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MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions
- Thread starter mitchco
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Chris used to be quite firmly in favour of MQA. He published a very long "Q&A" with Bob Stuart which consisted of nothing but the usual deflections and non-answers. However, he did pay attention to the facts Archimago, I, and others gradually uncovered. Ultimately, his enthusiasm gave way to scepticism, culminating in the publication of Archimago's article and now this presentation at RMAF. Regarding the latter, I agree he was ill prepared for what went down, and he should have seen it coming. As you said, Chris lacks the technical expertise to address the objections from the crowd head-on, which gave them the upper hand.
I understand that there's some animus between you and Chris (and between your respective fan clubs), but this is hardly the place to bring that to front. The focus here should be on the content of the presentation and MQA's reaction to it (vigorous bullying). Your personal opinion of the presenter is neither here nor there.
Can we now expect Chris to investigate the other snake oil products that advertise on CA?
Keith
Keith
Are you referring to the banner ads?
Were you around for the start of the CA forum, pre advertising?
Keith
Keith
solderdude
Grand Contributor
Well... watching that video was a total waste of time.
Preparation and knowing facts.... paramount !
Preparation and knowing facts.... paramount !
Could you get to the point?
It shows that the MQA people are afraid of something, but watching the whole thing is indeed a waste of time.
Chris could have stood for truth, justice and the American way before but he hasn’t because of commercial reasons, that doesn’t excuse the behaviour of the MQA guys or that awful jacket.
Keith
Chris' past behaviour is irrelevant here. What he said in this presentation and the reaction he received are.
There is a lot of snake oil and voodoo at CA, yes. (Nicely balancing Hydrogen
)In the past you could see me ridiculing CA for that. But not everything there is about foo. And hate it or not (and I do hate it),
foo won't go away, especially not on audio forums.
In addition to which CA is de facto the place where MQA is analysed and commented upon, and where the MQA
trolls and shills pop up with the regularity of something expensive from Switserland.
Is it, will we now see Chris publishing measurements for the various uptoneregensonores and opining of their efficacy?
I approve of his stance over MQA, I just don’t believe he is ready for beatification yet.
Keith
This thread is about MQA, not Chris, CA, or USB de-evilisers. Criticise Chris all you want, but do it somewhere relevant.
Absolutely. In fact if you were to go back in the MQA threads at CA you would find I was also one of the first that gave Chris hell about supporting MQA. It's something that I see as very anti-consumer in HiFi and more about a DRM like corporate grab over the distribution of bit perfect copies of master tapes.. I'm proud of the fact that thru the efforts of many, Chris was able to open his eyes and take a much more enlightened view of MQA.
I'm very saddened that the same efforts with Amir have failed here.
I know it’s the Internet and for better or worse very ‘personality ‘ driven but can we drop the bollocks ( not to be confused with dropping a bollock) and stick to the relevant facts.
We are not a bunch of fan boys beating on the ‘other guys’ , Iv no opinion of Chris but he’s got a decent profile and is doing a good job being so visible in his veiws. He’s seemed to of very publicly changed his mind on MQA and I can’t help be be impress by that, we are not all bound to hold a stance for eternity. Making him the subject is stupid and self defeating.
He commercialised his forum , big deal some folks want to get paid for doing this shit.
Keep to the subject, MQA.
We are not a bunch of fan boys beating on the ‘other guys’ , Iv no opinion of Chris but he’s got a decent profile and is doing a good job being so visible in his veiws. He’s seemed to of very publicly changed his mind on MQA and I can’t help be be impress by that, we are not all bound to hold a stance for eternity. Making him the subject is stupid and self defeating.
He commercialised his forum , big deal some folks want to get paid for doing this shit.
Keep to the subject, MQA.
Yes but it does show the disgraceful lengths to which the MQA employ are willing to go in an attempt to shout down any revelations of the truth. They spent the first half insisting on know the source of the graph that AFAIK has been in the wild for quite some time and Chris states is easily repeatable.. But rather than bring a evidence of error, they just throw a bunch of mud in the air to obscur the issue.. The rest of the time is spent screaming "there is no DRM" and "I never had sex with that girl". LOL
Again a disgraceful circus from the bowels of MQA
solderdude
Grand Contributor
It's too bad I can't hear some of the lengthy comments from MQA.
The way I see it they were out to disrupt and discredit and seem to have done a good job at it.
MQA were persistent with the 'NO DRM' stuff.
The below is what I understand from all this MQA.
The promise is better SQ when streaming over low bandwidth.
Yes, this may have been a great idea before development started as it was (and for some still is) a problem.
Not for most folks these days with high datarates available.. mostly non issue thus.
The promise of better SQ from old (analog) masters when flaws in the recorder-tape-playback chain have been removed.
This part is interesting and does not have to be coupled to the tricky encoding and DRM* (more on this below)
Of course we have to pay... the ones that seek higher quality.
Well not 'we' as I am not gonna pay for this but a lot of audiophiles will (their target group).
Those not paying get lower quality but with the promise of a lie that even THAT sounds better (the time smear crap)
What part could be interesting is the analog mastertape characterization.
That is if it is similar to that discussed in the 'resolution does it matter' thread.
I can see the SQ can improve when a similar process is applied. When FR is also corrected (not impossible at all) I can see the MQA file sounding 'better' ... perhaps. Not because of MQA, but correcting old analog masters... for digital masters .. nope.
MQA can claim there is no DRM and in a certain way there isn't as in 'you can only listen once or twice and/or cannot copy'.
But, the way I see it is that there is a FORM of DRM.
When listening to non-decoded MQA file (which is possible) you get less SQ than CD. MQA claims that it still sounds better without unfold.
