MQA The Truth lies Somewhere in the Middle

[firedog]

3 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

Not true.  The artist is more concerned with the live event in the studio more often than the end product.  MQA is getting closer to the live event and, thus the artist's intentions.

Nonsense as a blanket statement. Most recordings have no "live event". 

[firedog]

8 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

That's still good revenue: 200,000 x $20 per month x 12 months = $48mm in revenue per year.  And that's one streaming service.

 

What happens if Apple gets in and sells a million people on $15 a month for 12 months?  Maybe for a few dollars more, some will want better quality 16/44?

And you are a business consultant in your day job? 

Gross income. And how much of that depends on MQA? Possibly very little. Lots people signed up for tidal hi-fi tier before it included MQA. It isn't clear how many customers are there solely because of MQA.
I imagine most of those users are there for the CD quality stream, and not the MQA. That's the real uptick in SQ for most people (as opposed to the mp3 available from the big boys).

The number of MQA DACs in the wild is vanishingly small in the big picture. Only inside the bubble of audiophile forums and press is it even an idea/issue. 

[firedog]

4 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I keep asking myself what’s in it for Lee to continue to be proven wrong but keep coming back again and again. 

 

I’m totally cool if people like MQA and support it and want to factually discuss it, but this is on a whole different level.  

 

In all other things in life it would be a no-brainer, follow the money. 

 

I feel like we’re going to have to ask for tax returns from people who continually do the work of MQA ltd here on CA.

Notice how Lee totally changes his pro MQA arguments over time? He used to talk a lot about the SQ superiority and the technical superiority. Now that those arguments have been shown to be bunk, he mostly talks about how MQA is "good for the industry" (my paraphrase). 

He's moving very close the the Jim Austin argument, which boils down to "whatever is good for the big record labels is good for consumers" - even if it clearly isn't good for consumers. 
 

I'm not saying that to claim either are paid shills. It's just an industry-centric outlook on life. 

[firedog]

44 minutes ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

I notice that you keep making snide remarks but you don't actually present any arguments to my quotes.

And we notice that you are continually asked all sorts of specific questions that you never answer. For instance about how your Wilson "demonstration" that you keep referring to was meaningful.
You refuse to describe it. Why? Because it was sighted? Or because you and Wilson didn't manually change the Mytek filter settings so the Non MQA material wouldn't get played back with inappropriate MQA filters?

[firedog]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Because every time we prove you incorrect you move on to a different way to say the same thing and never address anything we say. 

 

Don’t you find it amazing that not a single third party expert has come out in support of MQA?

 

You can’t count the press as third party experts. 

Don’t companies like Berkeley and Aurender count? Or are you saying they don’t because they’ve bought into MQA? What’s a third party in this context?

[firedog]

3 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

MQA revenue won't be $48 million of course, they get a percentage of that.  The key for MQA is to get a revenue stream from most of the participants in the ecosystem.

You just forgot to add, a revenue stream funded by monopoly rents. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

There is nothing in it for me except for some articles to write on the subject.

 

I've been pro-MQA simply based on what I am hearing in demos.  I believe most here are not giving MQA a fair chance in terms of what it is capable of in the areas of sound improvement, offering more hirez access, and potentially providing a way to give artists more money from streaming their content.

But apparently you are pro MQA based on what you hear in improperly done demos designed to work on your expectation bias. 

 

There is nothing preventing the record labels from releasing more hi-res, MQA or not. They want MQA not to give us more hi-res, but to give us adulterated hi-res and keep the "crown jewels" safe in their vaults. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

The theory is that with MQA, you establish a higher pricing tier on the streaming service. With the extra revenue, the labels can pay more to the artist.

 

If you talk to label people, they realize that they need to pay the artist more and they feel they have to solve that problem.  They realize this is a huge problem that is not healthy for the industry.

And what is stopping them from doing it now? Nothing. 

[firedog]

11 hours ago, Jud said:

 

They cry crocodile tears about it.  “Won’t someone help me pay more to the artist with whom I’ve directly negotiated a contract to pay less?”

true, but in reality more like: "who doesn't have any choice but to sign an exploitative contract whose terms I can dictate b/c of my position in the industry vs. the artist". 

[firedog]

6 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

 

I said nothing in the seminar because there was no point. If people want to behave poorly on camera I’m going to let them. And I had civil conversations with all the people representing MQA Ltd afterward including Lee Scoggins.

So basically that whole performance on the video was a planned takedown of Chris' demonstration b/c they all understood the weakness of their position. 

[firedog]

5 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

Consider HDCD.  Chip makers and electronic manufacturers are starting to eliminate HDCD decoding from their products.  If you have MQA processed music and chip makers and electronic manufacturers eliminate MQA encoding in the future, where does that leave your MQA music.  Of course, if all you do is stream music,  that may not be a critical matter.  The majors would like to see the entire music industry turn into a pay as you play model.

