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In Reply to: RE: MQA files sound very good on a good posted by fmak on October 29, 2016 at 09:22:41
>>You Stereophile associated posters need to get off your MQA horse by not just reporting what Bob Stuart and associates say, but consider the interests of consumers who have so far not been able to assess properly the pros and cons of the format.<<
My feeling is that we're dealing on these forums not with impartial consumers who lack information but with critics who have wet their minds set against MQA for whatever reason. No matter what information is provided, they'll remain firm in their positions.
But maybe I'm wrong at least in a few cases, perhaps in yours. So, please help me provide what you're looking for. How can we best serve "the interests of consumers who have so far not been able to assess properly the pros and cons of the format"? The goal of my interview--and the Stereophile piece posted today--was to do precisely that. What have we missed? What information or insight are you seeking that hasn't been provided?
Follow Ups:
Fair enough Jim. But on the flip side, what about the the repeated, immensely positive reporting on MQA by reviewers who have their mind set ON MQA. Does not it work both ways?
And the initial tide overwhelming positive write ups were based on carefully controlled show demos and later with a $300 portable DAC.
Can you at least understand the push back considering the reporting that was done on the so called "DSD 2.0" roll out?
Having seen what you've written elsewhere in this and in other threads, I'm skeptical of your intentions and don't expect this to go well, but I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.
First, you need to understand that many of us are critical by nature. I certainly never embraced "DSD 2.0" or 1.0 for that matter. Frankly, I had technical concerns about DSD that I've since gotten over, it's something I think I was wrong about. I've owned SACD drives, and still have a fair number of SACDs in my collection that don't get played (they're in cardboard boxes, their redbook layer having been ripped to my homebrew server), but I always felt like, some SACDs sounded great, others not so great. For the record, I've felt the same way about high-rez generally; on average there was an advantage over CD, but it varies from one recording to the next. Some CDs sound fabulous to my ears.
So what about MQA? There's far more I'd need to write to be complete; I'm going to say this as briefly as I can because I've got stuff to do. There are several key points that need to be made. The first is that to my ear MQA made more--and more consistent--improvements (over CD) than either DSD or high-res PCM. This is a sort of indirect comparison, so not entirely rigorous but not, IMO, without value. Almost every MQA file I listened to sounded significantly better than the CD version, something I could never say for DSD or high-res PCM. (This was true through the $299 Meridian Explorer 2. I wrote that review in Stereophile. In the few direct comparisons that were available in those days--mainly 2L files--I found that MQA performed well. I didn't, and still haven't, done more than few comparisons of (eg) DXD with MQA, but MQA has always held up well.
So then you have to take a look at the technology. Is this some sort of scam? Does it make sense? I'm a physicist by training, with a PhD--so, pretty technical--and I've studied it. JA, who knows far more than I do about digital recording technology (and most things audio) has studied it--he too has a physics degree and is a very smart guy--and he too has concluded that the technology makes sense. There's a single insight--that the time domain matters more than people realized--combined with some clever digital engineering. It adds up to a compelling package.
And then there's the problem of buying digital music. I just set up a server for myself last winter. I spent the winter burning my CD collection. Why did I wait so long to go disc-less? Partly it was server software--Roon isn't perfect, but it's better than anything else I knew about. But the big thing for me--the reason I didn't do more high-res downloads--was uncertainty about provenance. I heard stories about HD Tracks and how high-res files would turn out to be (apparently) upsampled CDs. Anyway, file resolution means NOTHING. A bad recording at high resolution is still a bad recording. No one could be blamed because the provenance of the files being downloaded couldn't be established. Maybe the company hosting and charging for the downloads was responsible (see Stuart's comments on this point), but maybe not. Who knows? All I know is that I didn't want to pay $18 or more for some information--no physical object--that may or may not be what it purported to be. That kept me from buying. It still does. So this "authentication" aspect makes sense: There are still no guarantees, but the blue or green light is a sort of signature: The label, or the artist, or both, are saying, "this is what we want our music to sound like." That's important to me.
