MQA entering into administration - comparable to Chapter 11 in the US

[Ra1zel]

Nice timing SMSL

 

[markrubin]

this news got me thinking it might be time to go back to simpler music enjoyment: don’t need MQA, don’t need ROON (which currently is down for me because my NAD ready streamer firmware update broke the compatibility) or all the esoteric high priced gear that requires so much time to keep it going….
Recently I had an audio dealer friend visit: he looked at my gear and was impressed, but he said he could not sell gear like mine anymore because it required too much upkeep/ troubleshooting / handholding to keep it running….and none of his customers wanted to deal with it…

 

[sarumbear]

That's because IT companies keep starting it all over every decade or so! Windows would have perfect OS that could be kept updated with minimal effort, if they had just kept updating XP. Or even Win 98.

Instead of just rewriting whole thing again and again just for idiotic greed. It's same for most big software companies.

Free software like Audacity, EAC, WinRAR, Winamp, Daemon Tools etc... are still top of their game with absolutely minuscule support compared to their commercial competition. That's because they've focused on one simple thing, that has been perfected with two decades of user experience and fixes.

Meanwhile most modern commercial programs are hatefully disgusting garbage.

If they had been perfect from the get go why did they have so many versions?

DAEMON Tools at version 11.1
WinRAR at version 6.21
Winamp at version 5.9
Audacity at version 3.2
Exact Audio Copy at version 1.6

 

[Music707]

Quite confused by a lot of comments - based on what MQA has provided, their codec is indeed lossless, altered perhaps in ways they aren't transparent about, but lossless. The closure of their business (or change of hands) might result in the code becoming public and proper assessment of the extent of alteration being done similar the efforts of Goldensound.

In addition to the sources @Galliardist already mentioned I recommend reading the following source that provides some insight into MQA and explaines why MQA is NOT lossless.

Is MQA DOA?

Is MQA Dead on Arrival? The truth is that we may eventually add MQA to the list of audio formats that have come and gone. This list includes HDCD, DVDA, and DSD. All three of these claimed to deliver some sort of sonic improvement, but all three have suffered from a lack of content. HDCD and the...

benchmarkmedia.com

 

[bloodshoteyed]

You didn't notice because you had too much blood in your eyes....

 

[Atanasi]

Also, it appears that Tidal is the main outlet for mqa content, and the only (?) streaming source. Wonder how much it's costing them in royalties?

I remember hearing that Tidal didn't pay for MQA. As the only major source of MQA music, Tidal was seen as a promotion cost.

 

[jokan]

Thank you MOD(s) for merging to the correct forum. I couldn't figure out precisely where to place it. I'm so happy they're insolvent. However it seems that many record labels were duped or sold into this possibly fradulent format.

 

[jokan]

When MQA was all the rage and many manufacturers were adopting it I said "That's progress." Which is different than and shouldn't be confused with improvement. Now we have progress again. This time though it's for the better.

Progress and change are not the same thing. If you think about it, analogue reel-reel tape and vinyl is still amongst the best provided you have the appropriate gear. There is something to be said of lossless formats such as FLAC which often sounds better than the CD of the same music, this could be the lack of moving parts and the varying quality of the CD player itself. No moving parts, solid state is sort of a winner!

 

[jokan]

Another thing I've noticed is that many of the less expensive chinese amplifier brands have all but abandoned MQA, there are a notable few on the expensive side who carry on supporting this lost codec. All the acronyms won't help an inferior product, people are not that gullible. I'm sure there will be a latest and greatest codec again but somehow I doubt that we as humans with tiny hairs for hearing, not to forget hearing loss will be more than satisfied with 24/192 FLAC files ripped well from a quality source.

I'm looking forward to watching the eventual fall out. Somehow I think that some record companies will reinvest and double down on the format. If that happens, shame on them!

 

[jokan]

By bar, do you mean pressure, or...oh, nevermind.



View attachment 277745

SACD was a stepping stone and also a way for SONY to sell CD transport mechanisms. That's been pretty well documented by inside sources within SONY. It didn't help that most of the music was published by SONY/Columbia/EPIC etc. Don't forget the upsampling and remastering of the same tracks, often sounding overly bright to make SACD seem "Higher Res". Many of us consumers were duped entirely by the marketing forces at play. Much like the loudness wars where we've lost dynamic range and music waveforms look like squares with little to no peaks. Fortunately that trend is slowly fading but with Bluetooth speakers being the primary source for many young people, loudness still rules.

Can we just go back in time and fix the errors of our ways?

 

[Galliardist]

While some of you were predicting that MQA would wipe out in the clear PCM, and labels were out to convert your music to DRM, I kept saying none of this was true. That MQA simply lacked any kind of leverage to make your fears come true. It was a niche within a niche (a branch of high res music) which meant it was a fly on the back of the horse, not the horse itself.

OK, so here's where I differ. And why now I'm a lot more concerned about MQA than I have been in the past.

Let's go back to the 1990s. Meridian were involved in the aftermath of Ambisonics, a technology that was ahead of its time but of course failed, partly because of British government involvement as it happens. When they produced MLP, it seems to have been initially an idea to bring back Ambisonics as a digital format, but they got involved with the big boys. MLP is seen by us as the precursor to 5.1 Dolby audio on DVD. In fact, it was much more powerful than that and was designed with a future of multiple channels and all the technology being developed today. It's still there running Dolby Atmos and there's more in the tank, as it were.
Meridian were the first, or close to it, to bring DSP into home audio and demonstrate its value, and imagine its potential.
With Sooloos, Meridian were involved in the birth of streaming and at a very high level. Sooloos developers formed Roon and expanded on that promise.

