MQA 6 months later- have thoughts evolved?

[timola]

There's at least one long (1hr+) video on YouTube where Bob Stuart answers questions on MQA from last years' RMAF.

It would be a shame if it wasn't discussed at the next one....I'm sure the organisers have enough time to try and set it up again, or perhaps just have an open discussion about user experiences with MQA.

The YouTube video I mentioned is from RMAF15...two years ago.

 

[sls4321]

I am a complete non-believer. Never was a believer. I have an Aries streamer that can unfold MQA files if I had them, but I stream from Qobuz that is mostly between 24/88 and 24/192 anyway and generally sounds superb.

To clarify the Meridian/MQA position (based on a quick review so don't blame me if there is more to it than this):

In the year to June 2015 the Meridian Audio Group assigned £13.5million of IP. Meridian has been losing money for years. At 31 May 2016 it had accumulated losses of £24million, after a profit in 2015 of over £10million thanks to the IP transfer. So far as I can see, Meridian has lost money in each of the last 10 years and its sales are falling, now under £9million in 2016. Bob Stuart recently resigned as a director (4 September 2017).

MQA is a separate group. As of 13 July 2017 it is controlled by Reinet, a Luxembourg investment company, meaning they hold directly or indirectly between 50% and 75% of the shares. Sony, Warner and Universal have significant minority shareholdings. Reinet is massive. At 31 December 2016 MQA had losses of £6.8million and cash of £8.4million, having lost over £3million in each of the last two years. So MQA is not going to run out of money anytime soon.

There is a pretty full description of the business plan and risks, but it's basically to get the record companies to adopt the format and get people to believe in it before they run out of money. If that isn't enough, there are major threats, not least the threat of unlicensed decoding (which Auralic can do already) and the apparent expectation that people will use it with mobile data plans and mobile packages won't provide enough data.

I can only see one MQA patent, here:
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search...=nano+OR+filter+OR+ceramic&tab=PCTDescription
and there is a graphic here:
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search...ring=nano+OR+filter+OR+ceramic&tab=PCT+Biblio

I can see what they are trying to achieve, but I can't see anything that suggests it actually improves on the original 24/96 file, which is what its marketing seems to be focused on.

 

[timola]

Corr!....a very interesting post. I thought those sort of figures were confidential...:

 

[davidsrsb]

So far as I can see, Meridian has lost money in each of the last 10 years and its sales are falling, now under £9million in 2016. Bob Stuart recently resigned as a director (4 September 2017).

That's sad, Meridian under Bob have made some great products over the years.

 

[Rick_F]

After reading that. unless Meridian can come out with a super product that sells like hot cakes it's hard to see how they can carry on.

 

[vln]

I am a complete non-believer. Never was a believer. I have an Aries streamer that can unfold MQA files if I had them, but I stream from Qobuz that is mostly between 24/88 and 24/192 anyway and generally sounds superb.

To clarify the Meridian/MQA position:

In the year to June 2015 the Meridian Audio Group assigned £13.5million of IP. Meridian has been losing money for years. At 31 May 2016 it had accumulated losses of £24million, after a profit in 2015 of over £10million thanks to the MQA transfer. So far as I can see, Meridian has lost money in each of the last 10 years and its sales are falling, now under £9million in 2016.

This is worrying - I was considering Meridian DSP speakers as a potential next step (regardless of MQA), when/if I ever move on from what I currently have. Where do you have this information from?

Also, how do you get your Auralic Aries to decode MQA? I know Auralic's position on MQA, and I know they want to implement their own (unauthorized) MQA decoding but I thought this is not yet implemented?

 

[sls4321]

This is worrying - I was considering Meridian DSP speakers as a potential next step (regardless of MQA), when/if I ever move on from what I currently have. Where do you have this information from?

Also, how do you get your Auralic Aries to decode MQA? I know Auralic's position on MQA, and I know they want to implement their own (unauthorized) MQA decoding but I thought this is not yet implemented?

So far an I am aware, both the Aries and the Aries Mini can unwrap MQA files. As I'm not on Tidal, I've not tried and and I'm not paying for an MQA download.

