This is from the MQA Q&As ( only marketing BS of course ) If anyone has any better information I would be interested.
Q19. What approx fraction of the music catalog has provenance information?
A19. That’s hard to express in numbers but here’s a guess – 70%. The three majors account for ~65% of the music market worldwide and, in general they have records varying from good to excellent. They all have problems that they acquired, divested, swapped or traded sub-labels and each small startup had different work practises. A small fraction of the independent labels have superb records of their work (e.g. ECM, 2L, UnaMas). Many don’t. Many archives are plagued by missing items or hardware problems to play back important recordings. For most labels, they tend to know about the location of the true archive for top-selling or important works. E.g. no-one is confused, (partly through the excellent work of Steve Berkowitz), which is the correct Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Brubeck, Beatles etc. We would imagine that 70% of titles ever released can be vouched for to a reasonable degree of confidence. However there is mayhem in distribution: one aggregator reported having 23 different versions of an Otis Reading song. In some cases, the label had lost track of the fact that WMA or even MP3 had been used en route. You don’t want to buy that unless it’s definitive.
Not true. It can tell you a lot if you know what you are doing. See this.
"Since we had access to the digital signal on the tape, we decided to investigate the histograms of digital values in that and some of the other releases. What we found was intriguing, namely:
The original ADCs had misaligned MSB adjustments (right channel much worse than left).
Both misalignments were on the low side (errors of +9 and +2.5 LSBs respectively) giving the intriguing possibility that this error could be removed losslessly from the recordings. This type of MSB error not only mimics severe quantisation, but because a small section of the replay is missing around zero, it also mimics crossover distortion.
Both ADCs also showed minor misalignment of other bits.
Analysis of the 1 kHz test tone and of the direct End-to-End analogue bypass measurement showed that this characteristic had not changed between the 1982 recording and 2016 measurement. In this we are extremely fortunate to have access to the machine that made the recording.
Histogram analysis of the CD releases revealed that the MSB misalignment was present in those releases.
Similar artefacts show up in the analogue transfers made in 2015.
This characteristic is a specific fingerprint of a machine. Analysis of MX-80 recordings from other machines (e.g. DMP label) show a different set of errors, but indicates that we could correct this defect on other recordings."
By now most of us know they are good at making ‘false claims’ and are not truthful in their forthcomings. There are many technical reviews out there that has proven them wrong.
All MQA are transferred from PCM and DSD masters; obviously adding another layer of MQA processing will definitely alter the sound characteristics. The truth is if we hear directly from the original masters, the sound quality is always first rated. It is simple as that.
If the original recording has some flaws, they need to improve their mastering. Also note, majority of recordings go to mixing, EQ, loudness compression etc, all these introduce some errors, so trying to go back in the beginning to compensate ADC errors sounds like BS to me.
It is useless to keep on arguing and trying to prove their ‘claims’ is right. Being biased is simply not having an open mind.
Sounds plausible. But if you start with the thought that something is wrong with digital audio, even 24/96 masters, then of course any improvement will look like a change. If you consider that 24/96 to be the gold standard, any change is a degradation, and hence the word “lossy” is thrown around.
But if you accept Stuart’s argument that the original analog sound is the gold standard, the issue becomes not whether the digital leg (ADC to DAC) is lossless but whether the entire analog-to-analog path is lossless. And with lossless analog-to-analog as the goal, if there are flaws in the ADC and DAC leg, then of course there will need to be change in the digital steps.
That’s not a crazy analysis. It is perfectly reasonable. If we can put aside the shrill cries of “the digital leg is lossy”, we can evaluate if (a) Stuart’s statements about the flaws in the converters hold up, I.e. if we do have a problem, and if so (b) if his solution achieves his goal of remediating them.
Personally, I am not very interested in MQA. But I am interested in logical rigor.
This example is 1 in a million. The very fact that they think they can correct some errors (many or most are irreversible) is quite unique. This a unicorn. The example requires tremendous effort of going back and trying to correct for machine errors made decades ago by careful post mortem analysis of files and taking measurements on some instruments still around today. This just isn’t practical and is not even possible for most recordings. The cost would not be justifiable.
Agreed. The MQA claims are gross exaggerations and marketing mumbo jumbo. Technically it just isn’t possible to correct things in some kind of “authenticated” and automated way. It is simply just another “remastering” by applying an automated MQA processing to the files. Like Dolby or THX, some will like the processed result.
