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I read that the 40th anniversary remaster of "Bad Company - Desolation Angels" came out in January 2020. I checked availability at these sources just for grins and comparison pricing.Bad Company
Desolation Angels 40th anniversary edition [Remastered]:- CD from Amazon (2-CD set) $19
- CD from Target (2-CD set) $19
- HDTracks download (24/96 hi-res) $35
- Vinyl LP $35Album found in both of my streaming services:
- Tidal Streaming $19/mo 50+ Million track library.
album found at 16/44.1 CD Quality FLAC- Qobuz Streaming $15/mo 50+ Million track library
album found at 24/96 hi-res FLACNot their best work but I thought I would give the remaster a try compared to my 1979 physical CD. The remaster is noticeably better sounding whether streaming 16/44.1 FLAC from Tidal or 24/96 hi-res from Qobuz. And again, its the remastering that seems to make the biggest difference.
The point is, I see no need to ever buy another CD or vinyl LP because pretty much everything I want can be had at CD quality or better via streaming. And when new remasters hit the market these streaming services pick them up too so no need to buy yet another piece of physical media to replace older poorer sounding releases.
24/96 hi-res Album brought into Roon from Qobuz
Roon showing the source as 24/96 FLAC from Qobuz
My home office streaming hardware + Tidal, Qobuz, and Roon
Edits: 01/20/20 01/20/20Follow Ups:
Desolation Angels on Tidal is MQA.
Minimum resolution for MQA is 96kHz/24Bit. Some are higher.
Nobody knows for sure WHAT it is, but for certain it ISN'T 24/96 and even Meridian doesn't make THAT claim.
That said, nobody really needs all 24 bits unless they're heavily into 'brownian motion', and using a few of those bits to increase effective sampling rate does make sense.
But still....
Here are the bitrates which I saw for a sample of MQA songs streamed from Tidal.Peter Gabriel So 24 96
The Rolling Stones Let it Bleed 24 88.2
The Rolling Stones Their Satanic Majesties Request 24 176.4
Eric Clapton Slowhand 24 192And, from the Tidal website;
What is Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) technology?
While HiFi audio is a superior sound, it is still limited in its resolution —44.1 kHz /16 bit. TIDAL has partnered with MQA to deliver audio in an authenticated and unbroken version (typically 96 kHz / 24 bit) with the highest possible resolution—as flawless as it sounded in the mastering suite and precisely as the artist intended. TIDAL is one of the only services to render 24-bit master files streamable on portable devices as it uses a state-of-the-art MQA compression process.
Here you can learn more about Master quality audio at TIDAL, and here about how the MQA technology works.
Edits: 01/23/20
#1) Bottom line: MQA is a proprietary lossy format that requires proprietary licensed technology, processes, and equipment to encode and decode to near lossless quality.
#2) MQA is a solution to a problem that does not exist.
#3) No one truly understands what's going on behind the proprietary smoke and mirrors.
#4) It's an unnecessary assault and money grab on high-end audio with proprietary lock-in and licensing royalties to the creators. I think it will eventually die on the vine and fizzle out.
There's more but that sums it up for me. #2 is the big one in my mind
what recording professionals think of it? I linked to Brian Lucey's comments here .
"If I want that distortion in the master I would've put it there in the first place...
MQA has been targeting the weakest players in our world, the audiophiles. And they're targeting those most dependent on pimping new tech, the audiophile press...
I'm most concerned about the bogus claims that MQA is fixing approved masters. Not possible, and a rude assertion to trillions of hours of hard work by teams of people making records for decades. Pure marketing hyperbole...
MQA has no future in the world of serious engineers in my view, it's a corporate money scheme at this point..."
Thanks for linking back to the article. If you read some of the comments below the article you'll see this one about MQA Authentication from mastering engineer Brian Lucey.:==================================================
Warren Mc says:
Brian,your comment about authentication leads to the broader question of provenance. What level of documentation is going to be required, to support the blue light? It's easy to set a bit of metadata on a file to say it's authentic, but who authorises the engineer to mark the art as authentic, and what proof of the production chain integrity do they need? We had all this already with the Chesky HD Tracks up sampling debacle, except in that case the fudged output was observable with tools. How would we do that with a proprietary lossy process?
Cheers, Warren
Brian Lucey says:
I have authenticated nothing here, and my work is on Tidal as MQA. Nuff said.
Edits: 01/27/20
Maybe That's why he wasn't contacted for Authentication.
"Does Brian Lucey Own the recordings he's made?"
I don't know.
" Maybe That's why he wasn't contacted for Authentication."
