MQA The Truth lies Somewhere in the Middle

[Jud]

13 hours 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.

 

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?”

[The Computer Audiophile]

23 minutes 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?”

Quote of the month!

[Thuaveta]

1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

That was the thrust of a presentation I gave to Stereophile's then-owner's senior management in 2005.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

To your credit, I'm absolutely awed at the threat to the consumer a trade publication with a pithy print circulation, mostly run and staffed by a group of journalistic putterers, can be to consumers. It's quite eye-opening as to the importance both of consumer advocacy and journalism ethics boards, as well as to the relative passivity of consumers (then again, there's no profit to be made in MQA giving people cancer, and the costs look like they'll be hidden, so the stakes aren't exactly high enough for the general public to care).

[Jud]

4 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

But I don't see any reason why I am obliged to send people I don't know on a site I have connection with the results of my hard work just because they demand it of me. As I wrote earlier, if posters to CA want to try the MQA files that Bob Carver was discussing, I would have thought that Chris Connaker would oblige. 

 

Surely the files Carver was discussing are not “the results of [your] hard work.”  If you can’t provide them due to contractual obligations, just say so.  Otherwise we’re left to wonder what negative result you would expect from doing so.

[Ralf11]

Why do Artists need Labels at all?

[Shadders]

23 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Why do Artists need Labels at all?

Because you would not know if they are Indie, Pop, Rock, Ambient, or other.

[Allan F]

16 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Hardly a general fact here on the internet where identifiers are called URIs. URIs are the names on the internet. Your traditional name means nothing to me because we don't interact in person. There's actually a whole technology around this ... you need to understand how this all works to understand what I'm talking about, but trust me a URI is far more important on the web than your traditional given and surname.

 

Here, read this: http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/

 

I'll partially deanonymise myself by telling you that I've been called part of the "RDF Cabal" ???

 

I know perfectly well what URL's are and I also know, as do you, that a URL doesn't identify a person. It would appear that your use of the term 'anonymous' differs from the commonly accepted meaning.

 

I would speculate that you have been called a lot worse.

[Thuaveta]

42 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Surely the files Carver was discussing are not “the results of [your] hard work.”  If you can’t provide them due to contractual obligations, just say so.  Otherwise we’re left to wonder what negative result you would expect from doing so.

 

I don't often defend @John_Atkinson, but it'd be fair for him to consider access to certain people (or to material) as the result of his hard work (in, say, schmoozing said people). Whether they were playing hard to get is a bit irrelevant (though once three rather preeminent figures within a community have access to something like that, it's fair to start weighing more towards the "playing" than the "hard to get"), but from what we saw of the types of individuals that may have access to those types of files from the recording of @The Computer Audiophile's presentation, I can totally see where a reasonably sentient person could consider having to, say, do drinks or have dinner with them to be quite a chore.

 

John, if you feel trapped between PR flaks and wannabee hangers-on, blink twice and somebody'll be right over with an extra stiff strawberry daiquiri.

[jabbr]

2 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

I know perfectly well what URL's are and I also know, as do you, that a URL doesn't identify a person. It would appear that your use of the term 'anonymous' differs from the commonly accepted meaning.

 

A URI certainly might identify a person. I used the term "URI" instead of "URL" for precisely this reason.

 

According to the the Technical Architecture Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (TAG-W3C): https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/identify

According to Tim Berners-Lee who invented the Web: https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Axioms.html

According to Roy Fielding: https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/webarch_icse2000.pdf

 

Your understanding of the term "anonymous" may indeed be different from those people who have designed and who use the Web.

 

More generally "anonymous" means "without name"

 

Your use of  "pseudonym" is appropriate,  in which case @Archimago could indeed be a pseudonym for the person who publishes at the site, in the same way that "Mark Twain" was a pseudonym for the author "Samuel Clemens" -- but there is a huge difference, because those terms aren't the same and don't mean the same thing. It's a lot easier to deanonymize a pseudonym than you might expect, just as your web browser fingerprint uniquely identifies you. There are several technologies involved in identifying people from URIs and web activity. To be truly anonymous on the web is easier said than done ... but important for dissidents etc.

 

[Rt66indierock]

On 10/10/2018 at 3:50 AM, ARQuint said:

 

Thought that you might want to hear from a proud member of the "civility police."

 

I feel that an attack on Marjorie Baumert is very much off base. Marjorie is a truly gracious person who continues to run RMAF, in part to honor her late husband, Al Steifel, who founded the Colorado Audio Society many years ago. Her goal has been to maintain the generous spirit of inclusiveness that Al was known for.  Keep in mind that, more than other shows, RMAF isn't an industry event. To be sure, they get professional help to organize and administer the show, and the manufacturers, distributors, and dealers are there to generate business, but ultimately, RMAF is an event for consumers. The guys and gals at the tables when you enter the Marriott, giving you your badges and show guides, are CAS volunteers. The RMAF seminars are generally not ideas of the show's organizers—they are proposed by the presenters. I moderated the first seminar on Sunday morning ("Multichannel Music: Promise and Problems") and I had pitched the idea early in the year to Marjorie and to Ramsay Thurber, who coordinated the sessions for 2018. RMAF gets many more proposals for seminars than there are slots to accommodate them and final decisions aren't made until late summer.

