MQA - A clever stealth DRM-Trojan (CCC talk)

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Ric-Tic, Mar 12, 2018.

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  1. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    But the service provider sells a given broadband or fibre offering. It's neither here nor there how their customers use the service. So the benefit is for the customer on a very minimal monthly allowance or slow network. Otherwise, it's open season.
     
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  2. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    MQA is not HiRez. Lossy compression used. Sorry. Truth is truth. And this one is where my Yellow Button dealing with the "Output Of The Bull" comes in.
     
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  3. Shiver

    Shiver Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    This is another (personal) annoyance at MQA (not your comment!) - 'Master Quality Assured' indicates it's faithfully representing the master. The best. As good as it gets. It's actually a lossy, re-hashed interpretation. To use the word upstream again, it's just bollocks.

    Might as well stand for Milking Quixotic Audiophiles.
     
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  4. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    The benefit to the consumer would be that file streaming services might have more incentive to provide something audibly equivalent* to high resolution if there is no associated increase in their network traffic cost.

    I'm not expecting anyone to sympathise with the congloms but I presume this is what MQA are talking about when they bring up the advantages of reduced bandwidth requirement, allegedly without audible quality loss.

    * According to MQA



    The increased cost is to the streaming service, for using more bandwidth. They will set their consumer price structure accordingly. It's perfectly possible that it would not need to impact the consumer, my point is that is has an impact on the network traffic cost to the streaming service. The incentive for adopting MQA is not restricted to the consumer benefitting from the claimed lossless equivalent sound quality, it is also desirable to the streaming service who will be able to offer high resolution audio at lower traffic cost to themselves.
     
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  5. wellers73

    wellers73 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    Understood, but in my Blue Note example, the MQA versions are still a huge improvement the so-called "Hifi" versions. It could be better, but that's the best we have on digital, so it's what I'll listen to. Or maybe I'll just stick to listening to my Blue Notes on LP.
     
  6. missan

    missan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Stockholm
    How many times can consumers be fooled? It´s a rhetorical question.
     
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  7. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    But it STILL makes no odds if the ISP is ALREADY providing access that's far and above over the streaming needs MQA are dealing with. The data transfer and stream volumes simply don't compare.
     
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  8. Claude Benshaul

    Claude Benshaul Forum Resident

    @Mal I think I understand the basis of your argument. You think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the audio streaming service is priced on a cost+ basis. Therefore less cost will result in a lower consumer price.

    This is flatly and irrevocably wrong. The prices are undoubtedly set at what the market can bear and lower cost will only result in higher profit margins.
     
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  9. Claude Benshaul

    Claude Benshaul Forum Resident

    According to the legend, PT Barnum found that it's possible to fool customers at least once every minute.
     
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  10. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    As I said above, the consumer may well not be impacted either way but for the streaming service, bandwidth costs money and a more efficient audio encoding scheme would have some appeal to them, especially since they can charge the consumer for a premium service.
     
  11. Claude Benshaul

    Claude Benshaul Forum Resident

    So we are in perfect agreement that MQA has zero benefits for us but may help the bottom line of commercial audio streaming services. Good, moving on.
     
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  12. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    Here we're creating fake reasons why streaming companies don't offer high res (or even CD quality!) streaming. They've offered their customers the opportunity to pay more money for higher quality. The customers didn't bite.
     
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  13. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    If that's the case then a move to being able to offer the customer higher quality without raised cost might be something more enticing.

    I get the anti-MQA thing - I do. I mean, anyone who's been on the planet for 5 minutes is on the lookout for the next con. However, it seems like some people are so determined that MQA is a con that they automatically twist everything in that direction even if it's reasonable.

    Data volume efficiency is a major factor to those in the business of buying bandwidth.

    The part that is in question to me is whether MQA delivers on its promise of full audible resolution despite the lossy codec.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2018
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  14. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    I suppose you could look at MQA as being of no benefit to the consumer if you ignore the effect its introduction may have on the services provided.

    Of course, MQA claim there is increase in quality with their codec (audible 'de-blurring') which would be a benefit if it turns out to be accurate. Increased quality with a lossy codec? Yes, it sounds daft on its face but there is actually substance to the claims, in theory at least.

    For me, I'm not really interested enough in MQA to become a consumer at this point - perhaps because I don't use streaming services. If I hear enough overwhelming positive reviews I suppose I might give it a try eventually but my ears are getting worse, not better...

    I am interested in the arguments it has raised though - at least give MQA credit for that :righton:
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2018
  15. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    The people really worrying about bandwidth usage typically aren't John Q. Taxpayer trying to stream Tidal MQA at home, but systems professionals running large scale IT infrastructures.
     
