# MQA: Revolutionary British streaming technology



## bigshot

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tvs-entertainment/media-streamers/1402178/meridian-reveals-mqa-studio-quality-music-streaming
  
 This article says that the compression scheme focuses on timing, not frequency response. How is that even possible? You can take a lossy file and sum it back with a lossless file and the timing is precisely the same. How does MP3 possibly alter timing? Is this some kind of scheme for addressing jitter introduced by streaming? If so, it isn't necessary. I stream through my house using AAC and Airports and the jitter is well below the threshold of audibility.


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## RRod

bigshot said:


> http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tvs-entertainment/media-streamers/1402178/meridian-reveals-mqa-studio-quality-music-streaming
> 
> This article says that the compression scheme focuses on timing, not frequency response. How is that even possible? You can take a lossy file and sum it back with a lossless file and the timing is precisely the same. How does MP3 possibly alter timing? Is this some kind of scheme for addressing jitter introduced by streaming? If so, it isn't necessary. I stream through my house using AAC and Airports and the jitter is well below the threshold of audibility.


 
  
 I know a really svelte way of delivering 24/96 content in an audibly lossless way at about 256kbps, but I can't tell you b/c Meridian might nab it from me 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 
  
 BTW, why lock this thread previously, mod? I'm sorry but when a graph like this is part of the pitch, the product is fair game for skepticism.


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## cer

That is a genuinely lovely graph. Reel-to-reel and LP both much better quality than DVD-A/SACD. Streaming worse than cassette. Definitely not stupid or wrong or anything.


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## Hudson

The convenience plot is also odd, I wonder how they compile that.
  
 I had a quick read of the article and filled it under meh, too much ambiguous gumph.
  
 The article and the MQA website are pretty confusing, is this a just a new codec or streaming service or both?


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## pwiles1968

There is  a lot more info here with several articles - http://www.realhd-audio.com/
  
 As far as I can tell is is not a new codec, it can be imbedded in existing codecs such as FLAC, it involves adding additional information embedded in the file, if you have an MAQ decoder you get the extra info, if not it plays as normal.
  
 I have been reading a bit, appears to be that the reason there are acoustic benefits with 24/96k or higher files is not necessarily the additional bandwidth it is the ability to get better timing, we can not hear the frequency but we can hear the timing errors even if they are very small, MQA is able to improve the timing with smaller files, approx CD bandwidth that is equivalent to 24/192 or better ?
  
 This what I have been able to gather so far.


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## cjl

CD already has fantastic timing precision though (much, much better than just the sample time).


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## bigshot

It talks about throwing out ultra high frequencies that are down at -70dB. It sounds like they are just going to extend some of the compression scemes of MP4/redbook to high bitrate/high sampling rate files.
  
 It seems to me that no one who uses FLAC or high sampling rate files cares a bit about file sizes. They actually want the file size to be as large as possible to maintain the purity of every bit possible. The second they hear about throwing away inaudible frequencies, their OCD will kick in and they will demand that all the inaudible sound be put back in.
  
 I'm betting that this will just be a less compact lossy format designed to preserve a little bit more of the inaudible... and ultimately audibly transparent, just like every other format above AAC192.
  
 The timing thing may just be some sort of buffering during streaming to reduce jitter... which is inaudible anyway.
  
 They also talk about "tailoring the compression to different parts of the distribution chain". That sounds to me like one file format that is converted to different levels of compression on the fly, depending on whether you are playing it on a home stereo system or streaming it to your phone.


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## Roly1650

bigshot said:


> It talks about throwing out ultra high frequencies that are down at -70dB. It sounds like they are just going to extend some of the compression scemes of MP4/redbook to high bitrate/high sampling rate files.
> 
> It seems to me that no one who uses FLAC or high sampling rate files cares a bit about file sizes. They actually want the file size to be as large as possible to maintain the purity of every bit possible. The second they hear about throwing away inaudible frequencies, their OCD will kick in and they will demand that all the inaudible sound be put back in.
> 
> ...



This article is a bit more informative : http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=3857

Apparently the packaging is a little like HDCD if you can remember that format, the media contains a "flag" which signals the decoder for the higher resolution content, otherwise it plays back at standard resolution.

The timing issue is only obliquely related to jitter, it's based on new research claiming that human hearing is more sensitive in the time domain than it is in the frequency domain. Conveniently for Meridian 24/96 doesn't cut it, the sample rate is too slow for the time intervals we can apparently resolve, it has to be 24/192, but you knew that was coming, right?

The other thing discussed is that higher resolution doesn't necessarily increase the audible content, it makes the filtering easier, but no mention is made of how they get rid of the negative effects of this in the standard resolution files, once the additional content has been triggered and the whole issue seems like it's a well worn path anyway.

Its interesting that the Meridian graph has gone through at least two third party revisions including one by John Slau of Benchmark.


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## stv014

> Another critically important factor (and one that I’ve failed to acknowledge in previous posts) is the resolution of human hearing in the time domain. There is new information that accuracy in the time domain is multiple times more important than the frequency domain. I’m not sure where the cutoff is for this level of accuracy but I’ve read and heard that 5 to 10 microseconds is the range. This requires a sampling rate of 192 kHz…according to this new information 96 kHz/24-bits is not sufficient.


 
 It is actually not new research that inter-channel delay of as low as 10 us can be detected under best case conditions. Nor is the sampling theorem, according to which sampling does not limit the time resolution, only the bandwidth.


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## Roly1650

stv014 said:


> It is actually not new research that inter-channel delay of as low as 10 us can be detected under best case conditions. Nor is the sampling theorem, according to which sampling does not limit the time resolution, only the bandwidth.



But, I was only paraphrasing the article and Meridians claims, honestly I was officer.........


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## stv014

I knew it was from the article, and my reply was to the claims from the article.


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## nick_charles

show me some level matched double blind tests and I'll still ignore it ...


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## ralphp@optonline

The 5000 pound elephant in the room is that hardly anyone dares to compare, via a controlled double test, the sound of standard redbook audio and the sound of high resolution audio, particularly when the redbook audio is made by downsampling the high resolution audio. In the article cited by the OP the listeners were played high resolution files but not redbook files, which I content would have sounded equally good. In other words, more useless snake oil.


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## Greenears

ralphp@optonline said:


> The 5000 pound elephant in the room is that hardly anyone dares to compare, via a controlled double test, the sound of standard redbook audio and the sound of high resolution audio, particularly when the redbook audio is made by downsampling the high resolution audio. In the article cited by the OP the listeners were played high resolution files but not redbook files, which I content would have sounded equally good. In other words, more useless snake oil.


 
 I resemble that remark!  I'm running a whole series of ABX tests on 16 vs 24, where 16 is derived from 24 with SoX.  It's easy, and fun.  A few people have joined in. It's on the other thread 24 vs 16.  Pitch in we could use some help.  3 or 4 people have actually run something.  The rest are sniping at us. 4999 pound pachyderm?


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## bigshot

It doesn't matter whether it's redbook. I'd love to see someone discern AAC 256 VBR in a test with "HD" audio!


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## ralphp@optonline

bigshot said:


> It doesn't matter whether it's redbook. I'd love to see someone discern AAC 256 VBR in a test with "HD" audio!


 

 I think I read somewhere about a new revolutionary audio streaming technology that uses 10% of the bandwidth of true high definition audio and yet is indistinguishable from hi-rez audio.


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## Greenears

bigshot said:


> It doesn't matter whether it's redbook. I'd love to see someone discern AAC 256 VBR in a test with "HD" audio!


 
 You're on.  I'm all set up, it's easy.  
  
 Any preference on the encoder? At my disposal is Media Monkey Pro with the paid-for muti-codec plugin, Foobar and Sox.  All latest versions.  You spec how I should generate the 256 VBR and I'll try it.  If you have any additional HD tracks I can get straightforwardly in the US let me know (I have HD Tracks sampler and Linn)


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## bigshot

Can you discern lossless redbook from lossy? I have a sample for you if you want to try that.


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## Greenears

bigshot said:


> Can you discern lossless redbook from lossy? I have a sample for you if you want to try that.


 
 I'm sure I can discern 128k from redbook. But over 200k? I have reason to be doubtful.  What rate? 
  
 You can give me a file, but also spec an encoder I have so I can try some other tracks.  No rigging the test please


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## Stereodude

greenears said:


> I'm sure I can discern 128k from redbook.


 
  
 Don't be so certain.  I've seen many people fail an ABX of Apple's Quicktime AAC engine using True VBR mode with a quality of 63.  The average bitrate is ~128kbit/sec.


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## bigshot

It seems to me that if lossy becomes transparent for you at 192, that there isn't much point testing super high bitrate/sampling rate files for audibility. Transparent is transparent, and anything above transparent should be transparent too.


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## Greenears

Maybe I'm just curious.  But the main reason is that 24 bit is getting a lot of press now and we seem on the cusp of large releases.
  
 I want to know, for now and ever more, what is the final format I should archive my collection.  Is it worth acquiring some 24 bit, or is it a hoax and FLAC 16/44 is the final format you ever need. No way am I going to re-buy my collection in 24 bit I'm not that crazy.  But if it's a few dollars more I want to know if 24 is worth it going forward.


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## Steph86

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKHQOKd7DfI


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## Hudson

I'd probably have something nice to say too if I was invited to the top of the shard for wine and canapés.
When I was studying in London there were enough recruitment nights for the big investment banks and consultancy firms that I could get sloshed for free about 4 nights a week!


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## ralphp@optonline

hudson said:


> I'd probably have something nice to say too if I was invited to the top of the shard for wine and canapés.


 
 The price of integrity in journalism these days is now down to a few glasses wine and some canapes. Is it any wonder that no one with any sense trusts the media.


