MQA Sounds Really Good!

[LuckyLuke575]

The first time I listened to High Res, 96/24 music was via MQA, so I think's its a great format for making high quality audio available.

 

[amirm]

Please correct where this is incorrect in the "for(ish)" argument:
1) If you accept for-profit, proprietary licensing and format standards in media like DVD and BR you shouldn't have a problem with MQA.

With respect to it having royalty stream, correct.

2) If you don't take (or are incapable of taking) an active role in stopping or reversing it - you shouldn't have a complaint/opinion about it.

You can complain but do it with arguments that are defensible. You can't say these "MQA people are after royalties" when every phone you buy has boatload of royalties for the sake of royalties.

3) It doesn't do much/any audible harm, and the costs are distributed in most cases - so it's "much ado about nothing".

This is not my argument so not sure why you are asking me.

Now consider the above in relation to the recent ISO-DAC review conclusion:

Note that I don't disagree in any way with the conclusions reached for that DAC. I just see those same arguments as being directly applicable to MQA as well to a large extent.

The ISO-DAC review is full of facts backing the arguments. When I read that MQA is the devil while folks buy more devilish products every day, I don't see the parallel.

 

[KozmoNaut]

You can complain but do it with arguments that are defensible. You can't say these "MQA people are after royalties" when every phone you buy has boatload of royalties for the sake of royalties.

Yes, you absolutely can.

If you want/need a phone, there is no way around those royalties. Don't blame people when they have no choice. With MQA we can still choose to avoid it, and we should.

 

[Wombat]

I'm not sure what you mean exactly Amir. The way I read your response is a conflation of "popular" with "beneficial". I'm not sure that's what you meant though. A license fee is a tax. In economic terms that's a increase to cost base and by definition reduces output. Similarly a license is also a control restricting competition and innovation in the market place so by that definition it can be called non-beneficial to society. I recognize there are other meanings but that's where was I coming from.
The distinction of "Open doesn't make something free" puzzles me a bit as well. Sorry for that. In my view open means the freedom to use without a copyright holder demanding rent or exerting market power over the use of the item in question. For example, the number "3" is both free (as in freedom and free of cost) and open to use by all humans as they see fit. Does "free" mean something different to you in this context? Do you have an example of a format that is open but not also free? I thinking maybe something like Apache license but that doesn't seem quite right.

thanks,
Bill.

I have always considered a licence fee as a charge for a clearly defined service and a tax as revenue collection for broad-based, less specific, spending by governments. And then there are tolls, royalties, ………. . Whatever proprietary charges are called the cost plus overheads will be borne by the product/service users.

 

[digicidal]

With respect to it having royalty stream, correct.
...
You can complain but do it with arguments that are defensible. You can't say these "MQA people are after royalties" when every phone you buy has boatload of royalties for the sake of royalties.
...
This is not my argument so not sure why you are asking me.
...
The ISO-DAC review is full of facts backing the arguments. When I read that MQA is the devil while folks buy more devilish products every day, I don't see the parallel.

You seem to be projecting other arguments on to me here. What I have said is that I accept being forced to pay royalties and licensing fees in order to have improved access or quality in media I consume... which is not what MQA actually does. Or more precisely, in the few cases where it does - it does so because they have paid for there to be an artificial restriction to that specific content. If there was any reason why a 24/192 FLAC was inadequate or inefficient at providing "Masters Quality Audio" to the consumer (at whatever price they felt the market would pay)... then I would feel differently about that aspect.

The entirety of my "complaint" is that through largely deceptive marketing, the format is being promoted as being significantly better than the open alternatives while not actually being so. The fact that the licensing costs are being passed on is secondary to this... but again, if it actually were moving the audio technology needle forward - then I would be more accepting. Just like a DAC with linear FR and high distortion being marketed as being more "detailed and involving" without being so. It's not the money that's the problem... it's money for nothing objectively better... which is the premise of your work on this site, correct?

And for what it's worth... if Bluray didn't provide a better picture and uncompressed audio - then no I wouldn't have ever purchased one of those either... but they DID do all that. If a new format with new licensing is released while not providing any improvements in the fidelity of content itself, especially if it involves anti-competitive restrictions of choice on the end user... then you can bet I'll be complaining about that too.

I complained frequently and loudly during the Microsoft anti-competitive assault times as well... both in relation to OEMs (which I was working with at the time) and during the "browser wars" period. Was it a largely Pyrrhic victory? Yes... but it was something at least. Unfortunately, as you are well aware I'm sure, most of those "aggrieved parties" then turned around and did the exact same things and got spanked themselves (too lightly IMO).

Regardless of what you may have read into my position... it is simply that:
Proprietary standards are only tolerable as a "worst case scenario" when they are the only expedient means of improving technology or the data they manage (i.e. to fund R&D). Any standard which is forced, and which also does nothing to improve the status quo is bad (even if free). Deceptive marketing practices used to convince ignorant consumers they are paying for an exclusive performance or benefit where one does not exist are always wrong.