If he was the creator but wasn't contacted for authentication (perhaps because he no longer owns the rights to his own work) then who "Authenticates" it? Anyone who says it's authentic?
In my opinion:
- MQA is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
- MQA is a smoke and mirrors process for the purpose of generating licensing revenue for its creator. Fold, fold, unfold, unfold. Why?
- MQA is deep in proprietary technology (wear your high water boots) but in the end offers no sonic advantages it purports to offer.
- MQA offers no technical advantages over plain unadulterated hi-res files for downloads or streaming.
I didn't follow the Q&A below the article proper.
MQA is first and foremost a revenue model.
you do not understand how the lossy signal is processed and later "padded" to appear 24 bit.
Would you explain please?
It's very clear how the signal immediately becomes lossy.
I started reading the post in the link."There is no question that MQA degrades the quality of the audio for users who do not have an MQA decoder."
Not a particularly scientific point. Like saying your car will not run well without wheels.
It sets a poor tone for the article. I hope it gets better although the author seems to have an axe to grind rather than presenting a scientific case for his position.
Before we get too far into this, please allow me to state my position.
1. I have a turntable and and rather nice cartridge and phono pre. My preference is for analog over ANY digital source I am aware of so this discussion is for what will be the second tier for my system.
2. I work in electronics/electromagnetic compatibility but I do not have a complete understanding of digitization.
3. About 1 person out of 10,000 or so actually understands the Nyquist Theorem.
4. I have Tidal, a Mytek Brooklyn DAC +, a Meridian Explorer 2 and an Onkyo DP-X1a all of which support MQA.
5. If I get to a point where I can discern that MQA adversely affects sound quality more than other digitization/digital storage/streaming schemes adversely affect sound quality, I would abandon MQA.
Edits: 01/26/20
About 1 person out of 10,000 or so actually understands the Nyquist Theorem.
What does that have to do with the established fact that MQA is a lossy format?
Pick you own poison. I choose lossless in this modern age of inexpensive storage. Why throw away anything from the original recording?
I mention Nyquest in an attempt to bound the discussion to reality. Inevitably someone will come along and say "Well Nyquest says...." and proceed to incorrectly cite Nyquist.ALL digitization schemes lose some of the original audio content and the overwhelming majority of discussions of digital music are blind to this fact. The terms "lossless" and "lossy" are misleading. NO digitizing method records 100% of the original music.
In my work I use a 10 Gs/sec digitizing O'scope to look at 1 MHz waveforms. That is 4 orders of magnitude greater than the original waveform. I find it to be sufficient for my work even though some portions of the original waveforms are lost. To compare that to audio, the harmonics of some instruments can extend high 10's of kilohertz. Ignoring the mixing that will occur, to sample 4 orders of magnitude higher than 100 kHz would require a 1 Gs/sec sampling rate. I am not aware of any digitization method used for audio files that high.
Am I asserting that MQA is "good", or "sufficient" or excellent"? Nope. I am asking questions and participating in a discussion and appreciate your input.
Edits: 01/26/20
The terms "lossless" and "lossy" are misleading.
Perhaps to you. It simply means you cannot return the recording to the originally captured signal.
I am asking questions and participating in a discussion and appreciate your input.
Lossy formats were useful ten years ago. I stream 192/24 losslessly via Qobuz and store similar formats on my NAS. Further, all the signal processing in the MQA chain changes the tonal balance.
I share mastering engineer Brian Lucey's opinion :
"Let's just sell the 24 bit files at the mastering session sample rate, not higher and not lower, and call it a day?"
Yes, the original recording cannot be completely recreated from a digital file, be it "lossy" or "lossless".
using bit perfect codecs.
MQA cannot even approach that dithering 24 bit content to 17. Why choose to arbitrarily throw away anything ?
To each his own I guess. My approach is the diametric opposite - my system building steps have been to retain as much information found in recordings as possible.
but for certain it ISN'T 24/96
says it is 96/17 .
Ten years ago the need to reduce bandwidth might have been useful. Why would anyone compromise the source signal today?
and have streamed the above referenced remastered RUSH album using both.
Admittedly, I'm allowing Audirvana to do the initial unfold and that's it as there is no way I'm replacing my DENAFRIPS Terminator with an MQA capable DAC, so there is that.
Audirvana MPD/DLNA to a uRendu to the DAC and both sound pretty good (if you like RUSH).
Audirvana allows easy flipping between QOBUZ and TIDAL and it's WAY better than LMS, no matter what inmate 'GoneFishing' says. :-)
After a few back and forths, I think QOBUZ with REAL 24/96 wins.
