09-Apr-2016, 09:06
We have similar buying practices and also highres experimentations. ...
I'm not sure if you've read the whole Q&A. If not it's actually really interesting I'd recommend it. I came away with the impression that Bob Stuart is a smart, passionate guy, on a quest to make music better and pull us out of the 'high res' situation we have now.
He specifically covers audiophiles and the niche market and why he hasn't aimed MQA there - but at a global audience including streaming where it will reach most people - hopefully improving the SQ they get from their providers. This is where I'd stand to benefit personally.
The provenance stuff is interesting - he talks about how MQA can't really police, but it does provide provenance and so you are getting assurance that if it says master, it was from the studio master that the label chose as the best source. I'm probably summarising a bit wrong but it was long and some sections I skipped. He talks about their tools specifically looking for hints of upsampling among many other things at the encoding stage, so that its harder for these to sneak through the net and be sold as 'master', but it's acknowledged that upsampling is routinely and acceptably used on samples etc so it's not so clear cut.
Maybe I've been suckered in. I'll wait until I hear it. The most likely chance of which will be via tidal, and then we'd need new DACs anyway to get the full benefit unless Devialet surprise us, which seems unlikely but it is a TLA so there's some hope.
There were a couple of things that did leave me slightly sceptical though. The questions were amalgamated, but it seems he modified one of the questions about DRM so despite unequivably saying it didn't exist, he also added further fuel to the fire by rewording the question to something that was a bit bizarre - something about is there DRM (that consumers should be aware of) the in brackets or similar was added. I thought about this and maybe labels are going to be using some sort of DRM not aimed at us but so they can trace files if they're stolen or resold illegally but other companies or used as samples or whatever. Or it could be nothing. Or it could be DRM ready for the future.
The other thing was saying that they had no plans to provide tools to convert owned CDs to MQA - where it is felt that the process would work and be beneficial to the CD owner. That was put down to lack of resources, but I wasn't convinced as it would be a similar toolset to what they'd use already. I mean, if there's a way to make the version we own better, why not, after all it's the copyright of the recording not the media, which always annoys me when I rebuy music or films in a new format - I've already paid for it surely an upgraded format can't cost the full price again! So it seemed more like the music industry would never allow it but he couldn't say that.
Looking forward to hearing an MQA dac at some point and seeing if it's worth even worrying about.
I'm not sure if you've read the whole Q&A. If not it's actually really interesting I'd recommend it. I came away with the impression that Bob Stuart is a smart, passionate guy, on a quest to make music better and pull us out of the 'high res' situation we have now.
He specifically covers audiophiles and the niche market and why he hasn't aimed MQA there - but at a global audience including streaming where it will reach most people - hopefully improving the SQ they get from their providers. This is where I'd stand to benefit personally.
The provenance stuff is interesting - he talks about how MQA can't really police, but it does provide provenance and so you are getting assurance that if it says master, it was from the studio master that the label chose as the best source. I'm probably summarising a bit wrong but it was long and some sections I skipped. He talks about their tools specifically looking for hints of upsampling among many other things at the encoding stage, so that its harder for these to sneak through the net and be sold as 'master', but it's acknowledged that upsampling is routinely and acceptably used on samples etc so it's not so clear cut.
Maybe I've been suckered in. I'll wait until I hear it. The most likely chance of which will be via tidal, and then we'd need new DACs anyway to get the full benefit unless Devialet surprise us, which seems unlikely but it is a TLA so there's some hope.
There were a couple of things that did leave me slightly sceptical though. The questions were amalgamated, but it seems he modified one of the questions about DRM so despite unequivably saying it didn't exist, he also added further fuel to the fire by rewording the question to something that was a bit bizarre - something about is there DRM (that consumers should be aware of) the in brackets or similar was added. I thought about this and maybe labels are going to be using some sort of DRM not aimed at us but so they can trace files if they're stolen or resold illegally but other companies or used as samples or whatever. Or it could be nothing. Or it could be DRM ready for the future.
The other thing was saying that they had no plans to provide tools to convert owned CDs to MQA - where it is felt that the process would work and be beneficial to the CD owner. That was put down to lack of resources, but I wasn't convinced as it would be a similar toolset to what they'd use already. I mean, if there's a way to make the version we own better, why not, after all it's the copyright of the recording not the media, which always annoys me when I rebuy music or films in a new format - I've already paid for it surely an upgraded format can't cost the full price again! So it seemed more like the music industry would never allow it but he couldn't say that.
Looking forward to hearing an MQA dac at some point and seeing if it's worth even worrying about.
>>> 1st Place Award: Devialet, last decades most disappointing technology purchase. <<<
