 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
160.39.32.96
I promised this in a thread below. Here it is: a summary of an interview I conducted with Bob Stuart. I think it addresses a lot of reasonable people's concerns (although I have no illusion that some diehard critics will be converted). It certainly sets the record straight on what's actually happening.
MQA and Warner: the Real Scoop
Jim
Follow Ups:
Does this mean that, if a vast segment of the industry does this transcoding of their entire catalogs, NOS Dacs won't be able to play these CDs?
No. CDs and CD players will be unaffected, and streaming and downloadable files will still play via any PCM-capable digital-to-analog converter.
I have to wonder based upon the admittedly scant critical analysis (cough-cough) I've seen.
Let's take Atkinson's blind testings as example.
Just to clarify, I scored 4 our of 7 correct in this blind test (see link below). But as I later explained, 2 out of the 3 I got wrong were the same track, Steely Dan's "Babylon Sisters," where I misidentified it as what I thought was the better-sounding MQA version. Specifically, I preferred the quality of the bass on what turned out to the original hi-rez file.
Hmmmm...? While not 16/44.1 v. MQA 16/44.1 is it not reasonable to ask if perhaps the MQA encoding was responsible for the preferred bass of the hi-rez original? And if that were the case who's to say the same wouldn't be true for MQA encoded 16/44.1?
Let's look at the Atkinson's subsequent thoughts ...
If you eliminate those 2 failures, I got 4 out of 5 correct in blind comparisons on the other tracks, which, while still not statistically significant, is relevant information, I feel.
So rather than wondering if MQA encoding somehow messed with the bass, instead he suggests the samples should be tossed, yielding a better result from his testing in favor of MQA identification!
___
I think that speaks for itself and I suggest, given Stereophile has gone all-in for MQA, reasonable folk should expect more Ra-Ra-Ra, not critical analysis, from said esteemed publication on this topic.
This is not the first time that he has teamed up with the audio media on format publicity.
Lossless was one case and this was responsible for the bad mouthing and killing off of sacd.
Another UK manufacturere was even more successful in killing off Japanese Direct Drives, which is now much valued by audiophiles. These guys claimed that they were making belt drives with bearing accurracise that werb just not possible in absolute terms those days. I used to have 2 Linns and never found them to be any better (in fact more coloured) than my direct drives.
As for the first subject of your post, I couldn't say.
However with respect to Linn and the press killing the DD TT market, that is specious in the extreme, giving the them undeserved credit.
The big Japanese manufacturers had no interest in that foolishness, busy as they were phasing out the TT in preparation for the launch of the CD ... perhaps the greatest cash cow the industry (music + manufacturers) ever experienced.
Hogwash The big Japanese manufacturers were happy to sell turntable until the level of sales fell way off that they were no longer profitable. It was good Ol' Ivor and his allies in the British magazines who make the crazy claims about the deficiencies of Direct Drive turntables. The British press was eager to help the native manufacturers even if the product wasn't as good as imported products. That kind of thought moved into the US audio press with the importation of people like Collums, Kessler and their ilk. All you have to do is read TAS or Stereophile from that era and you can start to see the change take place.
Of course the British Press has no problem with imports now that so much of the local manufacturers have been bought by the Chinese. They ignore the fact that their local equipment is now made in China and the names are just names with nothing of substance behind them.
When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it. ~ Bernard Bailey
I actually attended a demo conducted by the great man at the London Hilton - a big space in which he compared turntable v cd player.
The sound quality of the replay was poor, so that any comparison between the two had little meaning (for me anyway). Yet the audience all nodded in favour of the turntable when so suggested!
This demonstrates to some extent the power of the media and the force of suggestions to an audience.
Jim, while I think you did the right thing by going to the source...Stuart..there is so much pie in the sky it is remarkable.Let us examine a few things here.
First, a blatantly incorrect statement:
"Because typically what's happening is these retailers are sent a file, they could be sent an [88.2kHz version], and then they make all the DSD out of it because they can charge more for it." With MQA you can have confidence that the file was produced from the master the label or artist prefers. If the file is manipulated post-release, the MQA light won't shine."
I don't know of a SINGLE instance were a retailer..Pono, HDT, Qobuz etc took a file and upsampled it or converted to another format like DSD. This is a preposterous statement.
I won't even go into the fantasy that "many" streaming services are interested. The biggest, and by far most widely know LOSSLESS streaming service is Tidal and it is hemorrhaging money.
