This was in April of 2016 and I remember reading it then, and how it reinforced my feelings that many audio "journalists" seem to be no more than fanboys of audio manufacturers and service providers. (Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on current events based on facts and supported with proof or evidence.)
Absolutely, and so with the likes of TAS, Stereophile, and others, thats not really journalism per se but a trade publication, their customer is not the reader so much as it is the advertisers. It's been that way for a long time, and while there was still information to be gleaned as a reader, you always had to take the reviews with more than a grain of salt.
He wrote more a year later where he revealed that he offered original digital recordings and digital masters to Bob Stuart to encode and send the MQA files back so a true apples-to-apples comparison could be made. He got no response.
I remember that and others did the same (Dr. AIX?), a smoking gun if there ever were one.
So for 5 years it has been the same story. If MQA feels their encoded files sound better (whether lossless or not) then why not allow for a true comparison? As it is, I don't have any reason to believe a subjective opinion that MQA sounds better than an original lossless file.
Exactly, with the encoder under lock and key, and only MQA's unfounded claims of "deblurring" and greater "temporal resolution" by means of correcting for all flaws in every ADC ever produced, and the emperor simply has no clothes despite what various manufacturers, the trade press, and Bob Stuart might hope you will believe.
As time goes by the claims become more and more outrageous/desperate... "better than lossless", "blows up Nyquist-Shannon sampling theory" etc...
On that note I'll be listing a bridge I own as for sale soon in the Emporium, great traffic, toll revenue, ideal location, serious offers only: