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MQA Update

Galliardist said:
You'll need to provide that evidence again, assuming that you can find it and consider it worthwhile to do so.
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Difficult. That was several years ago and I don't know where else I could look at the moment.
But thanks for trying.
 
What's with the naming at MQA Labs? Qrono is a company that already owns qrono.com. When I see Qrono I see Q-wrong-o.

What to you see when you look at the work Foqus? Focus or FuckUs?
 
Galliardist said:
Do we have to fight that battle yet again?
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That will lead to nothing. We should wait for more reliable data of the new implementation/technology. Personally, I am not averse to first listening impressions.
 
pogo said:
I once wrote an post about this on ASR and unfortunately I can no longer find it. In one case, MQA was tested with a setup that still had bugs in the implementation of MQA and a firmware update was then made available after the measurements.
How credible is such evidence...
Btw., I would be grateful for any information to help me find my old post.
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Bob Stuart himself told me that MQA changed the sound. Not fixed things changed things.

Your post is gone just like many on Audio Asylum Critic’s Corner. You should have saved it.
 
pogo said:
That will lead to nothing. We should wait for more reliable data of the new implementation/technology. Personally, I am not averse to first listening impressions.
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Ah, the old reliable data ruse. Then attack the reliable date. I had people beg me to give MQA a chance in 2016 and 2017. I said no then, and the answer is still no. Any company that licenses recycled MQA Ltd technology will be heavily critized.
 
Steve H said:
Bob Stuart himself told me that MQA changed the sound. Not fixed things changed things.
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Hi Steve, I’m reasonably new to this forum so apologies for not knowing the history of your campaign against MQA.

I worked for Meridian Audio from 2015-2020 so knew the MQA team.

That’s a very interesting claim above. Would you mind elaborating on what Bob said? It was all very much smoke and mirrors and vague pseudoscientific word salad during my time in the same building.

I did once get one the MQA engineers to admit that MQA CD had to truncate down to 10bits in order to free up 4 bits to store the folded ultrasonics. Even full fat MQA confused me because to my understanding anything above 16bit native had to be truncated to allow the lowest 8-bits of the 24-bit container to store the folded ultrasonics.

It looks like the rebranded technology ignores the totally irrelevant audio origami.

It’s such a fall from grace considering the technical and commercial success of MLP.
 
Matt_Holland said:
It’s such a fall from grace considering the technical and commercial success of MLP.
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MLP was actually either mainly or entirely the work of the late Michael Gerzon, who worked with, then for, Meridian after Ambisonics somehow got locked up into various deals that went nowhere commercially.

The commercial success came through licensing deals to Dolby for the various DVD formats. The first blot on Bob Stuart's reputation, as I saw it, came with the partisan attacks on DSD/SACD, which I still suspect came from him making money on every DVD-A disc sold as much or more than actual conviction about the rival format.
 
Matt_Holland said:
Hi Steve, I’m reasonably new to this forum so apologies for not knowing the history of your campaign against MQA.

I worked for Meridian Audio from 2015-2020 so knew the MQA team.

That’s a very interesting claim above. Would you mind elaborating on what Bob said? It was all very much smoke and mirrors and vague pseudoscientific word salad during my time in the same building.

I did once get one the MQA engineers to admit that MQA CD had to truncate down to 10bits in order to free up 4 bits to store the folded ultrasonics. Even full fat MQA confused me because to my understanding anything above 16bit native had to be truncated to allow the lowest 8-bits of the 24-bit container to store the folded ultrasonics.

It looks like the rebranded technology ignores the totally irrelevant audio origami.

It’s such a fall from grace considering the technical and commercial success of MLP.
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Matt, it’s not a claim Bob Stuart and I had a conversation at the Los Angeles Audio Show in June of 2017. Later at the AES convention in October of 2017 MQA representatives admitted MQA changed the sound. My conversation with Bob involved how MQA changes to the soundstage and plugins promised for DAWs.

The main battles against MQA were in hallways, emails, Audiophile Style and Audio Asylum. They didn’t occur here.

Finally, you are in the UK, and you didn’t look at Meridian’s financial statements? Compared to royalties our host generated for Microsoft, MLPs weren’t that much.
 
Galliardist said:
MLP was actually either mainly or entirely the work of the late Michael Gerzon, who worked with, then for, Meridian after Ambisonics somehow got locked up into various deals that went nowhere commercially.

The commercial success came through licensing deals to Dolby for the various DVD formats. The first blot on Bob Stuart's reputation, as I saw it, came with the partisan attacks on DSD/SACD, which I still suspect came from him making money on every DVD-A disc sold as much or more than actual conviction about the rival format.
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Meridian didn’t make that much from MLP.
 
Steve H said:
Meridian didn’t make that much from MLP.
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They made more than they got from MQA. And if I read things correctly, Dolby made quite a lot from it.
 
Matt_Holland said:
It looks like the rebranded technology ignores the totally irrelevant audio origami.
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This is true for QRONO and I can't understand the aversion to this new technology, which works codec-independently and even processes DSD.
 
Money grab or investment recuperation ?
Gullible believers will pay for it all... as usual.
Lots of money to be made in the wondrous audio-world with the right advertising.
 
Emlin said:
it's a scam.
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This assessment cannot be made at this point in time.
I wouldn't be surprised if ASR users who show their dislike soon start using the new MQA technologies.
Bluesound was just the beginning and other manufacturers will implement the new technologies.
 
pogo said:
This assessment cannot be made at this point in time.
I wouldn't be surprised if ASR users who show their dislike soon start using the new MQA technologies.
Bluesound was just the beginning and other manufacturers will implement the new technologies.
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Well, where does the balance of probability lie? It's certainly not looking promising that QRONO d2a is a superior technology different to just a subset of MQA based on the limited information we have up to now, and that includes the developer's own white paper.

I agree that the assessment that "it's a scam" can't yet be definitively made. Rather, though, we can certainly say "treat it as highly dubious until there is proof otherwise".

Your optimism and support for this is wildly misplaced as far as I can see.
 
Steve H said:
Matt, it’s not a claim Bob Stuart and I had a conversation at the Los Angeles Audio Show in June of 2017. Later at the AES convention in October of 2017 MQA representatives admitted MQA changed the sound. My conversation with Bob involved how MQA changes to the soundstage and plugins promised for DAWs.

The main battles against MQA were in hallways, emails, Audiophile Style and Audio Asylum. They didn’t occur here.

Finally, you are in the UK, and you didn’t look at Meridian’s financial statements? Compared to royalties our host generated for Microsoft, MLPs weren’t that much.
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Thanks Steve.
Bob/MQA always claimed that MQA improved soundstage realism, rather the a changed it, so that’s an interesting comment from him.

Regarding MLP, by commercial success I meant that it was widely adopted, but point taken.
 
Matt_Holland said:
I did once get one the MQA engineers to admit that MQA CD had to truncate down to 10bits in order to free up 4 bits to store the folded ultrasonics. Even full fat MQA confused me because to my understanding anything above 16bit native had to be truncated to allow the lowest 8-bits of the 24-bit container to store the folded ultrasonics.
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As I understood the block diagram of how MQA worked, the full 24 bit signal only guaranteed 13 bits of data in the audible range, and even then with the "triangle" data was cut further. All to reproduce the "ultrasonic" signal we don't hear, and even that not at the right level, apparently.

10 bits for MQA CD? I have a work colleague who is spending good money buying those things. I'd suspected 11 or 12 bits with a worse representation of those ultrasonics. What a waste.
 
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