You don't seem to have any use for facts. In format making, prior experience in the field is everything. To the extent people want to make market/business statements as Archimago made, and folks in this thread keep making, that is super relevant. You can't dismiss it and equal it to lay arguments you are making. This is the real world, not a made up monopoly game.
Bob has shown his skills in getting all these design wins from labels to music distributor to many devices. That is a fact and is based on the factors I mentioned.
Some of you hate to hear that Bob is exceptionally qualified and respected signal processing expert. You rather him be a no-name guy so that they can throw rocks at him easily. Watch Paul's video I post earlier in how people in the industry don't dare doing that:
"Bob stuart ... some of extremely bright people. One of the most knowledgeable bright people I know in our industry. Super nice guy. I really like Bob a lot. He has done a lot of terrific things. We as a company support MQA because our customers asked for it."
His prior work in standardization of formats he developed opens doors for him that would not be open to others. His deep knowledge of signal processing and psychoacoustics overcomes internal objections from people who know less than him.
So don't waste your breath on me with these debating tactics. You are not being told to trust MQA. You are being told to learn who you are dealing with and the powers in play in the industry. He got Paul to support MQA even though he says it is no good.
Paul only allowed the “first unfold” in his streaming module. Nothing else. And is on public record with negative comments about MQA.
Bob, Bob, Bob......so what. His commercial enterprises and format attempts so far are all failures commercially. Meridian loses money and is only kept afloat by his in-laws infusing it with cash. So far the same with MQA. Look at the financial statements.
MQA is a closed proprietary format that essentially offers nothing of value to the consumer. It’s simply another attempt by the big corporations involved to find an avenue to create monopoly rents from selling/streaming music. And to prevent consumers from having actual access to unadulterated master quality files. MQA Ltd, is trying to enlist the record labels/streamers with this vision and then profit from the sale of MQA enabled HW.
The essential claims of MQA are demonstrably false: it’s not superior in SQ, and doesn’t actually offer smaller file size for equivalent resolutions. Many of their secondary claims about the format and how it works have also been shown to be either outright lies, or obfuscations that aren’t much better.
It’s astounding that on a site that claims to be about the “science” of audio, the MQA snake oil is accepted and promoted.