What is your opinion on the MQA format? I myself have the opinion that it is just a money machine, to be completely honest what are we going to use it for?, because we don't have broadband or space problems, at least not here in Denmark And why do we have to pay to use an audio codec that is not even lossless when there are so many that are free and they are even lossless Here is an example: here a Moby track, it starts as Flac 24bit/44.1 Khz and becomes MQA 24bit/44.1 Khz, it starts as lossless and becomes a lossy format, it just doesn't make sense in my world But what do you think?, am I missing something?
You can sleep safe: MQA is over. Also, Tidal, the main supporter of the format has given up, and moving the entire hi-res repertoire to FLAC. MQA is just a thing of the past.
I have noticed that MQA is dying out, people are probably seeing through that it was a scam, and Tidal couldn't have it sitting on them that what they said was master quality, was simply lossy sound quality... Hooray for Qobuz
Actually it gets up-sampled to 88.2Khz for some reason: As you said, a load of crap. Lossless FLAC @44.1Khz/48Khz from quality recordings is all we need.
Well, it is indeed lossy but "only" in the high frequencies (apparently out of the hearing spectrum) artifacts, moved there by the noise-shaping filter. So to speak, it is still lossless for what concerns the human ear. The snake-oil lies in the fact that for it to properly work and present benefits in the terms of higher-quality perception (the whole MQA thing) it has (according to the mind behind the concept) to comprehend the whole chain of audio production, from the master recording / digitizing, down to the production; involving "all" record studios to embrace a whole new set of hardware / software equipment; all for the sake of a compressed format. Now, the times of the need of compressed audio have well faded out, so the whole thing is a) useless, and b) even more useless, as it can be achieved with WAV (or FLAC) at the only expense of a bigger file-size, which nowadays can be considered a non-problem. Marketing: first create the need of a product. Then make it look like it's better than everything else. Then make it indispensable. Thanks to the internet, and to people still using their brains, now this is all a (bad) dream and we are all awake again.
You may well know him, but there is a YouTube guy called Goldensound, he tried to upload some test sound files in MQA format to Tidal, to try out the format, but when Tidal finds out that they are test files, they removed immediately And after that the MQA format fortunately dies out, because somewhere we don't really know what MQA does to our music...
Yes, I know about that. It was the smoking gun that MQA wasn't the new kid on the block, and luckily now it's gone.
I tried pasting the links but the forum considers them spam, so I attached a txt copy of my complete post
Explanations why CD audio quality is all we need with pen,paper + math 'Digital Audio: The Line Between Audiophiles and Audiofools' Youtube v=IiZqYnd5g8M
You are absolutely right, CD 16bit/44.1Khz can sound really good if the mastering is done right, the frequency range also goes up to 22050 hz, and that should be enough too... I think
Btw, just came across this: Lenbrooke acquires MQA "..Deal adds significant audio patents and codecs to Lenbrook’s IP portfolio .." Lenbrook Extends Leadership in Hi-Res Audio with MQA Acquisition
Not so fast. I don't care for MQA, but.. Lenbrook Group Rescues MQA High-Resolution Audio Technology Some thoughts about it. https://darko.audio/2023/09/my-crazy-theory-about-why-lenbrook-bought-mqa/
I think it's a bit strange what they want with the cheating company, now that people have found out it's all just a scam!!! You feel a bit like it should be the answer to a problem that has never been there !!?
They seem to have bought most of the intellectual property surrounding MQA so there may well be useful bits they can use for their streaming products now or in the future. I can't imagine that Darko's idea about another high res streaming service using MQA based content will come to pass. I'm sure that Lenbrook didn't pay over the odds for the IP and are likely to have other uses for some of the technology.
The idea behind MQA is ridiculous: we should "only" get rid of the lossy part in the high-freq; and most probably this would result in getting rid of the noise-shaping and compression algorithms, that basically means going back using plain .wav. Have studios make 24bit/192kHz recordings for the sake of headroom in the mastering and/or post-production, apply FLAC compression, and you're done. No need for silly things in 2023, when disk space is not an issue any more.
lol You're gonna like this: https://archimago.blogspot.com/2023/09/rip-mqa-codec-yeah-on-lenbrook-groups.html
Thank you very much for the link I have never understood why the Norwegian record company "2L" has jumped on board with the MQA crap, they otherwise use Hi-res, DXD, DSD...etc
I think Darko's theory on the Lenbrook MQA purchase is plausible, Bluesound may soon introduce its own MQA-powered streaming service. Radio Paradise already streams in MQA exclusively on Bluesound devices, whereas it's in FLAC everywhere else. https://darko.audio/2023/09/my-crazy-theory-about-why-lenbrook-bought-mqa/
Indeed, makes some sense. My biggest fear, though, is that the day musical industry will start to release material in MQA format only, we'll all have lost lossless. Forever. And that's a sad thing.
