MQA General Discussion

Audio Gear Talk MQA
1494

Matt,

I’ll try to address some of your points.

On the secret keys, irrespective of their intent, they constitute DRM if they apply to music you’ve purchased. Simply compare the situation to music you’ve bought on RedBook CD, tape, vinyl, or a digital download of e.g. a high-res format.
This isn’t something you want to have to deal with, it’s unnecessary and it’s a digital shackle. In the software world there are established and secure ways to verify that a (for example) computer program download is legitimate, which do not required the use of special hardware or closed software to work.

MQA is not the Walkman - the Walkman was about comfort and mobility, least of all high-fidelity, whereas MQA claims first and foremost fidelity, in a way that is widely disputed. You cannot simply compare it to that because you want to; a more akin development to the Walkman in the pure encoding area is MP3 in fact - it made music available on slow spinning digital disks small enough to put on our puny hard-drives! :slight_smile:

If all you have on the ethics of reverse engineering is an opinion, perhaps some facts won’t hurt? :slight_smile:

I don’t have any issue with streaming download caches being protected against unauthorised replay.

You’re free to ignore facts regarding MQA encoding side effects… Confirmation bias is a scientific fact.

I for one have listened to a fair bit of MQA encoded albums, as a Tidal HiFi subscriber without owning an MQA enabled DAC, and I hear no differences over the non-MQA lossless alternative. I’d love to see a single blind A/B test showing listeners pick the MQA alternative. Just one. All I’ve seen are proper blind A/B tests in which the results fare no better than random guessing, and some non-scientific tests in which people claim no difference, while others claim they can hear it using their car speaker systems (really!) or a subwoofer set under a desk and PC desktop speakers… Sure thing.

As long as I’m not paying for it I’ll happily stream the MQA version of an album, sure. But CDs, or MQA downloads? You’ve got to be kidding me. You do know how people extract bit-perfect digital copies of another famous proprietary digital distribution medium, the SACD, right? Using a hacked PlayStation 3? That’s what the future holds for MQA owners if the company goes bust, whether you like it or not.
Open up MQA, and it’s a different conversation.

2 Likes
1495

No, it’s not a given, and some of the time it won’t be the “best” master who would get the MQA treatment. But seems that so far most of them are pretty good masters, so let’s hope it stays that way.

1496

Either way, key or other means, it’s looking after a business interest, rights management, protecting future revenue. With MQA there is the advantage of Authentication for the end user.

I didn’t compare the Walkman with MQA as a peice of technology, just how I thought it came to market. I could have picked numerous others, it was only to highlight that in the eyes of a consumer there may not be a solution required. In response to:

Thanks. I haven’t ignored I’ve listened after all that’s what it’s about.

There are numerous psychological theories about cognitive bias, can I account for them, no. I listened it sounded good, did I make it up, who knows!

Again I’m left thinking that there is sound, pardon the pun, research into the science that drove the development of MQA, and arguments against. It has to be down to the listener to decide, I’m not disputing any evidence you may provide but I will rely on my ears for this one!

As ethics and morals vary between people, cultures and society and we are discussing something that may or may not happen in the future then I guess there’s no right or wrong on this one!

As I said, just a feeling. I’m going to leave it at that.

As it currently stands people are not paying any more than they would have done prior to MQA on tidal.
Future pricing may account for the implementation of MQA, will we know, will it be determinable, I doubt it. I see Tidal as great value, even long term at present MQA adds to this for me.

I hope the advantage of streaming reduced size files enables Tidal to succeed longer term, they are currently more expensive than competitors but provide a my eyes provide a quality service.

Won’t be drawn on A/B testing, been done to death and I don’t have anything to add!

Cheers,

Matt

2 Likes
1497

There is no problem to solve for anyone in doubt, as they don’t need to involve themselves with MQA in any way if they don’t wish to…

1 Like
1498

A post was merged into an existing topic: Qobuz News and Correspondence

1499

I don’t think that this is true. If MQA becomes the de facto standard and releases are only made on MQA then your lose the choice to have Redbook.

