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MQA bad for Music?

I am sorry but you started this.
I think when noone knows what it is about, then it is about money.

Linn certainly seem worried about money issues ie their business and not about music.

PS didn't your OP ask about people's thoughts?

If so why do you keep complaining when someone says "I think"?!
 
Linn certainly seem worried about money issues ie their business and not about music.

PS didn't your OP ask about people's thoughts?

If so why do you keep complaining when someone says "I think"?!

It is about John approach to this conversation. He started this. Have a look at post 94. He wants just facts from us, we cannot think or even pass opinion from inside industry and himself... he can ''think''...
 
It is about John approach to this conversation. He started this. Have a look at post 94. He wants just facts from us, we cannot think or even pass opinion from inside industry and himself... he can say what he thinks...

Kenni

English clearly isn't your first language but even taking that into account I still don't know what you are on about. I take it you have read the stuff on the Mqa website to do with hardware royalties and taken that on face value. I think that is a bit of a red herring as I've spelt out in the last few posts .

John
 
Kenni

English clearly isn't your first language but even taking that into account I still don't know what you are on about. I take it you have read the stuff on the Mqa website to do with hardware royalties and taken that on face value. I think that is a bit of a red herring as I've spelt out in the last few posts .

John

John it is not even my second language but that is not important here.
I told you I have insight into industry, and have information mqa is about monies for hardware producers. You dismiss that and you wants 'facts'. Have a read what Bob Stuart has to say. Question 69. Licence per unit. Licence is never for free.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/694-comprehensive-q-mqa-s-bob-stuart/
 
John it is not even my second language but that is not important here.
I told you I have insight into industry, and have information mqa is about monies for hardware producers. You dismiss that and you wants 'facts'. Have a read what Bob Stuart has to say. Question 69. Licence per unit. Licence is never for free.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/694-comprehensive-q-mqa-s-bob-stuart/


Ive just read q69 and the answer. It is does not say anything like 'license per unit, license is never free' . What are these ' industry ' credentials you have? I would think most of Mqa/partner deals are under NDA and as such you are unlikely to know anymore than i do
 
Ive just read q69 and the answer. It is does not say anything like 'license per unit, license is never free' . What are these ' industry ' credentials you have? I would think most of Mqa/partner deals are under NDA and as such you are unlikely to know anymore than i do

Here is Q69:
Q69. From MQA FAQ, I understand there is a license pr. unit. (DAC, Streamer, and other hardware). Can you explain...

Bob do not oppose this sentence hence this is true and also confirms what I manage to find out. Audio industry is a small world, I thought you understand that. And yet again you dismiss what I say :)
If you want to give someone license for free, why license per unit? :)

And here from wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated

Hardware and software decoders
Hardware decoders are manufactured by Pioneer, Onkyo and Bluesound. Selected Meridian products will support MQA thanks to a firmware update. On software side, the desktop application by Tidal supports MQA.[16]

Commercial MQA-capable playback devices require payment of a royalty to MQA Ltd per unit sold. Based on information from Auralic, a manufacturer of Audiophile Wireless Audio Streamers, Meridian Audio prohibits digital output of unpacked MQA in any digital format, only allowing the unpacked data to be fed to an on-board MQA-compatible DAC and output in analog form. Some claim this to be a part of DRM process[citation needed], which allows a proper MQA file to be authenticated and the full quality of the signal decoded only on commercially licensed equipment.
 
Only the question raises the unit royalty and in fact the response accidentally or deliberately doesn't either achnowlledge the question or really answer it.

I don't know why this is so difficult for you to grasp but imho , now , today , at the moment Mqa are not charging dac manufacturers a royalty. It would be like a commercial TV station limiting the availability of televisions. Of course it maybe that manufacturers that are not part of the Mqa plan ( what ever that is) , and that might include Linn, are being asked for a license fee.

I am guessing , and you are parroting the literature. neither of us know.
 
Only the question raises the unit royalty and in fact the response accidentally or deliberately doesn't either achnowlledge the question or really answer it.

I don't know why this is so difficult for you to grasp but imho , now , today , at the moment Mqa are not charging dac manufacturers a royalty. It would be like a commercial TV station limiting the availability of televisions. Of course it maybe that manufacturers that are not part of the Mqa plan ( what ever that is) , and that might include Linn, are being asked for a license fee.

I am guessing , and you are parroting the literature. neither of us know.

Did you even look at wikipedia link? It looks like it is not a secret. They charge per unit.
 
Did you even look at wikipedia link? It looks like it is not a secret. They charge per unit.
But the amount is a secret. My suspicion is that some early adopters will be getting a peppercorn fee like 1 penny per unit - perfectly legal. Only if MQA becomes dominant and a monopoly will the competition regulators take an interest in who gets to pay how much.