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## calaf

this link
 http://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa
 contains some actual details about the MQA encoding algorithm. It is a clever idea, but I wonder how relevant in an age of commodity TB disks, and home networks capable to stream at 10x the 24/192k data rate (9.2Mbps according to the stereophile post)
  
 Of course stereophile could not stop at presenting the technology, and had to hype it way up (read the "Listeners impressions" on page 2), but there may be something real behind MQA


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## ralphp@optonline

calaf said:


> this link
> http://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa
> contains some actual details about the MQA encoding algorithm. It is a clever idea, but I wonder how relevant in an age of commodity TB disks, and home networks capable to stream at 10x the 24/192k data rate (9.2Mbps according to the stereophile post)
> 
> Of course stereophile could not stop at presenting the technology, and had to hype it way up (read the "Listeners impressions" on page 2), but there may be something real behind MQA


 

 A very interesting read, thanks for the link.
  
 Now get out your list of standard high end audio reviewer nonsense phrases because the "Listener" who is giving their "impressions" is none other than one of Stereophile's many reviewers, Jason Victor Serinus
  
 Here are a few passages from Mr' Serinus impressions.
  


> not only did it feel as though a veil had been lifted, with far more color to the sound, but instruments also possessed more body. With more meat on dem bones, I also noticed less of a digital edge on the violin. I've heard Hahn in concert several times, and this was the closest to real I've ever heard her violin sound on recording.


 
 and


> Next I heard Herbie Hancock's version of Joni Mitchell's "The River" in 24/96. Not only were the subtle inflections of Corinne Bailey Rae's voice more audible with MQA, but the color and roundness of Hancock's piano also really stood out. The sound of brushes on drums seems far more defined and realistic than without MQA.


 
 From my checklist of worthless audiophile phrases we get:
  
 veils being lifted
 digital edge
 color and roundness to sound and pianos
  
 What cannot be found anywhere in any of the literature on the this "revolutionary" new technology was any mention of double blind or even blind listening comparisons. My guess is that as a result of this in depth coverage Stereophile has guaranteed themselves at least several months of multiple page advertisements from Bob Stuart & Meridian. A big win for both of them but what about the rest of us?


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## bigshot

I read a post by someone who went into a Meridian store to audition MQA. The explanation he was given about how it worked was typically vague, but one aspect he mentioned got my interest. Supposedly, MQA uses psychoacoustic timing information to *recover* elements lost in the sound. It sounds like it includes some sort of DSP enhancer that analyzes inaudible frequencies or dynamics embedded in HD audio and uses the information to bring out details or suppress noise inherent in the original recording. If this is the case, then MQA might actually make an audible difference. It also explains why they are so vague about explaining how it works. High end audio is all about the purity of the zeros and ones. Audio processing is looked upon as taboo. If they build the DSP into the file format decoder and call it a file format, not an audio processor, then audiophiles won't know that the precious sanctity of their lossless files are being defiled. That is a very clever way around a deeply embedded bias in audiophile circles.
  
 I definitely think that DSPs are the future of high end audio. Perhaps just calling them something else and not mentioning that the file isn't lossless any more is the way to get audiophiles to embrace it.


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## ralphp@optonline

bigshot said:


> I definitely think that DSPs are the future of high end audio. Perhaps just calling them something else and not mentioning that the file isn't lossless any more is the way to get audiophiles to embrace it.


 
 The quickest ways to get audiophiles to embrace anything new are:
  
 1) Make it ridiculously over priced.
  
 2) First get the audiophile gods, i.e. the writers and editors of the various high end magazines, to declare that the new technology is the greatest thing since the invention of sound. This can be done with something as simple as a nice steak dinner in a fancy restaurant.
  
 Once the gods are on board and the price set you can just sit back and watch the money roll in.


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## bigshot

OK... Finally some solid info. But it isn't good.
  
 http://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa
  
 Apparently all of the arguments here are based on assumption that sampling rates beyond 44.1 are necessary. Supposedly, we should want frequencies we can't hear. There is also an argument that reconstruction filtering in DACs "smear" over transients to an audible degree. It seems to me that if Redbook is accurately reproducing a 20kHz tone, it isn't smearing beyond 1/40,000th of a second. That is probably ten times faster than any transient in music, even the sharpest snare drum hit or triangle strike.
  
 Can anyone point to the studies that discuss Meridian's claims about "transient smearing" in Redbook? It seems to me like that concept goes against the Nyquist Theory.


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## RRod

bigshot said:


> OK... Finally some solid info. But it isn't good.
> 
> http://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa
> 
> ...


 
  
 There are plenty of transients that show > 22.05kHz frequencies, so of course one can attest, correctly, that Redbook won't recreate these exactly and will make the transient look "rounder" (for lack of better term) in the time domain. But like you said, our ear is filtering out the high frequency content in real-life, so we hear the rounder sound anyway.


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## ZoNtO

I'm sure we'll find out more at CES coming up. I won't be so quick to dismiss the technology yet.


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## ralphp@optonline

bigshot said:


> OK... Finally some solid info. But it isn't good.
> 
> http://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa
> 
> ...


 

 In case you haven't noticed just about all of the "official guardians" of high end audio, i.e. the writers and editors of the various high end publications, pretty much disregard the Nyquist Theory. What else could possibly explain the high end's fascination with high resolution PCM digital audio and DSD, other than getting audiophiles to once again buy recordings that they already own.


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## RRod

ralphp@optonline said:


> In case you haven't noticed just about all of the "official guardians" of high end audio, i.e. the writers and editors of the various high end publications, pretty much disregard the Nyquist Theory. What else could possibly explain the high end's fascination with high resolution PCM digital audio and DSD, other than getting audiophiles to once again buy recordings that they already own.


 

 It's not that they disregard Nyquist, it's that they disregard audiology.


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## ralphp@optonline

rrod said:


> It's not that they disregard Nyquist, it's that they disregard audiology.


 

 We are both remiss in singling out Nyquist Theory and audiology since what high end disregards is anything that stands in the way of more profits including, but not limited to, things like science. My favorite example of the disregard for science is the $500 (an up) USB cable.


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## RRod

ralphp@optonline said:


> We are both remiss in singling out Nyquist Theory and audiology since what high end disregards is anything that stands in the way of more profits including, but not limited to, things like science. My favorite example of the disregard for science is the $500 (an up) USB cable.


 

  
 Hah, yes, quite true. They hate contentment more than anything, and science promotes this evil state of being. We should both purify ourselves by buying some of these:
 http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm


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## ralphp@optonline

rrod said:


> Hah, yes, quite true. They hate contentment more than anything, and science promotes this evil state of being. We should both purify ourselves by buying some of these:
> http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina31.htm


 

 What is sd is that Stereophile has a forum section on their web site which over the years has been slowly dying. One of the reasons for this slow death is that the owner of MachinaDynamica has been and remains one of the most frequent posters to the forum. His posts are filled with the exact same nonsense that appears on the MachinaDynamica web site and these posts basically go up uncontested, either by other forum members or the Stereophile staff and moderators. What a joke.


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## Gringo

I have auditioned MQA on two separate occasions, once on my own and once with a number of others. When you get to actually hear MQA encoded files you will be impressed. What has been discussed in this forum is only a part of what MQA is about. 
1. The master tapes are re sampled, existing samples are not used.
 2. MQA sampling takes into account the characteristics of the original DAC used in the creation of the original master and appropriate corrections are made at this stage, recording studios keep good records of what equipment was used. 
3. The high resolution data outside of the audible range is not discarded but by using a folding technique is stored below the audible threshold floor which consists of random 0's and 1's so does not have any degrading impact on the sound quality but does make the file much smaller and so make streaming and downloading much quicker and require significantly less bandwidth. 
4. The MQA file can be encapsulated in a regular Flac file carrier and played back by non MQA equipment at CD quality and with the benefit of the improved sampling from the original master tape. 
5. MQA enabled equipment can decode the MQA file and play it back with the added benefits that MQA provides. 
The point is that everybody wins. Those without MQA enabled equipment get CD quality streaming/downloading with much less demand for bandwidth. Those with MQA enabled equipment get the best available sound quality files with the reduced bandwidth demands. Streaming services greatly reduce the need for storage capacity because the files are smaller. The record companies get to resell the back catalogues all over again.
If you think this is all pie in the sky, we'll major recording studios, streaming services, and hardware manufacturers are already taking up the concept plus recording artists have already started to rate the system highly. The recording artists/engineers get to sign off the encoded files so that they can be certain to their authenticity and not just a poorly rehash of an existing sample as so many remastered cd's in the market place which have just added to the loudness war that plagues the recoding industry at the moment.
It is early days yet and that is the reason it is not available to the public, remember the legal guys have to cross all the t's and dot the i's before we get access to the files.
Apart from a very small number of doubting Thomas's, those that have had to hear MQA are singing it's praises. Even if you don't invest in MQA equipment you will get the benefit of easier streaming for no extra cost to your pocket so what's not to like?


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## bigshot

So essentially by definition, MQA means that the track has been remastered.... That would explain 99.9% of the difference in sound right there.


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## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> .... Even if you don't invest in MQA equipment you will get the benefit of easier streaming for no extra cost to your pocket so what's not to like?


 
 Whenever I hear or read the phase "no extra cost to your pocket" I'm 100% certain that there will indeed be an extra cost. Enough said about this so called technology which is nothing more than some fancy equalization curve and a money grab as well.


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## Don Hills

ralphp@optonline said:


> ... nothing more than some fancy equalization curve ...


 
  
 It's much more than that.
  


ralphp@optonline said:


> ... and a money grab as well.


 
  
 It's that too.


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## Don Hills

gringo said:


> ...


 
  
 New member, first post: Check
  
 Uncritical praise of a proprietary technology: Check
  
 Draw your own conclusions. I did.


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## ralphp@optonline

ralphp@optonline said:


> Whenever I hear or read the phase "no extra cost to your pocket" I'm 100% certain that there will indeed be an extra cost. Enough said about this so called technology which is nothing more than some fancy equalization curve and a money grab as well.


