Guess I don’t understand the reply.
I believe I understand the answer. And it is creepy.
(Thanks, Frode for posting the Q&A)
I confused the companies, so I guess they were pissed off even before they dealt with my question 
The first part of their answer say that need to verify as part of their licensing scheme and the optimisation part I guess is to minimize cost and reduce the amount of bugs. They feel it is just and necessary.
So, after dissection of the DS and violation of IP, they will probably make a proper DAC
(I guess this part is covered by an NDA).
I grow increasingly sour on the whole thing - but maybe because I’ve had a tough day - tomorrow will be better/brighter. The idea that MQA, if adopted by streaming services and music purveyors on download sites, would mean the end of high resolution downloads available to people freaks me out.
I know. The pitch line is that MQA, once unfolded, is high resolution audio. But the fact it is encrypted so that only an MQA enabled DAC can play it is the same as what Sony tried to do with SACD. Think about it.
The rules with SACD are simple. There’s a high resolution DSD stream encoded on a disc. A lower resolution (essentially lossy) version is freely available out the transport’s digital output (called the CD layer) - but the high resolution stream is locked tight. Want access to the high resolution audio you paid for? Find yourself a DAC that unlocks the stream.
MQA does exactly the same thing. You can freely play the 16 bit lossy version on any DAC. But, try and access the high resolution audio, and you’ll find yourself locked out. Only an authorized decryption device WITHIN a DAC can play it. You NEVER have access to the high resolution raw file.
If that isn’t DRM I don’t know what is.
We solved the SACD problem by building a transport that connects the high rez DSD stream to our DAC. Which is great for PS Audio DAC and transport owners. It still sucks for everyone else.
What am I missing here?
[large quote deleted]
Nothing. It IS just another form of Sony SACD at play. The only difference is now the media is digital files instead of physical disc. Don’t know if they would land up in the same boat as Sony is in now but thinking of re-buying my entire digital albums freaks me out as well. I thought that MQA has learned some lessons from Sony’s SACD policy but looks like they haven’t. All it appears to me that they are trying to do something that benefits them the most 
If you look at MQA’s response on the DRM-related issues, they are just freaking out on the subject and answers ‘THIS IS NOT DRM’ over the whole.
If they are not using watermark, the MQA encryption will probably be reverse-engineered at some time and put in a small front-end.
I was fortunate to hear a private demo of MQA at CES this year in the Vandersteen room. Mr. Vandersteen and several of my very cynical colleagues were along for the ride. All I know is this: an MQA encoded file decoded by a Meridian DAC reminded all of us of the best vinyl we’d ever heard. It was undeniable. Mr. Fremer, who is not prone to jump on digital bandwagons, was duly impressed in the article below. That must count for something.
Of course, that does not mean MQA will sound good on any DAC. It could all blow up in Stuart’s face if he doesn’t find a way to calm down the collective panic and prove to everyone that the paradigm shift is what he claims it to be. When Tidal goes live with MQA we will find out whether there is any truth to his claim that even non-decoded MQA files sound better than Redbook. I, for one, hope it settles the conversation because I’m tired of being flogged for high res downloads that are only occassionally better. At least with streamable high res, I won’t regret a purchase.
I love my DS in any case and hope everyone can benefit from a technology that might actually expand access to high quality audio.
This article is worth reading:
http://www.stereophile.com/content/mqas-sound-convinces-hardened-showgoers#Wu1Lc5mK4A6qr0ao.97
Yes, from all I’ve read I am convinced MQA helps Meridian DACs. To date it does not help PS DACs, quite the opposite. It may be setup, it may be that the sophisticated filters used by Ted only get worse when MQA tries to fix that which is not broken. That’s our best guess.
Though, the fact that there are fewer than 100 tracks to listen to might make this all moot. Unless they can manage to get thousands, perhaps millions of tracks encoded, I am not sure what value it has. We are still wait and see.
So far, it is not a panacea.
