MQA Deep Dive - I published music on tidal to test MQA

[PierreV]

We need to stop agitating for a minute and discuss what we'll do with the fat checks MQA competitors sent us.

 

[RichB]

I agree , its DRM, except its DRM to Bob's proprietary magic blue light, not on copying the file itself. The Digital Rights that are being Managed is Bob's tax. I could buy an MQA file and give it to all my friends , robbing the copyright holders of their tuppence ha'penny, but unless they all stump up the Bob tax on their DACs/ software , they are not getting the "full" benefit of the file.

The best part is, turns out there isnt much if any "benefit" to be had from the unfolded full blue light playback. Genius.

Brilliant and insidious and since Bob knows better, then the goal is not to improve but to leach.

MQA includes the blue-light as a key feature. Without it, the customer would not have the proper Pavlovian response.

- Rich

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

One should also keep in mind that Amir helped design and implement WMA Pro, so has a personal connection with the audio codec industry and the people therein. If I'd worked with people in the past in a certain industry, I'd certainly not be shitting over their ideas or products, or disrespecting them either.

This is exactly the behavior Amir criticizes when it comes to hardware manufacturers! By this logic, if Stereophile reviewers, Jude at HF, et al. have “a personal connection” to a company, then it’s okay for them to avoid criticizing them and to obfuscate or deny the company’s products’ faults and the company’s PR lies.

 

[Grooved]

It would be interesting to compare the same measurements between Tidal/MQA and Amazon music HD.
As Amazon music HD output 24 bit/192 kHz I am guessing that a clear winner will appear.

I will try it, best thing would be to find a track (or some tracks) with same source master in Amazon, Tidal and Qobuz

I'm confused... I don't see how this could be. You download the "Hifi" and "Master" versions, one turns on the MQA indicator when you play it, the other doesn't. The bitstream that turns on the MQA indicator is embedded in the audio, so how can the files be bit identical?

Because it's the audio render that may be analysed in his results. And in this case, they are both the same file, both lights are Green on the DAC, and they are both 16bit MQA, even if something like mediainfo don't see the MQA encoding info.
When a tool like mediainfo doesn't give this info, the DAC will still lights up in the correct color, it's at least what I got each time.

So if I listen to Tidal albums that are NOT offered in 'Master' quality, and I listen to these albums using the 'HIFI' (CD quality lossless) option, then what am I listening to exactly?

Usually, it will be 16/44.1 FLAC file, but they are some where it's 16bit MQA file, so certainly lower in quality if not decoded, and maybe near the FLAC file if decoded (it will be push to 88.2 if it's a 44.1 file during the decoding, but it's a bit like 13bits are used for the main signal, and 5bits for the above frequency.
Tidal won't tell you anything, Roon will show it, and it push the bit depth from 16bit to 24bit, but's only for processing, not an improved resolution coming from nowhere.

This debate isn’t really about sound quality. Multiple controlled tests have shown that 256 AAC and 320 Ogg Vorbis are perceptually equal to RBCD to a vast majority of people. Any of your three options above will sound the same when streaming music blind at matched volumes.

I won't agree with that, but once again, not generalizing it. It's not on all tracks, but on at least half, it's easy to hear the difference between something like Spotify and Tidal as FLAC or Master, or Qobuz FLAC. I hear immediately in my car on some tracks, especially tracks that are "open" in sound and with drums from the beginning, or a good acoustic guitar and voice.
People are not used to the difference. Take a track where you can hear it, let them listen 10 times a FLAC file to get used to it, then let them hear the AAC 256, here you will starting to hear it. The ABX is not telling truth for people not knowing what to listen to find the difference

Honest question: Why is Warner (apparently) having its entire HR catalogue on Tidal replaced with MQA? Or are you saying that Warner does not care, and it is likely Tidal's own decision to do this?

That's a good question ;-)

and he can submit these flacs again to Spotify.

It will go to real lossy compressed Vs MQA that is between that and fully uncompressed. From what I tested, you will hear it easily on some tracks, and not so easy on other.

 

[RichB]

We need to stop agitating for a minute and discuss what we'll do with the fat checks MQA competitors sent us.

