I'd like to see proof that they are not watermarking the high-resolution versions, before being comfortable that they have released the untouched masters. Same for qobuz.
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MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions
- Thread starter mitchco
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I'm going to coin a new term for when a member goes nuts or a thread degenerates ... From now on it will be referred to as going ' Full MQA'
And none of that means anything about the utility or SQ qualities of MQA, about whether it is being marketed honestly, or about whether Meridian is a successful company.
You seem to have some reading comprehension problems. I didn’t go after him personally or attack his qualifications. He obviously has high technical qualifications. You keep making this “appeal to technical authority” which has zip to do with any discussion of the issues involved. Lots of technically qualified people are involved with projects that aren’t really good or are even to the detriment of consumers. The profit motive often warps perspectives. Look at all the well respected scientists who take money from corporate sponsors and produce junk science that fits what the corporations involved want produced.
The fact that Bob Stuart is technically qualified proves nothing about the quality of his product, the honesty of the marketing involved or the economic standing of Meridian.
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FWIW, as far as Meridian is concerned, it is extremely easy to obtain the full yearly balance sheets, or even google partially obfuscated ones with no specific access. https://uk.globaldatabase.com/company/meridian-audio-limited
That should settle at least one aspect of the discussion.
That should settle at least one aspect of the discussion.
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Opening this thread now that we see my prediction above coming through.Amazon did NOT adopt MQA in their high-res streaming service. And if Apple goes in this direct, they will not either.
The "world domination" argument against MQA was about MQA's aspiration (clearly stated by them, and clearly embedded in their business model). It was not about predicting whether or not MQA would succeed in that aspiration.
In fact, one can plausibly (though not definitively, I admit) argue that all the internet uproar and opposition over MQA has contributed to the cooling of the MQA hype. So in that sense you are possibly overlooking a potential interaction among variables here: the opposition to MQA, including the "world domination" critique, might be contributing to MQA's failure at world domination.
[QUOTE="AudioSceptic, post: 238243,
A > CD format that makes sense to me would be 20 bit x 64 kHz. 20 bits is close to the best that DACs can manage, and 64 k gives us a Nyquist of 32 k, allowing easy filtering above the audible range. Anything more is a waste of space.[/QUOTE]
This sampling rate was proposed to the AES committee in a paper by an RCA engineer, back when the choice of SR was being debated, as the most easy to sample-rate convert to the various entertainment and broadcast formats then extant. His paper was dutifully ignored and Sony and Philips' standards were accepted. My thought at the time was: if 44.1K is to be the release standard for CD, why on earth make 48K as the studio recording standard? At least 50.4K (some company was using this) would have given simple integer SR conversion, which was important at the time.
A > CD format that makes sense to me would be 20 bit x 64 kHz. 20 bits is close to the best that DACs can manage, and 64 k gives us a Nyquist of 32 k, allowing easy filtering above the audible range. Anything more is a waste of space.[/QUOTE]
This sampling rate was proposed to the AES committee in a paper by an RCA engineer, back when the choice of SR was being debated, as the most easy to sample-rate convert to the various entertainment and broadcast formats then extant. His paper was dutifully ignored and Sony and Philips' standards were accepted. My thought at the time was: if 44.1K is to be the release standard for CD, why on earth make 48K as the studio recording standard? At least 50.4K (some company was using this) would have given simple integer SR conversion, which was important at the time.
Another joke post of yours. You just forgot to mention that you quoted something from 2007 that is no longer relevant.
Try maybe looking at something from the past decade or 5 years of financial reports, instead of quotes from 2007 that have little to do with what’s going on at the present company. You really have no clue what you are talking about here.
I challenged you to read and analyze the financial reports of the company and prove me wrong. You clearly are unable to do so.
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Yes, one profitable year in the last 7 (for one-off reasons). Not growing. Classic picture of a failing business. And if you do read the details of financials, you see that the company has gotten cash injections from an entity wholly controlled by his in-laws. I bet banks won’t touch Meridian. The company would be bankrupt without the largesse of the family.
Let's go back to the article from Archimago that started this thread:
That is a scare tactic, is it not? It doesn't say MQA desires that. It says this could happen and you better be scared, very scared.
I said that was wrong. It is now just year and half later and we absolutely know that prediction was wrong.
As if that was not enough, he really tries to scare you:
Can we agree all this fear mongering was wrong? That it stemmed from total lack of understanding of the marketplace and powers in play? To be proven wrong so quickly shows how far off he was in his predictions and dire consequences.
I seem to remember that they used an inferior resampling method for their test, which will absolutely cause issues that are likely to be audible. If they had used a good resampler, like what studios use to downsample, there would have been no audible issues.
It's a classic example of fiddling with the test setup until it gives the result you want.
I await the "never go full MQA" meme.
The "world domination" argument against MQA was about MQA's aspiration (clearly stated by them, and clearly embedded in their business model). It was not about predicting whether or not MQA would succeed in that aspiration.
