MQA article

[Starwarsmike2422]

https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/mqa-is-bad-for-music

[julianh]

MQA has always struck me as the Emperor's new clothes but with an element of DRM as well if you want to get the best out of it. Linn aren't the only company who are not in favour. There are others.

[t-roten]

It looks like Auralic also has pulled out of MQA
They released a statement on the support site
http://support.auralic.com/hc/en-us/articles/222512427-Will-MQA-support-comes-to-AURALiC-device-

[SteveC]

Te article was a sobering read. Storage nowadays is not really that expensive, and a lot of people have good broadband speeds for streaming. MQA is very restrictive, and I don't believe you can encode it yourself, without a licence. At least you can play an MQA FLAC file through a standard. DAC and achieve CD resolution.

[RichardLowe]

Interesting approach, a bit-stream with Digital Rights Management that can be read by non-MQA devices at one resolution, and by MQA-enabled ones at a higher one. Given the amounts of piracy I can understand the approach, but surely all that will happen is the pirates will decode the bit-streams, then pass these decoded high-res tracks onto the Internet for distribution. Every commercial DRM system I'm aware of has been cracked.

[julianh]

Regardless of the sound quality of the encoded files, one major difficulty that MQA could well face is that, to licence the hardware elements, the licensee must share details of their DAC design. And as they might well see Meridian as a potential competitor, many manufacturers are likely to be unwilling to do so. Can you imagine Chord handing over the design specs for their FPGA DACs? It seems unlikely to me. The designer of the Schiit multibit DACs has already said he cannot support MQA on that basis.

[SAP7]

So this is JUST about a format that is supposed to say to you the track has integrity? It is trustworthy?

And does nothing to make it sound better?

[davidf]

Has anyone had a chance to listen to any MQA material? That article seems a little bit "sour grapes" in Linn's part - don't know if it's true, but I heard that their DACs weren't suitable for MQA, and Linn refused to change them. There's many other DACs - including my own Classé - that seems to work just fine from the digital out of a Bluesound Node II. I'm personally not interested in the politics, I'm just interested in comparisons to CDs and hi-res files.

[GeeGee]

Linn don't make standalone DACs anymore, they make complete music players. To implement this they would have to modify the front end on the streamers. I expect they can do this as they use FPGA technology like Chord.
I believe the problem is they would have to share some IP with Meridian who are a major competitor. Not good business practice, and they would have to pay a licence fee, so they will only do that if there is a demand from its user base.

[SteveC]

Interesting approach, a bit-stream with Digital Rights Management that can be read by non-MQA devices at one resolution, and by MQA-enabled ones at a higher one. Given the amounts of piracy I can understand the approach, but surely all that will happen is the pirates will decode the bit-streams, then pass these decoded high-res tracks onto the Internet for distribution. Every commercial DRM system I'm aware of has been cracked.

I'm not sure MQA can be transcoded into a normal hi-res file. MQA is, after all, a lossy format. Data which the algorithm decides cannot be hear, is lost. It is the control of the end to end process I object to, not the technology.

[sunbeamgls]

Good. A hifi forum that's having a reasonable discussion about the real issues. The others are busy debating the SQ merits or trashing Linn's view because they think its "in" to diss Linn. Meanwhile they ignore the real issue. Improved SQ or not, there is no longer a need to compress streaming, this is about a new way of packaging DRM and extracting money at every stage of the replay process.
Not good.

[hifinutt]

I had a read of meridians article on this mqa in last years hi fi news . must comfess I am none the wiser !!

[MiniCoupeman]

Surely the point made is 'When we all have access to 24/192 (or equivalent) then the majors will have nothing more to sell? If and when I have The Beatles catalogue in this format I doubt I will buy it again. Those of you too young to appreciate this argument should bear in mind the following:

Brought the original LP's ( and trashed them - young)
Brought them again
Brought the Cassettes to play in the car ( and the box set)
Brought the original CD's
brought the remastered CD's
Brought the remastered LP's
Brought the Mono remastered CD's
Ditto LP's

The .Men In Black had it right. EVERY TIME I HAVE TO BUY A NEW VERSION.

You have been warned. ( and I don't buy Tidel MQA, you are just buying it each time you listen.)

[julianh]

Surely the point made is 'When we all have access to 24/192 (or equivalent) then the majors will have nothing more to sell? If and when I have The Beatles catalogue in this format I doubt I will buy it again. Those of you too young to appreciate this argument should bear in mind the following:

Brought the original LP's ( and trashed them - young)
Brought them again
Brought the Cassettes to play in the car ( and the box set)
Brought the original CD's
brought the remastered CD's
Brought the remastered LP's
Brought the Mono remastered CD's
Ditto LP's

The .Men In Black had it right. EVERY TIME I HAVE TO BUY A NEW VERSION.

You have been warned. ( and I don't buy Tidel MQA, you are just buying it each time you listen.)

You didn't mention the USB key. Don't you have that? (I do!)

Oh, and my late uncle bought the albums on reel to reel when they were first released. Sadly he skipped them in a house move many years ago.

[crimsondonkey]

The others are busy debating the SQ merits or trashing Linn's view because they think its "in" to diss Linn.
Not good.

It's not 'in' to diss Linn, it's just that lots of people think they're full of shit in general and pretty foolish to openly criticise a competitor that everyone knows they're hostile to - whatever the rights or wrongs they've left themselves wide open to ridicule.

Its also a great big fuss over bugger all because the market for MQA is so small, it's not going to achieve any form of vertical monopoly in reality, and in five years time everyone will be saying MQA? WTF's that?

However in five years time it will still be tremendous fun to wind up Linn fanboys - because it's not fashionable, it's just that Linn and it's disciples are so damn funny all the time.

The only thing that would be funnier is if Linn had come up with MQA first and then of course it would be the saviour of the music and hifi industry