In many ways, Meridian and Bob Stuart invented the digital audio world we live in today, more than Philips and Sony, more than Apple.

So, let's turn to MQA. Again, we think of MQA as the mess we see today. Lossy, kind of high resolution but somehow "not right", this proprietary codec that lets us mainly play stuff on a niche streaming service.

That's what it has become for now, but it's way, way more. Inside a 24/96 FLAC format or similar, it has space to be properly lossless. It could be put into a 32 bit container, making it absolutely lossless for 24 bit audio. It doesn't have to preserve a compatible section for playback on older devices at all. More importantly, the patent behind MQA patents two ideas: adapting the decoded musical data to the playback device, and a way to put control codes and metadata into audio channels.

If you consider the uses that those two ideas can be put to, the implications are huge. For example, a fully implemented MQA system could adapt the audio, compressing it on a car system, providing adaptive filtering for home systems. The metadata in the "folded" portion, which actually doesn't have to have audio in it at all, could be combined with MLP and audio steering technologies to go way beyond what Dolby Atmos is doing today. And the whole thing can be entirely proprietary and made available via one service, as could have been done with Pono and could still be done via something like Tidal.

And the SCL6 codec? They could have stopped at 4MB/sec, put the current codec into a few pairs of headphones and job done. No, again we see a technology designed to go much further (no doubt with a patent that could stop development of alternative protocols). It's seen in articles as "we can send 192/24 to headphones now", but I'm fairly sure that the bandwidth can be used for further improvement of spacial audio.

So here's the rub, as it were: we don't know who will own these powerful technologies next month, or how they will now be used. Potentially, with a market trained already to expect proprietary standards and separated streaming services through streaming video services, we could see a proprietary digital audio 3.0 develop: or maybe (I haven't followed some technology developments in this area) alternative ways have been found for everything MQA may do, already.

They will have a hard time converting existing music into this and making money, but a company that can release new music exclusively into a new format on a new service...

 

[Trell]

Here is one downside of MQA forcing the selection of a non-proper reconstruction filter in a DAC failing to reproduce 20 Hz - 20 kHz:

The next item to note is that we are using one of the Slow Roll-Off filters in the AK4493S due to MQA certification.

You can see this in this review by @VintageFlanker

S.M.S.L PO100 AK - Measurements / Round 2 (DAC)

S.M.S.L PO100 AK - Measurements / Round 2 Hi folks, This is an update over my previous measurements of the S.M.S.L PO100 family. I will focus precisely on the PO100 AK, which not only is an USB to S/PDIF converter (as are the PO100 and PO100 PRO) but also a budget DAC, that claims to perform...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[FrankW]

In many ways, Meridian and Bob Stuart invented the digital audio world we live in today, more than Philips and Sony, more than Apple.

 

[ex audiophile]

Does MQA brings anything to the audio world?
After reading many threads about it I have some doubts.
There are many industry standards (Dolby, THX, Apple, mp3 formats...) that are sufficient for home audio streaming.

After AURO, it is MQA that fills for bankruptcy.
Who is the next one?

America

 

[Rottmannash]

I wasn't the guy answering the phone so I don't know about listener complaints. And that was 40 years ago.

Today, FM broadcasters in many US cities have found another way to screw up their sound. Many are now transmitting a watermark in their audio with a system called VoltAir. It's a very low-level noise that has been described as sounding like a buzz saw. It gets picked up by a people meter device like a cellphone mic to collect listening habit data. It's supposed to be inaudible, yet every commercial FM station in my market, Portland, Oregon has a nasty, hashy distortion that reminds me of IM. I've read that the VoltAir watermark can become audible if it's injected into the signal path at the wrong stage or at too high a level, but who knows what's going on? I believe it was banned in Canada.

So that's why I can't tolerate FM radio anymore.

 

[Rottmannash]

My concern is that this may impact my Tidal subscription
I have years invested in curating my Tidal playlists. They have done a good job of applying my preferences to their suggested listening. I like the UI and flexibility to play Tidal on any of my streaming devices. I "like" at least one new album per week.

The only perceived advantage of the MQA compression is that I can download large "hi-res" playlists to my portable streamers.

Let's hope that Tidal can afford to quickly convert their "Masters" to the original hi-res content (like Qobuz). If I were Tidal I would have a production line going already.

out of curiosity how much larger is a comparable flac file vs mqa file of the same song?

 

[Old Listener]

As reported here

MQA is going into administration

"MQA's main financial backer is seeking an exit"

www.whathifi.com

"Following the recent positive reception to MQA’s latest technology (SCL6), there has been increased international interest in buying MQA Ltd. At the same time, MQA’s main financial backer is seeking an exit. In order to be in the best position to pursue market opportunities and expedite this process, the company has undergone a restructuring initiative, which includes entering into administration and is comparable to Chapter 11 in the US.

During this process, MQA continues to trade as usual alongside its partners.

We won't be commenting further while negotiations take place."

I ran this through the Google translator with this result

"Things are going so well that we decided to go into bankruptcy."

 

[voodooless]

I wonder why such a company would have 4 million pound in yearly costs? They are not making anything physical, they won’t need a vast army of software developers… maybe they have a large legal department…?

 

[Rottmannash]

I wonder why such a company would have 4 million pound in yearly costs? They are not making anything physical, they won’t need a vast army of software developers… maybe they have a large legal department…?

or very large bank accounts in the Caymans

 

[Ra1zel]

In many ways, Meridian and Bob Stuart invented the digital audio world we live in today, more than Philips and Sony, more than Apple.

Mate its a bit late to shill MQA now.