MQA in administration

bruny

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I’ve just came across this. Maybe another potential backer will step in who knows. My own opinion is I couldn’t be happier. As it was just a money grab as far as I’m concerned. Shame for all employees though if it does collapse.

 
I’ve just came across this. Maybe another potential backer will step in who knows. My own opinion is I couldn’t be happier. As it was just a money grab as far as I’m concerned. Shame for all employees though if it does collapse.

This is welcome news - as you say it will be sad news for the employees but good for music distribution on the whole.
 
Great news, though we shouldn't celebrate yet. A new investor still has time to swoop in and inject new capital. Can't see why anyone would want to though.
 
Looks like I’ll be getting Qobuz quicker than I thought !

Depending on their financials, as per the above , they are seeking a buyer.
 
Why the mqa hate??

I'm not a fan of Spotify, this is the first time I've written this or told anyone. I just don't subscribe to it.

I've always wondered about the mqa hate? Is it like football? If you support one team you feel the need to bash the rivals and take pride when the team you picked does well??

I've always been a subscriber of tidal since they started paying artists more than their rivals. I moved from qobuz years ago, before that I had iTunes where I'd buy albums, before that cds.

To me paying artists was the most important factor in streaming as I want new artist to be financially supported. If a new platform launched that gave the artist more, I'd move to that. The main reason is I think great artists should be rewarded and I want great talent going into the music industry.

Mqa did make people buy more kit, which brought money into the hifi industry. I personally think this is needed. What isn't a money grab nowdays?? Cables, power supply, quantum vibration removers? Thankfully we get to decide what we buy.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts
 
Out the gate, Tidal is not MQA or visa-versa

In terms of MQA as an audio codec, pages upon pages of posts and hours of time have already been wasted on discussing this. Probably better not to start yet another one of those discussions here, there’s very little to add.

But in terms of why the hate for MQA.

Firstly in 2023 there is very little need for a proprietary, licensed, lossy codec to transmit audio data. Internet bandwidth is now at the level that you can either stream the data using a free, open standards lossless codec or if bandwidth limitations are an issue via a free, open standards lossy codec.

You can’t get ’better’ than the original data sent via a lossless codec. So in that sense MQA’s codec brought nothing new to the table, yet saddled everyone, directly or indirectly with licence fees. None of that licensing revenue went to support artists, in fact if you think of a streaming plan as a fixed cost, MQA were taking a cut of it at the exclusion of the artists.

Had MQA simply been marketed as a high quality lossy codec, possibly useful for steaming over low bandwidth mobile connections (arguably plenty of free options already existed), it probably would have gone largely unnoticed, after all people are far less concerned about Dolby licensing their proprietary codecs.

Where MQA stoked ire was in their marketing which (at least initially) made claims about ‘superior’ sound. When it comes to compression you can’t improve on lossless, it’s like claiming the .zip compression format made your images appear with more vibrant colours when compressed with it - not only is that statement ridiculous, but if your files were changed by the zip compression it wouldn’t be a very good compression format.

In short MQA made a lot of wild marketing claims, scientists, audio engineers, people who understood audio codecs and digital audio saw though this and called them out on it. Yet much like cables and other areas of audio, it ended up with an opposing camp of believers who ‘heard a difference’.

(there was also some other stuff along the way about them white gloving certain albums for exclusive MQA remastering, but not sure that was ever more than a handful of albums)

Anyway, hope that’s a useful potted history for you.
 
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Out the gate, Tidal is not MQA or visa-versa

In terms of MQA as an audio codec, pages upon pages of posts and hours of time have already been wasted on discussing this. Probably better not to start yet another one of those discussions here, there’s very little to add.

But in terms of why the hate for MQA.

Firstly in 2023 there is very little need for a proprietary, licensed, lossy codec to transmit audio data. Internet bandwidth is now at the level that you can either stream the data using a free, open standards lossless codec or if bandwidth limitations are an issue via a free, open standards lossy codec.

You can’t get ’better’ than the original data sent via a lossless codec. So in that sense MQA’s codec brought nothing new to the table, yet saddled everyone, directly or indirectly with licence fees. None of that licensing revenue went to support artists, in fact if you think of a streaming plan as a fixed cost, MQA were taking a cut of that fee and not delivering any significant, tangible benefits to the user in return.

Had MQA simply been marketed as a high quality lossy codec, possibly useful for steaming over low bandwidth mobile connections (arguably plenty of free options already existed), it probably would have gone largely unnoticed, after all people are far less concerned about Dolby licensing their proprietary codecs.

Where MQA stoked ire was in their marketing which (at least initially) made claims about ‘superior’ sound. When it comes to compression you can’t improve on lossless, it’s like claiming the .zip compression format made your images appear with more vibrant colours when compressed with it - not only is that statement ridiculous, but if your .zip files were charged by the zip compression it wouldn’t be a very good compression format.

In short MQA made a lot of wild marketing claims, scientists, audio engineers, people who understood audio codecs and digital audio saw though this and called them out on it. Yet much like cables and other areas of audio, it ended up with an opposing camp of believers who ‘heard a difference’.