We know we are not getting paid but what about studios and Tidal, perhaps they getting kickbacks or maybe just royalty forgiveness. That DAC folks are not so lucky, I'll wager. Is the audiophile press taking ads?

- Rich

 

[Grooved]

...How does mqa plan on making money? Install a few million blue lights in consumer homes and then charge the labels and streaming services to light them up? I don’t think there are a few million standalone dacs in the world that can fit a blue light...

I thought I started to understand yesterday in one kind of application it would make sense for Stuart and the other, and after searching a bit today, I found two interesting comments from an engineer, Brian Lucey, in the middle of other from him where you see he was not firmly opposed to MQA and ready to hear what they have to offer. He had nothing to loose or nothing to win with MQA used or not. It's from June 2017 and you can see the real goal of Stuart, it's not earning money with MQA DAC licence only :

Listened to Bob's MQA presentation today at the LA HiFi show.

Their goal is AD-processing-DA in the MQA world, they want to upgrade and replace PCM. MQA for now, is a market introduction and a way to build momentum and cash toward that larger goal.

The bigger idea, is a nice idea and the science seems solid. I'm all for it in principle, as they can kill pre ring, and that's fantastic. Yet it needs a ROUND TRIP in the MQA world to be MQA.

The first big issue is that 99% of the catalog being sold as MQA is NOT MQA ... we can't take out artifacts that have been incorporated in the production and call it better, or equal .... it's less than.


Any current releases of MQA from PCM needs to be mastered with the codec and a MQA DA, and treated for artifacts in the mastering process. That's not the case in 99% of the online catalog sold today as equal to or better than the PCM master file.

As a ME who represents artists, producers and labels, MQA today is not acceptable and is a con. They're using our endorsement to get people to buy new DA, etc. If they can improve the codec to be 99% or even 95% of the source, then great. For now, there is the PCM source, and there is a loss with MQA slapped on top.

Given how good is the bigger idea from a musical quality/audiophile view, that's an unfortunate way to roll it out to the market. The beginning sets the tone, in anything, and first impression are hard to alter. They are using the Master Quality concept to give credibility to an idea that is only partially implemented as is, and badly done at that. They are in a hurry, and it's a big integrity issue.

Mytek and Berkeley Audio Design agrees and simply wants the whole thing to work, and at least is happy that anyone cares about high res anything at the label level, and I agree. But to do it right MQA needs to stop lying.

The larger issue for the MQA future is still this ... even if the AD-Processing-DA round trip is better from the lack of pre ring, or deblur ... once 24 bit is streamable and accessible and far more easily monetized and standardized by the labels etc, why would anyone want to start over with a new format?

Sure it may well sound better if a full loop in the new MQA world. Yet consumer quality died with Betamax in digital last I checked. We are not that evolved yet to pay extra, and do the extra steps, on the whole. So this idea only works if they change the world, and much of the world is lazy and wont go the extra mile.

The brand new ProTools MQA, AD and DA world they want to create it a lot of extra work for a lot of people who are not extra work types.

Spoke with many people since yesterday after a very public confrontation of Bob Stuart. Here are some more facts:

1. Bricasti DA has a minimum phase option with no pre ring. Eng of story, MQA not needed to solve the pre ring issue, it's a FILTER ISSUE, not a flaw in PCM.

2. Meridian employee confirms this is a money grab for Bob, who sees no future in $17,000 DA players.

3. AIX Records Mark Waldrep, Ph.D. who does true high res recordings (end to end high res, not 96k of tape recording which is NOT high res) agrees with me 100%. Disagrees with Ludwig and Massenberg.

4. Sources at Mytek and Berkeley Audio Designs, early adopters both, are interested in the long term tech, yet are in agreement that the 24 bit PCM to MQA is not exact and not better.

Side note: Berkeley owner Michael Ritter, who owned Pacific Microsonics and made the Model One and Model Two said it would take a $70,000 retail to make a Model Two today, yet who would buy it? For him, MQA AD could be a cheaper way to great AD that rivals the Model Two at 192.

Yet ... as Stuart agreed was his goal here, that requires a round trip of AD-processing-DA in a world of MQA. Is there going to be a switch over form PCM to MQA in ProTools and with Apple Garage Band? You decide.

