MQA Users & Discussion Thread

[Guest AndrewC]

Like I said, MQA = Master Quality Authenticated.

 

MQA holds the Master Tape quality PCM file and transport it into your living room using the lossy protocol.  If the AES paper's findng is true then they would had achieved their goal because what you hear in your living room is as best as the Master Tape would sound because there is "no statistically significant difference with MQA vs. source PCM"

 

(Audio)

 

What do you think FLAC is? ::)

 

If MQA’s purpose is purely to transparently transport the original high-rez PCM with lower bit-rate, other technologies already exist to do that!!

 

I’m guessing you haven’t actually read the AES paper… Here’s a quote, the very first paragraph in the Introduction of the paper;

 

Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) encoding has garnered attention and discussion within the audio community. The MQA encoding process reportedly reduces the inherent “blur” in digital audio files, introduced during the initial conversion from analogue, with some listeners reporting having heard a greater clarity and definition to the sound, particularly in transient information.

…

The focus of this investigation is whether listeners – particularly casual listeners – would report hearing significant differences between the two audio files

 

[/b]

 

In other words, the very intent of the paper was to validate the sonic claims of MQA’s proponents, i.e. whether MQA sounds better than the original high-rez PCM. And the paper proves those claims false (as far as "clarity" is concerned anyway... more tests are pending).

 

Get it now?? :)

[Boxerfan88]

In the post above, I see MQA use words like “reportedly” / “reported”; which is absolutely unverifiable. MQA like to fold here fold there, unfold here unfold there. Sounds like marketing talk.

 

...I’ll stay with FLAC.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jeromelang]

"no statistically significant difference with MQA vs. source PCM" - doesn't mean no difference hor.

 

It might mean certain number of the people on test dun hear difference evening out the overall statistics.

[Audio]

Yes, I would also stay with Source PCM files too, no need MQA.....if I can get my hands on the Master Tapes....

 

(Audio)

[Knight_Rider]

In the post above, I see MQA use words like “reportedly” / “reported”; which is absolutely unverifiable. MQA like to fold here fold there, unfold here unfold there. Sounds like marketing talk.

 

...I’ll stay with FLAC.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000397069-TIDAL-MASTERS

 

96 kHz / 24 bit ...........Yeah until something better comes out and I tot ifi does 384 for MQA  ???

[legend]

A 2 part interview of Bob Stuart by John Darko at the recent Munich Show:

https://vimeo.com/272083471

https://vimeo.com/272078385

 

Full article here:

https://darko.audio/2018/05/playback-pioneers-2018-bob-stuart-mqa/

[davewantsmoore]

Hah.  I missed this one.

 

On 25/04/2018 at 8:03 AM, legend said:

 

Below are two quotes from the beginning and end of an article by Jim Austin just published in Stereophile magazine. 

Right, so...

• Nobody agrees on what "digital rights management" means.
• Anybody who doesn't like the idea of DRM, does so because they want open standardised software.

What a kook.  How does this **** get printed in something like Stereophile.   >_<

 

 

 

[davewantsmoore]

7 hours ago, legend said:

A 2 part interview of Bob Stuart by John Darko at the recent Munich Show:

https://vimeo.com/272083471

https://vimeo.com/272078385

 

Full article here:

https://darko.audio/2018/05/playback-pioneers-2018-bob-stuart-mqa/

 

Quote

In the second half of my interview, I ask Stuart if MQA is his attempt to lock down the music industry’s supply chain, why MQA isn’t free of charge and then, catching the stupidity of my question, wondered aloud why internet forum members weren’t jumping up and down as much about, say, Qualcomm and the non-free licensing of their aptX Bluetooth codec?

 

It's really simple.  The design of the aptX system, does not include DRM capabilities.   The MQA system includes (very good) DRM capabilities.

 

It is not about non-free licensing.... MQA are asking us to do much more than pay for their product.    They are asking for complete, permanent, and flexible control over the quality of my audio playback.

 

... and if they achieve their goal of having all music encoded into MQA ... then they are asking a level of control over my playback whether or not I choose to use MQA devices.

 

Quote

 

And that only by managing the entire chain, from studio to playback, can MQA get us closer to that which the musician and his studio engineers intended.