 
  
  


don hills said:


> It's much more than that.
> 
> 
> It's that too.


 
 Since the beginning of file based digital audio (as opposed to CD based digital audio) many different manufacturers have touted some kind of "revolutionary technology" that enables mp3s to sound as good or better an a CD or, as is the case with MQA, that enables CD quality files to sound as good as or better than high resolution files and in each and every case the magic "revolutionary technology" has turned out to be nothing more than some form of equalization. Once someone more knowledgeable than me get a chance to reverse engineer the MQA technology I'm about 110% certain that it will turn out be nothing more than some form of equalization.
  


don hills said:


> New member, first post: Check
> 
> Uncritical praise of a proprietary technology: Check
> 
> Draw your own conclusions. I did.


 
 You hit the nail on the head!


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## Gringo

I can't quantify how much is down to the remastering other than to say the very latest improved digital filtering/timing techniques are being used to compensate for and correct errors, that the original filters that DAC's used and consequently introduced in the first place. MQA is used to create a new "improved" digital sample from the original master tape where as at present so many so called remasters are simply old samples which have been up-sampled to lower the noise threshold and bring very little benefit to the consumer.

Don't underestimate the significance of the much reduced file size compared to existing hi definition files. This is one of the main reasons why the streaming services are getting excited about it. Plus the assurance that the customer is getting exactly what the recording artist/engineer wanted you to hear. There is no reason to compress. Remember even with vinyl, engineers have to compress tracks nearer to the centre of the disc because of the reduced tracking speed of the cartridge and the time limit of 20 mins before serious tinkering with tracks is needed to get them to fit on one side of a disk. For recording studios the opportunity to sell you once again all your favourite albums is a complete no brainer.

 Meridian are quite emphatic that the MQA decoding can be applied by firmware on compatible hardware, via new hardware (at least one major player has already signed up and developing new hardware), MQA can be incorporated on CD's just as easily as in FLAC or any other music file carrier and finally can also be decoded via Apps which makes it even more attractive.

Lastly, while many who have yet to hear it are sceptical, Meridian have a long track record of not overstating their claims for their new technologies, played an important role in establishing the CD Red Book standard, Blu Ray standards and created Dolby HD. I would suggest their claims are not over hyped.

Having spoken to three different retailers who have had access to MQA, they are really very excited as they know that they are going to be moving a lot of new hardware on the strength of it. Of course, as with anything in this world, to get the very best that MQA has to offer, consumers will have to spend serious amounts of money. Meridian DSP speakers and controllers don't come cheap. Having said that, the latest portable Meridian DAC, which is already MQA ready, is relatively cheap. Meridian are looking to licence MQA technology so that more main stream manufacturers will be able to incorporate it.

For anyone who is scornful, I would suggest you bide your time, listen to it as soon as you can and then come back and say If Meridian's claims are right or wrong. Just because we may not understand something does not make it wrong. I have listened at length and have no doubts about how good it is. (I have no connection with Meridian or the recording industry and consequently have no reason to big up what they are saying).


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## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> I can't quantify how much is down to the remastering other than to say the very latest improved digital filtering/timing techniques are being used to compensate for and correct errors, that the original filters that DAC's used and consequently introduced in the first place. MQA is used to create a new "improved" digital sample from the original master tape where as at present so many so called remasters are simply old samples which have been up-sampled to lower the noise threshold and bring very little benefit to the consumer.
> 
> Don't underestimate the significance of the much reduced file size compared to existing hi definition files. This is one of the main reasons why the streaming services are getting excited about it. Plus the assurance that the customer is getting exactly what the recording artist/engineer wanted you to hear. There is no reason to compress. Remember even with vinyl, engineers have to compress tracks nearer to the centre of the disc because of the reduced tracking speed of the cartridge and the time limit of 20 mins before serious tinkering with tracks is needed to get them to fit on one side of a disk. For recording studios the opportunity to sell you once again all your favourite albums is a complete no brainer.
> 
> ...


 

 Okay so now I'm totally confused. Is Meridian going back to the original master tapes, be they analog or digital, and making new digital conversions or are they using existing digital conversions and applying filters, which by the way is another way of saying equalization. As I stated previously it is just some form of equalization.
  
 Exactly what was Meridian's role in establishing the CD Red Book standard? I have never heard or read of any involvement by Meridian in the development of the CD. Dolby HD, which is related to Meridian Lossless Packing, yes but the original CD standards, no.


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## bigshot

gringo said:


> I can't quantify how much is down to the remastering


 
  
 Well, if you are comparing a track that has been remastered in one file format against a track that hasn't in a different file format, it's impossible to say anything one way or the other about the file format. Differences are much more likely to be a result of mastering than file format.
  
 My primary interest in streaming is to stream my own library over the internet or my wifi network to my own stereos and devices. If an encoder is not publicly available, this is going to be limited to just buy it now downloads and subscription streaming services. Not much use to those who already have a library of music they want to stream themselves.


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## Gringo

Yes, MQA is about going back to the original master tapes. You are quite right about the Red Book thing, what I should have said was that Meridian have been in the forefront to try and improve upon Red Book standards By championing "Noise-shaping which was first proposed by Michael Gerzon and Peter Craven in 1989 [11] and successfully embodied in Meridian’s 618, 518 [12, 22] and also in Sony’s Super Bit Mapping." The quoted extract was from a paper by Meridian's Bob Stewart who is/was, (not sure which), also chairman of Acoustic Renaissance for Audio.


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## Gringo

You can comment if a newer format incorporates new patented techniques that result in superior audio quality.

I don't think Meridian are claiming that MQA is going to improve your existing library but smaller file size for future downloads with better sampled quality is.

Everyone will get the benefits from the improved sampling but only those with a MQA enabled equipment get the benefit of the data that has been folded into the area below the noise floor being extracted and played back. The debate as to exactly how much of it can be discerned is another discussion altogether.

Meridian's big claim is based on fairly recent research, which as I understand it is widely excepted, is that timing is a much more important issue than had previously thought to the way the brain perceives and reacts to sound and this is where they have applied their expertise.

Healthy scepticism is good and to be encouraged. I am not an audio techie and I have only made my contributions to the forum because it seemed to me, (rightly or wrongly), that many comments were just simply dismissive of a new technology that I have actually heard and which most consumers will get to benefit once it is widely taken up. Whether it is widely taken up remains to be seen, (the best technology does not always win through, remember Betamax).

In a nutshell, I know my car gives me a much better driving experience than my previous one despite the fact I don't pretend to understand all its workings. I know that what I heard at three different MQA auditions is superior to anything I have heard previously.


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## Gringo

Classic, can't handle the message so shoot the messenger. 

Have you heard MQA? If you have and think it's all hype, smoke and mirrors that's fine. We are all entitled to our opinion and your opinion is just as valid as mine if you have heard it. I do not in anyway seek to dismiss or belittle you or your opinion.

If you have not heard it, then all I am saying is don't be too quick to dismiss it.

In various posts phrases like money grab seem a little over dismissive. What's wrong with any person/company trying to push the boundaries and make a profit at the same time? If you feel the price being asked is not worth it then that's fine, value is a subjective judgement.

Uncritical praise? Well yes MQA is not the same thing as the actual original performance but as far as I can tell it's closer than anything else I have heard, if you have heard better that's absolutely fine and what is it?

As I said, I have no vested interest, I am not asking you to spend any money, I am not asking you to throw away any of your existing music/equipment, I simply tried to clarify one or two misconceptions and say that you should go and listen for yourself and then dismiss it if you feel it's all rubbish.


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## bigshot

gringo said:


> Yes, MQA is about going back to the original master tapes. You are quite right about the Red Book thing, what I should have said was that Meridian have been in the forefront to try and improve upon Red Book standards By championing "Noise-shaping


 
  
 There's no audible noise in redbook to shape. Dithering "shapes" inaudible noise I guess.
  
 Here is my wish list...
  
 Mastering gets better.
 All formats are open source- no patented technologies. No DRM. I can encode it, rip it, stream it myself and share it.
 File size is smaller for CD quality sound. (Redbook is perfect sound for human beings.)
  
 I already have the second two nailed with AAC. All I really care about now is the mastering. If MQA can get better mastering out of the big labels, great. If they make me buy into a proprietary file format to get it, I'm not interested. I'll just wait until the labels decide to release the exact same remaster on CD, which probably won't take too long.
  
 The problem is mastering, not the sound quality of the file format.


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## Gringo

If MQA does take off, (and yes that is still a big if). You won't have to wait too long for the MQA mastered discs/downloads as there won't be a need for separate quality issues of the same music. One of the big advantages for the producers/streaming/downloading services is that you only need to provide one file. If subscribers buy the app/hardware they can decode the MQA aspect of the file otherwise it plays as an ordinary FLAC file /disc all-be-it with what ever improvements came from the remastering that are not encapsulated within the folding technique. Therefore you get to choose to continue paying the regular price, (no extra cost to your pocket), or opt for the inevitably higher cost MQA decoding app/hardware. This is what I mean by no one looses out. 

Recording labels/studios/downloading services and recording artists are not going to simply give it away for free and why should they. Everyone has to make a living and most people involved in the industry are not the fat cats sitting on the top of the pile, I for one don't begrudge session musicians, backing singers, recording engineers etc. and the majority of recording artists a living. For every millionaire superstar there are thousands of very good artists simply trying to get by. You can tell from this that I don't subscribe to the rip for free culture, but hey each to their own.

File format does have an impact on sound quality if it dictates compression or any other restrictions e.g. MP3 and such like.

The forecast is that MQA will only start to become available to the general consumer in the Spring so until then other than going to a Meridian dealer and auditioning to see if I have been talking a load of nonsense, you have to wait, (dealers are now starting to get Demonstration MQA controlers, (DAC/Preamps).


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## bigshot

gringo said:


> File format does have an impact on sound quality if it dictates compression or any other restrictions e.g. MP3 and such like.