I recall Betamax vs VHS, and mp3 over CD. Sticking with PCM over MQA is a certainty IMO.

The market will monetize streaming of PCM from the mastering rooms, and it's over.

 

[AdamG]

Coming from a location where my streaming options are limited to Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal, I guess my best choice in terms of music resolution is still Tidal Hifi/Master.


In fact, while reading through this somewhat heated debate, I’m still enjoying my MQA music and could not hear anything “nasty” in the songs I played. So from a real life perspective, I can’t really complain. Peace

Welcome Aboard @Digital Delay.

 

[AdamG]

Nice, thanks for reply.

Welcome Aboard @noodlesontoast.

 

[EB1000]

I've put a link to your video in the comments of this video:

Asking for Hans' response, but an hour later he deleted my comment... This is a clear confirmation that MQA is one of the most successful audio scams. Hans is promoting MQA in all of his videos. I encourage all of you to cancel your Tidal subscription. Use Deezer HIFI or Qobus instead.

 

[raistlin65]

How about : Malevolent Qualityless Audiofraud ?

More Quack Audio

 

[Music1969]

Tidal seems to be in CYA mode. their MQA tracks are "Master" quality.
That sounds nice and I guess it is shorthand for MQA.
Why not just call a duck a duck and brand it as MQA? There must be a reason.

Maybe it gives them an out just in case... if they one day dump MQA, they can replace MQA content with 'the real deal' and nothing changes on the surface with Tidal Masters

Dunno, just guessing

 

[Grooved]

Maybe it gives them an out just in case... if they one day dump MQA, they can replace MQA content with 'the real deal' and nothing changes on the surface with Tidal Masters
Dunno, just guessing

It can be a good guess !
Technically, and by honesty, they should use "Master" only for the Hi-Res source, even if it's done with MQA. It should be only for 24bit version, as there are no real master in 16bit only, nobody mixes and/or do mastering at 16bit, there's a technical reason for that,you have to work in 24bit or floating 32 in some cases.

Asking for Hans' response, but an hour later he deleted my comment... This is a clear confirmation that MQA is one of the most successful audio scams. Hans is promoting MQA in all of his videos. I encourage all of you to cancel your Tidal subscription. Use Deezer HIFI or Qobus instead.

He said some interesting stuff in the past, but I got the feeling that he started to "push" for MQA in his late videos, strangely a bit too much to be sure it was completely honest.

 

[dorirod]

I agree , its DRM, except its DRM to Bob's proprietary magic blue light, not on copying the file itself. The Digital Rights that are being Managed is Bob's tax. I could buy an MQA file and give it to all my friends , robbing the copyright holders of their tuppence ha'penny, but unless they all stump up the Bob tax on their DACs

The important thing to keep in mind is the potential long con. Just because MQA 1.0 doesn't have stringent DRM or cost much now, doesn't mean MQA 2.0, 3.0,...,4.3.6 won't. It has no benefit, probably degrades the original, it's proprietary, the company is secretive and bullies those trying to learn more, that's all you need to know to soundly reject it and call it out. We don't need it to get more widespread and more onerous before rejecting it.

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

This debate isn’t really about sound quality. Multiple controlled tests have shown that 256 AAC and 320 Ogg Vorbis are perceptually equal to RBCD to a vast majority of people. Any of your three options above will sound the same when streaming music blind at matched volumes.

The majority of people likely cannot hear the difference between the worst measuring DAC reviewed on this site and the best measuring one. Why should what the average person thinks matter to audiophiles?

 

[usersky]

The open source community has not cared to create an alternative to MQA. If it had, then folks could adopt that. But since it doesn't exist, then the proprietary version is gaining traction.

