My new article series on MQA.

Great that you have the tunes ready to rock n' roll, Peter. Absolutely try to make sure you're comparing the same mastering. Would be interested to hear of your impressions and what music/gear you end up using.

Oh yeah... No matter what, don't squeeze too hard, your family/friends might not be impressed .

Cheers!

 

I think there's a certain camp in audiophilia that wants to vilify Hansen for standing up for consumers. Regardless of how many "prominent audio leaders" (sheesh ) allegedly lost respect, his stand against MQA makes him a bona fide hero to many!

 

Depending on which publications you read, TIDAL will either be out of business before the end of 2018 or in the black in early 2019 (or have I got the years reversed?).

I’m suggesting that TIDAL and Qobuz know exactly what sort of business they’re in and have picked their respective minimum target market types and sizes needed to achieve profitability, and have geared up to hit and then exceed those targets in the time frame in which it all has to be done before core investors jump ship and tank both companies. Time will tell, and not much more time at that. Personally, as a TIDAL HiFi subscriber I’m rooting for both companies to succeed.

Me too, especially if Qobuz hits Canada at the same time as it hits the U.S. market. As for dangling a lower price than TIDAL for its 16/44 stream, I have the sinking feeling that’s an approach that might never succeed, because in this market there’s a high probability that it could result in a race to the bottom. Both companies would still die, but one would die with a larger subscriber base. Lower subscriptions rates, at this point, I think just means a faster cash burn rate for the companies and a consequentially rapid cash flow crunch where they have to go back to VC’s for another round and to existing investors for yet another cash call.

I listen to an average of eight new albums - ones I’ve never heard before and that I’ve never owned in any format previously - every month on TIDAL HiFi, all at 16/44.1 at between 850-1411 kbps FLAC. At $20 a month, I’m getting more than my money’s worth. If TIDAL decides to raise its HiFi subscription to $25 or $30/month, I’ll pay it.

I also listen to JazzFM 91.1 FM radio in Toronto. It’s a non-profit, it’s superb, its signal is astonishingly good, and because it’s a non-profit there are a bare minimum of commercials. The station runs quarterly on-air fund raising campaigns. I contribute $20 a month to Jazz FM as well because I love the station and because I love the whole feeling that they’re curating jazz across a couple of dozen different programs and hosts just for me. Of course, that’s one of the great attractions of a great radio station. Anyway, again, I’m personally not looking for the lowest price but rather the best possible quality at what I consider to be a sensibly profitable price for the company providing the music to me. If Jazz FM pleads for a bump, I’ll raise my monthly contribution to $30. Well worth it. I’m happy that I can afford it.

I hope TIDAL and Qobuz make it.

 

Sounds like you and I use streaming differently. I use streaming to hear an album once or twice and see if it’s worth owning, and then for in the car listening so I don’t have to try and fit my whole library on my phone or keep a DAP in my car. Neither of those use cases requires that I pay a lot of money for the highest quality sound possible. And I suspect my use case is more common than those who use streaming for continuous critical listening.

 

Back in the early days of the Gramophone they did demonstrations, they would have a singer behind a curtain and a Gramophone behind an adjoining curtain. The audience would then sit and the singer would sing and they would switch to the Gramophone and apparently no one could tell the difference between them. They were just alike. Or so the tests claimed.

So Bob Stuart is running the same dog and pony show as they did at the turn of the last century. Barnum was totally correct.

 

However incautious Charles Hansen’s comments may have been, he wasn’t wrong. Implying that Hansen’s criticism doesn’t count because it was rude is inappropriate. Hansen was right to speak out, and he spoke truthfully and accurately on several occasions on the matter.

Consider too, that when one engineering peer calls out another he does a service to all other peers in engineering by pointing out flaws, faults and misrepresentations in a paper that was not properly peer reviewed before publication. That’s a critical error on the part of JAES and it’s shame that Stuart submitted the paper in the shape it was in. Several other engineers came out in direct support of Hansen’s critique even if they didn’t agree with the Hansen’s tone.

