MQA Shill Steve Stone Provides a Good Laugh For a Friday...

[Ajax]

55 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

This thread provides an opportunity to comment further on an aspect of the vexed relationship between audio publications and their constituents in online communities—a subject I addressed in an editorial that appears in the current (May/June) issue of The Absolute Sound ("Audiophiles Online: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".) I'm a faithful follower of Computer Audiophile, so I feel I have the right to participate; I'm claiming no special status as an audio writer.

 

 

 

The term "shill" has been accurately defined (Wikipedia) as "a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization." As so defined, my colleague Steve Stone (or, for that matter, Robert Harley, John Atkinson, or Jason Serinus) is not a "shill", though a few of the less thoughtful participants on CA forums focused on MQA love applying the term to pretty much any industry person with a positive view of the technology. It's a classic ad hominum attack, questioning the motives and integrity of that person.

 

 

 

It's noteworthy that the ire directed at MQA at CA has so easily morphed into a contemptuous dismissal of the established magazines. When it comes to assessing audio equipment, these publications, as well as strictly electronic outlets, and even some blogs that are basically one-man shows, all operate on a very well-established protocol. A manufacturer sends a product, a reviewer attempts to understand its design goals and listens to it for a length of time that varies but is always longer and more comprehensive than a non-reviewer customer could expect, and then writes about his conclusions, incorporating a variable mix of objective measurement and subjective impressions that employ a descriptive language developed decades ago in the pioneering "high-end" magazines.

 

 

 

In case you haven't noticed, that's what goes on at Computer Audiophile. A professional journalist assesses a product in an informed and disciplined fashion and produces a cogently written piece that intelligent people will want to read. At CA, that obviously means Chris Connaker, though there may be others that CC compensates for producing content for the site. It's not hard to imagine Chris functioning very successfully as a reviewer for TAS or Stereophile—he is technically savvy and writes fluently and entertainingly. Manufacturers seek out CA, as they do Stereophile and TAS because the publication gets them in front of the customer base they need to be in front of, which is a function of the quality of the content.

 

 

 

What strikes me as an illogical and contradictory aspect of the bashing of the established publications in several CA forums is the suggestion that the content in the magazines is merely a platform for advertisers—the possibility that hobbyists actually read the magazines for entertainment and informed opinion is dismissed. The irony, of course, is that tens of thousands of people actually pay to subscribe to TAS and Stereophile. To be sure, advertising dollars are necessary to attract decent writers and to make these enterprises at all profitable, but there is a significant base of income that comes from paid subscriptions.

 

 

 

Nobody pays to read Computer Audiophile. All the funds needed to sustain Chris C come from advertisers. And that's where you, the enthusiastic, sometimes unbridled, and largely anonymous posters come in. Many enthusiasts come to the site to participate in or just observe the catfights, takedowns, and general mean-girl posturing that informs many of the forum discussions. Did "MQA is Vaporware" need to run 329 pages? Of course not—it became a repetitive, self-congratulatory echo chamber early on—but the number of views were manna for Chris. It's not a surprise to me that CA forums are so lightly edited, compared to the way that noxious reader comments are dealt with on the TAS and Stereophile sites.

 

 

 

So, is Chris Connaker a "shill?" By virtue of the fact that he commissioned Archimago's thorough review of the MQA story, one could conclude that, like many in the industry, he's very skeptical of the benefit of the technology for consumers. On the other hand, he doesn't feel the need to ring in on the merits (or lack thereof) of MQA whenever the subject arises. Take Chris's piece last November on the Berkeley Alpha DAC MQA update. At the outset of the piece, Chris felt it was important to state up front that

 

 

 

"…this article is neither a referendum on MQA, nor an endorsement or rejection of MQA."

 

 

 

A disingenuous straddling of the fence? A look over his shoulder at the advertisers that have decided to include MQA in the design of their products? Later, Chris admitted

 

 

 

"Of course I listened to some MQA material through the DAC but I purposely avoided using that in the review. The topic is too loaded and would distract from the real story that is the firmware update."

 

 

 

Fair enough. But by passing on an opportunity to give an opinion regarding the effect of a modification to a top-of-the-heap digital product on SQ, was CC responding to the sensibilities of some of the manufacturers that pay the pills at Computer Audiophile—basically what the "MQA is Vaporware" crowd is so vociferously accusing TAS and Stereophile of?

 

 

 

No, Chris Connaker is not a shill. But there's a real tension in play with Computer Audiophile. So much of the content is well informed, helpful to readers, and reflects a sense of a generous and inclusive hobbyist community. At the same time, a small number of intemperate and self-important forum participants are generating a lot of the views that Chris Connaker needs to show advertisers.  He does need to keep those advertisers convinced that CA is a productive place to engage potential customers. The risk is that his wonderful site is commandeered by a tiny cadre of single-issue individuals who are very much in love with the sound of their own voices.

 

 

 

Andrew Quint

 

Senior Writer

 

The Absolute Sound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Andrew,

 

Thank you for taking the time to provide your side of the story, however, I believe you have completely missed the point of the whole MQA analysis as presented by a select group of  CA members.

 

I am not one who has referred to your colleagues as "shrills", however, I am extremely disappointed in their unprofessional and incompetent endorsement of MQA. When it was first introduced I was very hopeful of MQA's potential but I have since learnt through the thoughtful and intelligent dissection of the product by mansr, miska, archimago, mark waldrup, Linn, Benchmark Media and others what are farce it is and its potential for disrupting our hobby.

