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RE: This kind of says it all with MQA

Neither would I.

But I am kinda' surprised that it's taking people so long to discover that MQA, at least from a performance perspective, was a fraud from day one.

For at least several reasons:

1. It's simply impossible for any format to perform even remotely close to the promises of MQA by Stuart and co. This is guaranteed and entirely provable.

2. It should have been easy to tell from Stuart's early interviews with TAS and other rags 3 or 4 years ago that he was contradicting himself routinely while trying to convince the reader that MQA was to be all things to all people, especially from a performance perspective.

3. It should have been easy to tell by Robert Harley's outlandish feedback 3 years ago on what he heard with MQA recordings that it was nothing more than propaganda and super hyperbolic at that.

Having never listened to an MQA recording, 3 years ago I posted numerous comments in this forum and in others essentially stating that MQA was nothing more than a coup by a few industry insiders to simplify inventories and distribution by consolidating to a single format for all while also injecting new monies into the music industry and especially into Meridian / Bob Stuart's pocket. And I stated precisely why MQA could do no such things from a performance perspective.

MQA wouldn't have been a fraud except that they used "performance" as MQA's primary selling feature (Master Quality Authentication). And since so many have untrained ears, as we can now see it was rather easy for them to achieve their goals.

Near as I can tell, MQA was going to happen regardless of whether the tiny high-end audio sector bought into it or not. But for the high-end sector to believe they knew all they needed was one or two endorsements from the likes of Harley, Atkinson, etc, and then they could tell the entire world that even the high-end audio sector was behind MQA.

In fact, I would not be surprised in the least if we'll eventually discover MQA-formatted recordings have compromised, limtied and/or harmed performance today and potentially for the foreseeable future. But again, the good news for Meridan, MQA, Stuart, Harley, etc. is, most will never know or even care.

Just one more reason why those participating in "high-end" audio really need to focus on training their ears as MQA is far from the being the first hoax played on the industry, though I've little doubt it is quite possibly the greatest hoax.

Near as I can tell, regardless of musicality, quackery, snake oil, etc, the music industry had already determined MQA was going forward whether the high-end audio sector bought off on it or not. I wouldn't be surprised if one day we find out that the music industry approached Bob Stuart to "make it happen" instead of Stuart approaching them.

It's just a shame that it seems high-end audio enthusiasts make it all too easy for the charlatans to have their way. IOW, MQA could have been stopped dead in its tracks. But since high-end audio remains very much in its infancy from a performance perspective and human nature being what it is, who really knows much of anything and who really cares?

Oh, well. At least we went to the moon. :)

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  Kimber Kable  

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