Confrontation is frequently painful, moreso when a person is confronted for his obfuscations and moreso when a company or organization is taken to task for its misrepresentations. I am unsympathetic. They bring such difficulties on themselves.

 

I would argue that Stuart’s craven cash grab in the form of MQA is far, far more disgraceful than Hansen’s rebuke of it.

 

I agree and I’d bet real money that your use case is more common than mine, without a doubt. Just as uncommonly, I don’t use a DAP of any kind. The only things I stream in the car (from my iPhone 7s) are podcasts, all spoken word such as In Our Time from BBC 4, Skeptics Guide to the Universe from the SGU based in New England, and a couple of others. The only music I listen to in the car comes through FM radio including the aforementioned Jazz FM 91.1 and Classical FM 96.3 (another excellent, albeit more commercial, FM station in Toronto).

Friends and I regularly curate and assemble TIDAL HiFi playlists that we share in advance of Scotch & Jazz listening sessions. We go through LP binges too, but TIDAL HiFi predominated in 2016 and 2017. Superb service.

All that said, every so often I too come across something on TIDAL that sets me on a search to find either the LP or the CD. Finding a new copy or a good used copy in either format is relatively easy in Toronto because we’re lousy with music stores in the city. From Grigorian Music for a massive classical selection (and a very respectable jazz selection), to Cosmos West for a massive used jazz LP selection, to Tonality for a comprehensive selection of new age, electronica and you-name-it that-is-current and cutting-edge, to Sonic Boom with its huge inventory of new and used pop, rock of all kinds, indie and everything else, to June Records, Soundscape, Play Da Record, the very excellent Rotate This, and the European-connected Quixotic Records where I get all the great jazz and avant-garde releases from Europe that never otherwise make it over here, and a dozen more music stores that I don’t regularly visit, the search can be a real blast. Toronto is great for LPs and CDs, no question about it. I’m lucky to have this sort of access.

 

Charley Hansen was a friend. Any audio leader that lost respect for him in 2017 is support for why we need new audio leaders.

 

If Charlie had good arguments, he could present them without personal attacks.

 

Maybe he was frustrated at metaphorically beating his head against a wall (MQA and Stuart’s supporters) and in unreasonable physical pain. The combination could cause anyone to lash out; it doesn’t mean he was wrong.

 

Charley had good arguments in 2014. Nobody listened in 2015 and 2016 so he turned up the volume until people did. In any case I was in the room when Bob Stuart was called a liar at the Los Angeles Audio Show and talked with him afterward. As opponents of MQA have found since then personal attacks are effective. MQA had no presence at RMAF 2017 for example.

 

I don't think the majority of us want to get personal. But there are times when it's perhaps warranted, maybe even necessary to go beyond usual etiquette and political correctness. Avoidance of conflict is just as damaging in the long run in many situations in life when cowardice leads to stagnation.

For Mr. Hansen, in retrospect, perhaps there was recognition that time was short and things needed to be said.

Remember that his comments were not just about MQA. He had concerns about the broader context of audiophilia and the media systems built around the hobby; how it was being reported, marketed, and by whom. About an industry that he spent much of his life helping to build...

Full disclosure: I don't agree with Charlie on everything he said... In fact, I've told him that I didn't like his digital filtering in the PonoPlayer and everything was still cool!

 

This reminds me of how bitter J. Gordon Holt became toward the end of his life. In interviews I read he had completely despaired of what he thought the hi-fidelity audio industry had become. He regarded it as a total betrayal of what he had envisioned, and had labored for so many years to establish. He essentially thought that his life's work had come to naught. I'm not sure he had an objective or an unchanging view of things throughout, but one thing he did lament near the end was the audio magazines' (including his own, Stereophile) rejection of blind listening tests as a reviewing method. I know he was also profoundly disappointed at the relative lack of attention to and acceptance of properly implemented multi-channel systems.

 

Your an egotistical little bugger arent you... like to drop "names" here and there.

I would suggest that you made more of a disgrace of yourself with this comment... the guy is dead for crying out loud.