 

I won't repeat the well reasoned arguments against MQA, this has been done to death at nauseam, but you need to understand that the audiophile community are angry at you and your colleagues for abdicating your responsibilities by not properly researching the product before endorsing it. Here you have all failed us and our hobby miserably and IMO deserve all the scorn you have received.

 

Maybe "shrill" is not technically the correct term, maybe you can suggest a better one that more accurately describes a professional journalist who abdicates his responsibilities to his readers and his industry. We inadvertently rely on the press to "keep the bastards honest" and with respect to MQA you have clearly failed to do that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brinkman Ship]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

This thread provides an opportunity to comment further on an aspect of the vexed relationship between audio publications and their constituents in online communities—a subject I addressed in an editorial that appears in the current (May/June) issue of The Absolute Sound ("Audiophiles Online: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".) I'm a faithful follower of Computer Audiophile, so I feel I have the right to participate; I'm claiming no special status as an audio writer.

 

 

 

The term "shill" has been accurately defined (Wikipedia) as "a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization." As so defined, my colleague Steve Stone (or, for that matter, Robert Harley, John Atkinson, or Jason Serinus) is not a "shill", though a few of the less thoughtful participants on CA forums focused on MQA love applying the term to pretty much any industry person with a positive view of the technology. It's a classic ad hominum attack, questioning the motives and integrity of that person.

 

 

 

It's noteworthy that the ire directed at MQA at CA has so easily morphed into a contemptuous dismissal of the established magazines. When it comes to assessing audio equipment, these publications, as well as strictly electronic outlets, and even some blogs that are basically one-man shows, all operate on a very well-established protocol. A manufacturer sends a product, a reviewer attempts to understand its design goals and listens to it for a length of time that varies but is always longer and more comprehensive than a non-reviewer customer could expect, and then writes about his conclusions, incorporating a variable mix of objective measurement and subjective impressions that employ a descriptive language developed decades ago in the pioneering "high-end" magazines.

 

 

 

In case you haven't noticed, that's what goes on at Computer Audiophile. A professional journalist assesses a product in an informed and disciplined fashion and produces a cogently written piece that intelligent people will want to read. At CA, that obviously means Chris Connaker, though there may be others that CC compensates for producing content for the site. It's not hard to imagine Chris functioning very successfully as a reviewer for TAS or Stereophile—he is technically savvy and writes fluently and entertainingly. Manufacturers seek out CA, as they do Stereophile and TAS because the publication gets them in front of the customer base they need to be in front of, which is a function of the quality of the content.

 

 

 

What strikes me as an illogical and contradictory aspect of the bashing of the established publications in several CA forums is the suggestion that the content in the magazines is merely a platform for advertisers—the possibility that hobbyists actually read the magazines for entertainment and informed opinion is dismissed. The irony, of course, is that tens of thousands of people actually pay to subscribe to TAS and Stereophile. To be sure, advertising dollars are necessary to attract decent writers and to make these enterprises at all profitable, but there is a significant base of income that comes from paid subscriptions.

 

 

 

Nobody pays to read Computer Audiophile. All the funds needed to sustain Chris C come from advertisers. And that's where you, the enthusiastic, sometimes unbridled, and largely anonymous posters come in. Many enthusiasts come to the site to participate in or just observe the catfights, takedowns, and general mean-girl posturing that informs many of the forum discussions. Did "MQA is Vaporware" need to run 329 pages? Of course not—it became a repetitive, self-congratulatory echo chamber early on—but the number of views were manna for Chris. It's not a surprise to me that CA forums are so lightly edited, compared to the way that noxious reader comments are dealt with on the TAS and Stereophile sites.

 

 

 

So, is Chris Connaker a "shill?" By virtue of the fact that he commissioned Archimago's thorough review of the MQA story, one could conclude that, like many in the industry, he's very skeptical of the benefit of the technology for consumers. On the other hand, he doesn't feel the need to ring in on the merits (or lack thereof) of MQA whenever the subject arises. Take Chris's piece last November on the Berkeley Alpha DAC MQA update. At the outset of the piece, Chris felt it was important to state up front that

 

 

 

"…this article is neither a referendum on MQA, nor an endorsement or rejection of MQA."

 

 

 

A disingenuous straddling of the fence? A look over his shoulder at the advertisers that have decided to include MQA in the design of their products? Later, Chris admitted

 

 

 

"Of course I listened to some MQA material through the DAC but I purposely avoided using that in the review. The topic is too loaded and would distract from the real story that is the firmware update."

 

 

 

Fair enough. But by passing on an opportunity to give an opinion regarding the effect of a modification to a top-of-the-heap digital product on SQ, was CC responding to the sensibilities of some of the manufacturers that pay the pills at Computer Audiophile—basically what the "MQA is Vaporware" crowd is so vociferously accusing TAS and Stereophile of?

 

 

 

No, Chris Connaker is not a shill. But there's a real tension in play with Computer Audiophile. So much of the content is well informed, helpful to readers, and reflects a sense of a generous and inclusive hobbyist community. At the same time, a small number of intemperate and self-important forum participants are generating a lot of the views that Chris Connaker needs to show advertisers.  He does need to keep those advertisers convinced that CA is a productive place to engage potential customers. The risk is that his wonderful site is commandeered by a tiny cadre of single-issue individuals who are very much in love with the sound of their own voices.

