'Why not?' kind of reiterates my point.. either it is most likely for a valid reason, or it's not about chance or probabilities at all and just about your personal preference as an explanation .
Which is fair opinion .. just not 'most likely'.
Okay, understood. And your own preference for an explanation?
Reason I ask is because I think you do not seem to give other possible explanations much consideration.
Mostly you seem to be doing more or less like humans typically do: "If A happens first then B happens, then A must have caused B," which is logically untrue. Its a kind of shortcut reasoning.
IOW, "if I play FLAC and the sound is different, then FLAC must be the underlying cause," does not necessarily logically follow.
Reason I ask is because I think you do not seem to give other possible explanations much consideration.
Mostly you seem to be doing more or less like humans typically do: "If A happens first then B happens, then A must have caused B," which is logically untrue. Its a kind of shortcut reasoning.
IOW, "if I play FLAC and the sound is different, then FLAC must be the underlying cause," does not necessarily logically follow.
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Do they? As far as I understand it, PCM data go into FLAC compression and PCM data come out of FLAC decompression. And you're right. There could be a bug in either, but that would be easy to test by comparing the data before compression with the data after.
PCM data do not need decoding. All you need to do is to feed the data to a DAC for playback.
Tom
First before I start let me say the I met with Bob Stuart in the 1970s and he is a very talented designer that I respect.
However.
As myself the lead designer for a US audio products company when MQA was introduced our marketing department thought it will be the next big thing, will revolutionize the industry, and any company who's products do not support it will wither and die.
MQA had a very impressive marketing presentation and materials for audio companies.
Needless to say I was a skeptic after the presentation as to me it seemed to suggest they were bypassing some basic laws of thermodynamics by getting more resolution from no more data without losing the original data on the way. Sounded too good to be true.
Red flags came out as I kinda have this thing that laws of physics are not optional and it all sounded like another spin on the old audio compression theam.
Perhaps I am wrong.
Later after reading a full technical description of the system I felt the real motivation for content companies to want widespread adoption of MQA was enabling copy protection, a fundamental ability of the system.
I am not in a position to provide technical details.
However.
As myself the lead designer for a US audio products company when MQA was introduced our marketing department thought it will be the next big thing, will revolutionize the industry, and any company who's products do not support it will wither and die.
MQA had a very impressive marketing presentation and materials for audio companies.
Needless to say I was a skeptic after the presentation as to me it seemed to suggest they were bypassing some basic laws of thermodynamics by getting more resolution from no more data without losing the original data on the way. Sounded too good to be true.
Red flags came out as I kinda have this thing that laws of physics are not optional and it all sounded like another spin on the old audio compression theam.
Perhaps I am wrong.
Later after reading a full technical description of the system I felt the real motivation for content companies to want widespread adoption of MQA was enabling copy protection, a fundamental ability of the system.
I am not in a position to provide technical details.
Can you referance this to something in writing?
Like to see the orginal quote out of intrest.
This is interesting and a common theme.
A) it could be absolutely accurate and is essentially how things were ..
B) it could be a response to not understanding how it works, not believing it could work and then finding story, a narrative, a conspiracy as to how something that can't possibly be true is being pushed upon us all ..
The latter is a distinct possibility and is a common human reaction to things that certain people don't understand - we see it in anti-vax narratives, anti-gloabl warming narratives etc etc. Whilst those examples are quite easy to understand with just a small bit of scientific understanding and mindset ... the theories behind MQA are not and do require expert knowledge, so it would make sense that perfectly reasonable people could fall into the trap of B) without needing to be pushed.
The optics of any company selling something AND providing functionality that may appeal to major labels that would help it to be adopted.. that other sections of society do not like .. fit that conspiracy very easily too.
Seeing this pattern in Society and then being self-aware, I have deliberately allowed the possibility that MQA is an absolutely genuine technology/product. And will not fall one way or the other - especially not into the conspiracy realm - until my knowledge increases to a point I can better judge!
I feel it is an intellectual responsibility to keep an open mind on such things and push against falling into conspiracy theory .
I found the years of the history of marketing material presented by MQA make it difficult to take all the claims made at face value.
MQA is at it's base a lossy statically based data compression scheme. MQA if you read carefully between the marketing lines MQA says such.
A statically based lossy audio data compression scheme's performance is subject to the program material being feed to it.
Some program material may benefit if it falls within the assumptions that were used to develop the statically based data compression algorithms.
Some program material will not benefit.
The reality is all lossy statically based audio data compression schemes will change the program material.
MQA has done no scientific evaluation to prove under what conditions their statically based lossy audio data compression scheme results in consistent and repeatable improvements in the experience of the listener.
So I remain unconvinced that there is solid scientific evidence the MQA is a win for the music listener over other zero cost open source playback solutions.
How the above leads to closed minds, anti-vax narratives, globale warming, conspiracy ....... I will let others illuminate on that subject.
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Let’s be realistic here: all the evidence suggests that MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) is primarily a commercial endeavor designed to collect royalties and establish its container format as a central licensor in the industry for financial gain. Thats the raison d'être of it. Not seeing it for what it is is being naive or else...IMHO
PS Hence it was bought by Lenbrook group, that own NAD, PSB, Bluesound and now all the licenses for MQA, financed through PE deals for financial gains...Be ready for a new revamped version with an even more agressive/structured way to gather these royalties.
PS Hence it was bought by Lenbrook group, that own NAD, PSB, Bluesound and now all the licenses for MQA, financed through PE deals for financial gains...Be ready for a new revamped version with an even more agressive/structured way to gather these royalties.
