MQA files for bankruptcy protection

Discussion in 'Music and Recordings' started by elwappo99, Apr 7, 2023.

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Will you hold onto your unobtanium MQA gear once MQA is discontinued?

  1. Yes, in time people will appreciate the brilliance of MQA

    10 vote(s)
    11.1%
  2. No, hifi audio peaked at the 1920s Victrola

    80 vote(s)
    88.9%
  1. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    Hahahaha f**k MQA.

    But also f**k Tidal, they kept MQA alive far longer than it needed to be alive. Are they going to be getting all new FLAC files for every album they had in MQA or are they just going to stop marking them as MQA?
     
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  2. GoldenOne

    GoldenOne Friend

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    This is great, I just hope this also means they'll actually restore the lossless versions of the 44.1khz tracks.

    Currently any track with the 'master' badge is only available in MQA regardless of subscription tier or settings https://goldensound.audio/2021/11/29/tidal-hifi-is-not-lossless/
     
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  3. feverfive

    feverfive New

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    Couple guys I know have chased their own tails these past few years getting home and portable gear revolving around MQA. Likely closing in on at least ~$30K in electronics between them. So much time and $$ spent on this farce.
     
  4. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    And for the same reason whales (figurative, not literal) are a strong impetus for game devs to continue implementing disgusting gacha mechanics into releases that could not possibly stand to benefit therefrom, those behind MQA and any new "best standard" will always happen across people like those and need to stuff their mouths with cotton to keep their drool from ruining their pretty dress shirts.

    I genuinely hope those two individuals have a great deal of disposable income because that's a disgustingly large volume of money to many, and to be left with "obsolete" gear that has effectively no value on the secondhand market because it's all centered around a dead codec is just pitiful.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 11, 2023
  5. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    FLAC has been around for twenty years. It's free. No fees, licencing, anything: free. It is open source. Open source, no magic sauce! No proprietary gizmos in the code, no special chips needed to play it. No money needed to use it, not on the supply side, not on the consumer side, and not on the audio-equipment manufacturing side.

    I wonder how that makes Tidal (and others) feel! I hope it makes them feel like making a regular donation to Xiph.org.
     
  6. netforce

    netforce MOT: Headphones.com

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    Some thoughts on my end.

    Sony seemed to pretty big into MQA, lots of their devices and with the scale of Sony, their music label was all over Tidal in MQA. Sony has been in a way the king of proprietary for years in audio and probably loved the idea of MQA. A few years ago in 2019 when I was still at TSAV, my rep was hyping up their 360 Audio tech. Saying it was also coming to Tidal and such.

    Flashforward to now, their gaming headsets got it, they got multiple streaming partners to buy in, multiple manufacturers support it:
    https://electronics.sony.com/360-reality-audio

    Why does Sony need to bend over backwards for MQA which one could make the case, was not expanding, losing money, having little buy in. Vs their own tech gaining positive traction, getting manufacturers aboard that were skeptical on MQA even, and actually make a tangible difference.

    Heck, last year at NAMM Show the Sony booth was massive and literally just showing off 360 Audio. When I went to Japan last month, more that a few Sony displays were only going on about 360 Audio.

    MQA was just one of those checkboxes for manufacturers making portables and not something they were jumping for joy at adopting.

    With the announcement today from Tidal on Reddit they are using hi-res FLAC, I wonder if this was already something in the works with Tidal, they told MQA so a board member holding nearly a quarter stake in MQA decided to dip. Or this also is news to MQA that their biggest supplier of MQA is going forward with a different format to replace MQA.
     
  7. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Is the Universal Watermark still happening on Tidal?
     
  8. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Friend

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  9. Metro

    Metro Friend

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  10. feverfive

    feverfive New

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    Yep, pitiful is correct.

    Had a conversation last year with one of these guys and he seemed to have a momentary window of introspection when he complained a bit about the gear chase for a standard that wasn't doing anything for *him* as the consumer. I merely replied "you guys are just feeding the beast, you know that right?"

    I'm not trying to sound superior in any way; I've avoided all of this merely by dint of my utter lack of interest in streaming services in general. Watching @GoldenOne 's Youtube vid about MQA was, at the time, merely educational rather than practical for me. Still one of the best revelatory bits of industry yuck in my experience.
     
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  11. netforce

    netforce MOT: Headphones.com

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    Reminds me in a way of folks who invested in SACD and still are dedicated to it this many years later. They dropped so much money on the hardware and the SACDs themselves they can't give up. Even though barely any companies with their new products have the ability to read/play SACD.

    Probably not as bad with MQA and folks who invested in since the DAC components still work and are fine. They didn't have to shell out extra for MQA files at least but it does kinda suck for consumers who may have been passively sucked into the MQA marketing.

    Market is expanding and MQA lasted for way too long really and probably only existed because of the age of low interest rates and being marketed to investors as "revolutionary tech" in the audio space. With all the snake oil salesmen in this industry and with enough backing, we probably will eventually get another proprietary format that will "change the industry" eventually.
     
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  12. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    At least SACD was genuinely hi-res and a good chunk of SACD masterings are excellent.

    And MQA did sell CDs, f'ing con artists.
     
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  13. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    ifi bought into the MQA badge for their products. My little dongle supports it. Irrelevant to me now, irrelevant to me when (fingers crossed) soon becomes forgotten.

    Those who bought into SACDs had better just keep their fingers crossed that their hardware lives long.
     
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  14. HotRatSalad

    HotRatSalad Friend

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    Sacd is a non issue. I never bought into the dsd path nonsense but I still own sacds. Just rip em to 24/88.2 or 176.4 and PCM is fine. If the mastering on it is the best one you're not gonna lose anything by not playing the sacd or using dsd.

    I ripped them all to .dsf and just play em at 24/176.4
     
  15. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    offtopic "quick question..."

    I never owned an SACD. Do PC optical drives play/read/rip them?
     
  16. HotRatSalad

    HotRatSalad Friend

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    Actually that's a good point ! The oppo players used to and I ps3 as well. I don't think you can anymore unless specific firmwares.
     
  17. AllanMarcus

    AllanMarcus Friend

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    It seems apropos that this company might “fold”!
     
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  18. denny_dow

    denny_dow Acquaintance

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    using Tidal CD quality, pretty happy, the fee is lower too.
     
  19. Puma Cat

    Puma Cat Friend

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    That's correct, IIRC. I think the very first gen PS3 could rip the DSD layer from SACDs using a specific protocol, but the later PS's don't allow that.
     
  20. Collusion

    Collusion Friend

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    I cancelled my Tidal subscription a while back since they started replacing their FLAC recordings with MQA ones. The audio quality was audibly worse and as I understood it, lowering the quality to CD was still from the same MQA source, but just with a lower bitrate.

    I have been using Qobuz ever since. Quality wise I have few complaints, but Tidal seemed to have more music available for streaming. I might have to re-subscribe if they have come to their senses.
     

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