MQA: Chicken S$$t to confront critics

MQA Truth · Sep 18, 2017

MQA Avoiding Confrontation:

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6046

"MQA continues to spin their thread of sonic improvements through “origami” and removing “time smear” with high-end equipment manufacturers, audiophile reviewers, and streaming services. Among professional audio engineers and equipment designers, the jury is still out on the merits of MQA. I’ve made my position pretty clear over the past couple of years — they have developed solution to a non problem. There is no need to enhance fidelity beyond high-resolution PCM, FLAC encodes are DRM free and open to everyone and deliver better compression, and virtually all tracks consumed on disc or via streams aren’t high-resolution to start with and therefore can’t possibly benefit from MQA. Not to mention the minor detail that Robert Stuart and his team offered to encode a number of my own high-resolution tracks, lend me an MQA capable DAC, and let me evaluate the before and after for myself. I uploaded a bunch of AIX Records files almost 3 years ago and stopped pestering Robert and other company representatives many months ago. I gave up."

Mike Lavigne · Sep 18, 2017

I have a permanent Mark Waldrep filter on my brain.

but thanks anyway.

plissken · Sep 18, 2017

I have a Mark Waldrep filter to. It puts his blog posts into my inbox so I can read the musings of a rational mind. Same with Archimago and NWAVGuy when he was still publishing.

Same for Olive and Toole.

MQA Truth · Sep 18, 2017

plissken said:
I have a Mark Waldrep filter to. It puts his blog posts into my inbox so I can read the musings of a rational mind. Same with Archimago and NWAVGuy when he was still publishing.

Same for Olive and Toole.

That is crazy talk.

Rational minds? That is a lonely club in this hobby/industry.

Al M. · Sep 18, 2017

The Mark Waldrep article indeed seems rational and reasonable to me.

plissken · Sep 19, 2017

I think it's telling that he delivered Bob Stuart his master tracks three years ago with a promise that they would be transcoded into MQA but never happened.

plissken · Sep 19, 2017

Al M. said:
The Mark Waldrep article indeed seems rational and reasonable to me.

Chriss Wiggles is another rational mind

Believe High Fidelity · Sep 19, 2017

When MQA was released at a show in LA they declined to allow CD side by side comparisons....

So far there have not been any SBS where the source and its mastering has been the same but with the MQA magic added for public consumption and to disprove non-believers.

The fact that the music industry moguls have added MQA just means they see profit in it. How much care has there been from them to get the best quality delivered to the under user or allow for formats other than PCM?

This is just another nail for me in the MQA coffin. We as audiophiles LOVE comparing everything and it is what we do. Not hard, requires little preparation, and if it is as good as it markets to be then it should be the easiest close in history. But MQA was not designed for destined for the audiophile and will grow to be a new container that promises better sound to get you to buy your 18th version of Kind of Blue.

I am not knocking MQA per say and I am not a detractor for it, but I am not finding or being compelled to believe in it either. Just my .02

Lee · Sep 22, 2017

The LAAS demo with Sunny's Components played back a comparison of files with non-MQA then MQA. I'm not sure how much fairer it could get.

Believe High Fidelity said:
When MQA was released at a show in LA they declined to allow CD side by side comparisons....

So far there have not been any SBS where the source and its mastering has been the same but with the MQA magic added for public consumption and to disprove non-believers.

The fact that the music industry moguls have added MQA just means they see profit in it. How much care has there been from them to get the best quality delivered to the under user or allow for formats other than PCM?

This is just another nail for me in the MQA coffin. We as audiophiles LOVE comparing everything and it is what we do. Not hard, requires little preparation, and if it is as good as it markets to be then it should be the easiest close in history. But MQA was not designed for destined for the audiophile and will grow to be a new container that promises better sound to get you to buy your 18th version of Kind of Blue.

I am not knocking MQA per say and I am not a detractor for it, but I am not finding or being compelled to believe in it either. Just my .02

MQA Truth · Sep 22, 2017

Lee said:
The LAAS demo with Sunny's Components played back a comparison of files with non-MQA then MQA. I'm not sure how much fairer it could get.

I'm smelling a shill...

