Interesting video on MQA
- Thread starter jai1611
- Start date
My initial reaction to MQA even before I knew more details or ever heard it play was: yet another ploy to make us buy music we probably already own
It's an attractive proposition for music labels. And equipment makers wouldn't want to be caught dead not riding the latest hype.
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Deleted member 15865
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Commonly happens when we make idols out of persons and believe them blindly.
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I started to have my doubts when more and more albums and songs where encoded as MQA. Among the songs that I listened to, FLAC vs MQA was probably 60:40. And this not for new recordings as I hardly listen to the um "Most popular of 2021"
sandeepmohan
Well-Known Member
He admits they were forced to adopt mqa or risk losing customers.
Mqa has been a con job right from the start. I decided not to put any money into it as I simply could not understand how it works or what benefit it offers. I'll give it to them for writing amazing documentation on how it works. You WILL fall for it. Its a bit like the days we had component video, s video and component video for our consumer TV's. Each of them claimed superior picture quality and results. I fell for it and bought a 100hz Philips 29PT8836 crt tv, fed a progressive scan output from my dvd player. I could not tell if it made a difference or not, aside from the higher refresh rate, which the TV defaults to anyway. All of this really made a difference only if you were in a TV studio.
Its a bit like, we've locked in a 4k picture and you need to use a renderer that upscales it from 2k to 4k, and probably makes it worse in the process.
I sure am glad I stuck to good old flac from HD Tracks. I don't own the latest or greatest dac either. What I hear is all that matters. Guess what I use for streaming music? The YouTube Music App. It makes even grunge sound great.
Yogesh
Well-Known Member
It's not a particular industry, But people in general. Most things will sour on you if you look closely!
Reinet Investments S.C.A is the majority owner.
WAVE REALISATIONS LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK
WAVE REALISATIONS LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk
Read the first few pages of the "Group of companies' accounts made up to 31 December 2019" dated 07.01.2021 for more information on the legal structure of the company. But the principal actor is Bob Stuart who was involved with Meridian. According to the above report, a significant amount of the IP involved in MQA was from Meridian and has been transferred over to MQA LIMITED.
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@Nikhil Thanks for taking the effort to dig this out and share.Reinet Investments S.C.A is the majority owner.
WAVE REALISATIONS LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK
WAVE REALISATIONS LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
Read the first few pages of the "Group of companies' accounts made up to 31 December 2019" dated 07.01.2021 for more information on the legal structure of the company. But the principal actor is Bob Stuart who was involved with Meridian. According to the above report, a significant amount of the IP involved in MQA was from Meridian and has been transferred over to MQA LIMITED.
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If they are able to influence well known names in streaming (Tidal, Radio Paradise etc) and several Audio electronics manufacturers to stream and receive MQA and the vast majority of listeners have no problem with it ....it’s a bit like climate change???
@Nikhil Thanks for taking the effort to dig this out and share.
If they are able to influence well known names in streaming (Tidal, Radio Paradise etc) and several Audio electronics manufacturers to stream and receive MQA and the vast majority of listeners have no problem with it ....it’s a bit like climate change???
Word is that the labels were paid for services with shares in MQA Ltd.
As I said before, the rest of the industry got behind it for the entire new market that it created.
Climate change is real. MQA is an imaginary solution to a problem that never existed.
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So as usual they all make money together and consumers (suckers) pay?
Not to belittle the urgency of Climate change, I feel Both are real, happening now, and a problem for us all.
MQA's technical merits and its claims are debatable. A lot of issues pointed out in the new video have been published in other forums (including ASR, Archimago, Pinkfish media) a couple of years back itself. So it's not really anything new. And MQA is no more or less of a con job than hires audio.
But all this does not make MQA less innovative or lacking business sense. While video industry came up with 3D, Bluray, 4K, both for streaming and static content, audio industry has been significantly behind in terms of real innovation. Hires audio was the sole hope. But high res audio was not easily accessible as it was limited to just a few high-end devices.
