[Roly1650]

My apologies for the post. I didn't realize this was such an elitist thread.

After being force feed a steady diet of "Bob Stuart said, so it must be true" and links to the usual nutty gooney birds in the media, by the threads resident shill, it was quite refreshing reading the viewpoint of a well regarded industry insider who doesn't appear to have a dog in the fight.

Thanks for the link, interesting read, got any more?

 

[upstateguy]

My apologies for the post. I didn't realize this was such an elitist thread.

 
I didn't realize that an opinion from the Director of Engineering at Benchmark was an external view with a low level of credibility.

 

[sonitus mirus]

After being force feed a steady diet of "Bob Stuart said, so it must be true" and links to the usual nutty gooney birds in the media, by the threads resident shill, it was quite refreshing reading the viewpoint of a well regarded industry insider who doesn't appear to have a dog in the fight.

Thanks for the link, interesting read, got any more?

 
It was certainly not enlightening, but his opinions closely resembled my own on the subject.
 
Though, as Benchmark sells DACs, I would think that there is a very large dog in this fight in the form of possible licensing fees to have a little "MQA" emblem stamped onto their products.
 

 

[upstateguy]

 

After being force feed a steady diet of "Bob Stuart said, so it must be true" and links to the usual nutty gooney birds in the media, by the threads resident shill, it was quite refreshing reading the viewpoint of a well regarded industry insider who doesn't appear to have a dog in the fight.

Thanks for the link, interesting read, got any more?

 
It was certainly not enlightening, but his opinions closely resembled my own on the subject.
 
Though, as Benchmark sells DACs, I would think that there is a very large dog in this fight in the form of possible licensing fees to have a little "MQA" emblem stamped onto their products.
 

 
That's an interesting point. 
 
If they don't open source it, or make licenses really inexpensive, I wonder if MQA would catch on any better than the other formats that came and went before it?

 

[watchnerd]

   
That's an interesting point. 
 
If they don't open source it, or make licenses really inexpensive, I wonder if MQA would catch on any better than the other formats that came and went before it?

 
Is that counter to their business plan to generate replacement revenue for other expiring Meridian licenses?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

My apologies for the post. I didn't realize this was such an elitist thread.

Or proudly plebian thread? By the same reasoning one could link to an article from Science or a peer-reviewed academic journal and he could throw it out the same way?

Besides Baxide, what's to stop you from posting your comments on the article here? It's not like anyone here is able to challenge Meridian's assertions on their home ground in the first place?

 

[upstateguy]

 

   
That's an interesting point. 
 
If they don't open source it, or make licenses really inexpensive, I wonder if MQA would catch on any better than the other formats that came and went before it?

 
Is that counter to their business plan to generate replacement revenue for other expiring Meridian licenses?

 
Can't generate any income from an unadopted format.

 

[Gringo]

Is MQA DOA?
by John Siau

http://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa

Seems that MQA has not given up just yet going by the article in Stereophile http://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers#zXAgUzxxogkY1FAY.97
Most goes way above my head but they appear to put forward a very knowledgeable case and address the detractors very systematically with science.  Never seen any other company go into such depth. Still think the absence of a wide range of MQA material is their biggest problem.
 
I await the counter arguments 

 

 

[L8MDL]

Seems that MQA has not given up just yet going by the article in Stereophile http://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers#zXAgUzxxogkY1FAY.97
Most goes way above my head but they appear to put forward a very knowledgeable case and address the detractors very systematically with science.  Never seen any other company go into such depth. Still think the absence of a wide range of MQA material is their biggest problem.

I await the counter arguments   

Much smoke and mirrors always makes me suspicious.

 

[icebear]

They are offering a solution to a non-existent problem

:
Storage space and bandwidth limitation.
 
5TB, USB-3 external hard drive, Seagate $129 ... just a 2 second search, so maybe cheaper offers are available. That's a lot of songs... .
TV industry is pushing 4k Ultra HD TV's ... what's the data amount per second needed to stream 4k video? And exactly how much is needed for music?

 
And people listening on the go or in their cars, or any other means of commute, they don't care about high rez either, roughly 95% of the population is just fine with mp3.
There is just no need for a new coding format that requires the consumer to buy hardware that is equipped to decode the format and obviously consumers don't want to buy yet another version of the songs in their existing music library.
 
And for the "science" aspect :
There is a lot of semi fishy arguments about what has been proven and accepted as truth and piles of their own interpretation, which apparently are hard to nail down where they miss the point without investing a lot of time and money* trying to understand the concept. To me this is science of marketing BS, not really physics or acoustics or even proper statistical analysis.
 
* I tried to access the mentioned references from this paragraph:
QUOTE[
[It has been known since at least 1946 that the Fourier time-frequency uncertainty inherent in conventional signal analysis can be 'beaten' by human listeners, and by a significant margin.[31][32] Indeed, recent experimental studies have shown temporal discrimination at least 5 times higher.[33][35][36]
]UNQUOTE
 
And all of them are "pay per view" i.e. subscription only

, so much for giving access to the references that prove your point.
 