 
  
 One an audio format exceeds the human ability to hear, all formats sound exactly the same-- audibly transparent. I find that MP3 LAME and AAC are perfectly capable of achieving audible transparency. No need for frequencies I can't hear and noise floors lower than I can possibly detect at ear splitting volumes. That stuff makes absolutely zilch difference to music. It's just sales pitch.
  
 Better mastering is what is needed, not another proprietary format.


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## Gringo

Well we can just agree to disagree on that one.


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## bigshot

I've done direct A/B switched, volume matched comparison using excellent equipment and multiple sets of ears. I also set up a listening test with Fraunhofer MP3, LAME MP3 and AAC from 192 to 320 against lossless and have provided the test to dozens of people. No one yet has been able to consistently ID much of anything above 192 Fraunhofer. If you would like to try the test yourself, I would be happy to give you a download link.


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## Gringo

Thank you, the link would be good.

Meridian are I think backing your statement about the audible sound quality improvement above 192 being of dubious value and many existing DAC's down sample anything above anyway, (some even lower).

Meridian MQA promotional material asserts that the numbers war is of limited value and that timing is what the industry needs to be focusing on more. This is one of the areas where MQA is claimed to score because it rectifys/compensates for errors in time smearing. This timing thing is where many detractors are going wrong as this is not simply "some fancy new equalisation"

I personally try not to get too hung up on the numbers game because using the analogy, science says bees should not be able to fly but my eyes tell me they do. Everyone is quite right to be sceptical over manufacturers claims, that's why going and using our own ears is the main critical factor. I can claim what ever I like but it is your ears that you are going to believe and that is exactly as it should be.

Maybe I was victim to some sort of David Blane hocus pocus illusion at three different auditions by three different vendors but I am happy to believe my ears because that's what I listen with everyday when I listen to my music.


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## RRod

gringo said:


> Thank you, the link would be good.
> 
> Meridian are I think backing your statement about the audible sound quality improvement above 192 being of dubious value and many existing DAC's down sample anything above anyway, (some even lower).
> 
> ...


 
  
 What exactly is this "time smearing" phenomenon then?


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## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> Thank you, the link would be good.
> 
> Meridian are I think backing your statement about the audible sound quality improvement above 192 being of dubious value and many existing DAC's down sample anything above anyway, (some even lower).
> 
> ...


 

 I'm still confused - new masters or existing masters that are MQA processed (whatever that means).
  
 If it is new masters, i.e. the existing analog masters converted to digital using the MQA process, then the whole thing will fail since no record company is going to take the time to do this. Plus what about digitally recorded music, especially music recorded in the early days of digital at either 16 or 20 bit. Remember that if the sounds were not captured on the original digital recording than no amount of "processing" is going to "recover" them. Which is why I'm sticking with my theory that the whole MQA thing is nothing more than some form of equalization, until I am proven wrong, which by the way is no going to happen.


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## Gringo

*1. *If it is new masters, i.e. the existing analog masters converted to digital using the MQA process, *2.* then the whole thing will fail since no record company is going to take the time to do this. *3.* Plus what about digitally recorded music, especially music recorded in the early days of digital at either 16 or 20 bit. Remember that if the sounds were not captured on the original digital recording than no amount of "processing" is going to "recover" them. Which is why I'm sticking with my theory that the whole MQA thing is nothing more than some form of equalization, until I am proven wrong, which by the way is no going to happen.
  
 1. Yes MQA involves going back to the original masters so no confusion there.
 2. Yes they will, at least one record label has already stated publicly that they have started to use MQA to create completely new samples which will be released latter this year.  Don't underestimate the record labels desire to sell their back catalogue all over again.
 3. No one is claiming the information that was not captured in the original recording can be recovered
  
 Because studios keep accurate records of the DAC's that were employed in the recording process, errors that these produced can be compensated for, (early digital filters were problematic in some instances).  This means some things that those original DAC's introduced/added can be corrected which is part of the MQA process.
  
 I am happy for you to be confident in your theory and assuredness that you will not be proven wrong, all I am doing is trying to clear up some misconceptions. If you wish to dismiss them, then again that's absolutely fine,
  
 Happy listining


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## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> Because studios keep accurate records of the DAC's that were employed in the recording process, errors that these produced can be compensated for, (early digital filters were problematic in some instances).  This means some things that those original DAC's introduced/added can be corrected which is part of the MQA process.
> I am happy for you to be confident in your theory and assuredness that you will not be proven wrong, all I am doing is trying to clear up some misconceptions. If you wish to dismiss them, then again that's absolutely fine,
> 
> Happy listining


 

 The first sentence above is why I am still confused or that you seriously misinformed. Case in point:
  
 1) If the original recording is an analog recording and is being remastered then the analog masters are being converted anew to digital so what why would the original DAC even matter.
  
 2) If the original recording is an analog recording and the original DAC matters then it is NOT being remastered but only processed, which as I stated previously means EQUALIZATION!
  
 3) If the original recording is a digital recording then, as I stated previous, no amount of processing is going to recover the sounds not present on the original recording so that leaves only EQUALIZATION!
  
 So please get your facts straightened out before you respond.


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## Gringo

As mentioned before, I am no techie so  I have used the words of others who understand the issues much better than I
  
"Brick-wall low-pass digital filters which are applied prior to DACs cause time smearing: Pre- and post- echos. It was the anedotal evidence that higher sampling rates sound better - time smearing is halved for a doubling of sampling frequency - that led to the view that it is the pre-echos which can lead to CD being accused of having a "glassy" or "harsh" sound. Meridian's apodizing filters all but eliminate pre-echos*. The post-echo smearing is no longer linear with frequency (like with the brick-wall filters), but the brain doesn't seem to mind this (echos being completely natural)."
  
 and 
  
"In the last decade, there have been tremendous strides taken in psychoacoustics and, importantly, neuroscience (which has informed the psychoacoustics). The short of it is that the industry has been grossly mistaken about the relative importance of the frequency domain vs. the time domain. Yes, there is the anecdotal evidence that higher sample rates are better, but no-one has ever really articulated why (other than the pre- and post-ringing "naturalness" arguments).

The latest findings, grounded in science, are that, when it comes to human hearing, the time domain is up to 5x more important than the frequency domain. If you hear a twig snap in the woods, you know immediately where it is (time domain); you actually “decode” what it was afterwards (frequency domain). This is evolution at work: hearing is the most important sense for survival: it works when your eyes are shut, when you’re not looking in the relevant direction, and in the dark.

The human hearing system is sensitive to about 10 microseconds in time resolution and here’s the kicker: much/most of this resolution is destroyed in anything encoded digitally below a 192kHz sampling rate.

That’s right: 96kHz is NOT enough.

However, is the public about to download or stream 192/24 audio? No, because it’s not *convenient*. How then to provide audio of the highest quality to the masses? The short of it is that Meridian has found a way of folding the time resolution information into a regular PCM file with a lower sample rate (it’s actually hidden below the noise floor). It’s a stroke of genius and means that MQA files appear to anything other than an MQA decoder as a playable PCM file. But an MQA decoder can "unfold" the file to the original sample rate, adding back the time resolution information.

Another crucial learning from neuroscience is that the brain has three times as many nerves sending signals TO the cochlea than sending information FROM the cochlea to the brain. This is a incredible fact; the brain actively switches the ear’s sensitivity (to frequency) depending on the situation (natural sounds, animal sounds, and speech). The encoding algorithm takes into account these different hearing modes (don’t ask me how!) and the "compression" applied to the master file (which can be anything from a (non-ideal) 44.1/16 master up to 8x sample rate) is not lossy in the conventional sense. There is nothing removed from the file that would allow a human being to differentiate between the MQA encoding and the master as heard in the studio. Lossy? No, that would be an extremely unfair and naive description. "Encoded for human hearing" would be more accurate.

So what is MQA? It stands for “Master Quality Authenticated”. Master Quality because it is able to deliver essentially what the recording artist heard in the studio. Authenticated because the audio data are signed (no, not DRM) so that an MQA decoder can verify the authenticity of the MQA file; that it is intact and as intended when it left the studio, having been signed off by the artist and producer."
  
The above may give you some clarification but I guess, (and it's only reasonable and logical ), that you will believe it when you hear it hence so if you get a chance go and have an audition of MQA


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## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> As mentioned before, I am no techie so  I have used the words of others who understand the issues much better than I
> 
> "Brick-wall - (insert lots of nifty techno babble here) - of MQA


 
 Meridian can say whatever they want but that does not make it true.
  
 Again, what about music digitally recorded at sample rates below 192kHz?


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## RRod

So the argument is that if two twigs snapped 10microseconds apart, this would sound "different" when sent through a 192 vs. 44.1 chain? So I can take any given transient at 192, delay it by 2 samples, combine the two files, downsample to 44.1 and back to 192, and I'd be able to tell the difference? Sounds easy enough to test. Or do you mean something different?


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## Gringo

The first sentence above is why I am still confused or that you seriously misinformed. Case in point:
  
 1) If the original recording is an analog recording and is being remastered then the analog masters are being converted anew to digital so what why would the original DAC even matter.
  
 2) If the original recording is an analog recording and the original DAC matters then it is NOT being remastered but only processed, which as I stated previously means EQUALIZATION!
  
 3) If the original recording is a digital recording then, as I stated previous, no amount of processing is going to recover the sounds not present on the original recording so that leaves only EQUALIZATION!
  
 So please get your facts straightened out before you respond.
  
 points 1&2  Any CD or audio file either streamed or downloaded has to be sampled regardless off the original master being analogue or digital which you obviously already understand.
 therefore new improved sampling using latest technology of analogue will inevitably produce better results. As you will know DACs have come on a long way.
  
