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"MQA One Year Later -- Suddenly, More Questions"

Sorry Jim, I just don't buy that. It could be argued that MQA could replace 24/96 etc once the majority of DACs were MQA compatible (and/or replay software could provide the 1st stage of unpacking), but all the other formats (MP3/AAC/FLAC/ALAC etc) would still need to be available
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
The point to think about though is what if the music you want is *only* available as an 'MQA' Audio CD, which means it may have a lower resolution that if it were a plain Audio CD when played on a non-MQA system, but they won't sell you a plain Audio CD version, *only* the 'MQA' one?

Bear in mind that for suits in the music biz, "single invoicing" is very useful. Saves them the fuss of having to stock/offer/track/invoice Audio CD *and* highrez flac lossless downloads, etc, as distinct options. They just carry one 'version' and tell everyone its what they want.
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If something was only available on MQA I would kindly tell them to keep it ...
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
Bear in mind that for suits in the music biz, "single invoicing" is very useful. Saves them the fuss of having to stock/offer/track/invoice Audio CD *and* highrez flac lossless downloads, etc, as distinct options. They just carry one 'version' and tell everyone its what they want.
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Yes, but I think it would be wise to bear in mind that price discrimination is very important to profit maximisation. I'm unconvinced that single invoicing will outweigh the desire for price discrimination. Perhaps it will work if you dvide the market into cheap lossy compression and expensive (sort-off) uncompressed MQA files.

But at the moment hi res is a super way of making people pay in proportion to their belief (sometimes double the 16/44 amount). Why give that up and charge the same for 16/44 (ish) and hi rez? That struck me as being the flaw in the backwards compatible SACDs- they ended up being the same price as ordinary redbook. In the case of downloads where there is no physical medium to be stocked, the single inventory argument doesn't seem very strong.
 
adamdea said:
Yes, but I think it would be wise to bear in mind that price discrimination is very important to profit maximisation. I'm unconvinced that single invoicing will outweigh the desire for price discrimination. Perhaps it will work if you dvide the market into cheap lossy compression and expensive (sort-off) uncompressed MQA files.
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Accepted. We can't tell what *will* happen. Only keep an eye out for possible results. Personally having 'Audio CDs' that are *only* available as 'MQA' is my main concern here as the scope for hiding MQA into 44.1k/16 is minimal. Unless, of course, you're talking about lousy loudness-compressed material anyway where no-one could tell that the noise floor was raised. Provided we continue to have the *choice* to get non-MQA material I'm happy for people to choose what they want on an informed basis.
 
The System whereby you have to pay royalties at every stage of the production chain otherwise your light will not come on, does sound like something the Mafiosi might invent.
 
Stunsworth said:
Sorry Jim, I just don't buy that. It could be argued that MQA could replace 24/96 etc once the majority of DACs were MQA compatible (and/or replay software could provide the 1st stage of unpacking), but all the other formats (MP3/AAC/FLAC/ALAC etc) would still need to be available
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Well one CD company, Chesky has already decided to release an MQA CD - i.e. sub CD quality (aiui) for those who don't have an MQA enabled DAC, and MQA quality (whatever that actually is) for those very very few who do have an MQA DAC.

And their plans ...?

"If all goes well, we'll do all our future issues like this."

So for most people such a CD will no longer deliver CD quality. And the worse they just happen to make the the sub-CD bit sound, the better the MQA bit will possibly sound, so the comparison is rigged as well.

How can it be that if you screw with the 3 least significant bits of a 16 bit file it is inaudible, yet somehow when you go to 24 bits that are similar to (but not the same as) the 24 original bits it is magically wonderful?
 
AndyU said:
Well one CD company, Chesky has already decided to release an MQA CD - i.e. sub CD quality (aiui) for those who don't have an MQA enabled DAC, and MQA quality (whatever that actually is) for those very very few who do have an MQA DAC.

And their plans ...?

"If all goes well, we'll do all our future issues like this."

So for most people such a CD will no longer deliver CD quality. And the worse they just happen to make the the sub-CD bit sound, the better the MQA bit will possibly sound, so the comparison is rigged as well.

How can it be that if you screw with the 3 least significant bits of a 16 bit file it is inaudible, yet somehow when you go to 24 bits that are similar to (but not the same as) the 24 original bits it is magically wonderful?
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Ah yes. For disc releases I can see that single inventory may well be attractive.
 
adamdea said:
Ah yes. For disc releases I can see that single inventory may well be attractive.
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And the logic is that if people come to think MQA based on 44.1k/16 is OK for 'high rez' that can be rolled over into using it for some 'high rez'.