(there was also some other stuff along the way about then white gloving certain albums for exclusive MQA remastering, but not sure that was ever more than a handful of albums)

Anyway, hope that’s a useful potted history for you.
That is super helpful and thank you for taking the time to explain
 
Big tidal fan.

mqa go away please.
 
The useful bit of MQA is the filter. I would be quite happy if in addition to the filter option on my DAC, the MQA filter was there as an option for use with any source albeit with its parameters defaulted. In practice however I suspect this is their one real bit of IP so we will probably never see this.

I gather the filter is also part of MQA's SCL6 wireless codec playback which as I understand it is where they want to take the business.

I do not get the impression this is MQA disappearing, but rather that their business is changing and is perhaps now incompatible with their current backer who wants out with the result that the company is financially non viable without a backer.

I guess administration is the only interim option until a new backer who is more compatible with the business going forward is on board.
 
The useful bit of MQA is the filter. I would be quite happy if in addition to the filter option on my DAC, the MQA filter was there as an option for use with any source albeit with its parameters defaulted. In practice however I suspect this is their one real bit of IP so we will probably never see this.
Not sure if the MQA filter is that much of a mystery, eg:

You may even be able to get a close approximation by just using SoX:
 
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I've never listened MQA encoded music, but since it's the only codec that isn't free, it has to go!
 
It was essentially a music industry protection racket from the word go , it existed only to extract cash from every step of the audio chain from source to consumer.

It added nothing , and in fact turned out to be lossy , and its creator's reputation is in ruins after being comprehensively debunked and slaughtered online.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.
 
I don’t think MQA is going anywhere. Though I don’t care either way, there’s far too much hysteria around it. Not everyone thinks it’s the spawn of Satan.
 
I don’t think MQA is going anywhere. Though I don’t care either way, there’s far too much hysteria around it. Not everyone thinks it’s the spawn of Satan.
No, it will quietly die now
 
For a lark a few days ago I decided to listen to the MQA stream on Radio Paradise.

Cue some horrible high-end distortion on a couple of tracks. Went back the CD stream and the nasty distortion was gone.

If they do go bust they could perhaps salvage some of their technical reputation by open sourcing their algorithms and have a chance to finally prove that there is something there after all.

Regardless of any possible clever algo work I have never accepted their business model and dropped my Tidal sub when they hooked up with MQA.
 
Unlike TIDAL, Radio Paradise aren't actually using studio label provided MQA tracks and are instead using an MQA encoder to produce custom MQA streams from the same normal (non-MQA) tracks that are in their FLAC streams:
https://radioparadise.com/community/forum/post/3901729

It was weird, I'm an occasional RP listener and donator, but I've never bothered with the MQA stream before.

I can see a potential advantage for the streaming service if they can reduce bandwidth costs of course.

Just decided to try it on a whim, wasn't expecting such nasty artifacts in the treble. It wasn't all songs though.
 
If anything RP have increased their bandwidth costs, as they've promised to continue providing the FLAC streams that the MQA streams are directly derived from. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that their net costs have increased (& hopefully even decreased) as I assume they've struck some favourable deal with MQA and/or Bluesound (for whose BluOS device operating system the MQA streams can only be received by).

Rather amusing to think that BluOS device purchasers could well be subsidising RP's FLAC streams for the rest of us!
 
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Just decided to try it on a whim, wasn't expecting such nasty artifacts in the treble. It wasn't all songs though.

Makes me think of a something I posted to one of the MQA threads here about my cats reaction to MQA before I had an MQA capable DAC :)

 
Makes me think of a something I posted to one of the MQA threads here about my cats reaction to MQA before I had an MQA capable DAC :)


Miaow :)

When I was younger I could hear very well. Even slightly above 20kHz.

Turning 55 this week, I have lost most of my hearing above 14kHz, still not bad for my age at all though.

My weird part though is that I can still hear a narrow band at around 17kHz. I wonder if that's where I was hearing the artifacts... And maybe if I could still hear either side I would not have noticed it???
 
My weird part though is that I can still hear a narrow band at around 17kHz. I wonder if that's where I was hearing the artifacts... And maybe if I could still hear either side I would not have noticed it???

Actually that makes sense to me.

I have noticed that some high frequencies above my present hearing cut off are still perceivable, more as an irritating sense of pressure like hearing fatigue and generally it seems more of an on/off threshold thing if that frequency band is loud enough. With most music playback I never notice it, but do occasionally and end up skipping whatever it is as otherwise I just feel I want to escape the noise.
 
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Actually that makes sense to me.

I have noticed that some high frequencies above my present hearing cut off are still perceivable, more as an irritating sense of pressure/hearing fatigue and generally it seems more of an on/off threshold thing if that frequency band is loud enough. With most music playback I never notice it, but do occasionally and end up skipping whatever it is as otherwise I just feel I want to escape the noise.

I suspect this is also why I find KEF speakers fatiguing.
 

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