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

[JohnYang1997]

This thread is devolving into ad-hominem attacks in both directions. This is supposed to be about MQA.

Continuing the discussion without the relevant context (the contents of the phone call) will just make things messier.
I think it would be best either if permission were given to post that, which would be the most transparent and fair way.

Or to drop it....as said, this is supposed to be a discussion about MQA.

You are the one that made everything messy.

 

[BDWoody]

In the interest of transparency I am happy to post the full call here if you/adam provide permission so that anyone can listen and hear the full context and content.

In the interest of transparency, you believe it's appropriate to record a conversation like that without disclosing it to the other party? Are you certain that it was even legal?

Seems another example of a more than slightly underhanded approach. I can cut the disingenuousness with a knife here.

This seems like a lot of bad Karma going on...for lack of a better way to put it. You are not here to be an asset or contribute to the site, you are here to contribute to yourself. Hope you learn how to use that new AP you are raising views/funds for.

 

[levimax]

OK so it seems there is a consensus that:

1. MQA is technically not as good as a CD unless completely "unfolded" at which point it is still not as good as a CD but may have some content above 20 Khz.
2. MQA files are Watermarked and have DRM like / DRM lite capabilities.
3. MQA requires proprietary hardware to decode.
4. MQA makes EQ difficult and or expensive.
5. MQA makes questionable marketing claims.

Clearly none of this is of benefit to the consumer so why would anyone "support' a scheme like this? It doesn't have to be "as bad" as some make it out to be to be bad for all consumers.

 

[dmac6419]

OK so it seems there is a consensus that:

1. MQA is technically not as good as a CD unless completely "unfolded" at which point it is still not as good as a CD but may have some content above 20 Khz.
2. MQA files are Watermarked and have DRM like / DRM lite capabilities.
3. MQA requires proprietary hardware to decode.
4. MQA makes EQ difficult and or expensive.
5. MQA makes questionable marketing claims.

Clearly none of this is of benefit to the consumer so why would anyone "support' a scheme like this? It doesn't have to be "as bad" as some make it out to be to be bad for all consumers.

MQA is fine with me,matter of fact I'm about to listen to some bedtime music,have to get up early.

 

[GoldenOne]

In the interest of transparency, you believe it's appropriate to record a conversation like that without disclosing it to the other party? Are you certain that it was even legal?

Seems another example of a more than slightly underhanded approach. I can cut the disingenuousness with a knife here.

This seems like a lot of bad Karma going on...for lack of a better way to put it. You are not here to be an asset or contribute to the site, you are here to contribute to yourself. Hope you learn how to use that new AP you are raising views/funds for.

It is legal to record a call in the UK. It is not legal to publish or share it without permission and I will not do so.
I recorded the call quite frankly for my own protection. I was not sure what the call was going to be about or how whatever would be said within would be used.

I follow the law and I will not publish that call without Amir or Adam's permission but if he is going to accuse me of putting spin on it then I'd like to be as transparent as I can and put the offer out there to post the call.
If I were indeed putting spin on it then doing so would simply prove that.
But I did not, and so I'm sure Amir would prefer the call remained private. as there is other stuff in that call which I'm sure he'd rather was not heard.

 

[JohnYang1997]

OK so it seems there is a consensus that:

1. MQA is technically not as good as a CD unless completely "unfolded" at which point it is still not as good as a CD but may have some content above 20 Khz.
2. MQA files are Watermarked and have DRM like / DRM lite capabilities.
3. MQA requires proprietary hardware to decode.
4. MQA makes EQ difficult and or expensive.
5. MQA makes questionable marketing claims.

Clearly none of this is of benefit to the consumer so why would anyone "support' a scheme like this? It doesn't have to be "as bad" as some make it out to be to be bad for all consumers.

Very simple, not everyone has the logic power to think this through. Not everyone even cares about it.
Most goes: I may or may not use it, but you have to support it.
Turning against MQA = turning against customers. Even PS audio is supporting it now.
It's this mentality made everything turns into MQA's favor.

 

[abdo123]

It is legal to record a call in the UK. It is not legal to publish or share it without permission and I will not do so.
I recorded the call quite frankly for my own protection. I was not sure what the call was going to be about or how whatever would be said within would be used.

I follow the law and I will not publish that call without Amir or Adam's permission but if he is going to accuse me of putting spin on it then I'd like to be as transparent as I can and put the offer out there to post the call.
If I were indeed putting spin on it then doing so would simply prove that.
But I did not, and so I'm sure Amir would prefer the call remained private. as there is other stuff in that call which I'm sure he'd rather was not heard.