I can see their claim having some truth in it WHEN they have 'unscraped/de-jittered/de-wow'ed and un-fluttered the analog master.
(That is assuming they do which is the impression I get from the early claims)
However, it is still a form of DRM in my P.O.V.
The encoding process is 'secret'.
I understand that part, when everyone can encode a CD for instance they can switch on the 'certified' indicator making the 'Master' part in the MQA title worthless. When indeed the analog part is 'improved' as reasoned above then it is pointless to encode in MQA as the analog master used is not 'improved'. I can imagine that for this they need the actual mastertape and even deck for.
So far this is reasonable and defendable I guess.
Thus home encoding just to get the 'indicator on' and to compress data is ... well.. pointless as there are better compressors that are free to use and don't need 'special' DACs.
To decode in software the customer has to pay to get a 'higher' quality. No pay... no higher quality. A form of extortion... you must pay me otherwise you cannot hear the great sound. To me this is a form of DRM.
One can say that the software decoder is available in certain DAC's but the manufacturers had to pay for this. And of course the customer pays in the end as the price of that DAC will be higher as the manufacurer is not going to pay for you.
For max unfold you need to buy other hardware. And then you finally get something less than 192/24.
Paying extra for less quality than a 192/24 FLAC where the HF part is lossy, which does not matter as we can't hear it anyway.
One has to pay a premium to get closer to 192/24 quality and if you don't you get 48/13, nah nah nah na naaanah !
One thing you have to credit them for and that is marketting. This seems to be well executed as parties are going along with it and pay.
Brands advertise with MQA with great promises and the majority buys it fully.
Go talk to salesmen in HiFi shops... they are all pushing MQA so markettig works.
People are buying it (except those that think a bit more) and money starts pooring in, music bought yet again etc.
Smart folks ...
The way I see it they were out to disrupt and discredit and seem to have done a good job at it.
MQA were persistent with the 'NO DRM' stuff.
The below is what I understand from all this MQA.
The promise is better SQ when streaming over low bandwidth.
Yes, this may have been a great idea before development started as it was (and for some still is) a problem.
Not for most folks these days with high datarates available.. mostly non issue thus.
The promise of better SQ from old (analog) masters when flaws in the recorder-tape-playback chain have been removed.
This part is interesting and does not have to be coupled to the tricky encoding and DRM* (more on this below)
Of course we have to pay... the ones that seek higher quality.
Well not 'we' as I am not gonna pay for this but a lot of audiophiles will (their target group).
Those not paying get lower quality but with the promise of a lie that even THAT sounds better (the time smear crap)
What part could be interesting is the analog mastertape characterization.
That is if it is similar to that discussed in the 'resolution does it matter' thread.
I can see the SQ can improve when a similar process is applied. When FR is also corrected (not impossible at all) I can see the MQA file sounding 'better' ... perhaps. Not because of MQA, but correcting old analog masters... for digital masters .. nope.
MQA can claim there is no DRM and in a certain way there isn't as in 'you can only listen once or twice and/or cannot copy'.
But, the way I see it is that there is a FORM of DRM.
When listening to non-decoded MQA file (which is possible) you get less SQ than CD. MQA claims that it still sounds better without unfold.
I can see their claim having some truth in it WHEN they have 'unscraped/de-jittered/de-wow'ed and un-fluttered the analog master.
(That is assuming they do which is the impression I get from the early claims)
However, it is still a form of DRM in my P.O.V.
The encoding process is 'secret'.
I understand that part, when everyone can encode a CD for instance they can switch on the 'certified' indicator making the 'Master' part in the MQA title worthless. When indeed the analog part is 'improved' as reasoned above then it is pointless to encode in MQA as the analog master used is not 'improved'. I can imagine that for this they need the actual mastertape and even deck for.
So far this is reasonable and defendable I guess.
Thus home encoding just to get the 'indicator on' and to compress data is ... well.. pointless as there are better compressors that are free to use and don't need 'special' DACs.
To decode in software the customer has to pay to get a 'higher' quality. No pay... no higher quality. A form of extortion... you must pay me otherwise you cannot hear the great sound. To me this is a form of DRM.
One can say that the software decoder is available in certain DAC's but the manufacturers had to pay for this. And of course the customer pays in the end as the price of that DAC will be higher as the manufacurer is not going to pay for you.
For max unfold you need to buy other hardware. And then you finally get something less than 192/24.
Paying extra for less quality than a 192/24 FLAC where the HF part is lossy, which does not matter as we can't hear it anyway.
One has to pay a premium to get closer to 192/24 quality and if you don't you get 48/13, nah nah nah na naaanah !
One thing you have to credit them for and that is marketting. This seems to be well executed as parties are going along with it and pay.
Brands advertise with MQA with great promises and the majority buys it fully.
Go talk to salesmen in HiFi shops... they are all pushing MQA so markettig works.
People are buying it (except those that think a bit more) and money starts pooring in, music bought yet again etc.
Smart folks ...
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Reading through this thread, it seems quite clear that MQA is an inferior format, perhaps not audibly so, but nevertheless a totally unnecessary addition (at best) or interruption (at worst). So I'm trying to work out whether there really is any prospect that MQA will take off, and if so, what that will mean for consumers.
Are there currently any recordings available in MQA only? Is there any prospect that there will be (more of) such recordings in future?
If not, is there any other means by which MQA could come to create problems in future for consumers of PCM and other non-MQA formats?
Or is this one likely dead/allayed for now?
Are there currently any recordings available in MQA only? Is there any prospect that there will be (more of) such recordings in future?
If not, is there any other means by which MQA could come to create problems in future for consumers of PCM and other non-MQA formats?
Or is this one likely dead/allayed for now?
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