Archimago Posted December 21, 2017 Share Posted December 21, 2017 9 hours ago, Fokus said: I disagree. In my book the latter all mean a significant curtailing of my digital rights. Yeah Fokus. I'm being charitable to some extent... It is significant curtailing of freedoms already. At least it's not worse . Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Archimago Posted December 21, 2017 Share Posted December 21, 2017 5 hours ago, mcgillroy said: The quality of MQA-shills truly is lacklustre. That's cuz MQA is lacklustre! Even shills need something decent to work with! MikeyFresh 1 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post Miska Posted December 21, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 21, 2017 15 hours ago, Archimago said: 3. Make belief DRM eh? Well, I did admit in my article that this is the most speculative part - that's why I said this was "unclear". Remember that MQA has partnered with Utimaco for the cryptographic algorithm (as per this case study). There is a level of sophistication here beyond just embedded CRC to turn on an authenticated blue light. Sure, we can copy MQA now and as far as we're aware, there are no strong DRM mechanisms in place (other than the hassles of using specific software, upgrading hardware and not accessing the full resolution for doing our own DSP). But if as hobbyists, we can imagine a potential to use this infrastructure for DRM, are we to be naive that the company hasn't to extend return on investment and incentivize rights holders? DRM doesn't necessarily mean copy-protection. In this case it is not that, yet. DRM in this case control over the production and distribution chain and specifically the decoding part. Content is tied to a particular licensed decoder implementation they want to review. So here DRM is not protecting the content, it is protecting the technology (for example from objective evaluation) and control over who can have the technology in first place. MQA can decide who they want to sell a decoder, enforce the way things are implemented and require broad NDA that could contain all kinds of gag orders and penalties about communication regarding MQA. For comparison, you can have an AAC SLS encoder and decoder, from some vendor of your choice, including payment the standard patent license to the patent holders and then you can encode and decode whatever test signals you want. You can study the codec specification throughout since it's an open standard so you know exactly how it works, inside out. If the patent holders or codec vendor goes out of business, you can still independently implement the codec and have all your valuable content fully decoded and possibly encoded with some other, newer standard. Tony Lauck, 4est, mansr and 1 other 4 Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers Link to comment
Shadders Posted December 21, 2017 Share Posted December 21, 2017 32 minutes ago, Miska said: DRM doesn't necessarily mean copy-protection. In this case it is not that, yet. DRM in this case control over the production and distribution chain and specifically the decoding part. Content is tied to a particular licensed decoder implementation they want to review. So here DRM is not protecting the content, it is protecting the technology (for example from objective evaluation) and control over who can have the technology in first place. MQA can decide who they want to sell a decoder, enforce the way things are implemented and require broad NDA that could contain all kinds of gag orders and penalties about communication regarding MQA. For comparison, you can have an AAC SLS encoder and decoder, from some vendor of your choice, including payment the standard patent license to the patent holders and then you can encode and decode whatever test signals you want. You can study the codec specification throughout since it's an open standard so you know exactly how it works, inside out. If the patent holders or codec vendor goes out of business, you can still independently implement the codec and have all your valuable content fully decoded and possibly encoded with some other, newer standard. Hi, Possibly DRM can be used to switch off decoders that have not paid the bill as per this software issue : https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161220/12411836320/software-company-shows-how-not-to-handle-negative-review.shtml The company purposely "bricked" the device because the customer gave a negative review. Regards, Shadders. Link to comment
