Yes, what is clear is that MQA or not the user won’t be paying less for software by omitting MQA capability. When there is no longer demand from customers for MQA, the vendors will be happy to drop support for it. At the moment there is demand, that’s why pretty much every software and hardware vendor supports it.
There are many precedents to withholding functionalities whiting a software, unless the customer pays for it.
Many tablet or phone apps do.
I do not see that the size of an app changes with the adoption of an option.
You can even experience this on a Tesla car, where you can release new functionalities which also involve hardware that has been there all the time.
It has no extra cost to the developper.
Do you think that the DAC manufacturers bother to develop two different versions of the same DAC?
Of course, they do not. There is just a little bit of code that neutralise the MQA function. I am sure some crafty hackers are already on the case.
Dear bitracer, since when is it for the customer to supply the investment funding for a venture? Rogue capitalism may allow it and there are numerous examples of it, but it remains the very twisted way of those who cannot raise funds from stakeholders.
Should the customers be offered shares of Audirvana SAS in return for their subscription?
1 Like
How much less do you think would Audirvana cost per month by subtracting the MQA licensing fees? My guess is less than 50 cents. Is it worth creating tiered offering for that?
None of us can know for certain, but I see that MQA functionality adds in the region of £100 to a number of DACs which offer a version with MQA and one without. That is can be as high as 10 to 15% for some DACs.
50p is not much to you, agreed, so shall I allow myself to 50p each month from your bank account, as surely you value our good acquaintance to at least that amount 
1 Like
Maybe you can explain this to me. I bought Audirvana 3.5 (life time license) for a one time amount of $75 (only for the Windows platform). Audirvana 3.5 also has MQA built in. If MQA was as expensive as you suggest now, how could this price for A3.5 be possible? How could Damian possibly earn some money in the past on selling Audrivana 3.5?
Following that logic: when this can be done on a quite low one time amount, it certainly can be done on a subscription fee for a very small monthly sum (if any).
But as you said: Nobody can know for certain But given the above case I can not imagine that this is very expensive. Maybe it is for DAC manufacturers (I know the Topping D90 MQA DAC is $100 more expensive than the Topping D90 without MQA). But I imagine there is another fee for software doing the first unfold. But again… we can not be certain
I do not care for MQA at all but (like MQA providing a solution for a non existing problem, and letting you pay for it), maybe providing a NonMQA Audirvana version is also more trouble than it is worth…
I feel you might have misread me. The MQA model, is to chip small amounts as often as possible on many instances, so people do not feel the pain too much and accept the “ponction” as not being worth fighting against.
They have not invented the model, the taxman did a very long time ago. If the chipping goes at 10% on a DAC, and on the proviso that the same model applies to software, its impact on an annual subscription would be around $7. Just not very painful indeed, and yet, not welcome by those who do not buy in the MQA narrative.
2 Likes
Wow You don’t really get it?
With MQA You are paying a third person (Company) money for a “feature”
When this “feature” is not even what it is marketed as, it should be obvious that it should be an opt in. I know loads of Audiophiles that does not use/buy/subscribe to neither Audirvana or ROON for this very reason. The days where consumers were stupid enough to accept products warts and all is over.
2 Likes
I would like to see MQA as an option.
Just the option to buy the license.
Just like you have the choice to take a subscription to Qobuz.
You can choose to buy the MQA license. Everyone happy, right?
2 Likes
I am glad you come to understand the feeling of others, but I fear your comparison does not quite stand.
MQA is a third party who seeks to get their technology widely adopted in the same way Dolby and others have done, and to get a rent for it.
MQA have just found a clever trick to cram a music file of high resolution in the bandwidth necessary to CD in PCM, albeit in a lossy format. Fantastic feat in comparison to an MP3 or AAC streamed at the time of MQA’s inception, but tide and time wait for no man.
MQA can still be very practical to the distributors of downloads or streaming operators, as several resolutions of the music are folded into one file, thus reducing an administrative cost.
The problem is that MQA is not very appealing to the listener, as it is a lossy format, and that its use turns out to be an extra cost. Much care is admittedly taken to hide it as much as possible from the customer by administering it in bite size format through subscriptions of Pay per Unfold.
The distinct lack of transparency surrounding MQA when faced with advanced technical questions about its format adds to the confusion.
