MQA The Truth lies Somewhere in the Middle

[jtwrace]

26 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

For the record, I have no connection with MQA other than reporting on it. They are not my "folks." Please put your conspiracy theories back in your pocket.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

You taking a stand against Chris and Computer Audiophile puts you in that category.  If you want to remain neutral, you wouldn't be on this site posting in favor of MQA.  In fact, you would be writing something in your own publication that disputes everything that Chris has said and showing real objective data to prove it.  Yet again, you choose to wank around on here.  It's that simple regardless how you might think. 

[lucretius]

8 hours ago, Shadorne said:

PCM 24/96 is already a perfectly good format for the foreseeable future. SACD wasn’t necessary and neither is DSD. Give us better mix/masters - ones that aren’t overly compressed to the extent it really ruins audio quality. (I am not against tasteful compression in pop/rock but we are far beyond that in most cases) 

 

I've noted that for DSD files there always appears to be more headroom -- never gets anywhere close to or over 0 dbms.  I cannot say the same thing for PCM files.

[lucretius]

8 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

BTW, Stereopile has an article out now on how well MQA does over a 3G network (!!)  - maybe they have not heard of 5G?

 

3G is the lowest common denominator.

[John_Atkinson]

15 minutes ago, jtwrace said:

You taking a stand against Chris and Computer Audiophile puts you in that category.

 

Please provide a link to where I have "taken a stand" against Chris Connaker and Computer Audiophile. Yes, I criticized the way Chris handled the MQA in the Middle presentation at RMAF because of the demands other CA posters made that Marjorie Baumert apologize to him. So what? I think you are confusing me with someone else.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

[jtwrace]

1 minute ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

Please provide a link to where I have "taken a stand" against Chris Connaker and Computer Audiophile. Yes, I criticized the way Chris handled the MQA in the Middle presentation at RMAF because of the demands other CA posters made that Marjorie Baumert apologize to him. So what? I think you are confusing me with someone else.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

No, I know exactly who you are.  You're here posting in favor of MQA John.  If not, it's certainly perceived that way and I'm sure others would agree.  

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Does anyone remember the (original) Microsoft Network (MSN)?

Or CompuServe?

[Shadders]

17 minutes ago, jtwrace said:

In fact, you would be writing something in your own publication that disputes everything that Chris has said and showing real objective data to prove it.  Yet again, you choose to wank around on here.  It's that simple regardless how you might think. 

Hi,

I do believe the translation of the word "wank" has been misinterpreted when it was exported to the USA, or other.

 

One can have a "wank", which is a rather pleasurable experience. What is the difference between an egg and a "wank" ?. You can beat an egg.

 

One can call another person a "wanker" which is derisory, but in a nice way. Similar to calling someone a "dipstick", it is meant to infer stupidity, or silly behaviour.

 

The term you may wish to use is "fannying around", where this means dilly dallying, or even "prevaricating", with disruptive intent possibly.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[firedog]

11 hours ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 Their customer is the label, producer, and artist.

Amazing how in your whole post you don't mention the consumer/music listener as a shareholder. That says a lot about where you are coming from and why you are such an MQA proponent. The listeners don't matter....only the label, producer, artist and MQA. 

[Samuel T Cogley]

^ Anyone who has spent any time at the Hoffman forums over the years knows who Scoggins represents.  Hint: it's never been the consumer.

[mansr]

1 hour ago, Fokus said:

You forgot 'artist'.

Are you suggesting that the table-banging was his attempt at performing a Steve Reich piece?

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

For the record, I have no connection with MQA other than reporting on it. They are not my "folks." Please put your conspiracy theories back in your pocket.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

For the record I didn’t find anything you said offensive, nor other than your opinion. 

 

Again, the effectiveness of the way Chris handled that presentation depends on his goals. I didn’t see him as taking a stand one way or the other — he was taking a middle ground, and he has given both sides the opportunity to have their view. The MQA executives showed very overbearing and rude behavior — for me this was the takeaway. Chris was effective in bringing this out. That’s real journalism. Drop the mike and walk out ?

 

This is all a classic battle between centralized control and the natural web. Increasingly the last vestiges of the “old way” are on their last gasps of clinging to the dream of centralized control. In this case a data format that is only available under NDA.