Meridian and MQA are UK businesses and for legal reasons (they are both groups) they provide their full accounts. All you have to do is go here https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk tap in the name and select the file. If you tap in MQA and look at their 2016 accounts you will see on the first couple of pages their business plan. You don't need to be an accountant, but anyone with any business experience can look at a balance sheet and see if it's good or bad.

It is quite interesting which companies seem to do well and which are basket cases, and sometimes not the ones you think. I spent all of 10 minutes looking at Meridian and MQA, just out of curiosity. MQA has set up a company in the USA so they may book revenue over there (I'd be surprised as US corporation tax is much higher than the UK, ask Trump), but they've booked almost nothing over here.

I understand Meridian have been really innovative over the years, sometimes hit and miss (e.g. DVD-A), but to Bob Stuart's credit he seems to have tried harder than most and probably deserves his reputation. Wasn't he behind the Sooloos system? That was really ahead of its time. But if you guess their average product price at trade cost of say 60% retail, they don't sell a lot of units. I can't image Meridian is going to disappear anytime soon, but who knows? The published information is unlikely to be the whole picture.

I'm also of the view that MQA was a really good idea at the time, but think it is just bad luck that digital has moved on so far so quickly (as I sit at home streaming 24/192) and potential benefits have been superseded. Even if it has no technical merit, it may succeed if it can be sold, but my curiosity was prompted by the report of the RMAF non-show.

I would not be surprised if Bob Stuart resigning from Meridian was a requirement by MQA's music industry shareholders that he devote himself full-time to MQA. There may be all sorts of reasons. There may be new management. I recall that about 10 years ago Linn was about to go bust and Gilad took over, turned the business around and it is doing really rather well. It's sales in 2016 were £18million, about double Meridian, and its finances look very strong.

I certainly wouldn't want to put anyone off Meridian products. There are audio companies that have lost money and changed hands numerous times (Wharfdale is one that comes to mind, now part of IAG, another really impressive operation). I find it remarkable that there are quite a lot of UK audio companies that have kept going for decades, often very specialist like Stevens & Billington and Sowter, what with recessions, globalisation etc.

 

[sls4321]

After reading that. unless Meridian can come out with a super product that sells like hot cakes it's hard to see how they can carry on.

I'm not sure how or why they've latest till now, but unless you meet Bob Stuart in a pub and buy him a drink I doubt you'll ever now. Heaven know what they have up their sleeve.

I've looked at hundreds of businesses over the years. I've always preferred the "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" types. Years ago in the USA I met a man who had one product - wire clothes hangers - and boy was he wealthy. I once met an inventor who had two products, one cost £100,000 and the other £10, and guess which one made all the money. The Meridian Explorer DAC may be such a product.

 

[sls4321]

I would add that the MQA is not a bad example of the modern disruptive model. It involves taking a load of cash and trying to create or grab a market before the cash runs out, which means making huge losses as part of the process. UBER is the best example, although they had about $15billion to play with.

 

[al2002]

Very informative. Thanks for posting.

I am a complete non-believer. Never was a believer. I have an Aries streamer that can unfold MQA files if I had them, but I stream from Qobuz that is mostly between 24/88 and 24/192 anyway and generally sounds superb.

To clarify the Meridian/MQA position (based on a quick review so don't blame me if there is more to it than this):

In the year to June 2015 the Meridian Audio Group assigned £13.5million of IP. Meridian has been losing money for years. At 31 May 2016 it had accumulated losses of £24million, after a profit in 2015 of over £10million thanks to the IP transfer. So far as I can see, Meridian has lost money in each of the last 10 years and its sales are falling, now under £9million in 2016. Bob Stuart recently resigned as a director (4 September 2017).

MQA is a separate group. As of 13 July 2017 it is controlled by Reinet, a Luxembourg investment company, meaning they hold directly or indirectly between 50% and 75% of the shares. Sony, Warner and Universal have significant minority shareholdings. Reinet is massive. At 31 December 2016 MQA had losses of £6.8million and cash of £8.4million, having lost over £3million in each of the last two years. So MQA is not going to run out of money anytime soon.

There is a pretty full description of the business plan and risks, but it's basically to get the record companies to adopt the format and get people to believe in it before they run out of money. If that isn't enough, there are major threats, not least the threat of unlicensed decoding (which Auralic can do already) and the apparent expectation that people will use it with mobile data plans and mobile packages won't provide enough data.

