Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music Thoughts on MQA after event at BlueVision - Marietta GA 6-12-15

I was able to attend one of the MQA roadshow events yesterday just outside of Atlanta. BlueVision is a local Meridian dealer and had a nice setup with a pair of 8000SE speakers, an 800 Series processor and a Sooloos system back in the rack. Meridian personnel were on hand as were hosts from BlueVision.

Overall, I thought the resuts were impressive. The caveat for me is that it's been a long while since I've taken a listen to Meridian floorstanders and it may have been over 5 years since I last heard the 8000s. I was totally impressed by their bass performance, which was both substantial and well controlled.

Since the event was an MQA showcase though, I'll shift attention to it. Given the above and the fact that all the tracks I heard were MQA without a side by side "non-MQA' comparison, I can't really say whether i thought the MQA technology added significantly to the resulting sound. The technical explanation slideshow given before the listening session made sense, but without being able to compare I just have no idea how much the MQA encoding technology added to what my sepcific set of ears was hearing. I absolutely look forward though to hearing more examples and especially getting to A/B the tracks.

Mostly though, I had a few takeaways on the overall business and industry challenges Meridian faces:

1 - Meridian reps said specifically when I asked that Jay-Z's acquisition of Tidal doesn't change Tidal's commitment to MQA. That being said, they still aren't offering a date for when MQA tracks will be available on Tidal. That's a bit concerning to me. I'm sure they have contracts with Tidal or they wouldn't have announced what they already have, but for a few reasons (some I spell out below), I wouldn't be so sure that it's a slam dunk. I think Tidal's ultimate commitment to higher res streaming will have everything to do with subscriber numbers and if they struggle to draw consumers to the higher tier because of the price gap, they might not keep it around if it doesn't make fiscal sense long term.

With Apple now firmly in the game with the WWDC announcement, things got a little more competitive for all the streaming players. I don't care if the quality is under 320 or that they aren't bringing anything substantially new to the table feature-wise. That $14.99 family rate is powerful as is the 3 month trial. They are going to gobble up users and I won't be surprised to see Spotify's recently touted subscriber numbers take a hit as a result. The Apple ecosystem has real weight and Tidal will feel that hit just like all the other competitors. If Tidal falters, I think that will only reinforce to the other streaming companies that higher res streaming isn't worthwhile.

2 - I think I have a handle on MQA's effect on file size and while it's very good to see that a better than CD quality is being achieved at a less than CD bitrate, I wonder how effective that is as a selling point. It's less than CD but still hgher than teh typically used bitrates for MP3, AAC, ALAC and FLAC. I have to wonder that with the mainstream download services choosing not to offer FLAC even though they could have for years, will they choose to offer MQA enabled tracks? That's more storage space than FLAC and therefore more bandwidth, which translates to higher operating costs. If the market hasn't pushed the mainstream download players to even offer FLAC yet, will MQA change their tune? I just don't know.

I can see how Tidal benefits right away as MQA cuts the high res bitrate they area streaming from 1.4 to 1.1 and touts even better sound quality. While that does translate to cost savings for Tidal, they have to get the labels to offer MQA enabled tracks. Tidal can't be the only distributor in town who is pushing it or we'll have another DVD-A, SACD, DSD, scenario where almost nothig is avaiable with MQA.

3 - Backwards compatablity is important, but only addresses part of the challenge and there is a tradeoff. As I understand it per teh Meridian reps, MQA encoding can live inside any of teh commonly used current audio file formats. So, if I understhand that correctly, that means that you could have MQA encoding included in an MP3, ALAC, AAC, FLAC files etc. I assume then that non-MQA devices will playback the file and ignore the MQA data, While that's good, the tradeoff is filesize. So, now the file that would otherwise be a standard 320Kb MP3 is now multiple times bigger because of unused (in that device) MQA data. Storage sizes in all our devices are getting larger every year, but at those sizes, things will still feel cramped (not DSD cramped of course, but still). My portable device that could hold X number of FLAC or ALAC albums and used on the go, in the car, etc could then hold fewer MQA encoded files while not being able to take advatage of MQA for the forseeable future.