 

RMAF gives no recommendations regarding how a seminar should be run. They assign a time slot and advise that the session will be A/V recorded. I'm an admirer of Chris C and the CA site, but I feel he made a mistake—as someone else in this thread has already suggested—in not laying down ground rules at the outset, that questions and comments should be saved until the end of the presentation. I'm pretty sure that Chris had structured his talk so that there would have been plenty of time for audience participation after he'd finished. This is exactly what I did for the seminar I ran with panelists Kal Rubinson and Brian Moura—and my topic was far less contentious than MQA.

 

Chris instead permitted the microphone to be handed to the MQA representatives seated near the rear of the amphitheater and that's when he got derailed. Chris specifically noted early in this thread, ahead of the event, that "people can chime in if they want."  I would have lost my train of thought and momentum too. Chris inadvertently set the stage for what happened. Those guys came loaded for bear and…well, the rest is history.

 

A question worth asking is why the MQA people felt that they could and should be as aggressive as they were. And here, I feel, is where Chris has to take some responsibility as the person who makes the rules at CA. As you've heard from me before, my perception (and the perception of plenty of others) is that, when it comes to MQA, a small number of posters adopt a provocatively shrill and insulting tone that's out of sync with a hobbyist/enthusiast site: As Chris noted in his talk, "Nobody is saving babies in HiFi / Nobody is killing puppies in HiFi." But you wouldn't think that was the case from some of the comments from a few online participants in CA's various MQA threads over the past two years. Were the MQA people "rude" as they defended their product? Maybe. But perhaps not in the context of what the forum for which Chris is the face of has been issuing. Civility-wise, what goes around, comes around.

 

So, yes, the MQA cadre on Sunday afternoon was inflamed—interrupting-the-speaker, pounding-the-table inflamed—but, certainly, there's been a lot of inflammation on the other side as well. Everyone should take a whole lot of deep breaths.

 

Andrew Quint

The Absolute Sound

 

 

A little housekeeping part 1

 

Andrew, I thought the MQA seminar was terrific and exactly what I wanted. Did I help things a bit? I talked with Derek the night before and pointed out he was wrong about Tidal, and I’d been reporting damaging financial information about them since the Los Angles Audio Show. He went off like clockwork. I ran into Ken Forsythe on Friday and quietly excused myself from the room they were setting up Saturday’s streaming concert in. He did a pretty good John Atkinson imitation on Archimago’s anonymity but that is of limited value when there are people who will say the same thing as Archimago on the record waiting in the wings. I just like the theater of Ken demanding to know who Archimago is. Lee Scoggins and I met Saturday night. He asked me if I had the 2017 MQA Ltd. financial statements with me. I told him yes and about an inch of other documentation in a notebook. I’m sure they felt they had no option but to attack Chris.

 

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.

[KeenObserver]

The majors will buy into this ,first of all, because of DRM. Then, of course,  it is a chance to sell their catalogue again. If MQA becomes mainstream (the horrors), then everyone will have to have it.  Then, in the future, when everyone realizes that MQA is a lossy system that alters the music, someone will come out with a new system that is "true" to the original artists intent and the majors will get to sell their catalogue once again.  Win win for the majors.  The entire MQA chain will add expense to the end product, but that will be passed on to the music consumer.  It is the tax we will have to pay for MQA.

[Rt66indierock]

On 10/19/2018 at 3:57 PM, Jud said:

 

If they had to ask you about MQA’s financials, that doesn’t say much for their resources.  Perhaps they were just making conversation.

 

 

A little housekeeping part 2

 

They asked about my analysis of MQA Ltd financial information an entirely different matter.

[KeenObserver]

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.

[Jud]

11 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

A little housekeeping part 2

 

They asked about my analysis of MQA Ltd financial information an entirely different matter.

 

Thank you for the clarification.  Are you an accountant with expertise in the music and/or audio business?

[KeenObserver]

The other thing that one has to consider is barriers to entry.  If MQA becomes a de-facto standard, will this allow MQA to control the industry?  Will the indies be able to afford entry to the industry?  Will we go back to the time when the majors had absolute control of the industry?

[Rt66indierock]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

 

Thank you for the clarification.  Are you an accountant with expertise in the music and/or audio business?

 

Yes

[KeenObserver]

Look at the behavior of the people attending the seminar.  Is this the behavior of someone with a deep seated love of music, or is this the behavior of someone with a deep seated love of the business model?

[datasyd]

There is no middle ground. I just listened to Hilary Hahn on Tidal MQA and now it sounds sublime. How I got here? I pretty much stopped googling Roon / HQPlayer setting suggestions and started using my ears. To me, this sounds awesome. But please share with me your thoughts.

