Provenance and MQA

I think the posts are getting deleted if they stray from the provenance topic, especially if MQA “bias” is displayed.

I think the provenance issue is interesting, but I believe that MQA Ltd is not the entity to get it done, if it can be done at all. They have earned the skepticism of many…

I had a post deleted; I’m not sure that it was really out of line… but, it’s not my forum.

I guess this thread is perceptually lossless…

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I believe provenance is an issue to every single person that has tried any of the HighRez Download services out there. Any sane person would question the relevance of paying often more than for the CD for a few files and in the worst case scenario, a jpeg with a cover image.

But i am pretty convinced that you can find upsampled/lossy conversion in our CD-collections too(or vinyl albums for that matter). A CD is no guarantee for either the source or the handling of our precious music. Manipulated files are this generations bootlegs…

It’s worse than that… with non-HD music, you could theoretically get “verification” with downloaded files: although none of us would ever do such a thing, conceivably, you could download a torrent and verify the files against AccurateRip (though the result isn’t necessarily easy to interpret if you don’t know what you’re looking at, it’s been, for example, built into XLD for the better part of a decade).
This of course doesn’t solve the somewhat extremist desire for a complete chain of ownership, but it does give greater certainty that what you have is bit-identical from the way it left the record company than not having it.

If you want perfect, complete chain, then I don’t think anything short of signing being built into every element along the path would do that, which is something MQA presented as its moonshot, and a concept I’d say looks neither cheap nor smart to implement because of all the gear you’d have to replace, no matter whether the format’s open or not. If there’s a way to add a small box or dongle to sign, and there’s enough demand to justify the effort and cost, and it’s done in a way that can’t conceivably be used as a way to restrict or control usage down the line (i.e, it’s embedded in the metadata field and not the file itself), OTOH, then, well, signatures are small enough that they wouldn’t really add anything to the filesize or break or restrict compatibility with existing playback gear, so why the hell not.

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HDtracks (the first to offer Hires at “scale”) had huge problems, simply because the record companies do not have a clue as to When, Where og how the music was recorded etc.

They have had no inclination for this, remember music is a product that needs to be made fast and cheap to be sold.

The rest is for maniacs like us

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Absolutely.

Although once again I wouldn’t suggest any of us would ever do such a thing, an interested party like @ComputerAudiophile might get interesting data on how much people care about quality by having a look at piracy sites. There may, or may not be thieves that embed spectograms (on top of AccurateRip hashes) to prove they’re distributing original material.

I’ve been on torrent sites, doing research only of course, and seen far more provenance information than the official sales channels.

I think it comes down to an issue of what each outlet wants people to know. Most paid download sites have determined it doesn’t make sense for them to provide dynamic range information or graphs showing details about each recording. There are many possible reasons for this but it raises an issue for this provenance discussion nonetheless.

What’s in it for record labels to implement a strict chain of custody authentication scheme? Given how music is consumed by the vast majority of consumers, I’d say absolutely nothing.

Music weirdos like us love more information but does Bob Ludwig really need to illuminate a light on my DAC saying he approves of this message, or is his name in the album credits good enough?

I hate settling for good enough but there is a continuum on which all issues like this fall. I’m right in the middle on this one.

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The record labels have no clue as to what happens to their files. I admittedly dislike what MQA does to the music. A local artist released a new album on Tidal as MQA only, I contacted the label asking them to also releasing it in true 16/44. They were totally unaware that the album had been upped as an MQA file.

Funny thing happened, a few hours later the 16/44 version was the only one on Tidal

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This. @danny, Bob Stuart, and MQA are talking about putting a technological solution on top of a broken (broken to us 1%, but perfectly accaptable to the 99%) “provence” chain. Strangely, by placing this false band aid @danny believes this goes some way to fixing the issue, when in fact it does just the opposite - it legitimizes something that should not be legitimized because its not true. Digital signatures are not the truth, they only (sort of) legitimize what @danny calls “a trusted source”, but we already know there is no such thing beyond the boutique labels who make fidelity and transparancy to the customer bedrock principles. You never hear them say “trust me” and blame the NDA.

John Atkinson (former editor, now tech editor of Stereophile) has admitted on the ‘MQA is Vaporware’ thread that the “A” in MQA is what he was most excited about. He went to the mat for it even long after MQA was disambiguated as the bundle of false marketing promises it is, and what did his loyalty get him besides egg on the face? The provence issue is real, but what the 1% need are real solutions based on reality. The idea that a software encoding format such as MQA or software player such as Roon has any influence on the fundamental cultural and market “problems” that are at the bottom of the provence issue is silly even on the surface, and only gets worse when you put a little effort into it…

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I personally think that blockchain (or something similar) is the ultimate answer to provenance questions. The issue is that the chain has to start from the recording on, all the way to customer purchase or customer stream. It is one of the ways to guarantee artists get paid fairly; which I am ALL for. But, getting the software done, getting the buy in to use the software all along the chain is almost a Sisyphean task. It would be much better for something starting out to implement (as is occurring).

So I do see your point, that as far as existing recording/distribution channels that MQA is the closest to becoming a musical CA authority. In fact, that could be a product unto itself if they wanted it to be. No reason the authenticated file(s) have to be then distributed in MQA, they could be made available as normal FLAC.

I think I agree that blockchain would be best if you were going to trace all the steps. But think of the complexity of modern recording sessions. Multiple tracks, multiple takes, mixes from other sources, varying distortions/enhancements added – Sisyphean indeed! And all of this registration would have to be automatically embedded in the equipment (not as bad as that sounds, since all equipment is software-driven these days). So I think a signed “golden copy” or whatever they call it, signed by the recording engineer and/or the artists, is probably enough.

You know, it seems like a lot of work, but if modern engineers could use better information on the actual recordings of lat 60s/70s. Adding it into the blockchain would preserve all the steps, so in 30 years, someone could look back and know exactly what was used, instead of trying to decipher someone’s drug impaired hand-writing. :D.

Yeah, could be. I’m speculating out of ignorance and having watched a few music biopics. :grinning:

Well the fact that You can not keep the lossy files out of the chain is the reason I didn’t renew with Tidal.

Nice overview of the production process, showing the parts that would need to be recorded for full provenance.

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The example I gave, inexplicably deleted by @danny and or a moderator, is an example of how Roon can actually help in this provence issue because encodings (MQA, DSD, PCM, etc.) is software and technological and thus ripe for a tech software solution - it’s in Roon’s wheelhouse.

edit: let’s try this again, here is Roon helping the end user find the truth of a files “provence” - in this example revealing that Tidal will only stream you an MQA encoded version of the music even though you set the Tidal service to only stream you 16/44 PCM:

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/page/754/?tab=comments#comment-1006180

Thanks Roon!

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The streamers are going to play what the Label gives to them. Some labels, 2L, for example, have only distributed MQA files to streaming services. However, they are very open about it. But, it was when playing back in Roon from Qobuz, that people started to notice.

Then why not let the end user choose whether or not they will want to listen to lossy files or not.
These days it seems that data iis everything, here’s a chance to get info on whether or not anyone really wants lossy

Yep, Roon is the #1 MQA detection software, though given your position this was a happy accident from the consumer’s point of view. Mann’s tools are beyond the abilities of most “audiophiles” to even use, in addition to being inconvenient.

This is not an unkown. Just compare the subscriber numbers of say Spotify vs. Tidal/Qobuz. Lossy compressed music is an unmitigated success and what 99% of music lovers want to hear.

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Lol, they don’t want to hear MP3, it’s all there was for a long time and they grew up with it.