Now we know why Amir is pro-MQA

[agtp]

It was meant for you, not Amir. A waste of time, it seems.

The message is for me, yes, but you're intent is to help/defend Amir. Maybe you misunderstood what I meant?

 

[Thomas savage]

The message is for me, yes, but you're intent is to help/defend Amir. Maybe you misunderstood what I meant?

The problem is your line of questioning is more for the sake of argument than digging out facts about this format. Amir is not all over the forum supporting MQA , he’s not got banners up pushing the format. He sees MQA in a context most here don’t , that’s because it relates to a field he spent years in and comes from a industry history he knowns and understands.

Why is it you are so obsessed about what amir thinks about MQA? I closed the last MQA thread because it degenerated , just like this one has . Generally the guys on the forum are opposed to MQA , amir sees it from a diffrent perspective and feels it’s a elegant solution with some merit but in the end is unlikely to really take over the market place .

There’s no huge conspiracy here, there’s a ton of word salad but not much else.

 

[March Audio]

The message is for me, yes, but you're intent is to help/defend Amir. Maybe you misunderstood what I meant?

I don't agree with Amir on this and have said so. Myself and others have clearly expressed this opposing view. He doesnt censor debate or other opinions. Holding a view doesn't mean he is in the pocket of MQA as you have offensively implied. He expresses his view, we express ours.

You seem to be under the impression that he should agree with your view and anything else is therefore something nefarious.

You are coming across as the one with the agenda

 

[Blumlein 88]

The message is for me, yes, but you're intent is to help/defend Amir. Maybe you misunderstood what I meant?

Come on. IMO, Amir is WRONG on MQA. But I know Amir will let me say that. He'll let you have your say too.

So yes, I'll defend Amir because he has given us this beautiful forum which is not like all the others. And he lets us have our say. I think defending him having his say is not exactly a crazy idea even when I disagree with him.

So is your problem with Amir? You'll have to explain yourself on that one if that is the case.

 

[agtp]

I understand

The problem is your line of questioning is more for the sake of argument than digging out facts about this format. Amir is not all over the forum supporting MQA , he’s not got banners up pushing the format. He sees MQA in a context most here don’t , that’s because it relates to a field he spent years in and comes from a industry history he knowns and understands.

Why is it you are so obsessed about what amir thinks about MQA? I closed the last MQA thread because it degenerated , just like this one has . Generally the guys on the forum are opposed to MQA , amir sees it from a diffrent perspective and feels it’s a elegant solution with some merit but in the is unlikely to really take over the market place .

There’s no huge conspiracy here, there’s a ton of word salad but not much else.

Hi Thomas,
I understand all that, I read the site often. I don't know why you're questioning my intentions. This is a forum where people discuss things, is it not? Are topics which cause the site owners discomfort not up for discussion? Do such topics get shut down? I bet all the manufacturers wish they had that luxury. The site would no longer exist, because the discussion became uncmortable to company X. I find it dissapointing to see such talk of threads supposedly "degenerating" and such, when no such thing is apparent. Looks more like those in charge are uncomfortable with any heat and are a little quick to consider the censore option. I think prodcutive discussion is still possible regarding this topic.

 

[Thomas savage]

we are not here to create threads full of endless word arguments , the idea of these discussions is for folks to share knowledge and have fun while leaving behind a path for others to follow and learn through. Once a thread or subject stops providing that completely and just degenerates into repetitive word arguments as this one has ( and the last MQA thread ) I tend to close them awaiting new technical evidence to come along.

 

[agtp]

It would be nice if people would stop strawmanning my posts.

Okay, Thomas, I'll call it a night.

 

[Wombat]

The topic has not been shut down. You have been free to have your say. You have been agreed or disagreed with and not censored. Amir has his view from his standpoint and you have yours. There comes a time to just accept it.

 

[Thomas savage]

It would be nice if people would stop strawmanning my posts.

Okay, Thomas, I'll call it a night.

I appreciate that .

I spend about 20 hours a week ( more recently) reading through this site as part of my moderating duties , I do that to make sure I’m being fair to all sides when issues arise. However I do have a life , I’m on holiday right now btw ( been up reading through this since 0630,it’s 0740 now) but normally I’m busy running my own drywall business. There’s a standard to maintain here ( as Iv written in post #147) and it’s those values that I tend to enforce as best I can and it’s those values our members tend to want to see maintained. Too strict and you exclude many from participating, too lenient and threads degenerate ( yes , considering our ambition as stated this threads degenerated) . So nothing to do with protecting amir or as I’m guessing your insinuating March Audio.

