[Ice10]

About 3 weeks ago, prior to watching the MQA video that exposed it for what it appears to be, I canceled my Qobuz subscription and was going to try Tidal (I didn’t care about MQA, I was just going to try out of general interest).  There’s no way I’d give Tidal a penny now.  I hope Qobuz will take me back...

[GSDaudio]

Curious to understand how the MQA controversy compares to "Loudness Wars" in terms of real impact to our listening experience?

A bit off topic but I'm always trying to find out how "bad things" are compared to other bad things out there.

For example, my vinyl studio rips of an original Boney M vinyl album from the 70s is a completely difference experience than my CD version....   the former is great the later being way over compressed.    Is MQA more of business model rip off (fees, DRM, etc) versus the destruction of music that dynamic compression causes?

Thoughts?

Cheers!

[bkatbamna]

Ever since the advent of home video tape recorders, hollywood studios have wanted to impose a pay per each view on their products.  They succeeded finally with the streaming services.  MQA to me is just like that except that is kind of like changing the color balance of the movie.

[RDavidson]

Curious to understand how the MQA controversy compares to "Loudness Wars" in terms of real impact to our listening experience?

A bit off topic but I'm always trying to find out how "bad things" are compared to other bad things out there.

For example, my vinyl studio rips of an original Boney M vinyl album from the 70s is a completely difference experience than my CD version....   the former is great the later being way over compressed.    Is MQA more of business model rip off (fees, DRM, etc) versus the destruction of music that dynamic compression causes?

Thoughts?

Cheers!

It's a business model rip-off. Smoke and mirrors BS moreso than anything. With MQA you're paying for something marketed as being great, when it isn't offering a single benefit at all. Zero. In fact MQA is detrimental though they claim it is lossless. Watch the video in the original post. It's quite interesting and well done.

[rbbert]

I think this commentary presents a more balanced view than most, but MQA still comes out looking...not so good

https://www.headphonesty.com/2021/05/tidal-mqa-golden-sound-debate/

[GSDaudio]

Thanks for the link rbbert.

I get worried when I hear terms such as "psychoacoustic" and "neuroscience" when discussing audio formats.

I guess I can be classified as an "objectivist".

I guess the big difference between other format wars (vinyl vrs digital;  SS vrs tube), MQA vrs PCM is a software driven monopoly.  I dislike monopolies!

Cheers!

[NekoAudio]

I think this commentary presents a more balanced view than most, but MQA still comes out looking...not so good

https://www.headphonesty.com/2021/05/tidal-mqa-golden-sound-debate/

I read through that article a few days ago and it doesn't look like the author bothered to read the MQA patent. If you read the patent, and combine that with what is known about the audio file data being delivered via Tidal, then you should no longer need to couch your words and can instead come to a concrete conclusion. You wouldn't put together such an ambivalent write up.

I also find it strange that the author states MQA is a lossy codec and immediately follows that with a question of whether or not MQA provides the highest possible sound quality, as he does in the introduction.

I get worried when I hear terms such as "psychoacoustic" and "neuroscience" when discussing audio formats.

Psychoacoustics and neuroscience are unavoidable when discussing lossy audio codecs.

[RDavidson]

Ummm, yeah....psychoacoustics are unavoidable whether or not you want to think about it or not, assuming one can hear and perceive. Otherwise, why are we in this hobby, to look at graphs and numbers?

Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of sound perception and audiology—how humans perceive various sounds. More specifically, it is the branch of science studying the psychological responses associated with sound (including noise, speech, and music).

But back to MQA, if the technology actually did as they said which is take a lossless audio file, compress it for easier/faster processing, but maintain the original lossless file in the decompression process, they might have viable format...despite the questionable need for it to begin with. MQA apparently does not do this and so they don't have what they claim. Don't buy it.

[rbbert]

I read through that article a few days ago and it doesn't look like the author bothered to read the MQA patent. If you read the patent, and combine that with what is known about the audio file data being delivered via Tidal, then you should no longer need to couch your words and can instead come to a concrete conclusion. You wouldn't put together such an ambivalent write up.

I also find it strange that the author states MQA is a lossy codec and immediately follows that with a question of whether or not MQA provides the highest possible sound quality, as he does in the introduction.

