My new article series on MQA.

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by LeeS, Jan 9, 2018.

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  1. LeeS

    LeeS Music Fan Thread Starter

    Location:
    Atlanta
    I don't have a timetable but I know Sony is preparing a huge release. I know Chesky is about to launch HDMusicStreaming and they will have lots of titles. Remember, the first 10K titles of MQA files became available in just nine months. My guess another 10K will be done soon.

    And given the momentum of MQA with business partners (hardware vendors are still coming on board), I think they likely convince the really big streamers of Youtube, Google, Apple, and Amazon before long.

    The volume of those four guys is so large that any sign-up probably sets up MQA for financial success.
     
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  2. ServingTheMusic

    ServingTheMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SoCal
    While you are here, have you been offered an MQA demo, as numerous other mastering engineers have? and if so, your take?
     
  3. ribonucleic

    ribonucleic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SLC UT
    Thank you for the reply.

    As you point out, high-res audio on physical media never found mainstream acceptance. It's not clear to me why the labels expect people to start paying that price premium now simply because they're streaming instead.

    If anything, the abandonment of redbook quality on CDs for the 160 mp3 of Spotify should be proof - if any more were needed - that the mass market always chooses convenience/price over quality.
     
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  4. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    I think these generally are quite reasonable points. I agree with you on items 1 through 3.

    On item 4, I also agree, and would only add that I think item b. is by far the most important for the labels, and also the most worrisome for consumers interested in high-res music, including purchasing high res (a niche market likely to continue for many years). By investing in MQA, the labels do exactly what you say: They gain a revenue stream (which is what I'd call ROI in this context). It's the labels' way of (A) dealing with piracy of digital files by generating income from MQA licensing at all stages of production and decoding, rather than generating income only from selling the digital music; and (B) generating additional revenue from streaming, but crucially revenue that unlike music royalties doesn't have to be shared with the artists. I mean, wow, $10/month for regular Tidal but $20/month for MQA - a significant chunk of that has to be going to MQA and therefore to the labels. That's a massive toll to pay for high-res streaming.

    As for the ideal, like you'd I'd like a huge library of lossless high-res files. However, I do have to reiterate that I'm not so sure that without MQA we wouldn't see a gradual, less expensive, albeit slower, conversion of everything to lossless redbook and then lossless high-res, as bandwidth increased and storage got even cheaper. And so in that respect I am concerned that MQA is raising prices by inserting its own profit-taking layer, and making it easier for the labels to do the same.
     
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  5. LeeS

    LeeS Music Fan Thread Starter

    Location:
    Atlanta
    As for my term "slightly lossy", of course I know its either lossy or not. However, I think in this case the lossy part may not matter in terms of audible degradation.
     
  6. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    For the ultrasonics, it's this, and only this:
    Hypersonic effect - Wikipedia

    For the phase linearity, I'll leave that to others - I believe there's a good deal more literature out there on that.
     
  7. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    This is quite true, unfortunately. I have no interest in streaming, either. It may be that because of a lack of commercial interest, the only hi-res consumer format that ultimately survives at all will be the good old LP.
     
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  8. ribonucleic

    ribonucleic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SLC UT
    For that matter, the lossiness of 320 mp3 is indistinguishable from redbook in 99.99% of listening cases. And you don’t have to pay an extra $12o a year for it.
     
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  9. LeeS

    LeeS Music Fan Thread Starter

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Not really true.
     
  10. LeeS

    LeeS Music Fan Thread Starter

    Location:
    Atlanta
  11. Ortorega

    Ortorega Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    The beauty of this is that it puts money in Bob Stuart's pocket at multiple stages.

    Streaming might very well be the future. Streaming has been going on without MQA for a while now, and it is good. MQA brings nothing positive to streaming, and is not needed for streaming.
     
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  12. firedog

    firedog Forum Resident

    You forgot to note that he referred to INDEPENDENT sessions.
     
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  13. firedog

    firedog Forum Resident

    Lee, I'm beginning to think you have serious reading comprehension issues.
    Again you use the word "feel" when we are discussing facts. Lossless is a specific technical definition having nothing to do with "feel".

    Lossless means the original file can be bit for bit perfectly reproduced from the (compressed) file. MQA by design and definition doesn't do this. Being "focused on that magic triangle where all the spectral content of the music is" is a clever way of saying that they ignore/throw away the rest of the file. In other words, NOT LOSSLESS. You say you agree with them b/c you like/prefer the sound of the result. Good. What about people who don't? They perceive meaningful content has been thrown away in this lossy scheme.

    MQA claim that their files are functionally lossless b/c they don't eliminate "anything that matters" (my paraphrase). That's an opinion of SQ, not a fact. It's an indirect way of agreeing they throw away part of the file. And check again: 24bit files processed by MQA are not more than 17bits in depth. So, by definition LOSSY.

    Are you so modern that you can't perceive the difference between a fact and an opinion/approach/feel?
     
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  14. firedog

    firedog Forum Resident

    The short version: the labels like MQA because it gives them more opportunities to take money from the consumer. No mention in your 5 points of anything about SQ or why it is actually good for the consumer. Reminder: "good for recording companies" does not equal "good for consumer".