Right now I’m getting it in the neck from all sides, I think that probably means I’m being fair and we have a good balance lol I’m a independent agent here, for better or worse so there’s no possibly of me being in league with any entities I just judge things as they appear to me. This dose include amir having his opinion btw, we don’t all have to agree in order to get along. I know weird for the Internet.

After deliberation and spell checking it’s now 0823, time for a stout ( breakfast of champions).

 

[Cosmik]

The discussion has piqued my interest again. A couple of questions:

1. Why create a new format like MQA if you're not intending to take over the world? I can't see that it would be worth bothering in that case.
2. If it's all open and above board, what is the problem it is supposed to be solving? We know that anyone who doesn't care about sound quality would just as happily stream much smaller lossy formats, and the people who do care about sound quality would happily use a bit more bandwidth for an uncompressed file (and has been noted, audio streaming is becoming a trivial application for current and future internet speeds). It's as though MQA is intended for a consumer who doesn't exist.

Put those two things together, and it gives the impression of being a system that is intended not for the consumer, but for the supplier.

There is cognitive dissonance between the hoohah and fanfare surrounding MQA's promotion, and the "Hey, chill man. No one's going to take your FLAC files away. MQA is just, like, a gift to humanity from a very groovy guy..."

 

[SIY]

"If you like your FLAC files, you can keep your FLAC files."

 

[Wombat]

The discussion has piqued my interest again. A couple of questions:

1. Why create a new format like MQA if you're not intending to take over the world? I can't see that it would be worth bothering in that case.
2. If it's all open and above board, what is the problem it is supposed to be solving? We know that anyone who doesn't care about sound quality would just as happily stream much smaller lossy formats, and the people who do care about sound quality would happily use a bit more bandwidth for an uncompressed file (and has been noted, audio streaming is becoming a trivial application for current and future internet speeds). It's as though MQA is intended for a consumer who doesn't exist.

Put those two things together, and it gives the impression of being a system that is intended not for the consumer, but for the supplier.

There is cognitive dissonance between the hoohah and fanfare surrounding MQA's promotion, and the "Hey, chill man. No one's going to take your FLAC files away. MQA is just, like, a gift to humanity from a very groovy guy..."

Market control/money-making opportunity it seems. The official partners appear to be in this camp. They really don't have much to sell but their marketing power which is now considerable. However, the audiophile market is small but if one can convince those who buy phones and those little speakers, that you can talk to, to believe the MQA sticker on their device means something then there is a gold mine out there. Hey, that is not hard for these guys to do.

 

[pierre]

My own opinion is that for the record labels they might be better off offering de-crapified re-masters of their back catalogues that they completely screwed up with digital re-mastering. I have zero interest in MQA or other high-res formats per se but what I would be very interested in is being able to buy high dynamic range re-masters of a lot of the stuff which has been rendred as crap in order to play well on BT speakers and car stereos. One of the ironies of the audio industry is that as the hardware reached technical perfection (almost) the software took a nose dive.

I did 3 remaster this year for classical recordings. tldr: less crackles, a lot more compression with some cheating to keep a good looking DR... My guess is that listener prefer highly compressed music because the younger generations only listened to compressed music.

 

[Wombat]

Audiophiles assume a sense of importance that only they believe. They seem to be united in how impotent they are in terms of their limited market druthers. That's life. Buy old CDs no MQA.

First release Donald Fagen Nightfly CD coming my way for less than $10. I could have purchased a current one, same mastering, for the same price but I like the originals.

 

[Krunok]

Put those two things together, and it gives the impression of being a system that is intended not for the consumer, but for the supplier.

Exactly.

 

[Cosmik]

...if one can convince those who buy phones and those little speakers, that you can talk to, to believe the MQA sticker on their device means something then there is a gold mine out there.

I agree, but why would the industry leave it there?

Step one: get MQA into every device whether the consumer demands it or not. No problem. A gift to humanity. A philanthropic act to get better sound quality to the masses which they can graciously accept or choose to reject. It's Bob giving something back to the little people who made him what he is today. etc.

Why bother? They could give it away, but only about 0.1% of people would be prepared to spend extra cash on the sticker or the content. It wouldn't be a business, but a gesture. Surely the obvious inference is:

Step two: stop streaming in any format but MQA.

Step three: Apply a hard lockout on legacy devices - scramble the files.

There is no evidence of any of this, presumably, but I am left asking: Why wouldn't they do that?

I don't know about you, but I have been surprised that they didn't do something like that a long time ago. There was the DMCA and Microsoft's system for secure audio hardware - where they could remotely disable systems found to be insecure. But presumably consumers were already well into MP3 and copying files for playback between portable players, phones, cars. Things weren't connected to the internet transparently, so file portability was essential.