At AXPONA I heard several people talking about MQA. Most of the talk was either totally against MQA or not pro MQA. Not much mention of digital rights management though. Most audiophiles seem to get the fact that you can’t take an existing file and make it better. On the other hand, if you start from scratch audiophiles are a little more open about it helping. Personally this seems to solve a problem that isn’t one (a problem that is). While I’m sure this has been stated, in the general public they don’t care about high res so MQA is a waste for them. For the audiophile community we don’t mind the large file size and I would rather do a one time download of high res rather than stream (where MQA might be an advantage). I think it will be the recording.mastering studios and manufacturers who have to incorporate MQA that will determine if it flies.
Certainly, there are no panaceas. I just want people to know that people who are not Meridian fans heard something special at CES that went beyond comparisons. When I hear a great vinyl set up I don’t need to take it home with me to be sure what I heard was great. Mr. Fremer summed it up best:
"The CD of the recording has an unfocused, diffuse image of a piano hanging in space, with the room reverb mixed in and confusing the picture. There was no image, there was no there there. My mind couldn’t get engaged with it, which was disturbing, because it didn’t make sense. That’s why many people don’t sit down and listen to a CD with the lights out and stay engaged, as you do with a record. When the MQA version was played, there was a coherent attack, sustain, and decay. Finally, I could visualize Jarrett playing a piano in three-dimensional space, and the space behind it. It was like what a record sounds like. I think that since Jarrett is also an audiophile and likes vinyl that he, too, would hear it the same way."
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/mqas-sound-convinces-hardened-showgoers#2U6PlKAqT3tvxWKM.99
I have never heard MQA but there seems to be something inherently wrong with it that no one is pointing out .
I previously posted Harely wrote that Mastering engineers say that their DSD masters sounded better than the original after going through MQA. That is not fidelity. This is enhancement. All a transparent encode decode scheme should do is present the original signal as accurately as possible.
In the digital video world, when I color grade a shot, I am enhancing it. I am adding definition, sculpting the lighting, creating a more dimensional image and focusing the viewers attention on the part of frame the creator wishes.
This in no way represents reality, or what was originally captured.
Is it more aesthetically pleasing? Yes, but it’s a sophisticated tone control.
If MQA sounds better than the original it’s enhancing filter. And there are dozens of those boxes people have created over the years that claim when inserted into the signal path it helps to recreate the original event. How many of those boxes people originally thought were breakthroughs are now collecting dust (I have one that is.)
Perhaps the emperor has no clothes and everyone is being fooled because it sounds “good.”
Now if this technology were used in the recording process and was proven to better capture the live mic feed than hi res PCM or DSD than yes they have something. But If it sounds “better” than the mic feed (which from the mastering engineers description it might), then we have just another new enhancer on market. and one that they have now decided will be closed end to boot!
while I was originally excited by MQA, the more I read about it, the more I see it hyped, the more proprietary it becomes, the less interested I am. I never bought into SACD and I was their target customer. (even years later after buying an OPPO bluray player that handled the format) Why? Because I could only get analog out of the player. If I could have used it with my DAC at the time, yes I would have bought some disks even though There weren’t enough titles. SACD was a failure in my mind because they couldn’t lure me in. And Hell, I bought a damn Tice clock (and more audio crap like than I care to remember).
To quote Pete Townshend… “we won’t get fooled again.”
Emailists,
You’ve articulated a point of view I know others share. I’ll just concede right out of the box that I want things to sound “good” and I don’t care whether it’s enhanced or has special sauce dripping all over it. The only reason I listen to audio is to be entertained, delighted and pleased. If an audio product makes my music sound “unpleasant”, I really fail to see its value.
I never adopted SACD and I rarely download high res files anymore because so many are simply not that much better than RedBook…especially now that I have Ted’s DS, which makes everything sound pretty grand. Nonetheless, analog still sounds better to my ears.
I sincerely hope Tidal sticks with its plans to offer MQA so other people can begin commenting on what they actually hear with their own ears as opposed to philosophically debating the merits of a theoretical idea. I’ve heard MQA and I want to know and hear more.
vhiner1 said"The CD of the recording has an unfocused, diffuse image of a piano hanging in space, with the room reverb mixed in and confusing the picture. . . . When the MQA version was played, there was a coherent attack, sustain, and decay. . . . It was like what a record sounds like.
?
This makes zero sense. Given the same source recording, the resulting LP will not magically sound coherent and the CD dreadfully confused.