Wrong if applied to power cords, wrong if applied to source components, and wrong if applied to audio formats.

 

[BillW]

I have always considered a licence fee as a charge for a clearly defined service and a tax as revenue collection for broad-based, less specific, spending by governments. And then there are tolls, royalties, ………. . Whatever proprietary charges are called the cost plus overheads will be borne by the product/service users.

I don't disagree with your definition since we are using the word "tax" in two different contexts. My context of the word "tax" here is "a strain or heavy demand" like lifting a piano not the political usage of the term tax which is considered "a compulsory contribution to state revenue".
A tax by any other name is still a tax to an economic system. That's not a judgment of it, just a fact that increased costs reduce output. I fully understand that for a corporation however royalties add to profit so it's good for them. I believe RCA used patent royalties for decades as their primary source of income.
Hopefully there will be a good outcome for all consumers with regards to MQA (for those that have better hearing than me of course ). It would beneficial for MQA to be open and royalty free like Google's VP8 for example which allowed it's adoption in a wide variety of products.

Thanks,
Bill.

 

[Sal1950]

I complained frequently and loudly during the Microsoft anti-competitive assault times as well... both in relation to OEMs (which I was working with at the time) and during the "browser wars" period.

The reason I switched to Linux almost exculsively around 2000 and haven't paid for a MS OS ever since.
Same way I don't pay for MQA encoded products, MQA supporting DAC's, or MQA supporting music distribution like Tidal.
Vote with your wallet and let people know why you bought or didn't buy various gear.

 

[amirm]

Yes, you absolutely can.

If you want/need a phone, there is no way around those royalties. Don't blame people when they have no choice. With MQA we can still choose to avoid it, and we should.

Of course there is a way to go against phone royalties. You all are sleep at the helm when it matters (i.e. phones, DVD players, STBs,) that sell in billions. Yet are blowing a gasket over technology hardly anyone cares about. Even after I have told you all how bad the royalty schemes are in these other devices, you keep arguing about MQA. These other devices have already hit you in the pocket book. Wake up and deal with those. Otherwise, crying on my shoulders is not going to do you any good.

 

[amirm]

What I have said is that I accept being forced to pay royalties and licensing fees in order to have improved access or quality in media I consume...

Those huge royalties were not at all about improved access to content. They were about lining the pockets of major consumer electronics companies. Take MPEG-2. It is by far worse than MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1. Yet it was left in Blu-ray as mandatory codec. Why? Because the CE companies that created Blu-ray wanted to benefit from making even more royalties by jamming MPEG-2 in there. That motivation almost kept the other codecs from going in the format as Blu-ray started with MPEG-2 only format!

The AACS copy protection in Blu-ray can be applied to simple stream from Youtube today and give you the same format as Blu-ray for a fraction of the royalties. But no. Folks had to force Java in there so that Sun/Oracle could get paid too.

You have to have my perspective of how these games are played to know who is a major player and getting a pass from you all, and who is a tiny fly on the wall (MQA).

And it is not like MQA will be do or die like DVD, Blu-ray, MPEG-2, etc. are. You can and are avoiding MQA. You can't avoid these other technologies that are milking you over and over again. Every time you upgrade your TV, Blu-ray player or AVR, you pay the same royalties again and again! I have my Roon player and have not paid a cent to play MQA. Nor will I need to keep rebuying MQA in the future.

Net, net, you are forced to pay tons and tons of royalties for technologies you use every day yet refuse to get upset about them. But keep showing angst over something you don't use, won't use and won't cost you anything.

 

[amirm]

Or more precisely, in the few cases where it does - it does so because they have paid for there to be an artificial restriction to that specific content.

What restriction? The base layer of MQA can be played on everything with zero royalties or decoder necessary. Where do I get a version of that for MPEG-2? Or voice codecs used in your phone?

The full decoding of MQA does require code but so does the decoder for any other royalty bearing codec. Why is MQA more evil than them?

And how is your life impacted by MQA? You can get High-res content from Qobuz, HDTracks, Amazon, etc. without it. How are you stopped from anything you used to do without MQA?

 

[amirm]

Proprietary standards are only tolerable as a "worst case scenario" when they are the only expedient means of improving technology or the data they manage (i.e. to fund R&D). Any standard which is forced, and which also does nothing to improve the status quo is bad (even if free). Deceptive marketing practices used to convince ignorant consumers they are paying for an exclusive performance or benefit where one does not exist are always wrong.

Again, nothing is forced on anyone with MQA. It is yet another format trying to fill a small niche. Deceptive is the word that comes to mind from people who try to scare the general audiophiles that MQA is about to take over their world. This has conclusively been shown to be wrong. A couple years later after these cries, nothing like that has happened. Instead, major companies like Amazon are providing high-res content without use of MQA.

Meanwhile the open-source community is asleep at the helm. If MQA is going to become such a major source of technology in the market, whey are they not doing anything about it? Are they not able to build capabilities of MQA into an open and royalty-free format? If not, then MQA deserves to get that business.

