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The Goldensound MQA backlash

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Posted on June 8, 2021 at 20:58:15
13th Duke of Wymbourne
Audiophile

Posts: 2800
Location: Orange Co., Ca
Joined: September 19, 2001
 Just read JA2's editorial in the latest Stereophile about the Goldensound MQA tests. I noticed Hans Van Beekhuyzen, on line, was critical and now JA2 has piled on and I wonder if that is, in part, because Goldensound (whoever he, or she, may be) came up with a clever way to test MQA encoding and they didn't! And, if you show that MQA truncates and aliases data is that an attack on MQA? I suppose only if you already know that's what it does but I don't think the MQA publicity machine have gone out of their way to emphasize those features. Full disclosure, I've never heard an apples-to-MQA-encoded-apples comparison but I fully accept all the positive stories in Stereophile that it is subjectively preferable. And there is precedent in audiophilia for the objectively compromised to be subjectively preferred (viz. tubes and vinyl) so why don't MQA sell the system on sound quality and forget all the untruthiness in their marketing?
Yes, MQA is clever. But if Bob Stuart is so clever why doesn't he realize that pretty much all potential users have more than enough bandwidth to not need any compression? Maybe they could market just the 'de-blurring' bit - or would that end up just another playback filter selection? Probably not enough to monetize, which leads to Goldensound's point that Tidal users do not get a choice whether to stream the original hi-rez file or the MQA version, only the latter. This, IMHO, is the crux, the selling point of MQA is for the content owners who can then promise us hi-res masters but not provide them. I don't think you have to be a Libertarian to be annoyed with that.
In December 2020 JA wrote an editorial about 'truthiness' - how well we think our system sounds is more important than what it actually does. If I enjoy it, don't bother me with the measurements. Fair enough. I think JA-classic is also subjectivist first - except when the measurements weren't good you could tell it did bother him.

Regards,
13doW

 

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RE: The Goldensound MQA backlash, posted on June 9, 2021 at 09:00:05
geoffkait
 Woulda, shoulda, coulda. The post, while well written, is decidedly speculative. One assumes Goldensound is not to be confused with Golden Sound.

 

RE: The Goldensound MQA backlash, posted on June 9, 2021 at 18:22:58
13th Duke of Wymbourne
Audiophile

Posts: 2800
Location: Orange Co., Ca
Joined: September 19, 2001
 Hi Geoff,
What is speculative? What Goldensound did, Jim Austin's editorial or my post?
JIC, 'Goldensound' is a reviewer who popped on YouTube recently and he found a way to test MQA end-to-end. AFAIK, no other reviewer or anyone has been allowed to do this by MQA, including Stereophile.
I don't wish to stir up the anti-MQA hornets here but their marketing line has always been you can have your cake and eat it (hi-res in a lower bandwidth stream) but what Goldensound showed is that MQA change your cake. I was disappointed that Jim Austin saw that as an attack on MQA. Now, maybe the cake you end up with actually tastes better, I don't know, but it would be nice to see the ingredient list.

 

lots of interesting chatter on the topic..., posted on June 10, 2021 at 05:27:52
mhardy6647
Audiophile

Posts: 16019
Location: New England
Joined: October 12, 1999
Contributor
  Since: October 23, 2016
 right where one'd expect to find it. See link below as an example :)


all the best,
mrh

 

Neither Hans or Jim refuted Goldensound's work, posted on June 10, 2021 at 11:56:20
Dave_K
 MQA lost credibility years ago when its inventors and supporters could not defend it against the logical and technical arguments saying that MQA couldn't deliver on its key claims. Now we have seen test signals go through the process and they reinforce the previous technical arguments.

It seems there's nothing left for MQA supporters to hang their hat on besides suggestions that it somehow sprinkles magic pixie dust on recordings to make them sound better.

But the truth is that it's just a different method for lossy compression of hi-res PCM. I prefer my hi-res with no loss please, and the closest thing to master quality is the hi-res master. Warner (and others) takes those hi-res files from their back catalog, pushes them through a lossy compression algorithm, and puts them out on Tidal. It's beyond me how you can call that "master quality" and claim it's how the mastering engineer intended it to be heard.

 

RE: Neither Hans or Jim refuted Goldensound's work, posted on June 10, 2021 at 12:56:41
raya
Industry Professional

Posts: 662
Joined: May 9, 2014
 At best MQA is an answer to a problem that does exist or at worst it is DDT!

 

Well, there is a cure to all of this. VINYL! Sorry, couldn't resist. NT, posted on June 10, 2021 at 19:49:25
Merlot_cat
Audiophile

Posts: 1437
Location: Northern Ohio
Joined: August 7, 2002
Contributor
  Since: May 27, 2004
 NT
The whole problem with the world is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
-Bertrand Russell

 

An MQA - vinyl equivalence, posted on June 10, 2021 at 21:21:30
13th Duke of Wymbourne
Audiophile

Posts: 2800
Location: Orange Co., Ca
Joined: September 19, 2001
 Both rely on music having less dynamic range at high frequencies.
For vinyl, using RIAA equalization, it is not possible to cut as high a dynamic range at 10kHz, as it is at 1kHz because there is a limit to the maximum modulation velocity that can be cut into a groove without damage. As music doesn't need such a high dynamic range at 10kHz vinyl gets away with it. MQA takes advantage of the lower dynamic range but using less bits to capture high frequencies it does for lower frequencies.