Well if you have software that does the "First Unfold" you will be in okay shape. Software players won't have much reason to eliminate the unfolding software, unless some kind of legal constraints that I'm unaware of force them to. 

[firedog]

11 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

The same here.  No financial interest, investment, or any compensation in MQA at all.  I've just heard a proper demo and find it to enhance good recordings.  And as a hirez fan, I think it is providing a path to more hirez.

"proper demo"? according to whom? You've repeatedly refrained from describing it so anyone could judge if it was properly done. Based on your track record, odds are it wasn't.
And did your "proper demo" consist only of hand picked "white glove" MQA tracks that have nothing to do with what we hear from Tidal?
So why should anyone take your claims about the sonic superiority of MQA seriously? 

Lots of audiophiles have done proper blind comparisons of MQA tracks from Tidal and haven't found any consistent sonic reason to prefer MQA. If it is so superior, the consensus would clearly favor MQA. 

[firedog]

On 10/23/2018 at 7:30 AM, Lee Scoggins said:

The theory is that with MQA, you establish a higher pricing tier on the streaming service. With the extra revenue, the labels can pay more to the artist.

 

Again, you keep saying this and you ignore the obvious: why do you need MQA for this? You can have a tiered streaming service with non-MQA hi-res. Oh wait, Qobuz is already doing this......

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

It was a joke obviously.  No ill will intended toward Jud.

Let’s give Lee and JA some credit for hanging in here, being civil, and having a sense of humor, even when they are two against many....
Of course, it would be even better if they responded to our questions.

[firedog]

9 minutes ago, Albrecht said:

Perhaps....

When I think about it, - a large part of my post was agreeing with Judd's (IMO) excellent analysis. More than anything, - I wanted to compliment Judd, and hope that the discussion would continue along those lines, - plus my contribution... I don't have any kind of expectation that I am going to convince or change anyone or even inspire them to comment; I just am expressing my opinions and arguments and trying to be reasonable. I agree that John is not the editor or moderator of these forums and if he was going to point out my mistake, - it would have been better to also comment on what I wrote so that he wouldn't be seen as controlling, or derailing the subject(s) of the thread.

FWIW, you have a point.

Cheers,

Oops, now you spelled Jud wrong?. Better correct it...oh, you don’t need to, he’s still alive. 

[firedog]

14 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

Once again I am listening to the non MQA version of Simon and Garfunkel's  Sound of Silence.

 

For your edification:

 

A Stereophile Recommended Accessory for the Last 18 Years: Recommended by John Atkinson, Sam Tellig and Robert Harley

The AudioPrism CD Stoplight (the green pen) is the original CD tweak. Just paint the edges of your CDs to greatly reduce disc read errors and reduce jitter while improving clarity and reducing glare. We have sold the CD Stoplight to thousands of customers in the last decade. This tweak really works and it's affordable and simple to use.

"This stuff works! The cost per disc of this tweak is almost zero...it offers a big bang for the buck and can be confidently recommended!" – John Atkinson, Stereophile

 

Doesn't surprise me that John Atkinson is one of the foremost proponents of MQA.

I seem to remember that it was later determined that the green pen method worked by ADDING a significant amount of jitter to the output - it's just some types of jitter are heard by users as euphonic. 

[firedog]

5 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

There are two advantages with MQA.  The first is transmission at scale of many performances enabled by MQA's folding.  The second is transmitting higher quality sound by applying deblurring filters.  

 

It's the same sound improvement I heard with Peter's files on my own system but now applied in real-time to a London jazz performance.

Always the same nonsense based on your flawed, sighted listening tests - which are meaningless to anyone but you. Zero need for MQA to stream efficiently. It can be done better with dithered flac. Higher quality sound by applying deblurring filters? Really? 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Sal1950 said:

Not being a Tidal sub I have to ask, is that a MQA tier, a HD tier, or the combined RB or better tier?

It's the CD quality "hi-fi" tier, that they added MQA to for no extra charge. Since the intro of MQA it has both CD quality and MQA  tracks. Tidal doesn't have a "hi-res" tier, per se. 

Jud says there are 30000 subscribers in the US. It still remains to be determined how many are only there b/c of MQA. And how many of those were there before MQA was added? 
 I'd guess CD quality streaming with millions of tracks is more important to most subscribers to "hi-fi" than MQA is. 

 

My view is this: if Tidal only managed to sign up 30K subscribers to their hi end tier, and only some of those are there b/c of MQA, then that it is a sign of serious lack of interest in either CD or hi-res streaming tiers.  If there was real market interest, Tidal would have managed to steal lots of users from the 320k mp3 tier at Spotify.