In fact, one can plausibly (though not definitively, I admit) argue that all the internet uproar and opposition over MQA has contributed to the cooling of the MQA hype. So in that sense you are possibly overlooking a potential interaction among variables here: the opposition to MQA, including the "world domination" critique, might be contributing to MQA's failure at world domination.
I agree with this. The best thing we can do as customers is to raise a stink when companies try to force restrictions on us.
And I do think the uproar has limited MQA's adoption.
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Well, things are less clear here. Prior to MQA being rolled out, Bob Stuart and crew published peer-reviewed research/double blind tests showed that people could tell the difference (to P<0.05) that if you resampled the high-res file to 44.1 kHz, the effect could be audible. Therefore, their mission became preserving the high sample rate, not because people could hear ultrasonics, but because filters could impact the audible band.
Bob took this to another level then saying "timing" in audio matters and therefore if you can preserve 192 kHz sampling, you should. Don't ask me to defend this bit because I can't.
There is also some conjugate filtering which in practice doesn't seem to be in use.
My position in all of this is different. If a file is available in 24/96 kHz, I want it before someone tries to convert it to 16/44.1. I have no need for their conversion. That conversion is lossy of course so all this talk about MQA being lossy is for not. My other hope was that high-res audio would come without loudness compression. In some of the AB tests of MQA to no-MQA content, it is clear to me they have access to better masters than what is already released. That, makes an indisputable difference in fidelity.
Indeed, I know of no one who has made it their mission to try to encode high-res content for us as MQA has. They are likely spending some effort to try to find better masters at times if what I heard in demos is true.
Anyway, I get MQA for free in Tidal. Roon decodes it for me for free as well. Someone wants to cry that I am getting ripped off, doesn't have a leg to stand on.
These tests compared 192 material with 44.1 and 48 khz. The 44.1 used an unusually steep transition band of only 435 hz. The 48 khz material used only 500 hz wide transition bands. A substandard dither was used known to be somewhat audible itself. They had unusually good wide bandwidth systems. They had trained the listeners for this using material with only a 100 hz wide transition band. And yes using very steep filters, specially trained listeners, and a very good playback system, they heard a statistically significant difference. One detected accurately between 56 and 61% of the time vs 50% if it wasn't audible.
To me that says the difference was very minor and difficult to detect. I don't fault the training or use of good gear. But would it be detectable by even 1 in 10 of other people? And those who detected it must have found it minor or we would have much higher rates of correct identification. To go from this and expect large improvements in sound quality seems a real stretch. And none of this was what MQA does. If wider transition bands were in use would the effect disappear? If half band filters been used would it disappear? If shaped or TPDF dither been used would results have disappeared or been reduced below significance? Would going to 88 khz have been sufficient? All questions any researcher would have been very interested in answering. Only this test was strictly for building a marketing background for MQA. So those other tests either weren't done or have been kept secret.
So then we get the big old leap of logic about what MQA can accomplish. That using leaky filters and other methods can provide a better temporal response (with what this is described in murky terms). That it's lossy implementation of ultrasonics is perceptually equivalent to a real wide bandwidth file. We lack a direct test of MQA vs 96 khz or 192 khz files (in fact MQA LTD has avoided this whenever possible in demonstrations).
So the test supports under rather peculiar filtering of downsampled material 192 khz is very slightly discernible as different vs the downsampling to 48 and 44.1 khz using a poorly chosen dither. To jump from this to the idea such testing supports the efficacy of MQA is a huge jump which could only makes sense to a marketing maven.
How do you propose a control to work out what would have happened without the fear mongering?
That is a holding company:
The company is I think 75% owned by external investment company. They could be pushing any losses they want into that paper company.
Adobe Audition DAW filters were used which is one of the most common audio editing apps there is. So there is no hand selection there as you are implying.
Fear mongering has had no effect seeing how MQA continued to get more and more design wins and adoption. No company is harder to sell audio IP to than Sony. But here they are:
Just a few week ago. And the week before they announced this:
On the other hand, it is entirely possible that a) MQA enabled Tidal to get into high-res streaming and b) that prompted Amazon and Qobuz to get into the same (without MQA) to compete with Tidal. In that sense, it has done us great good, not the other way around.
The only thing shouting about MQA has done is increase advertiser revenue on some forums that rely on that. That's it.
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Except Meridian doesn't have MQA. They are separate companies. I don't remember, but was the profit in the one time period when they spun off MQA into its own entity or was MQA always fully separate?
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Agree that they can do almost what they want and even operate a highly profitable company at a paper loss that way... They also list a bigger number of employees from 112 down to 75 over the years in the third line. It doesn't tell the whole story, but is still an indication. And there is a clear cash infusion too, whether it comes from licensing, external investment or support is another story though.
Since that 10 mil thingie appears in EBITDA but is not taxed (profit after taxes stays around that) if does not look like actual business sales.
But anyway, it won't provide all the answers, just some. That's why forensic accounting and due diligence are trendy these days
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Yeah, it could be, it doesn't seem to have been taxed. Could be a paper gain on a spin-off valuation, but that is so dependent on per country accounting's rules that I would not venture into it.
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