 For decades now masters have been generated digitally, which again you already know, therefore being able to deal with the unwanted additions the original digital process applied to the recording is beneficial. This is not simply increasing or decreasing specific frequency range i.e equilisation.  In fact if we could remove much of the original equalisation the studios have in fact applied to make music stand out in the loudness wars over recent years that would be brilliant, (I am not claiming MQA does that)
  
 I repeat again. No one, repeat no one is claiming that what was not originally captured can be restored.  Meridian are not claiming MQA is completely lossless, only that "the human hearing system is sensitive to about 10 microseconds in time resolution and here’s the kicker: much/most of this resolution is destroyed in anything encoded digitally below a 192kHz sampling rate",. With MQA this hi-res data is stored completely below the noise floor thus reducing file size significantly. If you don't have a decoder the file plays as a regular PCM file so it won't cost you a bean other than the purchase of the file.  MQA requires to be decoded to get the full benefits and that is where the additional cost kicks in, (only if you want it). Streaming/downloading services don't have to store different versions of millions of albums plus all the backups.
  
 this link might be of help, it is nearly 9 mins long and explains in general terms what its all about.  It does not go into great technical detail, I guess Meridian are not going to let anyone near that for obvious reasons-        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VvIGzGWSK48 
 Ask your self this after watching the video.  Why would someone go to all the bother of developing a technology that you can use for free unless they were certain that you will want to invest in the technology to gain the full benefits.
  
 I am not going to pursue the thread any further, I have done my limited best to dispel some misconceptions and I repeat for the last time.  You don't have to believe anybody, listen for yourself and then dismiss it as rubbish if you think it is, if you don't want to listen then that's OK if your happy with that.  Because we don't understand something does not make it wrong any more than accepting something just because someone says so is equally wrong but I guess that's a lesson from history all cultures have chosen or mistakenly ignored.
  
 Happy listening


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## ralphp@optonline

> Originally Posted by *Gringo* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> points 1&2  Any CD or audio file either streamed or downloaded has to be sampled regardless off the original master being analogue or digital which you obviously already understand.
> therefore new improved sampling using latest technology of analogue will inevitably produce better results. As you will know DACs have come on a long way.
> ...


 
 Your answers only serve to prove just how totally clueless you are about digital audio,which is of course the main reason that you believe the nonsense that Meridian is pedaling. My guess is that you also believe those over priced cable ads with some model standing there in a white lab coat and the ridiculous "white papers" that the manufacturers provide. It's all just advertising, which is just another word for LIES.


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## bigshot

gringo said:


> Thank you, the link would be good.


 
  
 Here is how it works. You let me know if you want an ALAC or FLAC file. I will send you a download link. In the file are music samples- one choral and the other orchestral repeated ten times. The samples were selected by a golden eared audiophile as being the most difficult music for lossy formats to compress. One of the ten is the original lossless version. The other nine are Fraunhofer MP3, LAME MP3 and AAC at 192, 256 and 320. You listen to the samples and rank them from best to worst. Then you send your ranking to me, and I will tell you what each sample was. It's actually quite fun. But there is one rule that you have to agree to. This is a listening test only. You have to promise not to open the file in a sound editing program.
  
 PM me and let me know if you would like ALAC or FLAC and I will send it to you.


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## Gringo

Your rudeness says everything. As I have said several times now, you don't need to believe me, that's ok. Go and listen for your self? your silence on that point is deafening. I will leave you to have the last word as clearly that's all your interested in. 

All the best to you, goodbye and try and enjoy life.


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## bigshot

gringo said:


> The human hearing system is sensitive to about 10 microseconds in time resolution


 
  
 That figure is WAY off. The JDT (just detectable threshold) for group delay (phase shift) for humans is 1 to 3 milliseconds. A millisecond is a thousandth of a second. Very very small. 10 microseconds is 100 times smaller than that- infinitesimally small... no way any human on earth could come anywhere close to detecting that. Perhaps you mean 10 milliseconds, in which case a 44.1 sampling rate would exceed that by 4,410 times. Even using my worst case figure of 1ms, Redbook exceeds that by 441 times.


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## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> Your rudeness says everything. As I have said several times now, you don't need to believe me, that's ok. Go and listen for your self? your silence on that point is deafening. I will leave you to have the last word as clearly that's all your interested in.
> 
> All the best to you, goodbye and try and enjoy life.


 

 I'm being rude!?!?!
  
 I've asked you several times to get your facts straight but yet you still have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and just parrot back the nonsense that Meridian is spitting out. Here's a clue: learn what resampling means. Learn what a digital recording is. Learn what an analog recording is. Learn what a master recording is. Learn what a remastered recording is. And finally learn to think for yourself.


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## Don Hills

gringo said:


> ...  "the human hearing system is sensitive to about 10 microseconds in time resolution and here’s the kicker: much/most of this resolution is destroyed in anything encoded digitally below a 192kHz sampling rate" ...


 
  
 That resolution is 10 microseconds ITD, not absolute. In other words, the difference in arrival time of (a) sound at each ear. That is not affected by the sampling rate, which of course affects both channels (ears) equally. The actual, achievable time resolution of a 44.1 KHz 16 bit digital stream is in the nanosecond range, acknowledged by Stuart himself (his exact words were "effectively infinite".)


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## stv014

> Originally Posted by *Gringo* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> I repeat again. No one, repeat no one is claiming that what was not originally captured can be restored.  Meridian are not claiming MQA is completely lossless, only that "the human hearing system is sensitive to about 10 microseconds in time resolution and here’s the kicker: much/most of this resolution is destroyed in anything encoded digitally below a 192kHz sampling rate"


 
  
 If you have not watched it already, check this video at about 20:30-22:00. It shows that the "time resolution" of sampled audio is not limited to integer samples.


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## britneedadvice

Hi
  
 I'm old ! I try to understand the 'modern' technology. Within a couple of minutes I have a brain seizure. I am not interested in how it works, only if it does.I'm an ex UK Police Officer,I deal in facts. The facts here (as far as I'm concerned) are only "does it sound better". Simple. Please do not ask me any technical questions.
  
 I already owned  the Meridian Media System. In my Speaker system I have the VTL Amp and in my Headphone System, an Apex Teton/HD800- both systems being fully 'Entreq' ed - Grounded etc)I have several of my highly regarded (Classical)CDs downloaded to my HiFi Dealers Meridian system.(for me to use when I audition products)
  
 So, I have today been to audition 'MQA'  System 818v3/ DSP 7200SE. Also present was the Rep from Meridian who gave me the full tech talk(yawn yawn).I had already spoken with my Dealer stating I wanted an A/B audition to compare with my own system.Not only was that not available but neither was there any music available to which I was familiar!! That is, Classical music downloaded in the MQA format.(so not the basis for a  'great' audition!!)
  
 So the first track played was a Dave Burbeck track 'remastered' from 1953(something I had never heard before). This was clearly impressive. However, I had no way of telling what this was due to?? Recording, Source or Equipment!! So in many ways a totally worthless experience!! This continued with several other pieces of 'unknown' music all of which was clearly impressive.
  
 The Rep left the Demo Room and I was free to speak to the Dealer.I asked if he could play some of my previously held recordings through the 'normal' Meridian Media System.
 (sorry you'll have to research that if you are not familiar with it)
  
 So now I've done some sort of A/B comparison. 'My' music, which I otherwise thought was special was ..............Crap!!!!!!!  Totally dull
  
 This audition left me with more questions than it answered! I rang the Dealer when I got home.   "Did 'my music' really sound that bad? I asked
  
 There's many questions yet to be answered before I buy this 'system' (bear in mind that I've already have the 818v2 , so I'm only talking about an 'upgrade').
  
 This audition didn't even leave me with the knowledge to give you any idea just how much better the MQA sounded. So sorry, I can't help any more but I will definitely be going back for more!!
  
 So, whatever the tech bits say, I suggest approach it with an 'open mind'


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## bigshot

It really helps to understand how digital audio works. I am an old coot from the analogue days too, but I made an effort to figure out the basics. It has helped me build a great sounding system and helped me with making sure I was getting bang for my buck and not throwing good money after bad. I use AAC 256 VBR exclusively in my system. It has compact file sizes and sounds as good as any other format to human ears. I know that because I personally tested it and a lot of people I know have tested it too. Not just informal comparisons, but carefully prepared line level matched, direct A/B switched blind comparisons. The problem isn't file sizes and bitrates. I know that for sure now.
  
 There is too much gobble-de-gook in high end audio. Many manufacturers deliberately try to fudge their explanations and confuse their own customers to get them to give up and just put their faith in whatever they are told by the salesman. That's what is happening here.
  
 Understanding isn't complicated. It just takes a little bit of time and effort. It's worth it.


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## britneedadvice

Hi
 As stated,I try to understand the technology as much as possible but........!!
  
 Further to my comments above.I've just finished penning an email to my HiFi Dealer following my audition of the MQA.
  
 The audition was not a total success as I was not able to do A/B tests with my equipment/music. This was an audition presented by  Meridian and as such they used their Speakers and their choice of music (which I didn't know) .I just didn't fully engage with the sound ,why I just don't know.
  
 Three issues were very clearly audible !. something good was happening with MQA. 2. 'My' music - which as I previously mentioned, is held by the Dealer on their Meridian hard drive, sounded awful by comparison !! 3. music streamed from Tidal was equally as bad(as my music) !!
  
 I don't know all the answers yet so don't ask. I understand the music used in the initial demo had been MQAed from original source and downloaded to the system. So, not from Tidal.
  
 I made the comment ( to my Dealer) Is MQA being pushed out too soon? Certainly when I next audition it ( and I will as I believe there's something special going on here ) it will be with my system and with my music.
  
 So,I simply make the point ( to those who state it can't possibly work) try it !


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## bigshot

I have a funny story that might be pertinent...
  
 I was in the market for speakers and I went to a stereo store that had a great selection in their audition room. The salesman was very nice and attentive. He operated the switcher for me, so I pointed at the speakers I wanted to hear and he directed the switcher to them. I noticed that whenever he switched to a particularly expensive brand, the sound would get fuller... not right away, but after a second or two. I thought it was odd that the sound was changing, so I kept my eye on him as he switched to them. He was facing me and turned to switch, then turned back to face me with his hands behind his back. I noticed a slight movement in his shoulder that looked odd. So I moved to the side and asked him to switch a couple times more. This time, I clearly saw his hands behind his back doing something with a dial on an amp behind him.
  