 

Please note, my DAC in this case, is an ifi Micro iDSD BL. It's connected to my ifi Pro iCAN amp (pic included) and is fully MQA capable.

 

1. Forget HQPlayer. Just use Roon and set the DSP and all the DSP settings to 'Off'.

2. On the Micro iDSD BL, set the Power Mode on the Micro iDSD to 'Normal, Filter to 'Standard' (no doubt there will be further improvement once ifi rolls out GTO-filter firmware for MAC).

3. Flick on both the xBASS and 3D.

(This is the first time have ever enjoyed 3D on and it was exceptional)

4. Other ROON settings pictured.

 

I might add, the Micro's MQA capabilities have me pining for ifi to release the Pro iDSD MQA-enabled firmware. I own both units and I'm just about holding my breath with anticipation knowing what it's little brother just delivered!

 

[Jud]

5 minutes ago, datasyd said:

There is no middle ground. I just listened to Hilary Hahn on Tidal MQA and now it sounds sublime. How I got here? I pretty much stopped googling Roon / HQPlayer setting suggestions and started using my ears. To me, this sounds awesome. But please share with me your thoughts.

 

Please note, my DAC in this case, is an ifi Micro iDSD BL. It's connected to my ifi Pro iCAN amp (pic included) and is fully MQA capable.

 

1. Forget HQPlayer. Just use Roon and set the DSP and all the DSP settings to 'Off'.

2. On the Micro iDSD BL, set the Power Mode on the Micro iDSD to 'Normal, Filter to 'Standard' (no doubt there will be further improvement once ifi rolls out GTO-filter firmware for MAC).

3. Flick on both the xBASS and 3D.

(This is the first time have ever enjoyed 3D on and it was exceptional)

4. Other ROON settings pictured.

 

I might add, the Micro's MQA capabilities have me pining for ifi to release the Pro iDSD MQA-enabled firmware. I own both units and I'm just about holding my breath with anticipation knowing what it's little brother just delivered!

 

 

I’m sure without HQP, with MQA, with boosted bass, and with crossfeed (“3D”), things do sound quite different!  My tastes run in a different direction, but glad you’re enjoying the music.

[Rt66indierock]

On 10/19/2018 at 3:35 PM, Lee Scoggins said:

 

As for music in its purist form, Stuart and team are trying to correct for timing issues in ADCs post-mixing board.  Isn't that an approach for getting closer to what happened in the studio?

 

One reason that Peter McGrath is so enamored of his MQA-encoded recordings is that it gets him closer to the live event.  He hears more of the room, he feels the instruments sound more like what he heard.

 

There is more than one approach to get closer to the music Stephen.

 

A little housekeeping part 3

 

Based on their track records I don’t want either Peter Craven or Bob Stuart involved in the decisions about how I get closer to the music.

[Allan F]

2 hours ago, jabbr said:

A URI certainly might identify a person. I used the term "URI" instead of "URL" for precisely this reason.

 

"Might" is the operative word. So "might" an IP address. But it might just as well not do so.

 

Quote

Your understanding of the term "anonymous" may indeed be different from those people who have designed and who use the Web.

More generally "anonymous" means "without name"

Your use of  "pseudonym" is appropriate,  in which case...

 

I use terms according to their generally accepted meaning rather than their esoteric usage. But thank you for you generous, albeit unnecessary, concession. I am quite certain that nobody else had any doubt about what I meant in my reply concerning @John_Atkinson's use of the term. OTOH, some people apparently can't resist being pedantic.

[Anodyne Jones]

8 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

A little housekeeping part 3

 

Based on their track records I don’t want either Peter Craven or Bob Stuart involved in the decisions about how I get closer to the music.

I ask the following question, seriously:

 

If a a little known individual came to Stereophile and and the labels and said he was going to run studio master files through a proprietary, closed DSP system that reduces bits and adds aliasing, and it required special software and hardware, would they not be laughed into oblivion?

 

Since it was some one like Bob Stuart who enjoyed (greatly undeserved) good will it was taken seriously. Why are we surprised? He produced overpriced junk decades and lost tens of millions, so why would he all of a sudden hit winning streak and start producing products people actually give a damn about?

[Anodyne Jones]

1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

A little housekeeping part 2

 

They asked about my analysis of MQA Ltd financial information an entirely different matter.

Will you be posting the results of this analysis somewhere?

[jabbr]

57 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

"Might" is the operative word. So "might" an IP address. But it might just as well not do so.

 

 

I use terms according to their generally accepted meaning rather than their esoteric usage. But thank you for you generous, albeit unnecessary, concession. I am quite certain that nobody else had any doubt about what I meant in my reply concerning @John_Atkinson's use of the term. OTOH, some people apparently can't resist being pedantic.

 

I know all this technical jargon can get confusing.

[beetlemania]

I was just revisiting some of the MQA exchanges involving JA over at audioasylum, and found this gemLink