 

 

 

Andrew Quint

 

Senior Writer

 

The Absolute Sound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All good and well, and you make some nice points.

 

However this does not address Stone's absurd and ridiculous notions about why no one is "getting" MQA..

 

To try to read that section of his report with a straight face requires considerable effort.

 

These types of comments in reviews and show reports chip away at the credibility of audiophile publications.

 

When your editor claims MQA is a Scientific Revolution, it takes some series stones (no pun intended) to defend that.

 

 

[firedog]

Andrew-

I haven’t called you and your colleagues shills, but the reason MQA and the mainstream audio press have gotten such a negative reaction here is entirely the fault of the magazines themselves:

First, almost all the early coverage consisted of uncritical parroting of MQA claims and marketing material. For example, how long did it take till it was made clear to us that MQA is lossy? Why was it left to knowledgeable hobbyists to test MQA DACs and reveal that there aren’t really “unique to DAC” MQA filters, as MQA claimed?

 

And all those glowing reports from curated  show demonstrations controlled by MQA telling us about how great it sounded: where was the critical eye? None of you even brought up the possibility that the tests were conducted in a manner full of potential for cultivation of pro MQA results and bias? How is that possible?

 

Articles like Robert Harley’s “Let the Revolution Begin” - just shallow  pseudo scientific ramblings masquerading as something serious. MQA a scientiiic and intellectual revolution, with comparisons to Copernicus and other giants of Science? Really? ... Really?

No knowledeable person could read  that with a straight face - and assuming RH didn’t take money from MQA to write it  - it sure sounds like something written by someone who  did. 

 

Where are the unsighted listening tests and comparisons of MQA SQ by the audio press? When many serious experienced home hobbyists and some industry professionals, e.g., Charles Hansen, and Paul McGowan, questioned the claims that MQA improved sound quality - where was the fair evaluation of those contrary claims? What some hear as an improvement, many others hear as a dulling of transients, a softening of the sound, a loss of micro detail, and an addition of artificial “air”, “space” and a sort of reverb that shouldn’t be there. Where has the mainstream audio press discussed this? Answer: it hasn’t, it’s been left to the forums. 

 

Finally your magazine and others for the most part have either avoided the discussion about the potential for MQA to be a tool for market control and limiting  access to  true master and other quality audio files if it succeeds; or have blithely shrugged that possibility  off with comments that can basicallly be reduced to saying something like  “what’s good for the industry big boys is good for the consumer, so accept it and be happy about it”.

 

But you know what? Many of us “little guy” consumer audiophiles don’t see it that way. We don’t want our choices reduced, and we don’t want a small number of industry professionals deciding for us what sounds good - especially when that decision “just happens” to give them the potential for monopoly profits.

 

And you wonder why many of us feel the mainstream audio press is “shilling” for MQA? I agree with you that the term probably doesn’t apply according to it’s literal definition. But it often seems as if the shilling is going on, even if no cash is being exchanged.

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

And you wonder why many of us feel the mainstream audio press is “shilling” for MQA? I agree with you that the term probably doesn’t apply according to it’s literal definition. But it often seems as if the shilling is going on, even if no cash is being exchanged.

 

Excellent post, my own sentiments echo this rather exactly.

 

I've got nothing at all against the audiophile magazines, in fact I've very much enjoyed reading them for decades now. It was never unclear to me what they are, or how they run their business.

 

However their current pro-MQA stance and repeated doubling down on this anti-consumer "technology" that is of questionable (at best) efficacy with regard to actual sound quality is simply indefensible.

 

No, this is not in any way an attack on Andrew Quint, and I agree his post is both well worded and well intended while making some solid points. But that can't erase the ugly reality of MQA exposed, nor the audio press' misguided and unwavering support of it.

 

[mcgillroy]

Hi Andrew,

 

thx for making your point.

 

One thing is striking though: suddenly this is not about MQA but about incumbents versus new entrants in the audiophile-press market. You even go so far to suggest that advertisers might turn away from CA in the wake of the MQA debate.

 

Time will tell. But what is certain already is that just like Stereophile TAS has painted itself into a corner with its endorsement of MQA. There is a significant crisis in trust in the readership that is a direct result of MQA-hyperbole and failure to represent the criticism that came from the very center of the industry. Ayre, Benchmark, Linn, MBL, Naim, Shiit to name just a small number of vendors. Add audio-engineers like Mark Waldrep & Brian Lucey speaking up and you probably should take note, cause your audience might have had already.

 

You dug yourself into a hole and now you are throwing dirt at the competition that was a bit more cautious.

 

Classy.

 

MQA was a solution looking for a problem. Turns out that problem was the audio-press. Bob deserves a medal for this.

 

Come back when TAS has run a set of stories asking above vendors and engineers for their opinion.

 

Best

 

mcgillroy the housefly

 

 

[crenca]

4 hours ago, ARQuint said:

This thread provides an opportunity to comment further on an aspect of the vexed relationship between audio publications and their constituents in online communities...

 

Andrew Quint

 

Senior Writer

 

The Absolute Sound

 

 

 

Mr. Quint,

 

Thank you for taking the time to explain your perspective.  I won't rehash what @firedogand others have mentioned.  I want to address your belief that we here in the online forums or any other kind of readers of your magazine are your constituents, the place you have in a culture and an industry of consumer Audiophiledom, and how this lead you to believe in a conspiracy of ad hominem.  