 I asked him to kill the sound for a second. He turned around and turned the amp off that was right where his hands had been diddling a minute before. I politely said, "You know you are very helpful, but I'm never going to be able to figure out which speakers I want to buy if you keep adjusting the tone controls every time you switch." He turned beet red and glared at me with an expression of extreme hatred, and instantly changed into the least helpful salesman in the world. I sent him away and operated the switcher myself. When I decided which ones I wanted, he totally refused to acknowledge me or write me up, so I found the youngest kid salesman on the floor and gave him the credit for the commission.
  
 High end audio salesmen have their own circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno... right in-between personal injury attorneys and used car salesmen.


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## bigshot

I heard from someone who looked up MQA's patent. Apparently most of it has to do with authorization keys and DRM. Not surprising, I guess. No one would buy into it for sound quality. That's already been done.


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## britneedadvice

Hi
 I try very hard not to post too much on Head-fi due to the many negative comments that the site seems to generate.
 However, there are many wise members who's views are diminished due to the volume of uninformed information.
 If I can identify such members and I believe they have knowledge that would be useful to me , I ask.
 I initially was going to answer the above by way of PM but have decided to post here.
  
 I am an older man. I do not keep myself informed with the latest technology,gimmicks or otherwise.
 As stated, I'm an ex Police Officer , so I'm a disbeliever of most things I hear until I can prove it for myself.
  
 As far as MQA is concerned , you seem very sceptical ?
 I assume you've auditioned it?
 I made the point 'try it and see.'
  
 You make the point regarding the  Salesman. So, you obviously have proved that the Salesman in question is unreliable. I have full faith in my HiFi Dealer.Yes, they may try and sell me say  'Stillpoints', so I audition them, then take them home and audition them against against say HRH. I then do 'blind' auditions with my wife. Sometimes I don't agree with them and so I tell them. They may argue that stillpoints are technically better than anything else.I don't care. I trust my own ears!
  
 ....and so, your latest PM interests me. "it's been done before" . Can you please send me details. I would like to have something to compare MQA with.Clearly , if there's something out there  which may even be cheaper, seems like a good idea to 'try it' ?? My sceptical mind tells me it's not possible to register a patent of something that's already been done??So, I assume Meridian are in for a legal fight?
  
 I've already stated that for me , MQA still needs to prove itself. However, from what I've heard, the signs are good! That's all !!
 I've questioned my Dealer about certain matters. When they receive their upgraded 818v3 they will bring it to my house(as they always do) and I can do my own auditions with no tricks attached!! I'll let you know.


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## bigshot

I've done direct A/B comparisons between 24/96 and 16/44.1 and AAC 256. They all sounded exactly the same. Audibly transparent is audibly transparent. Once a file format is capable of exactly reproducing a sound signal accurately enough that human ears can't hear any difference, then it can't be any better. It can only be just as good.
  
 MQA doesn't claim to *improve* sound. It claims that it can stream sound that has bigger file sizes due to higher bitrates. If higher bitrates don't matter, then the whole concept is pointless. If it is accurate, it sounds the same. If it isn't accurate, I don't want it hard wired into a file format. If it alters the sound in an effort to improve the sound, I want it in an optional, adjustable, bypassable DSP.
  
 However, it is interesting to see them prevaricate and slide around on the facts in their promotional material. While they are standing up front talking about how inaudible frequencies are audible, they are sneaking digital rights management in through the back door. I think that is the main purpose for this. Since high bitrate audio has always been primarily a thing for recording studios, there has been no purpose in locking it up with DRM. Now audiophiles are lusting after bigger and bigger numbers, so it's time to put a lock on that door I guess.
  
 In the meantime, open source formats with MUCH more efficient file sizes and ones that are MUCH easier to stream that sound EXACTLY the same are already out there for those who listen with their ears, not numbers on a spec sheet.


----------



## Steve Eddy

Just as "sex sells," so do numbers.

se


----------



## bigshot

It's funny, because people keep saying, "Listen to it and make up your mind" but when you say, "I've already listened to AAC 256 which is audibly perfect,  smaller, more efficient to stream and open source"; then they turn around and start pointing at the numbers to convince you that you are missing something. If I can't hear it, I don't care. I don't need inaudible frequencies.


----------



## sonitus mirus

Any music used to showcase MQA is certain to sound wonderful.  With nothing to fairly compare it to in an unbiased manner, the listener is simply hearing a really good song.  It should sound exactly the same in any audibly transparent format played at an equal volume level on the same gear.
  
 It's not the MQA file responsible for the sound quality, but that point is being missed by many that are raving about it.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

sonitus mirus said:


> Any music used to showcase MQA is certain to sound wonderful.  With nothing to fairly compare it to in an unbiased manner, the listener is simply hearing a really good song.  It should sound exactly the same in any audibly transparent format played at an equal volume level on the same gear.
> 
> It's not the MQA file responsible for the sound quality, but that point is being missed by many that are raving about it.


 

 I disagree - the many who are raving about MQA include Meridian and lots of individuals from the high end audio press, both print and online, and they all know better but since there is money to made they gladly and very willingly play dumb.


----------



## sonitus mirus

ralphp@optonline said:


> I disagree - the many who are raving about MQA include Meridian and lots of individuals from the high end audio press, both print and online, and they all know better but since there is money to made they gladly and very willingly play dumb.


 
  
 I suppose the point is being intentionally ignored, rather than missed.  
  
 Perhaps "strategically ignored" is more appropriate?


----------



## ralphp@optonline

sonitus mirus said:


> I suppose the point is being intentionally ignored, rather than missed.
> 
> Perhaps "strategically ignored" is more appropriate?


 

 I think "deliberately ignored" says it best.


----------



## Greenears

sonitus mirus said:


> Any music used to showcase MQA is certain to sound wonderful.  With nothing to fairly compare it to in an unbiased manner, the listener is simply hearing a really good song.  It should sound exactly the same in any audibly transparent format played at an equal volume level on the same gear.
> 
> It's not the MQA file responsible for the sound quality, but that point is being missed by many that are raving about it.



Just in case an innocent reader stumbles into this thread unsuspectingly.....

....They should know that there is an easy test for all of these claims. Simply take Meridien's choice of best example of their remastered audio, play it on their best equipment, then loop the analog out through a soundcard recording and play back at 16 bit. If you fail the ABX you have proved it is the mastering and not the format. 

This test is easy to do and controls for all the unknowns argued at length herein. Until that has been done I for one will ignore this thread.


----------



## bigshot

That test isn't going to be performed as long as the fox is in the chicken coop so to speak. It's going to take a third party overseeing to filter out all the deliberate deceptions by the salesmen.


----------



## FFBookman

Wow, who can't hear 256k mp3 


bigshot said:


> It doesn't matter whether it's redbook. I'd love to see someone discern AAC 256 VBR in a test with "HD" audio!


 

 Joking right? Who can't hear 256k mp3 sounding like a paper box compared to 16/44 and especially 24bit if you are fortunate enough to own all those versions of the same thing. I don't usually have 3 versions of the same song.
  
 Lots of ways to hide behind mastering sessions, volume, and other FUD. Of course 4000k stereo bitrate sounds better than 256k stereo bitrate.  Right?


----------



## FFBookman

sonitus mirus said:


> Any music used to showcase MQA is certain to sound wonderful.  With nothing to fairly compare it to in an unbiased manner, the listener is simply hearing a really good song.  It should sound exactly the same in any audibly transparent format played at an equal volume level on the same gear.
> 
> It's not the MQA file responsible for the sound quality, but that point is being missed by many that are raving about it.


 

 Seems to me that you are assuming the "audibly transparent format" part.  
  
 MQA is claiming to focus specifically on timing issues, the very thing that in PCM @ 24bit has over 16bit. 24bit PCM has never been about the raw frequency response and "dog" frequencies, it's about accuracy of delays, slapbacks, timbre, and room sound. That is almost all timing. So I think MQA deserves a shot.
  
 I haven't heard it, they don't invite me to high end anything. I know the PonoPlayer plays PCM pretty nicely at 16 and especially 24bit and doesn't require any new converters or copy-protection. But I pay for my music so the DRM fight is about other people for me.
  
 I guess all I'm saying is they appear to be going back to the drawing board and looking at PCM, and then applying Frauhauffer principles in compressing at the encoding level, not the post-encoded level like mp3. That's why it can be rolled easily into a FLAC or Ogg or any container.
  
 I think that's a noble mission, if they in fact managed to fix the timing issues in PCM and got rid of the lack of center and thinness of 16/44 PCM, and can do it at 320k instead of 1000k, that's not bad.
  
 It can also all be a ploy for new DRM by the labels. Time will tell.


----------



## DreamKing

ffbookman said:


> Wow, who can't hear 256k mp3
> 
> *Joking right? Who can't hear 256k mp3 sounding like a paper box compared to 16/44 and especially 24bit if you are fortunate enough to own all those versions of the same thing. I don't usually have 3 versions of the same song.*
> 
> Lots of ways to hide behind mastering sessions, volume, and other FUD. Of course 4000k stereo bitrate sounds better than 256k stereo bitrate.  Right?


 
  
 Yes, because 256k is not provided in 16 bits, nor 44khz...


----------



## FFBookman

dreamking said:


> Yes, because 256k is not provided in 16 bits, nor 44khz...


 

 Huh?  I don't think you understand loss.  I was using shorthand for mp3 lossy or 16/44 PCM.  You can say "mp3 is 16/44" all you want but it's not because it's lossy. 
  
 Data Removal. Lack of Bandwidth. Simple really.  
  
