The Brinkman Ship MQA Listening Results

[Brinkman Ship]

13 minutes ago, crenca said:

"....They survive because the ears that write for them have a degree of trustworthiness and experience that keeps people reading...."

 

That is what I find interesting about the phenomena of MQA and its relationship not only to the big two trade publications, but the "high end" industry in general.  The culture (and thus the "trust" to which you refer) of these publications and the industry in general rests on certain assumptions and unstated agreements.  However, MQA has stressed this culture in several ways.  It overplayed its hand and has caused real damage.  Whereas Stereophile and TAS were before viewed by most as at least reliable "sounds like" subjectivist reporting organs (even for the increasingly "objective" audiophile), MQA has shown that they can't even do that - they put the industry (and their relationship to it) first, second and third.  They don't even have a mechanism to understand what actual consumers hear, and how consumers evaluate and judge things overall!  The staff and writers imagine themselves to be just another audiophile, one who happens to write reviews.  However, MQA has revealed them to be so biased and skewed toward the industry (for whatever reasons, known and unknown) they are truly befuddled as to why we consumers can't hear what they hear.  There must be something wrong with us, or it's a political conspiracy of the forums, or it is even uncontained "hate", etc.  DRM, formats - why would real audiophiles be concerned with such things?

 

It is not that MQA will break this culture - it is too entrenched for any one thing to change it, but MQA has certainly stressed it and shifted it.  Consumers now understand just how homogenous the "industry insider" culture is, despite a few rebels like the late Charles Hanson.  We also now have no reason to even trust the trade publications "sounds like" evaluations as they can't even get these almost completely subjectivised affairs right...

In other words, MQA may be the beginning of the end for these trade rags, and all it took was a silly, lossy, DRM spiked fabricated entity like MQA to expose their true colors.

[Brinkman Ship]

FYI, a poster of on Hoffman attempted to derail the thread when posted an absolutely insane tirade with personal attacks.

 

it was reported and quickly removed.

 

He apparently was put up to it by several posters here on CA.  Any ideas?

[Brinkman Ship]

Guess what. Thread torched.

 

It is clear that Pro MQA forces acted quickly to remove the thread.

 

I noticed that most anti MQA threads at Audio Asylum were deep sixed as well.

 

What do they both have in common? Reviewers get tremendous leeway and

preferential treatment.

[Brinkman Ship]

2 minutes ago, rickca said:

The MQA thought police are omnipresent.  Reputation management.

There is no doubt that MQA is monitoring the boards. They have gotten every thread that cast MQA

is a seriously bad light removed.

The MQA is Vaporware thread here is the ONLY one that has stood. You guys need to give @The Computer Audiophile a lot of credit. I am positive he has been under pressure to remove it, but has not.

 

 

[Brinkman Ship]

Hoffman poster "Stone Turntable" was the operative called into action. It seems he is a self appointed moderator similar to the ones outed here. He first tried to derail my post with a long winded self righteous spiel which I ignored, then he went with another tactic of posting a hysterical personal attack. I ignored that too, but reported it. Then the thread vanished. He was contacted by posters here. I am sure there are some good guesses as to whom.

[Brinkman Ship]

30 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

Why? Brinkman Ship has already made one demonstrably false post, apologise or not. There  is no good  reason to trust him 'forever' after that. Thus JA's check. ..

"demonstrably false post"?

 

I think that is a characterization. I'm sorry but that implies I meant to mislead.

 

I made a simple mistake of attributing the Explorer2 to Aktinson, when it was the Prime.

 

Not a huge difference. And I owned up to it.

[Brinkman Ship]

26 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

The polarity of both channels is correct with the MQA-encoded files I have analyzed.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

And did you also find aliasing and other artifacts, as did Paul Miller and Archimago?

[Brinkman Ship]

38 minutes ago, semente said:

 

It sounds like MQA reverses phase in one of the channels.

This needs further investigation.

You can screw up a soundstage without messing polarity.

[Brinkman Ship]

1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

I was surprised by this, so I checked. That doesn't appear to be the case. All the most recent threads at the Audio Asylum, with predominantly anti-MQA content, are still there:

https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=critics&m=91543

https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=critics&m=91202

https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=critics&m=90966

https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=critics&m=90532

 

Perhaps you are mistaken, just as you were when you wrote that I "raved" about the sound of MQA files with the Bluesound gear

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile.