 

Furthermore, MQA authenticates the stream to sidestep (complaints of) label or download store up-sampling skullduggery. Any MQA-equipped software app or DAC can confirm (or deny) the presence of an untainted studio master file

 

 

These are really good things ... and if cards are played right, this should and could be adopted very widely.

 

THAT is what makes the DRM capabilities so scary.

 

Nobody seriously though AptX would be the "new end to end format for music".   So even if it did include some DRM capability, it would not be very effective.

 

The more people get on board with MQA .... the more scope they is to effectively abuse the DRM capabilities which are designed into MQA.   I fear that MQA has the potential to be so good, that everyone WILL adopt it.

 

Quote

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

 

 

Quote

 

An ability to choose holds for DACs. Some are MQA enabled, others are not. 

 

There is a solution to this problem for MQA.    Make all distributed audio a much lower quality than it is today .....  Make the 'original quality' be unlocked by using an MQA encoder.

 

In 20 years from now, nobody will remember 'how we ever did without MQA'  (cos when you listen without a decoder it sounds like AM radio)

 

Quote

MQA’s scope reaches beyond the uber-niche appeal of hi-res audio and, according to Stuart, promises better sound quality for ALL types of music

 

The technical capabilities of MQA encoding ... and the DRM capabilities it has .....  means that the words "better sound quality" in the above quote, need to be replaced with  "any type of sound quality chosen by MQA" .

 

[Guest Eggcup The Daft]

4 hours ago, davewantsmoore said:

The technical capabilities of MQA encoding ... and the DRM capabilities it has .....  means that the words "better sound quality" in the above quote, need to be replaced with  "any type of sound quality chosen by MQA" .

 

I've said before that this isn't DRM as I understand it, but you've hit the nail right on the head here. This is the threat.

Especially if music becomes exclusively streamed.. the new version can just appear overnight and nothing we can do about it, except pay for the new whatever is needed to play the files next time. And for whatever the method of piracy that will appear soon after because people won't get caught the second time.

 

[davewantsmoore]

44 minutes ago, Eggcup The Daft said:

I've said before that this isn't DRM as I understand it

The technology described in the MQA patent has vast scope for DRM above what they have currently implemented.

 

44 minutes ago, Eggcup The Daft said:

Especially if music becomes exclusively streamed.. the new version can just appear overnight

Yes...  or even a version of the content is created or modified on-the-fly for a consumer.

 

[Grant Slack]

On 05/06/2018 at 3:42 PM, davewantsmoore said:

Hah.  I missed this one.

 

Right, so...

• Nobody agrees on what "digital rights management" means.
• Anybody who doesn't like the idea of DRM, does so because they want open standardised software.

What a kook.  How does this **** get printed in something like Stereophile.   >_<

 

 

 

Very funny.  Stereophile having standards. 

[legend]

Actually Stereophile is one of the better audiophile magazines IMHO - editor John Atkinson is not a charlatan and has a science background as do some of his writers, including Jim Austin whose article I quoted.  The full article can be found at

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-contextualized

Read BOTH pages - I find it pretty balanced, pointing out MQA's strengths and weaknesses/dangers.

[sir sanders zingmore]

4 minutes ago, legend said:

Actually Stereophile is one of the better audiophile magazines IMHO - editor John Atkinson is not a charlatan and has a science background as do some of his writers, including Jim Austin whose article I quoted.  The full article can be found at

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-contextualized

Read BOTH pages - I find it pretty balanced, pointing out MQA's strengths and weaknesses/dangers.

It took them an awfully long time to write anything vaguely balanced about MQA.

 

I suspect that if people like Archimago hadn't asked hard questions they would have continued to write articles that looked very much like paid advertisements

[davewantsmoore]

1 hour ago, legend said:

Actually Stereophile is one of the better audiophile magazines IMHO

It is, but that's not saying a lot 

[davewantsmoore]

1 hour ago, legend said:

Actually Stereophile is one of the better audiophile magazines IMHO - editor John Atkinson is not a charlatan and has a science background as do some of his writers, including Jim Austin whose article I quoted.  The full article can be found at

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-contextualized

Read BOTH pages - I find it pretty balanced, pointing out MQA's strengths and weaknesses/dangers.

I thought it was pretty below-average.

