MQA entering into administration - comparable to Chapter 11 in the US

[voodooless]

SCL6/MQAir didn't just appear out of nowhere.

Sure, but you still don’t need an army to create it. A few clever people is all that is needed. Besides, they had roughly the same burn rate for years, long before MQAir ever existed, and I doubt it was in development for so long.

As for the value of MQAir itself, that is another’s highly debatable topic even though technologically it looks impressive. However, making a “perceptually lossless” codec that encodes ultrasonic still doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t for MQA, nor for MQAir.

 

[DavidMcRoy]

How many people have been proven to be able to hear any of this?

 

[firedog]

You didn't notice because you had too much blood in your eyes trying to fight MQA. My position was simple and stated many times:



Pay particular attention to #4. While some of you were predicting that MQA would wipe out in the clear PCM, and labels were out to convert your music to DRM, I kept saying none of this was true. That MQA simply lacked any kind of leverage to make your fears come true. It was a niche within a niche (a branch of high res music) which meant it was a fly on the back of the horse, not the horse itself.

Yet a number of people wanted to throw themselves on the railroad tracks to stop it.

How did I know this? Because I spent a big chunk of my career bringing formats to market, working with major labels, chip & CE companies, etc. No way a tiny company like this had any kind of power like some thought they did. Nor do labels act the way folks thought they did. I explained all of this in the master thread.

You paid for MQA, you just didn't see the hidden costs. HW with MQA cost more, as we saw when companies made MQA and non MQA versions of the same device.
Tidal broke out MQA as a higher priced tier. That means you were paying for it all along, you just didn't know it.
Tidal limited many albums to MQA only versions, which is exactly what many people were afraid of and didn't want.

MQA never had a case for it's existence, other than to be a proprietary closed format that was designed to create revenue for certain people.
It had no audio or other reason to exist. It added nothing of value to the ecosystem. And that's why it's failing.

 

[Galliardist]

Sure, but you still don’t need an army to create it. A few clever people is all that is needed. Besides, they had roughly the same burn rate for years, long before MQAir ever existed, and I doubt it was in development for so long.

As for the value of MQAir itself, that is another’s highly debatable topic even though technologically it looks impressive. However, making a “perceptually lossless” codec that encodes ultrasonic still doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t for MQA, nor for MQAir.

If it was that easy to add a 20Mbit/s extension to Bluetooth, then more bandwidth, if not that much, would have been added a long time ago. I suspect that it was in development for several years. My point was in addition to other answers given to the question of where the money was going, as well.

MQAir seems to have been an attempt to embed the MQA codec into Bluetooth. It's the last place where compression of that sort may have been needed, so a last throw of the dice as it were. Reading between the lines, the fact that MQAir suddenly turned into SCL6 at more or less the same time as the company went into administration would indicate that MQA in Bluetooth was not going to be acceptable as part of the standard, so the codec may have been removed with the rename.

The value of a low energy, high bandwidth codec in Bluetooth depends on where the people who actually drive Bluetooth want to take it. I doubt the more practical members of the consortium just want to make a "high definition audio" Bluetooth. File transfer speeds could be increased, we could see Bluetooth video or better spatial audio.

 

[firedog]

out of curiosity how much larger is a comparable flac file vs mqa file of the same song?

Depends on the source file. Some plain flac files are smaller than their MQA equivalent.

In addition, you can take a 24/96 flac master and turn it into an 18/96 file with dither, and it will have about the same resolution as an MQA file (which is about 17/96) and it will essentially sound equivalent to the master. Pretty much no audible content is lost.

So no need for MQA to save file size for streaming.

 

[firedog]

.On Roon, they used to be part of Meridian where MQA came from. It was an acquisition that was then spun off. So it was natural that they would support MQA. But I have seen no reason to think they were in bed with MQA or have any motivation to push for it. Roon is a superbly engineered audio player. It will be a sad, sad day if something happens to them.