Lastly, these 24/192 transfers that are supposedly being MQA'd are FLAT transfers of tapes. This is a hugely important distinction. The are in no way "definitive". The most popular titles are then mastered and produced in lavish collectable box sets with unreleased material and content on BlueRay or DVD. It is a huge revenue stream for us. MQA is a non factor here.
Edits: 10/29/16
/
Right. He just makes shit up.
Hi,
I agree with quite a bit about what you say. The only thing I disagree with is the part about DSD. There are currently DSD files on the market at a premium price that were PCM to begin with.
Doug Schneider
SoundStage!
Hi Doug, yes there are SACDs out there that have originated from digital mixes..Dire Straights/Brothers in Arms comes to mind, as does the remixed Genessis SACDs, and a bunch of the Peter Garbriel SACDs. A ton of albums were mixed to early digital or even multitracked to digital in the mid 80s. Some of the last few David Bowie albums as well.
But can you name an instance where a third party vendor created DSD from PCM. Not a label who also sells direct, but a third party resseler?
Off the top of my head, look up Holly Cole's "Girl Talk." There are others, but that comes to mind.
Doug
Actually, that does not answer my question. What vendor? Can you provide a link?
The question is has a THIRD PARTY vendor created faux DSD. Those Holly Cole DSD files are sold at multiple vendors. They came from the label.
Hi,
Here's a link to one. Undoubtedly the label was involved, but I don't think the label created it. The point here is that it's a 44.1-native file "recreated" as DSD and sold for a pretty high price (I know, I bought it). It's also been manipulated pretty heavily. I guess you could call that something of a "remastering."
http://www.prostudiomasters.com/album/page/454
Doug
Doug, the exact same album in DSD is available at acoustic sounds, and at HDTracks in decimation of DSD, among others. The DSD originated from an SACD that was never released. Pro Studio masters had nothing to do with creating this DSD download.Vendors are NOT creating their own DSD.
http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/99663/Holly_Cole_Trio-Girl_Talk-DSD_Single_Rate_28MHz64fs_Download
Again to circle back, Bob Stuart claimed on line vendors were creating their own upsamples or DSD files. This is false.
Edits: 10/29/16
Hi,Actually, I do know how it was created and there was never an SACD of it that I know that was intended for release. The people who created it were sent the original PCM files.
Below is a link to how it was made.
Doug
Edits: 10/29/16
Right, I have seen this link. But again, this was not created by an online retailer, but by the production team. So that ends the argument it was created by PSM, HDT, or Acoustic Sounds. Was it created from PCM? No doubt. By a retailer? NO.
BTW, I did see information that it was intended as SACD release, but I certainly would not bet my life on it. AP released 3 or 4 SACDs on their label.
Hi,
No, there definitely was a team. However, the point is, you can find numerous DSD titles floating around that have only been converted from PCM to DSD to sell -- usually at a higher price. But, yes, the store itself didn't create it -- someone else did.
Doug
Ok, I am glad that ends it :)There is NO doubt there are many SACDs and some DSD downloads (How many are there any way, 600?) that originated from PCM. I honestly never said otherwise.
As a matter of fact, sadly, the great mastering engineer George Marino created many SACDs for Analogue Productions from 48 Khz tape captures. So even the reputable labels have done stuff like that.
But about 10 posts back I was originally addressing the assertion from Stuart that online vendors were creating fake hirez or fake DSD. They have not. He was using this a straw man argument to boost MQA and it "authentication" selling point.
Edits: 10/29/16
Yeah, as far as the online retailers creating fakes, I, too, have never heard of any. Now, of course some (many?) have sold them and been caught (fakes of high-res PCM from lower-res PCM often), but they haven't been the ones making them, at least to the best of my knowledge.
Doug
Well, the great news is the online vigilantes with tools as simple as Audacity almost without exception were able to identify any fakes. Retailers have now invested in tools and have taken the time to analyze the albums they have for sale. They just don't need the grief.On a bit of a tangent..how about all the new vinyl reissues mastered from digital files? In my opinion this is a big rip off.
As a matter of fact, Michael Fremer identified a label that reissues very desirable titles mastered from CDs. Yep. That's right.
(I can just imagine one day..vinyl mastered from MQA files...MQA Vinyl...kill me now!)
Edits: 10/29/16
This whole conversation--thanks to both of you--makes the point pretty clearly. What's true? I don't know. Neither does anyone else. Which is the point. Was that DSD made from a 48kHz PCM file, or what? Who knows? I'm not convinced the retailers are innocent--maybe, maybe not--but who cares who is responsible?