But when he was alive he was a straight shooting, extremely well liked and successful audio engineer.... I have never seen anyone bitch about his products being voodoo.

He would be one of a handful of people that would be in the best position to judge MQA and he has my respect for calling it the way he saw it and along with a group of other manufactures made a public statement about how they wouldnt contaminate their product lines with MQA.

He didnt attack Bob.... he attacked MQA .

Peter

 

While I disagree with @LeeS vigorously on many things in this long thread, I've repeatedly tried to avoid the more overheated rhetoric and attacks that some of his other critics have employed.

In regard to this particular comment of his quoted above, though, I have to say I think that folks have gone far to easy on Lee. In my view this is an appalling comment. There's the repulsive cowardice of asserting (not opining, but flat-out asserting) that a dead man who can't defend himself "disgraced himself" at the end of his life. Add to that the incredibly condescending, and boundary-violating, claim that the man was in a lot of pain and so maybe that's why he lost his mind with those "disgraceful" comments. And then the finish: invoking countless unnamed "prominent audio leaders" to further damn the man with what is tantamount to gossip.

I don't care how apparently civil your tone might seem, Lee. That's disgusting. You should be ashamed.

(Edit: I see @ricko01 /Peter and I were typing similar thoughts at the same time. )

 

Apparently the pronouncements and sentiments from "industry leaders" as well those from MQA personnel and promoters function for Lee like that little blue light that he thinks is supposed to assure customers of "authentication" and inspire trust.

 

Actually the two things are not related. Hansen's arguments were solid, and additionally he also was blunt in his delivery. It's very convenient for you to attack his character instead of discussing the content of his arguments.

 

Many people were frustrated by the press reaction to MQA in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Charley was no exception. He talked with me a couple of times about how I got people to listen with the Vaporware thread. But generally I got brain dump on digital audio when we talked in 2017.

 

Puh-leez! I’ve written that I have an Aries Mini many times. The rest of your post about the Aries (any Aries with the new firmware) not being able to do MQA was completely wrong as well. Just admit you were wrong and move on. Too many snowflakes on this forum!

(I hope you took that in jest!)

 

Check the Aries web interface and make sure MQA support is selected. It is supposed to be the default setting in the latest firmware iteration, but it doesn’t hurt to check.

BTW, here is what the Aries web interface says about MQA support:

 

I don't know the OP personally. I didn't know Charles Hansen either.

But the comment about him, from the OP, tells me more about the character of the OP than anything else. And I don't mean that in a good way.

 

Thanks, but the Aries (unlike your Aries Mini) does not contain a DAC. So, no MQA support which is just fine with me. I have access to other DACs if I want to again frustrate myself with MQA. The Aries is a bridge streamer that requires an external DAC, not a DAC/streamer like your Mini.

 

The full size Auralic Aries does not contain a DAC, so it cannot implement MQA support. The full size Aries, unlike your Mini, is a bridge streamer that requires an external DAC. Your Aries Mini is a DAC/streamer that obviously does not require an external DAC and that’s why the v5 firmware with MQA support is available for your Aries Mini but not the full size Aries. My Aries firmware is up to date at v4.5.

 

While I've expressed my utter disinterest in MQA in my single post in this thread, I've maintained a sort of professional interest in the on-going discussion because, as someone who has worked in sales/marketing for something like three and a half decades, I've been fascinated by the OP's ability to maintain the appearance of reasonableness as he sticks to his scripted pitch under an absolute hail of objection. Mr. Scoggins here has had himself a pretty good run. But the Teflon always wears through eventually. And the the appearance of reasonableness is thus shown for what it is : the appearance of reasonableness. No more than that. With that illusion dispelled, credibility dissolves like a teaspoon of sugar in a glass of tepid water. The game ends. No sale.

While we're concerning ourselves with who has "really disgraced themselves" during the MQA debate, the post I've quoted leads me to let the OP know that if we are indeed in the process of compiling such a list of the sullied, he should not be surprised if many here would see him charting high. The quoted post is the measure of the man who posted it and the measure comes up short.

No sale, Mr. Scoggins.

D.D.