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

[mhardy6647]

So that's why I can't tolerate FM radio anymore.

Well... in many markets and on many stations, I think that there may be... umm... confounding variables.

I ran this through the Google translator with this result

"Things are going so well that we decided yo go into bankruptcy."

Well of course. They like a challenge.

 

[Atanasi]

I wonder why such a company would have 4 million pound in yearly costs? They are not making anything physical, they won’t need a vast army of software developers… maybe they have a large legal department…?

Promotional costs including gifts to their partners?

 

[fpitas]

Promotional costs including gifts to their partners?

Yes, I suspect they were pumping money out of the company in anticipation of failure.

 

[voodooless]

Yes, I suspect they were pumping money out of the company in anticipation of failure.

I think this kind of spending was going on for years. It’s also amazing how little money actually came in…. Amazing in bad way

 

[fpitas]

I think this kind of spending was going on for years. It’s also amazing how little money actually came in…. Amazing in bad way

Well, being a cynical man, I think a lot of these types of tech companies are run anticipating failure. As long as the management makes out like bandits, they walk away whistling with money falling out of their pockets.

 

[earlevel]

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

From John Siau (IS MQA DOA?):

When fully decoded, the resolution of MQA is limited to 17 bits at 96 kHz. Miska has shown that an MQA file actually occupies more space than a lossless 96 kHz 18-bit PCM file!

Note the link to the Miska tests.

 

[Avp1]

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

25-30%.

 

[Avp1]

or very large bank accounts in the Caymans

Well paid staff of 25 plus all overhead.

 

[Avp1]

From John Siau (IS MQA DOA?):

When fully decoded, the resolution of MQA is limited to 17 bits at 96 kHz. Miska has shown that an MQA file actually occupies more space than a lossless 96 kHz 18-bit PCM file!

Note the link to the Miska tests.

But 18/96 Flac cannot be played on standard CD player.

 

[voodooless]

But 18/96 Flac cannot be played on standard CD player.

Nor can any other flac file… why care about CD players anyway?

 

[Sal1950]

Good riddance to bad rubbish.
It was nothing but a snake-oil type money grab from the beginning.
Design a processing that makes extremely minor change in sound, claim it makes an improvement
that removes 'deblur-shit" from the original recording and get tons of folks to believe it.

 

[amirm]

I wonder why such a company would have 4 million pound in yearly costs? They are not making anything physical, they won’t need a vast army of software developers… maybe they have a large legal department…?

I suspect they are doing all the MQA encodings. This takes staff to ingest, encode and QA. Probably 2 to 3 people for that plus equipment, rent, etc. Then you need business development people to convince chip/device makers to implement MQA. And yes, you do need lawyers (inside or outside the company) to negotiate licenses. And executives to run the thing. $6M would be pretty low to run such an operation actually.

 

[amirm]

OK, so here's where I differ. And why now I'm a lot more concerned about MQA than I have been in the past.

Technology is secondary when it comes to getting a format adopted. MP3 rose to nearly 100% domination even though AAC at the time produced much better performance.

That's what it has become for now, but it's way, way more. Inside a 24/96 FLAC format or similar, it has space to be properly lossless. It could be put into a 32 bit container, making it absolutely lossless for 24 bit audio. It doesn't have to preserve a compatible section for playback on older devices at all.

Well, in that case you can just encode the 24 bit as is in FLAC and be done with it. Wait! It is already done that way.

The challenge with MQA is that it has to dither its side-channel data. That randomization causes FLAC lossless encoding efficiency to reduce. So what it gained in coding efficiency (not encoding all of ultrasonics and bit depth of noise), it gave back part of it in this stage. I don't think they thought this through at the start.

 

[ribonucleic]

Never happy to see a the failure of a business.

+1

Real people with real families are going to lose real jobs here. However much their employer deserves to fail, I can't bring myself to lead a cheering section.

 

[Avp1]

Nor can any other flac file… why care about CD players anyway?

Mqa-cd can play on any CD player.

 

[voodooless]

I suspect they are doing all the MQA encodings. This takes staff to ingest, encode and QA. Probably 2 to 3 people for that plus equipment, rent, etc.

I highly doubt this. Why would you want to do this yourself? Also given Goldensounds story I don’t think they do it themselves. Besides, those people don’t need to be highly skilled, so won’t be very expensive either.

Then you need business development people to convince chip/device makers to implement MQA.

Well, they can’t have gotten big bonuses…

And yes, you do need lawyers (inside or outside the company) to negotiate licenses. And executives to run the thing.

If it were the executives poring in the extra money, they probably didn’t get that much in return.

$6M would be pretty low to run such an operation actually.

I beg to differ.

 

[voodooless]

Mqa-cd can play on any CD player.

Clearly just about nobody cared

 

[Trell]

Never happy to see a the failure of a business.

To me that very much depends on the business.

 

[Spocko]

... You're buying inaudible numbers.

THIS.. and it applies to hardware too! DAC companies should stop trying to win the SINAD wars because we're paying for inaudible accomplishments. Let's put all those engineering resources into UI specialists to improve control knobs, software stability or add some room correction DSP/EQ, etc.

 

[ribonucleic]

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.

I resent anyone who tries to steal from me, even if they have no chance of success.