Sorry, that’s simply not going to happen. This is partly due to legal agreements in place between MQA and its licensees but mostly due to the fact that we implemented MQA because a significant number of customers requested it. For every customer concerned that MQA is bad I’ll show you one who is deriving much enjoyment from it. It’s simply not our place to pick sides here.
From our perspective MQA a content-delivery format and in that sense is no different than any of the other formats which we support. Whether it’s high-rate raw PCM or DSD or low-rate MP3 we strive to reproduce it to the highest fidelity possible.
We don’t judge formats, delivery mechanisms, or content types. Play what makes you happy and we’ll do our best to provide the best reproduction possible.
Note to self: When trying to conceal things remember not to do it in such a way that it draws attention to the possibility of more concealment. Especially if there is more.
Stereophile has commented on the GoldenSound tests:
What GoldenSound’s tests show, then, is that a bull in the china shop can damage the china. The solution is not to throw out the china but to keep out the bull.
sort of a codec that is said to reduce the “blurring” repeated digital conversions cause. For high-resolution audio, MQA compresses data into a much smaller file or stream while retaining, it is said, the sonic benefits of the original high-rez audio (and also of “deblurring”). MQA appears to be genuinely clever and legitimately new, implementing post-Shannon developments in sampling theory that have not previously been applied to digital audio.
While I think MQA is clever, it’s very disappointing to have Austin parrot the blur/deblur marketing blather that MQA promotes. He also completely avoids the fact that whether some of us like it or not, it should be up to the consumer to choose.
What was odd for me was when I reached the end of the page, I was certain there must be more to the op-ed, like pages 2 and maybe even 3. But no. Just a dead stop after criticizing the tests and asserting there was a missed opportunity:
What GoldenSound’s tests show, then, is that a bull in the china shop can damage the china. The solution is not to throw out the china but to keep out the bull. GoldenSound’s tests are a missed opportunity.
“Missed opportunity” by whom? MQA did what MQA always does: continue the coverup. GoldenSound asked for interaction, and got typical MQA blather. The lost opportunity was on MQA’s part. If there is a bull in this china shop, it’s because this china shop it’s unnecessary. We already have perfectly good china shops without bulls in them. If MQA wants to market its “improved codec,” it could so without requiring a proprietary lockout.
I also thought some of the comments were quite cogent regarding bandwidth availability, lossless FLAC & ALAC, and proprietary vs. open.
I just hope this forum does’t become as MQA obsessed as has Roon. For the past several years I had visited there daily to keep up with the product. Now I avoid it like COVID
I must be the idiot for actually enjoying MQA, according to some. Actually I enjoy both MQA and flac so all good for me—I love having a variety to choose from. Much preferable to the miserable agony in the MQA thread over at ASR where finger-wagging, chart-waving, self-appointed professors lecture perennially, taking this stuff waaay too seriously. I read a couple of pages and quickly exited, preferring instead to listen to some fine Getz in that terrible MQA format
Not at all, if you like what you are hearing then it is…likeable.
I spend many hours a week listening without a care to a lossy source ; BBC Radio 3 which is AAC 320Kb/s. Were I not intellectually aware of the latter fact then,on my subjective take on the sound quality alone, I would have no idea it was lossy - especially with some of the relayed live concerts.
OK , a few years ago the service was streamed as FLAC as an experiment and when one compared the FLAC stream to AAC then, as expected, FLAC was superior. But it needed a direct comparison to find this out and comparisons are, as we all know, odious .
Hardly. I believe most here have said that we all should enjoy what we enjoy. That’s my view. It’s about the music; the technology is only supposed to be a vehicle. And the business practices of companies might be completely incidental to some, or important to others. No one is an idiot for liking what they like. But here’s the kicker: MQA’s biz model doesn’t bode well for those of us who want to have maximum choice for hi-res streaming. Consumer demand and dCS’s and other manufacturers’ (very sensible) agnosticism about the technology is what enables MQA to establish the beachhead. But as we’ve seen, the eventual effect is to diminish choice. I don’t know many consumers, even MQA advocates, who want less choice. But that is the outcome of this non-transparent business model. I think that ignites some passions.
“MQA’s biz model doesn’t bode well for those of us who want to have maximum choice for hi-res streaming. Consumer demand and dCS’s and other manufacturers’ (very sensible) agnosticism about the technology is what enables MQA to establish the beachhead. But as we’ve seen, the eventual effect is to diminish choice. I don’t know many consumers, even MQA advocates, who want less choice. But that is the outcome of this non-transparent business model. I think that ignites some passions.”
I would add not just diminished choice, but a large group of consumers who are misled, and now believe they are listening to a lossless, authenticated Master, which is demonstrably untrue.
In the US we have a simple word for deliberately lying to consumers: Fraud. It is punishable by law.
I personally believe that those with expertise, e.g., DCS, have an obligation to speak up for the record on these matters, hence me pinging @support in an earlier thread, but as the quality of DCS’s equipment is so high, I don’t push the issue.
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