  16. Claude Benshaul

    Claude Benshaul Forum Resident

    @Mal it's a mistake to look at MQA only in the context of streaming. How will you feel the day you find that you can't buy music on any media that isn't MQA encoded? Because that's where the industry will move to if MQA gain any acceptance. You may then claim that it doesn't matter as long as the quality is equal to Hi-Res, but then I will counter by asking how would you know if MQA is the only game left in town.

    Speaking of quality. What are your feelings toward a company that claim it based its codec on science when it is later discovered it this "science" applies only to Mongolian gerbils and barn owls? Are you still willing to trust them or their sock puppets more than the 83 participants in the MQA blind test? Yes, you can argue that it proves that MQA is the equal of Hi-Res, but that's not what MQA claim. What they claim is their deblurring is an audible benefit, which I hope is something we can now agree might hold some truth if you are a Mongolian gerbil.

    I know I don't want to live in a future where the only music I can buy is the one curated and approved by MQA. I hope I will not have to even if it means that I will have to be as annoying as I can be.
     
  17. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    You mean like the people running the servers supplying TIDAL or Apple Music, etc.?
     
  18. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    Don't forget Spotify. But MQA is selling a benefit to the consumer. And the consumer already has ample capability at their disposal to stream comfortably if they wish.
     
  19. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    MQA is the new Cyberdyne? It's an audio codec - it won't last forever and if it sounds as good as some people say then it could be worse (cf. the CD era).

    As for the 'debunking' of the neuroscience references, has anybody read any of the papers? I haven't and I have no plans to. Is this another example of jumping on the imagined hint of an Achilles heel and making a big stink about it without it actually being shown to undermine MQA's statements? It's easy to point fingers but there's more to debunking than just reading something on a forum and repeating it. I'm not saying this is an empty claim but I'm not going to swallow it just because it's the new stick to beat MQA with.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2018
  20. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    Don't you see?? We all benefit - that's the beauty of it!

    Hang on a minute, what's that smell?

    ;)
     
  21. rednedtugent

    rednedtugent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Funk, Ohio
    I'm with those that can live without MQA for the rest of their lives and will fight to do so.
     
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  22. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    I'll not answer the question, but there's really no benefit for the consumer unless you're on a very limited data plan.

    Your ISP doesn't care, and Tidal certainly doesn't as all it's doing is sending a file with a flag on it that tells the receiving hardware it's MQA.

    We're five years on from needing MQA. Most mobile phone services are offering large data allowances these days.

    If you're stuck on 500Mb a month, MQA is absolutely for you. Me? I've had an unlimited data allowance for six years now.

    And now that I've tried out MQA, I can pretty much say that, for me at least, it's a non-starter, both for data purposes and absolutely out of the question for audio.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2018
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  23. Kyhl

    Kyhl On break

    Location:
    Savage
    If bandwidth were a problem for audio streaming providers, there is another open source solution available to them that solves their problem, flac.
    The streaming providers could use flac on an equivalent MQA based file size of 18/96 and end up with similar or even smaller file size and save the original samples from 49-96khz without any loss.

    This bandwidth argument has failed over and over again.

    So if you remove the bandwidth problem because it is false, you are left with de-blurring. The de-blurring happens by using aliasing filters to reduce pre-ringing. Any DAC manufacturer can implement aliasing filters on their own but they usually don't because they know that it comes with other costs, namely extra high frequency energy in the audio band that was not part of the recording.
    Why should we force a proprietary aliasing filter on all DACs when any manufacturer can implement them on their own? The answer should obvious enough to be rhetorical.

    Does MQA reduce file sizes? Yes and an open source option is also available that works just as well or better.

    Does MQA de-blur? Yes and this option is available to any DAC manufacturer.

    So why do we need MQA? :shrug:


    I do have to give credit to MQA. They have forced me to learn more about digital music than I was ever interested in learning. As part of being an educated consumer before spending my money I had to research and learn about what they were trying to sell before I could decide. This was something that I never cared to know before MQA. Just like most people don't care to know how their car works and just want them to work when they "turn the key", I just wanted my music to work without having to research all this stuff. In hindsight, I'm glad that I have gained a better understanding of how digital audio works. Maybe I'll dig even farther now.
     
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  24. ralf11

    ralf11 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Earth
    re: bandwidth usage

    I am hearing from engineers who have pulled apart the MQA files that they are not smaller than FLAC.
     
  25. Mel Harris

    Mel Harris Audiophile since 1970!

    Location:
    Petaluma, CA
    I suspect we have been reading/hearing similar things. To be clear, not smaller at the effective bit depth of MQA.
     
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