Where did MQA Neil Young go ?

[PeterSt]

Yesterday I noticed that the Neil Young albums in MQA all had vanished. Below is how XXHighEnd has registered them earlier on (say 6 weeks ago).

 

 

So these were there (for Holland at least) and the only one still listed is the Hitchhiker album (bottom left). But even that reports normal CD quality now by the decoder (notice this one was MQA 44.1 already, but today it is reported as normal 44.1). In the Tidal Desktop Player this thus still shows as MQA, but it can't be producing MQA any more (no blue light, if all is right).

 

What I regard very fishy is that the exact same Album ID's still lead to the find of the very same albums, but that Tidal does not report them as MQA any more. This is NOT how I thought it worked. So yes, we can receive a normal "HiFi" version instead when not authorized, but I just am (other Artists are still fine).

So what seems to have happened here is that Neil Young withdrew his albums in MQA version and that this for the Hitchhiker album failed halfly. Or something like that.

 

The one next to the mouse arrow is the Harvest which has been there in MQA.

 

The one next to the mouse arrow is the only one denoted with the "M", bit it is not that for real.

 

Does anyone have information about this ?

Do we all see the same ?

 

Thanks,

Peter

[mansr]

He's trying to launch his own streaming site: http://www.neilyoungarchives.com/

[PeterSt]

Yes, I saw that. Hard to imagine the disappearing of his MQA albums is related. That is,  if this is still about Xstream.

[mansr]

Still is:

Quote

To avoid the lack of high audio quality presented by today’s streaming technology, NYA is using Xstream Music high resolution streaming by OraStream, an idea that allows the listener to hear all of the music available at his or her current listening location.

 

[witchdoctor]

I checked and couldn't find them either???

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

Yesterday I noticed that the Neil Young albums in MQA all had vanished. Below is how XXHighEnd has registered them earlier on (say 6 weeks ago).

 

 

So these were there (for Holland at least) and the only one still listed is the Hitchhiker album (bottom left). But even that reports normal CD quality now by the decoder (notice this one was MQA 44.1 already, but today it is reported as normal 44.1). In the Tidal Desktop Player this thus still shows as MQA, but it can't be producing MQA any more (no blue light, if all is right).

 

What I regard very fishy is that the exact same Album ID's still lead to the find of the very same albums, but that Tidal does not report them as MQA any more. This is NOT how I thought it worked. So yes, we can receive a normal "HiFi" version instead when not authorized, but I just am (other Artists are still fine).

So what seems to have happened here is that Neil Young withdrew his albums in MQA version and that this for the Hitchhiker album failed halfly. Or something like that.

 

The one next to the mouse arrow is the Harvest which has been there in MQA.

 

The one next to the mouse arrow is the only one denoted with the "M", bit it is not that for real.

 

Does anyone have information about this ?

Do we all see the same ?

 

Thanks,

Peter

 

We see the same thing.  I had links to the MQA versions of Rust Never Sleeps and Sleeps With Angels. Clicking on the album, I now get " The content is no longer available."

 

Doing a search for these albums, I see 3 versions of Rust Never Sleeps and 1 version of Sleeps With Angels.  Clicked on all these and they played standard redbook.

 

This highlights the ephemeral nature of streaming services.

[DaQi]

Exactly why I am not interested in streaming services. 

[firedog]

27 minutes ago, DaQi said:

Exactly why I am not interested in streaming services. 

That’s why you use streaming services for supplementary listening: Hear something for the first time, see if you like something enough to buy it, listen to albums you want to hear but know you don’t want to buy.

[PeterSt]

So how does this work ? A label decides that albums are going to be MQA'd and streamed on Tidal, but the artist can ask for a redrawal ? or buy himself out ?

Something of that kind must be happening. But if so indeed, then at some stage a better MQA provider may emerge and sucks in all the "Tidal artists" ?

I don't think I'd care all that much, but I am sure some manufacturers have spent some $ on Tidal/MQA for development etc. They won't like to do that again for Neil Young's service, who btw is very mortal anyway.