None of this makes a particular file sound great; it may or it may not. But, good or bad, when that light goes on, you know you're buying the actual product.
jca
...I demonstrated to Doug the ONE album he thought that a retailer MAY have upsampled to DSD was in fact done by the producers. End of story. So thee is ONE truth there. No ambiguity. Bob Stuart made an incorrect statement. Which, quite frankly, is inexcusable.
Edits: 10/29/16 10/29/16
Uh, no. Your post is nonsense.
Bob Stuart made a bold claim that online retailers of audiophile downloads upsample files. This is has not happened. And the number of actual upsampled Redbook sold as HiRez is amazingly small.
Making veiled accusations now? You are "not convinced" there is no wrong doing? "Who cares who is responsible?". If you worked for me you would be tossed out so fast there would be skid marks.
Sorry Jim, your credibility just went through the floor.
Enjoy your little MQA flight of fancy. It wont last long.
'they said, he wrote' - what's the problem?
The cult of personality in the audiophile community often leads non critical reporting.
After the blurb on how far the Warner Music Group has gotten so far, with no hard numbers or dates, we are treated to:
What about the other major labels?
There's currently no agreement with the other two majors, Universal and Sony. However, "our aspiration is that the majority of their catalogs will be encoded by next spring," Sullivan wrote in a follow-up email. With no agreement in place, that may sound ambitious, but Stuart seems confident, and the rapid progress of the Warner project is cause for optimism.
That may sound ambitious? That just don't seem to capture it, I'm think more along the lines of ... that's incredulous to the point of being simply ridiculous!
And so it goes for the rest of the article, with Austin making his cheerleading contributions throughout.
Wow! Some scoop!
Neutral reporting huh? Filling the gaps with as you said, cheerleading, and pulling out of thin air that MQA has moved the archiving process along quicker.
How about the need to monetize these tapes by selling remasters to aging baby boomers before it is too late? Since they are basically the only once paying for physical product on a large scale.
Thanks but the most important question is never answered, when will we get MQA material. When will streaming happen. The consumer will determine the sucess of MQA, not Meridian or the reviewers.
Alan
They can't answer, which is why there is scepticism!
Some caution is appropriate, but it's entirely reasonable to be optimistic: What's the motivation for the major labels to convert their music to MQA if they don't intend to use it? Converting several million albums, even digging into the archive to digitize (at 192/24) material they'd never digitized before--cannot be cheap.
Let me give you a clue...those unarchived tapes were going to be archived REGARDLESS of MQA. This was in the works for years. To try to correlate this activity with the arrival of MQA is a misrepresentation.
Do you have inside information that the rest of us re not privy to?
Sure, they were planning to digitize them eventually, over time. But now they're doing the whole catalog by Spring, and MQA--the company--is helping them.
With all due respect, this is comical. They are batch processing thousands of albums. There is virtuall almost zero additional work involved. Imagine converting thousands of WAV files to FLAC or ALAC. No more labor intensive.
Hi,
I think there are many reasons to go at it in a big way.
1) Analog tape certainly doesn't last forever. So archival.
2) You'll get economies of scale by doing so (i.e., processing many instead of few).
3) Chances are they will use it and it will simply be a right-click away on a hard drive.
These companies know that streaming via digital files is the future, so I'd assume simple preparedness.
Doug Schneider
SoundStage!
Just one clarification: MQA wasn't designed as an archival format but as a transmission/dissemination format. If they're aiming to archive, there's not much wrong with the 192/24 they already had (for much of their catalog). If we're talking historic preservation, DSD is better because it's closer to music (i.e., a future alien race could make sense of it more easily). But there's no archival advantage to creating MQA files from 192/24 files. It's also worth pointing out that this MQA project apparently got them to finally digitize the rest of their analog archives. They could have done that at any time. Considering that MQA is not an archival format, why now?
Hi Jim,
I might've misunderstood your comment. What I understood you saying was that there must be something to them digitizing all that old content -- as in digitizing it in general.
Doug
... no one knows their plans, but because MQA is a transmission format I think they're aiming toward transmission.
Yes, transmission. However that does not necessarily mean a transmission to consumers.