 

What MQA has revealed like perhaps nothing before it is that the culture and relationships you as a writer and reviewer have is anti-consumer.  Your readers (whether they are CA members or not) are not your "constituents", we are the product that you sell.  You do a good job of describing a "well establish protocol", and you do so without the slightest realization that it is this very protocol and relationship that is the result of culture - a  system of relationships -  that is not in the best interests of consumers.  Consumer Reports for example famously does not accept "loaners" or anything else that establishes a problematic relationship with the manufacturer or "an industry".  MQA has shown us that the "established magazines" relationship with their actual readers is irreparably broken.  You are incapable of seeing something like MQA (which, granted, is not just an audio product among audio products) from our perspective.  Instead of attempting to do so, you complain that there is something wrong with our perspective as revealed by your willingness to label it "unthoughtful" and "noxious".  And your right!  We do not have the same relationship with the industry as you do - our interests do not automatically align with its, as our interests can sometimes be opposed to what the industry wants (e.g. MQA, DRM, streaming, etc.).

 

Let us get one thing clear:  

 

You, Mr. Quint, are an industry shill.

 

This might not be your fault!  You might have personally always been an actual audio "enthusiast" and because of your skills and training you were hired into "the industry".  You might personally not see your position as in any way in conflict with your personal enthusiasm or other hobbyists.  You might honestly just think your just one of the boys, you just happen to work and write at TAS.  All this does not matter, because at the end of the day systems are more important and influential than individuals.   I own a medical practice.  I expect those to whom we provide health services to to pay for the privilege of the service. There is a certain demographic of the population who think healthcare is a "right" and should be "free" or at least wholly state funded.  To these folks I am shill and "an insider" of the status quo.  They are right!  My question to you is why are you not aware of your actual position vis-a-vis the industry and audiophiles?  Why do you suffer from the delusion that you are just another audiophile and that your publications interests align with ours?

 

Finally, I am confident that your attempt to bait Chris Connaker will fail.  You are correct in that he has feet in both camps, as it were.  On the one hand he does play by the "protocol" you describe and has to because it is the rules by which the culture currently operates.  However, Chris is wiser than you in that he sees the lay of the land as it currently is and direction the culture is moving towards.  He sees the real "cons" as well as the "pros" to this protocol.  He sees the shifting demographics within Audiophiledom, and understands that the internet is a disruptive force in that consumers now have a kind of "consumer reports" - an alternative source of information that is not an automatic mouthpiece for the status quo of the industry.  He has decided to be part of the future and if that means pissing a few of the "old guard" off than so be it.

 

IF you are really interested in changing the "vexed" relationship between the establishment publications and readers, well you have much work to do my friend.  The first step is taking a hard look at your own limited and short-sighted understanding of your own role and the system that informs you how to think about this relationship...

[crenca]

29 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

 

You dug yourself into a hole and now you are throwing dirt at the competition that was a bit more cautious.

 

Classy.

 

 

 

This is what his post is really about.  He is publicly scolding Chris Connaker for not towing the industry line.

 

Is there anyone who STILL thinks that TAS, Stereophile, etc. have any understanding of their actual readers at all?!?

[beetlemania]

2 hours ago, firedog said:

Where are the unsighted listening tests and comparisons of MQA SQ by the audio press? When many serious experienced home hobbyists and some industry professionals, e.g., Charles Hansen, and Paul McGowan, questioned the claims that MQA improved sound quality - where was the fair evaluation of those contrary claims? What some hear as an improvement, many others hear as a dulling of transients, a softening of the sound, a loss of micro detail, and an addition of artificial “air”, “space” and a sort of reverb that shouldn’t be there. Where has the mainstream audio press discussed this? Answer: it hasn’t, it’s been left to the forums.

 

Yep! Other than Soundstage (specifically, Doug Schneider) and now CA via Archimago's article, the audio media has completely failed the consumer on MQA. Stereophile and, especially, TAS have earned our scorn and derision.

[Brinkman Ship]

2 hours ago, beetlemania said:

 

Yep! Other than Soundstage (specifically, Doug Schneider) and now CA via Archimago's article, the audio media has completely failed the consumer on MQA. Stereophile and, especially, TAS have earned our scorn and derision.

to be fair, let's count Jon Inverson of Stereophile, and Kal Rubinson, who actually backtracked on his initial MQA endorsement.

[ARQuint]

Thanks to all of the above posters—genuinely—for these perspectives and the manner in which you chose to present them. Somehow, the same strongly held positions seem more like impassioned principles and less like vitriol when we address each other as individuals rather than as enemy camps.

 

Of which I am not a member, BTW.

 

My topic has never been MQA itself but rather the tone of the discussion it caused. (My only meaningful exposure—that is, not a demo at a dealer or a show—was the three months I had an Aurender A10 in my system for a review.  I made the best MQA/non-MQA comparisons I could, coming away with a mildly positive impression. Normally, I listen mostly to high-resolution FLAC and DSF files— downloads and thousands of stereo and multichannel files ripped from SACDs. I don't stream much;  probably the most I've ever done was when I had the Aurender.) There have always been obvious fissure lines among enthusiasts, but I'd never seen anything quite like this in my 35 years as a card-carrying audiophile, not even in the earliest days of CD when my magazine played the role of gadfly that Computer Audiophile forums seem to play now, when it comes to MQA. I worry sometimes, in terms of our hobby moving forward. There can't be—shouldn't be—a total rupture with the past.

