MQA is Vaporware

[realhifi]

On 5/1/2017 at 0:32 AM, Rt66indierock said:

 

Chris,

Just tell me when I can purchase and download the following MQA albums in The Valley of the Sun:

1.       Foghat Foghat

2.       Black Oak Arkansas Black Oak Arkansas

3.       Eagles On the Border

4.       Halestorm Into The Wild

5.       Jackson Browne Running on Empty

6.       Chicago Chicago Transit Authority

They are all available on TIDAL in the US and I believe in Europe for download. Why is my side of MQA so hard for you? I can’t buy MQA albums. It is no harder than that.

 

Speaking of Black Oak Arkansas......

they just happened t be one of the bands at one of the most FUN concerts I went to back in the 70's. Charlie Daniel Band opened, Black Oak was next and the headliner was Ten Years After. It was in Cleveland Ohio at a fairly large but intimate hall and the place was rocking, swinging, singing and seemed to levitate like a spaceship time machine. Everyone was high as a kite, dancing with girls with half their clothes off in the aisles, people crowding the stage and the sound was simply amazing!  I will never forget that night and every time I hear Black Oak I am transported back there. 

 

Oh, I'm listening to their whole discography on that terrible Spotify service and don't care one whit about which format it was, is, MQA, flac, MP3,whatever.......

 

(PS.  My whole album collection was stolen twice during those turbulent years and with it all my Black Oak albums so just being able to bring them up at the touch of a button?  Priceless. )

[Jud]

40 minutes ago, realhifi said:

(PS.  My whole album collection was stolen twice during those turbulent years and with it all my Black Oak albums so just being able to bring them up at the touch of a button?  Priceless. )

 

Yep, this is obviously one of many advantages of streaming.  I don't want to give the impression I'm against it.  I do have some concern over whether it might eventually make some of the music I like less available to me.

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

Yep, this is obviously one of many advantages of streaming.  I don't want to give the impression I'm against it.  I do have some concern over whether it might eventually make some of the music I like less available to me.

Downloads can be backed up in a secure location to protect against loss from theft, fire, etc.

[Jud]

9 minutes ago, mansr said:

Downloads can be backed up in a secure location to protect against loss from theft, fire, etc.

 

Certainly.  I'm always on the lookout for new artists, and there, as I mentioned before, a several-months-long subscription to Tidal netted me exactly one new artist I liked who I hadn't known about before.  In that same time I encountered several new-to-me artists by other means who I liked and whose music was not available on Tidal (or if it was available, I couldn't find it).  It's those new artists I'm concerned about.

 

Edit: You may have been referring to what realhifi said about having albums stolen.  My files are backed up both at home and remotely, but I have something around 500 LPs, and I don't intend in the foreseeable future to do needle drops on all those.

[Sal1950]

47 minutes ago, Jud said:

My files are backed up both at home and remotely, but I have something around 500 LPs, and I don't intend in the foreseeable future to do needle drops on all those.

Time consuming yes, but It does give you the opportunity to revisit music you may not have heard in a long time...  You get your recording chain set up and then just start spinning disc's while your doing other chores. One day you spin the last piece of vinyl and think "wow, that wasn't so bad". 

I didn't do any track divisions on my drops, just Side 1 and 2 files. I always listened to whole albums for the 40 years before CD so I don't find it a sacrifice.

The convenience of having my LP collection on my computer and not having to mess with that whole vinyl handling ritual is heaven to me.

YMMV

[Jud]

39 minutes ago, Sal1950 said:

Time consuming yes, but It does give you the opportunity to revisit music you may not have heard in a long time...  You get your recording chain set up and then just start spinning disc's while your doing other chores. One day you spin the last piece of vinyl and think "wow, that wasn't so bad". 

I didn't do any track divisions on my drops, just Side 1 and 2 files. I always listened to whole albums for the 40 years before CD so I don't find it a sacrifice.

The convenience of having my LP collection on my computer and not having to mess with that whole vinyl handling ritual is heaven to me.

YMMV

 

Yep, my mileage definitely varies. 

 

The needle drop project you were able to say "that wasn't so bad" about is something I have no desire to do (recognizing that you and others have done it and thoroughly enjoyed the results), while occasionally putting a record on my turntable, which bugged you enough that you digitized your whole LP collection, doesn't bother me a bit.

 

Edit: It's interesting that when I began playing around with computer audio, digitizing my LP collection is one of the first things I thought of.  But for whatever reason, over the years it's gotten less and less appealing to me.

[Sal1950]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Downloads can be backed up in a secure location to protect against loss from theft, fire, etc.

Been keeping my eyes open for a CHEAP cloud based backup for my whole collection. Ideas?

[mansr]

Just now, Sal1950 said:

Been keeping my eyes open for a CHEAP cloud based backup for my whole collection. Ideas?

Amazon unlimited storage for $60/year is cheap enough for me.

[Jud]

Just now, Sal1950 said:

Been keeping my eyes open for a CHEAP cloud based backup for my whole collection. Ideas?

 

Is 60 bucks a year for unlimited secure remote storage cheap to you?

 

https://www.amazon.com/b/?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&node=15547130011

[Sal1950]

5 minutes ago, mansr said:

Amazon unlimited storage for $60/year is cheap enough for me.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Jud said:

Is 60 bucks a year for unlimited secure remote storage cheap to you?

Now that sounds like a great option, I'll look into it.

Thanks!

 

10 minutes ago, Jud said:

Yep, my mileage definitely varies.

Now here's the perfect reason to digitize your LP's, the ability to back them up.

I almost lost my whole collection in a flood. Was able to salvage them by immediately drying the sleeves and washing all the records. But the water damage to the jackets did impose a severe hit to their resale value.