As a business case remastering a major's entire catalogue in MQA over a period of a few months makes little sense. Most of those several million tracks are certainly not scheduled, or are even dreamed of, being commericially re-released. If they are to be re-released then this would have to be done gradually ( you don't release 10 million tracks in one hit). In this scenario conversion to MQA would be best tied to the release schedule. This makes more sense and would not tie up resources for converting tracks that will inevitably have limited appeal and limited ability to earn any financial return i.e. they will stay on the shelf.
Streaming services differ in the sense that they do want access to entire catalogues. However there is not any high rez ( in an MQA sense) service yet in existence. The take up of CD resolution services is so far limited and they have yet to prove themselves as economically viable. I believe that any business considering converting its entire inventory in one go to service such unproven ventures would be irrational.
However international majors like Warner have a huge need to distribute repertoire internally to its operational units across the world for all sorts of reasons not all of which will result in a release or supply to e.g. a streaming service. Perhaps Warner plans are for internal purposes rather than for anything that will necessarily be available to the public?
From my record industry days I remember leaving a meeting and walking back to my office with a senior industry lawyer. This was at the time of CDs's introduction. Having gone hook line and sinker for the "perfect sound for ever" pitch, the lawyer questioned why the industry would want the public (effectively) to have access to its masters. I reckon the same thinking still exists with many record company executives and would be applied by them to MQA.
" However there is not any high rez ( in an MQA sense) service yet in existence"
Classicsonlinehd has many files streaming at 24/96 to 24/192
Of course they are dropping all labels except those owned by Naxos. Too bad
Alan
In Reply to: RE: So in other words ... posted by PAR on October 29, 2016 at 16:06:39:
" " However there is not any high rez ( in an MQA sense) service yet in existence"
Classicsonlinehd has many files streaming at 24/96 to 24/192
Of course they are dropping all labels except those owned by Naxos. Too bad
Alan"
I think that I could have phrased it better if I had just said " using MQA". Still I think that the point about unproven economic viability is still pertinent and the scaling down of Classics Online supports this. As a simile, apparently 83% of Spotify's revenue is dissipated in royalties and other outgoing costs. As Classics Online is owned by Naxos and if they now only have repertoire from the Naxos family of labels, then the cost of some of the royalties (those to publishers are artists remain) is removed. It also must reduce the cost of storage and administration.
It's too bad that Naxos found it necessary to do this but, as I have pointed out elsewehere on AA, some download suppliers have also found it necessary to take roughly similar action although in their case it was reputedly mainly caused by storage and bandwidth costs.
I was listening Qobuz yesterday with a close friend who works at one of the majors " enjoy it while you can" was his view.
Regards
Pete
Of all the labels I have looked at with a hires FFT, Naxos is the worst for having TV Monitor breakthrough on their files. This is at around 15kHz where a very sizeable spikes above the noise floor can create digititis sounding music.
I think we're just talking past each other a little--no big deal. As has been pointed out, those analog master tapes would surely have been digitized at some point anyway. True enough. You suggested, I think, that archiving is one reason they would do that--again, true enough. But they've apparently accelerated the rate at which that work is being done, and MQA is the end point (via, I'm sure, 192/24). So, they're doing the archival digitizing now, fast, and then transcoding to MQA. There's no reason to do that last step if archiving is the goal.
Why on earth would any music company upsample red book asynchronously to 24 192 to archive? There are actually much better technical reasons to archive in DSD or DXD.
Upsampling leaves its own sonic signature depending on the software used. The question of whether touch up software will be used is another question. The marketing phrase 'master quality' that I first encountered in Linn downloads has no real meaning as it depends on the native recording rates and bit depths.
Archiving valuable analog recordings is a subject in itself and should not in any way be linked to MQA.
AS a matter of fact, when one compares the resampled 2L files to the DXD masters, they all sound different. The 2L MQA files played backed on HQ dacs are nothing to shout about either.
> > Why on earth would any music company upsample red book asynchronously to 24 192 to archive? There are actually much better technical reasons to archive in DSD or DXD. < <
Agreed--who's doing that? Did I mis-write? All I intended to say was that Warner is reportedly digitizing its analog tapes to 192/24. One could have hoped for DXD or DSD, but 192/24 is fine.
This does raise an interesting question, though, one I didn't ask. Stuart and I talked a lot about "white-gloving" those early digital files in those obsolete, proprietary 16-bit formats; "white-gloving" is his phrase for the careful, custom work much of that music requires. But we talked about this in the context of conversion to MQA; we didn't discuss how one might archive those recordings and what format should be used.
