Some thoughts on MQA and mp3...

Computer Audio Asylum

Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

based on reading the recent book How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt.

It is a fascinating book. Back in the prehistoric days of the early 90s, a CD might take an hour to stream (still does on my DSL), but even worse, it might take up most of the space on a hard drive. The magic goal was 12:1 compression. It took some smart German guys a couple years to achieve acceptable quality with mp3 at 12:1 compression. But corporate politics led to the adoption of a competing Philips technology. The Germans made mp3 available for free and it became the standard for streaming.

So now it appears that MQA is trying to achieve that same sort of trick on a higher plateau. Now that many people have the bandwidth to stream CD size files, MQA is claiming to pack higher resolution quality into those smaller streams.

It seems to me it's going to be a very tough sell. I know from a number of discussions that many people see no benefit to higher resolution files, period.

Of course, the MQA guys claim more than just packing. They also make some quite mysterious claims to correct flaws in original recording equipment. Without a lot more information, I have big questions about what is actually going on. What flaws existed in the original equipment and why were they not addressed when the equipment was designed? And how do you retroactively recognize and fix such flaws? It may sound great- and I heard an MQA demo at an audio show, and the sound was fine, but not the best I heard all weekend, and that kind of demo does not really mean anything.

Then again, there is a rather hyperbolic teaser in the latest Absolute Sound, and unlike many here, I don't completely disregard that. So I will be interested to play with it sooner or later.

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The Cable Cooker

Topic - Some thoughts on MQA and mp3... - tunenut 16:49:32 02/9/16 (5)

A cheap reverb tank in a boombox - Sordidman 08:36:32 02/11/16 (1)

RE: A cheap reverb tank in a boombox - Isaak J. Garvey 16:22:14 02/11/16 (0)

RE: Some thoughts on MQA and mp3... - fmak 21:57:46 02/9/16 (0)

RE: Some thoughts on MQA and mp3... - Tony Lauck 17:44:38 02/9/16 (1)

not exactly, according to the book... - tunenut 10:39:07 02/10/16 (0)

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