 

RE: An MQA - vinyl equivalence, posted on June 11, 2021 at 10:34:02
CG
Audiophile

Posts: 432
Joined: October 11, 2000
 There's another factor that is hard to get around.

Most vinyl recordings were engineered and mastered under one set of guiding aesthetics, for the technology and tastes of the day. Many digital recordings of these were redone or remastered since the original was sold to the public in vinyl format.

So, although they're the same, they're not. MQA or no MQA. Not exactly apples and oranges - maybe more like tangerines and oranges.

Whether you like one over the other or it doesn't matter to you at all, it's still there. Makes comparisons hard.

 

RE: The Goldensound MQA backlash, posted on October 14, 2021 at 16:11:38
rmilewsk
Audiophile

Posts: 534
Location: So. Cal.
Joined: January 10, 2008
 Almost everything in the original post has been said by different reviewers for years. The poster puts it in one location for easy reading. It may be speculative but I don't see it being any more speculative than a Stereophile opinion column. I appreciate the post and hope the original poster has more information to share.

 

"I was disappointed that Jim Austin saw that as an attack on MQA. ", posted on October 15, 2021 at 06:33:12
DAP
Audiophile

Posts: 668
Location: Toronto
Joined: January 1, 2010
 Indeed. Jim Austin didn't like it when members of this forum said he was shilling for Bob Stuart. But here Jim has no hesitation to call GoldenSound's test as shilling for "anti-MQA predators". What GoldenSound set out to test was whether MQA was lossy, and he showed that it was.

Daniel

 

RE: The Goldensound MQA backlash, posted on October 17, 2021 at 04:41:56
Paul Wilson
Reviewer

Posts: 97
Location: Southeast USA
Joined: October 7, 2014
 Like all better than CD formats, MQA can sound better than, the same as, or on occasion, worse than a CD. I have heard MQA sound magnificent and I have also heard it sound terrible. I can say the exact same thing for high definition recordings and for that matter, the ever humble CD. I must believe all audiophiles have recordings that simply sound less than desirable.

When you separate the audiophile aspects of MQA from the business side, one thing seems to make abundant sense. The audiophile hobby does not, in any way, have the sales potential to justify the huge investment made by both MQA and the record companies. Adequately monetizing MQA to an acceptable profit margin will be nearly impossible if the only sales outlet is audiophilia.

I see the goal as a different one entirely from the audiophile hobby. MQA is more than happy to let audiophiles and anyone who cares about sound quality discuss and disagree about the technical merits of the technology. All this is done while at the same time MQA chases its real goal -- replacing low resolution music playback on handheld Apple and Android devices. In fact, that has already begun.

Think about it, from a licensing standpoint, who has deeper pockets, the companies making luxury stereo equipment or Apple and Samsung? Which is better, collecting a licensing fee from a few thousand, even ten thousand high end audio component manufacturers or the hundreds of millions smartphones sold every year?

I feel sure the people at MQA are really amused by all of this. Personally, I am not a fan of MQA in any way. I have not been sufficiently impressed to invest the huge sum of money it would take to revamp my system to make it possible. I am also not swayed by the audio origami and the folding and unfolding of the signal MQA purports it does to allow high resolution music to be transmitted on a limited bandwidth. Actually, I find the whole discussion dubious at best. One commenter was absolutely correct, most people have sufficient bandwidth in their homes to render MQA unnecessary. A smartphone? Not so much.

Some will champion MQA, others will disavow it completely. Interestingly enough, I did a review of an MQA encoded physical CD and compared it to the streamed version and also the Red Book CD version. The physical CD won. But because streaming introduces profound levels of jitter that most DAC's cannot fully correct, MQA falls victim to the same sonic degradation incurred by all streamed music. That is another reason I am not impressed by MQA -- I'm not impressed by streaming.

In my view, MQA will probably never be fully or widely accepted by audiophiles for two main reasons: One, the technology is not supported by nearly enough potential users. There are too many listeners that are overtly suspect of what it claims it does. And two, the technology does not sufficiently deliver on its promise, superior sound, on a consistent enough basis therefore almost negating its use completely. Of course, this second condition may well be partly to blame by the system itself. Regardless, why pay for something if you do not feel it offers all that much of a sonic advantage?

I will admit, I found the Goldensound piece very, very interesting. It seemed to mirror what I myself had decided about this controversial technology -- it's not for me. Others may, of course, feel quite different.

 

MQA & CD & PCM, posted on March 14, 2022 at 13:56:36
Bromo33333
Audiophile

Posts: 3502
Location: Ipswich, MA
Joined: May 4, 2004
 I have the same track available at all resolutions. I'd say 24/96+ in PCM is the best. Even fully decoded, MQA & CD feels much heavier.

The reviewers talking about "sounds isn't important as one thinks" is really saying when you are enjoying your time listening to music, the music and quality of sound is super important, but other factors enhance the enjoyment, too (if you are in a good mood, a glass of wine, comfortable chair, etc).
====
"You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you." ~ R A Wilson

 

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