I would assume they have some positive feelings for MQA b/c of their background. But supporting the first unfold, etc., simply makes sense for their product:

They have full integration with Tidal, and that's a big selling point for them. Tidal users that own Roon are listening to MQA in many or most cases.

In general, Roon wants to be a jack of all trades in terms of audio playback. That's why they support HQPlayer, Chromecast, and things like convolution. They want to have a product that works for almost all audiophiles.

 

[voodooless]

If it was that easy to add a 20Mbit/s extension to Bluetooth, then more bandwidth, if not that much, would have been added a long time ago.

They did nothing to Bluetooth. They just created an audio codec that happened to work on Bluetooth.

Reading between the lines, the fact that MQAir suddenly turned into SCL6 at more or less the same time as the company went into administration would indicate that MQA in Bluetooth was not going to be acceptable as part of the standard, so the codec may have been removed with the rename.

The MQA name wasn’t exactly confidence inspiring. The initial announcement of MQAir came with a lot of negative comments, as detailed by AudioXpress:

When audioXpress and other publications originally mentioned the launch of the SCL6 codec, still referred to as MQair, we received very unpleasant reactions. And interestingly, on social media those negative reactions came mostly from people who didn't even bother to understand the content of the announcement. It only needed to involve the three letters in MQA. Which justifies the decision to not brand SCL6 as MQair.

 

[Axo1989]

I would assume they have some positive feelings for MQA b/c of their background. But supporting the first unfold, etc., simply makes sense for their product:

They have full integration with Tidal, and that's a big selling point for them. Tidal users that own Roon are listening to MQA in many or most cases.

In general, Roon wants to be a jack of all trades in terms of audio playback. That's why they support HQPlayer, Chromecast, and things like convolution. They want to have a product that works for almost all audiophiles.

I found Tidal (hi-res or master level I can't recall what they called it now) sometimes sounded better—especially in the bass in certain tracks—than Apple Music AAC. But I haven't compered lately, now that Music.app does lossless CD quality and better.

 

[Galliardist]

How many people have been proven to be able to hear any of this?

MQA Core vs. Hi-Res Blind Test Part II: Core Results

A blog for audiophiles about more objective topics. Measurements of audio gear. Reasonable, realistic, no snakeoil assessment of sound, and equipment.

archimago.blogspot.com

suggests it's not audible, and is the best test of this I can find right now.

In terms of blind testing, then, no clear proof.

Procedure:

MQA Core vs. Hi-Res Blind Test Part I: Procedure

A blog for audiophiles about more objective topics. Measurements of audio gear. Reasonable, realistic, no snakeoil assessment of sound, and equipment.

archimago.blogspot.com

Note that these are 2L tracks as encoded by Bob Stuart. Unfortunately the details aren't on the 2L site any more, there was a description of what was done and the format of the original recorded tracks.

 

[Galliardist]

Roon forum mods have incredibly low appetite for debate and forum wars. MQA is no exception. It is a wise policy to keep their forum temperatures low. So I am not surprised of their actions in regards to this topic.

Along those lines, I am going to ask the membership to refrain from relitigating MQA. It takes a lack of common sense to now engage in such arguments.

Sorry, I missed this post. We appear to be continuing to do exactly that, and I'd suggest it's time to close this thread, given that we've pretty much also exhausted SCL6 and the administration as subjects as well.

 

[Mnyb]

Sorry, I missed this post. We appear to be continuing to do exactly that, and I'd suggest it's time to close this thread, given that we've pretty much also exhausted SCL6 and the administration as subjects as well.

Yes we are at the usual junction

 

[GaryH]

Good riddance MQA. No-one will miss you.

 

[amirm]

You paid for MQA, you just didn't see the hidden costs.

Nope. Had paid up for Roon and Tidal added them without cost to me.

 

[amirm]

MQA never had a case for it's existence, other than to be a proprietary closed format that was designed to create revenue for certain people.

What possible logic leads you to have this argument now??? Is there no common sense anymore? Looks like they are going to go out of business. What more do you want now?

Good grief. As suggested, I am closing the thread.