This carries over to streaming too. The Meridian guys were talking about the beauty of having one file that can be used for any device. That's great but I can't see Tidal streaming higher bitrate files to a customer who's chosen a lower resolution setting. That impacts Tidal's outgoing bandwidth needs as well as a customer's incoming bandwidth requirements and their overall data cap (which sadly are still very real in the US for both home and mobile data plans). I think they will retain lower bitrate files for such usage and just make the commercial side storage tradeoff.

4 - Is there enough motivation for labels to offer MQA enabled verison of their current, former and future catalogs? This is the key question, as so many others have pointed out. They have to do something with back catalogs to digitize old masters in ever degrading analog formats and Meridian is trying to offer MQA as that answer. The problem isn't new though, so I wonder whether that kind of work that may already be going on will stick with existing digital high res encoding solutions or will they jump over to MQA? There's a lot to consider and there are both internal commercial considerations as well as external consumer appeal.

Personally, I'm tired of re-buying my library in additional formats, so one of the reasons why MQA appeals is because of Tidal. But Tidal relies on the record labels and the labels have to have enough reasons to go with MQA. There's an interesting bit of logic here that I think argues heavily against it. If the studios offer MQA and if they license their broad catalogs for streaming in MQA on Tidal, my impetus to buy music ever again dips to almost zero. Could they charge even more for an MQA subscription? Sure - and many of us would gladly pay it. But the broader array of consumers almost certainly wouldn't and therein lies the problem. What's the cost and "pain" for labels to switch to MQA adoption vs the revenue generation upside? So far, the "because it sounds better" argument hasn't seemed to be effective. Yes, MQA seems to eliminate some of the objections to existing hgher quality formats, but I still wonder if it's enough.

5 - Hardware considerations. What seems clear to me is that quality MQA enjoyment is going to require new hardware investment, perhaps significant based on your particular setup. It doesn't sound like from the Meridian folks that any of the currently non-MQA compatible hardware will be firmware upgradeable to support MQA decoding. They specifically point out the Explorer 2, the 800 series and the SE versions of the 5200, 7200 and 8000 as the only currently compatible MQA hardware. It's obviously a chicken and egg scenario where customers will need to see MQA content support before upgrading but content support may lag until MQA hardware penetration is higher. Meridian mentioned other hardware partners that have committed to MQA already for future product offerings and that's a very good thing, but obviously most of us here are concerned with Meridian gear specifically.

It truly does sound like we'll need new versions of all endpoints to take advantage of MQA (please note, I mean true MQA playback). We saw upgrades offered to move non-SE owners to SE versions of the 3 speakers last year, but I wonder what we'll see for downmarket items like the 3200, MS00, MS200, MC200, etc. I'm going to guess replacement vs. upgrades, but hopefully trade in options are made available. If you start tallying up the costs for multiple zones though, things escalate quickly even with the lower end solutions. That's obviously not uncommon for a new format and the backwards compatibility is a plus,

All in all, some very intersting possibilities for MQA but still plenty of questions, uncertainty and cause to wonder whether they will succeed. I hope they do because I would love to have a streaming solution that gave me access to 20+ million tracks in higher quality. Maybe we'll get there one day, but I don't know if we will anytime soon. In the meantime, I'm going to try and get more ears on time with the 8000s, those suckers rock...

Jeff - Great post! I as well was blown away listening to the DSP8000SE speakers. For me it was the first time seeing/listening to them in person. What a treat!

As far as MQA, it sounds great on paper but I don't think it will succeed. Not that I don't want it to, but for the masses it just doesn't make monetary sense. Most don't care about quality unfortunately... convenience always wins. Most are from a generation that never listened to a CD so really don't know what great audio is. They have their smartphones with there earbuds and they think that is the "best".

I feel we are in the infancy stage when it comes to streaming. The data caps need to be non-existent on smart phones as well as the storage capacity needs to increase. The issue is the companies want to nickel and dime us on every little thing because they need to make the most profit. I feel the reason MP3 was so successful, it was because it was easy to manage meaning copying it to a portable device and to share freely among friends. They need to be able to do that with hi rez audio. A big player needs to offer that so the masses can hear the difference but education needs to happen because your not going to hear and difference with crappy Walmart headphones. There is a market for it... take a look at how successful Beats Audio became.

I think for me I will continue to buy CD's as well as hirez audio. If you think about it... it's like leasing a car.. in the end you have nothing because you have to turn it in. At least when I buy the music I have it and it's mine to keep forever. When streaming, the moment you stop paying its gone.