Utterly misleading post here.

 

These are not even in the same universe as the threads that were removed, and one is even from a few days ago.

You really must try hard for those "gotcha moments".  The fact that these four threads are still in place in no

way refutes by claim.

 

There are at least a dozen far more directly critical threads that were torched.

[Brinkman Ship]

5 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

Nope and nope. And still waiting for your admission that I didn't "rave" about the sound of MQA files with the Bluesound gear.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

I was clear that you did not use the Bluesound gear. If I was not clear before, it is stated here for the record.

 

But you raved about MQA, and have doubled down on that. That is on the record, and will be part of your legacy.

 

[Brinkman Ship]

8 minutes ago, semente said:

 

I won't contest that. Can you suggest a few potential causes?

Significant top end roll-off?

Even a 12 year old with Audacity can you use the "Spread the Soundfield" plug in, or similar in Adobe Audtion, and many others.

 

There are many other ways, including EQ.

 

MQA is trash processing, and is not even bit perfect like a piece of freeware.

[Brinkman Ship]

3 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

No, it was not clear. Thank you at last for admitting your error.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

But both Jim Austin and Michael Lavorgna, your MQA lap dogs, DID use the Explorer 2 to rave about MQA.

 

That is a fact.

[Brinkman Ship]

8 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

No, it was not clear. Thank you at last for admitting your error.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

While we are at it, here is Lavorgna's report on the Bluesound Node 2/MQA:

 

"..this MQA version is among the most extraordinary sounding digital I've heard. There was a uncanny soft naturalness to Jim Morrison's voice that belied both the digitalness of the format and the relatively modest system in use. Every other musical aspect of "Riders On The Storm" was given the same natural, or perhaps better stated as you-are-there, sound. Stunning.

https://www.audiostream.com/content/bluesound-plays-mqa#0c3It4YuvSgPZwpe.99

[Brinkman Ship]

2 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

Lap dogs? You obviously don't know these guys! :-)

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

Correction: MQA Lap Dogs.

[Brinkman Ship]

15 minutes ago, realhifi said:

Yes, thank you. Was really just trying to make a point on this but not having a whole lot of luck. 

And let us parse through this:

 

"..this MQA version is among the most extraordinary sounding digital I've heard."

and through such a state of the art DAC as the Bluesound! Wow. And did anyone see a comparison to the

definitive Bruce Botnick 24/96 remasters? Me neither.

 

[Brinkman Ship]

20 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

Where's your list of MQA albums with 24 bit downloads from the same master?

 

If you think you're going to get away with this, you're not.

 

Mani.

"Get away with this"? Don't make me laugh.

 

You and any other posters will be ignored if you ask again. Just like I was IGNORED when I asked

Michael Fremer, Herb Reichert, John Darko, and numerous others to provide me with the same data

about 24 bit downloads used to compare to MQA.

 

I did my homework, no spoon feeding to forum police or trolls.

 

So bye bye.

[Brinkman Ship]

19 minutes ago, mansr said:

Bollox. If you hear a difference, it is because the bits are different. What Tidal delivers might not correspond to any version available as CD or download, for instance due to watermarking.

Exactly. An obvious attempt to muddy the waters, introduce variables, and elevate their listening skills. 

[Brinkman Ship]

13 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

It's 'true'  for me too. Though I didn't say 'exactly'.  And Samuel  has said why it might be, which is what you say plus another  possible reason.

 

I accept them all. Game  over..

FYI, I have sat through dealer demos using Tidal exclusively where they were showcasing mega buck gear, and the sound was consistently immersive, with CD streams only. The dealer also had a NAS with CD rips, but felt there was no advantage. Just offering up that tidbit.

[Brinkman Ship]

6 minutes ago, HalSF said:

I’m Stone Turntable over at the Hoffman forum. The thing that’s comically misleading about this post is the implication that I support MQA (I don’t, and stated my belief that it’s probably bunk several times in your SHF thread) and that I must be in cahoots with some MQA cabal. Anyone who has a problem with your extremely hostile, aggressive online persona is part of the MQA conspiracy, I guess.

 

You’re also leaving out the fact that I repeatedly *praised* your MQA listening test and was criticizing you for one thing: making personal attacks, accusing people by name of committing fraud and of being liars — in short, of stuff that the Hoffman forum, at least, defines as troll behavior. That’s it. 

