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

[Doodski]

They wanted to become new Dolby or DTS, using methods copied from what Sony did to promote SACD.

Can you give more info so we have better clarity? It seems you are well versed in the topic.

 

[Blumlein 88]

They wanted to become new Dolby or DTS, using methods copied from what Sony did to promote SACD.

Looks like it worked out slightly less well than SACD.

 

[Galliardist]

Hopefully Tidal can cleanse its library over time

Don't get carried away just yet. The majors may not want to give up their investment just yet and may take the opportunity to:
1) Combine MQA and Tidal:
2) Own the technology themselves, now it's largely developed and cheap for them:
3) Start only releasing content in MQA with poor quality for non MQA owners - as many have feared.

 

[amirm]

The majors may not want to give up their investment just yet and may take the opportunity to:

Major labels have not made any investments in MQA. They were given shares in exchange for announcement of support and providing access to their library. This is very common and they won't lose a minute of sleep over this thing evaporating. Tons of start ups are forced to make these deals and labels take no action when they go bust.

 

[GD Fan]

Tidal's market share appears to be almost vanishingly small. Maybe it's time for yours truly to investigate a new streaming service...?

 

[Fidji]

Does MQA brings anything to the audio world?
After reading many threads about it I have some doubts.
There are many industry standards (Dolby, THX, Apple, mp3 formats...) that are sufficient for home audio streaming.

After AURO, it is MQA that fills for bankruptcy.
Who is the next one?

At least AURO3D is a useful product and best immersive audio upmixer out there. DSU and DTS Neural X are crap If you want to listen to your 2.0 or 5.1 sources in immersive audio. it has lost its race against Atmos (same like DTS:X) but what it is doing it is doing perfectly.

MQA is a bit different thing. Useless technology with no added value.

 

[DonR]

Finally, some good news today

 

[Galliardist]

Major labels have not made any investments in MQA. They were given shares in exchange for announcement of support and providing access to their library. This is very common and they won't lose a minute of sleep over this thing evaporating. Tons of start ups are forced to make these deals and labels take no action when they go bust.

I hope so. The investment made by the majors is also reputational, and Michael Jbara is still involved for the moment.

There is another potential future from this demise. Remember the Stuart patent, and the claims over an end-to-end technology, compensating for all the errors in the recording and playback chain? That could be released from the patent and maybe brought to life, without all the licensing and DRM issues, over time and for future recordings. It’s been lost in all the audio origami and controversial compression stuff.

Whatever happens, I’m not sure we’ve seen the last of MQA yet.

 

[restorer-john]

I was working in American FM broadcasting during that time. Dolby FM was doomed from conception because it wasn't literally backward-compatible. It added compression to the highs with complementary expansion in the decoder. The result was that 99.999% of listeners (those with no Dolby FM decoder) heard a bright, noisy signal. The station I was working at at the time was offered free use of a unit to test on air so we (and all the other stations in the market) could hear it in operation. We left it in the audio signal path for about a month, I think, and everyone hated it on normal radios so we ditched it. I think there was a similar scheme in European FM broadcasting called "CX" (?) that may have gained some traction there.

That’s really interesting. Thanks for bringing some historical perspective on Dolby FM. Did listeners complain? Unprocessed dolby A or B is like you say, mostly unlistenable.

I have restored many large receivers from the Dolby FM era and often the processing boards are a mess of dead electros and tantalums. Or with Sansui, early board vias that fail.

Testing was fun. I would use a Dolby B encoded tape played on the deck it was recorded but NR switched off, on and transmit that on a 1w stereo FM Txmitter. Best I could do.

Now I just leave the dolby decoder boards. Just a phenomenal waste of time to repair for no use case.

 

[Galliardist]

Latest Block financials offer an insight into Tidal revenues - Music Ally

Ever since streaming service Tidal was acquired by fintech firm Block, we've been getting regular insights.

musically.com

Found this linked on the Roon community thread
It looks like Tidal revenues have fallen by 80%. That may have a bearing on what's going on at MQA. Block, who own Tidal, may not do much about the MQA situation. That kind of drop doesn't look like there is much consumer interest in either of them.

