MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions

[Dialectic]

Agreed, Wombat. My concern is, and I had this happen with 480GB of 24/96 files and ISO rips of 80 SACDs accidently get deleted because my daughter saved a filed in a folder and tried to fix it. Told my daughter, NO big deal, I have it on my ext drive. This from 2008 and it's 2011 and my back-up was a 500 GB Seagate drive. Well, I plug in the Seagate to my iMac...and the iMac won't read it. Spent hours and gave up. Tried plugging into company laptop with MS, no read again. I still have it and when I have the time I'll keep trying.

Sometimes it's the USB interface on those old Seagate external drives that fails. It may be possible to remove the drive from the enclosure, put it inside your PC (or inside an external drive dock), and recover the data.

 

[sofrep811]

Thanks. I will give it a try. From past reading there were A LOT of fails in the Apple forums.

Also--I use an IMAC...and no longer have a laptop with MS.

 

[Sal1950]

Thanks. I will give it a try. From past reading there were A LOT of fails in the Apple forums.

Also--I use an IMAC...and no longer have a laptop with MS.

IMAC should still be able to read a FAT32 or NTFS AFAIK, if not get a Linux LiveCD, boot it and try to read the drive.
soundArgument gives the best starting point though, take the drive out of that encloseure and connect it directly to your computer or buy a new external drive encloseure to try it in that, they are dirt cheap.

 

[sofrep811]

I'll try that. It's worth it due to the amount of difficult to get music.

 

[derp1n]

 

[amirm]

What a disaster and circus. I am shocked that RMAF would allow such a presentation. Usually show organizers do not want to look like they are picking sides in such things.

This should have been a panel discussion.

Chris simply is not technical enough to carry such a message.

 

[watchnerd]

What a disaster and circus. I am shocked that RMAF would allow such a presentation. Usually show organizers do not want to look like they are picking sides in such things.

This should have been a panel discussion.

Chris simply is not technical enough to carry such a message.

I dunno....I found it interesting and thought the MQA reps came across as incredibly disruptive and borderline rude.

That alone impacts how I feel about their technology; I was skeptical of MQA before, but their attempts to hijack the session tells me a lot.

Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of Computer Audiophile, either, finding it to be a site rife with digital snakeoil fanbois.

 

[amirm]

Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of Computer Audiophile, either, finding it to be a site rife with digital snakeoil fanbois.

Which is heavily promoted by Chris, right? How come he doesn't listen to experts on those topics and products vs MQA? All of a sudden he gets religion on what audio technology does versus claimed?

That is why I say he simply is not qualified to play this role.

 

[amirm]

I dunno....I found it interesting and thought the MQA reps came across as incredibly disruptive and borderline rude.

I agree they did not do themselves any favor. I would have sat quiet and made my points at the end. And at any rate, they sent all business people to that meeting and instead, there should have been someone technical.

 

[Blumlein 88]

What a disaster and circus. I am shocked that RMAF would allow such a presentation. Usually show organizers do not want to look like they are picking sides in such things.

This should have been a panel discussion.

Chris simply is not technical enough to carry such a message.

Chris didn't want to be technical. I think he had in mind trying to provide something for non-technical music lovers. I think that was a mistake. Not that it had to be highly technical, but it needed a little bit of that. The obvious reply to questioning archimago is argue against the argument and data not the man, not his credentials. Once Chris indicated he isn't a competitor their only viable complaint was answered.

At a minimum Chris needed a co-presenter. One to keep the presentation on track, and one to handle the discussion. I too think it called for a panel discussion, but some actions in the past indicate MQA reps probably would not have agreed to be on such a panel.

Not trying to be critical of Chris as seeing such problems after the fact with 20/20 hindvision is easy. But worth noting for any future such event.

I think in Chris' mind the event was a bit too unfocused, as he didn't want to be anti-MQA. If your presentation is meant to be critical (which isn't necessarily anti, but the distinction is easily lost) you need to take a certain direction with managing the flow of events. So combine that with a cadre of MQA people who were there to be adversarial and disrupt anything coming of it and you see the result.

To me to remain less than highly technical hitting on how MQA once claimed to be lossless and now doesn't, once claimed something like end to end encryption and now doesn't and claims to have the approval of artists and production people which does not have that would all have been enough. And its in there, but unless you are looking for it the importance of those were diluted.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I agree they did not do themselves any favor. I would have sat quiet and made my points at the end. And at any rate, they sent all business people to that meeting and instead, there should have been someone technical.