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And Lenbrook was likely able to buy MQA for dimes on the dollar as MQA was in receivership (US English: Ch. 11 bankruptcy).
Tom
Tom
100%!
MQA (now Lenbrook) being a licensor with 120+ partnerships with studios/companies was a low-risk investment with good ROI potential
Ding! And from a business perspective it doesn't really matter if the technology works or is better than what's already on the market. All that matters is that some believe it's worth the money and pay the licensing fee. See VHS vs Betamax.
Tom
They are trying to revamp the MQA image and release something with David Chesky and HD tracks. One can never underestimate the force of a good marketing team...We shall see in the next coming months...HD tracks was one of the early player in the lossless streaming game...I'm sure the whole catalog will now have the watermarking audio signal used by MQA... It's rather interesting from a human behaviour standpoint. 😉
FFS and ***** & giggles I'm going through the patents of MQAs...Basically the only thing lossless is, mostly, about the watermarking...I kid you not...🤣🤡 Its a clown world after all 🎶 
https://patents.justia.com/patent/10811017
https://patents.justia.com/patent/10811017
Be careful when I suggested ...
"after reading a full technical description of the MQA system I felt the real motivation for content companies to want widespread adoption of MQA was enabling copy protection, a fundamental ability of the system."
I got lumped into "closed minds, anti-vax narratives, global warming, conspiracy" and so on.
So the beauty of MQA is the encoding adds a water mark that damages the audio data stream HOWEVER MQA can (if you pay the fees) completely remove the water mark and restore the audio stream.
Those that do not pay the fees can still listen to the degraded water marked audio stream.
Wonderful technology for a better world.
More to consider.
MQA's wide use will result in low bit rate audio program material for music consumers unless you have a licensed MQA decoder.
"Depending on the implementation, as few as 13 bits may be reserved for PCM audio, with the lower-order bits rendered as noise by equipment without an MQA decoder."
That means without licensed playback equipment you are listening to 13 bit playback quality. Nasty
Not to fear however.
"without an MQA decoder... the resulting audio contains high-frequency noise occupying the three least-significant bits, thus limiting playback on non-MQA devices effectively to 13 bits. Despite this, MQA claims that the quality is higher than a conventional 16-bit recording, because of the novel sampling and convolution processes... which were not explained by MQA in detail"
MQA 13 bit audio will always sound better? Statically no, not always.
And the noise floor?
The noise floor of a audio stream has a profound effect on the listening experience.
With only 13 bits the signal to noise will be about 76dB compared to 96dB with 16 bits.
A 76dB noise floor will likely become audible in high quality systems played a moderately loud volumes.
I personally do not miss the days of tape hiss in the background of quiet passages.
MQA's wide use will result in low bit rate audio program material for music consumers unless you have a licensed MQA decoder.
"Depending on the implementation, as few as 13 bits may be reserved for PCM audio, with the lower-order bits rendered as noise by equipment without an MQA decoder."
That means without licensed playback equipment you are listening to 13 bit playback quality. Nasty
Not to fear however.
"without an MQA decoder... the resulting audio contains high-frequency noise occupying the three least-significant bits, thus limiting playback on non-MQA devices effectively to 13 bits. Despite this, MQA claims that the quality is higher than a conventional 16-bit recording, because of the novel sampling and convolution processes... which were not explained by MQA in detail"
MQA 13 bit audio will always sound better? Statically no, not always.
And the noise floor?
The noise floor of a audio stream has a profound effect on the listening experience.
With only 13 bits the signal to noise will be about 76dB compared to 96dB with 16 bits.
A 76dB noise floor will likely become audible in high quality systems played a moderately loud volumes.
I personally do not miss the days of tape hiss in the background of quiet passages.
As much as I once loved vinyl I hasten to point out that vinyl and the best playback hardware and electronics is hard pressed to achieve an SNR of better than 65 - 70dB. (Many probably barely make it to even 60dB)
Most analog recorded material is subject to noise and distortions that would be considered gross in the digital domain.
I would guess a lot of '16-bit' recordings aren't, particularly those mastered from multi-gen analog masters.
The simple fact the matter is that MQA really isn't needed in a world with TB drives and gigabit internet. It was a solution for a different world. I have hardware that can fully decode MQA, and yeah it generally sounds good - even decoded to the first unfold is generally at least OK. Undecoded MQA recordings subjectively and IMO do not generally sound as good as high quality redbook 16-bit recordings.
These are all just opinions, and I offer no objective justifications for my viewpoints. At the end of the day if it sounds good to you (and hopefully others) this ought to be good enough. I was on the other side of the fence for decades and only defected over the past 6years when I umm discovered DSP and its tangible benefits. Good D/A converters helped a lot, and no doubt loss of hearing acuity due to age has also made the transition easier.
Most analog recorded material is subject to noise and distortions that would be considered gross in the digital domain.
I would guess a lot of '16-bit' recordings aren't, particularly those mastered from multi-gen analog masters.
The simple fact the matter is that MQA really isn't needed in a world with TB drives and gigabit internet. It was a solution for a different world. I have hardware that can fully decode MQA, and yeah it generally sounds good - even decoded to the first unfold is generally at least OK. Undecoded MQA recordings subjectively and IMO do not generally sound as good as high quality redbook 16-bit recordings.
These are all just opinions, and I offer no objective justifications for my viewpoints. At the end of the day if it sounds good to you (and hopefully others) this ought to be good enough. I was on the other side of the fence for decades and only defected over the past 6years when I umm discovered DSP and its tangible benefits. Good D/A converters helped a lot, and no doubt loss of hearing acuity due to age has also made the transition easier.
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