[wormcycle]

Should be within the next few days. I had offered MQA until Wednesday to respond to my email, so I'll wait until then on the off chance they do respond. (Given what happened today, I'm not expecting this is likely, but I want to keep my word).

You can expect all kind of nastiness for your work. I got off Tidal, subscribed to Qobuz and the only reason was not to give a dime to MQA. What starts with a big lie "lossless" can only continue to exist by lying. Cannot wait for you video but it will be difficult to publish it.

 

[rlw6534]

I am currently working on a video investigating MQA and the performance of the "Unfolding" technique.
For this I had some tracks published on tidal, in MQA. These tracks contained various test signals such as impulse response, square wave, white noise, multitone, and even the entire RMAA test sequence.

After collecting all evidence and documenting all the discovered issues (some of which have not yet been discussed elsewhere), I contacted MQA to give them a chance to comment prior to this video (and post here) going live, and to discuss it further if needed, or to do further testing if they felt there was an issue.

They have not responded to me, BUT, they have had my tracks pulled from Tidal, and have spoken to the publisher I used to have them block me.


The tracks are still up on some sites such as Deezer, and I have the MQA encoded files saved as well as analog recordings of a full-decode. And I will share these in the final post and video so that others can look into them.

But for now, I'm just posting this quickly in order to inform people that MQA's response to me reaching out, rather than publishing without getting their side, was to attempt to censor me, and I want to ask that a few people confirm the track's presence on services before it is fully gone, such that they cannot later claim it was never there (though as mentioned, I do still have the MQA encoded files anyway).
If you go in roon and search for "The Callout" by GoldenSound, you will still see that it shows as being on Tidal, in MQA in their DB. Though I'm sure this will not be for long.

The tracks have been removed from tidal, but are still up on other services. They will likely be gone from there soon too.
The video and post, as well as the tracks themselves, should hopefully prove quite useful for anyone wanting to look further into what MQA is doing.

I acted in good faith to ensure the final result was as fair as possible, and MQA's reaction is nothing but petty and says quite a lot....
For a company which has nothing to hide, this sure is a very hostile way of responding to criticism.

They show up on search but the tracks can't be played; "This track is not currently available from Tidal"

 

[crenca]

Even promotors (well, he is a half-hearted promotor now) of MQA such as Stereophile's John Atkinson have admitted the importance of capturing an encoded impulse response to see what MQA is really doing. This would be very significant @GoldenOne if you have truly managed this and would be a real step in the direction of getting behind the proprietary black box veil that is MQA.

 

[GoldenSound]

The video is now up for those who would like to watch.
I'll write up a text version soon

 

[MrWalkman]

The video is now up for those who would like to watch.
I'll write up a text version soon

Very interesting, thanks!

 

[Palyodgree]

GoldenOne i received an email from Mark Waldrep about your YouTube video ,..fabulous work !

 

[ClieOS]

The video is now up for those who would like to watch.
I'll write up a text version soon

RESPECT!

 

[Northern]

Well done!

 

[crenca]

@GoldenOne , Good work overall. My anti-MQA credentials are solid (see Computer Audiophile MQA thread(s)), so I am going to ask you to clarify something if you would. How do you define lossless/lossy? You appear to be using in colloquially and not technically, even contrary to what you rightly demand of MQA Ltd. itself. For example the mere presence of IMD and imaging artifacts from MQA's very poor reconstruction filter does not in-of-itself make an encoding/file "lossy", but you seem to state this (granted in summery) at least twice. I don't see how your work proves that the audio band (20-20), that which is not "folded" by MQA in the LSB's, is technically "lossy". Yes the ultrasonic content, if there is any, is compressed (and thus lossy) but MQA/Bob Stuart were already forced to concede as much 2 or 3 years ago.

Thanks!

 

[Bluecactus123]

Hey guys, I have tidal hifi, but I don't have a device which plays MQA, so am I listening to Flac files instead, even though it says MQA underneath?

 

[rlw6534]

Hey guys, I have tidal hifi, but I don't have a device which plays MQA, so am I listening to Flac files instead, even though it says MQA underneath?

MQA encoded files are still in a flac container and can be played on non-MQA devices. It's VERY controversial whether that's a good or bad thing (probably bad IMO). Unfortunately, Tidal has replaced most of the normal flac tracks with the MQA encoded version (when available) so you don't have a choice at his point. There is plenty of info in the forums and elsewhere if you want more info and have the time to research...

Note that depending on your device, the Tidal app (or UAPP for android) can perform the first unfold internally (to 88.1 or 96 kHz) before sending to the DAC.

 

[ames9000]

The video is now up for those who would like to watch.
I'll write up a text version soon

everyone needs to see this..

 

[Bluecactus123]

everyone needs to see this..

Because of this video i cancelled my tidal subscription and moved over to Deezer

 

[mammal]

Because of this video i cancelled my tidal subscription and moved over to Deezer

Yeah, me too! I was using Roon and explicitly told it to only stream HiFi (not Master), yet I know now that even that isn't the original release...

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Hey guys, I have tidal hifi, but I don't have a device which plays MQA, so am I listening to Flac files instead, even though it says MQA underneath?

Not necessarily. The Tidal desktop and phone apps do the 1st unfold if you don't have MQA hardware.

I compared a few songs using software vs. hardware decode and I think the software decode does a very good job.