 

[Sonicularity]

MQA is a format.  If an opinion about a format creates a pause for anyone to reveal the company they work with or for when this information would otherwise be readily presented, that worries me.  What the hell is going on?  What is it about this MQA format that creates such a consternation?

 

Yes, my comment is purely rhetorical.

[crenca]

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.  

[Miska]

8 hours ago, esldude said:

So it isn't impossible for partial lossy encoding with particular filtering which has some advantages to work within the constraints of a given format to be humanly heard as better.  That is something of the claim of MQA.  I am not convinced it is true, but it can't be ruled out purely on the basis of simple logic.  That logic would be over-simplifying things potentially. 

 

Major problem with MQA in any case is attempt to force-feed everyone with their horrible choice of filters, among many other deficiencies stated elsewhere.

 

Plus attempt to avoid people from freely encoding/decoding test signals to verify the functionality and performance.

 

Quote

Meaning MQA probably is of lesser rather than greater fidelity to masters vs getting those masters in the native sample rate and bit depth. 

 

At least so far has been the case what I've been hearing and also evaluating from technical point of view.

[semente]

7 hours ago, Sonicularity said:

MQA is a format.  If an opinion about a format creates a pause for anyone to reveal the company they work with or for when this information would otherwise be readily presented, that worries me.  What the hell is going on?  What is it about this MQA format that creates such a consternation?

 

Yes, my comment is purely rhetorical.

 

Any new format means costs for the end user and profits for the industry (magazines included).

Not that audiophiles don't like to change DACs like they change underwear but it's nice to have the option not to...

[rwdvis]

On 11/29/2017 at 3:05 AM, rwdvis said:

  Typically, Chris’ activity on the forum is pretty light, but when a new MQA shill appears he suddenly becomes more active and the majority of his responses directed at critics.

 

On 11/29/2017 at 3:50 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Give me a break.  You’re viewing this from such a negative angle. What’s wrong with my responses to some critics? Telling one critic that I don’t disagree with his message, just his delivery, is a bad thing?

Please present facts that I’ve responded to critics in some pro-MQA fashion when a new MQA shill appears. 

 

On 11/29/2017 at 4:32 AM, rwdvis said:

I didn’t say you responded in a pro-MQA fashion.  The following post is most accurate.

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).

Quote

And, it's not just this one critic, as you say.  You've acted the same in the past.  Just my observation.

 

Most recent:

19 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi @seldomheard, do you care to reveal your real name and credentials? 

 

18 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This looks like an admission that you’re in the industry. If that’s the case you must identify your self in order to continue posting. 

 

17 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

False equivalency. 

 

Our rule stands. Identify yourself, if you’re in the industry, or you’re gone. 

 

17 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Ok. Your account is now banned. 

 

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.