That seems like a valid point but... HD music delivery is a long time solved problem, by open source community among others. What MQA brings to the table is a scheme based on lies (they still mantain it's lossless and we agreed it's not - so they lie), close kept secrets, bariers that block people to fairly evaluate it's merits, even attacking persons, a too transparent scheme ment to gain control of a mob (sorry, above listed practices led to this word) in music delivery and why not production. That's the MQA true value propositon, plus a blue LED that will shine if you behave and pay. So when you say open source community has not cared to create something similar, well that's understandable: open source community is not good in implementing onerous fairy/origami tales ment to put more control on consumers, they rarely do this kind of dirty strategies and probably are not good at this game. No wonder open source community is not in this, they solved the HD audio content storage and delivery with FLAC long time a go, perfectly and losslessly , in fact so good that MQA rides on that container in order to masquerade as lossless. And I am not an open source fanatic by any stretch of imagination.

 

[Grooved]

The open source community has not cared to create an alternative to MQA. If it had, then folks could adopt that. But since it doesn't exist, then the proprietary version is gaining traction.

That seems like a valid point but... HD music delivery is a long time solved problem, by open source community among others. What MQA brings to the table is a scheme based on lies (they still mantain it's lossless and we agreed it's not - so they lie), close kept secrets, bariers that block people to fairly evaluate it's merits, even attacking persons, a too transparent scheme ment to gain control of a mob (sorry, above listed practices led to this word) in music delivery and why not production. That's the MQA true value propositon, plus a blue LED that will shine if you behave and pay. So when you say open source community has not cared to create something similar, well that's understandable: open source community is not good in implementing onerous fairy/origami tales ment to put more control on consumers, they rarely do this kind of dirty strategies and probably are not good at this game. No wonder open source community is not in this, they solved the HD audio content storage and delivery with FLAC long time a go, perfectly and losslessly , in fact so good that MQA rides on that container in order to masquerade as lossless. And I am not an open source fanatic by any stretch of imagination.

Maybe also because MQA is reposing on a software+hardware technology
Not so much simple to do a equivalent, it's not creating a codec only. And that's also why MQA used like it is at this moment makes no sense or is not the same than what artist want to you to listen.
Not wanting to extend it on something else, or criticize headphones listening (I use speakers but also headphones), but we need to remember that listening with headphones ISN'T give you what the artist/engineer want you to hear ;-)
Not sure if it's linked, but I can ABX compress VS uncompressed with more success with my worst speakers than with any headphones I tried, which would implies spatialisation can be more important than other things, at least to my hearing system

We need to stop agitating for a minute and discuss what we'll do with the fat checks MQA competitors sent us.

Amir has yet to disclose the amount, which should be in constant increase

 

[RichB]

I've put a link to your video in the comments of this video:

Asking for Hans' response, but an hour later he deleted my comment... This is a clear confirmation that MQA is one of the most successful audio scams. Hans is promoting MQA in all of his videos. I encourage all of you to cancel your Tidal subscription. Use Deezer HIFI or Qobus instead.

This is truly driven. I loved the part where MQA circuits are used, those are different circuits or processing. I looked in my computer that runs Roon and could not find the dedicated circuits.

I believe his ears because he puts an oscilloscope in frame.

- Rich

 

[mansr]

We need to stop agitating for a minute and discuss what we'll do with the fat checks MQA competitors sent us.

How much is a thank-you note from Charley Hansen worth?

 

[raistlin65]

One should also keep in mind that Amir helped design and implement WMA Pro, so has a personal connection with the audio codec industry and the people therein. If I'd worked with people in the past in a certain industry, I'd certainly not be shitting over their ideas or products, or disrespecting them either. So at this stage I think we should all be happy that we have a place to discuss this and should not try and drag Amir into this any further. If people continue to try and do this, those actions will be to the detriment of the forum, not one persons personal opinion not aligning with yours.

And one should keep in mind that this work was at Microsoft, which was largely antagonistic towards "openness" for decades.

So I don't really expect someone who made a living off developing proprietary codecs to embrace the openness paradigm for intellectual property. That's about like expecting a former executive in the meat packing industry to be vegan.

Still, it's pretty silly that many of us are having to pay a licensing fee on DACs we might purchase to support MQA functionality that we don't need. And that Tidal subscribers are being misled about the benefits they get from it, while also paying a fee. MQA just needs to go away.

 

[PierreV]

How much is a thank-you note from Charley Hansen worth?

I have many already - a bit dated though
While I never agreed with him on many things, he certainly was a very nice person.