[RDavidson]

100% agree with gbaby. How can one have an appreciation for technology without an understanding of what it does? In this case, it didn’t do really anything helpful nor useful except attempt to funnel money to the schemers for generations to come. If you drank the Kool Aid it’s fine. Many did. Be happy it’s gone because it wasn’t legit Kool Aid to begin with.

[R. Daneel]

Sorry, but I cannot agree. Using knowledge to take advantage of folks is not smart, but slick and evil. As has been noted, subterfuge is subterfuge. You may want to re-read the post by R. Davidson. The MQA folks were trying to take over the entire recording industry having people like me repurchase my entire music collection. No!

You don't have to agree, this is a forum, not a quorum!

It's easy to get lost in the chatter but I did note the problem with MQA has always been the fact they wanted all the Suns in the licensing business. Not just a share of the market, ALL of it. If not for the megalomania, they might have succesded and then, you and I would not be having this conversation. We'd be listening to MQA-encoded files instead and wouldn't give a second thought whether someone profits from it or not. We do it every day of our lives, just with 'other' appliances and technologies and yet, we are not discussing those, are we? Your smartphone is made under a hundred licenses from different vendors. You don't think about it while you're using it but it's there and it's - paid for! It isn't evil, it is how all branches of industry operate.

MY point is, if people want to hate MQA, they should hate it for the right reason. In other words, the attempt to market the format as lossless when it is not.

Cheers,
Antun

[R. Daneel]

It doesn’t take smarts to be greedy and arrogant.

Nobody said that it does. But it does take smarts to capitalize on your greed. That's a pretty big difference!

Cheers,
Antun

[rbbert]

I hope you don't have any investment in MQA. This technology was invented by Meridian, and they formed a limited corporation under the head of Bob Stuart. It was marketed as uncompressed music technology that sounded even better than analog or SACD.  While the company never provided a means of objectively testing it, I'd say the smart people are the ones who discovered the fraud. I don't respect the technology or the company as they were fraudulent from inception. Sorry.

Not trying to be insulting, but I probably know a lot more about the whole situation than you do.  For example, have you read the MQA patent?  Read the (now long ago deleted from the company website) white paper?  Have you attended any of the promotional events or the audio show panel discussions?  If not, I would consider yours an uninformed opinion.

I wrote (unpublished) letters to Stereophile in 2016 and 2017 essentially begging JA and others to wake up and publicly acknowledge that MQA's advertising and product description are at least inaccurate and very possibly fraudulent, and that the claimed sonic improvements could only be demonstrated with a few selected albums in carefully controlled (by MQA) situations, which sometimes included unannounced comparisons with MP3 files.

[gbaby]

Not trying to be insulting, but I probably know a lot more about the whole situation than you do.  For example, have you read the MQA patent?  Read the (now long ago deleted from the company website) white paper?  Have you attended any of the promotional events or the audio show panel discussions?  If not, I would consider yours an uninformed opinion.

I wrote (unpublished) letters to Stereophile in 2016 and 2017 essentially begging JA and others to wake up and publicly acknowledge that MQA's advertising and product description are at least inaccurate and very possibly fraudulent, and that the claimed sonic improvements could only be demonstrated with a few selected albums in carefully controlled (by MQA) situations, which sometimes included unannounced comparisons with MP3 files.

Good for you. 

[rbbert]

Good for you. 

My point is that if you are criticizing the intelligence of the designers of MQA you should have a sound basis for doing so, and your posts here haven’t demonstrated that.  Anyone can dislike MQA for many valid reasons; that is different from criticizing the technology (engineering) and the intelligence (smart but not necessarily wise) behind it.

[gbaby]

My point is that if you are criticizing the intelligence of the designers of MQA you should have a sound basis for doing so, and your posts here haven’t demonstrated that.  Anyone can dislike MQA for many valid reasons; that is different from criticizing the technology (engineering) and the intelligence (smart but not necessarily wise) behind it.

You seem a little myopic, but none of us can help how we are born. You probably need to re-read all these posts. 

[rbbert]

You seem a little myopic, but none of us can help how we are born. You probably need to re-read all these posts. 

Which post?  I have been active in this thread since its inception. 

Although many topics at AC are purely opinion-based, if posters are going to aggressively criticize someone (as has occurred in this thread) I think there should be some factual basis for that criticism, not a knee-jerk reaction based on incomplete information.

[whydontumarryit]

Not trying to be insulting, but I probably know a lot more about the whole situation than you do.  For example, have you read the MQA patent?  Read the (now long ago deleted from the company website) white paper?  Have you attended any of the promotional events or the audio show panel discussions?  If not, I would consider yours an uninformed opinion.

I wrote (unpublished) letters to Stereophile in 2016 and 2017 essentially begging JA and others to wake up and publicly acknowledge that MQA's advertising and product description are at least inaccurate and very possibly fraudulent, and that the claimed sonic improvements could only be demonstrated with a few selected albums in carefully controlled (by MQA) situations, which sometimes included unannounced comparisons with MP3 files.

Were you ever able to listen under controlled conditions and if so what did you think about how mqa sounded either standalone or comparatively.

Do you think that Stereophile's management is on the take because they did not publish your letter?

thanks

[rbbert]

Were you ever able to listen under controlled conditions and if so what did you think about how mqa sounded either standalone or comparatively.

I had Tidal for 3 months about a year ago and listened to a variety of MQA albums.  Some sounded so different from other hi-res versions that they must have been different masterings (despite the information on Tidal).  Of albums that sounded similar enough to other hi-res versions that all were likely the same masterings I did not ever prefer MQA to 24/96 or 24/192 PCM.  However, as standalone they certainly sounded good, and in comparison to 320k MP4/AAC files that I use for mobile listening MQA sounded at least as good if not a little better.

Do you think that Stereophile's management is on the take because they did not publish your letter?

thanks

No

[R. Daneel]

Which post?  I have been active in this thread since its inception. 

Although many topics at AC are purely opinion-based, if posters are going to aggressively criticize someone (as has occurred in this thread) I think there should be some factual basis for that criticism, not a knee-jerk reaction based on incomplete information.

I couldn't have said it better myself, thanks!

Very few people will argumentatively approach a topic. Everyone being entitled to an opinion doesn't mean everyone's opinion is equally useful to the community. Top of the bell is a very slippery and narrow place to be and this thread shows it better than most so at least in that respect, it is useful.

That being said, one thing that rarely gets mentioned is manufacturers' involvement in MQA. Some were immediately for it, others were immediately (and loudly) against it, while the most were somewhere in between, waiting to see what will happen. If I were a manufacturer, I wouldn't like the fact I was being forced to pay for yet another license. Perhaps if industry, lead by the manufacturers, had a more uniform opinion on the technology, this might have been averted and MQA would have been forced, in a manner of speaking, to disclose all the relevant information. Instead, many manufacturers were silent and now, when it is over, they say it was a bad idea from the start. I find that hypocritical.

Perhaps that's a strong word since truth of the matter is, great many companies lack the understanding of digital technology to be able to say something is right or wrong. So, their silence might not have been by choice but by necessity.

Cheers,
Antun