    As far as point d: you can master one standard 24/96 or 24/192 master and provide it to sellers of downloads: no need to provide multiple versions. The consumer orders whatever format he/she wants. The seller's download manager downloads the file and converts it to the format paid for. If you didn't know, that's how labels like HDT work today.

    You keep repeating "chance for wider availability of hires music": you've still never explained in any meaningful way why this can't be done without MQA. Again: a properly dithered 18/96 file made from a 24bit hi-res master is smaller than the equivalent MQA file and contains MORE of the original information from the master. So tell me again why MQA is needed to save streaming bandwidth?
     
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  15. firedog

    firedog Forum Resident

    Your answer is irrelevant. Since the demo wasn't independent, it can be manipulated to produce the desired result. Even if the files are the "original" files. Are you unaware that these kinds of things are done all the time and even intelligent audiences are unaware? It's a well known marketing technique. Make the demo appear objective, even when it isn't.
    So you have no idea if the demo was completely clean. You think it was. Your opinion is no better than mine, and I wasn't there.
     
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  16. firedog

    firedog Forum Resident

    Wow. Another industry insider who likes it. And amazingly enough, can't find a single MQA file that he thinks isn't an improved version.

    I guess I should stop listening on my own and decide that my ears aren't good enough, and just accept what Lee and a few others are telling me....
    And then, when the industry "deletes" all the non MQA versions of files from availability, I can be even happier, as none of those inferior versions will be available anymore to pollute the pool of superior MQA files.
     
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  17. Claude Benshaul

    Claude Benshaul Forum Resident

    Why isn't it true?

    I'll also add that MP3 is widely supported across a variety of platforms and devices and has modest bandwidth requirements. What's not to like about it?
     
  18. rbbert

    rbbert Forum Resident

    Location:
    Reno, NV, USA
    There is no way this is a “win” for the audiophile. It’s a qualified win for listeners who use Tidal HiFi (which I strongly suspect is a small minority of listeners who consider themselves “audiophiles”) as long as they aren’t paying extra for yet another mastering of albums. It’s an unqualified win for the record labels and principals of MQA.
     
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  19. ribonucleic

    ribonucleic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SLC UT

    I frequent a politics forum. And the commenters have to keep reminding ourselves that we are in top 1% of the top 1% of awareness/engagement in the matters we discuss. With respect to what goes on in the real world, we are so numerically insignificant that we effectively don’t exist.


    When I said “listening cases”, perhaps Lee - from his similarly exclusive perspective - was thinking about audio show attendees wearing expensive headphones focusing on transients. I meant “paying consumers consuming music in the ways they consume them”. Since of course only the latter group is large enough to financially support any wide scale audio initiative.


    And "paying consumers consuming music in the ways they consume them” means cheap earbuds connected to mobile phones with data caps. And if he thinks they can distinguish 320 from redbook in that circumstance - that they even care about being able to do so - he's simply not living in a world I recognize.
     
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  20. Mel Harris

    Mel Harris Audiophile since 1970!

    Location:
    Petaluma, CA
    We'll just have to agree to disagree here. You apparently have a relationship with "Spence", which gives weight to the notion that you're acting on MQA's behalf by creating this thread and zealously defending MQA with every post.

    What Chrislu is saying is, "Lossless PCM is too good for consumers. Let them eat MQA".
     
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  21. firedog

    firedog Forum Resident

    Yep. The 99% say they can't hear any difference between mp3 and CD. And for how they listen, they can't.
    I contend they can hear the difference, but it has to be pointed out to them first. Once they are made aware of the difference, they can hear it. Discerning listening is a learned skill, not an automatic one.
     
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  22. firedog

    firedog Forum Resident

    I loved "The difference here is that the MQA file is folded so its not the full 24/192 file. So the advantage to the label is that it is a (near)perfect copy of the master."

    No the advantage to the label is that it ISN'T a PERFECT copy of the master. Even Robert Hartley in AS has said that the labels like MQA b/c they want to protect the "crown jewels", but still market something that isn't the master, and claim it's "better".
     
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  23. riddlemay

    riddlemay Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    I'm agnostic about whether MQA is a good or bad thing. But here's why I hope something like it (maybe better than it) will come along. I miss the days when there was a viable "record business." When record labels flourished and put out lots of new music and reissues (including discs for which there were minuscule markets), and spent big bucks recording large ensembles, and promoted new artists, and attracted top musical talent with the promise of large rewards, and on and on. That's all gone now. If what it takes to get back there is some form of DRM, combined with some form of audio advance that excites people, combined with some easily-grasped marketing that makes this audio advance a "thing" in people's minds (like the CD was), then I'm all for it. And I'll happily pay a dollar more for it, in return for seeing that world again.
     
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  24. Night Version

    Night Version Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    So you desire access restrictions and corporate schlock rock?
     
  25. Mel Harris

    Mel Harris Audiophile since 1970!

    Location:
    Petaluma, CA
    ...so that MQA's lawyers know where to send the Process Server. :)
     
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