Lossy MQA isn't far behind and I admittedly did have to move to the 'sweet spot' and flip back and forth to decide.
I always asked, lossy compared to what? 16/44.1 is lossy. MQA, if it is to be believed isn't nearly that lossy.
I have a similar setup to yours and I found both MQA and Qobuz to be about the same. At those rates you just don't hear it anymore.
That said though I dropped Tidal, but mostly due to the cost of having two services. Qobuz had more Jazz and classical it seemed so I kept that.
So you basically came to the conclusion that MQA didn't do much for you, if anything. I'm experiencing the same as I have Tidal with some MQA titles, and Qobuz with full high resolution streams.
At the end of the day, I'm hearing about equal sound quality between the two services. Sometimes it goes to Qobuz and at other times Tidal. But where does that leave MQA if Qobuz sounds as good or better w/o it?
Exactly. MQA is a solution to a problem that does not exist.
$7 from Bandcamp.Just noticed that Bandcamp says released Jan 2019
Edits: 01/21/20
But that's not the January 2020 remaster. The 2020 remaster on CD are around $19, the hi-res 24/96 downloads are $35, and the vinyl is $35. The older releases are dirt cheap.
nt
$7 OR MORE at Bandcamp.
MP3
Before Lossless Flac streaming, I was good for 3-4 CDs a month, not to mention a few dozen used LP a month.
Now it's maybe an SACD and a CD per month. It that.
And it's not about cost or savings because streaming has allowed me to listen to more and better music on a daily basis than I would normally hear in a month just buying CDs.
And so much stuff that I would NEVER have experienced in a lifetime. Whole genres I would have NEVER ventured into are now just a click away. And in CD or better sound quality.
Same here. I have been a life long record collector, but I haven't bought a single LP, CD, SACD, or a reel tape since I started streaming Qobuz.
so I can return to them at any time. :-)
I might donate my collection of 1500 or so CDs but will hold onto my LPs and reels, though I rarely listen to them anymore.
And we call all watch it on "Hoarders" on the A&E channel! ;-)
using 14 TB drives today in little space. :)
I've only used about 65% of my 6TB drive so far. Maybe in another year or two it will be time for an upgrade.
24 TB drives will be available. :)
Here in Northern New Mexico on can even be buried on their own property WITH ALL OF THEIR BELONGINGS!
OK, with HOA approval, of course. :-)
Wife and I bought our cemetery plots right next to her mother and father's plot, a couple years before we were married!
. . . the one who dies with the most toys wins! ;-)
" The point is, I see no need to ever buy another CD or vinyl LP because pretty much everything I want can be had at CD quality or better via streaming."
Sorry to bang on about this again but the fly in your ointment is that no lossless streaming service has yet posted a profit. So there is no indication that any will be in business this time next year.
Further the typical cashflow needs of small specialist record companies (say, classical, folk or jazz repertoire) cannot be sustained solely by payments from streaming royalties both in terms of size and with regard to the distribution points. Which is why some companies who have understood this withhold their repertoire from streaming (then you have to buy the CDs or downloads). My belief is that unless things change others will start to realise this too. Or go out of business.
In addition there is also the possibility that repertoire can be withdrawn from a given streaming service so that it can be offered exclusively to another though this tends to be in relation to big pop music artists rather then in regard to specialist repertoire.
So, if a particular title is important to me then I will still purchase it to ensure my long term access. Otherwise there is a reasonable chance that I will get up one day, go to stream it and it is no longer there.
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
A couple thoughts...
Vinyl LP's typically sold for between four and five dollars for single disc albums back in 1975. Yeah, you could get them for less on sale and so on, but I'll use those numbers as a reference.
In adjusted-for-inflation dollars, that equates to roughly $20-25 today. So, maybe CD prices aren't so bad after all.
High res downloads cost more, but in theory they are, well, higher in resolution than LP's, so it makes sense that they sell for higher prices. (Again) in theory, you're paying for the music contained therein, not the cost of manufacturing and distributing the media itself.
By comparison, if you compare the price of concert tickets in the 70's to those of today, the prices have jumped up beyond the rate of inflation. Back in 1970, people were outraged that Crosby, Stills, and Nash were charging $10 for the highest priced tickets. That was much higher than most everybody else was charging. In 2019 inflated dollars, that equates to about $65. I have no idea what the best seats cost for the most recent Crosby, Stills, and Nash tour (whenever that took place), but I think I can safely guess that they were more than $65.
Keep in mind that the minimum wage in those days was about $1.60, which is what a college student might be making from a summer or part-time job then.