Neil Young, in particular, has been very prominent to promote MQA at a time when there was a case for a bandwidth frugal format offering a CD quality or better.
Apparently, Neil Young has had second thoughts about MQA, and has criticised the way his music has been delivered to the consumers by MQA, and decided to withdraw his albums from that line of distribution.
In the meantime, the bandwidth available to consumers has gone by leaps and bounds and the case for MQA is hardly valid any more, especially on the taxing business model they seek to enforce.
2 Likes
If that’s the agreement they have with MQA it must be because they think it’s most convenient for them. In the end the core decoder is triggered only when you play MQA content with non MQA equipment or through MQA renderers.
Still it must be an accounting nightmare.
1 Like
It is an easy option, just disable it in the settings as I have.
1 Like
Yet, you are still paying for what you have “disabled”. Donating would be a more honest way of giving money to people/companies than falling for their scam.
1 Like
There is still a technical possibility that MQA has actually a valid quality improvement to offer.
The very basic difference between CD quality and Hi-Rez is not the above 20kHz tonal content but the timing information below 20kHz and the effect of the digital filters. Recording the tonal information above 20kHz is mostly an “overhead” which is difficult to impossible to avoid. Kind of a “price” for the Hi-Rez quality. DSD overcomes this to a certain degree.
So, if one managed to somehow maintain the high temporal resolution of a Hi-Rez file and use the filters of Hi-Rez (or better), yet somehow discard the tonal information above 20kHz, this undoubtedly lossy encoding could offer a Hi-Rez quality (or very close) without actually being lossless.
This could explain how some reputable reviewers do not hear the temporal artefacts of 44/16 in MQA playback.
Still, even if above is true, all GoldenSound’s arguments stand. There is no need to scam people if you have a valid offer.
3 Likes
How am I paying for that?
SO do you think this paid service is a free gift to you? Interesting concept, but Unlikely.
As your subscription fee does not change if you play MQA, this fee is already included in your subscription (or price in case of 3.5). If you play, money goes to MQA, if you don’t, Audirvana keeps it.
1 Like
Can you provide proof or evidence that Audirvana pays a fee for MQA?..
1 Like
We can start another MQA discussion here. I think every audio related forum or website or blog has something about MQA by now.
And you have supporters and opponents everywhere. And actually it is almost never about the quality of the reproduction. That seems so inconsistent that there is nothing to be said about it. Sometimes there are great results, others don’t get better. This regardless of taste.
It’s about the closed system. Where it is completely unclear what happens at what time and what is being paid for. With the marketing that it is lossless and ensures that what you hear is as the artist intended.
That in addition to the fact that MQA is only useful if it has the entire chain under control and under license. This seems rather undesirable for the long term.
The benefit to the end user is debatable. Costs always accrue to the end user. If MQA is open and it really is a choice then I don’t think anyone will have a problem with it. It’s just a format that may or may not survive.
(Assumption without factual information from the parties involved)
But there seems to be an advantage for large commercial parties in the music industry. Otherwise they wouldn’t get in. There is no indication that major record labels are concerned about playback quality.
Nobody can now say exactly how it works. And no one can say what the long-term benefits will be for the big commercial giants that have stepped in. MQA has already made millions of losses. There must be an idea that once it is successful they can recoup all that.
1 Like
MQA was launched in 2014 by Meridian.
Reason to add this file format was lack of storage room and/or expensive price of it, together with difficult file handling.
File handling and/or transferspeed is now not a brainbraker anymore these days!
Storage is now very cheape as well, so there is realy no need to keep MQA alive anymore!!!
Apart of that, MQA makes life much more difficult for “hardware and software” makers to.
And yes, at the end there will be several losers by stopping to use this fileformat in the future,
Of course there are several other reasons why we realy don’t need that file format anymore, is not nice for people like mr.Stuart, but that’s life
I didn’t used MQA myselve because several demonstrations could never convinced me.
Audirvana convinced me as best player around!
I am using version 3.5.46 on Windows 10 pro.
1 Like
Besides the manufacturers, MQA does not make life easier for consumers either. When you see how many questions there are about MQA. Decoder, renderer, no possibility of volume control, with or without indication, with or without upsampling at 16 / 44MQA.
Why in 2021 does a format present so many problems for the end user? After all these years of development, it still doesn’t seem to be mature.
1 Like