[Mordikai]

 Neal Young is a clown. Does anyone believe he can tell the difference with his old man rocker ears between 16/44 and 24/192 in his Cadillac?

He's not wrong of course about the record industry putting out shit product.

[arcman]

All of Neil’s Hi Rez albums still streaming on Qobuz

[#Yoda#]

1 hour ago, Mordikai said:

 Neal Young is a clown. Does anyone believe he can tell the difference with his old man rocker ears between 16/44 and 24/192 in his Cadillac?

He's not wrong of course about the record industry putting out shit product.

 

Neil Young is not a clown, he's an artist knowing quite good how different a studio master usually sound compared to a lossy copy and even to most DR messed up mastered Redbook versions and this is not a matter of age. He is no business man and the marketing campaign was designed for average Americans who usually don't care for sound quality at all. For any audiophile it was impertinent, for sure.

 

I suspect that XStream is as dead as the PonoMusic Store because NY is not able to find a potent investor and for the same reason, I think, we will never see a HDtracks streaming service.

 

All existing participants are far away from generating any profit and nobody really can estimate future customers preferences in this very small market for high quality streaming. As an investor, you must be very confident to throw the money down the drain, even if the OraStream technology is much more open, sophisticated and adjustable than MQA as streaming solution for mobile and residential HiFi devices.

 

 

[Mordikai]

1 hour ago, #Yoda# said:

 

Neil Young is not a clown, he's an artist knowing quite good how different a studio master usually sound compared to a lossy copy and even to most DR messed up mastered Redbook versions and this is not a matter of age. He is no business man and the marketing campaign was designed for average Americans who usually don't care for sound quality at all. For any audiophile it was impertinent, for sure.

 

I suspect that XStream is as dead as the PonoMusic Store because NY is not able to find a potent investor and for the same reason, I think, we will never see a HDtracks streaming service.

 

All existing participants are far away from generating any profit and nobody really can estimate future customers preferences in this very small market for high quality streaming. As an investor, you must be very confident to throw the money down the drain, even if the OraStream technology is much more open, sophisticated and adjustable than MQA as streaming solution for mobile and residential HiFi devices.

 

 

You give him a lot of credit. I've never heard him say anything that gave me a clue that he understood what he was talking about in this regard. I was using the car hi - res thing because that's what he used and I think it's funny.

I don't criticize his business acumen or lack there of. I think it's brave to start a business and put your time energy and reputation on the line. Sometimes businesses fail no disgrace in my mind, my hats off to him that he tried.

 

[#Yoda#]

13 minutes ago, Mordikai said:

You give him a lot of credit. I've never heard him say anything that gave me a clue that he understood what he was talking about in this regard. I was using the car hi - res thing because that's what he used and I think it's funny.

I don't criticize his business acumen or lack there of. I think it's brave to start a business and put your time energy and reputation on the line. Sometimes businesses fail no disgrace in my mind, my hats off to him that he tried.

 

 

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed about his decision to close the PonoMusic Store before expanding the download service to the mainland of Europe, maybe with a partial recall of the "PonoPromise" to save the business model and favour, more or less impulsive, a streaming service instead. IMO, the PonoMusic Store was unique source to download some rare albums in redbook FLAC format that are available as CD, if at all, only to extremely upscaled prices. 

[Mordikai]

7 minutes ago, #Yoda# said:

 

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed about his decision to close the PonoMusic Store before expanding the download service to the mainland of Europe, maybe with a partial recall of the "PonoPromise" to save the business model and favour, more or less impulsive, a streaming service instead. IMO, the PonoMusic Store was unique source to download some rare albums in redbook FLAC format that are available as CD, if at all, only to extremely upscaled prices. 

In all fairness I was turned off by the sales pitch and never gave it a chance. I also have very little interest in mobile hi-fi so the player never appealed to me.

[#Yoda#]

10 minutes ago, Mordikai said:

In all fairness I was turned off by the sales pitch and never gave it a chance. I also have very little interest in mobile hi-fi so the player never appealed to me.

