Yes I can and am
. Bob is saying it is "a" problem. Not "the" problem. The reference being, and correctly so, that until now no one had identified this problem, nor taken steps to fix it. So he and craven decided it was time to fix it. It says nothing about this being the fix that obviates everything else in audio fidelity or else, they would stop making new speakers, amps, transports, etc.
Fer sure. Bob spent his entire adult life dreaming about fixing not “the” problem but fixing “a” problem that upon discovery he coincidentally labels it “Master Quality Authenticated” because words mean nothing?
??? What else do we talk about if it is not about "sound quality?"
Sound quality is very subjective obviously. Even at the top fuel drag races, I suppose there could be a couple of street-driven VW bus owners arguing on the sidelines whether or not there are performance gains to be had with improved aerodynamics if they removed their hubcaps.
We are talking about Bob. I don't care what Harley says about MQA. I care and we are discussing what Bob says about it. Harley makes such praises about hundreds products he reviews.
I don’t care what Harley says either, especially after this. Even so, and contrary to your claim, I’ve never witnessed Harley go into la-la land over a product like he has here, not even close. I’d love to see just one other example where Harley went stratospheric like this?
I am sure few take his (Harley’s) assertions at face value.
As the editor-in-chief of a popular rag and as a former sound engineer, I already know Harley has a respectable following, as does Atkinson and Stuart too. Shoot. For that matter, Ethan too. It may not be much of a testimony to the stability of the industry but those outside the industry think every last one of these and others are industry “experts”, especially those who wrote books entitled, “The Audio Expert”.
Is there a marketing plan behind MQA? Of course. It is a commercial venture and it aims to make money. Everything you own had marketing behind it too. That fact is a constant and a smart shopper is instructed to look past that. Here, we have AES papers to read where the filter for marketing is quite strong. You don't read Harley's flowery words in the paper. We are examining that, not what someone wrote in a magazine about it.
I appreciate the marketing lesson. Nearly everything purchased in my home and perhaps yours too is the result of one marketing strategy or another. However, I did not purchase my garden hose because some gardener had a life-long passion to fix “a” problem with watering flowers. Nor was the model of my hose called MGA Master Gardener Authenticated, with the inventor claiming for the first time ever I can now water my flowers exactly as the Creator intended flowers to be watered.
They are. So? Doesn't the guy who makes your speakers or amplifiers claim the same? That it gets you closer to "live music?" You can't possibly get upset over what is standard practice in the business.
Barely. If a speaker or component mfg’er made claims similar to Stuart’s or Harley’s I wouldn’t touch ‘em with a 10ft pole because anybody injecting that kind of hype is obviously already out of touch with “high-end” audio and the requirements needed to achieve unimaginable levels of musicality from their playback systems.
If you’ve been around this industry, you’d know all too well that if there’s one thing this industry is truly “high-end” about, it’s hype. To which, as evidenced by Harley, there are no boundaries. But its existence is still no excuse to overlook the obvious lack of intelligence, character, and ethics of those most guilty of its practice. To ignore it is to say words don’t mean anything. That includes your words, mine, Harley’s, and Stuart’s, and everybody else’s words too. Words either mean something or they don’t. Period.
In this forum and discussion, we peel the layers of marketing and discuss what is underneath. We can and do rant about the stuff reviewers write, and marketing people say about products, and discuss what goes on beyond. That is the thread we are in. It is a highly technical one aiming to figure out what MQA is as technology. It is not a rant thread about what a reviewer like Harley says.
I don’t think they make peelers that big. If we’re talking performance, the highly technical babble is most always much to do about very little. A good example about much to do about very little could be this MQA thread below. They seem to get it. BTW, somebody eventually asked, “Where's Amir to explain to us that this is simply how 'the business' works and we're better off accepting it?” Could they be referring to you?
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/173-2-channel-audio/1844737-revisiting-meridian-mqa-ces-2015-a.html
AES has not endorsed MQA in any form or fashion. They publish papers. They don't endorse what is in the paper.
Stuart is a Fellow of AES. If AES publishes his papers in a positive light then it is the same as endorsing him, whether formally or informally.
No one should lose sleep over MQA getting adopted. What you want to lose sleep over is it displacing PCM audio which it has not done, and can't do, and won't do. You can always ignore MQA regardless of adoption if our current formats continue to be there. It is like getting upset that exotic car maker creates a $500,000 car. As long as you can still buy one for $20K, all is well.
Hardly. First, you’re implying that price has anything to do with real performance in audio. That folklore only applies to those who purchase exotic components and those who drool over exotic components they could never afford. Ultimately what matters is where the real performance-limiting governors lay and who is able to address them.
Stuart did not invent any exotic or exquisite product or technology, nor did he IMO invent anything of value. Even though one day the masses may have to pony up $239 for Bob’s green light.
In all seriousness, I couldn’t disagree more. If Bob is a charlatan, hopefully who should know better will find out quickly enough but by then it will be too late. The damage will have been done to an entire industry.
But when a technology’s inventor claims his invention to be things it is not, that alone should be a problem for all to consider. And when a technology like MQA has the ability to potentially negatively affect the way recordings are done now or in the future that can potentially impact my choices of music or compromise the quality of existing music formats by inducing Bob’s idea of DSP based on his dabbling with neuroscience and psychoacoustics, or utilizing what he considers is extra storage capacity below his idea of “below the noise floor threshold” to fold music info into, etc, he risks compromising a perhaps already sufficient format for which some of us might have been able to extract more music info than what he’s been able to.
Obviously, we can’t expect people like Harley or Atkinson (or even Ethan) to validate Bob’s claims.
Based on Stuart’s potential of being all over the map with his MQA technology and his claims and others like Harley reinforcing Stuart’s MQA, his DSP, his folding music info into areas he THINKS are unused, etc. he could well be f’ing up what may well have already been a sufficient format for those who really care about performance.
In addition to Stuart possibly f’ing up existing and wholly sufficient formats of today by attempting to replace them with his wildcard MQA, we just might have to pay him royalties too. This is what I see happening. And for those who really take high-end audio performance seriously, there should be plenty here to potentially lose sleep over.
