Not really. It cannot be better at being lossless than a really lossless codec. But this does not mean that an overall system with theoretical small losses but having other advantages cannot be seen as better than a purely lossless system that does not have the other advantages.
Let’s assume that their “authentication” and ADC adjustment really work. This might be worth the very small compression losses. Losses cannot occur only in the compression format. If you lose info before the data ever makes it into a flac, the fact that the flac compresses/uncompresses losslessly won’t help with that. They are claiming, rightly or wrongly that they can reduce these losses. Of course one could correctly argue that the “authentication” and “ADC correction” could be achieved with flac containers as well, and would not need to incur the additional folding losses.
Again, whether these things work, and the other claims that they make after the flashy headline, are open for debate. But arguing over an incomplete quote, and a headline at that, is a waste of time.
Unfortunately that argument is fallacious - it misses the point.
Look at the information:
There are non-idealities in the ADC: this results in loss of information, therefore the output of the ADC contains less information than the input.
The output of the non-ideal ADC is put through a correction algorithm where more information is thrown away to ‘optimise’ (or correct if you prefer) to a particular desired outcome that has even less information than the ADC output.
This is also compressed with a lossy compression algorithm, throwing away yet more information.
To prepare for the non-idealities of the DAC, the data are is put through a correction algorithm where more information is thrown away to ‘optimise’ (or correct if you prefer) to a particular desired outcome that has even less information than the compressed data stream.
The information left is then reassembled into an analogue signal by a DAC with a set of non idealities, throwing away even more information.
Compare to the lossless system, where the only information losses are the non-idealities of the ADC and DAC.
This is derived from first principles and is independent of the completeness of the quote.
You are now criticizing the actual claims that they make. This is fine, obviously, and what I said I don’t know how many times above. And I never said that those claims are correct. There are indeed many problems with those, even despite possible best intentions. I have no interest in these actually, as I am not an MQA user and the unfree nature of its licensing makes it unusable to me
I repeated what the point was often enough, and it was not fallacious
I’ve heard the claim many times and in many fields that by processing in such and such a way the signal quality is improved. So far no one has EVER been able to substantiate those claims - entropy ALWAYS wins.
The only way to improve quality is to reduce losses. So, instead doing development work to make and introduce additional lossy processes, put the extra development work into making better ADC and DAC subsystems.
Sorry, no. IF you could authenticate the master, no processing would be involved, you just had the guarantee that you are not listening to a 5th generation analog copy that was altered by unknown people.
You are illustrating my point. Each of the individual claims must be dissected on its own merits. If anyone cares. I am out of here
If MQA does something to make it ‘better’ than the lossless original, then it is adding something that doesn’t really exist. So this is a contradiction, something cannot be better than it’s own original self.
If it however does something that people subjectively feel sounds better, then it would also be possible to add this to a lossless baseline signal. It could just be added as extra/meta information alongside a lossless original, similar to how replaygain works for volume information.
In the case of MQA this isn’t a reality though, since the whole process is lossy to begin with.
I didn’t notice anything about idempotency (but then it’s completely unnecessary here, unlike for critical computing operations). This isn’t actually the same, although there are elements of similarity, just as there are with the CRC on all CDs and all downloaded files. These CRCs “authenticate” the copy against the master file from which they are produced.
There are usually a number of “masters” that can be used; this applies to MQA just as it does for any other recording; and just as for any recording you get the master that the company producing the product chose to use (whether or not there is a light to confirm the fact).
I did, you stated " IF you could authenticate the master, no processing would be involved,"
MQA ALWAYS processes the signal, no matter whether the “master” is “authenticated” or not (also note the see CRC comment above).
MQA is still a very clever way of minimising losses when compressing larger audio data streams into lower bandwidth.
If I retain the choice of accessing the unadulterated Master - or a lossless version of it - alongside the MQA lossy ‘messed with’ version , in perpetuity at bo additional cost, that’s fine.
When people at work used to say “You need to think outside the box.”
My reply was “I can’t, I’m dyslexic, I don’t HAVE a box.”
I’m completely indiscriminate with no boundaries between subjects, from Art History to HiFi to Quantum Computing to Zoology, it’s all a continuous spectrum to me: it’s all just knowledge!
That of course is exactly what people do! However, the talk may be useful or interesting for those contemplating one way or the other, while it is quite interesting the number of people who have voted with their feet (or keyboard!) and moved to Qobuz from Tidal for pure unadulterated hi res.
Here is (part) of an interesting interview with Rob Watts, designer of the Chord DACs, about why he thinks MQA is a poor option for good sound reproduction, but also why it is that many people do seem to enjoy the sound of MQA subjectively:
From what I gathered, MQA is a remastering process to allow for a more consistent sound across a wider range of devices so the original has in fact been altered. As it effectively changes the sound, some says it sounds better but some day it doesn’t.
The key point is whether this truly adds value to the industry and consumer as as a whole. Only time will tell.