Lenbrook Acquires MQA!

[matthias]

They are being bought by audio brand conglomerate Lenbrook.

Now I know which audio brand products I will never buy.

Matt

 

[ferenc_k]

I'd agree with the sentiment, let the customer choose. Give the choice of streaming the track in MQA or streaming the pure flac/wav/no mqa version. But the consumer was never given the choice on Tidal - all tracks were slowly converted to MQA because the marketing was all about convincing people that the MQA version played on a non MQA dac was the same as the non mqa version. In addition why would a streaming service carry multiple copies of the same track in MQA and non MQA consuming more storage - so I get the issues, but that's not consumer choice and was never about consumer choice - it was about injecting themselves into an end to end process - which is frankly the story of the music business - shaving money from every step of the process where the artist ends up with a tiny piece.

So you could then say - well go to other streaming services who don't carry MQA - which is a valid point, but the goal was always to just provide MQA version, that MQA would evolve to become the master that was shipped to all streaming services. Hires versions of the tracks were also not to be provided to consumers because MQA oragami is good enough, so again removing choice from customers. Except I doubt Apple ever bought into the MQA technical description and would much rather push their own spatial audio products, so it stalled with Tidal.

But if you say all streaming services carry both version along with the full hires versions and let the customer choose - then great, I'm pro consumer choice, not with an industry closing down or removing my options.

A few notes:
- Tidal shares what the labels or music distributors upload. I do not think they "convert" anything to MQA.
- I do not know precisely what happened while Apple is not using MQA in Mac OS, but after working with Apple for years, I think Apple did not want to license and integrate the MQA decoder code in their Mac OS ecosystem. Apple Music has no API (so it could not be integrated with other services like Roon) and does not even provide automatic sampling rate switching in Mac OS, so they are not audiophile-friendly.
- All AV streaming services (including Netflix and other video streaming services) take carbon-zero operations seriously. So, having MQA as a bandwidth and storage space decreasing solution makes sense in their scale. Even if we think we have unlimited bandwidth and storage space. Netflix spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars to move to amazon from their infrastructure.

 

[ferenc_k]

Now I know which audio brand products I will never buy.

Matt

Come on....

 

[davidavdavid]

Come on....

As stated earlier in this very thread, [paraphrasing} The consumer is free to make his/her choice in the matter.

For some, the decision by Lenbrook to acquire what was/is left of MQA speaks to a particular vision/direction of the parent company, Lenbrook, and its subsidiary brands' products moving forward. And that could very well be at odds. Lenbrook might very well decide to incorporate MQA into all of their lines. That's on them.

 

[ferenc_k]

As stated earlier in this very thread, [paraphrasing} The consumer is free to make his/her choice in the matter.

For some, the decision by Lenbrook to acquire what was/is left of MQA speaks to a particular vision/direction of the parent company, Lenbrook, and its subsidiary brands' products moving forward. And that could very well be at odds. Lenbrook might very well decide to incorporate MQA into all of their lines. That's on them.

At this stage, nobody knows what Lenbrook want to do with the MQA assets and brand. You are right; the consumer can decide, but discarding any Lenbrook-owned product and brand seems to be a bit rich from my point of view.

As usual, I do not want to convince anybody. Just sharing my thoughts.

 

[Al M.]

MQA did not need resurrection...

Do you mean that MQA should never have existed in the first place?

 

[davidavdavid]

At this stage, nobody knows what Lenbrook want to do with the MQA assets and brand. You are right; the consumer can decide, but discarding any Lenbrook-owned product and brand seems to be a bit rich from my point of view.

As usual, I do not want to convince anybody. Just sharing my thoughts.

Nobody knows for sure Lenbrooks's motivation for making the acquisition, the official press releases notwithstanding. Now that MQA is tied to/joined at the hip with an entity which manufactures brands, I'm hard-pressed to see existing MQA licensing contracts renewed unless the current licensee is so enamoured with the technology and regards it both as a plus and a differentiator for its respective products.

