My new article series on MQA.

Outside of Top 40 music I don't know that the major labels are relevant anymore, are they? I think those days are over for good. I kind of say good riddance. Now, more than ever, you can do it all yourself and not give up any creative control and keep all the money you make and own your publishing. You can get an agent or just books gigs on your own, sell recordings at the show and on iTunes, bandcamp, cdbaby etc. and stream on Spotify. You can connect with fans all over the world through social media. That's what all my musician friends do. And imo that's where all real innovative stuff is anyway. And I don't think they will ever even hear about MQA.

 

Number 4 should scare the pants off both the consumer and mastering engineers out there. There is nothing positive in there for the consumer, only MQA and the "labels". Who gets to determine which magic mastering gets to the public? Competition in all areas is good for the consumer and keeps pricing competitive as well.

The average consumer doesn't give a crap about blue lights, or the initials MQA. They already listen to music in lossy formats and are perfectly happy. This is about forcing a product on consumers so that the industry can get the cash machine rolling in high gear again and regain control over their property.

In addition to my previous plea to get some feedback from music professionals outside the MQA clan, I'd also love to hear from some musicians out there to see how big a cut of this they will be receiving (that was a joke). I've yet to see any articles (please feel free to send links) that mention musicians clamoring to get their catalog MQA mastered. If the "labels" follow their usual business pattern, they will likely charge them for the privilege.......

 

There is something positive here for the consumer, more hirez music and music that is filtered for better sonics.

I'm not convinced that the average consumer doesn't care about listening to authentic files. I think some will if the marketing is done well. You can get people to look for the MQA brand, and even those that don't care as much might want the option so if most hardware makers are on board then that could be a deciding factor on hardware purchases.

I'm going to talk to some musicians for my research but I don't think MQA solves the problem of artists getting paid properly for streaming.

 

I think one has to examine what steps MQA took to decide that the triangular encoding was not audibly different from the traditional approach. MQA is telling me that they were very thorough and scientific in setting up listening panels of critical listeners in their tests leading up to the MQA approach. My job is to weigh the evidence on both sides.

 

I think the value proposition for the consumer is the same thing streaming offers now, a huge music library for a set monthly fee only with MQA the quality is much better.

 

Why all this talk about 176, 192kHz & higher sampling rates for MQA encodes?.. In my understanding, lossy MQA folding of 22...44 & 24...48kHz spectral content is performed with 88 or 96kHz audio, which first was downsampled from higher sampling rate sources using MQA's infamous "leaky" digital filters (this BTW results in prominent aliasing of source's signals above 44 & 48kHz thresholds into 0...44 & 0...48kHz bands, sometimes ending up even in audible ranges, i.e. 0...22 or 0...24kHz), and creating 24/44 or 24/48 MQA-encoded PCM audio. MQA unfolding in software or hardware restores MQA folded content of 22...44 or 24...48kHz ranges (including aliases from leaky down-sampling stage before MQA folding) thus recreating pre-folding stage 88 or 96kHz signal (mostly, since folding was lossy). MQA hardware then upsamples the MQA unfolded 88 or 96kHz audio to the source's original sampling rate using chosen by MQA "leaky" digital filter (i.e. MQA rendering).

 

I have no relationship with Spence other than someone at MQA has asked him to encode some of my recordings for MQA playback so I can perform a listening test on recording sessions I am very familiar with.

 

It's not really downsampled. The 96-192khz area is folded into the 24/48 file. It is then restored by a second unfolding. It's not upsampling.

 

Thanks, I'm very interested to read about the musician take on this. In my admittedly biased view of the music industry, I can see the labels charging bands (whether against their advance, future royalties or a one-time fee) for the conversion of their material to the MQA format. Heck, I wouldn't put against the labels to charge the artists an additional 'convenience' premium for this and actually make it a profit center.

 

All I can say is that if MQA isn't paying Lee, they should be.

 

The 48-96k portion is (as far as I know) losslessly folded. The 96-192k portion is lossy folded - it is indeed downsampled. The 96-192k portion is "restored" during the final render stage via upsampling (and the filtering).

 

I don't think there are any plans for doing this. It would be like charging people a fee to set them up to pay them less.

 

Yes, it is. See the ~30kHz peak on MQA-decoded audio spectrum graph A; it was in 2L's DXD source B at ~58kHz (not at 30kHz) & is the aliasing result of "leaky" SRC to 88kHz:

 

The logic you’re attempting to use is not working here. You’ve speculated that the results of my own listening sessions are lies. But you weren’t at my listening sessions, ever, while I’ve likely attended nearly as many shows and show demos as you have over the past 45 years. Can you see how poorly that line of reasoning works for anyone? No matter how you involve yourself or my listening session results or your show demo impressions, I don’t present listening sessions at audio shows. My kind of evaluation listening sessions are not welcome at audio shows for things like MQA. My kind of evaluation listening sessions are not now (nor would they likely ever be) welcome at audio shows because my evaluation listening sessions tend to reveal whatever glaring flaws may exist. Please understand that it is such glaring flaws that show demos of the kind you described are specifically designed to obscure. That’s how show demos of certain kinds of products have always been designed. Product makers spend a lot of time, effort and money to ensure their products sound their best at show demos, no matter what sorts of tweaks are needed. While there’s little inherently wrong with that - we attend shows to hear products at their best - MQA demos that dazzle reviewers in ways that I and others have been utterly unable to duplicate at home during multiple attempts, strongly suggest that the MQA demos are rigged. I don’t have to attend a specific show demo (that, in part by by your own description, inadvertently exposes its contrived nature) to know what went on.