 

I think the PonoPlayer originally was a vehicle to promote the PonoMusic Store to download HiRes files. Nevertheless, this mobile player is a significantly better sounding source independent of resolution or format than many current stationary DACs to much higher prices.

[mansr]

The Pono store closed when their content provider, Omnifone, went bankrupt. That wasn't Neil Young's fault.

[PeterSt]

I wonder what it actually takes for a provider to go bankrupt. Of what these huge investments should be. I mean, I could seriously consider to set up such a service. All it takes is a couple of servers and a bit of bandwidth. And when I need more bandwidth I need more servers. And when that happens I suppose I have more money because of ore subscriptions.

One thing : I don't need to hire 150/hr costing buses of IT personnel because I'd already have the technology and knowledge and manpower.

If I as a provider would go bankrupt it should have to do with the fee for the artists which should not be my part to begin with. 

[Mordikai]

15 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

I wonder what it actually takes for a provider to go bankrupt. Of what these huge investments should be. I mean, I could seriously consider to set up such a service. All it takes is a couple of servers and a bit of bandwidth. And when I need more bandwidth I need more servers. And when that happens I suppose I have more money because of ore subscriptions.

One thing : I don't need to hire 150/hr costing buses of IT personnel because I'd already have the technology and knowledge and manpower.

If I as a provider would go bankrupt it should have to do with the fee for the artists which should not be my part to begin with. 

well how many subscribers does spotify have and still no profit? I'm not sure what kind of business plan shows you making no profits from 1-50,000,000 customers. When does the profitability start, 100,000,000?

[PeterSt]

10 minutes ago, Mordikai said:

I'm not sure what kind of business plan shows you making no profits from 1-50,000,000 customers.

 

My main job is ICT (ERP systems) and let's say that a bit of plan on how to set this up (like any Jay-Z wouldn't know where to begin) costs 1 million. Just for the plan of what to do and what not to do. Then because this is fairly easy ICT stuff, the programming itself may cost a few 100K only. But say 500K to emphasize my story. Which is : how to earn back 1.5M over $2.50 subscriptions or whatever what's left for you and which should cover for operational costs as well.

 

Having in mind that this guy sells 5K costing DACs and that he dares to design them, anticipating selling 20 only and still making a bit of profit out of it .... (with the most crucial data that hi bread comes from ERP systems), I'd seriously dare to set up a streaming service with this time a decent database + API (unlike Tidal) and it would be up and running in two months of time. What would it cost to set up ? I think not really much more than 200/month for some decent bandwidth - but make that 500.

Point is and remains : I already have all this sh*t, don't need to spend 1M on organization which I (my company) can do myself (no wait, I don't need to think about it) and I' even have some albums available to "share". Not enough, but more efficient than the 90%+ of rubbish on Tidal and therewith maybe enough for some.

 

Because I did not spend the 1M on the organization etc., eventually it will come to me that obtaining the albums would be the big problem. So there goes salary one, two and three when not thoughtful and when thinking it over better (I did during writing of this sentence), it is merely 10, 20, 30. And there things get scary.

[#Yoda#]

10 hours ago, mansr said:

The Pono store closed when their content provider, Omnifone, went bankrupt. That wasn't Neil Young's fault.

 

That is correct, but it was Neil Youngs decision, not to reopen the Pono Store, even though nearly all the transition work toward the new technical service provider 7digital.com was done and go for a new streaming service on the OraStream platform instead.

[#Yoda#]

@PeterSt Hitchhiker, Decade and Peace Trail in MQA are still available at OnkyMusic.com for those who prefer a inferior, lossy and DRM equivocal version versus the open original 24/192 master/remaster as FLAC download.

[rn701]

Like Neil Young, but honestly the lower the resolution the better for listening to him.

[PeterSt]

44 minutes ago, rn701 said:

Like Neil Young, but honestly the lower the resolution the better for listening to him.

 

If you refer to that set of 4, among which American Stars and Bars, then I fully agree (they sound awful in 192KHz Hires).