Charles Hansen

Thanks for clarifying - that makes perfect sense, given the current situation. Very interesting information, given that: 1) Germany is the largest market for almost everything (including audio) in Europe. 2) Not too long ago, Digital Audio Review relocated from Australia to Berlin, and that website has also been promoting MQA (although still in the English language. (www.digitalaudioreview.net).

What country do you live in? MQA is trying to establish a European "beachhead" in the Netherlands, but I don't think they are making very much progress. I am unaware of either Pioneer or Onkyo making rebranded anythings. Can you please specify the model of portable player Pioneer/Onkyo is selling in Europe, and who the actual OEM manufacturer is? Another reason I dislike the internet. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what "PMP" stood for. I even looked on an internet slang dictionary and found "Peed My Pants", "Practice Makes Perfect", "Poor Man's Pizza", and "Poor Man's Porsche". It wasn't until I was typing the above paragraph that I realized you meant "Portable Music Player". As I've said before, I'm not particularly quick-witted, but usually figure out things when given enough time. EDIT: PS - No, they are not planning to release "All new" versions. They are only "testing the waters". Just look at when DVD was first released. All of the movie studios (more then than now, due to US government relaxation of anti-monopoly policies) released titles to "test the waters". Pretty much every release made lots of money, so within a few years there were tens of thousands of titles. Contrast this to any other failed format, such as DVD-Audio, SACD, or MQA. All of the big companies that are driven solely by profit (eg, public and greedy private) stopped. The only companies making SACDs are tiny private ones, serving a niche market, and dedicated to quality over profit.

Very true - and this even applies to so-called "inaudible" ultrasonic artifacts, which are actually audible via bone conduction (among other mechanisms). An increased level of "inaudible" ultrasonic sounds can also contribute to greater perceived loudness, which in turn is generally perceived as "sounding better". Exactly. Currently we don't have the knowledge to measure the types of distortions that are audible. Traditional measurements such as THD worse than useless - they delude people into believing incorrect thing such as "a component with 0.01% THD is more colored than a component with 0.001% THD". We have technology that is extremely accurate at measuring the wrong parameters. Exactly true, and I hope very obviously why to everyone reading this forum. If not, let me know and I will explain. (Although it is somewhat off-topic.) Question for Brian Lucey: Have you heard any audible differences between the PM Model One (which only operates at the single sample rates of 44 and 48kHz) versus the Model Two operating at the same rates (even though the Model Two can operate at both dual- and quad-sampling rates)? Depending on your answer, I may or may not have any follow-up questions (which I hope are relevant to this thread). Exactly. There is one other classic marketing technique used to sell products - sex. MQA uses both fear ("do I have the latest, greatest, bestest that both of the US audiophile-oriented print magazines are raving about?) and sex (look at any ad for MQA and show me an unattractive person being used in the ad). (By the way - this is just one of the reasons that many have a negative attitude to many of my posts - I post negative things in many of them. One of the primary "rules" of marketing is to never use any negative words or images in advertisements - otherwise people will subconsciously associate negative things with the product being advertised. These marketing "rules" are based on studies of human psychology dating back around a century ago and are continually being refined and improved.) EDIT: (PS - Marketing is continually refined and improved to increase corporate profit. That is OK, because the only reason that marketing exists is to increase corporate profit. In contrast, audio equipment is also constantly being refined and improved - when done by public or greedy private corporations it is always to improve profit - sometimes the actual performance also improves, but often it does not - and in fact may even go backwards. I think that is what defines the "true" high-end companies - to continually refine and improve solely for the performance - with the belief that buyers will recognize it and it will lead to higher profits. A subtle, yet crucial distinction.)

Thanks very much, Chris!

Sorry Chris, but it looks like Mav52 beat you to the punch by a bit. If you read his post (ust above your post) you will see the answer you are chasing.

QED

Måns, you are an expert in your field. When you posted here, you did not suffer rude, insulting and arrogant attacks. When Brian Lucey (who is equally expert in his field) posted here, Chris let anybody and everybody take pot-shots at him, whether on-topic or completely off-topic. The result is we will likely never see Brian Lucey here again. If that is running "one of the best audiophile forums", then we are living in a world of hurt. Strictly my opinion. YMMV.

That's rich - attacking my post about "breaking the rules" by breaking your own rules.

Since you clearly have some "inside" information, why don't you share it rather than simply tease?

I cannot believe that this concept is so hard for people to understand. The only reason Spotify exists is to make money. When they run a test (such as they did with the lossless streaming), they simply crunch the numbers and see if the added costs of both storage and streaming more data are higher or lower than the money they will make by adding a new feature. Since they have run the trial and not switched, it is 100% clear that streaming in lossless is currently a money-losing proposition compared with streaming in lossy. What is so hard about that to understand?

Come on, Firedog. You are smarter than that. You are referring to musical dynamics, and Brian was talking about the "DR number". Two completely different things. Stop talking past each other, and please try to stay on topic. Thanks!

Yes, but it's way, way worse than that. In the world of A/V receivers, everything is dominated by video. There are basically three organizations which control everything in the video industry - the DVD and Blu-ray Forum founding companies (about 7 mega-multi-national corporations), HDMI, and Dolby (arguably DTS also). When any of these changes anything or updates to a new standard, immediately the buying public has been trained to regard the old as "obsolete" and that they are now "missing out" on something. This is all a deliberate plot to create planned obsolescence, which in turn creates product "churn", which in turn boosts corporate profits. MQA is the first step in this happening to the audio industry, and why it must be stopped at all costs - if you care about music at all.

Just because Brian posted here does not mean that he suddenly owes you a complete tutorial on the music production workflow. If you want to learn about that, you can easily do so on this thing called "the internet". Just sayin'.

Sorry ESL Dude, the rest of this post (which I deliberately deleted) was simply more off-topic opinions that should be on a different thread if there were actually a moderator around.

Peter, Sorry to deflate you, but this is exactly why Brian comes across to many as "arrogant" or "rude". You simply have no idea of what you are talking about. Brian was the mastering engineer, not the mixing engineer. You have absolutely no idea of the workflow in music production, and you want to argue with someone who has been doing it for a living for decades. That is true arrogance.