The reality is that MQA is a nothing-burger. It is too small to even get the typical DSP engineer out of the bed to build an open-source competitor to it. A few people online are losing sleep over it for absolutely no reason.

Format making is what I did as an entire career at Microsoft. When I tell you guys there is nothing to worry about with MQA, it comes from wealth of experience and knowledge of market dynamics. There is a reason I was able to predict Amazon would never pay for MQA.

So you all are welcome to keep stewing over MQA. Just don't try to convince me to be scared of it. MQA does not have legs to impact any mainstream consumer now or ever.

 

[Sal1950]

And how is your life impacted by MQA? You can get High-res content from Qobuz, HDTracks, Amazon, etc. without it.

The idea is to stop the juggernaut while we still can. As Thomas has pointed out. now 15 pages and you still don't get it?

 

[scott wurcer]

The first time I listened to High Res, 96/24 music was via MQA, so I think's its a great format for making high quality audio available.

This is the reasoning I don't get. Keeping it simple, if 24/96, is THE original MQA CAN'T make it better, it is at most a clever/better lossy compressed format. When streaming and storing uncompressed 24/96 is painless MQA has no purpose at all.

 

[Blumlein 88]

What restriction? The base layer of MQA can be played on everything with zero royalties or decoder necessary. Where do I get a version of that for MPEG-2? Or voice codecs used in your phone?

The full decoding of MQA does require code but so does the decoder for any other royalty bearing codec. Why is MQA more evil than them?

And how is your life impacted by MQA? You can get High-res content from Qobuz, HDTracks, Amazon, etc. without it. How are you stopped from anything you used to do without MQA?

Would you agree there is no benefit to the consumer?

 

[Wombat]

Those huge royalties were not at all about improved access to content. They were about lining the pockets of major consumer electronics companies. Take MPEG-2. It is by far worse than MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1. Yet it was left in Blu-ray as mandatory codec. Why? Because the CE companies that created Blu-ray wanted to benefit from making even more royalties by jamming MPEG-2 in there. That motivation almost kept the other codecs from going in the format as Blu-ray started with MPEG-2 only format!

The AACS copy protection in Blu-ray can be applied to simple stream from Youtube today and give you the same format as Blu-ray for a fraction of the royalties. But no. Folks had to force Java in there so that Sun/Oracle could get paid too.

You have to have my perspective of how these games are played to know who is a major player and getting a pass from you all, and who is a tiny fly on the wall (MQA).

And it is not like MQA will be do or die like DVD, Blu-ray, MPEG-2, etc. are. You can and are avoiding MQA. You can't avoid these other technologies that are milking you over and over again. Every time you upgrade your TV, Blu-ray player or AVR, you pay the same royalties again and again! I have my Roon player and have not paid a cent to play MQA. Nor will I need to keep rebuying MQA in the future.

Net, net, you are forced to pay tons and tons of royalties for technologies you use every day yet refuse to get upset about them. But keep showing angst over something you don't use, won't use and won't cost you anything.

The MQA licence fee is not included in the Roon subscription fee or streaming services?

 

[amirm]

The idea is to stop the juggernaut while we still can. As Thomas has pointed out. now 15 pages and you still don't get it?

The weeds in my backyard may get out of control and come and invade your yard in Florida too. You are going to come here to trim them???

 

[amirm]

The MQA licence fee is not included in the Roon subscription fee or streaming services?

I have a paid up license for Roon and they did not charge me one cent to get MQA functionality.

Likewise Tidal started to offer MQA without raising their rates to me.

So net cost to me to consumer MQA is zero.

 

[solderdude]

Watermarking seems to be real... Can one watermark MQA ?

 

[KozmoNaut]

Of course there is a way to go against phone royalties. You all are sleep at the helm when it matters (i.e. phones, DVD players, STBs,) that sell in billions. Yet are blowing a gasket over technology hardly anyone cares about. Even after I have told you all how bad the royalty schemes are in these other devices, you keep arguing about MQA. These other devices have already hit you in the pocket book. Wake up and deal with those. Otherwise, crying on my shoulders is not going to do you any good.

This is a thread about MQA and how useless and potentially damaging it is.

People do rail about proprietary formats in other products, we do get up in arms about the blatant cronyism that goes on, and we do fight against the multinational corporations, with open formats and open standards that encourage people to work together to solve problems.

But not in this thread specifically, because it is about MQA and its lack of merits, and too much of the other stuff would be off topic.

Please understand that just because we try to stick to one topic here, doesn't mean that's all we care about. This is an audio forum, and MQA is a lot more relevant to discuss here, than which formats are used in Blu-ray, which is a spec that can't really be changed now.

 

[KozmoNaut]

And it is not like MQA will be do or die like DVD, Blu-ray, MPEG-2, etc. are. You can and are avoiding MQA. You can't avoid these other technologies that are milking you over and over again. Every time you upgrade your TV, Blu-ray player or AVR, you pay the same royalties again and again! I have my Roon player and have not paid a cent to play MQA. Nor will I need to keep rebuying MQA in the future

Part of your Roon subscription goes towards the MQA support.