 

Quote

Those militantly opposed to MQA think it sounds bad

There'll always be people who thinks something "sounds bad" ..... it's a normal and expected orccurance with "listeng tests", especially poorly controlled ones.

 

 

 

[malsound]

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[Audio]

FUCK THE WORLD!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Audio)

[Audio]

It fucking works!!

 

Playback on Oppo 205.

 

Audio source information

 

Sounds very promising.  Cannot blast; it's past midnight now.

 

(Audio)

[Doggie Howser]

So you ripped the CD and played it in Oppo 205?

[Guest AndrewC]

I’ve got a couple of these Universal disc arriving this week, including ones I’ve already got on SACD, should be an interesting comparison. I’ve already got Chesky’s Rebecca Pidgone’s “Raven” on MQA … But I'm still waiting for the firmware update to unfold and render these disc natively on my dCS deck though, no point having to rip them as they're already available as MQA streams on Tidal.

 

No doubt in my mind these discs will be “collectables” like my HDCD, DAD, and DVD-Audio discs ;D

[InnocentBlood]

do we know the provenance of these MQA CDs? as in mastering information?

[Audio]

Must be something there....people who hates MQA are actually buying these MQA CDs....    :)

 

(Audio)

[Guest AndrewC]

do we know the provenance of these MQA CDs? as in mastering information?

 

I’m not sure about the Universal discs, but Stereophile had coverage about the Chesky Rebecca Pidgeon MQA release; https://www.stereophile.com/content/chesky-release-mqa-cds-may

 

It’s not exactly clear, but appears to be from an identical master used for the highres 176/24 PCM (and DSD] releases that have been available for awhile. That said, the source of the original highres itself is unclear; most people believe Chesky recorded the session in Redbook and upsampled to 176 for the SACD and HDTracks highres PCM releases.

 

 

Must be something there....people who hates MQA are actually buying these MQA CDs....    :)

 

(Audio)

 

Oh come now Audio, I'm sure you're not so naive as to not know the difference between an Audiophile's techno-interest versus actually liking an audio format? Same reason many have DVD-Audio discs when SACD was always preferred. Too bad for you though, there’s already objective evidence that MQA is an inferior format despite your support, and is likely to die pretty soon when Tidal shuts it down and more hardware vendors rejecting the format :P

[Audio]

I’m not sure about the Universal discs, but Stereophile had coverage about the Chesky Rebecca Pidgeon MQA release; https://www.stereophile.com/content/chesky-release-mqa-cds-may

 

It’s not exactly clear, but appears to be from an identical master used for the highres 176/24 PCM (and DSD] releases that have been available for awhile. That said, the source of the original highres itself is unclear; most people believe Chesky recorded the session in Redbook and upsampled to 176 for the SACD and HDTracks highres PCM releases.

 

 

Oh come now Audio, I'm sure you're not so naive as to not know the difference between an Audiophile's techno-interest versus actually liking an audio format? Same reason many have DVD-Audio discs when SACD was always preferred. Too bad for you though, there’s already objective evidence that MQA is an inferior format despite your support, and is likely to die pretty soon when Tidal shuts it down and more hardware vendors rejecting the format :P

 

So inferior a format but still can have people buying the discs.  And then seeing them vigorously defending their purchase.

 

LOL, well that's good enough for me.  :)

 

(Audio)

[InnocentBlood]

I’m not sure about the Universal discs, but Stereophile had coverage about the Chesky Rebecca Pidgeon MQA release; https://www.stereophile.com/content/chesky-release-mqa-cds-may

 

It’s not exactly clear, but appears to be from an identical master used for the highres 176/24 PCM (and DSD] releases that have been available for awhile. That said, the source of the original highres itself is unclear; most people believe Chesky recorded the session in Redbook and upsampled to 176 for the SACD and HDTracks highres PCM releases.

 

that's what I suspected too. sounds like old wine in a new bottle. if these MQA CDs are indeed the Second Coming, then I would seriously consider buying the Oppo 205 just so that I can spin these discs

 

meanwhile I'm still waiting on MQA's promise of having access to the original master tapes and creating the MQA masters from the original source. is this still their intention? or have they drifted away from that to simply piggyback on existing hi-res sources and apply their proprietary MQA filters to those files?