[gimmeheadroom]

The authentication was BS. You could alter the file and remove frequencies and it would still authenticate.

That's not correct. The reason Tidal's desktop app is bitperfect is because any alteration will break the bitstream. This is easy to verify. Set MQA passthrough on the app and run the stream into an MQA DAC. Now change the volume of the bitstream coming in to the DAC (i.e. on the sending side, not on the DAC side) to anything but 0 dB or add some EQ, the MQA DAC no longer recognizes the bitstream as MQA.

MQA is about the best practical test of a bitperfect setup there is.

 

[rkw]

The reason Tidal's desktop app is bitperfect is because any alteration will break the bitstream. This is easy to verify. Set MQA passthrough on the app and run the stream into an MQA DAC. Now change the volume of the bitstream coming in to the DAC (i.e. on the sending side, not on the DAC side) to anything but 0 dB or add some EQ, the MQA DAC no longer recognizes the bitstream as MQA.

The stream can be altered in other ways (not volume or EQ as you did), and it still authenticates.
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...its-and-the-blue-light-still-shines/#comments

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I remember, and I saw that thread (which I agree is good) but what it says it not the same as what I objected to.

Bottom line is the authetication is reasonable and meaningful, if not bulletproof, and there is no scam here. It accomplishes what it was intended to do i.e. preserve the sound.

 

[Maxpain]

I remember, and I saw that thread (which I agree is good) but what it says it not the same as what I objected to.

Bottom line is the authetication is reasonable and meaningful, if not bulletproof, and there is no scam here. It accomplishes what it was intended to do i.e. preserve the sound.

How can it preserve the sound....if you can pass around it and alter the stream?

Or to express ti better...if artists claim they didn't publish any mqa files but you get mqa on your dac how can you be sure that every mqa file is ''what artist intended''?

 

[moshe tes]

I remember, and I saw that thread (which I agree is good) but what it says it not the same as what I objected to.

Bottom line is the authetication is reasonable and meaningful, if not bulletproof, and there is no scam here. It accomplishes what it was intended to do i.e. preserve the sound.

Shifting the goalposts eh?

 

[gregorio]

Bottom line is the authetication is reasonable and meaningful, if not bulletproof, and there is no scam here.

The bottom line is actually in the name of the product, MQA, the master quality is supposed to be authenticated but it wasn’t, so of course it was a scam!

Maybe you personally are not bothered about the master quality authentication and want something else. So maybe you should write to them and get them to change the name to RMQA, “Reasonable and Meaningful” Quality Authenicated (according to gimmeheadroom)?!

G

 

[Ryokan]

Why did many major manufacturer's - Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, Astell start making MQA compatible devices? They would've known before most listeners/customers if it added anything.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

It's a marketing differentiator.

Anyway there was a period where UMG was watermaking digital files and people could hear that on some tracks. The MQA masters were not watermarked. And there is some evidence that some degree of attention was paid to what masters were encoded with MQA, they often sounded better (despite being lossy on paper) than the non-MQA versions.

 

[bfreedma]

Why did many major manufacturer's - Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, Astell start making MQA compatible devices? They would've known before most listeners/customers if it added anything.

They believed having an MQA logo would help sales. The inclusion had nothing to do with sound quality and other than testing to see if their implementation worked, it's very unlikely that any hardware manufacturer did independent testing on MQA

Like many of the logos found on AVRs over the last 2 decades, MQA never became an in demand consumer feature.

 

[moshe tes]

Why did many major manufacturer's - Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, Astell start making MQA compatible devices? They would've known before most listeners/customers if it added anything.

Well, we do know that some of these manufacturers admitted that they disliked MQA, but it was a sales decision as some customers demanded it.

 

[Ryokan]

it's very unlikely that any hardware manufacturer did independent testing on MQA

I find that surprising.

 

[bfreedma]

I find that surprising.

Not surprising at all. To the best of my knowledge, none of the electronics manufacturers test their licensed technology additions beyond a simple functional test. The expectation is that the developers of the included applications/tech/codecs are responsible for working "properly" and supporting implementation standards.

No one at (insert MQA licensee here) is doing deep testing to identify the actual performance envelope of the licensed products. Testing for MQA (or any 3rd party packaged solution) for an AVR vendor would be:

• Does the MQA light come on when an MQA stream was played
• Does sound come out of whatever the chosen output device is
• Copy the MQA marketing content and insert into the device's commercial page on the corporate web site
• Put the MQA sticker on and pay Meridian (new payee to come)

 

[gregorio]

They would've known before most listeners/customers if it added anything.

They did know it added nothing (from an audible quality point of view) but as others have stated, that’s irrelevant and has been for many years. While there are a few exceptions, much/most of what’s been added over the last 25 years or so makes no audible difference. Whether it adds something from a marketing point of view is what’s important.

G

 

[Ryokan]

They did know it added nothing (from an audible quality point of view) but as others have stated, that’s irrelevant and has been for many years. While there are a few exceptions, much/most of what’s been added over the last 25 years or so makes no audible difference. Whether it adds something from a marketing point of view is what’s important.

G

Got to keep 're-inventing the wheel' to stay relevant and keep in business.

 

[gregorio]

Got to keep 're-inventing the wheel' to stay relevant and keep in business.

Exactly, it’s the audiophile way. Pickup on a problem that doesn’t affect audio and invent something that can be marketed as a solution for it, or pickup on something that was a problem 20-50 years ago but was solved long ago and “re-invent a wheel” which is far more expensive, probably not as good and market it as “more musical” and/or “audiophile grade”!

G