I absolutely get where you are coming from and while I understand the argument, the angle I come at it from is that I'm streaming right now even while I do buy here and there. There is content I'd likely never buy but would stream and streaming gives me great access to new stuff to try out and either favorite or never listen to again. I listen to a wider variety becuse of streaming vs. buying only. So, since I am streaming, if the quality level is good enough and all the content I'd want to listen to is available, I won't buy unless I had to. If streaming goes away - or if some content disappears from streaming services - I can always choose to buy at that point.

That's a great response to a thoughtful post.

Jeff,

Great post. One correction to your assertions about MQA, though. MQA is compatible with any LOSSLESS format (ALAC, FLAC, WAV, etc. It is not compatible with MP3, for instance.

John

Jeff, that all seems a little 'Glass Half Empty' in tone to me, which is ok.

In the very short term you have some good points, let's face it, it's not available yet but it is coming, so there is a lot of fun and perhaps frustrated speculation.

As you say, plenty of people are not bothered, but they will benefit anyway as the decoding will be everywhere. It will be interesting to see what might happen if you try to take it away from them once they are used to it. CRT B&W TV anyone?

Studios will use it, once it is built into the equipment and they understand it.
Hi res streaming requires it and streamers will only need one inventory for all markets.

Archive quality is finally sorted.

Of course, as always the High End will have to pay if the want the very best which is pretty good now anyway, so diminishing returns kick in.

Interesting times. Just thoughts, Chris (Hard Hat On)

John,

MQA can be delivered in the MP3 format. More than likely this is where the difference between sound quality of the native file versus the MQA decoded file will be the the most dramatic. This makes MQA a viable option for any of the streaming services.

I won't claim to know the answer to that one definitively, but actually if that is true, I wonder then what the difference is between an MQA decoded MP3 track and an MQA decoded FLAC track? Is the MQA decoded output exactly the same or does the fact that the "base encoding" is MP3 vs FLAC matter? Obviously that file when decoded by a non-MQA capable decoder would seemingly be different just as "standard" non-MQA tracks of those same file types are right now (regular MP3 vs regular FLAC). I don't know the answer there but it is an interesting question.

And yes, from a comparative standpoint, playing back that same file in non-MQA mode vs. MQA could demonstrate dramatic difference. The benefit here would simply be less work. Keeping a library with a single version of all tracks where the quality of output then depends on MQA compatibility or not. It's an interesting concept.

Hi Chris,

Yes, I definitely am skeptical. It's not for lack of want, as expressed by my last paragraph, but rather because we've seen attempts made before at getting higher res solutions that just didn't gain much traction. Over time, consumer demand has gone the way of lower cost and ease and breadth of access at the expense of quality. Many of us here want higher quality, but the industry doesn't generally seem to think that business model makes sense for them.

I really hope that changes and I would love if MQA facilitated that change, but I can easily see it not working out. Perhaps as consumer bandwidth increases globally and high quality video content streaming further pushes out data caps (eventually toward extinction - we can dream, can't we? ), the landscape will look fertile enough to the industry to make it viable. After all, 4K video streaming is a huge bandwidth hog and the latest Codec advancements are giving us something like 6 - 10 Mbps streams for 4K. Comapre that to 1.1 for MQA and it doesn't look too bad at a all.

In the end I really hope we get there, but I know that so many pieces have to come together for it to be a reality that it seems unlikely. I think 2 decades worth of seeing so many standards failures on the audio and video side have made me pessimistic. But hey, I'm still rooting for it!

Hi,

MQA needs a lossless delivery system, so standard [lossy] MP3 would be a problem.

MP3HD which is lossless would be ok, but from what I understand that format was in development back in 2009, its aim to be compatible with existing MP3 players. I don't think it ever caught on with the dominance of FLAC, ALAC, ...

Regards,
Carl

MP3HD essentially doesn't exist any more. It's almost impossible to find an app which will decode it.

Jeff, the big thing with MQA is that it CAN be done. The technical barriers that previously existed have been blown apart by research and new understandings.
This, I think, is Bob's gift to the world and he must believe it is achievable, or why bother trying.
Sombody will deliver it as their USP and hopefully for their integrity and love of music.
After that, all the rest play 'Catch Up' or admit they are not even in the race. A proud boast indeed!

Thoughts, Chris