semente Posted December 21, 2017 Share Posted December 21, 2017 1 hour ago, Miska said: DRM doesn't necessarily mean copy-protection. In this case it is not that, yet. DRM in this case control over the production and distribution chain and specifically the decoding part. Content is tied to a particular licensed decoder implementation they want to review. So here DRM is not protecting the content, it is protecting the technology (for example from objective evaluation) and control over who can have the technology in first place. MQA can decide who they want to sell a decoder, enforce the way things are implemented and require broad NDA that could contain all kinds of gag orders and penalties about communication regarding MQA. For comparison, you can have an AAC SLS encoder and decoder, from some vendor of your choice, including payment the standard patent license to the patent holders and then you can encode and decode whatever test signals you want. You can study the codec specification throughout since it's an open standard so you know exactly how it works, inside out. If the patent holders or codec vendor goes out of business, you can still independently implement the codec and have all your valuable content fully decoded and possibly encoded with some other, newer standard. If you don't get access to the full-res Master files but a lossy copy instead then the former is copy-protected. From that perspective MQA is a form of copy-protecting the Master files. "Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256) Link to comment
Miska Posted December 21, 2017 Share Posted December 21, 2017 1 hour ago, semente said: If you don't get access to the full-res Master files but a lossy copy instead then the former is copy-protected. From that perspective MQA is a form of copy-protecting the Master files. Yes, I think that's probably why music industry is buying into it. In addition it is yet another format they can use to sell the same material once again, especially with some claimed sonic benefits. And then maybe later MQA v2 and v3 versions... Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers Link to comment
Popular Post mansr Posted December 21, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 21, 2017 1 minute ago, Miska said: Yes, I think that's probably why music industry is buying into it. Crown jewels. They said it themselves. Rt66indierock and Samuel T Cogley 2 Link to comment
Fair Hedon Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 On 12/17/2017 at 11:32 AM, 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 But MQA partners have. You must think everyone is braindead...well... Link to comment
Fair Hedon Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 On 12/18/2017 at 4:17 PM, 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 Thanks for the laugh. I mean really, a real belly acher...Coming from the guy who was impressed by a $24,000 Boulder CD player because it displayed metadata...and a $300 Squeezebox did the same. Link to comment
rickca Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 On 12/18/2017 at 7:17 PM, John_Atkinson said: 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. Well, there's theory and there's the reality of what has been implemented. Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs i7-6700K/Windows 10 --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's Link to comment
GUTB Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 51 minutes ago, Fair Hedon said: Thanks for the laugh. I mean really, a real belly acher...Coming from the guy who was impressed by a $24,000 Boulder CD player because it displayed metadata...and a $300 Squeezebox did the same. You mean the review in which he determined it sounded virtually identical to a $6k Ayre? You're trying too hard making @John_Atkinson into a villain. Link to comment
Fair Hedon Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 11 minutes ago, GUTB said: You mean the review in which he determined it sounded virtually identical to a $6k Ayre? You're trying too hard making @John_Atkinson into a villain. You mean the review where claimed the $24,000 CD player was "future proof"? LOL!!!! How'd that work out? "The Boulder 1021 may be very expensive, but it is both superbly engineered and superb-sounding. Its measured performance is at the current state of the art for high-resolution audio performance, and its ability to retrieve, store, and display the metadata for the CDs it plays is addicting. Its future is really guaranteed, however, by its ability to play data discs carrying high-resolution audio files, whether they be ones you've burned yourself from downloads, or commercial discs from companies like Reference Recordings or Fidelio. Yes, playing such files back from your computer is possible, but computer soundcards that can get the most from files sampled at 176.4kHz and 192kHz are few and far between. Boulder's 1021 is highly recommended to those fortunate few with pockets deep enough to be able to afford it." https://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/boulder_1021_disc_player/index.html What a farce! Your fanboydom on this forum is really beyond the pale. It\ Link to comment
