MQA puzzlement.

Enjoy Tidal while you can at some point you need subscribers paying for the Hi-Fi tier. Something that isn't happening.

 

And where do you get your information?

 

The MQA people and the press keeping trying to push it. It has taken an effort to keep MQA from being a default but there is more work to do.

PS I had a great time in Portland about a month ago.

 

Did you do anything in particular or just visiting?

 

I have access to their financial statements don't you? They are public information and the 2018 ones are due at the end of the month.

 

Played in a golf tournament, visited family, friends and clients. I grew up there and was around Portland's "golden age" of hifi.

 

MQA reminds me a lot of CX noise reduction on vinyl records -- a system that was heavily promoted by its proponents, who planned to use it on all new albums going forward, but hated by engineers because it ended up making the audio sound worse for everyone who didn't have a matching decoder -- and even for the people who did have a decoder, the sonic improvement was minimal at best.

 

The hi res "No Expectations" has an incredibly realistic soundstage. It's as if there are three stools in front of me. Brian is on my right. Keith is on my left. Mick is in the middle. Behind Mick, to the left is Bill. Directly behind Mick, Charlie chimes in and to his right, behind Brian and slightly left of him is Nicky.

I don't get that from the MQA, but how many people care? How many people can hear that?

This hi res stuff is amazing!

 

Nothing that can't be done at 16/44.1. And it seems nobody cares about hi res and nobody can hear the difference.

 

I can

 

The most spectacular achievement of MQA has been to alienate, via its marketing shenanigans and lack of transparency, precisely the customer base it needed to create word-of-mouth enthusiasm and interest to drive demand.

A secondary feat has been to drive a wedge between hi-fi civilians and audiophile media to a degree that not even the obscene prices of too many reviewed components could manage to pull off.

 

It also taught people to learn about digital. I learned more about digital than I ever wanted to know thanks to MQA. Prior to it, I was happy just listening.

 

What has MQA taught us about digital other than how to make it worse and less convenient?

I could see a need for MQA if this was the 1990s when most people didn't have DVD players or broadband Internet yet. But in 2019, the concept of needing to use proprietary lossy compression and "unfolding"/"deblurring" tricks to squeeze pseudo-"hi-res" audio onto a CD or into lower-bitrate Internet streams seems laughable.

And like I said before, RealAudio proves that MQA's business model fails in the long run.

 

I just signed up for a trial Qobuz account. It is $5 more than Tidal but if it is better, I will drop Tidal.

 

I wonder if they have fixed their non-working Windows and Android apps yet?

 

I will let you know. I will do most of my listening through Bluesound, but some on an Android

 

And it didn't "take over" the industry, did it?

 

Uncompressed high res audio files could be handled by any broad band connections and nearly almost all modern phone connections. It really is not needed anymore

 

The math of hi res at 100 dB or below is troubling. The studies showing people can hear a difference are biased. Do you have an amp quiet enough for any of this to be possible?

I've been talking recording and mastering engineers off ledges all year because of Mark Waldrep's test last year. He has another one coming up be sure to participate.

And in 2021 are going to have electricity to play your audio system?

 

So anything that shows a difference is biased but I'm sure that Null results from ABX tests can be applied to any person and situation outside of the test conditions?

 

The studies so far are biased because nobody is interested publishing anything that shows users can't tell any difference. I'm a make a great hi res file then reduce it to 16/44.1 kind of person. Then listen for as long as you want. All I ask is you don't analyze the file first, no cheating.

 

To make it a fair comparison you need to upsample that file back to 24/96 or whatever you're comparing it to. Some players impose a poor-quality lowpass filter in their anti-aliasing of 44.1 kHz audio, which the conspiracy theorist in me believes is done intentionally to create a immediately noticeable difference between 44.1 kHz and "hi-res" audio, while little or no difference would be audible if they did it right.

 

MQA left the building. This "master quality" pompous big scam want to control the whole digital audio market. The digital world is too experienced to be fooled and will find ways to bypass this scam.

"The most significant audio technology of my lifetime" (Robert Harley); "I was present at the birth of a new world." (John Atkinson). I'm disgusted when I see such idiots and their pathetic propaganda.

 

I'm not so sure it's going away despite it's seeming failure to take off. The big record companies reportedly went all-in, no doubt thinking it's the perfect way to appease high-res loving audiophiles without technically giving away the family jewels. Take a look at this article by Jon Iverson:

MQA: Benefits and Costs

 

I presume you are referring to the math laid out by John Siau here. I've been contemplating this since a recent DAC upgrade. I'm stuck because I used to hear greater differences. Then I upgraded to what I found to be a superior DAC and the differences were reduced.
After more research and more theorizing, I'm coming to the conclusion that Mr Siau is correct. At my listening volume, in my treated room, 18 bits might be good enough for me.
I probably could never hear past what a 44.1 sampling rate can supply. However, that does not rule out the possibility of benefits from using higher sampling rates that move reconstruction filters farther away from the range of hearing.

Oddly, that all also fits in my acceptance that MQA can be better than CD by having an extra bit or two available above CD quality, and being lossless to 48k samples. It might also explain why many don't hear much difference between MQA and actual hi-rez when the combinations of room, equipment, and recording only allow the listener to appreciate 18 bits of resolution anyway.
Possibly another camp that has been used to listening to 16 bits their entire life suddenly hearing 18 bits from MQA and declaring it better.

Note, I reserve the right to change my mind later as I learn and experience more in life.