MQA files for bankruptcy.
rebelsoul
Posts: 756
Comments
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Good riddance.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
I can’t “whip up some tears” either.
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So I wonder if Tidal is going to have to get all new high res versions? They should have done like Qobuz to begin with.Klipsch The Nines, Audioquest Thunderbird Interconnect, Innuos Zen MK3 W4S recovery, Revolution Audio Labs USB & Ethernet, Border Patrol SE-I, Audioquest Niagara 5000 & Thunder, Cullen Crossover II PC's.
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The Absolute Sound seemed to be all in on MQA at the beginning in 2016. Seemed to me like they were being shills with marketing drivel. I was skeptical because of that. LOL
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/master-quality-authenticated-mqa-the-view-from-30000-feet/
"Finally, MQA provides a direct link between artist and listener in the form of the authentication feature—the light on the decoder that confirms that the file being decoded is the file created in the studio. The mastering engineer can monitor the signal through the entire encode-decode chain, and hear exactly what the listener will hear. Conversely, the listener hears exactly what the engineer created.
The surprising advances and innovative thinking that MQA has introduced will forever change the way we and future generations consider digital audio, even if MQA never becomes a large-scale commercial reality. But I’m betting that it will."
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I remember that article and it did have a bit of a foul odor.
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All I know and care about is that I listened to MQA and didn't care for it at all. If I lose Tidal? I might lose 20 or so songs I can't listen to on Qobuz. No big loss. I prefer Qobuz anyways. It sounds better.
Tom~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
I would jump for joy if that unnecessary money grab went bye bye. Then maybe my TIDAL app on the squeezebox touch would allow me to get the high rez files in their full resolution.George / NJ
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They can suck it! Peace!- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
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I am anxiously watching to see how this story "unfolds".Proud and loyal citizen of the Digital Domain and Solid State Country!
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Pieces will be missing with added noise.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Sounds like Bose.
Tom~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
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Glad my digital library is darn near endless! If only I’d stop adding new albums 😂🎶🎶🎶🎩😂
If I don’t own it, it’s not playing through either of my rigs or in our vehicles"if it's not fun, it's not worth it & remember folks, "It's All About The Music"!!
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I'm glad I never subscribed to it...never could endorse the Jay-Z connection.
There is Jack Dorsey (Twitter) connection here, too. One of his companies, Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.), is majority owner in Tidal. Frankly, I never understood the connection since Block/Square is rooted in cash app payment services.
It was a hot stock during the 2020 rally, with the price going from less than $50 to more than $250 in less than a year (stock symbol SQ). I got a little piece of that action
"This may not matter to you, but it does to me for various reasons, many of them illogical or irrational, but the vinyl hobby is not really logical or rational..." - member on Vinyl Engine
"Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to." - Cicero, in Gladiator
Regarding collectibles: "It's not who gets it. It's who gets stuck with it." - Jimmy Fallon -
I posted this little meme-oid Someplace Else (many of all y'all can guess where) when this topic MQA's "Appointment of Administrators" came up there*.
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* The thread was closed -- there are some defenders of the MQA way out there in cyberspace.
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It doesn't affect me on way or the other since I don't listen MQA files. Unless I'm being charged extra from the streaming service to offer those files.
Unless I'm missing something.
H9"Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment. Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not".--Nelson Pass Pass Labs XA25 | EE Avant Pre | EE Mini Max Supreme DAC | MIT Shotgun S1 | Pangea AC14SE MKII | Legend L600 | BlueSound Node 3 - Tubes add soul! -
Brock, if you don't subscribe to Tidal, it's a non-event."This may not matter to you, but it does to me for various reasons, many of them illogical or irrational, but the vinyl hobby is not really logical or rational..." - member on Vinyl Engine
"Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to." - Cicero, in Gladiator
Regarding collectibles: "It's not who gets it. It's who gets stuck with it." - Jimmy Fallon -
It doesn't affect me on way or the other since I don't listen MQA files. Unless I'm being charged extra from the streaming service to offer those files.