With most users consuming music via streaming services, any technology that 'claims' to offer high res audio to new wannabe audiophiles, even in their smartphones, is an automatic win. A lot of MQA's adoption is due to their partnerships and endorsements. Bob Stuart is well respected in the audio industry and has managed to get endorsement for MQA from RIAA(which is an association of all music labels in America), the respected Audio Engineering society (particularly Japan AES). MQA has given a new lease of life to music labels - Warner, Sony and Universal - all of these are in the process of monetization their old archives with new MQA 'masters'.
MQA has cleverly devised a 2-level unfolding mechanism that addresses both software-only devices such as smartphones but also specialized DACs that can use the 2nd level unfolding for allegedly better quality. Equipment manufacturers are also happy now because they can upsell MQA-ready equipment.
Coming to consumers, Tidal is the main source for consuming MQA music as of now. Tidal again has cleverly bundled hires MQA quality music as a seperate plan from CD quality 16/44.1 music leaving the choice of MQA or regular CD quality music to the user. So subscribers of Tidal HiFi plan are paying (same as other hifi music services) for CD quality music and they can try MQA music for a little more if they wish to do so. So one can argue that MQA is not being forced upon consumer and the later is free to make an informed decision.
MQA is a combination of some technology innovation and a lot of business innovation. As an entrepreneur, I have tremendous admiration for what they have achieved in such a short time with proprietary, closed technology. However, their sustenance is still a question unless they can find someone besides Tidal to sign-up. When Spotify Hifi rolls out, Tidal and MQA will likely die a slow death.
But all this does not make MQA less innovative or lacking business sense. While video industry came up with 3D, Bluray, 4K, both for streaming and static content, audio industry has been significantly behind in terms of real innovation. Hires audio was the sole hope. But high res audio was not easily accessible as it was limited to just a few high-end devices.
With most users consuming music via streaming services, any technology that 'claims' to offer high res audio to new wannabe audiophiles, even in their smartphones, is an automatic win. A lot of MQA's adoption is due to their partnerships and endorsements. Bob Stuart is well respected in the audio industry and has managed to get endorsement for MQA from RIAA(which is an association of all music labels in America), the respected Audio Engineering society (particularly Japan AES). MQA has given a new lease of life to music labels - Warner, Sony and Universal - all of these are in the process of monetization their old archives with new MQA 'masters'.
MQA has cleverly devised a 2-level unfolding mechanism that addresses both software-only devices such as smartphones but also specialized DACs that can use the 2nd level unfolding for allegedly better quality. Equipment manufacturers are also happy now because they can upsell MQA-ready equipment.
Coming to consumers, Tidal is the main source for consuming MQA music as of now. Tidal again has cleverly bundled hires MQA quality music as a seperate plan from CD quality 16/44.1 music leaving the choice of MQA or regular CD quality music to the user. So subscribers of Tidal HiFi plan are paying (same as other hifi music services) for CD quality music and they can try MQA music for a little more if they wish to do so. So one can argue that MQA is not being forced upon consumer and the later is free to make an informed decision.
MQA is a combination of some technology innovation and a lot of business innovation. As an entrepreneur, I have tremendous admiration for what they have achieved in such a short time with proprietary, closed technology. However, their sustenance is still a question unless they can find someone besides Tidal to sign-up. When Spotify Hifi rolls out, Tidal and MQA will likely die a slow death.
There is nothing ethical in MQA to be admired for. One may admire them for their art of false claims..
The scam about MQA is that it simply is a digital filter that could easily be implemented in software. Instead, MQA has gone about making up these elaborate nonsense terms and then made manufacturers incorporate all this in hardware to make people believe that you have to purchase new gear to have access to their secret sauce.
If you take a look at some of the software discussions on players like bughead etc you will see that many of us experimented with similar filters that arguably made the sound better or different. But like I said this is all possible with software.
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Precisely,
They’ve made it tougher for future technological developments in this regard to warrant unnecessary scrutiny and skepticism from audiophile community at large. Any Genuine scientific breakthrough in music format technology will have it tougher to get a deserved attention. There’s lot to improve in digital music playback, both on Software side and hardware side ; everything Seems to have hit roadblock with this deceitful profiteering scam.
That’s a biggest loss to the audiophile community and to genuine scientific research in General.
I admire them for their astute business sense and marketing capability. No one can deny that MQA is a big selling point for Tidal.
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