GoldenSound’s response to Bob Stuart’s blog response

Audio Gear Talk MQA
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Nothing wrong with my system at all. Paul McGowan of PS Audio has one of the best stereos and listening rooms in the world, and hates MQA, only offering it because his customers wanted it. And he’s got a great pair of ears. It’s just that each of us has a totally different reaction to sounds, including music. Some like me love the sounds that falling rain creates, others hate it. Some like opera, some hate it. Some cringe at the sound of squealing brakes, or fingernails across a chalk board, other aren’t bothered by it. God made us all different for a reason, and I just accept that. As far as MQA. I suspect that it is correcting problems in FLAC that you are sensitive to, and I am not. At the same time, I think, it is creating problems that I am sensitive too, and you are not. My only real beef with MQA is that they make it impossible for independent testing of the process. That is one reason that people don’t trust Bob, MQA, the CIA, and anything else that operated under a clock of secrecy. Now, you and I both agree that most of what is said about Bob and / or MQA is pure gibberish. Paul McGowan has said numerous times that he loves Bob, that he’s a great inventor, a genius, etc., then ends it saying “but I hate MQA”. MQA, I guess, is my Opera. I hate Opera, and the way it sounds. I hate the sound of every female opera voice I have ever heard, and 95% of every male Opera voice. There is just something in the voice that greats on my nerves. Yet millions LOVE opera. Millions hate it. And yet we never argue about opera the way we do about MQA. And in both cases, we love or hate because our auditory system processes the sound, and our brain react.

Now, as far as what people say about B.S. and MQA, I am totally on your side that most of it is wrong, and shouldn’t be said. Much is taken out of context, and losses it’s original meaning. I wish both sides would shut up, and stop trying to convince the other side they are wrong. No, both Side are RIGHT. To you and your side, MQA does indeed sound noticeably better. PERIOD!! To me and my side, MQA has multiple artifacts we find objectionable. PERIOD!! That is the 100% truth in both cases, and I doubt it will ever change. I don’t care why someone’s on one side or the other. Just accept it for what it is, stop wasting time arguing about it, and relax to listening to your choice of music, be it MQA, FLAC, vinyl, elcassette, radio, opera, rap, rock, jazz, whatever. Each of our choices is neither better nor worse than the next guy’s. Just different. Okay everyone, I’m getting off the soapbox.

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Also, it could be said “why doesn’t the side that likes MQA move on”. Both sides need to move on, I agree. But unless both move on, then neither will move on. That is the way human nature is. It’s an all or nothing situation.

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And I wondered why people don’t just move on if they do like MQA.
I already agreed it’s time you move on, and you even liked my answer, but still you are here?

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A true expert’s comments to GoldenOne-

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An accusation that he has interest in mqa?

Amir is still claiming mqa is free.
That’s a big lie as a Roon admin here told that they have to pay for each software decode.

“There is no evidence of MQA charging Roon, or Roon passing on that charge to anyone.”

People cannot trust such biased “reviewers”.

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Try again-

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Now, how about addressing his view that GoldenSound is “out of his depth”?

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True, MLP and MQA should each be judged on their own merits.

In the MDCP stream, both arrows should be yellow (my mistake). The Yellow arrow denotes that there is sometimes information about the ADC/DAC passed to the MQA encoder/converter. So for example, when you unfold MQA via the Tidal app, I do not believe that the MQA converter gets any information about the DAC being used. But if you are playing on an MQA Full Renderer (iFi Diablo for example), the MQA converter has/gets information on the performance of the chip to “compensate” for it. I.e. the response filters that we know MQA apply to DACs as part of their certification.

I think maybe I should split the stream in two as Batch renderers vs MQA’d originals (like the track I uploaded) use different process. Hence why you get a Green MQA light sometimes vs the Blue Light.

N.B. just to be clear - these diagrams are my opinion on whats happening with no evidence to support them other than reading about how MQA works.

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GoldenSound says:

“MQA is not lossless”

Amir says:

“MQA is a very clever algorithm that works in very specific ways and if you want to test what it’s really doing you need to test it in a way that doesn’t break it. Also you need a doctorate to be able to understand how MQA works”

Which means:

“MQA is not lossless”

Amir is moving the goal post for some weird reason.

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That’s very damming and more confrontational that I think it needs to be. I did wonder about the authoritativeness of GoldenSounds when doing these test (hence I got curious and did some of my own), but I query all videos I watch.

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“I said MQA was free in Tidal”.
That’s still a lie. MQA is never free and will never be.
You need the software decode (Roon pays for the software decoding license) and/or you need a hardware decode it (you pay for the hardware decoding license).
Correct statement is : “MQA was never free in Tidal”

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To the consumers MQA titles are free in tidal, it’s just a bonus.

The Hifi is already $20 even before Tidal added MQA.

They added MQA and still $20.

Sure Tidal pays MQA but did they increase the initial $20 subscription to the consumers??? No.

I might agree with you if the initial subscription of Hifi in Tidal was less than $20 and then they changed the pricings.

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I would expect that if a service replaces lossless high quality PCMs by lossy low quality (MQAs),
it would become cheaper. (Spotify also offers lossy and it’s free!)

Yet I didn’t see the price of Tidal dropping when all those redbook PCMs were downgraded to mqa.

Q : So why is Tidal still that expensive when they offer more and more lower quality tracks?
Where’s the money they are saving going?
A : to mqa ltd

P.S. Qobuz is 15$ a month and offers true lossless, Tidal is 20$ and they offer less quality.
Looks like a scam.

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Amir is an MQA-sceptic but appreciates aspects of it.

He cannot stand anti-MQA fanatics constantly parading their ignorance!

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To be fair, your ears and my ears hear MQA as lossy. But millions hear FLAC as “lossy” compared to MQA. Their hearing processes are different that ours. MQA works for them, so how can it be a scam? In a scam, nobody but the scammer wins. If someone enjoys listening to MQA better than to FLAC, in my book, that is a win for them. Whether it’s lossy to us or not does not matter.

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Honestly, I doubt there are a million people that know what MQA is.

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You said “which means MQA is not lossless” but that’s putting words in amirm’s mouth.

I think a better post of his to share is below - better to understand his position on ‘lossless’. That’s not me saying it’s a better definition, to be clear.

I just think it’s important to properly understand what each party is actually trying to say. Otherwise you could be arguing based on mis-interpretation.

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and

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People claiming mqa sounds better have
a) never done a/b comparisons
b) interest in mqa
c) both

True audiophiles avoid mqa. They know the more punchier bass and missing details in the high frequency region are not original nor natural. It might sound pleasant for some, but then those can not be qualified as audiophiles as they apparently cannot hear the details that went missing in songs with multiple instruments playing at the same time (timbre).

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Source

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I checked out of that thread early on when the Amir guy said Goldensound’s accent makes him seem more credible than he is due to his British accent. Huh? Bob Stuart himself also has a British accent yet Amir seems to have no problem with that and does not attack his accent. Amir’s own logic can apply even more to Bob Stuart himself and all the ‘just trust us’ nonsense he spews about MQA.

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