MQA Sounds Really Good!

[March Audio]

Where would I read about the street riots you have participated in similar to MQA? And what your call to action be? Make it illegal to create, distribute and consumer high-resolution audio?

How far does this argument go? Should we set SINAD of 50 dB as the limit too?

I think you are missing the point that MQA has quite deliberately avoided allowing proper scrutiny of its technical claims - and IIRC is it not lossy to normal redbook? To imply this is all a completely benign situation to the end consumer is a little, well how should I put it, optimistic.

My call to action? I am quite happy for people to object to it and make their own minds up, as indeed they are. You clearly dont agree with that position, and thats not a problem. Personally I do see it as a cynical exercise in monitisation, with the claim it does something wonderful for audio quality, which is specious at best. Of course MQA isnt alone in this objective.

This isnt about restricting commercial or technical practices; and thats a bit of a straw man to suggest thats my point.

 

[digicidal]

I didn't say you can't have a negative opinion. I say don't state things that are wrong as a matter of how the industry works. And how consumers behave.

What is specifically wrong? That it does nothing appreciable as far as audio quality is concerned? That it contributes additional costs to the consumer? That it provides no meaningful reduction in size over any other (equally unnecessary IMO) high-res format? That it provides a revenue stream whose sole purpose appears to be to protect that same revenue stream? That by design it seeks to require licensing at every level of audio production and distribution in order to be "fully authorized"? Or that open-source alternatives already exist and provide the same audio quality and file size without any need for additional licensing?

 

[amirm]

That by design it seeks to require licensing at every level of audio production and distribution in order to be "fully authorized"?

Talk about confusion. You think whoever created a music album now distributed on Tidal paid MQA licenses? You think music labels did? They will cough up a cent after they are buried. They are at the top of the food chain with respect MQA which is in the gutter.

Would someone pay to use MQA to distribute MQA content. Probably. Why wouldn't they if they are enjoying the marking value of MQA?

Apple and Google collect hefty fees with super monopoly power on what apps distributed on their platforms. You want to complain, start there.

Every SD card comes with the same authorization for its CPRM copy protection to make sure people don't clone that without paying royalties.

What is that you say? You didn't even know SD cards all have mandatory copy protection? You know now.

Windows comes with authentication code. My audio precision software comes with authorization code. Dirac EQ comes with authorization code.

Don't confuse anti-theft of IP with control of the chain. There is no such control bestowed to a little company called MQA. The industry stops you dead cold if you try that. Unless you are Steve Jobs or something....

 

[Blumlein 88]

Where would I read about the street riots you have participated in similar to MQA? And what your call to action be? Make it illegal to create, distribute and consumer high-resolution audio?

How far does this argument go? Should we set SINAD of 50 dB as the limit too?

A little bit off topic.

Which is the higher resolution audio format?
96khz/16 bit or 48khz/24 bit.

 

[digicidal]

By implication, the further down the supply chain encoding happens, the harder it is to be certain of provenance and so recordings may only be encoded as MQA Studio when provenance is explicitly supported and provided by the content owner. Where there is doubt over the chain of custody, music should be encoded as MQA.

MQA provenance recognises that great music may only be available in early analogue or early digital or Redbook CD format; such recordings, if vouched for by the rights holder, can be marked MQA Studio and enjoy the profound sonic benefits of the MQA chain.

Our viewpoint is that ‘Resolution’ is a concept of Perception, best interpreted in the analogue domain. This pioneering insight is better aligned to listening experience than to digital domain definitions of quality. As a result, we don’t include or exclude recorded material on the basis of digital file format or parameters such as sample rate or bit depth. Instead, we focus on temporal resolution, noise stability and analogue blur.

Straight from the horse's mouth... I guess you really are measuring all the wrong things, and there are things people can hear that can't be measured - or at least that's what Bob seems to be saying. So much for statements without proof being supported - apparently that's only for statements made by other people. I do stand corrected on one point @amirm - it appears that Bob only cares about getting the money for a "stamp of approval" from the studio - so they can use whatever gear they want as long as he gets paid. I'll edit my previous posts to remove that misinformation.

 

[Sal1950]

In my opinion, if you are selling > $1000 DAC, you need to put MQA in there. Tidal and MQA have become popular enough that consumers are asking for it. And nothing you all are doing is going to change that equation.

Well so much for you saying MQA will die for lack of interest. Which is it, nobody is interested in MQA and it will die out on it's own, or the consumers are demanding it's inclusion in newer DAC's ??? Face it man, their marketing plan is working to demand it in both new hardware products and in the music distribution coding.
Sadly nothing you are doing here at ASR is helping to decrease the interest and demand for MQA. Just the opposite, your statements have only helped to increase the demand. Rather than taking a pro-consumer position, you only hurt any efforts we have made to enlighten the consumer to all the negatives the coding has brought to the table.
Please Amir, there are a lot of very smart people here that have tried to get thru to you the bad consumer slant of MQA. Stop to take into account their positions and the ideas they have brought to the table. I respect your knowledge on the subject but considering the number of folks here that strongly disagree with you, consider the possibility that you just might be wrong.
Best Regards,
Sal

 

[March Audio]

In my opinion, if you are selling > $1000 DAC, you need to put MQA in there. Tidal and MQA have become popular enough that consumers are asking for it. And nothing you all are doing is going to change that equation.

As Sal says, you have contradicted your argument there.

 

[amirm]

Well so much for you saying MQA will die for lack of interest.