 

The new media giants could care less about audiophiles per se except that they are customers who buy lots of high end stuff (not music related). They don’t want to be seen as “anti consumer”. Only a fool of an executive should want to be seen as anti-consumer. 

[Fokus]

9 minutes ago, mansr said:

Are you suggesting that the table-banging was his attempt at performing a Steve Reich piece?

 

It wasn't Cage's 4'33".

 

[Shadorne]

18 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

For the record I didn’t find anything you said offensive, nor other than your opinion. 

 

Again, the effectiveness of the way Chris handled that presentation depends on his goals. I didn’t see him as taking a stand one way or the other — he was taking a middle ground, and he has given both sides the opportunity to have their view. The MQA executives showed very overbearing and rude behavior — for me this was the takeaway. Chris was effective in bringing this out. That’s real journalism. Drop the mike and walk out ?

 

This is all a classic battle between centralized control and the natural web. Increasingly the last vestiges of the “old way” are on their last gasps of clinging to the dream of centralized control. In this case a data format that has s only available under NDA.

 

The new media giants could care less about audiophiles per se except that they are customers who buy lots of high end stuff (not music related). They don’t want to be seen as “anti consumer”. Only a fool of an executive should want to be seen as anti-consumer. 

 

+1 I don’t understand how JA’s comment could be misconstrued as an attack on Chris and in favour of MQA. As usual JA was thoughtful and correct to point out that the attack on the kindly event organizer (no doubt a volunteer) was way out of line. I think JA was correct that if Chris had wanted to, he could have shut down the disruptions - contrary to JA I believe that Chris’ tactic (whether mindful or not) worked beautifully in exposing MQA insiders for everyone to see; what kind of people they are and how substantive technically MQA product/service is.

[The Computer Audiophile]

35 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Again, the effectiveness of the way Chris handled that presentation depends on his goals. I didn’t see him as taking a stand one way or the other — he was taking a middle ground, and he has given both sides the opportunity to have their view. The MQA executives showed very overbearing and rude behavior — for me this was the takeaway. Chris was effective in bringing this out. That’s real journalism. Drop the mike and walk out ?

 

I'm a firm believer in letting people show their true colors and giving them enough rope to hoist or hang themselves. If I push an agenda, whatever message I deliver is bound to turn some people off (could be a bad business move) and it can dilute the message when the community pushes it by itself. If I was anti-MQA, all the hard work done by those exposing it would be cast in the shadow of me steering the community or trying to control the narrative.

 

I remained neutral as long as possible. I've even been called a shill for MQA right here on CA because of this stance. I can no longer remain neutral after the research I conducted and the MQA team proving there must be something to what I said or else they wouldn't have acted that way. 

 

 

 

 

35 minutes ago, jabbr said:

This is all a classic battle between centralized control and the natural web. Increasingly the last vestiges of the “old way” are on their last gasps of clinging to the dream of centralized control. In this case a data format that is only available under NDA.

 

Agree 100%. The Ministers of Information and the MQA team are in lock step because of this old school belief that they can control everything and that they know what's best for everybody. 

 

This was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I can no longer remain neutral in the face of the evidence and the behavior of MQA. 

 

 

 

 

 

[jtwrace]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I can no longer remain neutral in the face of the evidence and the behavior of MQA. 

I'm actually excited to see what CA has up it's sleeve to take on the money hungry giant.  

[sls]

It helps being non-technical.

 

You don't need to know any engineering that:

1) CD was better than vinyl

2) cassettes tapes were OK for the car but were not as good as vinyl

3) Streaming is better than CDs

 

There were clear differences and improvements that a 3-year-old could hear or understand. When I had a 3-year-old he was obsessed with a Lion King CD, which he could play, but he wasn't allowed near my turntable. 

 

The success or failure of formats is entirely consumer-driven and evidenced by revenues per format. You can look the figures up on the RIAA website. 

 

As I see it, the fundamental problem with MQA is that there ABSOLUTELY NOTHING obvious to the average potential consumer why they should buy it. It just serves no purpose. They go on about "education" of the consumer, but completely miss the point that if they have to explain why the consumer should buy it the product has failed already. 