One would think that Lenbrook did not make the acquisition for altruistic purposes, out of charity, and that there is indeed a profit motive. #strangerthings.

 

[dsyzling]

A few notes:
- Tidal shares what the labels or music distributors upload. I do not think they "convert" anything to MQA.

- All AV streaming services (including Netflix and other video streaming services) take carbon-zero operations seriously. So, having MQA as a bandwidth and storage space decreasing solution makes sense in their scale. Even if we think we have unlimited bandwidth and storage space. Netflix spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars to move to amazon from their infrastructure.

When I said 'converted' I should have said 'replaced', I know Tidal are not converting tracks. Regarding Tidal - you've missed, as well as made my point, the music distributors control what the consumer will be forced to swallow. If the music distributors choose to only allow MQA then the consumer cannot choose to use the hires flac/wav version. I, as a consumer am no longer free to choose.

Given Netflix is streaming 4k content, I seriously doubt 24/192 touches the sides of carbon zero operations.

 

[Rexp]

Can't see how MQA can be resurrected, Tidal is phasing it out so there will no MQA content. I imagine Lenbrook are only interested in the other tech and the staff.

 

[bryans]

But the consumer was never given the choice on Tidal - all tracks were slowly converted to MQA

Sorry not true in my case. I don't remember having no choice in MQA or not. One of the things I have always done is listen to all of the different formats of a song and pick the one I like best. I personally don't care what format it is in. I choice what sounds best to my ears.

Now maybe having no choice in MQA was/is on the songs you listen to. I haven't found much if any of this.

 

[dsyzling]

Sorry not true in my case. I don't remember having no choice in MQA or not. One of the things I have always done is listen to all of the different formats of a song and pick the one I like best. I personally don't care what format it is in. I choice what sounds best to my ears.

Now maybe having no choice in MQA was/is on the songs you listen to. I haven't found much if any of this.

This was well documented over on the audiophilestyle forums by many of the contributors, where the original flac was replaced by an MQA version, the original was then no longer available to select. I had plenty of music in my collection where MQA was my only option, there were not multiple versions of the same track/album. Now, partly I can understand that from a user perspective it could have been confusing going forward to offer multiple versions of the same track, especially to a group of users who are not 'audiophiles' and don't care which one their listening to on their iphone/ear buds or beats.

 

[RCanelas]

Sorry not true in my case. I don't remember having no choice in MQA or not. One of the things I have always done is listen to all of the different formats of a song and pick the one I like best. I personally don't care what format it is in. I choice what sounds best to my ears.

Now maybe having no choice in MQA was/is on the songs you listen to. I haven't found much if any of this.

According to the plan, the production master would be mqa. The whole ridiculous 'white glove' treatment. So how would you have a choice? I fail to see it.

It's like saying you have a choice about listening to tape or another format when listening to Led Zeppelin. You're always listening to the tape, either the original or a reprocessed and repackaged copy. But the tape is always there.

 

[RCanelas]

Looking into this better Lenbrook did a pretty good deal. They effectively prevented another buying entity from jacking up their mqa licencing fees. Their exposure to those is probably not insignificant as they seem to be the largest hardware/software producer of stuff with mqa capabilities in it.

Here is to hoping that they'll just let it die while they and tidal phases out mqa.

 

[bryans]

According to the plan, the production master would be mqa. The whole ridiculous 'white glove' treatment. So how would you have a choice? I fail to see it.

It's like saying you have a choice about listening to tape or another format when listening to Led Zeppelin. You're always listening to the tape, either the original or a reprocessed and repackaged copy. But the tape is always there.

When I select a song that I want to listen to in Tidal, via Roon I have the option of selecting what format I want to listen to. I select a song/album and select "versions". Roon pulls up all of the different version of that song. I select which one I want to listen to.

 

[bryans]

This was well documented over on the audiophilestyle forums by many of the contributors, where the original flac was replaced by an MQA version, the original was then no longer available to select. I had plenty of music in my collection where MQA was my only option, there were not multiple versions of the same track/album. Now, partly I can understand that from a user perspective it could have been confusing going forward to offer multiple versions of the same track, especially to a group of users who are not 'audiophiles' and don't care which one their listening to on their iphone/ear buds or beats.

