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In Reply to: RE: If MQA is the "new world" of audio, I want no part of it - I'd rather dig ditches posted by Charles Hansen on October 21, 2017 at 12:10:36:
Nothing more entertaining than seeing Atkinson and Austin continuing to bury their reputation via MQA. Atkinson keeps sidestepping the relevant issues raised all the while Austin falls back to mention his physics Ph.D.
Which is an argument only for one thing: if he indeed has a physics Ph.D and is unable to grok MQA from the info available in late 2017 he probably should go back to school.
So let's take these two guys as an example and have a look at the repercussions of MQA on the audiophile press. I posted this elsewhere before but it's worth reposting here too (slightly edited):
There's a funny & interesting gap between front-page and back-page news on MQA: all the informed discussion and statements by industry-insiders take place in forums like this one.
Audio-phile press front-page its either Hooray-MQA or silence.
Where do I have to go to find a list of the dozen or so manufactures having expressed concern about MQA?
Where do I find the opinions by reputable studio and mastering engineers on the format?
Where do I get any idea about the licensing-regiment in question?
Where do I learn about the filter-palette evidently implemented in MQA?
The real accomplishment of MQA marketing so far is to keep that information below a certain threshold. A threshold editors like Atkinson control.
Neither the print nor the online audiophile-press had enough balls to publish a mere synopsis of the debate so far.
Not to mention an interview with one of the many reputable & vocal critics of the format.
Or god beware ask a lawyer or IP-scholar able to provide a view-point on the DRM and licensing-regime inherent to MQA?
Perhaps hear a smaller music-labels opinion what they think about MQA strengthening majors control over distribution?!
If the physics are so hard just get your next colleges physics or EE prof on the phone and ask them about MQAs claims on the sampling theorem.
There is so much to be done the audiophile press fails to do. Given that MQA is the best click-bait in audiophile-town I seriously don't understand why that traffic get's pissed away.
But more importantly this failure by editors contributes to the careful reputation management MQA-marketing has achieved: frame MQA-critque as suspect and untrustworthy cause its all happening in the murky parts of the internet. Stereophiles and TAS interests align nicely with MQA here - to them netzines and fora are a threat.
At the same time this dynamic has produced an interesting collateral of the whole MQA story:
both the marketers at MQA as well as the established audio-press have miscalculated and underestimated their audience.
Their skill-set over almost two full decades was honed by selling cables and other tweaks. Lot's of clicks and good ad-money in these and not least no realistic way to "objectively" assess the effects of such products.
Digital audio is different though. Turns out it was naive to think MQA would be just another tweak, good click-bait and an easy sell. Add hyperbolic marketing and all to obvious DRM-aspect and you suddenly have a technically capable, critical audience from across the globe breathing down your neck.
May Mr. Atkinson cry as much as he wants about forum-anonymity, with his unabashed endorsement of MQA he himself lured a competent peer-review fact-checking crowd into his backyard that won't go away easily.
MQA might stay or go, but it's the online audio-press that benefited most from this episode. The behaviour of Atkinson and Austin continues to inflate their significance: what they paint as the murky backyards eventually might become the main thing and then the MQA-episode will deserve a good chunk of the credit for it.
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Follow Ups
- RE: If MQA is the "new world" of audio, I want no part of it - I'd rather dig ditches - mcgilroy 10/23/1707:56:16 10/23/17 (0)
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