 

Whichever way MQA goes, I'm thinking the issue may be remembered as a sentinel event in the history of Audiophiledom (as Crenca calls our strange universe), an inflection point in the trajectory of a noble pasttime.

 

Andrew Quint

 

[Ralf11]

this hobby is noble?

 

where is my fiefdom?  

[firedog]

2 hours ago, ARQuint said:

(My only meaningful exposure—that is, not a demo at a dealer or a show—was the three months I had an Aurender A10 in my system for a review.  I made the best MQA/non-MQA comparisons I could, coming away with a mildly positive impression.

And were you able to turn off the MQA filters for non-MQA listening? It's an issue with Aurender. 

If the MQA filters don't switch on and off automatically, it's a skewed comparison, and similar to a sighted one. 

 

I know Aurender decided MQA filters make everything sound better. So what? Non MQA files weren't intended to be played back with those filters. Playing them back that way gives an advantage to MQA playback, IMO. If I have other filters I prefer for non-MQA, the real comparison to MQA is using those non-MQA filters for the non-MQA file playback. 

 

As far as a "mildly positive" impression: sounds reasonable. But we keep being told in the audiophile press about how amazingly better MQA is, and how obvious the positive difference is. For some writers, it seems like they only hear a 100% rate of substantial improvement with MQA tracks. 

So, do you see why many of us who have also seriously evaluated MQA at home then react the way we do at what we read in your magazine and others? 

[FredericV]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

I know Aurender decided MQA filters make everything sound better. So what? Non MQA files weren't intended to be played back with those filters. Playing them back that way gives an advantage to MQA playback, IMO. If I have other filters I prefer for non-MQA, the real comparison to MQA is using those non-MQA filters for the non-MQA file playback.

 

We implemented time domain filters in our own solution, as one of the several upsampling filters, including linear phase, minimum phase, minimum phase with one cycle of postringing (similar to MQA and Ayre's filter) and archimago's intermediate phase - in total 10 filters to play with as several filters have variations.

Then we gave these filters away as a free update and got a lot of feedback on facebook, and from reviewers.

Personally I don't like time domain filters, it makes everything too tight, bass kicks more, but decay is lost. It also changes voices, much like what I heard when I compared 2L.no tracks in DXD (the real master) vs MQA (the decimated lossy master, with dulled transients to make everything softer, and abusing the Damaske effect to give the illusion of more air / bigger soundstage). These time domain filters create content not in the original (due to aliasing) and also change the phase.

See also http://www.iar-80.com/page170.html

The general feedback is that intermediate phase sounded best. Much better than any time domain filter. More fluent, more fine details, no phase issues, not altering of width/depth/soundstage. Nobody was commenting on time domain, except for one reviewer who said it made a big difference compared to linear phase, but in the end he preferred intermediate phase. From a technical standpoint, it also has the best aspects of minimum and linear phase, see Archimago's article. This translates into better sound.

So if a company decides to enforce the MQA filters on all content going to their internal DAC, this is very wrong.

The Mytek Brooklyn also has this MQA alike upsampling filter by default, and it's always upsampling for PCM. Compared to other DAC's, I don't find the sound fluid, so one of the first things I did was turn off MQA on the Mytek. On the Mytek you can't disable upsampling, but at least you can disable that it uses a time domain upsampling filter for this.

The main issue here is that most users won't be disabling MQA, so for non-MQA content they will also suffer from degraded playback.

 

This is the real evil from MQA: they decimate real master quality and they also infect non-MQA playback on some DACs.

This is why I contacted one of the DAC brands we use, to warn them about the risk that MQA may mess up their great design, and this delayed their decision to partner up with MQA until he got those answers and guarantees.


 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, FredericV said:

The general feedback is that intermediate phase sounded best.

Is there another name for intermediate phase? What would a filter like that be called in HQP?

[FredericV]

19 minutes ago, firedog said:

Is there another name for intermediate phase? What would a filter like that be called in HQP?

We don't use HQP.

Parameters for time domain:

Parameters for intermediate phase:
http://archimago.blogspot.be/2018/01/musings-more-fun-with-digital-filters.html

 

Any dev can study these parameters and put the filters in their own player.

[rwdvis]

23 hours ago, ARQuint said:

The term "shill" has been accurately defined (Wikipedia) as "a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization." As so defined, my colleague Steve Stone (or, for that matter, Robert Harley, John Atkinson, or Jason Serinus) is not a "shill", though a few of the less thoughtful participants on CA forums focused on MQA love applying the term to pretty much any industry person with a positive view of the technology. It's a classic ad hominum attack, questioning the motives and integrity of that person.

“Not a shill”?  Please clarify.

 

Are you stating that they are not shills because they have disclosed any relationship(s)?  Or, that they are not shills because they have no relationship with the person or organization (i.e., BS, MQA)?  If the the former, then maybe shill is not the most accurate term.  Assuming that any relationship and/or affiliation has been properly disclosed, the more accurate description would be biased, partial, non-objective PR/marketer (considering the ridiculously over-the-top praise).  If the latter, please see the following:

 

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test

 

Quote

It's a classic ad hominum attack, questioning the motives and integrity of that person.