Your guy, Beekhuysen, mentioned in one of his YouTube videos that he was looking foward to getting his hands on an MQA encoder in order to experiment on his own. I’ll bet real money that the MQA group never makes an encoder available for purchase or review by a member of the audiophile media or the consumer public. My reasoning is that because of every description I can find, MQA is a closed-shop process designed to enable labels to introduce a new encoding system that will gradually be armed with DRM that is already embedded in the MQA file structure. If MQA deployment reaches a pre-determined critical mass, activation of DRM will take place. It’s only a matter of time and reaching critical mass. That is all a prediction. Time will tell. I’ll be delighted to be proven wrong.

The biggest mistake the labels ever made was putting a copyable master in the hands of every single music consumer. The copyable master was the CD. From a purely business standpoint, it was a dumb, short-sighted move. The labels have been trying to put the genie back in the bottle ever since. According to the results of my MQA listening sessions, MQA is no better than CD or a TIDAL HiFi stream in most cases, worse in some cases, and very rarely better. I’ve stated that repeatedly in this thread and in other MQA threads. What MQA represents, according to the information I’ve gleaned here and elsewhere online and at shows, is that if all the world is heading for streaming and file sharing universally over the course of the next 15 years, then MQA will be positioned as a barely CD-quality technology to redress the music labels and music copyright holders by eventually enabling the lockdown of songs and albums and thereby making illegal file-sharing and illegal file copying much more difficult. We’ll be back to a situation similar to the LP and tape, a situation in which every copy is by definition an inferior copy. As far as I know, MQA has begun initial talks with the major computer operating system makers in an effort to get them to consider embedding MQA. This is all a prediction. Time will tell. I’ll be delighted to be proven wrong.

I didn’t listen to the original McGrath files because I have no access to them, as you well know. Rather, I listened to files available to anyone who participates in the purchasing of or subscription to publicly accessible music in the retail marketplace. In essence, I listened to music outside the closed-shop environment of a carefully structured show demo. It’s bizarre to me that after all of the explanation about how show demos work - how the demo you described hearing worked - that you still aren’t getting the distinction.

And what does, “(...) the Wilson Audio people verified that MQA did not mess with the original McGrath files except the encoding into the "after MQA" file,” actually mean? On its face, the statement doesn’t scan - at all - because either the McGrath files were encoded/decoded by the MQA process or they weren’t. You can’t declare that files weren’t “messed with” (as you put it) if in fact they were encoded/folded/origamied/defolded/unfolded/decoded by the secret MQA process to begin with and then an MQA software player and hardware DAC during the presentation/demo. If the McGrath files weren’t “messed with” by MQA, then all you heard was the original McGrath files without MQA! I think you might have meant to write that the McGrath files weren’t hurt by MQA? If so, that’s not much of a recommendati0n for MQA. In fact, it’s not a recommendation at all. Again.

 

I think this is mostly right but I view the term "upsampling" to be largely related to approximations with no guidance from a native file, whereas I believe MQA has information to interpolate from.

 

Again, more cherry-picked answers. No one is clamoring for high resolution files other than a select, small sub-set of music consumers. If they were, the "labels" would be tripping over each other to get the music to them (for a fee). File size has been proven by others in this thread to be irrelevant. The high resolution crowd is not keeping the music industry afloat.

All this talk about getting people to look for the MQA brand exposes this for what it is: a big marketing push to get consumers steered in the direction the industry wants, not want the consumer is asking for. Authentic files? What the hell is that? The music I'm listening to now is authentic, I don't need some blue light to make me all warm and fuzzy about what I am hearing.

Again: lossy, DRM capable and lowered resolution for those that don't buy in. Gee, what's not to like??

 

I just don't see how any element of the Sunny's room demo could be designed to obscure. We had clean MQA files. We had a highly resolving system. We had several before and afters on different pieces of music.

You seem intent on assuming some nefarious conspiracy to what was a very straightforward demo.

 

Don't be delirious. You can't pack 4x signal into 1x (i.e. 22 or 24kHz) samples using just 8-10 bits...

 

These are all just opinions. If you talk to labels, they are concerned about the bandwidth at scale problem. They want a seemless experience on mobile and they see the networks getting choked.

And the comment about the consumer not wanting hirez. Maybe not but if we get as part of big streaming push then who cares? And how do we know what the consumer really feels about hirez since there has been no real marketing campaign? The last one was involved in a format war.

 

How do you know? Have you ever tried triangular encoding? And how do you know it is just 8-10 bits?

 

Get serous, with 2 bits of resolution? Makes no sense to me.

 

Sadly I must confess I'm having a serious problem parsing and understanding this statement. A further more detailed explanation will be greatly appreciated, especially explaining how the quality is supposed improve while:

1. The main problem we are having with new releases or some remastering of older albums is the lack of professionalism during mastering and aggressive dynamic range compression. How is MQA supposed to improve that? I'll regard your hypothesis as a fallacy, unless you point to the mastering stage where MQA will improve the end product compared to a typical 192/24 going through the same chain but without the MQA.
2. Are you suggesting that the only thing a customer need to do in order to enjoy the benefits of this supposedly better quality is paying a monthly fee to a streaming service? Who is supposed to absorb the price of the MQA compatible DACs?

 

Then MQA should have no problem handing over both files to allow independent assessment.

 

1. The mastering and recording engineers and labels must take ownership of that. I think MQA approaches might encourage better behavior but that is a difficult industry problem beyond MQA's scope. As for the better file, the MQA files offer deblurring filters so there should be some gain there. I know they have spent a lot of R&D dollars on "profiling" most of the studio gear in use.

2. The only burden on the consumer is to but some software that does the first unfolding to 96 and if they want buying an MQA-compatible DAC if they want the second unfold. Then they must pay for the streaming service. The hardware maker must pay for a license fee to MQA and work on MQA compatible product designs.

 

That depends on the artist rights of the recording.