 People who claim they can't hear any differences between lossy and originals are the problem. There is so clearly a difference that their must be something else in your equation to get you to the conclusion that there is no difference between 256k and 1000k and 4000k/ second.


----------



## DreamKing

ffbookman said:


> Huh?  I don't think you understand loss.  I was using shorthand for mp3 lossy or 16/44 PCM.  You can say "mp3 is 16/44" all you want but it's not because it's lossy.
> 
> Data Removal. Lack of Bandwidth. Simple really.
> 
> People who claim they can't hear any differences between lossy and originals are the problem. There is so clearly a difference that their must be something else in your equation to get you to the conclusion that there is no difference between 256k and 1000k and 4000k/ second.


 
  
 It's still in 44khz sampling rate, bits aren't going to be 16 though you're right.
  
 But how is that a *problem*, anyway? It's not as if ALL we have as an option is 256k, why do you have to act like it.
  
 Do a relevant A/B test then we can talk until then:


----------



## bigshot

ffbookman said:


> Wow, who can't hear 256k mp3


 
  
 I have found that the point of audible transparency with lossy formats is 320 for LAME MP3 and 256 for AAC.


----------



## cjl

ffbookman said:


> MQA is claiming to focus specifically on timing issues, the very thing that in PCM @ 24bit has over 16bit. 24bit PCM has never been about the raw frequency response and "dog" frequencies, it's about accuracy of delays, slapbacks, timbre, and room sound. That is almost all timing. So I think MQA deserves a shot.


 
 You need to read up on sampling theory and how PCM audio actually works. 24 bit lowers the noise floor (if dither is used) and/or lowers the level of quantization distortion (if dither isn't used). This is the only effect that increased bit depth has (and it has never been shown to be an audible difference on any reasonable test sample). It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the timing of the samples or the resultant waveform.


----------



## calaf

ffbookman said:


> Joking right? Who can't hear 256k mp3 sounding like a paper box compared to 16/44


 
 I can't.
  
 I guess I am lucky enough that I start hearing the "paper box" effect you are allude to only at 128kbps or below. I can only hear differences between 192k and lossless if I stop listening to the music and focus on small details.
  
 This said, occasionally when I listen to spotify (320k ogg) for more than one hour or two at a time, I do feel a bit of aural fatigue which I imagine may come from digitization effects (or fperhaps from the crappy music I have sampled...)


----------



## DreamKing

bigshot said:


> I have found that the point of audible transparency with lossy formats is 320 for LAME MP3 and 256 for AAC.


 
  
 Yes, and I'd add v0. Though I still mainly have lossless copies of many records for archiving purposes.


----------



## RRod

calaf said:


> I can't.
> 
> I guess I am lucky enough that I start hearing the "paper box" effect you are allude to only at 128kbps or below. I can only hear differences between 192k and lossless if I stop listening to the music and focus on small details.
> 
> This said, occasionally when I listen to spotify (320k ogg) for more than one hour or two at a time, I do feel a bit of aural fatigue which I imagine may come from digitization effects (or fperhaps from the crappy music I have sampled...)


 
  
 Same way with me on mp3 bitrate. I have to do some pretty quick switching to ABX 192 from the WAV, and that's only on the kind of sounds where you'd expect issues. At 256 I don't even worry about it and just jam. I go ahead and use 256 AAC since it's more bang for the buck, but I probably couldn't ABX it versus 256 mp3.
  
 Any fatigue I used to get from long sessions is greatly reduced by crossfeed, even for uncompressed files. That's more a headphone thing than a bitrate thing, imo.


----------



## calaf

rrod said:


> Any fatigue I used to get from long sessions is greatly reduced by crossfeed, even for uncompressed files. That's more a headphone thing than a bitrate thing, imo.


 
 I could not live without crossfed! Big fan of Meier amps because of that


----------



## FFBookman

There's hope! You can recover your ears and learn how to hear (again?).  
  
 Most of it is just removing all compression and digital artifacts.  Whether you think you can hear them or not -- they are still there. No point in accepting 50% of the file when you have space for 100% of it. Whether you think you hear it or not, it's there, it's musical content, and it's very important.  
  
 Once you are feeding yourself uncompressed audio, cd quality at least, with no modern fx or garbage boosters, then work on the quality of recordings and your playback rig.  Explore different styles of music, quieter, out of your comfort zone. Leave the volume alone and force your ears to listen for details.  
  
 Try to bring music out of the background sometimes. I listen while I work like everyone else, but try at least once a day to just sit and listen with nothing to do with your hands or to look at. Focus on it, you will start to hear details.
  
 I'm convinced your ears and your mood will improve if you follow these simple suggestions. MP3 was a really great bit of technology that has done invisible damage to all of us.


----------



## FFBookman

cjl said:


> You need to read up on sampling theory and how PCM audio actually works. 24 bit lowers the noise floor (if dither is used) and/or lowers the level of quantization distortion (if dither isn't used). This is the only effect that increased bit depth has (and it has never been shown to be an audible difference on any reasonable test sample). It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the timing of the samples or the resultant waveform.


 

 I've read quite a bit, thx. Always more to read.  Anytime someone says absolutely nothing whatsoever I see three negatives which equals a positive. Maybe there's something about the way PCM encodes stereo that we both need to read more about?
  
 I suspect dither across the stereo field smears or alters something in the sound field. I hear dithering pretty easily, and I've compared various dithers from my rig and the more expensive ones from my mastering engineer's rig. There are differences in dither algorithms and noise shaping. Nothing ever sounds as "big" after dithering. All the glue between the sounds is different, which is why going back to (or creating from tape) 24bit masters is the best way to go.
  
 Dithering is digital fuzz at the waveform level, done to fool the ear into missing the downsample artifacts. It works for this but it also degrades the musical program.
  
 I also know that filters needed to anti-alias the audio on playback ring more at lower sample rates. This ringing shows in the time smear.
  
 Overall there's plenty more to properly playing back stereo audio than db's and frequency range.


----------



## RRod

ffbookman said:


> I've read quite a bit, thx. Always more to read.  Anytime someone says absolutely nothing whatsoever I see three negatives which equals a positive. Maybe there's something about the way PCM encodes stereo that we both need to read more about?
> 
> I suspect dither across the stereo field smears or alters something in the sound field. I hear dithering pretty easily, and I've compared various dithers from my rig and the more expensive ones from my mastering engineer's rig. There are differences in dither algorithms and noise shaping. Nothing ever sounds as "big" after dithering. All the glue between the sounds is different, which is why going back to (or creating from tape) 24bit masters is the best way to go.
> 
> ...


 
  
 If you're music doesn't have much signal near the 16bit noise floor, you can get away with reducing the bit-depth even without dither and still not hear a difference in a blind test. I can get some loud tracks down to 8 bit and not hear any difference (blind) unless it's during some kind of fade. "Hearing dither" is easy if you jack up the volume and don't have any loud signal to blow your ears out suddenly, but that isn't important to actual music. But I really shouldn't waste my breath anyway.


----------



## bigshot

ffbookman said:


> I'm convinced your ears and your mood will improve if you follow these simple suggestions. MP3 was a really great bit of technology that has done invisible damage to all of us.


 
  
 Back in March, I sent you a test file with samples of various lossy codecs and bitrates, and you said you were going to listen to and identify the compressed samples. Have you had a chance to do that yet? If you let me know what you think of each sample 1 to 10, I'll let you know which ones are which.


----------



## bigshot

ffbookman said:


> I suspect dither across the stereo field smears or alters something in the sound field.


 
  
 Dithering has nothing to do with resolution. It's simply a tool for lowering the noise floor down even further below already pretty much inconsequential levels.


----------



## FFBookman

rrod said:


> If you're music doesn't have much signal near the 16bit noise floor, you can get away with reducing the bit-depth even without dither and still not hear a difference in a blind test. I can get some loud tracks down to 8 bit and not hear any difference (blind) unless it's during some kind of fade. "Hearing dither" is easy if you jack up the volume and don't have any loud signal to blow your ears out suddenly, but that isn't important to actual music. But I really shouldn't waste my breath anyway.


 

 Why the "get away with"  ?
  
 Same as "good enough"  ?
  
 Same as "digital instruments"  ?
  
 Same as "plugins are as good as the real thing" ?
  
 Same as "my behringer preamp sounds about the same as an allen & heath"  ?
  
 None of this is the same, and i'm not that interested in what you can get away with in this discussion. I can get away with making all music 128k MP3 or 8bit files. I can create all the instruments on my laptop. But it sounds horrible and conveys none of the original intent, so I didn't get away with it. I just made crappier product.
  
 Dither is FUZZ.  Look at it, see what it does to your waveform. It rapidly rise and falls to fool the ear and cover up downsample artifacts.
  
 I am on head-fi because I wanted to see if any music listeners still cared about audio quality.
  
 I know on the production side most still do, but most clients demand plug-ins and massive loudness, and something that pops in MP3 format. There's so many production tricks now you wouldn't even believe what they have to do to make MP3 sound even close to the mixes of classic albums. It would really suck to be paying someone thousands of dollars in a studio right now, knowing that even some people on a board called "head-fi" claim there's no difference between 320k bitrate and 1000k "lossless", and somehow no advantage to hearing the 4000k (actually lossless) version they made in the studio.  Crazy.


----------



## bigshot

ffbookman said:


> I am on head-fi because I wanted to see if any music listeners still cared about audio quality.


 
  
 Any results to post on the audio quality of the samples I sent you?


----------



## FFBookman

bigshot said:


> Dithering has nothing to do with resolution. It's simply a tool for lowering the noise floor down even further below already pretty much inconsequential levels.


 

 Haha dithering has everything to do with resolution. It's only needed when switching resolutions, specifically going down.
  
 It's a method to hide downsample artifacts.  It is rapid up/down of waveform using different shapes to inject a random noise to cover quantization issues. Why? Because random noise is easier to tolerate than quantization errors. That doesn't mean it's somehow removing the degradation. It is not, and it's easy to hear.
  