Depends upon your strategy. If you wish not to discuss some unflattering technical matters you send business reps. If things go badly, you do what they in fact did. Pipe up about Bob's credentials, and had someone technically adept have been there keep asking if you'd communicated with Bob or other principals in MQA while saying your just a business person not able to discuss those parts.

If you've read the various Q&A posts by Stewart he sidesteps and misdirects around all the important questions. He has no intention of getting his people into any discussion that is technical.

 

[watchnerd]

Which is heavily promoted by Chris, right? How come he doesn't listen to experts on those topics and products vs MQA? All of a sudden he gets religion on what audio technology does versus claimed?

That is why I say he simply is not qualified to play this role.

I think he was trying....but failing...to play the role of investigative journalist?

 

[watchnerd]

Depends upon your strategy. If you wish not to discuss some unflattering technical matters you send business reps. If things go badly, you do what they in fact did. Pipe up about Bob's credentials, and had someone technically adept have been there keep asking if you'd communicated with Bob or other principals in MQA while saying your just a business person not able to discuss those parts.

If you've read the various Q&A posts by Stewart he sidesteps and misdirects around all the important questions. He has no intention of getting his people into any discussion that is technical.

But I think people can see through the tactic pretty quickly....as lightweight as Chris' preso was (and it was critical, for sure), the MQA reps basically just tried to filibuster him.

Pure hacks and if that's what MQA has to resort to, that makes me even more suspicious of their claims and business model.

Also, their rebuttals versus the music labels were ridiculous (oh, in US it's only streaming...but in Japan it isn't....) and the bandwidth discussion was equally lame.

They've never ever explained why anyone actually needs this in today's high bandwidth world.

 

[mitchco]

Having watched the video, if you look at the title it says a "consumer-centric presentation of facts and findings." I believe @watchnerd is correct in saying that Chris is playing the role of investigative journalist. As one of the slides states: "What this seminar isn't: a deep technical exploration or take down of MQA." Seems clear to me. Kudos to Chris for staying professional during the entire presentation, unlike others...

When I was at Microsoft and attending and presenting at PDC's, if anyone in the audience was that rude and insistent, they would be asked to leave or be escorted out. It is unfortunate this rudeness is caught on tape. Makes our industry look childish.

Archimago's measurements and claims can be either be proved or disproved, as the measurement process is known and can be repeated by others. Audio Science Review right? How about scientifically reviewing Archmago's measurements and claims? There is a ready made science experiment to repeat. Lots of folks at this site have the measurement gear and know how...

 

[watchnerd]

Having watched the video, if you look at the title it says a "consumer-centric presentation of facts and findings." I believe @watchnerd is correct in saying that Chris is playing the role of investigative journalist. As one of the slides states: "What this seminar isn't: a deep technical exploration or take down of MQA." Seems clear to me. Kudos to Chris for staying professional during the entire presentation, unlike others...

When I was at Microsoft and attending and presenting at PDC's, if anyone in the audience was that rude and insistent, they would be asked to leave or be escorted out. It is unfortunate this rudeness is caught on tape. Makes our industry look childish.

Archimago's measurements and claims can be either be proved or disproved, as the measurement process is known and can be repeated by others. Audio Science Review right? How about scientifically reviewing Archmago's measurements and claims? There is a ready made science experiment to repeat. Lots of folks at this site have the measurement gear and know how...

That's a good point -- the ASR community should try to repeat Archimago's experiment.

 

[derp1n]

It is unfortunate this rudeness is caught on tape. Makes our industry look childish.

I disagree. It's useful to expose MQA Ltd's "behind the scenes" mentality and behavior.

 

[FrantzM]

I did go to a good portion of the video. I am no fan of CA. I did however form the impression that the MQA people were obfuscating. From lossless to not is a serious leap. “Years of engineering” shouldn’t result in changing such an important aspect. No matter how one frames the narrative from that point, if it is not lossless it can’t be the Master. Similar? Perhaps but so would be Ogg Vorbis or mp3 @ 320 (feel free to debate if you will that last rationale). But not “Identical “
Never cared much about MQA. Caring even less henceforward. Views are dimming fast.

 

[Soniclife]

What a trainwreck, impossible to not view that as MQA believing they have lost the argument, so they are focusing on trying to shoot the messengers now.

Maybe Chris knew it would go down like that, so he provided the rope and let them do the rest.

 

[derp1n]

Who Archimago is must keep the entire MQA team up at night...

 

[SIY]

And at any rate, they sent all business people to that meeting and instead, there should have been someone technical.

Right there is why I find most audio shows unpleasant.