The death will come when Tidal shuts down. Amazon HD service needs to get integrated into broad set of consumer electronics gear. Until this happens, Tidal is here and with it, has created demand for MQA.

 

[amirm]

Face it man, their marketing plan is working to demand it in both new hardware products and in the music distribution coding.

Of course their marketing plan is working. I have said this myself. Why do you say otherwise? They are getting more design wins including Telecom support in China which is causing more adoption by likes of SMSL, Matrix Audio, etc. I expect this trend to continue, much to the chagrin of you all who think your efforts have meant something. They have not.

 

[RayDunzl]

Dec 16, 2014

Meridian Launches MQA at The Shard

MQA WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING. Meridian is the proud creator of MQA, a revolutionary British technology bringing a whole new meaning to the sound of music.

 

[amirm]

Please Amir, there are a lot of very smart people here that have tried to get thru to you the bad consumer slant of MQA. Stop to take into account their positions and the ideas they have brought to the table. I respect your knowledge on the subject but considering the number of folks here that strongly disagree with you, consider the possibility that you just might be wrong.

This is not about smarts. It is about having broad knowledge of the industry and not suffering from angst over MQA, Meridian, Bob Stuart, etc. which is coloring your views. Your doctor doesn't need to be smart. He just needs to know more about medicine than you.

There is a reason none of your dire predictions have come true. MQA has not taken over the world. DRM has not returned to music. In the clear content has not been shut down. None of these conspiracy theories spread by "smart people" have materialized. Everything is working as it normally does in format making, audio industry.

So choose to listen to yourselves when you have never known the inside story of how this world turns. Or listen to me. This is the logic that is facing you, rather than how many people are on which side of an argument. How did that become the decided factor in anything?

Now excuse me as I continue testing the ifi Zen MQA DAC.

 

[amirm]

Sadly nothing you are doing here at ASR is helping to decrease the interest and demand for MQA. Just the opposite, your statements have only helped to increase the demand. Rather than taking a pro-consumer position, you only hurt any efforts we have made to enlighten the consumer to all the negatives the coding has brought to the table.

Oh? I didn't know my job was to reduce demand for MQA rather than teaching what I know about audio industry from living this field for over a decade.

MQA has created its demand on its own. It has content, it has device wins. Upward trend, albeit a slow one, exists until something pulls the rug from under them (i.e. Tidal going bust or they go bankrupt). Forum chatter doesn't amount to anything.

 

[Wombat]

Competition is not possible if MQA has the source masters exclusively tied up. Sounds like a possible monopoly situation to me. Of course there may be no 'if'.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Competition is not possible if MQA has the source masters exclusively tied up. Sounds like a possible monopoly situation to me. Of course there may be no 'if'.
View attachment 38481

So far they don't appear to have source master monopoly. Certainly the music companies could at some point refuse to sell anything beyond redbook unless it is MQA. Hasn't happened yet. Is an option for the future of course. Depends upon whether or not the greed of music companies is enhanced by doing that in their opinion.

 

[KozmoNaut]

This is not about smarts. It is about having broad knowledge of the industry and not suffering from angst over MQA, Meridian, Bob Stuart, etc. which is coloring your views. Your doctor doesn't need to be smart. He just needs to know more about medicine than you.

There is a reason none of your dire predictions have come true. MQA has not taken over the world. DRM has not returned to music. In the clear content has not been shut down. None of these conspiracy theories spread by "smart people" have materialized. Everything is working as it normally does in format making, audio industry.

The reason is that people stand up and shout, they make their displeasure heard and they spread the word far and wide about the scammy nature of MQA, as well as other proprietary formats and DRM schemes. If we just laid down and let the industry bigwigs do whatever they liked, music would be locked down and only temporarily licensed to you. They only see music as a revenue stream, not as culture and art. We music lovers have to stand up to them every time they come up with a new scheme to lock down music.

It's a bit like the Y2K problem. Years after, people are saying "well it wasn't such a big thing, really. Nothing really happened". But they completely ignore that thousands and thousands of people worked hard to educate about the problem and make sure everyone had a way to solve or at least work around the problem, to minimize the effects. In a sense, they did their job too well, because very few people even noticed.

I will never stop speaking out against proprietary standards and DRM. I will never stop promoting open formats and standards, because no one has the right to lock down culture, no matter what some hopped up marketing slug in a suit thinks.

We won't win every battle, but we will never stop fighting.

So choose to listen to yourselves when you have never known the inside story of how this world turns. Or listen to me. This is the logic that is facing you, rather than how many people are on which side of an argument. How did that become the decided factor in anything?

Now excuse me as I continue testing the ifi Zen MQA DAC.

I'm not sure who made you The Grand Oracle Of All Truth, but whoever did so needs to reign in their ego.

You don't know every one of us, you don't know what we've done, where we've worked and which experiences we've drawn. Stop acting as if you do.

Popular support means everything. If you don't have the people on your side, you will be overthrown.

 

[RayDunzl]

I'm not sure who made you The Grand Oracle Of All Truth

He knows the admin password.

 

[KozmoNaut]

He knows the admin password.

12345, just like my luggage!

 

[Wombat]

12345, just like my luggage!

Not 00000? I figure that no code cracker would believe I would do that.

 

[Victoria]

I'm going to have to disagree that MQA simply "being there" doesn't hurt anyone.

There's at least one example here by Amir himself demonstrating vendor incompetence hampering non-MQA content.

Seriously; the less there is, the less there is to eff up.

 

[mansr]

You can take the Amir of out Microsoft, but you can't take Microsoft out of the Amir.