It’s only an ad hominem attack if it’s used in place of an actual argument.  The counter arguments against MQA have already been made on multiple occasions.  Did you somehow miss these counter arguments?  The fact that some point out shill behavior is not necessarily an ad hom attack, it’s merely a recognition that some are engaged in the shill tactic or behavior.  This is a good thing.  Exposing shills and disingenuous, dishonest behavior is of benefit to the reader.

[rwdvis]

23 hours ago, ARQuint said:

It's noteworthy that the ire directed at MQA at CA has so easily morphed into a contemptuous dismissal of the established magazines. When it comes to assessing audio equipment, these publications, as well as strictly electronic outlets, and even some blogs that are basically one-man shows, all operate on a very well-established protocol. A manufacturer sends a product, a reviewer attempts to understand its design goals and listens to it for a length of time that varies but is always longer and more comprehensive than a non-reviewer customer could expect, and then writes about his conclusions, incorporating a variable mix of objective measurement and subjective impressions that employ a descriptive language developed decades ago in the pioneering "high-end" magazines.

The contemptuous dismissal is justified in the fact that never before have we seen such disingenuous, dishonest, biased views from the “established” magazines.  In the past, there was at least some attempt made at delivering honest conclusions and opinions.  With the exception of a very few writers, those days appear to be long gone.

[rwdvis]

23 hours ago, ARQuint said:

What strikes me as an illogical and contradictory aspect of the bashing of the established publications in several CA forums is the suggestion that the content in the magazines is merely a platform for advertisers—the possibility that hobbyists actually read the magazines for entertainment and informed opinion is dismissed. The irony, of course, is that tens of thousands of people actually pay to subscribe to TAS and Stereophile. To be sure, advertising dollars are necessary to attract decent writers and to make these enterprises at all profitable, but there is a significant base of income that comes from paid subscriptions.

No, it is not dismissed.  This is your straw man and the paragraph is a huge non-sequitur.  The attributes you mention can coexist.  That is, the magazines exist as a platform for advertisers, and hobbyists can still read for entertainment and informed opinion.  The fact that hobbyists gain entertainment and informed opinion does not dispute the claim that the magazines exist as a platform for advertisers.

 

Quote

The irony, of course, is that tens of thousands of people actually pay to subscribe to TAS and Stereophile.

This is an appeal to popularity and does nothing to dispute the claim that the magazines exist as a platform for advertisers.
 

Quote

It's not a surprise to me that CA forums are so lightly edited, compared to the way that noxious reader comments are dealt with on the TAS and Stereophile sites.

 

Chris is trying to remain neutral and serve the consumer/reader.  The magazines, on the other hand, apparently, serve their bottom-line.  Anything written that interferes with the bottom-line of the “established” magazine gets labeled “noxious” and is removed/censored.

[rwdvis]

On 4/24/2018 at 5:09 AM, ARQuint said:

Fair enough. But by passing on an opportunity to give an opinion regarding the effect of a modification to a top-of-the-heap digital product on SQ, was CC responding to the sensibilities of some of the manufacturers that pay the pills at Computer Audiophile—basically what the "MQA is Vaporware" crowd is so vociferously accusing TAS and Stereophile of?

This is another straw man.  The “crowd” is accusing TAS and Stereophile of being disingenuous, dishonest, deceptive, uncritical etc. in regards to MQA claims, specifically.  What Chris apparently chose to do was to remain neutral and skeptical on the topic until more is/was learned.  There’s a big difference between being neutral and sensible with manufacturers, versus the outright deception seen on the part of the "established" magazines.

[Norton]

On ‎24‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 1:09 PM, ARQuint said:

I'm a faithful follower of Computer Audiophile, so I feel I have the right to participate; I'm claiming no special status as an audio writer

 

Thank you Andrew.  Much of what you say chimes with my own observations on the MQA debate.  It strikes me that this is an issue very much driven, from  both pro and anti-MQA perspectives , by the industry rather than the consumer.    This is evidenced by the paradoxical lack of emphasis on listening experiences, given a substantial debate being played out across a range of avowedly audiophile media.  Given the overall amount of attention given to MQA on CA, it is notable that there has been little editorial content on this site concerning  MQA listening.   Related to this, it is also noteworthy  that a large percentage of comment on MQA comes from relatively recent forum dwellers who post pretty much exclusively on the topic of MQA and show no apparent wider interest in audio and music, at least  within the confines of forum participation.  

 

I suspect there is also the phenomenon of the "shy MQA-er" -  those who join in its condemnation in the well-known threads, whilst quietly enjoying MQA listening on their own systems.  I'm not in that category; from my listening to date I'm happy to say  that I have derived considerable satisfaction from MQA.  Its future does look precarious though and I for one would be sorry to lose it as an option.    

[tmtomh]

On 4/24/2018 at 8:09 AM, ARQuint said:

This thread provides an opportunity to comment further on an aspect of the vexed relationship between audio publications and their constituents in online communities—a subject I addressed in an editorial that appears in the current (May/June) issue of The Absolute Sound ("Audiophiles Online: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".) I'm a faithful follower of Computer Audiophile, so I feel I have the right to participate; I'm claiming no special status as an audio writer.