Unless I'm missing something.
H9
I have known nothing about it except the letters MQA over the last few years till this bankruptcy story broke, I have read a little bit about it, and can see why some people bitched about it, but it doesn’t sound like it will go away 100%, one can hope that what ever it transitions into will be better all around. It sounds more like it just needs to land into the right hands. But maybe it will be too late for them to get it where it should have been in the first place..
Time will tell..
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It needs to die on the vine...MQA is just an EQ curve applied to master recordings, and saved as something 'new'...yuck."This may not matter to you, but it does to me for various reasons, many of them illogical or irrational, but the vinyl hobby is not really logical or rational..." - member on Vinyl Engine
"Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to." - Cicero, in Gladiator
Regarding collectibles: "It's not who gets it. It's who gets stuck with it." - Jimmy Fallon -
It needs to die on the vine...MQA is just an EQ curve applied to master recordings, and saved as something 'new'...yuck.
See, I didn't even know that.. LOL!!! -
It needs to die on the vine...MQA is just an EQ curve applied to master recordings, and saved as something 'new'...yuck.
Actually, it's weirder, and worse, than that. Fundamentally it was a DRM system, with proprietary (licensed) hardware requirements. I'll defer comment on what MQA did to the original datastream -- so, so much has been written, much of it vitriolic, many other places, by folks who understand the signal processing far, far better than do I.
It was an attempt to backdoor DRM by touting improved audio quality -- kind of like Sony's SACD. SACD was semi-successful -- perhaps even more so after it was 'cracked'
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How did it get so big if it was so bad? I remember when it was being brought up at the audio shows, not that I cared or paid much attention, but I don’t recall anyone bad mouthing it, granted this was pre Covid days at RMAF..
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MQA has a LOT of high frequency noise. It also boosts certain frequencies to the point of clipping and despite claiming to be lossless, it isn't. As Mark stated, it was an attempt to backdoor DRM. Bottom line, it deserves to die.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
The main issues I saw with it was it was developed almost a decade ago after DVD-A failed in the marketplace in an attempt to solve a problem that didn't exist for consumers, it was intended to provide Warner Brothers and the financial backers of MQA lots of royalty payments, it never gained traction as it required new hardware for the full resolution of the format which was itself lossy, people had no way of purchasing the music product for several years, it wasn't adopted by all the major labels, people who heard it after the marketing blitz was over didn't like the end result via streaming, and competitors eventually provided a better more flexible product whether through high resolution downloads up to DSD level or high resolution of streaming. In a way improved broadband speeds killed it.
And even Neil Young didn't like it so pulled his catalog off Tidal in protest. -
Some additional info. MQA was the brain child of Bob Stuart of Meridian Audio. When SACD was gaining popularity Meridian refused to offer an SACD player because they didn't want to pay the licensing fee. Fast forward to MQA, Meridian charged a licensing fee to any company wishing to use it.
So, not only was it an attempt to backdoor DRM, it was a money grab.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Long story short, they tried to re-invent the wheel and the wheel fell off.
Read another issue which probably back fired for MQA
The latest codec for bluetooth release ...bluetooth didn't want to pay for MQA relicense/SDK
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erat interfectorem cesar et **** dictatorem dicere a -
Great thread so far. There's just a laundry list of reasons of why MQA sucks. Hopefully they just go away and we never have to hear those three letters in the world of HiFi ever again.
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I have no idea of what the licensing structure was between Meridian and Dolby, but Meridian Lossless Packing (used in DVD-A for lossless audio channels) lives on in a slightly different form for Blu Ray discs that are in Dolby TrueHD for audio. Meridian and MQA are separate businesses using a different tech and different business models.
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(It) failed in the marketplace in an attempt to solve a problem that didn't exist for consumers ....
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