It’s not legal in the US in most states unless both parties are informed.

I learned that from Kim Kardashian leaking Taylor swift’s calls with Kanye.

Even petty drama has something to teach us so i hope you learn well from this one.

 

[bboris77]

However difficult this thread has been to digest, I am very happy that it has not been shut down. In my opinion, transparency is always the best policy because it tends to expose people’s motivations and character traits. In my experience, secrecy can often be seen as a sign of corruption and lends itself to all kinds of conspiracy theories.

Who knows, maybe after this COVID madness is over, you guys are all going to have a beer together at some audio conference.

 

[raistlin65]

If they had factual evidence supporting any of their claims, then they'd have brought it up by now... not just in reaction to Golden's video but way before that... Instead their rethoric is based on a complex web of self-reference, scientific sounding choices of words, and discreditation of critics by means of hammering out a red herring argument about said critics credentials, intentions, or methodology without providing alternative factual information.

Yep. And any of their correspondence with golden one is probably being reviewed and revised by an attorney so that it can be "carefully worded to be technically correct but not actually correct."

 

[GoldenOne]

It’s not legal in the US in most states unless both parties are informed.

I learned that from Kim Kardashian leaking Taylor swift’s calls with Kanye.

Even petty drama has something to teach us so i hope you learn well from this one.

I am in the UK, and Adam called me.

Additionally I'm not sure what state adam is in but US federal law is one-party
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2511
"
(d)
It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State.
"

And to reiterate. I have absolutely no malicious intention and will not publish this phone call unless Adam/Amir gave permission to do so.
The offer was made in response to accusations of putting "spin" on the contents of the call which are false.

 

[SKBubba]

Well, if nothing else, MQA has succeeded in getting everyone on every audio chat board talking about MQA. Mission accomplished!

 

[amirm]

I absolutely did not put "spin" on the phone call and in the interest of transparency if you're happy to provide permission I am quite happy to post the full recording of the call so that anyone can listen and judge for themselves.

Wow, you recorded the conversation? Did you get his permission? Not that it would matter since you went and disclosed the private call he made to you.

 

[faheem]

I am in the UK, and Adam called me.

Additionally I'm not sure what state adam is in but US federal law is one-party
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2511
"
(d)
It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State.
"

And to reiterate. I have absolutely no malicious intention and will not publish this phone call unless Adam/Amir gave permission to do so.
The offer was made in response to accusations of putting "spin" on the contents of the call which are false.

I don't give a flying fudge about MQA but Recording someone without their permission or letting them know, is seriously messed up, there's no spin on that.

 

[amirm]

I recorded the call quite frankly for my own protection.

Wow! For your own protection? What did you think would happen to you if you listened to a moderator of a forum? You make it sound like the Mafia had called you.

A moderator takes the time to call a member to propose a solution and you think it must be nefarious. This is the personality folks have decided to trust and give benefit of doubt. Quoting MQA: https://bobtalks.co.uk/a-deeper-look/all-that-glitters-is-not-golden/

"The blogger displayed a lack of integrity, violating agreements and Terms of Use with multiple parties within the chain. "

I think you successfully made their case for them.

 

[tmtomh]

It’s not legal in the US in most states unless both parties are informed.

I learned that from Kim Kardashian leaking Taylor swift’s calls with Kanye.

Even petty drama has something to teach us so i hope you learn well from this one.

It is indeed legal in most U.S. states: 38 plus D.C. require only one party in the conversation to consent, and Vermont has no consent law at all:

https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations

That leaves 11 states that require two-party (really all-party) consent to record a phone conversation.

This is not a comment on whether or not it's over the top to record a phone call from a forum moderator.

 

[GoldenOne]

Wow, you recorded the conversation? Did you get his permission? Not that it would matter since you went and disclosed the private call he made to you.

As mentioned above, in the UK and in US Federal law it is legal to record a phone call without informing the other party, with the condition in the UK that the recording cannot then be shared or published without permission. Which I do not intend to do.

I don't give a flying fudge about MQA but Recording someone without their permission or letting them know, is seriously messed up, there's no spin on that.

Only if it were done with malicious intent. Which I did not. I recorded it simply to protect myself and the accusations thrown at me that I am somehow twisting the contents of that call quite frankly are exactly what I was worried about.