 

[DavidMcRoy]

That’s really interesting. Thanks for bringing some historical perspective on Dolby FM. Did listeners complain? Unprocessed dolby A or B is like you say, mostly unlistenable.

I have restored many large receivers from the Dolby FM era and often the processing boards are a mess of dead electros and tantalums. Or with Sansui, early board vias that fail.

Testing was fun. I would use a Dolby B encoded tape played on the deck it was recorded but NR switched off, on and transmit that on a 1w stereo FM Txmitter. Best I could do.

Now I just leave the dolby decoder boards. Just a phenomenal waste of time to repair for no use case.

I wasn't the guy answering the phone so I don't know about listener complaints. And that was 40 years ago.

Today, FM broadcasters in many US cities have found another way to screw up their sound. Many are now transmitting a watermark in their audio with a system called VoltAir. It's a very low-level noise that has been described as sounding like a buzz saw. It gets picked up by a people meter device like a cellphone mic to collect listening habit data. It's supposed to be inaudible, yet every commercial FM station in my market, Portland, Oregon has a nasty, hashy distortion that reminds me of IM. I've read that the VoltAir watermark can become audible if it's injected into the signal path at the wrong stage or at too high a level, but who knows what's going on? I believe it was banned in Canada.

 

[JktHifi]

Latest Block financials offer an insight into Tidal revenues - Music Ally

Ever since streaming service Tidal was acquired by fintech firm Block, we've been getting regular insights.

musically.com

Found this linked on the Roon community thread
It looks like Tidal revenues have fallen by 80%. That may have a bearing on what's going on at MQA. Block, who own Tidal, may not do much about the MQA situation. That kind of drop doesn't look like there is much consumer interest in either of them.

SQ (Block Inc.) on NYSE is heavily shorted.

 

[Galliardist]

SQ (Block Inc.) on NYSE is heavily sorted.

Do you mean shorted?

 

[JktHifi]

Do you mean shorted?

Yes, sorry.
Previously Jack Dorsey who own Block, sold Twitter.

 

[Galliardist]

Yes, sorry. Selling

That's one bunch of execs that won't be having a nice Easter break, then!

 

[JoetheLion]

MQA was made to solve a bandwidth problem that was already solved. Even if the problem still existed, the solution is very flawed and not even lossless.

I hope nobody buys MQA and leave it to starve.

OK, but data economy in and of itself is nothing bad. If you can't hear any difference, it doesn't have to be lossless.

I'm a big fan of Radio Paradise, which streams for free in MQA on BluOS devices (Bluesound, NAD). Maybe I don't hear a difference to lossless Flac, but I would miss that.

 

[jensgk]

I'm a big fan of Radio Paradise, which streams for free in MQA on BluOS devices (Bluesound, NAD). Maybe I don't hear a difference to lossless Flac, but I would miss that.

But they already stream in lossless CD quality flac for everyone?

 

[JoetheLion]

Yes, I know. This makes it possible to get over the elimination if it gets that far, although subjectively I feel that MQA is "even better" (even if I don't hear any difference). Psychology.

 

[sarumbear]

MQA was made to solve a bandwidth problem that was already solved. Even if the problem still existed, the solution is very flawed and not even lossless.

If they had looked into the trend of network speeds when they launched the system back in 2014, they would have seen that by the time the license fees expected to arrive in numbers there would be no need for their product — by 2016 broadband and 4G was the norm.

In short their idea was dead on arrival. They conned/mislead their investors In order to come this far.

I hope nobody buys MQA and leave it to starve.

I agree! No product should survive that aims “modifying and controlling the end to end digital filter response.” Here is why.

 

[tmtomh]

Don't remind me of that film. I feel like sending Nolan an invoice for my wasted time.

Ah, but when will - or did - the invoice actually arrive?