[wgscott]

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I can no longer remain neutral after the research I conducted and the MQA team proving there must be something to what I said or else they wouldn't have acted that way. 

 

 

[wgscott]

To paraphrase (badly) Howard Zinn and Eddie Vedder, you can't be neutral on a moving train-wreck.

[Shadders]

3 minutes ago, sls said:

3) Streaming is better than CDs

Hi,

I think i am too old. I like to own the music i purchased, so i can play it wherever i like, when i like.

 

Same with gaming - i will always purchase the game physically - so if the hard disk fails, or they turn off the servers, i still have a hard copy. I think CD's will outlive any hard disk - although some pressings may have CD rot.

 

I have seen reports that younger people are not the generation who like to own things - music being one of those. I am prepared to give up living space to store CD's etc.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[christopher3393]

I just want to say that I'm 100% behind Chris Connaker on this issue. Thanks.

[wgscott]

5 minutes ago, sls said:

As I see it, the fundamental problem with MQA is that there ABSOLUTELY NOTHING obvious to the average potential consumer why they should buy it. It just serves no purpose. They go on about "education" of the consumer, but completely miss the point that if they have to explain why the consumer should buy it the product has failed already. 

 

Scroggins is right about one thing:  the consumer of this product is not the end-listener.  They are selling it to the music industry.  If the end-listener takes no notice or does not care, that is an ideal outcome. Then it can be used for DRM (or whatever they want to inject into the files) without the end-user complaining or even noticing, until it is too late and they have to pay a ransom to play their files.  (One of my kids wanted to hear an audiobook we bought a few years ago, and I couldn't get it to work because the subscription and the password are no longer in existence.)

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

It's amazing that Dead and Company have gone from an open taping section back in the day to selling MQA downloads.

 

[lucretius]

10 minutes ago, sls said:

...

3) Streaming is better than CDs

...

As I see it, the fundamental problem with MQA is that there ABSOLUTELY NOTHING obvious to the average potential consumer why they should buy it. It just serves no purpose. They go on about "education" of the consumer, but completely miss the point that if they have to explain why the consumer should buy it the product has failed already. 

 

Apparently, they don't think they need to convince the consumers; they convinced the major labels, some equipment manufacturers, and TIDAL -- it's incorporated in TIDAL (streaming service). Presumably the less informed TIDAL subscriber will not even notice. The real problem is or was that the format could replace existing formats. But now it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

 

 

[crenca]

2 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

For the record, I have no connection with MQA other than reporting on it. They are not my "folks." Please put your conspiracy theories back in your pocket.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

Your denial does not withstand scrutiny.  Your in over your head when it comes to the inside baseball, industry first and anti-consumer perspective.  One opinion piece where you acknowledge a single anti-consumer aspect of MQA when otherwise praising it does not count.  Look up the etymology of "con-spiracy", co-spirit or "with the spirit of".  Everything you do is in the spirit of putting industry needs and desires (in this case MQA) first, second, and third...

[kumakuma]

3 hours ago, rwdvis said:

 

 

Kumakuma,

You don’t actually believe him, do you?  Look closely at his answer.  You have to use a critical eye when dealing with such people.

 

“No, I have not received any compensation.”

 

Translation:  I have not yet received any compensation.

 

This does not answer the intended question as to whether there is/was any agreement, arrangement, partnership, planned/future compensation, etc.

 

Additional points to consider:

1). People are perfectly capable of lying (some are more capable than others)
2)  There are hundreds of creative ways one can be compensated (some even violate state/federal laws)
3). Illegal or secret arrangements/transactions are not out of the realm of possibilities

 

I don’t get this honor thing, where people assume that if they ask a question, they’re getting an honorable answer.  No.  Some people are simply dishonest, disingenuous, straight up liars.

 

One final point:  The question is poorly worded (i.e., “the company” is meaningless).

 

I believe things are much simpler than this.

 

Lee believes that, despite his day job as a business consultant, he is part of the industry and he wants others in the industry to see him as a fellow insider.

 

He is waving the MQA flag in the hopes that his "friends" in the industry will see him as one of their own.

 

In other words, he doing this so that the "cool kids" will like him and let him come to their parties.