sls

Incorrect. If you read the UK published accounts, page 2, the route to profitability is hardware revenues: "With major streaming services expressing specific interest in adopting MQA, and subsequently initiating detailed technical reviews, we remain confident that MQA content will become available across one of the larger, multi- territory services and will drive the hardware royalty revenues necessary to achieve profitability and sustained revenues." Reinet, who have a controlling interest in MQA, also have a controlling interesting Meridian, which has been a financial basket-case for years. It is all about selling Meridian kit and royalties from hardware manufacturers for embedded MQA.

I don't know why CC relies on Archimago to point out the flaws in MQA. Highresaudio relied on XiVero, a leading tech company. https://www.xivero.com/blog/hypothesis-paper-to-support-a-deeper-technical-analysis-of-mqa-by-mqa-limited/ E=Referred to elsewhere: e.g.

Exactly what Linn needed to do, but loses out badly to the Devialet 140 Expert Pro on price, power and functionality. ... from a former happy Linn Akurate system owner.

That's the strategy. The problem is the with global services like Spotify only 40% of users are prepared to pay anything at all (about 80million of 180m registered users) and the chances of them paying for MQA above 16/44 are probably very limited.

This really is a pointless discussion, easily resolved from MQA's accounts. They are here: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09123512/filing-history Working on DRM being any process to protect copyright by restricting redistribution and copying, look at page 2 second bullet point. It says a threat to the business is: "Continued influence of the business strategies (and associated timeframes) of music labels that impacts the acceptance rate of MQA — specifically MQA's dependence on the completion of agreements between labels and music retailers in which they agree their licensing terms for high quality audio." Basically, this indicates that NDAs with labels probably refer to licenses that restrict their "high quality audio" to MQA. The risk they refer to is that labels decide this isn't a great idea and there are better ways of selling HD audio. Like Qobuz. Further down the same page they say: "With major streaming services expressing specific interest in adopting MQA, and subsequently initiating detailed technical reviews, we remain confident that MQA content will become available across one of the larger, multi-territory services and will drive the hardware royalty revenues necessary to achieve profitability and sustained revenues." In other words they are looking for someone larger than Tidal, presumably Spotify, to adopt MQA, so people will be forced to buy MQA decoding and rendering hardware. Profitability will not come from a cut of streaming, but the hardware royalties. If that isn't DRM - specifically the HD audio licenses - I don't know what is.

sls is a pseudonym for Steven It was a joke. I have no doubt your laundry is slowly aerated by the warm embrace of a Pacific zephyr and is not manipulated in any manner unbecoming of its virtue. Mine's done by a lovely Polish girl called Anna.

She's a one bit woman. The only thing she folds is her laundry.

On the subject of the MQA Christmas party, how do you say "Jbara" under the influence of alcohol? I'm not sure I'd get past the introduction.

There was a literary joke buried in there, it may not have escaped, or maybe it wasn't funny.

I'll take a bottle of Chateau Thames Embankment to the MQA Christmas party, if they're still around.

I stand corrected !!

Archimago should simply go by the name of Lord Charles Albert. For all I know, he could be a woman. Then, no one would dare criticise his writing.

The CD player was a bit rough at the edges when it came out in 1983. They were very cheap, mine cost about £150 I seem to recall. They took about 3 or 4 years to catch on, by which time there was a marked improvement and jitter was much reduced by the end of the 1980s. In the early 1980s there was DMM vinyl and some of them sounded superb. One of the main things about CD was to get 74 minutes of music on one disc. I didn't find CD much of a compromise on sound, but then I listen mostly to classical. I still play plenty of records, mostly jazz. Whether you prefer vinyl, CD or streaming, there are good grounds for doing so as they all have their merits. MQA, on the other hand, brings nothing to the party.

I use Qobuz Sublime+ and my kids use Spotify, they love it as they beam it to Devialet and it auto-detects Spotify. For Classical, Qobuz is stunningly good. Just got an email from Qobuz, my subscription is going down from £350 to £300. Seems all prices are being aligned with £/€/$ parity. (£ price includes 20% sales tax)

The market seemed to think so. By the time CD came about vinyl was already getting beaten by tape. CDs were very expensive in 1983, almost doubt vinyl sometimes, once the price came down they took off. LPs were pretty much history by 1993. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2013/04/11/vinyl-records-are-more-popular-now-than-they-were-in-the-late-90s/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6e484f5b290c 16/44 CD engineering was superb from the very start. Trevor Gilbert's Bach 48 and Paul Simon's Graceland come to mind. Had a lot to do with it being driven by classical music, Karajan was hired to promote the technology when it was announced in 1979 and he sold more albums than anyone.