> > The marketing phrase 'master quality' that I first encountered in Linn downloads has no real meaning as it depends on the native recording rates and bit depths. < <
It's true it has no technical, quantitative meaning--is that what you mean? As I've written more than once, those numbers have little directly to do with sound quality; it's easy to make a bad high-res recording. Within a certain technology--PCM say--bit depth and sampling frequency may put an upper limit on resolution (one aspect of good recorded sound), but how often is that upper limit ever approached? This appears to be a frequent point of confusion: people confuse file resolution with musical resolution.
As to the meaning of "master quality", it just depends how cynical you are. I think people cling to numbers because they're reliable, quantitative, more comfortable than relying on people and their work--like how well a recording is engineered, or whether the head of a company has good intentions. "Master quality" only means something--as I said to Bob Stuart in that interview (in a slightly different way)--if the people who sign off on it are serious and committed. (He agreed.)
"Master quality" is either an aspiration, or a marketing slogan, or both. How cynical are you?
> > Archiving valuable analog recordings is a subject in itself and should not in any way be linked to MQA. < <
The point here I think is just that the MQA process appears to be accelerating the pace of digitizing analog tapes. I don't think anyone is talking about MQA as an appropriate archival format. The MQA folks have said all along--since that earliest JAES paper--that the MQA idea is based on a clear separation of archival/storage and transmission formats. MQA is the latter.
Nonsense. Sony started to archive in DSD long long ago. Deterioration of the master magnetic tapes is the reason and if other companies don't do it, then this will be their loss.
MQA is just another marketing excuse.
"The point here I think is just that the MQA process appears to be accelerating the pace of digitizing analog tapes."
Can you provide any evidence that MQA has anything to do with pace of digitizing the catalog?
Until quite recently, Warner apparently still had thousands of analog tapes that had not yet been digitized. That's something they could have done at any time over the last, say, 20 years In May, they signed an agreement with MQA to transcode their whole catalog, and now it's happening and is scheduled to be completed by spring.
Is that proof? No. That's why I wrote "appears to be." But if there's no correlation it's a hell of a coincidence.
As someone who has written articles on MQA, you are positioning your self as an authority.
Your casual comment is a clearly intended to sound factual. If you don't understand this, that is rather perplexing.
The record companies have their own methods of work flow that depends on staff, changing technology, and priorities.
If Bob Stuart's comment is your only source, you need to do better than that.
What you're saying I understand.
For a variety of reasons today, I could see people going on "digitizing missions" today, not only for archiving, but also streaming. I have trouble believing MQA itself is speeding that up. What I believe they want is to have it to transcode to any file format -- MP3,even -- just to be able deliver quickly when necessary.
Doug
SoundStage!
Again a bit of a misrepresentations. MQA has been reported widely as not compatible with DSD. MQA WAS at one point being floated as a procedure that could be used during the recording process.
I thought DSD was supposed to take care of archiving analog material. That went well
Alan
Depends what is meant by "archive." The advantage of DSD as an archival format is that it closely resembles actual music, which means that when they clean up the mess after global nuclear war and start to explore our lost civilization, DSD files will be easier to make sense of than PCM (and certainly than MQA).
In general, for archival purposes, there's not much advantage these days to compression. DSD is a good archival format in the sense above; DXD is great if you think you'll someday need to turn it into something else.
MQA is for transmission, whether for streaming or downloads. So they only reason to transcode to MQA is if they intend to distribute it in that form.
jca
Well, then there's that... ;-)
Let's just say that I don't think there is ever going to be a once-and-for-all archiving of everything. Look how many times certain movies have been restored.
Doug
SoundStage!
I am optimistic myself about better quality streaming, it is going to take some time. Perhaps the discussions should have remained private. Reason is control over distribution and playback, what blu-ray was going to be before Streaming took off.
I have Tidal and Deezer Elite and Amazon music and Google Music and Pandora subscriptions. That's a lot of money considering all I do is stream Burzum over and over again.
> > I have Tidal and Deezer Elite and Amazon music and Google Music and Pandora subscriptions. That's a lot of money considering all I do is stream Burzum over and over again. < <
That's funny!
> > Thanks but the most important question is never answered, when will we get MQA material. When will streaming happen. < <
Agreed--but it's at least intriguing to know that very likely in a few months the whole catalog will be in MQA format. The labels are spending money on those projects; surely they'll do something with all that music. Seems like a reasonable expectation.
Post a Followup:
| FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
