MQA Bad For Music

[amirm]

Yeh I read that gearslutz thread. Whether MQA has merit or not, I am not too fond of what is said there. It is a given that if you are a hardware DAC company, you are none too happy about licensing technology from one of your competitors. Ultimately though, it is not their say. It is the customer who can vote.

Also, if someone wants to argue the points, they need to understand signal processing and overall picture. It is ironic to read that MQA for example "only retains 17" bits when folks who produce music don't even bother to see if there is anything beyond that other than noise. I might write more but a lot of the reasons for cancellation of the session seem to have come from the opposition camp getting ready for a fight. Trade organizations like RMAF rarely if ever want a cat fight.

 

[NorthSky]

Amir, in the world we live in if we don't fight we ain't flying high.
Fighting for what's right is our mission in life, on our planet.

 

[Sal1950]

Trade organizations like RMAF rarely if ever want a cat fight.

Cowards.
This is what the High End has come to. If the opportunity presents itself to publicly debate one of these big money quasi-technical movements that is poised to put a lot of money in a lot of peoples pockets, any opposition must be silenced somehow. Exactly what I'd expect the outcome would be if someone with the means was to host a series of serious bias controlled blind listening tests of many of the snake-oil products and pseudoscience technology's promoted todays. Somehow they would be shutdown or discredited.

 

[amirm]

Cowards.
This is what the High End has come to.

It is not just high-end. Trade organizations don't want to alienate any single camp.

 

[Blumlein 88]

It is not just high-end. Trade organizations don't want to alienate any single camp.

Yeah, okay I get that. Then again a good public tussle is good PR. Really hard for me to see how you can spin this any way at all other than MQA is unwilling to meet under level conditions they don't really control. Which also tells me even they know their BS is really BS.

 

[c1ferrari]

I lead the acquisition of Pacific Microsonic into Microsoft/my team .

Hey Amir!
Can you get me a PM Model Two?

 

[amirm]

Hey Amir!
Can you get me a PM Model Two?

You know I wish I had kept one. I came close to asking for one but then got busy and that was that!

 

[RayDunzl]

MQA News from IFA
Jason Victor Serinus | Sep 4, 2017

"The embrace of MQA by audio companies and labels has widened."

Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-news-ifa#J07EW8euF5Ey5eO8.99

 

[amirm]

MQA News from IFA
Jason Victor Serinus | Sep 4, 2017

"The embrace of MQA by audio companies and labels has widened."

Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-news-ifa#J07EW8euF5Ey5eO8.99

Thanks Ray. This caught my eye:

"Onkyo Music, which serves the US and UK as well as Germany, will offer MQA downloads when it rolls out its redesigned store in September.
HighResAudio already distributes MQA downloads. MQA has also completed deals with Sony and Universal Music Group, as well as Merlin, which is the global music rights agency that represents the world's leading independent labels.
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-news-ifa#d8Ksk774fRuEL7jj.99"

Went to highresaudio and searched for MQA and got a nice list: https://www.highresaudio.com/en/search/?title=mqa

It goes on for 10 pages! Didn't realize there was a download service in US that provided MQA. Will have to try some samples.

 

[NorthSky]

Master Quality Authenticated

▪ https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...a-by-another-pro/?tab=comments#comment-698770

▪ http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/02/comparison-hardware-decoded-mqa-using.html

▪ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated

 

[watchnerd]

I'm sure everyone is aware of the news:
• http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-RMAF-Canceled&p=468756&viewfull=1#post468756

And within that link, in the first post, there is the gearslutz's thread:
• https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/1171365-mqa-discussion-denver-rmaf.html

The beginning of the end?

 

[RayDunzl]

The beginning of the end?

The end of the beginning.

No need to "convince".

You will be assimilated.

 

[NorthSky]

 

[NorthSky]

 

[March Audio]

Found this in another forum just now

Last I read, Roon didn't want a "me too" Tidal first level unfolding equivalent. They wanted to do the entire decoding I think.

Anyway, whatever solution they've agreed with MQA, this comment yesterday from the Roon COO as to whats causing the holdup:


"Legal negotiations mostly related to the fact that MQA wants money from us regardless of whether our users use MQA or not."

He goes on to say:

"at the current rates, we have no problem eating the cost for users that use MQA… but to give them a fee for our entire userbase (even those that don’t use MQA) is just a bad business call for us. Anyway, I’m sure you can appreciate that “simple” solutions are not really a thing in legal negotiations."

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/mqa...roon/26336/513

So MQA don't seem content to be paid at every level in the food chain, they also want to be paid for people that have no interest in MQA. I wonder when an MQA licensed ethernet cable will be necessary!

 

[watchnerd]

Found this in another forum just now

Last I read, Roon didn't want a "me too" Tidal first level unfolding equivalent. They wanted to do the entire decoding I think.

Anyway, whatever solution they've agreed with MQA, this comment yesterday from the Roon COO as to whats causing the holdup:


"Legal negotiations mostly related to the fact that MQA wants money from us regardless of whether our users use MQA or not."

He goes on to say:

"at the current rates, we have no problem eating the cost for users that use MQA… but to give them a fee for our entire userbase (even those that don’t use MQA) is just a bad business call for us. Anyway, I’m sure you can appreciate that “simple” solutions are not really a thing in legal negotiations."

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/mqa...roon/26336/513

So MQA don't seem content to be paid at every level in the food chain, they also want to be paid for people that have no interest in MQA. I wonder when an MQA licensed ethernet cable will be necessary!

Now that's true music piracy!

 

[amirm]

What mqa is doing is standard practice. If you buy a car with air conditioning you pay for it whether you use it or not.

There is a workaround. They can make an mqa plugin that is sold seperately.

 

[Sal1950]

I've given up posting my objections to MQA, this is the first I've posted in months. The larger segment of the audiophile community seems at ease with MQA's end game of taking control of digital audio distribution and probably losing access to lossless, non-encoded high resolution files in a not so distant future. I find it sad but at my age it most likely won't have much effect for me. Let them eat cake.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

What mqa is doing is standard practice. If you buy a car with air conditioning you pay for it whether you use it or not.

There is a workaround. They can make an mqa plugin that is sold seperately.

I agree with the workaround. The problem for Roon may be that they have already sold lifetime subscriptions. So, they might not like the idea of having to go back to subscribers for additional fees for that optional added feature in order to pay MQA for the licensing. OTOH, MQA might not like the idea of a potentially hackable separate software plugin.

 

[amirm]

Another concern might be that in some licenses, the fee is much lower if you put it in every release (i.e. get wider distribution which would be a goal of MQA). Plug-ins sell at very low attach rate (well under 5%) typically.