GUTB Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 3 minutes ago, Fair Hedon said: You mean the review where claimed the $24,000 CD player was "future proof"? LOL!!!! How'd that work out? "The Boulder 1021 may be very expensive, but it is both superbly engineered and superb-sounding. Its measured performance is at the current state of the art for high-resolution audio performance, and its ability to retrieve, store, and display the metadata for the CDs it plays is addicting. Its future is really guaranteed, however, by its ability to play data discs carrying high-resolution audio files, whether they be ones you've burned yourself from downloads, or commercial discs from companies like Reference Recordings or Fidelio. Yes, playing such files back from your computer is possible, but computer soundcards that can get the most from files sampled at 176.4kHz and 192kHz are few and far between. Boulder's 1021 is highly recommended to those fortunate few with pockets deep enough to be able to afford it." https://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/boulder_1021_disc_player/index.html What a farce! Your fanboydom on this forum is really beyond the pale. It\ The review was in 2009. What’s wrong with you? Why are you focusing your ego so intently on hating an editor for a review magazine? Link to comment
asdf1000 Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 Ya it's getting too personal again (both ways). Play the ball, not the man https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/playing-ball-man-stupidity-definition-personal-attack-bellantone opus101 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Rt66indierock Posted December 22, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 22, 2017 14 hours ago, Em2016 said: Ya it's getting too personal again (both ways). Play the ball, not the man https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/playing-ball-man-stupidity-definition-personal-attack-bellantone 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. Tony Lauck and Shadders 2 Link to comment
GUTB Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 Sigh. My flight to LAAS got rained out so I missed the "fun". Couldn't go to RMAF due to work. Jim Austin is going to dig into the MQA claims in detail. How devastated are you going to be when the claims are validated? How many pages of text will it take to isolate your ego from reality? Link to comment
Popular Post Rt66indierock Posted December 22, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 22, 2017 16 minutes ago, GUTB said: Sigh. My flight to LAAS got rained out so I missed the "fun". Couldn't go to RMAF due to work. Jim Austin is going to dig into the MQA claims in detail. How devastated are you going to be when the claims are validated? How many pages of text will it take to isolate your ego from reality? Jim is in third place so far in the first contest to debunk Jim Austin. Jim can try to validate any MQA claim he wants but if Bob Stuart himself can't convince me I'm not worried. asdf1000 and Samuel T Cogley 2 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)... Rt66indierock, mcgillroy, mansr and 2 others 4 1 Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
arcman Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 On 12/11/2017 at 7:21 PM, arcman said: The non MQA hi res version is 24/96 while the mqa version is 24/192. I have same Dac and noticed the MQA version sounds slightly more “spacious”. Is that due to mqa or the extra resolution (96 vs 192)? bTW the 24/96 version is on Qobuz Then why does the mqa logo light up and the resolution displays 24/192? Link to comment
Popular Post mcgillroy Posted December 23, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 23, 2017 16 hours ago, GUTB said: Sigh. My flight to LAAS got rained out so I missed the "fun". Couldn't go to RMAF due to work. Jim Austin is going to dig into the MQA claims in detail. How devastated are you going to be when the claims are validated? How many pages of text will it take to isolate your ego from reality? You know after four years and some very reputable people kicking MQAs tires coming away unimpressed Jim Austin really has to show that the chassis is titanium and the engine a flux-compensator - 'cause temporal blur! Meanwhile I am taking the liberty to write some of the neuroscience authors (Brand, Kuchur, Siefke, King) cited in the MQA AES paper asking them a.) if they feel their work properly represented, b.) if they think their research supports MQAs claims? Don't expect any responses but who know's. MQA nicely exposed journalists failure to do their job and made debunking a cottage industry. Perhaps somebody else wants to have a look at the references in the AES paper and check with the authors cited. The sampling theory claims seem especially juicy and low hanging. Shadders and The Computer Audiophile 2 Link to comment
Popular Post The Computer Audiophile Posted December 23, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 23, 2017 I emailed Harry Nyquist and Claude Shannon. Awaiting a response. Only kidding. I think contacting some of those cited is a great idea. mcgillroy and AlainGr 2 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
