another vendor speaks up on MQA

[mcgillroy]

Short but damming read on MQA by an anonymous audio-vendor:

http://6moons.com/industryfeatures/mqa/1.html

Confirms most of the points Shiit and Linn have raised. Their argument about the benefits of MQA for cheap DACs are interesting.

[mrvco]

This certainly illuminates my single biggest concern with MQA, their opaque business and licensing model and what that may or may not mean in the future if MQA achieves market dominance, particularly among the major record labels.

 

After hearing MQA unfolded in the Brooklyn DAC and finding it FAR less essential relative to up-conversion, DSP, filters and other downstream processing that cannot coexist with the encrypted MQA data stream, I'm less concerned about MQA strangling life out of the speciality DAC business like Dolby did with their certification process for AV gear.

 

I'm certainly still concerned that major record labels will take the bait and only support MQA in the future for HiRes if MQA gains sufficient momentum.  That being said, if the main-stream didn't jump on Tidal's "lossless Red Book streaming", then the subtle (at best) benefits of MQA aren't going to move them either.

[esldude]

I wonder if those guys were from Auralic?   You see the new series Chris has on the home page here at CA.  No mention of MQA though they seemed an enthusiastic early supporter promising a demo at an audio show and literally just backed away from MQA at that time.  The new Auralic series uses the Lightning link which apparently is a no go with MQA.

[TubeLover]

25 minutes ago, esldude said:

I wonder if those guys were from Auralic?   You see the new series Chris has on the home page here at CA.  No mention of MQA though they seemed an enthusiastic early supporter promising a demo at an audio show and literally just backed away from MQA at that time.  The new Auralic series uses the Lightning link which apparently is a no go with MQA.

Hard to say. A LOT of people are not on the MQA bandwagon! And understandably so.

 

JC

[mrvco]

8 hours ago, esldude said:

I wonder if those guys were from Auralic?   You see the new series Chris has on the home page here at CA.  No mention of MQA though they seemed an enthusiastic early supporter promising a demo at an audio show and literally just backed away from MQA at that time.  The new Auralic series uses the Lightning link which apparently is a no go with MQA.

 

The anonymous quote includes a "whilst", does Auralic have any British-speakers on their executive team?

[mcgillroy]

Could be anything but my guess is that it's a Swiss audio-vendor. 6Moons is quite well connected in the industry overall but the editor spend the recent years in Switzerland where he reported in depth on Swiss audio companies Nagra, Weiss, Boehnike and Solution.

 

 

 

 

[plissken]

On 5/18/2017 at 8:11 AM, mcgillroy said:

Short but damming read on MQA by an anonymous audio-vendor:

http://6moons.com/industryfeatures/mqa/1.html

Confirms most of the points Shiit and Linn have raised. Their argument about the benefits of MQA for cheap DACs are interesting.

 

There is no consumer upside to MQA. Don't get into business arrangements where one party is the only one that thinks they get to sit and have a plate of food while you stand there hat in hand.

 

[Rt66indierock]

13 hours ago, esldude said:

I wonder if those guys were from Auralic?   You see the new series Chris has on the home page here at CA.  No mention of MQA though they seemed an enthusiastic early supporter promising a demo at an audio show and literally just backed away from MQA at that time.  The new Auralic series uses the Lightning link which apparently is a no go with MQA.

 

From my April update:

 

Xuanqian Wang of AURALiC  basically said no to MQA and his comments about his DSP software seem to imply that part of the difference audio journalists report hearing with MQA may be  digital sound processing in a conventional sense. It would square the not necessarily better but different comments.

 

These comments were in DAR.

[mrvco]

3 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

From my April update:

 

Xuanqian Wang of AURALiC  basically said no to MQA and his comments about his DSP software seem to imply that part of the difference audio journalists report hearing with MQA may be  digital sound processing in a conventional sense. It would square the not necessarily better but different comments.

 

These comments were in DAR.

 

Any idea what happened to DAR?  The site has been giving me a 403:Forbidden error since last night.

[Solstice380]

35 minutes ago, mrvco said:

 

Any idea what happened to DAR?  The site has been giving me a 403:Forbidden error since last night.

 

I just opened the home page. Try flushing your browser history and cache. 

[esldude]

Just tried DAR and it works here too.  Not that I consider that necessarily a positive, but it works.