I can only see one MQA patent, here:
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search...=nano+OR+filter+OR+ceramic&tab=PCTDescription
and there is a graphic here:
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search...ring=nano+OR+filter+OR+ceramic&tab=PCT+Biblio

I can see what they are trying to achieve, but I can't see anything that suggests it actually improves on the original 24/96 file, which is what its marketing seems to be focused on.

 

[Werner]

So far an I am aware, both the Aries and the Aries Mini can unwrap MQA files.

I doubt that. You need the keys to unfold the buried ultrasonic data. You can't have the keys if you don't license MQA.

They are probably just reading the public metadata in the MQA file, which states the target sampling rate, and then they upsample to that rate using whatever filter they think works best.

Not that differernt from that Belgian bloke who is shouting from the roof tops that raw MQA upsampled with a particular SoX setting sounds indentical to the source DXD ;-)

 

[sq225917]

The reason people are selling their Brooklyn Dacs is because a v2 is coming.

 

[sls4321]

The Roon community discuss Aries decoding of MQA. Go google. Apparently dCS can also decode MQA. WHere did I see that? Mike Jbara’s twitter feed.

DCS just put out a release saying that they have developed a bespoke software solution to decode MQA in collaboration with MQA. That makes sense as dCS is all bespoke and it would not be like them to insert someone else’s chip in their kit.
https://www.dcsltd.co.uk/dcs-launches-mqa-support-across-product-ranges/

According to the 2016 MQA accounts, one of the risks to the business is “potential of the software decoder to cannibalise the hardware/chip-based decoder/renderer”. I’m not technical, but to me that means they are worried that other companies will solve the unwrapping process, which would imply it is not patented. Seems like Auralic have done that.

Who is Jbara? He’s the Chief Executive of MQA, since 2016. The other directors are Bob Stuart and a couple of investment guys.
Looked up Jbara on LinkedIn and most recently he was a tech EVP at Warner Music. Was with Warner for about 10 years. So MQA is run by an ex WMG guy and controlled by a Lux investor? It’s all a bit Agatha Christie.

Final observation. Tidal is 33% owned by Sprint. Does one of MQAs listed risks amount to whether Sprint contracts provide enough data to use Tidal with MQA effectively?

 

[Werner]

Apparently dCS can also decode MQA.

DCS are licensed. Of course it is bespoke. DCS can't pick from MQA's list of ready solutions for existing DAC chips, since their DAC is not, and cannot be, on that list.

According to the 2016 MQA accounts, one of the risks to the business is “potential of the software decoder to cannibalise the hardware/chip-based decoder/renderer”. I’m not technical, but to me that means they are worried that other companies will solve the unwrapping process,

That is not what it means. It means that if a fully official software-based MQA decoder sees the light and is marketed, that then this decoder will steal sales from new hardware MQA DACs. This is a valid concern since the day that 1) Blue presented a first-unfolded digital output on their Node 2, and 2) Tidal started doing unfolding in SW in their desktop app.
This is what cannibalism means: a product in your line-up that steals sales from another product in your line-up.


The issue is not that the unfolding process is patented. The issue is that the data are encrypted and scrambled. Unlicensed third parties have no access. Otherwise literally anyone could start decoding MQA. For free.

 

[Werner]

RMAF.

It would be a shame if it wasn't discussed at the next one....I'm sure the organisers have enough time to try and set it up again, or perhaps just have an open discussion about user experiences with MQA.

See above. An MQA panel discussion was planned.

MQA bailed out unilaterally when they learned that the panel would also contain known critics.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

To clarify one aspect a bit: (pun alert!)

There are actually (at least) TWO types of patent which MQA has been given.

1) WO2014/108677A1 which outlines the resampling processes that can reduce or increase the sample rates using what I and others have called 'lazy' or 'leaky' filters.

2) WO2013/186561 which outline what I've called 'bitstacking' where the HF is squirrled away in the least significant bits of the low-rate encoded result.

There are various alternative patent numbers, etc, because of the way various legal jurisdictions run their own patent offices, etc. But they seem to all contain the same bumf as the above two examples.