1500

I don’t think it will become a de facto standard and streaming providers will continue to use the lossless Redbook contents (All eyes will be on Spotify lossless Hi-Fi). Even Qobuz recently announced they no longer support the idea of lossy compression but focus to take advantage of high speed bandwidth technologies to stream uncompressed high resolution contents.

1501

Thanks everyone for keeping the discussion respectful here. My fellow moderators and I sometimes gird our loins to enter this thread when there has been a recent flurry of activity but everyone has kept themselves nice and a tip o’ the hat to you all for doing so.

6 Likes
1502

You’re probably right, I guess the point i am trying to make is that there is no guarantee that there will be a redbook version of all MQA material

1503

Ah… I get your point. All MQA materials are actually sourced from pure PCM uncompressed masters, PCM is a de facto standard for lossless mastering so the music companies will offer diversified formats to the consumers to make more money. Redbook and lossless HiRes are just one of them.

1504

I have seen that Qobuz offer. Streaming 24 bit for €350 a year.
If Tidal keeps the price at €240 with MQA, then thats a clear advantage for Tidal.
Even more so so if you consider Roon, and having made already the investment for it.
Anyways, it will be interesting see how that Qobuz plan comes along.

1505

Regarding Quobuz:
I always though they stream your purchases only in High Res?
So if you bought none, you get your streams in CD quality (as like it is with Tidal before they added MQA)?

Anyway, is there any other streaming service going to offer MQA?
Somebody stated Spotify might go High Res (or was it loseless?). Could this be MQA?

1506

Thats from their marketing:
“QOBUZ SUBLIME+ uses the incremental subscription method which was first introduced with QOBUZ SUBLIME in 2015. The subscriber can stream the whole catalogue in FLAC 16-Bit / 44,1kHz quality and listen to a catalogue of 60,000 albums in Qobuz 24-Bit Hi-Res either streamed or offline – the largest catalogue in the world. There are also great deals on purchasing the downloads for all the albums – and since the beginning of 2017, the albums are in DSD format, the ultimate format for audio fans.”

So, not only your purchases.

1507

Could you be so kind and give me a link to a press release?
Searching the web, so far I found nothing regarding ‘Sublime+’.
And all I found for 24 bit streams is the following:

  • “World Premiere
    Stream your purchases in
    24-Bit Hi-Res”

( http://www.qobuz.com/GB-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription; see under Sublime, top row)

Edit:
Apologies, I did found the link now:

Edit #2, found in their blog post:
“That’s why Qobuz, far from abandoning downloading on a fee-for-service basis, will offer a new and improved DSD and Bineal format downloading service at the beginning of September 2017 with albums in multi-channel, a quality already available at Qobuz. And this service will quickly be opening in some new countries.”

1508

Qobuz already offers streaming at $240 / year. All content streams at 16/44 except items you have purchased, which stream at the quality you purchased (i.e., up to 24/192). The current service also offers large discounts on hi-resolution purchases (e.g., 24/192 album @ $10). So the service pays for itself if you purchase 2-3 albums month - streaming is a bonus.

The announcement you saw is for a new service @ $360 / year. It will stream all available content at the highest available rate (including later this year DSD), and include the same discount on purchases.

The Qobuz streaming service is already a better value than Tidal.

2 Likes
1509

Nope.
It lacks Roon Integration.
Thats why it looses with me.

1 Like
1510

streaming un-altered high-res at home and on the route seems very nice. No unfolding just the real deal. Integration with Roon would be icing on the cake.

nice to be able to choose your poison (Tidal or Qobuz)

1511

Only way is via Audirvana.
And thats a PITA software. No matter how you turn it or how good you want to talk it.
For me. Nothing leads around a proper roon Integration.
Otherwise you end up in your home with lots of devices, you at the end dont like to have around.

1512

I guess this will differ for all so there is no fits al.
I will not touch Tidal, it is simply not my cup of tea.
Each to it’s own their is no good or bad.

1513

How is it not your cup of Tea?
All the music that I have ever looked for is there. I ignor the upfront image of the owners.
The integration with Roon is just so good and the audio qualiity is first class with the MQA bonus.

Thoughts Chris