It’s time to let this go and move on. Please. We have more fun things to talk about. Don’t we?
There doesn’t have to be a right and wrong, a winner and a loser. It’s a discussion. Opinions are proferred, arguments abound, then nit’s time to crack a beer and listen to some music.
Agree with Paul and I think we’re getting too many of these types of discussions.
In these types of discussions you should always feel free to NOT have the last words; sometimes the best way to end contentious discussions.
Enjoy the music!
Agreed. We all get emotional because we are passionate but best to move on when it starts getting personal as there is nothing good that can come from that.
@jazznut, no offense taken and I appreciate your comment.
I am concerned however that we no longer appear able to engage in conversations where we disagree.
Additionally, I think my approach in this last discussion was appropriate. For those willing to help, please review the thread here and send me a PM of constructive criticism and/or support. I am happy to learn if there is something I can do better.
In reviewing the thread I find that I was respectful, quietly corrected misstatements of my position, did not respond to jabs, repeatedly acknowledged others could have a differing opinion, tried to redirect the discussion to other related concepts, insulted no one, and stopped responding when it appeared no longer productive to do so. Is this not how we should engage in discussion?
Actually it was, as I said before, one of their claims was, 128Kbps was CD quality!
Not by the MP3 creators. Maybe by some vendor selling an MP3 player would do that. But the MP3 creators always viewed and portrayed MP3 it as a way to get the file size down with acceptable fidelity so you could get music on a small (by the standards of the time) portable player.
Actually, I never spoke with, or communicated with, the developers of MP3, but, I did do research before buying MP3 players. They all claimed 128Kbps was CD quality. Guess they had no interaction with your close friends that created MP3s, because I’m sure you’re right, they would have explained to their counterparts, their marketing claims were not accurate!
You can compress audio by about a factor of two losslessly and by about four transparently for the typical listener. The MP3 folk knew that and did well controlled double blind tests as they developed MP3. 128Kbps isn’t fast enough for CD quality which would require approx 176.4Kbps. On the other hand, how typical are audiophile listeners? The people I know that worked on MP3 cringe when people think that MP3 was designed to be used at 96k or 128k.
Thanks @tedsmith. Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting the claim was true, just that it was made. I remember downloading songs from Napster, and putting them on CD, with songs ripped from actual CDs, and playing them in my car. The difference was easily heard, even on a car stereo. Downloading files from Napster could take all day!
I understand. At the time many did claim that 128k was CD quality, but not the designers of MP3 
That’s why I’m with Elk on this one - the technical designers on MP3 knew it’s limits and were clear about them, (others, perhaps less so.) With MQA it’s quite clear that it’s lossy, that we can hear the loss (after all how many can hear the difference in dither or a digital volume control on 16 bit data?), also MQA blatantly aliases which is audible and using an apodizing filter to fix it throws away high frequencies which we can’t really afford when using 44.1k, etc. but MQA claims the losses are imperceptible. I don’t see any double blind tests from them, their claims about the bandwidth avaiable thru the ear being the limiting factor is garbage (it’s not the same info being transmitted to the brain one individual to the next or not even the same info for a given individual depending on what they are listening for, so how does MQA know what’s safe to drop.), I could go on, but the same folk have claimed that DVD-A’s embedded watermarking was imperceptible too, they don’t have much of a track record IMO.
Ted, it’s good to know there are technical reasons why I’ve never liked the sound of MQA. It just sounded off to me without knowing what the source of the artificiality was. Thanks.
If you want good technical info:
and his other MQA writings
You’re with Elk on this but Elk claims that MP3 and MQA were/are marketed the same way. Yet you say that MP3 was not marketed that way by its developers. It was not marketed that way by the Fraunhofer Institute either. I can’t find any marketing information on MP3 that suggests anyone marketed it that way. MP3 was always intended as a way to get music more compact with acceptable fidelity. MQA marketing campaign claims that MQA captures 100% of the original studio performance while still having it be small enough to stream. These are completely opposing marketing positions. MP3 was claimed to focus on size with acceptable fidelity while MQA is focused on Fidelity with the benefit of smaller 24/96 being smaller than 24/192.
You can’t say that MP3 was marketing one way because some people made stupid claims and you can’t say that MQA is marketed another way because there marketing claims are bogus.
@tedsmith, excellent article. Sounds similar to the statement made by Schiit audio I read on this forum.
@speed-racer, I have never bought a dac or music server , based on claims by developers of file types! I have however, been sold the benefits of one file type or another by service providers or manufacturers of devices that play/store those files.
Thanks, Ted. Great information and an interesting article.
@wakethetown’s summation MQA sounds “off” sums it up nicely.