Bob Stuart launches blog to explain MQA

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So basically, Bob is saying that if you define everything in audio the way MQA does, the superiority of MQA isn’t debatable. There are lies there, as usual: he says it isn’t “lossy” (doesn’t even use the “perceptually lossless” fudge); and his talk about “blur” -which of course he never defines. And he says that not using MQA is “unethical” b/c it is an inefficient method of storage....

[firedog]

10 hours ago, Ski Bum said:

My principal gripe with MQA is different than most of the folks who have been posting in the "vaporware" thread and elsewhere about MQA.  I'm really not hot and bothered by the fact that MQA is "lossy," may be disguised DRM and/or is promoted with some hysterical marketing language and unintelligible explanations.  The fact is that I got full MQA compatibility for free with a firmware update from the manufacturer of my digital stack (dCS), and IMO a lot of the MQA Studio-encoded files on Tidal sound as good or better on my system than the same hi rez titles streamed on Qobuz or purchased from a download site.  I may not be thrilled with the way MQA made or marketed the "sausage," but I think it tastes ok.

 

But you are lucky that dCS is one of only 2 manufacturers that has implemented MQA so that only MQA files - and not other PCM files - are given the MQA filtering treatment. 

[firedog]

2 hours ago, ARQuint said:

The MQA-related threads at Audiophile Style remain an invaluable repository of informed opinion. Mr. Nuts (my apologies if it's Dr. Nuts) leaves me grasping for words, such is my awestruck admiration. In the context of his thoughtful posting above, we can contrast the engineering qualifications and relevant professional experience of two industry giants and confidently judge the utility of what each has to say. We are truly blessed to have so many beacons of truth selflessly offering their expertise on AS forums as, miraculously, these considered and authoritative opinions are not routinely celebrated elsewhere.

Bob Stuart                                                                                                       Metal Nuts

Education                                                                  

Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and acoustics                           ?    

Masters degree in Operations Research                           

 

Design/Development Career Highlights

First audiophile CD player (1983)                                                                       ?

First DSP-powered loudspeaker (1990)

First digital surround processor (1994)

Meridian Lossless Packing (2000)

MQA (2014)

 

Professional Awards

 

AES Life Fellow                                                                                                       ?

CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award (2015)

 

 

Actual name

 

J. Robert ("Bob") Stuart                                                                                         ? *

 

* Metal Nuts may not be his real name

Andrew -

That's really a useless argument. Qualifications don't prove anything, on their own, about the validity of one's pronouncements. Especially when commercial interests are involved. The statements need to be evaluated, not just the source. 

Linus Pauling - a genius and Nobel Prize winner in chemistry - made lots of idiotic and wrong pronouncements about medicine and other fields after winning his prize. 
Lots of medical doctors and academics with PhD's get involved with money making schemes and back what are at most "doubtful" projects with little or no actual utility. And in some cases projects that are harmful to consumers. Their degrees don't make their pronouncements correct or worthy of a  faith based type belief in them. 

 

BS's past doesn't mean anything he says about his MQA money making project is true or should be accepted b/c he says it. The fact is, that neither he nor any other MQA supporter has managed to refute the technical critiques made of MQA here. Instead, they, like you, attack the source of the criticism and not the substance. 

It should be obvious also to you that he does spout a lot of doubtful or even deceptive marketing junk when talking about MQA. One example: Still referring to it as "lossless", which is ,simply put, a lie - unless you qualify it with a word like "perceptually". There are more similar examples that I won't go into here. 

[firedog]

8 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Very quickly off the top of my head, I can think of PSA DirectStream DAC (with their Bridge 2), Mytek Brooklyn and Manhattan DACs (if you disable MQA in the DAC's menu) and Pro-Ject S2 DAC...

 

We are actually agreeing. If you play  back MQA with the MQA filters engaged, the Mytek DACs continue using the MQA filters on all PCM once they are engaged - you have to manually switch out of MQA filtering to make them stop. That's what I'm referring to. Exception is DSD which uses entirely different filters from PCM .
 

Not positive about the Pro-Ject and the  PSA, but I'd be surprised if they are different.

[firedog]

4 hours ago, ARQuint said:

And is it possible for an audio magazine to have anything not-negative to say about MQA without every word from every writer in that magazine being deemed worthless?

Sure. And I certainly haven't said everything in  TAS or SP is worthless. But when you write gushing articles favorably comparing MQA as a scientific revolution to Copernicus, you are asking for it, as it were. 

And the repeated gushing reviews of pretty much everything that's gotten the MQA treatment just aren't credible. Especially when most of us outside of the press don't hear that constant SQ improvement that many magazine writers seem to hear every time they queue up an MQA track. There are numerouis writers who seem never to have heard an MQA track that isn't a dramatic improvement. 
That leads to lots of skepticism about everything else they write, and by extension doubts about the publication that publishes their revivews. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

 

No, honestly, Samuel, I don't have horse in this race. The only time I've had MQA playback in my own system is when I've had gear to review with that capacity. I've never met Bob Stuart or corresponded with him and I've never owned a Meridian component. But, like most enthusiasts, I've followed the trajectory of Stuart's career over the years and have found much to admire. As you know, my issue is civility. With that in mind, there is another possibility other than "reverence" or "sycophancy"—and that's respect.

Andrew

 

I can still respect his PAST achievements. In the present day world he's veered into hucksterism and sorry, lying- while promoting MQA. I'm not going to pretty it up and use a euphemism. 
I don't know the guy, so other than impugning his honesty - which I feel is fully justified - I'm not going to make other personal comments about him.  But his past achievements don't excuse his present behavior. The opposite is actually true- the respect he has in the audio world makes it incumbent upon him not to use that respect to exploit innocent consumers who don't know how to evaluate his "techy" statements. 

[firedog]

4 hours ago, Em2016 said:

With the DirectStream DAC it's easily verified by any owner by playing Ted Smith's bit perfect test files to the network bridge... 

 

You can also add EMM Labs DV2 DAC to the list also... non-MQA content is not given MQA treatment...  Ed Meitner wouldn't let that happen..

 

You can add iFi Pro iDSD to the list also...

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/ifi-audio-pro-idsd-official-new-firmware-mqa-and-more.869144/page-47#post-14593415

 

So I think we're up to 6 manufacturers already... my only point was it's more than 2 manufacturers...

The two I mentioned included the iPro. It is the only one in the iFi line with that type of MQA setup. 
 But still, we are talking about maybe 6 actual DACs. And I'm still skeptical about the Pro-Ject. The other manufacturers who have implemented it have done so only on high end products, and both dCS and iFi said the process was very time consuming and expensive in terms of SW development hours. (this probably not true for PSA as the bridge is a different situation). I find it hard to believe the same type of resources were invested that little inexpensive DAC from Pro-Ject. 

[firedog]

6 hours ago, esldude said:

Does this mean if Disney releases A Star Wars movie in  MQA surround that Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker have to sign off on it first or it's not Authenticated?

From what we know about the "authentication" process, it could be Mickey or Donald signing off on it.