~~~
Now, for some of us, this all is just a hobby. Speaking only for myself, I have a theoretical budget for music and audio gear. This is part of the overall disposable money we have after paying for actual necessities. So, it's not actually a fixed number, since money not spent over a period of time can accumulate for purchases at a later time. It doesn't even need to be spent at all - it can just accumulate. (A good thing, btw...) There also isn't an infinite supply, and my wife and I have interests beyond listening to recorded music.
So, for me, making a business case out of a hobby purchase kind of violates the purpose of the hobby. I'm looking for fun and entertainment of some kind. To be fair, cost benefit analyses may be fun and entertaining for some hobbyists - I'm just saying that it's not for me. I may be alone in this, but perhaps not.
This applies for audio gear, which I really do not buy much of each year, as well as media and concert tickets. (To be fair again, my wife and I generally avoid most concerts now due to the hassle and mainly the wretched sound quality for anything other than jazz and orchestral performances at the local music college.)
~~~
That's the long way of saying that to me, streaming is good for finding new music, just as the radio was. (If you're in the right location, it still can be.) Otherwise, for some of us, even worrying about the economics of it all takes away from the enjoyment.
The genie is out of the bottle and the industry knows it. There's no turning back...
Indeed yes the genie is out. However most of that big blue 80% segment relates to pop music. Streaming is great for that. However,as I say below, the streaming royalties for minority interest genres are insufficient on their own to fund the making of the record in the first place.
A solo piano recital recording costs around 40,000 gbp to make. Call it $. That and more has be recouped to meet that sum and to help fund the next month's release. Think what that means when the royalty is $0.0084 per stream (the last reported and highest Spotify royalty). And that royalty has to be split with the publishers, artists etc. So the record company is getting $0.0042 ( I am probably being generous). So just to recoup the cost of making the recording over 9.5 million streams are needed. Say it is a recital of Feinberg (who? )piano sonatas*. Will over 9 million people stream it? Ever? No.
The switch from purchase to streaming will in due course, decimate minority interest recording. Solutions are going to be hard to find. Raise the royalty rate by making monthly subscriptions $2,000 per month instead of $20? That isn't going to fly. Ask the artist to fund the recording? Being tried now. Ask the artist to fund the recording but don't give them any payment or royalties, just let them pick a selection of CDs from your back catalogue? Being tried now.
* A real example. It will be released in March on Hyperion. Hyperion do not allow the streaming of their repertoire.
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
and distribute as hi-res downloads?
I'm getting a little impatient waiting for Boult's VW cycle and Bax on Lyrita for starters.
HDTT has come to the rescue to a point but there's so much more I'd like to acquire.
The switch from purchase to streaming will in due course, decimate minority interest recording.
The switch is already here for the most part. There's no "if", just when. That's a different - but legitimate concern.
I enjoy lots of content that is not found on Tidal nor Qobuz.
OTOH, how much would I be willing to pay for QOBUZ hi rez per month.
Heck, I'm at $130 per month for Comcast and that's without HBO and the other crap they try to add every month. (OK, 250 Mbps ain't cheap where I live).
And I doubt I wake up and they are all gone. Consolidation? More likely and maybe Jeff Bezos ends up buying it all at fire-sale prices.
Or, maybe I'm back to cleaning records.
" More likely and maybe Jeff Bezos ends up buying it all at fire-sale prices."
Klaus Heymann (Naxos) who had run his own hi-res streaming operation but had to close down for economic reasons, predicted a few years back that the only way to run a streaming service given its costs was to own a business that could simply afford to bundle it as part of the overall offer and absorb the losses.
From the record company point of view streaming royalties for specialist repertoire are too small for them to recoup even a fraction of the cost of making the record in the first place as they are aggregating royalties from only hundreds or thousands of streams at best unlike the billions of streams for major pop acts. So the move by consumers from purchase to streaming is ultimately bad news for those specialist labels if things remain as they are now.
The danger for, say, classical music fans is not that Amazon may end up being the only streaming service but that it will contain no new classical music releases, only back catalogue (which is almost all that the majors now release for this genre given that only the majors may be left, funded by pop music).
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
(In both senses of the words) music is a staple of North American bands and their exploiting, peddlar, colluding, corporations.
For most of the USA, ISPs are also making streaming untenable.
And, of course, - the artists don't get paid.
Apple and AMazon could close Tidal within the year. Europe might help out QoBuz, - but the market penetration of QoBuz in the uSA is about as close to zero as one can get.