Given some of the 'dubious high rez' examples HFN shows up each month now, how long before downloaded high rez files that are *not* themselves MQA show the signs of having been 'expanded' from an MQA Audio CD? Given the mess that HDCD has made, I assume it *will* happen. Just a question of when and how often.

However my main concern with decisions to *only* make a 'CD' available with MQA is that it may mean that people who prefer CD will be left to lump it, even if the result is only 13 or 14 bits per sample as LPCM. You can't buy what they won't sell.

The bottom line for me is that I'm not bothered by MQA being offered as an 'option'. But I *am* worried if it means other choices are removed. e.g. the removal of well made plain LPCM Red Book Audio CDs.

FWIW I did see the 'Stereophile' thread on the Chesky CD. I have actually emailed JA about it. But I have no idea if he'll read and then respond or agree at all.

But more generally, it is a bit (pun alert) of a worry if professionals in the audio area aren't twigging that bits used for non-LPCM purposes means bits lost from the 'pool' available for LPCM. Information Theory is pretty firm about this.

If the total available bitrate is X and the rate used up for non-LPCM is Y then the amount available for LPCM is X-Y. You can play stats with how you reshuffle the data, but that rule isn't going to change.

The best you can do is 'scramble' the 'lost bits' to make them like 'added noise' when played as LPCM. And as has already been pointed out, well made Audio CDs are noise shaped *now*. So that can't be pulled out of a hat to magically recover what was lost compared to such a CD.

If people decide that 'lost bits' MQA Audio CDs sound fine when played as plain LPCM then the implication is that Philips early idea to use 14bit samples, not 16, would also have been fine. But how many audiophiles would agree with that?! Many has complained for years that *16* isn't enough.
 
Not sure who they are aiming MQA at but I would have thought the people interested in high quality audio reproduction will already have a lifetime's worth of music in their music library anyway without the need to buy yet more copies of the same...
 
G T Audio said:
Not sure who they are aiming MQA at but I would have thought the people interested in high quality audio reproduction will already have a lifetime's worth of music in their music library anyway without the need to buy yet more copies of the same...
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Streaming.
 
G T Audio said:
Not sure who they are aiming MQA at but I would have thought the people interested in high quality audio reproduction will already have a lifetime's worth of music in their music library anyway without the need to buy yet more copies of the same...
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Without the need, but probably with the compulsion.
 
G T Audio said:
Not sure who they are aiming MQA at but I would have thought the people interested in high quality audio reproduction will already have a lifetime's worth of music in their music library anyway without the need to buy yet more copies of the same...
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I have about 3,500 CDs. I guess that's several lifetimes.

But I'm currently listening to Sean Rowe's latest album in MQA on Tidal Masters. It's excellent.

So I guess the sort of people they're aiming MQA at might include me.
 
Thing is, if you already use Tidal at Hifi setting, MQA is a no cost option for the music.
I don't think its the "future of music" but it can give excellent results. As long as Tidal don't eventually put the price up above that of their hifi quality streaming, there's not much to lose by giving it a go.
By my reckoning, Tidal have approx 500 MQA albums & the list is growing fairly quickly.
Hopefully there will be people who are new to hifi & good quality music, & not just a stagnant number of "people who are interested in high quality audio who already have a big library without the need to buy repeat copies".
 
If 13 bits is enough for non-MQA players, FLAC could have bit frozen these LSBs and achieved far better than the typical 50% compression, saving streaming costs.
 
HarryB said:
Alt-J have both albums listed as MQA but they're not.
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Column C indicates whether the MQA version is available in the UK, the two Alt-J albums appear to be limited to the US.

The same applies to albums by Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, etc.

Some albums by other artists are available in the UK and not the US.
 
manicatel said:
Thing is, if you already use Tidal at Hifi setting, MQA is a no cost option for the music.
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Apart from the outlay of buying an MQA enabled DAC of course, how much is a good MQA DAC at the moment?
 
IceG said:
Column C indicates whether the MQA version is available in the UK, the two Alt-J albums appear to be limited to the US.

The same applies to albums by Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, etc.

Some albums by other artists are available in the UK and not the US.
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Here we go again and why I haven't signed up for any MQA service in Malaysia yet. Previous experience with iTunes etc is very limited catalogues for several years and many "essentials" never available
 
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