MQA

Especially when you see that the commentary on MQA articles at Stereophile.com is about 75% negative.

 

Why wait? Get a Berkeley Audio Dac 2, lol.

I do know that Pacific Micronics is Berkeley Audio today, which still will detect HDCD. The mass market won't care if the music they steal is MQA. Oh wait, maybe they can't?

Funny thread this, the best sounding CDs I just listened to earlier today had HDCD encoding. That has nothing to do with the decoding, as the spinner I am using doesn't decode HDCD, but these are really, really well mastered recordings (Trittico with Frederick Fennel and the Dallas Wind Symphony).

 

Absolute Multimedia is Absolute Sound. The Enthusiast Network is Stereophile, but I get what you are saying. Everyone needs to eat, lol.
Caveat emptor, suckers.

 

Where most of the audio opinion leaders miss the boat is the lie that consumer audio is a tech driven industry. Don't get me wrong - tech driven superior sound is fun. In reality, audio is all about economics. That's the rub: there is not enough money in the consumer audio market to support two different mainstream media formats or configurations. Never has been. The outliers such as HDCD, DSD, and MQA, even if sonically superior, have always lost.

 

It sounds to me like most of the good press on MQA is the result of extremely suspect A/B listening tests put on by Meridian, and I'm shocked more of these outlets haven't called them on it. The advertising dollars likely help.

 

The % of people who care enough about sound quality to want something better than "Mastered for iTunes" is statistically insignificant.

 

What a large majority of people will pay for will have nothing to do with sound quality. Its the thought that they are getting sound quality, so you have schlock like Beats headphones, 24/96 or more based on poor masters, or Bose anything. Marketing triumphs over truth, but truth can survive, albeit as $25 dollar records and $5000 London Decca Reference cartridges.

The general public thinks audio is all hype, anyway, and a lot of it really is.

Go get them Jason and Mike.

 

This is why I avoid product or tech not already over 20 years old. Refurbing an amp right made the same year I was born: 1969. I'm reasonably confident the tech in it is not just hype.

 

I'm the same with dating.

 

That's not a fault of the medium though. I can find you plenty of terribly mastered music on vinyl, CD, digital of any stripe, etc.

 

Oh yeah. But to sell something as sounding better, because of the technology alone, is the same lie as perfect sound forever. It's a lot off ducks that have to line up, is all.

And now we are saying redbook is enough. It is if it's done well.

 

Wouldn't making the music closer to 0dbfs (closer to using the full 16 bits all the time) make the quantization error less audible? More space between the music information and the quantization noise. Higher SNR.
Besides, I think that the loudness war in the 90s is the worst possible thing that could have happened to the music industry. No shit that Daft Punk RAM sounds so much better on vinyl. The CD is compressed to shit. The lack of dynamics on most digital music after 1995 completely sucks the life out of music for me.

I would say that 20 or even 22 bits could make sense. Headroom for dynamic peaks (if digital music ever gets dynamic again. In 2016 an album with 10db dynamic range is considered especially dynamic and a great mastering. Hahahaha)
And maybe Hi-Rez does sound better because less filtering is required on the AD and DA side.
Still, I think the 16/44 MFSL Ultradisc IIs sound fantastic and I believe a huge part of that is great mastering and the awesome ADC. Mike Moffat should really bring that back.

 

Nice to see a member of the press keeping it real.

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/05/schiitting-on-mqa/

Comments are largely in agreement.

 

Do unit numbers count?

http://www.statista.com/statistics/188822/lp-album-sales-in-the-united-states-since-2009/

Edit: http://diffuser.fm/vinyl-sales-chart/

This one is more telling.

 

Let's stay focused on MQA. Go start a vinyl sales numbers thread if you'd like.

Point is, people already have a hard time paying for music and this would ask people to re-buy or pay extra for a tier of streaming service that uses the magic pixie dust. Wishful thinking.

 

The Darko article mentioned above:
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/05/schiitting-on-mqa/

was ok until the last paragraph (emphasis mine):

"And isn’t the lynchpin of good journalism when covering more controversial subjects not to blindly subscribe to one position without first seeking out any opposing points of view and presenting them all to readers? Schiit’s is one such opposing PoV. However, it is only that – and a long way from calling for a boycott of MQA."

No, no, no. The implicit assumption in this statement of appeal to "presenting all [points of view] to readers" is that if all points of view should be presented to the readers, then these alternate points of view must be somewhat comparable in terms of credibility. This is what has happened to mainstream media that continues to present climate-change denial "science" as of comparable credibility to the 97% (or more) of climate scientists' position. No, the lynchpin of good journalism is to actually investigate the story, all points of view, and _understand_ it; then have a point of view, an opinion, and present your _arguments_ along with the facts. We don't need journalists to simply parrot the statements of the interested parties. That is not journalism, that is reporting. We need journalism to do the hard work of getting to the bottom of a story and providing insight. Sadly this appears to be a lost art.

Poo on you Darko.

Edit: I just realized I could clarify that by pointing to the more general problem, which is that somewhere along the way journalists subscribed to the idea that they should be "un-biased". And that's when it all went to shit. Because there is no such thing as un-biased, if only because the things that are left unsaid are also a form of bias, and there really is no way to escape that. In the end we lose if the journalist just presents some dry facts, without understanding them and expressing some ideas.

/rant off