Article: MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions

[MikeyFresh]

23 hours ago, Archimago said:

"Lossless music registration"? Anyone use this kind of terminology? Is this even a "thing"?

 

No, it is not even a thing. It's sheer nonsense.

[MikeyFresh]

4 hours ago, Doug Schneider said:

Sam's real-life alter ego, Tom Gillett

 

And maybe the final word on this, thats the correct spelling of his name to my knowledge, despite various misspellings preceding in this thread (curiously including Kal's).

 

4 hours ago, wdw said:

Tellig was entertaining!

 

That he was, for many years (decades).

 

4 hours ago, wdw said:

To my mind Dudley is in the same realm.

 

Agreed, and sadly now seemingly part of a time gone by. The print magazines used to be something to look forward to, if not always taken with a grain of salt.

[MikeyFresh]

7 hours ago, beetlemania said:

The mic preamp out is an analog signal as is the DAC output. But, in between, digital conversions are required. True fidelity seems a tall order, especially with a lossy codec. What am I missing?

 

You've missed nothing at all.

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, Archimago said:

LOL - perhaps it's precisely because they attended The Shard that they didn't question some of the obvious!

 

Yes, precisely.

[MikeyFresh]

20 minutes ago, Sfellows331 said:

Btw, I have 2 cd rips with MQA: 'Playing Favorites' (Meiko) and 'The Raven' (Rebecca Pidgeon).  Comparing the sound of the rips with MQA off versus on, the latter has an immediacy that the former lacks, something like walking down the sidewalk and hearing the sound of a piano or trumpet coming thru an open window of a house and you know it's a real instrument and not a recording.

 

Fascinating... tell me please, what do I need to to do in order not to miss out any further on audio treasure like this?

 

22 minutes ago, Sfellows331 said:

The ear can be a very sensitive instrument.

 

Right, but only readily apparent when listening to MQA-CD rips I suppose? With all other formats the ear becomes altogether less sensitive then?

 

24 minutes ago, Sfellows331 said:

And there is no listening fatigue like I heard listening to Cds back in the 80s.

 

Brilliant, but what about when listening to CDs in the 90s, or in the 21st century? Does MQA-CD's ultra realism thrash that experience too?

 

[MikeyFresh]

4 hours ago, miguelito said:

it is a fairly standardized filter they are applying, not something that’s tailored to each file.

 

Nor correcting for each specific ADC's supposed flaws, eh?

[MikeyFresh]

8 hours ago, crenca said:

Assuming @Sfellows331is not an astroturfer

 

I assume the opposite.

 

6 hours ago, mansr said:

How many people have signed up for the sole purpose of defending MQA and not turned out to be some kind of shill?

 

None that I'm aware of.

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, Sfellows331 said:

It's groupthink with no diversity of thought. I agree with the concerns for monopoly but i also like the sound, not that it matters.

 

It really isn't, as stated above Mans and others have researched this thoroughly, and the technology behind MQA has been debunked, period. There has been no credible response or rebuttal to those findings. None.

 

My own personal opinion, while guided somewhat by the above, has really to do with the last thing you touched on, that being the overall anti-consumer aspect of the play MQA is trying to make in concert with the record labels.

 

In that sense I couldn't care less what it sounds like, though that too is dubious at best when looking broadly at reports of MQA's sound quality.

 

But you are free to enjoy lossy encoding with upsampling and poorly implemented digital filtering, accompanied by a little blue LED for reassurance of Master Quality Adulterated.

[MikeyFresh]

49 minutes ago, crenca said:

The only real "groupthink" around MQA is (and increasingly "was") within the Audiophile trade publication/review worlds that parroted the MQA marketing claims (such as no DRM, it's the "sound the artists intended", etc.) without critical examination...

 

Well said, any examination of apparent "groupthink" really needs to start right there.

[MikeyFresh]

4 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

MQA sounds most accurate, small files and most of the naysayers haven’t even heard it properly decoded, while artists who have verified it have agreed the sound is accurate.

Bullshit, you'd have no way at all of knowing what sounds "most accurate". Compared to what, you've heard the master tape? You also have no way at all of knowing what "most of the naysayers" have heard or not heard, and whether or not it was "properly decoded", as if that were even important.

 

Which artists do you claim have  "verified" MQA as accurate?

 

4 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

Some people just want to object for the sake of objecting.