This is not like Dolby B where you had to buy specific Signetics ICs, which were only sold to licensees
 
Kenny


I'll ask you again. Do you seriously think audioquest and indeed MA are paying royalty against every dac they sell that is Mqa ready? Why would they? If so why aren't aq charging for the firmware upgrade to Mqa for the red and black stick then?

just seems logical to me that Mqa would want to get the music out there as quickly and painlessly as possible. In fact MA selling explorer 2 at 130 would support this and at the same time limit what Mqa could even consider asking per unit . As has been pointed out the hardware licensing costs are likely to be higher on the encoding side. And I think some the the q and a Covers this. Very little is said about dac royalties.

Kenny..what is your axe to grind here. Are you a linn user?
 
John linn user? If you buy neff fridge you will defend neff products? That is just stupid.

Meridian is trying to introduce fees to free 'file standard' market. Now you do not pay for FLAC (FREE lossless audio codec) or DSD. Just for artist input. At the end MQA business model will hit our pockets... This is not so hard to understand.
 
This is the $64k question.
How can you really have a hirez campaign that isn't disingenuous
An honest technically sound pitch can only amount to
Buy the 24/96 because it's broadly the format this was actually mastered in any has some sort of authenticity if that floats your boat plus it might possibly sound better if we can't be trusted to downsample competently.

Everything else is exploiting people with OCD and or golden eared fantasies. Can you expect them to play fair. What's the point? They're selling a bullshit product.

Aside from that I simply can't see a market for hi rez streaming. How much of a market is there even for 16/44 streaming. I imagine that people who really must have hi rez probably like owning stuff. Unless MQA really gets a stranglehold on the market from top to bottom it's never going to be the echt master. Only something that arguable sounds the same as it.
And we already have something that sounds the same as the echt master- it's called 160bps vbr AAC, or if you absolutely must 320kbps or 16/44 flac.
What in the name of god is the point of MQA?
How many people have exactly the right mixture of OCD about hi rez AND non OCD about lossy compression?

I had Tidal free for a few months which I used with Audirvana Plus as the interface. I was absolutely gobsmacked when comparing it with iTunes - when I could hear a difference, iTunes sounded better. Then again, I can't possibly know what the hell I'm talking about because I've hardly noticed any difference between my CD originals & the VBR 320kbps MP4 rips.
Although I absolutely agree we all listen with our ears & not test equipment, we equally need to be mindful how easily it is to be fooled but hell, few want to admit to that!
 
Then again, I can't possibly know what the hell I'm talking about because I've hardly noticed any difference between my CD originals & the VBR 320kbps MP4 rips.

The perceived quality, depends on the playback equipment. I would guess most listening of music now, is by headphones or in ear buds. The majority of my digital listening is in the car, where I have to use a USB memory stick and either WMA or MP3 compression. I do hear the improvement WMA has over MP3.
For music on the move I don't believe you want the best reproduction as you shouldn't be distracted from what you're doing. :(
 
Perhaps worth reminding ourselves here that a paper in JAES some time ago had both Pros and general listeners take part in comparisions between various formats, etc.

No surprise that experienced audio pros were better than the general population at being able to tell plain decent LPCM from mp3, etc.

But the interesting point is that various members of the general public who showed they could distinguish modest-rate mp3 from clean LPCM *preferred* the mp3. For them, it seems, the changes made by the lossy encoding are a part of the sound they want.

So preferring something may not always equate with it being more accurate as a representation of the source recording. Depends on the case and the listener.
 
One thought.
I'm assuming that the vast majority here are good, law abiding citizens and pay for their music, as against downloading it for free.

Clearly, a good number of person's don't, and in other countries, I wouldn't be surprised if that number is large. The implications are simple. We as actual buyers are subsidizing the people stealing the music.
Furthermore, if everyone actually PAID for the music, chances are that the owners would be willing to charge less per unit, as they'd still make a decent profit.

So please, remind me what's wrong with DRM, assuming it has no sonic impact?
 
But the interesting point is that various members of the general public who showed they could distinguish modest-rate mp3 from clean LPCM *preferred* the mp3. For them, it seems, the changes made by the lossy encoding are a part of the sound they want.

I have not read the paper, but assuming that the research is robust, I do find this rather surprising and a little disappointing. Do the authors offer any explanation or hypotheses as to why this is the case?
 
A more restrained critique from Linn would have sounded less desperate. It reads like they are worried by Mqa and a tiny bit jealous.

Couldn't agree more! If only they'd thought of it first and could charge even more for their hugely over priced gear.
 


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