And as always:
The amount of effort put into pushing some idea is directly proportional to the size of the carrot ... eh the potential profit, if the concept takes off.

 

 

[RRod]

 
* I tried to access the mentioned references from this paragraph:
QUOTE[
[It has been known since at least 1946 that the Fourier time-frequency uncertainty inherent in conventional signal analysis can be 'beaten' by human listeners, and by a significant margin.[31][32] Indeed, recent experimental studies have shown temporal discrimination at least 5 times higher.[33][35][36]
]UNQUOTE
 
And all of them are "pay per view" i.e. subscription only

, so much for giving access to the references that prove your point.
 

 
Hydrogen had a good discussion, with this post providing a good synopsis of how the results don't mean what people want them to mean.

 

[Gringo]

Much smoke and mirrors always makes me suspicious.

Being suspicious is healthy but the "smoke and mirrors" bit without clarification could be interpreted as bias.

 

[Gringo]

They are offering a solution to a non-existent problem:rolleyes: :
Storage space and bandwidth limitation.

5TB, USB-3 external hard drive, Seagate $129 ... just a 2 second search, so maybe cheaper offers are available. That's a lot of songs... .
TV industry is pushing 4k Ultra HD TV's ... what's the data amount per second needed to stream 4k video? And exactly how much is needed for music?

And people listening on the go or in their cars, or any other means of commute, they don't care about high rez either, roughly 95% of the population is just fine with mp3.
There is just no need for a new coding format that requires the consumer to buy hardware that is equipped to decode the format and obviously consumers don't want to buy yet another version of the songs in their existing music library.

And for the "science" aspect :
There is a lot of semi fishy arguments about what has been proven and accepted as truth and piles of their own interpretation, which apparently are hard to nail down where they miss the point without investing a lot of time and money* trying to understand the concept. To me this is science of marketing BS, not really physics or acoustics or even proper statistical analysis.

* I tried to access the mentioned references from this paragraph:
QUOTE[
[It has been known since at least 1946 that the Fourier time-frequency uncertainty inherent in conventional signal analysis can be 'beaten' by human listeners, and by a significant margin.[31][32] Indeed, recent experimental studies have shown temporal discrimination at least 5 times higher.[33][35][36]
]UNQUOTE

And all of them are "pay per view" i.e. subscription only , so much for giving access to the references that prove your point.

And as always:
The amount of effort put into pushing some idea is directly proportional to the size of the carrot ... eh the potential profit, if the concept takes off.
 

Wife streaming tv, son playing X-box on line, daughter streaming Spotify whilst on line and me trying to listen to Tidal premium - not everyone has fast broadband and for many of us file size is important.

Your comments about the science seems to imply that you, (like me), don't understand much of the science so it must be simply an unethical marketing scheme. I differ in that I don't simply dismiss something because I don't fully understand it, I will wait open minded for more evidence and the chance to do real life comparisons.

So you have to pay to see the papers, hardly MQA's fault. That does not invalidate them.

If MQA don't address their detractors and questioners they would be accused of hiding and not providing information the public requires. I for one think they have gone way further than other hi-fi companies in justifying and explaining thier technology. If they make money, good luck to them, that is no worse than any one else trying to earn a dollar. No one has to buy into the technology.

 

[Gringo]

Hydrogen had a good discussion, with this post providing a good synopsis of how the results don't mean what people want them to mean.

It would be more accurate to say "sometimes" or "often" results don't mean what people want them to mean.

 

[castleofargh]

 in the end it's all a fancy game of "who do I decide to trust?" and "what do I decide to call important?". the average audio consumer shouldn't worry too much given the specs of our gears/ears/listening environment. but the guys trying desperately to sell MQA, of course they care a lot, and so do the people who have meridian as a sponsor or business partner. it's the highres argument all over again, except that here they're more realistic about the added bit depth needed for good sound, the format's design not only admits 24bit is a waste of good space, it uses it to store sample rate data instead. so there is hope, maybe the next "revolution" will do the same but also admit that higher sample rates aren't really necessary, and create an amazing 18/50 highres flac format. wow much sound quality, very space saved! highres doge is amazed by this real revolution!
 
or why not a lossy format pushed to -80db instead of being around -60db with max mp3? we could even go with something the size of 16/44 flac that would have better perceptual quality than flac for the 0.01% of people claiming to hear a difference with highres or 16/44wave ^_^.  the possibilities for an "audio revolution" are endless. some like myself would be fine with a revolution where all masters are simply available at all PCM formats for one price. but I wouldn't want to ruin the fun they have creating more products out of nothing to get more of our money.
 
 
what annoys me a little with MQA is how they try to pitch it to the consumer, when it was obviously made for the music streaming providers. it's a tool that offers to store one file and output a variety of file formats from it depending on bandwidth available. so it's obviously a tool to save storage space on those guys servers. to us consumers, it really doesn't change anything.