Rt66indierock Posted December 23, 2017 Author Share Posted December 23, 2017 7 hours ago, mcgillroy said: You know after four years and some very reputable people kicking MQAs tires coming away unimpressed Jim Austin really has to show that the chassis is titanium and the engine a flux-compensator - 'cause temporal blur! Meanwhile I am taking the liberty to write some of the neuroscience authors (Brand, Kuchur, Siefke, King) cited in the MQA AES paper asking them a.) if they feel their work properly represented, b.) if they think their research supports MQAs claims? Don't expect any responses but who know's. MQA nicely exposed journalists failure to do their job and made debunking a cottage industry. Perhaps somebody else wants to have a look at the references in the AES paper and check with the authors cited. The sampling theory claims seem especially juicy and low hanging. Been done by several people me included. Charley Hansen thought the sources cited didn't support the paper. Hi-Fi News used the word muddled. To me the pre MQA paper read like a tax shelter opinion. The sources were cherry picked when the overall literature doesn't support the findings of the paper. This and other MQA papers were excellent sources to build my MQA marketing checklist however. Link to comment
Popular Post mcgillroy Posted December 24, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 24, 2017 15 hours ago, Rt66indierock said: Been done by several people me included. Charley Hansen thought the sources cited didn't support the paper. Hi-Fi News used the word muddled. To me the pre MQA paper read like a tax shelter opinion. The sources were cherry picked when the overall literature doesn't support the findings of the paper. Yes but to my knowledge nobody has done a proper debunking of the paper and its sources. Charles opinion mattered but he was easily framed as a competitor. Hifi News is just another mag. What is needed is a upping the ante on MQAs bullshit marketing and getting some science people publicly taking a good hard look at it. The neuroscience seems to be an especially low hanging fruit. The FAQ on the MQA website states: "MQA is based entirely on science. Specifically, it is based on new findings in Neuroscience that have told us that the resolution of timing information is critical to our hearing and our ear/brain interaction." See: http://www.mqa.co.uk/professional/for-content-producers - scroll down to FAQ. These are pretty unspecific claims and perhaps it's easy to find neuroscience papers supporting it. But I am pretty sure that none of the neuroscience papers they cite in their AES-paper would provide proper support for their specific use-case, not to speak of their implementation. Has MQA shown any evidence that they tested and validated their stuff in some "neuroscience" setup?! I am collecting the papers over the holidays and will have a look at them. Also lets see if there is any feedback from the authors. MikeyFresh, semente and crenca 1 1 1 Link to comment
Fokus Posted December 24, 2017 Share Posted December 24, 2017 Did anyone catch this gem? Austin writes One of the challenges levied against MQA by its more knowledgeable critics is that ... its sampling method—and the resulting, presumed(*) increase in aliasing—introduce randomness in precisely when those impulses occur..... I synchronized the MQA and non-MQA impulse responses: MQA in the left channel, non-MQA in the right. Over 30 seconds of impulses spaced 0.7ms apart, examined on a microsecond scale, I saw no random offsets—or offsets of any kind—in where MQA's impulses landed. The stimulus file being perfect impulses generated in the 96kHz digital domain ... And this guy is writing a technical investigation that should carry some authority, that is impartial? Either he is lying, or he does not understand sampling. At all. (* Oh, and 'presumed'??? really?? As if said critics were making it up?) MikeyFresh 1 Link to comment
mansr Posted December 24, 2017 Share Posted December 24, 2017 9 minutes ago, Fokus said: Did anyone catch this gem? Austin writes One of the challenges levied against MQA by its more knowledgeable critics is that ... its sampling method—and the resulting, presumed(*) increase in aliasing—introduce randomness in precisely when those impulses occur..... I synchronized the MQA and non-MQA impulse responses: MQA in the left channel, non-MQA in the right. Over 30 seconds of impulses spaced 0.7ms apart, examined on a microsecond scale, I saw no random offsets—or offsets of any kind—in where MQA's impulses landed. The stimulus file being perfect impulses generated in the 96kHz digital domain ... It's anything but clear what that "test" entailed or what it was supposed to show. A file cannot have MQA in one channel only. Besides, there's no reason to expect a cumulative timing error, nor any variation with a repeated input. Link to comment
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