MUSINGS: A quick discussion on what's OBJECTIVE and what's SUBJECTIVE (alas, more MQA-related stuff).

Infographic, from pediaa.com.

Hey guys, very busy this past week and about to go out of town... Nonetheless, it has been fun participating in discussion forums this week. Therefore, I thought I'd just fire out a "quick" post this morning.

I see some rather disturbing back-and-forth arguments on the recent Stereophile post on MQA from folks like dalethorn and boulderskies that IMO reflects a fundamental disagreement on the differences between what the words "subjective" and "objective" means when we use them to address ways of understanding audio (among other ways of discerning knowledge in this world). Obviously, unless we are all on the same page with definitions, we won't be going anywhere with debates and arguments!

At first, I was going to just make this comment a forum post, but given the length and for future reference, I'll just put it here instead of a typical comment buried deep in a thread. We can potentially get deeply philosophical about this, but let's see if we can just hit the main points at least...

1080P Blu-Ray vs. 4K UHD Blu-Ray: "Blade Runner 2049" - Digital "Nearly 4K" Filmmaking (3.4K)

Another excellent movie! It might be heresy to those who adored the first Blade Runner, but I thought this was an even better flick than the first; kudos to Denis Villeneuve.

I want to continue in this series of comparisons showing resolution of 1080P Blu-Ray versus the 4K UHD Blu-Ray version of the same film. If you've been following along, so far we're actually not seeing much if any significant improvement in spatial resolution comparing typical "analogue" film-to-4K movie conversions. This goes for Interstellar's 35mm portions, the original Blade Runner, and last week with The Prestige. As expected, 2K Digital Intermediate movies like Pacific Rim can benefit from HDR color/contrast regrading, but there would be no resolution enhancement. Of the movies I've looked at, Dunkirk and the 70mm IMAX filmmaking process clearly provided a resolution enhancement.

For this post, I want to show you what a "nearly 4K" movie presented on UHD Blu-Ray looks like resolution-wise. Blade Runner 2049 was filmed digitally using ARRI Alexa cameras using the ARRIRAW 3.4K format (3414 x 2198) then converted to a 4K Digital Intermediate and special effects were said to be rendered in 3.4K as well. Let's have a peek...

"MQA: A review of controversies, concerns, and cautions" week...

cf. As We See It - More on MQA :-)

Hey everyone, it has been a very busy week for me at work plus I was able to put the "final touches" on the article just published on Friday on the Computer Audiophile site:

MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions

As the title indicates, this is a review of much of what I have presented here over the years as well as accumulated knowledge by folks who have taken time to dissect and divine some of the inner workings of this "format". I salute the audiophiles who have worked to figure these things out (many of them references in the footnotes in the article) - those who have had the courage to "call a spade a spade", those with the perseverance to ask tough questions, and pursue meaningful answers.

I would also like to thank Chris Connaker for reaching out and having the courage to publish the article. I don't know what the "politics" are like behind the scenes in the audiophile world, but I cannot imagine there not be pressures to conform to the "official" sanctioned message especially dealing with a product originating from a veteran audiophile company, endorsements of the major print magazines, and with the apparent backing of major music labels in the Industry.

Hope you all have a great week ahead!

Enjoy the music...

Addendum: October 2024 - A Dive Into... audio podcast summary of MQA with more recent updates.