Psychoacoustics and neuroscience are unavoidable when discussing lossy audio codecs.

https://patents.justia.com/patent/10896683#description, granted Jan 19, 2021

"Lossless bandsplitting and bandjoining using allpass filters"

From the introduction
"The term 'lossless' is often used in the communications literature to refer to such designs, but in such literature perfect arithmetic is assumed and the designs so labelled may or may not provide exact reconstruction in the presence of arithmetic rounding errors. In this document we shall adopt terminology of the audio literature, wherein ‘lossless’ implies exact bit-for-bit reconstruction of signals that are already quantised. Thus, a lossless decoder must reverse any arithmetic errors or quantisations that are produced by an encoder."

Someone else with more technical knowledge should perhaps read through this, although my initial conclusion is that this is "lossless" only to 16 bits?

[rbbert]

Then there is this
https://patents.justia.com/patent/10867614#description

"wherein the encoder comprises a downsampler adapted to receive the signal representing the audio capture at a first sample rate which is a multiple of the transmission sample rate and to downsample the signal to furnish the digital audio signal; and,
wherein an impulse response of the encoder and decoder in combination is characterised by a duration for its cumulative absolute response to rise from 1% to 95% of its final value not exceeding five sample periods at the transmission sample rate."

Which does seem to indicate (after reading further into the description) that prior to the "lossless" bandsplitting described in the most recent patent, frequencies above the audio range are indeed "lost".

[dB Cooper]

Stereophile, Tidal, and others all had a hand in pushing this for MQA and curious if there were any kickbacks.

I dumped Tidal because Qobuz was 25% cheaper. Why pay extra.Stereophile, well, they'll push anything connected to ad revenue. Not old fashioned payola but probably a fair amount of 'wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more'.

FWIW, rumors are swirling that a lossless version of Apple Music will launch soon, and Spotify is test-marketing a lossless tier 'later this year'. Some of the rumors even claim that Apple will not charge more for their lossless service, which would put a lot of pressure on everybody else in the space.

[mresseguie]

I dumped Tidal because Qobuz was 25% cheaper. Why pay extra.Stereophile, well, they'll push anything connected to ad revenue. Not old fashioned payola but probably a fair amount of 'wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more'.

FWIW, rumors are swirling that a lossless version of Apple Music will launch soon, and Spotify is test-marketing a lossless tier 'later this year'. Some of the rumors even claim that Apple will not charge more for their lossless service, which would put a lot of pressure on everybody else in the space.

Well, I'll keep my eyes peeled for this news. I may just give it a try.

[GSDaudio]

FWIW, rumors are swirling that a lossless version of Apple Music will launch soon, and Spotify is test-marketing a lossless tier 'later this year'. Some of the rumors even claim that Apple will not charge more for their lossless service, which would put a lot of pressure on everybody else in the space.

Maybe all the newcomers to the space will drive out MQA through market forces!

Apple likes to own and manage its ecosystem (and profit by) and would never adopt MQA.   Probably create its own version of MQA to "sound" better on its products.

Amazon HD will compete on price and therefore would not adopt MQA.  Big tech doesn't like to share profits.

Spotify...don't know what will happen there.   Purchased by Microsoft ?

Qobuz seems a panacea for now.   Except for "non-supported Countries" 

Tidal will push MQA until it starts to lose money.   So they are likely going to broaden there product offerings to cover that potential pitfall.

BTW.   I don't know what I'm talking about.   But it sure is fun to try and guess how the streaming business is going to evolve....hopefully with less MQA or MQA-like encoders.

Cheers!

[NekoAudio]

https://patents.justia.com/patent/10896683#description, granted Jan 19, 2021

"Lossless bandsplitting and bandjoining using allpass filters"

...

Someone else with more technical knowledge should perhaps read through this, although my initial conclusion is that this is "lossless" only to 16 bits?

I believe the patent application you want to refer to for MQA is this one: Doubly compatible lossless audio bandwidth extension. It's easier to read via the PDF linked to on that webpage.

The patent describes a more general application of encoding and compression, which you then need to use with a specific set of parameters based on what you want to implement. There is a lossless split and join at the two ends, but the part in the middle is where the real work occurs. You may note that for the configuration used in figures 7A and 7B, the encoded data is 24-bit but the actual data resolution is limited to 17 bits, and the word "lossy" appears.

[James Tanner]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHkqWZ9jzA0