A problem is that what is described in the patents is vague and sweeping. And a lot of it looks suspiciously like some potential 'prior art', e.g. like HDCD. So a big company with legal eagles might well challenge the patents if they though it worth the effort.

The *specific* details are under a layer of secret sauce. That means those details are *not* patented. So anyone could find them out and use them. But might not be able to claim they were 'MQA' because IPR law reserves that description for what MQA have patented or registered or is inherently their copyright. Beyond that it becomes a case of whatever level or situation you have for 'reverse engineering' or academic study in a given country.

Having done some 'secret squirrel' work in a different area I'm well aware that any deterministic encryption system could be cracked. That's why some countries have passed laws forbidding anyone to even try! But given the size of the world, someone somewhere eventually will do something. Particularly if you don't want them to.

 

[sls4321]

A process can be patented and the "invention" will have different patent numbers around the world. There is grey area what is actually an "invention" and whether a patent will be granted. My wife was involved in something that had a device that connected it to a wall. The connection was deemed to be a generic type of hook and the manufacturer could not get a patent.

"MQA" will also be protected as a trademark, so even if Auralic or anyone else create software that can unwrap MQA files, they cannot call it an MQA decoder, just like you can't invent a dust collector and call it a hoover.

I do wonder about some patents. I once read on a cable company website that their process was patented. I looked up the patent and it had measurements showing the "invention" made no measurable difference of any significance, then started rambling on about how it sounded better under subjective listening and they may have mentioned fairy dust. I had to laugh.

So I now get how the revenue stream could leak thanks to Blue Node2 or similar.

I do wonder if MQA is aimed any being a mobile technology that can be unwrapped using a portable DAC like the Explorer.

The financial motivation of the the business must be for Warner, Universal and Sony to get more revenue from streaming, presumably from premium rate subscriptions. If you look at the RIAA industry revenue data, that's where the money is and the sceptic in me says that's all the really matters.

http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/RIAA-Mid-Year-2017-News-and-Notes2.pdf
https://www.riaa.com/reports/

The patents may be woolly, but can anyone point to anything in them that claims to improve on the sound quality of original PCM data file?

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

A process can be patented and the "invention" will have different patent numbers around the world. There is grey area what is actually an "invention" and whether a patent will be granted. My wife was involved in something that had a device that connected it to a wall. The connection was deemed to be a generic type of hook and the manufacturer could not get a patent.

"MQA" will also be protected as a trademark, so even if Auralic or anyone else create software that can unwrap MQA files, they cannot call it an MQA decoder, just like you can't invent a dust collector and call it a hoover.

This area is complex one, and varies from country to country as well as over time! Trademarks are a particular kind of area. For example Philips/Sony couldn't stop people making and selling Red Book Audio CDs and labelling them as an "Audio CD" once the patents on the process had lapsed. But they *could* prevent them from using the specific graphical logo they'd trademarked. A set of initials like "MQA" would probably depend on how they were used in a description or statement. To know more we'd need a legal eagle familiar with the specific area.

As to if this will ever matter, only time will tell...

 

[firedog]

I doubt that. You need the keys to unfold the buried ultrasonic data. You can't have the keys if you don't license MQA.

They are probably just reading the public metadata in the MQA file, which states the target sampling rate, and then they upsample to that rate using whatever filter they think works best.

Not that differernt from that Belgian bloke who is shouting from the roof tops that raw MQA upsampled with a particular SoX setting sounds indentical to the source DXD ;-)

But the "Belgian bloke" is correct. Try it and see.

Auralic decided that MQA essentially degrades SQ. So yes, they also developed similar filtering of their own for MQA files that let the listener enjoy them without tying themselves or their users to the closed MQA universe.

 

[sls4321]

This area is complex one, and varies from country to country as well as over time! Trademarks are a particular kind of area. For example Philips/Sony couldn't stop people making and selling Red Book Audio CDs and labelling them as an "Audio CD" once the patents on the process had lapsed. But they *could* prevent them from using the specific graphical logo they'd trademarked. A set of initials like "MQA" would probably depend on how they were used in a description or statement. To know more we'd need a legal eagle familiar with the specific area.

As to if this will ever matter, only time will tell...

There are trademarks registered for “MQA” and “MQA LOSSLESS”. Is the latter a contradiction in terms?