7 posts in and you are concluding people here just like to waste time "objecting for the sake of objecting"? Thats a very foolish statement, proving you haven't read this thread at all, or your reading comprehension level prohibits you from remembering all of the fine point details presented here (and elsewhere) that have fully debunked the supposed efficacy of Master Quality Approximated.

 

[MikeyFresh]

9 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

 I hear the difference, understand mathematics and signal processing to explain why what I hear is better so eh!

No you don't, or if you do, you are decidedly in the minority in that regard.

 

9 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

Another discussion is that DRM is why MQA exists.  Stuart has taken an egregious approach to getting paid for his technology, but it’s no different than paying Dolby a license to use their tech in hardware, the 1¢ we spent on cassettes for Philips, or what we pay Sony/Philips for each CD so again, who cares?

The entire record buying public cares, DRM has been consistently rejected by the market and that will continue.

 

9 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

Don’t dismiss the codec if you’re not going to apply it.

You mean upsampling with a leaky MP filter, right? We can easily do that without MQA should anyone be so inclined.

 

9 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

 If it’s authenticated as MQA Studio, that means the creative team who produced the Master has participated in the authentication

It does not mean that at all, where do you get that information, can you cite sources? 

 

9 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

If Chris Squire, Eddy Offord, Steve Howe, Jon Anderson listen to Yes Fragile after it’s MQA encoded/decoded and they all agree and sign off that it’s what they were trying to do in the first place,  I’d feel confident that the codec is reproducing music that is an accurate representation of the album.

Related to the above, Chris Squire passed away in June 2015, and so have many other artists, engineers, producers, and band members who you claim are involved in authenticating an MQA encode. We've been through this false claim at length, these albums were batch encoded in the cloud, with absolutely no involvement from the team that created the recordings. Have you seen Neil Young's statement on this?

 

9 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

But, MQA cleverly tosses unused bits outside the content’s dynamic range, and thats called lossy. This confusion seems to stem from describing anything below the noise floor of the content as not audible.  Sadly,MP3 devotees say that the part of the music that is lost to compression is inaudible. The difference is MQA loses no content, it tosses unused bits. Big difference. 
 

MQA is lossy, even BS has been forced to admit that, and the organization was forced to stop using their original logo which included the word lossless in it. Those are facts. Your representation above? Nonsensical at best.

 

9 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

I’ve given up convincing all but those who haven’t actually heard quality MQA studio recordings fully decoded.

Again, how would you know who has heard what? A few anecdotal exchanges and now you know exactly what everyone has heard or not heard?

 

9 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

Even the stereo store guy. They usually have axes to grind and may not even know how MQA works and how to properly decode it. 

Nobody has been going to stereo stores for a long time due to the pandemic, however your representation of "the stereo store guy" is exactly the opposite of accurate, retailers have every reason to push MQA as the next great thing, so that they can sell you all new hardware. They are professionals who make their living selling audio gear, why do you think they don't know how to "properly decode it"? FYI... there is no such thing as proper here, either you are decoding MQA, or you are not.

 

9 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

Ask questions and be sure you’re seeing the MQA DAC showing MQA Studio on the indicators as it plays back.  Sit back and enjoy.  It’s much more pleasant 

Make sure you see that comforting blue light! Hysterical.

 

[MikeyFresh]

4 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

And BTW. Chris Squire died after the music was encoded so there’s that bit of disinformation on your part.

Bullshit, you are the one full of disinformation here, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Such impassioned defense of MQA with such a vanishingly low post count here at AS is dubious at best. Paid "internet influencer"? 

[MikeyFresh]

7 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

I can go further than MQA can in evangelizing because I won’t be subject to legal challenges that would be costly in terms of expensive and revealing proprietary information.  

Nonseniscal.

 

7 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

There is more than adequate evidence to support MQA claims on top of the vast improvement in realism over straight PCM.

There just isn't, and I join Chris in asking you to point us in the direction of it, just on the off chance we've missed it (Hint: we're not referring to glowing praise from the trade press, or self proclaimed BS from Bob Talks).

 

7 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

If you say you don’t hear a difference

The McGill study says no one heard any meaningful or decisive difference for the better.

 

7 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

I, for one, am very happy that Stuart figured out how to jettison millions of unused bits and improve sound and don’t mind paying him for that.  

You should mind because you are being fleeced, he did not figure out how to jettison anything while simultaneously improving the sound, thats just false, there is no improvement except in the fantasy land of jaw dropping whole new worlds being birthed. Thats what created your expectation bias.