[ShawnC]

21 minutes ago, Sal1950 said:

Been keeping my eyes open for a CHEAP cloud based backup for my whole collection. Ideas?

Western Digital Mycloud are NAS units with there own cloud.  No charge.  Just purchase the NAS unit and you have your cloud.  I bought a 4TB unit for just under $200.

[mansr]

1 minute ago, ShawnC said:

Western Digital Mycloud are NAS units with there own cloud.  No charge.  Just purchase the NAS unit and you have your cloud.  I bought a 4TB unit for just under $200.

Not much help if your house burns down though.

[ShawnC]

Just now, mansr said:

Not much help if your house burns down though.

So true

[realhifi]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Certainly.  I'm always on the lookout for new artists, and there, as I mentioned before, a several-months-long subscription to Tidal netted me exactly one new artist I liked who I hadn't known about before.  In that same time I encountered several new-to-me artists by other means who I liked and whose music was not available on Tidal (or if it was available, I couldn't find it).  It's those new artists I'm concerned about.

I recently quit Tidal for similar reason.  For one thing, no ECM artists. At least on Pandora or similar service's ECM has single cuts, which when heard I can then look for that artists albums for purchase. ECM must allow their music to be available on radio type services that aren't "on demand" so people can at least get a glimpse of what the label is all about. 

3 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Edit: You may have been referring to what realhifi said about having albums stolen.  My files are backed up both at home and remotely, but I have something around 500 LPs, and I don't intend in the foreseeable future to do needle drops on all those.

 

Just for clarification I have acquired hundreds of albums since those days but I sure didn't repurchase all the ones I lost back then. Like yourself I have no desire to digitize them. I actually like the process of playing records. 

[Sal1950]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Not much help if your house burns down though.

LOL,  I already keep everything backed up on 2 separate harddrives. One I rsync here every couple weeks, the other I keep at a bud's house right down the street.  Works for a fire, not if a massive FL hurricane takes the whole hood away.  

[Sal1950]

30 minutes ago, realhifi said:

I recently quit Tidal for similar reason.  For one thing, no ECM artists.

Tons on Spotify. search shows 1,257 tracks

[mrvco]

3 hours ago, Sal1950 said:

Been keeping my eyes open for a CHEAP cloud based backup for my whole collection. Ideas?

 

I use CrashPlan for cloud back-ups, but I use it to back-up five different computers, so it's not just for my music library.

[realhifi]

2 hours ago, Sal1950 said:

Tons on Spotify. search shows 1,257 tracks

Thanks for the heads up. Just coming back to Spotify from trying out other services and getting used to some changes. Looks like a few great playlists for ECM. 

[Rt66indierock]

On 5/1/2017 at 10:25 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Hey, don't put words in my mouth :~)

 

If anything, I feel resigned to my fate as a consumer of music. Two of the three largest labels are owned by public companies, while the third one is owned by a holding company. I don't believe we as an industry have any clout or ability to influence without authority. 

 

Maybe I'm feeling a bit negative about it all :~|

 

Chris this is good time to point out the industry as it works in the United States today shouldn’t have any clout with the labels. All a label sees with high end audio is an aging shrinking customer base. And an industry that can’t or won’t see itself objectively has nothing to offer a label because it can’t speak with a consistent group of voices to the larger organization.

 

As for the ability to influence without authority does high end audio have anyone with an inspiring vision? Not that I’ve seen at two shows. Can the industry make the labels problems their own? I don’t see high end audio understanding the metrics needed to motivate people at the labels and how the industry could help them with their goals and help itself in the process. And finally the industry has not invested in relationships with the labels that would benefit both sides.

[Sal1950]

6 hours ago, realhifi said:

Thanks for the heads up. Just coming back to Spotify from trying out other services and getting used to some changes. Looks like a few great playlists for ECM. 

Here's hoping they start streaming a higher data rate soon.

FLAC 16/44 lossless, NOT MQA!  LOL

[AudioDoctor]

2 hours ago, Sal1950 said:

Here's hoping they start streaming a higher data rate soon.

FLAC 16/44 lossless, NOT MQA!  LOL

 

 

[Fyper]

19 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Yep, this is obviously one of many advantages of streaming.  I don't want to give the impression I'm against it.  I do have some concern over whether it might eventually make some of the music I like less available to me.

Isn't that the laws of supply and demand?

Eventually, streaming or no streaming, if there is a market for the music you like (the one difficult to find), then some clever mind will put it back on the market.

If there never was a market for that music, then you benefited from marketing glitches of the record companies back in the day.

They'll do some more in the future and they'll likely stay in the catalog even if streamed by 2 people in the world (because it won't cost them anything to do so and it'll inflate the catalog).

[Fyper]

17 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Is 60 bucks a year for unlimited secure remote storage cheap to you?

 

https://www.amazon.com/b/?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&node=15547130011

Nothing personal Judd :-)

But I kind of like the idea of not subscribing to streaming providers and own your files to then subscribe remote storage and store these files in a place that you don't own => in the end it's the same : you stop paying, you've nothing. :-)

(unless it's a remote back up of your local HDrives...)

[Jud]

18 minutes ago, Fyper said:

Nothing personal Judd :-)

But I kind of like the idea of not subscribing to streaming providers and own your files to then subscribe remote storage and store these files in a place that you don't own => in the end it's the same : you stop paying, you've nothing. :-)

(unless it's a remote back up of your local HDrives...)

 

That's exactly what it is, a remote backup for the three copies of all my music files I have at home (two HDDs in separate locations, and SD cards that double as backup and my music collection when I travel).

[Fyper]

4 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

That's exactly what it is, a remote backup for the three copies of all my music files I have at home (two HDDs in separate locations, and SD cards that double as backup and my music collection when I travel).

Nevermind