I recorded the call (legally) because I was worried that EXACTLY this might happen. If Amir feels that I am putting spin on the call and being unjust then he can provide permission for me to release it and everyone can listen for themselves. (I'm not sure if legally Adam would need to give permission or if Amir could given as the call was technically made on behalf of ASR but still).

But there is no spin, and I've been quite frankly polite about the contents of the call because I am not intending to start drama. So I doubt that will happen.

Why can't this just be civil....

Can we get back to discussing MQA now?

 

[tmtomh]

This thread has become very sad. I am not defending GoldenOne's recording of the convo with Adam.

But let's not lose sight of the reason Adam had to (or at least felt the need to) call him in the first place.

 

[GoldenOne]

This thread has become very sad. I am not defending GoldenOne's recording of the convo with Adam.

But let's not lose sight of the reason Adam had to (or at least felt the need to) call him in the first place.

This.
The call took place because of the hostility that grew in the thread.

If we could get back to discussing the topic at hand rather than throwing accusations and insults new or old at eachother than it would be much friendlier and more productive.

 

[amirm]

So this takes us the this answer from MQA:

"MQA provided detailed feedback to the blogger before publication. [3] He ignored it and later dismissed our detailed guidance as ‘marketing’."

OP was clearly told that he could not encode test tones using the automated tools prior to publication of his first video:

“To help young artists and small labels get their music encoded in MQA and on to TIDAL, we recently enabled the service you used. However, that service is limited in flexibility and places obligations on the user. First, the encoder is fully automatic, which means it will use analysis to set parameters for each song as a whole; second it is intended strictly for music. This encoder is not configured to deal with content where, for example, the statistics change mid-song, or where the audio does not resemble natural sound. The onus is on the submitter to check the content when it arrives in TIDAL and confirm the sound. In this way, we can all be sure that the provider is happy with the Master and that, because of the light, everyone with an MQA decoder is getting the intended sound.”

This is not marketing. You were clearly told why the standard encoder (or any of their encoders) are not designed or optimized for encoding pathologically test signals. And that the encoder that was used for your content was not the optimized one they use.

This has been the same point I and others have been making.

Given this information, OP should have clearly stipulated that a different encoder was used than one for major labels and that he was warned the encoder would not work for his content.

 

[GoldenOne]

So this takes us the this answer from MQA:

"MQA provided detailed feedback to the blogger before publication. [3] He ignored it and later dismissed our detailed guidance as ‘marketing’."

OP was clearly told that he could not encode test tones using the automated tools prior to publication of his first video:

“To help young artists and small labels get their music encoded in MQA and on to TIDAL, we recently enabled the service you used. However, that service is limited in flexibility and places obligations on the user. First, the encoder is fully automatic, which means it will use analysis to set parameters for each song as a whole; second it is intended strictly for music. This encoder is not configured to deal with content where, for example, the statistics change mid-song, or where the audio does not resemble natural sound. The onus is on the submitter to check the content when it arrives in TIDAL and confirm the sound. In this way, we can all be sure that the provider is happy with the Master and that, because of the light, everyone with an MQA decoder is getting the intended sound.”

This is not marketing. You were clearly told why the standard encoder (or any of their encoders) are not designed or optimized for encoding pathologically test signals. And that the encoder that was used for your content was not the optimized one they use.

This has been the same point I and others have been making.

Given this information, OP should have clearly stipulated that a different encoder was used than one for major labels and that he was warned the encoder would not work for his content.

And in response I requested that they provide me an MQA encoded file of a track I provided that more closely resembled natural sound, which they did not.

Had they done that I'd have used that instead.

But as I've said time and time again, I was not looking to find out how good MQA is as a lossy encoder. It could be amazing, the best and greatest lossy encoder ever created.
It doesn't matter, because they CLAIMED to be lossless. THAT is what I was testing and any lossless encoder would encode without issue the tests I presented.

Your own video shows that they are not lossless.

And if MQA wants to start claiming that it's inaudibly different then honestly that could be applied to high sample rate MP3 for many people given as a significant number of people simply cannot tell the difference between lossless FLAC and MP3.

Additionally, there is no guarantee at all that a different encoder was used.
I used the publisher that MQA themselves recommended, and one of the "big three" labels, Warner, batch converted MILLIONS of songs.
And more to the point even if we were to assume that a large number of MQA releases are manually touched up and processed (which there is no evidence for), there is absolutely no indication of which tracks this applies to and so consumers are left guessing.

I don't understand how all of this smoke and mirrors is defensible.