Finally, there's a problem to be solved--the Napster problem. Here I'm speaking for myself; I don't know whether these views are shared by others who support MQA. The Internet has made music dissemination easier but it has been a disaster for the music industry. People stopped buying music--they stole it instead, in very low-fi formats. The industry's profit model fell apart. I don't fully understand the economics of this--I'm not an expert on this topic--but there does appear to be a belief out there that giving a company control over its IP (via separation of archival distribution formats and this notion of "authentication" via the blue or green light) could help return music companies to profitability. Not everyone thinks that's a good thing, but I do.
So you've got--what--four pillars? It sounds good to me. The technology makes sense. It solves a consumer problem (authentication) and it solves and industry problem (IP control).
Downsides? If you equate file resolution with music quality, you may think you're giving up something because MQA is not totally lossless in the IT sense. (I think that's a dumb objection.) By handing responsibility for the sound back to the record companies, you take it out of the hands of the more tech-savvy consumers; I'm thinking EQ here. That's a much more reasonable objection--but there's no reason to think MQA is going to make life worse for those people--they can still download their PCM files and stream CD quality--it just might not make life any better.
I'm not in anyone's pocket, and I'm not a fanboy. In fact, as my track record as an audio writer will show, I'm pretty skeptical . This just makes sense.
I've just dedicated a big chunk of my day to this. Don't expect me to write this much again. :-)
jca
Jim. I appreciate you taking the time, I really do.I will make my reply brief so as not drag this out forever, it is clear we have different views on the motives behind MQA.
First, I think much your opinion is based on faith, but that is MY opinion.
Again, to be brief..let us examine your "4 Pillars"...
First, you say MQA sounded the best of any previous digital format...that is your opinion...hardly a pillar...and your opinion on DSD is counter to most of the professionals I have talked with. Hearing numerous analog tapes archived to DSD, especially DSD128, tells me it is amazingly good format, and very analog like in its continousnes.
Second..the technology...so you and a few people you know think it makes sense and is elegant..again...opinions....Any thing applied AFTER the fact is DSP. Plain and simple.
Third, provenance. This has been an issue since the very early days of the music business. The Beatles American LPS on Capital were done from copies of the master tapes, with more reverb applied. Reissues of classic LPs were done from multi generation tape copies. CDs were initially mastered from LP masters, with rolled off bass and other quirks related to LP mastering. Then you talk about retailers upsampling music. Never happened EVER with HDT, Pono, 7Digital, Qobuz, etc. This is a NON issue. Any "fake" hi rez has originated with the labels. And those instances were so small in number.
Lastly...the toothepaste is out of the tube. An entire generation has grown up not paying for music. MQA will not change our society. That is totally magical thinking, but then again, Bob Stuart is a magical thinker.
The record companies, while slow to change with times know how to still make money. File sharing is never ever going to go away. And it is lossless now. Including SACD rips. But again to repeat, there are numerous other revenue streams.
Edits: 10/29/16 10/29/16
Jim, I have answered your question many times and I am really tired of the spinning going on. Give me a date when you expect streaming of MQA files will be available to me. Simple question. You can't answer because you don't know. I can't be any clearer than this
Alan
I promise that as soon as that knowledge exists, I'll do my best to chase it down. If the knowledge doesn't exist, we can't report it. Some plans take time to mature. No spin here.
...of good ideas and fine products that never panned out despite lots of cheerleading. This is true in all walks of life, not just audio.
Whether or not MQA becomes a popular success is a complicated question with lots of factors in play. Not the least of these is, does the average music consumer even care?
Do you have a link to that piece you mentioned?
Thanks.
.
Thanks a lot.
Very cool,
Interesting about what he said about CD Rips being sometimes the best archive, I am a very heavy bandcamp.com user myself as I usually don't usually partake in pop music. I think preserving whatever they got is good for the record.
I think the challenge is getting the heavy hitters to demand real high res archives of whatever they record moving forward, there are many acts that come and go.
> > I think the challenge is getting the heavy hitters to demand real high res archives of whatever they record moving forward, there are many acts that come and go. < <
I was interested to learn that their whole archive of digitized analog tape is 192/24. That, to my ear, is sufficient for transparency. That's been going on for a long time. It's no guarantee of recording quality, but they do seem committed to high resolution digital.
I stream 24/192 FLAC from my google drive cloud to my Auralic already no problem.That's with 35/35mbps. Most of the country is capable of 100/100mbps and some guys already here have a gigabit.
Edits: 10/29/16
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