 

I realize the culture and the rules here at CA tolerate ankle-biting, eye-gouging, and framing one's debate opponent as History’s Greatest Monster to a much greater degree than over at the Hoffman forum, so I’’m not going to criticize or engage with you for any of that in your thread here,  beyond responding this once to what you’ve said about me and my imaginary iniquity. I had nothing to do with the deletion of the your Hoffman thread beyond publicly pleading with you not to undermine your valuable MQA critique by being such a relentlessly mean bastard.

 

I’m pretty sure you’re probably going the respond to this with maximum suspicious contempt. Good luck with that. I’m out.

 

 

..maybe you left out the part that you accused me of lying, fabricating, and more with an insane tirade?

 

..perhaps you left out that you came to this conclusion via innuendo from posters here?

 

Bye.

[Brinkman Ship]

2 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

To be fair, he is not a Gort!

...like several here, self appointed.

[Brinkman Ship]

7 minutes ago, eclectic said:

 

In that case I apologize.

 

Is he a wannabe Gort? How has he been dragged into this?

Simple. When I posted the listening thread at Hoffman he posted a long lecture about my thread content, which I basically ignored.

 

Then one of his little informant buddies at CA told him I fabricated the whole thing, and they put him up to torching the thread. He posted an absolutely crazy tirade that I reported, then boom..the thread was gone.

 

His same little buddies told him I posted about this here and he came scurrying over to spin it.

[Brinkman Ship]

5 minutes ago, HalSF said:

Thank you.

 

I do understand that a lot of MQA critics really do believe it’s a willfully dishonest initiative and that if MQA attains some kind of monopoly status, it potentially could pose a kind of existential threat to open audio standards and non-DRM musical playback. (I’m not sure myself but I do know it’s been one of the most botched marketing roll-outs I’ve ever seem, and the failure to engage with critics in good faith looks very hinky.) And to some degree a growing wave of outrage about years of previous dubious audiophile claims and pseudoscience are contributing to the extraordinary hostility and paranoia directed at MQA. But as an excuse to abandon all civility and just fight dirty, MQA doesn’t cut it in my opinion. 

 

In the post you refer to, I responded to Brinkman Ship calling MQA proponents liars (as opposed to just wrong) by proposing the idea that he had fabricated his listening test. And then in the next sentence I said, of course I don’t think he made it all up. The point being that it’s cheap and easy to attack honesty and motives, and better to just crush with factual argument. If anyone read that as a serious accusation that Brinkman Ship was lying they just weren’t paying attention. 

 

(Kids, don’t try and be subtle on the Internet.)

 

 

 

Let's cut to the chase.

The originators of MQA ARE liars. This has been demsontrated over and over and over.

 

They lied about "authentication", they lied about being "true to the master/lossless", they lied

about correcting for "deblurring" in the "original" ADC"..hmmm..what did I leave out...

 

NICE TRY but..you are revising history. Your tirade post was filled with ALL CAPS and venom. Nice try.

 

I might even be able to get a screen shot of a cached page.

 

You now destroyed your credibility.

[Brinkman Ship]

6 minutes ago, HalSF said:

It’s wonderfully weird to me, HalSF — who is not simply allegedly just another audiophile, but a person who has never written one single kind word about MQA and who has written a bunch of words criticizing it — to discover that I’m part of some homogeneous and “locked in” culture of MQA enablers. All for saying let’s not be assholes.

For the record: I have never said you were an MQA Enabler, nor do I actually think you are one.

 

Let me make that crystal.

 

Just on a high horse.  Save your lectures. Look at the bigger picture.

[Brinkman Ship]

are you referring to John Darko or Jim Austin?

[Brinkman Ship]

5 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

Why do you think you need to finger wag, or why would you think you have some kind of moral high ground from which to finger wag no matter what your position on MQA is?

 

As far as I can tell, you are simply priveligning style over substance - a kind of "let's all put our jacket and tie on and be good upstanding Audiophiles".  You are saying "Sure, MQA is a fraud and Bob S and all his sycophants are Big Fat Liars, but we need to have a dignified response".  I call bullshit on that, and on your hypocrisy...

Can I frame your post?

 

Exactly right. Let's let MQA sell us lossy, DRM garbage that they are telling us is "master quality" and joke

about how Bob Stuart is a clever old chap. Rascal. He almost got us. Cheerio.