Diapason · Sep 22, 2017

These threads are getting increasingly frustrating and ridiculous.

I sat in on an MQA vs red-book demo about 18 months ago. However, it's clear that there's no point even attempting to discuss this on WBF as things stand, which is a shame indeed.

Believe High Fidelity · Sep 22, 2017

Lee said:
The LAAS demo with Sunny's Components played back a comparison of files with non-MQA then MQA. I'm not sure how much fairer it could get.

Afraid I can't just take for face value someone elses files against the MQA ones. Would need to know it was from the same source material and I can only guarantee that if it was from my own library of music

DaveC · Sep 22, 2017

Believe High Fidelity said:
Afraid I can't just take for face value someone elses files against the MQA ones. Would need to know it was from the same source material and I can only guarantee that if it was from my own library of music

+1... The loss of credibility not allowing CD vs MQA comparisons is going to be tough to recover from and considering the multitude of reports that MQA "sometimes" sounds better vs non-MQA makes me have to assume the MQA demo tracks were cherry-picked.

It's on MQA to provide information and prove they have fair demos otherwise Occam's razor dictates this is a way to distribute music with DRM in a lossy format and has little to nothing to do with improving digital sound quality.

I'm still open to the possibility MQA is legit, but how can you possibly botch the intro worse than they have?

MQA Truth · Sep 22, 2017

DaveC said:
+1... The loss of credibility not allowing CD vs MQA comparisons is going to be tough to recover from and considering the multitude of reports that MQA "sometimes" sounds better vs non-MQA makes me have to assume the MQA demo tracks were cherry-picked.

It's on MQA to provide information and prove they have fair demos otherwise Occam's razor dictates this is a way to distribute music with DRM in a lossy format and has little to nothing to do with improving digital sound quality.

I'm still open to the possibility MQA is legit, but how can you possibly botch the intro worse than they have?

Let me repeat, the comparison should NEVER EVER be against Redbook.

MQA claims to encode 24 bit mastered files. It should only be compared to the corresponding hirez download.

MQA Truth · Sep 22, 2017

Diapason said:
These threads are getting increasingly frustrating and ridiculous.

I sat in on an MQA vs red-book demo about 18 months ago. However, it's clear that there's no point even attempting to discuss this on WBF as things stand, which is a shame indeed.

Can you elaborate?

853guy · Sep 22, 2017

MQA Truth said:
Let me repeat, the comparison should NEVER EVER be against Redbook.

MQA claims to encode 24 bit mastered files. It should only be compared to the corresponding hirez download.

I have to agree.

My take is the more instructive A/B will not be either a comparison of an MQA file through an MQA converter with decoding versus non-decoding, nor the Redbook version versus the MQA version, but the original 24/96 non-MQA source file through the same MQA converter versus the MQA file with decoding.

That comparison has already been done apropos content mastered by the original Mastering Engineer, for whatever that may be worth, here: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/12407154-post218.html

Best,

853guy

PeterA · Sep 22, 2017

Diapason said:
These threads are getting increasingly frustrating and ridiculous.

I sat in on an MQA vs red-book demo about 18 months ago. However, it's clear that there's no point even attempting to discuss this on WBF as things stand, which is a shame indeed.

Why is that? I would welcome you sharing your impressions of that demo in these threads? Some may criticize the demo if you describe it, but others might find your thoughts quite valuable. I encourage you to share them with the readers.

Mike Lavigne · Sep 22, 2017

MQA Truth said:
Let me repeat, the comparison should NEVER EVER be against Redbook.

MQA claims to encode 24 bit mastered files. It should only be compared to the corresponding hirez download.

going forward I will be looking at hi rez downloads I already own to compare to MQA files i play, and then report. I'm not going to worry about accessing files I don't already have, but when I have them I will comment.

NorthStar · Sep 22, 2017

Thanks Mike for the comparison you did earlier. And if you do more we all gain.

Al M. · Sep 22, 2017

PeterA said:
Why is that? I would welcome you sharing your impressions of that demo in these threads? Some may criticize the demo if you describe it, but others might find your thoughts quite valuable. I encourage you to share them with the readers.

Seconded.

MQA: Chicken S$$t to confront critics

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