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MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions

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tomelex

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Can anyone tell me what problem MQA is the solution for?
 

RayDunzl

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Is there an MQA encoder?

You can probably buy/license one from MQA Ltd. after you demonstrate need (music publisher).

Don't forget to observe any non-disclosure agreements in the contract.
 

RayDunzl

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Can anyone tell me what problem MQA is the solution for?

(excerpts)

GREGGERY PECCARY takes the elevator
Up to the eighty-third floor of a grim,
Gray, evil-looking building
With a sign on the front reading:
'Big swifty associates. trend-mongers'.

And what, might you ask, is a TREND MONGER?
Well, a TREND MONGER is a person
Who dreams up a TREND
(Like 'The Twist' --- or 'Flower Power'),
And spreads it throughout the land,
Using all the frightening little skills
That Science has made available! ...

This is big swifty's!
At big swifty's we all know-ow-ow
You'll go
For any gimmick or gizmo!

Wouldn't you rather be involved
In a series of colorful
Time-wasting trends? ...

I must plummet boldly
Forward
To my ULTRA-AVANT
Laminated,
Simulated
Replica-mahogany desk,
With the strategically-placed,
Imported, very hip water pipe,
And the latest edition of the
Whole earth catalog,
And rack my agile mind
For a spectacular
New trend,
Thereby rejuvenating our limping
Economy,
And providing
For bored and miserable people
Everywhere
Some great new
'Thing'
To identify with.!
 

Sal1950

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I see MQA as a new offering with tiny amount of success. It has not impacted my life one bit with respect to my consumption of other formats. Precisely because they charge a licensing fee, it means that it will NOT have widespread usage and as such, it cannot and will not replace current offers of high-resolution and lossless CD formats. Trying to develop warring camps based on thin amount of technical knowledge is not going to amount to a useful use of our time.
My biggest complaint, of many about MQA, is MQA interferes with using DSP for playback. Room correction and such aren't possible unless one is willing to convert from MQA to analog and convert back to digital and back to analog after the DSP.
In the not too distant future, all music consumed will be deployed by only a handful.
So you remove the right to access a lossless stream, first at less than CD quality in a undecoded MQA, And also debatedly even after decoding.
For a couple years now we've been called paranoid when saying a MQA future means the removal, by the record companies, of lossless PCM files from distribution in favor of locked down proprietary MQA. And although dead, the CD has been announced as having MQA future..
Amir, you still don't see the DRM attributes of MQA, it is exactly DRM in it's final end game.

"Does MQA give them reason to worry? I think it does. MQA is not in principle incompatible with DSP-based room correction—Bob Stuart told me that in an interview—but current implementations of it that I'm familiar with are incompatible with other DSP systems. In many other respects, MQA files are locked up pretty tight. The fact that you can't mess with the code is a selling point aimed at both music suppliers and consumers—it's not a bug but a feature. That little blue or green authentication light on your MQA-ready DAC implies that you're getting what the artist intended—although who actually signed off is, for older recordings, open to question. And Spencer Chrislu's remarks surely imply that if MQA succeeds, the "crown jewels"—open, high-rate PCM files—will be withdrawn from the market. Buy those 24/192 downloads while you can. "
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-contextualized-page-2#ZB3O1dhlvx6KfrEq.99
 

March Audio

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The only MQA content I have is music which doesn't lend itself to resolution testing without statistical analysis. I will test my AudioQuest Dragonfly Black but not sure how conclusive that is without MQA content.
Remember you have my Explorer 2 to play with and listen to some MQA from Roon/Tidal :)
 

March Audio

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Can anyone tell me what problem MQA is the solution for?
A partially valid argument is that reduced data rate will reduce streaming costs to people like Tidal. That is the one and only reason and thats pretty tenuous IMO. The sound quality arguments dont make sense IMO. Great, you have corrected the original A to D impulse response. Now what about how your speakers at home totally mangle it?
 

Sal1950

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Great, you have corrected the original A to D impulse response
I'm not sure of the validity of the claims, but I've read a number of times that the de-blurring process could be separated out of the folding-data reduction and marketed alone as a SQ "upgrade". All well and good, if possible market it to audiophiles that believe it to be an improvement. But the SQ line is just a marketing ploy, an excuse to get the believers to jump on board, all the while ignoring the fact that locking down distribution of open sourced data streams is the real end game.
Does anyone here understand if de-blurring could be an offered separate process?
 

RayDunzl

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What's blurred?

: characterized by dimness, indistinctness, or obscurity
: lacking clarity or sharpness
 

svart-hvitt

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I'm not sure of the validity of the claims, but I've read a number of times that the de-blurring process could be separated out of the folding-data reduction and marketed alone as a SQ "upgrade". All well and good, if possible market it to audiophiles that believe it to be an improvement. But the SQ line is just a marketing ploy, an excuse to get the believers to jump on board, all the while ignoring the fact that locking down distribution of open sourced data streams is the real end game.
Does anyone here understand if de-blurring could be an offered separate process?

Aren’t the filters of MQA comparable to the zoo of filters you can try out in HQ Player?
 

Frank Dernie

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MQA seems like a ideal fit for Apple , I can’t belive they have not bought it hook line and sinker and gone about taking over the music world with it.
Not sure. Steve Jobs was adamant that mp4 at their chosen compression was indistinguishable from CD so refused "high res" downloads as pointless.
 

Rene

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No, Meridian have gone out of their way to stop this kind of comparison from happening.

Not only that, they haven't even provided to the public "before and after" samples of music for you to compare.
At a recent MQA demo by one of their salesmen, I was told that he had no examples to demonstrate, and even that it wasn't possible! Huh?
 

RayDunzl

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Can somebody make an audio file or two with different levels of blur so we (well, folks like me) can hear what we're supposed to be upset with?
 

Cosmik

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Not only that, they haven't even provided to the public "before and after" samples of music for you to compare.
At a recent MQA demo by one of their salesmen, I was told that he had no examples to demonstrate, and even that it wasn't possible! Huh?
I think that people are still naively believing that this is 'a thing' and asking questions about it as though it really exists. It doesn't actually exist: it is a placebo; a cult; a talisman; a symbolic crutch to help the audiophile get into the right state of mind for listening.
 

Blumlein 88

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Supposedly all your music is terribly blurry. You notice obvious improvement with unblurred recordings. Yet mqa goes to great lengths to never let you do a direct comparison.

You could compare a native 384 recording to 48. Much less blur at 384 so the story goes. Try the 2L free downloads.
 

svart-hvitt

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It’s easier to see the business logic than the technological logic or utilitarian value of MQA.

Do you agree?

If so, through which lense should MQA be anslysed? Through the eyes of the businessman or through the eyes of the engineer?

Need more be said?
 

RayDunzl

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Supposedly all your music is terribly blurry.

If it's all blurry, how will comparing a blurry CD with a blurry Hi-Res give me a warm fuzzy?
 
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