 

 

 

The term "shill" has been accurately defined (Wikipedia) as "a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization." As so defined, my colleague Steve Stone (or, for that matter, Robert Harley, John Atkinson, or Jason Serinus) is not a "shill", though a few of the less thoughtful participants on CA forums focused on MQA love applying the term to pretty much any industry person with a positive view of the technology. It's a classic ad hominum attack, questioning the motives and integrity of that person.

 

 

 

It's noteworthy that the ire directed at MQA at CA has so easily morphed into a contemptuous dismissal of the established magazines. When it comes to assessing audio equipment, these publications, as well as strictly electronic outlets, and even some blogs that are basically one-man shows, all operate on a very well-established protocol. A manufacturer sends a product, a reviewer attempts to understand its design goals and listens to it for a length of time that varies but is always longer and more comprehensive than a non-reviewer customer could expect, and then writes about his conclusions, incorporating a variable mix of objective measurement and subjective impressions that employ a descriptive language developed decades ago in the pioneering "high-end" magazines.

 

 

 

In case you haven't noticed, that's what goes on at Computer Audiophile. A professional journalist assesses a product in an informed and disciplined fashion and produces a cogently written piece that intelligent people will want to read. At CA, that obviously means Chris Connaker, though there may be others that CC compensates for producing content for the site. It's not hard to imagine Chris functioning very successfully as a reviewer for TAS or Stereophile—he is technically savvy and writes fluently and entertainingly. Manufacturers seek out CA, as they do Stereophile and TAS because the publication gets them in front of the customer base they need to be in front of, which is a function of the quality of the content.

 

 

 

What strikes me as an illogical and contradictory aspect of the bashing of the established publications in several CA forums is the suggestion that the content in the magazines is merely a platform for advertisers—the possibility that hobbyists actually read the magazines for entertainment and informed opinion is dismissed. The irony, of course, is that tens of thousands of people actually pay to subscribe to TAS and Stereophile. To be sure, advertising dollars are necessary to attract decent writers and to make these enterprises at all profitable, but there is a significant base of income that comes from paid subscriptions.

 

 

 

Nobody pays to read Computer Audiophile. All the funds needed to sustain Chris C come from advertisers. And that's where you, the enthusiastic, sometimes unbridled, and largely anonymous posters come in. Many enthusiasts come to the site to participate in or just observe the catfights, takedowns, and general mean-girl posturing that informs many of the forum discussions. Did "MQA is Vaporware" need to run 329 pages? Of course not—it became a repetitive, self-congratulatory echo chamber early on—but the number of views were manna for Chris. It's not a surprise to me that CA forums are so lightly edited, compared to the way that noxious reader comments are dealt with on the TAS and Stereophile sites.

 

 

 

So, is Chris Connaker a "shill?" By virtue of the fact that he commissioned Archimago's thorough review of the MQA story, one could conclude that, like many in the industry, he's very skeptical of the benefit of the technology for consumers. On the other hand, he doesn't feel the need to ring in on the merits (or lack thereof) of MQA whenever the subject arises. Take Chris's piece last November on the Berkeley Alpha DAC MQA update. At the outset of the piece, Chris felt it was important to state up front that

 

 

 

"…this article is neither a referendum on MQA, nor an endorsement or rejection of MQA."

 

 

 

A disingenuous straddling of the fence? A look over his shoulder at the advertisers that have decided to include MQA in the design of their products? Later, Chris admitted

 

 

 

"Of course I listened to some MQA material through the DAC but I purposely avoided using that in the review. The topic is too loaded and would distract from the real story that is the firmware update."

 

 

 

Fair enough. But by passing on an opportunity to give an opinion regarding the effect of a modification to a top-of-the-heap digital product on SQ, was CC responding to the sensibilities of some of the manufacturers that pay the pills at Computer Audiophile—basically what the "MQA is Vaporware" crowd is so vociferously accusing TAS and Stereophile of?

 

 

 

No, Chris Connaker is not a shill. But there's a real tension in play with Computer Audiophile. So much of the content is well informed, helpful to readers, and reflects a sense of a generous and inclusive hobbyist community. At the same time, a small number of intemperate and self-important forum participants are generating a lot of the views that Chris Connaker needs to show advertisers.  He does need to keep those advertisers convinced that CA is a productive place to engage potential customers. The risk is that his wonderful site is commandeered by a tiny cadre of single-issue individuals who are very much in love with the sound of their own voices.

 

 

 

Andrew Quint

 

Senior Writer

 

The Absolute Sound

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for this post. I don't agree entirely, but that's not the point: I think it's a generally well-reasoned and provocative comment.

 

I share your concern about folks breaking out the "shill" and "it's all about the advertising" accusation time after time, and if one were to survey my comments in the massive MQA thread, one would find multiple comments to that effect, urging folks (in vain, alas) to lay off the conspiracy theories.

 

In that spirit I am going hope/assume that your detailed analysis and insinuations about @The Computer Audiophile were offered more as a thought experiment than an actual attempt to flip the script by claiming that Chris and this site are somehow compromised more than TAS and other publications.

 

I do think your analysis misses one important component: This site and TAS represent different aspects of audiophile culture. While "subjectivist" and "objectivist" are imprecise terms, and one can find listening impressions and measurements both here and in the pages of TAS, it seems obvious that there's more emphasis here on investigating, verifying, and debunking claims about the electrical, electronic, and acoustic mechanisms behind what manufacturers say their products do and what we hear when we listen.