High resolution, and high quality recordings, (as you said), aren't affordable, and the USA consumer doesn't want to pay for them, nor will they be able to tell if it's high quality or not.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Sorry but your rant is confusing me. What am I whitewashing? Why is it crappy? Homogenous means having a common property throughout or composed of parts of the same kind but I do not understand your use of the word in this context." (In both senses of the words) music is a staple of North American bands"
Which words? Music, staple? It is of course axiomatic that music is a staple of a band.
" And, of course, - the artists don't get paid. "
All of them? If so how can some complain about how much they get paid if they are not being paid? viz. Peter Frampton.
" High resolution, and high quality recordings, (as you said), aren't affordable," Where did I say that?
" For most of the USA, ISPs are also making streaming untenable."
Why is that? Is it something specific to the USA?
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
Edits: 01/23/20
Not a rant....
""All of them? If so how can some complain about how much they get paid if they are not being paid? viz. Peter Frampton.""
Yes, - not being paid ENOUGH for their work. And, - being paid far less than the old model (which wasn't very good either, - but better than now).
"Why is that? Is it something specific to the USA?"
Yes,- due to monopolies, greed, oppression, Broadband Internet Access simply is either not available, or is so expensive that it's in effect, - not available.
""" High resolution, and high quality recordings, (as you said), aren't affordable," Where did I say that?""
Sorry, - I meant to say, - as you seemed to imply. In that labels aren't spending the money to produce and invest in high quality recordings because the market and (especially) US consumers don't want to pay for high quality recordings.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Heyman's decision in terms of technology and market acceptance (preference?) for streaming. Of course, how it works is determined by the non-Classical market.
Thanks Kal. But Heymann's difficulty was not with technology or acceptance but the ratio of costs v. turnover of which many costs ( e.g. royalties) are scalable against turnover. So, the game remains the same and, as you imply, with rules for minority genres set by those of majority interest. This, so far, results in a financial skew hugely in favour of pop music. Of course a utilitarian could argue that the skew is justifiable and if minority genres of music cannot survive then so be it. It is all to the benefit of the majority.
Having been professionally involved in setting royalty rates for the use of sound recordings for a large part of my working life all I can say is it will all turn out to be a honey pot for the lawyers :-).
"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams
""It is all to the benefit of the majority.""
That was the argument: but is that really a benefit...
"Having been professionally involved in setting royalty rates for the use of sound recordings for a large part of my working life all I can say is it will all turn out to be a honey pot for the lawyers :-). ""
Having been professionally involved in songwriting and recording for a large part of my working life: I cannot disagree, - but would add exploitative corporations to the lawyers :-)
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Reminds be of a story Peter Q. of Audio Note UK likes to tell as to why he got into digital and made his first commercial DAC.
He's and avid record collector but there were few new classical releases on vinyl so he had to have a CD system he could stand to listen to. (His story, not mine).
So I guess my plan would be to stream everything recorded prior to 2020 and then buy CDs (or downloads) for everything else?
I can live with that. Maybe start downloading some Ultra Hi Rez stuff now? Say DXD, etc.?
Maybe should.
That said, I find the idea of having to stream music from Amazon as having little appeal.
There have been no NEW classical recordings in decades and I reached the same conclusion as did Peter Q. almost immediately. I have since devoted my efforts to ripping and downloading.
.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
I believe I saw an article about a year ago, which claimed that "best selling" classical releases (a heavily promoted Hilary Hahn release was mentioned) only needed to sell about 500 copies per month in order to attain a "No. 1" rating within the classical segment of recordings - at least during some months. The claim was that the market for "specialist" music is just not that big, no matter what the format (disc, streaming, etc.). I know, this could be one of those "I read it on the internets, so it must be true" kind of articles - but it didn't necessarily strain my credulousness.
"...but the fly in your ointment is that no lossless streaming service has yet posted a profit. So there is no indication that any will be in business this time next year. "
You make a valid point but I'm not willing to buy "insurance" at this time in the form of physical media based on speculation that both Qobuz and Tidal might not be here next year. There's another option to consider too. Amazon Music HD is backed by a company that's not going out of business anytime soon ;-)
"So, if a particular title is important to me then I will still purchase it to ensure my long term access. Otherwise there is a reasonable chance that I will get up one day, go to stream it and it is no longer there."
If a particular new album is important to me I still see no need to buy "insurance" if I can stream it lossless. I'll wait for all lossless streaming services to go belly up first so we'll cross that bridge when and if we get there.
As for albums that I already own, I'm no longer on that merry go round of buying better sounding remastered releases (and owning multiple copies) as I can hear and enjoy them via streaming.
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