MQA is bad for music

@guerph this has already been posted I believe.

Russ

And the grapes are just as sour as last time.

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My take :

bloke from Linn says - MQA is a totally new format which we don’t need…

anyone who’s bothered to do any research says - what, FLAC ? FLAC is new ? Er, is there something I’m missing ? MQA’s embedded within a FLAC wrapper, right, so anyone who can play FLAC can play MQA, right ? Right ? Hello…?

It’s the same old story Linn wants others technology for free. They were insisting that they would only work with Roon if they made their code open source. Hopefully they are changing their stance on this but we shall see.

If Linn stays without Roon capability and without MQA then I think they are going to loose quite a bit of potential business.

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IMO, USB is bad for music.

I’ve never seen anything that needed so many band-aids, gadgets and ancillary devices.

I’ve seen people with gadgets upon gadgets in the audio chain just between the source and the Dac. In some cases people are spending more on ancillary devices than what they spend on the Dac itself.

Off topic rant sorry.

Simply put, MQA is a brilliant money making scheme. Maybe Linn is just mad they didn’t think of it first. Is MQA needed in audio…nah, most people aren’t even getting all they can get from a standard RBCD.

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You missed the bit about Linn claiming to"invent" the digital speaker last year with the Exakt system.

Um, really?

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They didn’t???

This comment suggests you know little about technology licensing. Every audio and comms device is based on dozens of standards based on patented technologies that are licensed at fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory royalty levels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing). Anything that decodes AAC, for instance. MQA would not be an issue if it was the foundation of a standard licensed that way. Then all hardware and software vendors would be on a level playing field with respect to the technology, while compensating the MQA inventors fairly for their invention. Instead, MQA is trying to create a closed, rent-seeking distribution system that creates lock-in as the article explains. MQA could propose their tech to standards bodies and benefit if it is adopted and licensed widely, but they prefer to be a tool for squeezing even more rents from artists and music fans.

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I tend agreed, the last paragraph from the Linn’s article as I quote:
‘In the end I’m confident that the free, readily available, high quality, open-source alternatives will win out. Lock down, centralisation and profiteering has a tendency towards failure.’

Here is a link to an interview with the founders of Schiit Audio.
Interesting insights on MQA.
I posted that already in another thread too.
You have to go there to play it.

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Interesting take, hard to fault their perspective. The fact that volume leveling and DRC are not possible with MQA makes it a non-starter for me.

How bad can it be if it is given Free along with Tidal HiFi subscription? All we need to wait is for Roon to update and support decoding at the end side.

As long the consumers don’t need to fork out additional money to buy a new hardware just to support the new format then that’s a good news. Who really cares about the recording studios, artists and supply chains need to additional royalties? As long they are willingly to absorb the cost and don’t pass it down to the consumers, then they are doing a good job!

Yes very hard to accept thier argument at all given the availability from Tidal for no extra and when you consider that MQA downloads are available for less than 192/24 downloads from Linn Records.

I’m surprised by this given Linn’s stance on MQA.

Which album is this?

This is only valid if you never bought a new DAC because you wanted192/24 and never bought a new DAC to get DSD capability.

I think there are a lot of people in this club that have done either one or both. I don’t recall similar issues raised when DSD downloads started.

It’s a choice in all cases not a flaw in the new format.

I’m referring to Linns overall pricing Linns typical price for 192/24 files is $24. MQA files from highresaudio for example are generally $20.90.

Linn CDs quality downloads are only $13.

If you want to compare the very same albums it’s difficult as Linns catalogue does not overlap much however if you look at an album on hiresaudio that is available in various formats you generally find MQA is slightly more expensive typhoon 96/24 files and slightly less than 192/24 files. See this for example.

Seems Linn had a similar view on DSD three years ago.

You can see the same view on thier own forums.

https://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=23096

This subject is really a buzz kill.

I have no idea what all the crying is about.

MQA plays whether you have and can afford MQA capable devices or not.
For those that want what they’d perceive as better sound wonderful.
Who needs a few loud voices to tell everyone else what is good for them.
NIFB.

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guerph…i have been listening and doing A/B comparisons with the Master HD albums on Tidal and the same tracks played through my Lumin A1 that are in MQA and the majority of the MQA tracks are noticeably better then the Master counterparts. none are worse…If you had the chance to hear the comparison …even you would agree that the MQA tracks are better.Nothing is perfect but i am certainly going to keep listening to as many MQA albums as i can. And guess what??? It doesn’t cost any more…!!!

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