 

In the case of MQA, this generally means that write-ups in TAS will take as fact the claims MQA makes about deblurring, high-resolution unfolding/rendering, and custom digital filtering. Reviewers might or might not hear every specific sonic benefit that MQA claims flow from those technical features, but they generally don't question the technical claims, and most of the writing seems to proceed from the assumption that these features will in fact produce favorable audible differences. The only question is how subtle or large they will be, and what language to use to describe them.

 

You of course might disagree with my characterization, and you surely have a more encyclopedic knowledge than I do of the full range of material published in TAS. But I am content to let others survey TAS's output on MQA and decide for themselves whether or not my characterization holds water.

 

Here at CA, by contrast, there's been a good deal of testing of MQA files and equipment, to try to see exactly what happens with the audio processing, and to compare the results with other processing methods. Some of this testing has produced results that seem to clearly contradict MQA's claims - for example, some of the digital filtering appears to be much simpler than MQA claims or implies; the temporal deblurring appears, at least in some cases, simply to trade one source of phase nonlinearity for another; and MQA has been shown to apply the exact same supposedly "custom filter" with radically different DACs, which MQA's claims say should have different filters applied to them.

 

Even the very basic fact that MQA decoding is lossy would in my view not have become widely known among audiophiles were it not for CA and other sites relentlessly putting that point front and center. And even today, there is little if any recognition in the established audiophile press that MQA's effective bit-depth falls far short of 24-bit, and apparently is closer to 16-bit. 

 

This, in my view, is the most damning indictment of how most of the audiophile press has discussed MQA (especially until the last couple of months). No one can deny that for years, in fact a couple of decades by now, it has been an article of faith in the audiophile press (not to mention most of the audiophile community) that lossless audio formats are to be avoided, and that higher-resolution digital sources are superior to lower-resolution ones. I would be hard-pressed to think of an audiophile magazine writer or editor who has staked out a public position that 16-bit redbook sounds just as good as 24-bit high-res. And yet, with MQA these same publications (and often the same writers) repeatedly say that MQA's lossiness is "not the point," and so far as I can tell have simply chosen to ignore the fact that MQA's effective bit-depth is by no means high-resolution by the commonly accepted audiophile definition.

 

I am sure that there is no specific, organized intent at TAS to give MQA a free pass on its claims. But from my point of view, too many writers at TAS and other publications are way too confident in their ability to avoid confirmation bias. To any outside observer, their overwhelmingly favorable listening impressions of MQA, almost always in the absence of any kind of truly apples-to-apples comparative environment, reeks of confirmation bias that proceeds from the assumption that MQA's tech is exactly as MQA claims, making the only task of the reviewer to see how much of the improvement they can hear. In this context, if the reviewer claims not to hear any improvement, he or she risks having his or her listening abilities questioned, especially when virtually everyone else who writes for the publication claims to hear improvements. I view that, rather than ad revenue or manufacturer relationships, as the main motivation and explanaton for the pro-MQA tilt in most audiophile publications. And it's a factor I've yet to see the editors and prominent writers of those publications talk about in any honest or open-handed way.

[Fokus]

47 minutes ago, Norton said:

This is evidenced by the paradoxical lack of emphasis on listening experiences,

 

Given the sort of threat MQA poses, how it sounds is of little importance.

 

This aside from the fact that it can't sound better than the original master. And even if its trickery did make it sound consistently better to a significant population, the same sort of trickery could be applied to any other format, obviating the need for a closed format like MQA.

 

[Brinkman Ship]

Just now, Fokus said:

 

Given the sort of threat MQA poses, how it sounds is of little importance.

 

This aside from the fact that it can't sound better than the original master. And even if the trickery did make it sound better, the same sort of trickery could be applied to any other format, obviating the need for a closed format like MQA.

 

Um...Bingo.

[crenca]

47 minutes ago, Fokus said:

 

Given the sort of threat MQA poses, how it sounds is of little importance.

 

This aside from the fact that it can't sound better than the original master. And even if its trickery did make it sound consistently better to a significant population, the same sort of trickery could be applied to any other format, obviating the need for a closed format like MQA.

 

 

This is something I have noticed from a certain kind of Audiophile such as @Norton, they can not separate the technique from the package.  @Nortonand those like him think they are listening to something called "MQA" that is a kind of "greater than the sum of its parts" and of course MQA marketing encourages this impression.  What they actually listening to is a master (which is sometimes differently sourced than the "equivalent" 16/44 or Hi Res) and and a lossy algorithmic folding/filtering package.  

 

The fact that all this is a collection of known art and tom fooler escapes them - they can't see past the glitter on the package...

[Brinkman Ship]

3 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

This is something I have noticed from a certain kind of Audiophile such as @Norton, they can not separate the technique from the package.  @Nortonand those like him think they are listening to something called "MQA" that is a kind of "greater than the sum of its parts" and of course MQA marketing encourages this impression.  What they are in fact what they are listening to is a master (which is sometimes differently sourced than the "equivalent" 16/44 or Hi Res) and algorithmic folding/filtering package.  

 

The fact that all this is a collection of known art and tom fooler escapes them - they can't see past the glitter on the package...

 

Add to that human nature...people want things that are too good to be true to be genuine...

 

a codec that can-

 

-"improve" the sound of digital masters dramatically

-"reduce" bandwidth

-improve time domain

-can be streamed with no limits for $20 a month

 

Like fairy tales, one can suspend disbelief.  Then the cold water gets splashed.