But I don't see why they couldn't now go ahead with a DRM system, dressed up as a gift, with clever marketing. There's no evidence of it, but why wouldn't they? If they did, my active crossover system would be f***ed - I would have to introduce a redundant DA/AD stage. And I would resent having to listen to music through their stupid leaky filters etc.

 

[Wombat]

I agree, but why would the industry leave it there?

Step one: get MQA into every device whether the consumer demands it or not. No problem. A gift to humanity. A philanthropic act to get better sound quality to the masses which they can graciously accept or choose to reject. It's Bob giving something back to the little people who made him what he is today. etc.

Why bother? They could give it away, but only about 0.1% of people would be prepared to spend extra cash on the sticker or the content. It wouldn't be a business, but a gesture. Surely the obvious inference is:

Step two: stop streaming in any format but MQA.

Step three: Apply a hard lockout on legacy devices - scramble the files.

There is no evidence of any of this, presumably, but I am left asking: Why wouldn't they do that?

I don't know about you, but I have been surprised that they didn't do something like that a long time ago. There was the DMCA and Microsoft's system for secure audio hardware - where they could remotely disable systems found to be insecure. But presumably consumers were already well into MP3 and copying files for playback between portable players, phones, cars. Things weren't connected to the internet transparently, so file portability was essential.

But I don't see why they couldn't now go ahead with a DRM system, dressed up as a gift, with clever marketing. There's no evidence of it, but why wouldn't they? If they did, my active crossover system would be f***ed - I would have to introduce a redundant AD/DA stage. And I would resent having to listen to music through their stupid leaky filters etc.

I think it is a topic limited to a few audio forums. Good to talk about but no influence, really. There is a bigger world out there. That is where MQA will succeed or not,

 

[Krunok]

I agree, but why would the industry leave it there?

Step one: get MQA into every device whether the consumer demands it or not. No problem. A gift to humanity. A philanthropic act to get better sound quality to the masses which they can graciously accept or choose to reject. It's Bob giving something back to the little people who made him what he is today. etc.

Why bother? They could give it away, but only about 0.1% of people would be prepared to spend extra cash on the sticker or the content. It wouldn't be a business, but a gesture. Surely the obvious inference is:

Step two: stop streaming in any format but MQA.

Step three: Apply a hard lockout on legacy devices - scramble the files.

There is no evidence of any of this, presumably, but I am left asking: Why wouldn't they do that?

I don't know about you, but I have been surprised that they didn't do something like that a long time ago. There was the DMCA and Microsoft's system for secure audio hardware - where they could remotely disable systems found to be insecure. But presumably consumers were already well into MP3 and copying files for playback between portable players, phones, cars. Things weren't connected to the internet transparently, so file portability was essential.

But I don't see why they couldn't now go ahead with a DRM system, dressed up as a gift, with clever marketing. There's no evidence of it, but why wouldn't they? If they did, my active crossover system would be f***ed - I would have to introduce a redundant DA/AD stage. And I would resent having to listen to music through their stupid leaky filters etc.

This is developing into a genuine conspiracy theory!

 

[Cosmik]

This is developing into a genuine conspiracy theory!

Could be an interesting thread in itself. When is something a conspiracy theory, and when is it just 'slippery slope'? Answer: it's a conspiracy theory when you want to discredit 'the other side'.

In the UK they introduced university tuition fees a few years ago - it had been free until then. At the time, the fees were capped at £3000. I remember a government minister being grilled about it on the day they were introduced. "Now that you have introduced fees, what's to stop you from increasing them to, say, £6000, then £9000 in future?". The minister replied "There are no plans to increase the fees above £3000".

I don't remember anyone at the time sniggering about 'conspiracy theories'; everyone pretty much knew that the fees would be going up!

Edit: I think I got those figures wrong: in fact it started at a nice, friendly £1000, then went to £3000, then £9000.

 

[Wombat]

Could be an interesting thread in itself. When is something a conspiracy theory, and when is it just 'slippery slope'? Answer: it's a conspiracy theory when you want to discredit 'the other side'.

In the UK they introduced university tuition fees a few years ago - it had been free until then. At the time, the fees were capped at £3000. I remember a government minister being grilled about it on the day they were introduced. "Now that you have introduced fees, what's to stop you from increasing them to, say, £6000, then £9000 in future?". The minister replied "There are no plans to increase the fees above £3000".

I don't remember anyone at the time sniggering about 'conspiracy theories'; everyone pretty much knew that the fees would be going up!

There is a 'conspiracy' A((opinion)? so B(different) must be a possible 'conspiracy'(opinion) too?

You might restate that to preserve credibility.