Jeremy,
I don’t have any technical knowledge on this, and therefore am unable to respond to you (and others) who maintain MQA is technically impossible and therefore a hoax. At the same time I do not doubt the sincerity of your view. Having said that, maybe it’s pollyannaish of me, but it is hard for me to believe that MQA and its many advocates in the mags and elsewhere are deliberately trying to defraud the public. The sheer size of such a conspiracy makes that difficult to believe. But honestly the whole issue doesn’t need to concern me–as with all of audio and its many claims, only sound quality matters. If I get a fully MQA-capable DAC, then I can evaluate it and have an opinion about how it sounds on my system (as differentiated from judging the motives of its promoters, although if it doesn’t sound up to the claims, it would affect my opinion of the expertise of advocates as it applies to my system. In other words, I would consider their opinions less reliable). Until then, my initial impressions on Roon don’t mean much (as I stated at the outset), even if they didn’t measure up to my hopes.
Jim Heckman
I dont think MQA as a conspiracy. Its just a Chuzpa.
They want to cash in at every step of the production chain. (Collins Paper).
They want bring a new copy protection scheme into the audio world.
If you buy a MQA Dac you already feed the MQA chain.
They bring up a lossy codec and sell it (well they try) to the Audiophiles as a holy grail sound improvement.
They say MQA is a present (LOL). Even some software developers spread that nonsense.
etc…etc…etc…
Well. Just for contrast, I am enjoying MQA. There is no copy protection. I haven’t had to pay any extra for MQA via, Roon, Tidal and Bluesound also I can still enjoy all the other formats available
From some of the language and opinions expressed by the anti MQA people I’m surprised they are not taking legal action in some form. Just a thought…
MQA is not copy protection. A MQA file can be copied easily and sent to another, and be decoded by MQA decoder such as Roon or Audirvana. MQA CD can be ripped easily just like any other CD.
SACD / Blu-ray are copy protected. We cannot copy them easily. Even if one manages to extract the content, some Blu-ray has Cinavia protection that mutes the sound when original media is not detected.
They want to bring a new copy protection scheme into the audio world.
They will do that, it is written in their patent.
That part of MQA brought the Labels on board.
You seem very sure of their intent when it has been clearly stated otherwise. So, for now we will just have to wait and see but in the meantime I will continue to enjoy the music.
“In DRM sense, copying doesn’t matter as long as the use of the copy is still restricted. This also applies to movies and audio from iTunes store for example (when they still sold DRM protected music content). Or all kinds of DRM protected video streams over the internet. You can also encrypt a file, for example with GnuPG and share it on the internet for everybody to copy as much as they wish. However, only the ones who have the decryption key can do anything useful with it.
I don’t evaluate quality degradation by listening, but through objective analysis of the data. And in fact both the undecoded and decoded versions of the MQA are quality degraded compared to the original.
This is probably why some record companies like it - the use is restricted, and the quality is like an analog C-cassette copy of the original.”
I agree. MQA is clearly DRM controlled. Nobody could argue that it isn’t. You have to buy a licensed MQA machine to decode it fully.
I, for my part, consider a copy protection quite useful.
Why?
I buy lots of downloads and load them on my NAS. Right now I cant sell them anymore, Due to the free availibility the value of my downloads is ZERO. Nobody pays me any money for them.
I can still sell my SACDs, BlueRays and even CDs. Their sell value is not zero.
I loose lots of money.
If you have been to a Car Boot sale (as we call them in the UK) or a charity shop lately you will find your treasured Blue Rays will be offered for £2.00 Max. DVD £1.00 max and CD’s are even less unless you want something specific from a dealer that’s not easily available. Then you may pay £2.50 Max.
The above is the asking price and is no way to guarantee they will sell at all. People can ask any price they like, but it has to sell to be worth that to someone.
So, the actual value your complaining about doesn’t exist here in real life. They are, for all intent and purpose, worthless in this day and age. Youngsters don’t buy them at all, they stream both music and movies.
Well, you may be right.
But now there is no way for a functioning market place for reselling downloads.
There is not even a chance for that.
I just sold 40 XRCDs at a higher price I paid some 10 years ago.
Value in, value out.
Junk in, junk out.
The value of downloads is just something we must accept with the format. Similar to the value of a bottle of wine after you have drunk it. It is what it is… If we want lasting value (sic), we need physical media but the times are changing, collect them while you can.
We can’t have it all. And just so you don’t think your the only one losing out, consider this comment…
Maybe in the near future the blockchain technoloy will make this happen. I heard of working solutions for digital art pieces. Selling and ownership are documented in the blockchain.
) If anyone has any better information I would be interested.