I understand Mr. Fremer was impressed by MQA and, from all reports, it appears we would all be impressed by the demo. But his comments about CD v. a record are completely off the wall. Perhaps I totally misunderstand his analogy.
Elk,
“This makes zero sense.” To you. 
I’m not Mr. Fremer’s publisher and I would not begin to explain his intent, but what he says echoes what I hear when I listen to a particularly good vinyl recording and then compare it to the same recording on a compact disc. I also hesitate to quote Paul when making a point he may not agree with, but I thought his recent blog on surface notice and how it may create a sense of “space” or three-dimensionality for appreciators of vinyl was quite eloquent and informative.
I think vinyl and tape often convey something that sounds “more real” than what I hear on Redbook files. I think we’re talking about micro cues and psychoacoustics. But again, I can only report what I hear and what others have heard.
Music cut to LP and burned to CD is compressed, EQ’d and otherwise mastered so differently I hesitate to make such a comparison. I do not find it meaningful as one is not comparing apples to apples.
I strongly suspect what he is hearing is the compression applied to LP. It brings up the level of ambient cues, reverb tails, etc. making it very apparent the music was recorded in an acoustic space.
As Mr. Fremer has previously expressed many times that using a digital mastering recording deck captures that which is important about vinyl, and that anyone can hear this, I would be interested to know whether he opines this characteristic of vinyl is so captured in digital.
Thanks for the explanation and sharing your experience. It is an interesting observation.
Thanks, Elk. I don’t want to sound like an MQA evangelist. I just hope the industry can take a breath, ignore the hype, and not kill an idea before it’s had a fighting chance. If, and it’s a big if, MQA does not require anyone to buy a new DAC or purchase new music, then I really can’t oppose its implementation…even if my own DAC is incompatible with it. I’ve never been a bandwagon person and I can certainly understand the resistance and natural skepticism people have toward any hype machinery. Once MQA is demonstrable via Tidal, market forces will take over. “We” or “it” will be swept along.
This all still leaves one HUGE question open: Are the files being offered for comparison (other than the MQA processing) identically processed? Same source material, master or whatever??? If not, then there is no way to judge the true qualites of MQA. If not otherwise identical then the addition of the MQA processing has no meaning whatsoever beyond its effect on the streamed data bandwidth.
J.P.
I certainly hope they are otherwise the same file with MQA being the only difference. Otherwise, not only are the comparisons invalid it is basic fraud.
Which reminds me of another issue with claiming the vinyl version is more coherent than the CD. ("“The CD of the recording has an unfocused, diffuse image of a piano hanging in space, with the room reverb mixed in and confusing the picture." But the vinyl version sounds coherent.) Most LPS are made from digital recordings. For the above to be true, vinyl would have to fix problems inherent in the digital source file as the digital master would also be incoherent.
But I like the idea of compensating for any imperfections in the original ADC when the recording is made. If MQA can do this alone, it will be an advance and this would improve all sound downstream.
Agreed, agreed and agreed.
I too find the idea of compensating for imperfections in the original ADC interesting. On the other hand, trying to ‘fix’ the playback DAC and supposedly make all DACs sound the same is a bit of a reach. Audiophiles tend to buy the DAC that sounds the best to them and trying to remove this difference seems to me to be overreaching or overstepping their purview.
Perhaps I misunderstand, but I was under the impression that much of what inspired the MQA project was to reduce the storage and transmission bandwidth of digital audio of a given (high) quality. With their current end to end approach they seem to be becoming Big Brother - which many of us do not like.
J.P.
I agree that a “Big Brother” vibe will kill MQA in the cradle.
However, my understanding is that, all other claims aside, Stuart asserts that MQA will have no deleterious effect on encoded files whatsoever. In other words, when Tidal turns on the MQA switch, the result for those of us who have no MQA capable DAC will either be “no difference” or “better.” The risk here seems to fall entirely on Mr. Stuart and Tidal. I see no down side for the rest of us. Personally, I think we should all be cheering and lobbying for the experiment to begin.
I have yet to see any evidence that MQA will force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do, pay for anything they don’t want to pay for or harm our beloved music in any way. Until someone shows me a downside or how MQA will limit my choices or cost me a dime, I say, “Power to you, Mr. Stuart!” 
I hope your rocket breaks the sound barrier!