Sorry don't really care what is documented over on different forums. I simply go under versions in Roon and select what format I want. If it is a song that I want to put into my rotation, I tend to listen to all of the available formats. I then select which one I like better. If that happens to be MQA or one on Qobuz, or whatever, that is the one I keep in my rotation.

Sorry but I don't get caught up in the format craziness. I simply let me ears decide. If one wants to select a Non MQA format good for them.

 

[RCanelas]

When I select a song that I want to listen to in Tidal, via Roon I have the option of selecting what format I want to listen to. I select a song/album and select "versions". Roon pulls up all of the different version of that song. I select which one I want to listen to.

That doesn't answer my question at all. If the output of the production is only mqa, as was intended and presented as the best thing since sliced cheese, that's all you have. You have no choice. You can check the Qobuz version, but if the original master is mqa, then the Qobuz version is just mqa reprocessed, probably with the mqa headers removed from the flac, but still with all the artifacts there. Unless someone unfolded it and saved that file for qobuz to serve, but that you can't do... because it is proprietary.

So, how do you choose when there is no choice? This fits the definition of market cornering. I understand you don't care and you choose with your criteria, but others do care about the state of the music industry and consumer rights.

 

[DMSB]

Do you mean that MQA should never have existed in the first place?

MQA was never about "improving" audio, it was always about distributing audio. This is currently solved in much superior ways, so MQA no longer has a valid position to fill in the technology marketplace...

 

[microstrip]

MQA was never about "improving" audio, it was always about distributing audio. This is currently solved in much superior ways, so MQA no longer has a valid position to fill in the technology marketplace...

As far as I remember , although their documentation was not very clear about it, at some point there were claims that the MQA processing would "subjectively correct" for errors in the ADCs used in the recording, improving sound quality of existing digital recordings with common DACs.

 

[ferenc_k]

When I said 'converted' I should have said 'replaced', I know Tidal are not converting tracks. Regarding Tidal - you've missed, as well as made my point, the music distributors control what the consumer will be forced to swallow. If the music distributors choose to only allow MQA then the consumer cannot choose to use the hires flac/wav version. I, as a consumer am no longer free to choose.

Given Netflix is streaming 4k content, I seriously doubt 24/192 touches the sides of carbon zero operations.

Most music distributors do not allow the MQA process—only a (very) few do.

Netflix is using so-called shot-based encoding. It means an average 4k, 10-bit HDR thriller-drama episode shows the highest bitrate of 11.8 Mbps, a sitcom episode with less action shows the highest bitrate of 6.6 Mbps, and a 4K animation episode shows a bitrate of 1.8 Mbps. A movie with action and great amount of rich spatial details, showing the highest bitrate of 17.2 Mbps, but the average is generally much less.

Streaming 192k/24 bit flac file requires roughly 4 - 4.8 Mbps, while a 384kHz/24-bit MQA processed flac file would require (as a 44,1k flac file) roughly 1 Mbps bitrate.
When you have tens of millions of simultaneous flac streams, it makes sense to decrease the bitrate. So, I assume bitrates are a concern for carbon consumption.

 

[ferenc_k]

That doesn't answer my question at all. If the output of the production is only mqa, as was intended and presented as the best thing since sliced cheese, that's all you have. You have no choice. You can check the Qobuz version, but if the original master is mqa, then the Qobuz version is just mqa reprocessed, probably with the mqa headers removed from the flac, but still with all the artifacts there. Unless someone unfolded it and saved that file for qobuz to serve, but that you can't do... because it is proprietary.

So, how do you choose when there is no choice? This fits the definition of market cornering. I understand you don't care and you choose with your criteria, but others do care about the state of the music industry and consumer rights.

This is what Roon shows right now: 2 MQA versions and 1 simple 44k 16 bit flac of the same album on Tidal.
There is a choice.