 Since many of you don't "believe" in higher sample rates anyway, it's convenient how many don't understand dither and don't understand what is actually getting removed or altered when you downsample 24 to 16bit.
  
 So keep talking dynamic range, db's and freq because that's what you can measure. Keep your head in the sand for everything you can't measure like soundstage, timbre, number of voices, delay accuracy, and reverb interactions -- that's where musicians, tracking, and mixing engineers make their living.
  
 Then of course there's a whole new round of degradation going to mp3 that i still can't believe some of you are in denial of. You are going backwards. Digital quality requires higher resolution than we could manage in 1978. That's why none of you watch tele @ 400x256 resolution anymore, like you did when CD was invented.
  
 If you understood all of that, if you played an instrument into a microphone recorded at 24bit, then downsampled/dithered to 16/44, then compressed to 320k mp3, you would hear 3 quality reductions --  from live to 24bit recording, then dithered to 16bit, then compressed to mp3.  
  
 In what is obvious to me - your bitrate would also go down each step,  from around 3000k to 1000k to 320k.  It is me who is wasting my breath at this point. 
  
 Only in audio do seemingly smart people think that 320k = 1000k, and that 1000k = 3000k.


----------



## bigshot

I have prepared the results for your listening test as soon as you'd like to post your impressions of samples 1 to 10. You said you would listen to the file in your Pono. I would be interested to hear if the Pono reveals artifacting that other players don't.


----------



## FFBookman

bigshot said:


> Any results to post on the audio quality of the samples I sent you?


 

 I just remembered that, no, I haven't done your test yet. I did just get my recording rig back up and running so I'd like to run the test on those converters, and I'll also load it up into my ponoplayer to test on that. Not tonight though, I've been power sanding the bathroom today and my whole body is vibrated out, my ears are filled with plaster dust and I don't think I can pass any test at the moment.


----------



## bigshot

You aren't allowed to open the file on your recording rig, remember? You agreed that you would just listen and not examine waveforms. Just load it on your pono and listen and make notes on the samples from 1 to 10. Let me know which sounded best and worst, and which ones were in-between. Try and rank them as best as you can. When you post your results, I'll let you know what each sample is.


----------



## RRod

ffbookman said:


> Why the "get away with"  ?
> 
> Same as "good enough"  ?
> 
> ...


 
  
 Well this IS the sound science forum, so "get away with" = "cannot distinguish in a double blind test." If you want some other standard, you can just stay in the Pono thread awaiting your knighting by HRH olddude.
  
 So yes, for these particular tracks, 8bits does not make a horrible sound, because they are exactly the kind of tracks where we expect this to be the case: loud tracks with no dynamism. Audbility has much to do with the particulars of a track, which is exactly why some tracks work with more compression than others as well.
  
 I know about dither. It rises and falls quickly because it's random noise. And yes, it's there to cover up quantization (not down-sampling) artifacts, but you can only hear those artifacts in the first place if they are loud enough to punch through the music, and they often are not, especially for tracks/genres mastered loud and with no dynamics. We know how this stuff works; extensive papers have been written. You can't change that by putting forward unsubstantiated, cockamamie ideas.
  
 I have plenty of CDs made in the last 5 years that I would happily put into a Pepsi challenge with 24-bit remasterings of the pre-digital catalog. The simple fact is that many of the albums people are fawning over at 24/96 could be downsampled to 12/38 and most people wouldn't be the wiser if they heard the tracks blind. You seem to listen to your music with your eyes. I listen with my ears.


----------



## FFBookman

Dude I listen with my ears. Produce and mix with them too. My ears only. That's why I ignore these incomplete theories, bad math, and flawed tests trying to prove me wrong. I go by sound, emotion, and enjoyment. And since most of the artists I listen to made classic albums going back 50 years, and most are legends, I know I'm not the only one who works like this. It's all that really matters - the tech debates are a side-note.
  
 And I listen to almost nothing created in the last 10-15 years. So much Garbage. I "approve" of like 10 artists out now, and even most of them can't afford a properly recorded and mastered album. It's all laptops and plugins, fixing every mistake, auto-tuning, drum replacement, EDM, EWW.
  
 Almost all of is it over -compressed, so loud, brick wall limiting everywhere, ridiculous side-chaining and automated compression envelopes making the sad little mp3 format sound "big". But it's so tiny, like a little baby piece of wannabee music.
  
 I refuse to use new music productions in these debates. They are so poorly made, because of this environment of MP3 and phones and streaming that we live in, that it's useless to use these as test recordings.
  
 Go back and listen to sam cooke at 24bit.  Go back and listen to led zeppelin at 24bit. Go back and listen to Stevie Wonder at 24bit. Use a good DAP for it.  Then put on the MP3 and maybe you'll see all of your bad math in a different light.


----------



## RRod

ffbookman said:


> Dude I listen with my ears. Produce and mix with them too. My ears only. That's why I ignore these incomplete theories, bad math, and flawed tests trying to prove me wrong. I go by sound, emotion, and enjoyment. And since most of the artists I listen to made classic albums going back 50 years, and most are legends, I know I'm not the only one who works like this. It's all that really matters - the tech debates are a side-note.
> 
> And I listen to almost nothing created in the last 10-15 years. So much Garbage. I "approve" of like 10 artists out now, and even most of them can't afford a properly recorded and mastered album. It's all laptops and plugins, fixing every mistake, auto-tuning, drum replacement, EDM, EWW.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Except the albums I'm referring to aren't in those genres. And the math of quantization error is basically "rounding." Not something that's particularly mind-boggling or only recently investigated. And I have listened to Zeppelin at 24-bits, and guess what? I could quantize down to 14bit without dither and still not hear a difference blind. One needs to close his eyes every now and then.


----------



## bigshot

ffbookman said:


> Dude I listen with my ears. Produce and mix with them too.


 
  
 I had one person who took my test who listened with his ears. But when his ears failed to do what he was convinced they could do, his ego made him resort to peeping at waveforms. I'm glad you won't need to do that and will accept what your ears tell you.


----------



## cjl

ffbookman said:


> I've read quite a bit, thx. Always more to read.  Anytime someone says absolutely nothing whatsoever I see three negatives which equals a positive. Maybe there's something about the way PCM encodes stereo that we both need to read more about?


 
 PCM stereo is simply 2 separate PCM streams with the samples placed at the same instant in time. There's nothing fancy, difficult to understand, or otherwise confusing about it.
  
 Also:
  
 Absolutely: Positive, used for emphasis
 Nothing: Negative
 Whatsoever: Positive, used for emphasis
  
 So, the phrase "absolutely nothing whatsoever" contains a negation and two positive emphasis terms, which overall results in a clearly negative statement. Amusingly, even if you were right here, 3 negatives would still be a negative, since it would be the negation of a double negative (which can be considered to be positive).
  
  
  


ffbookman said:


> I suspect dither across the stereo field smears or alters something in the sound field. I hear dithering pretty easily, and I've compared various dithers from my rig and the more expensive ones from my mastering engineer's rig. There are differences in dither algorithms and noise shaping. Nothing ever sounds as "big" after dithering. All the glue between the sounds is different, which is why going back to (or creating from tape) 24bit masters is the best way to go.


 
 And I assume you can demonstrate your ability to hear dither in a 16 bit, 44.1kHz (or higher) PCM stream in a double blind listening test, right?
  


ffbookman said:


> Dithering is digital fuzz at the waveform level, done to fool the ear into missing the downsample artifacts. It works for this but it also degrades the musical program.


 
 Dithering is low-level noise, similar to tape hiss (though much quieter than tape hiss), which is added to digital recordings to decorrelate the bit level rounding errors from the musical content. Far from degrading the musical program, it actually increases (slightly) the effective resolution of the digital format.
  


ffbookman said:


> I also know that filters needed to anti-alias the audio on playback ring more at lower sample rates. This ringing shows in the time smear.


 
 This ringing is not audible for 16/44.1 with any reasonable filter
  


ffbookman said:


> Overall there's plenty more to properly playing back stereo audio than db's and frequency range.


 
 Sure, but nothing you're bringing up is important in this regard, and simply adding more bits doesn't address any real problems with digital (or analog) audio. There are lots of important factors in attaining the best possible playback quality in digital audio, and chasing after irrelevant things like 24 bit audio and high sample rates is distracting you from worrying about the real things that matter to get great sound.


----------



## icebear

I read a couple of articles incl. interviews with the Meridian developer of the MQA in the recent issue of A.S.
 From what I understand (which might not be the entire picture 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





) :
  
 Restoring the "natural" characteristic of an impulse, eliminating pre and post ringing to less the 10 micro seconds is key for improved sound.
 They abandon the so far common principle of bit length and only use the required bit length in certain areas of the frequency spectrum.
 They show some illustrations of frequency analysis with a triangle indicating the important audible information area.
 Additional high frequency information gets coded and packed into areas below audible spectrum.
 This enables a "one file fits all" and at the same time significant reduction in file size.
  
 At replay a special decoder unpacks / unfolds the hidden information.
 The level of unfolding depends on the device the MQA file is played but the files is identical for all applications.
 The decoder picks up file info about the entire recording/mastering chain and processes the file accordingly.
 If that process is triggered properly the MQA light will indicate that you are in heaven
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




.
  
 This entire idea, at least the of cramming information into areas with no audible info - or at least the visual explanation of it seems not conclusive.
 The spectral analysis graphs are integrated plots after the fact. Analysis of the entire file once it has been recorded - or played.
 Music is continuous, how can you hide information in "areas" with no audible information when the music is continous?
 That's beyond me frankly 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




.
  
 A side from this aspect the more essential question or fact is that all files have to be remastered using the proprietary Meridian MQA process - and the user will have to buy all the files once over again. And of course buy an MQA capable playback device.
  
 If the crucial improvement is the reduction or pre and post riniging to restore impluses to the level of the microphone feed, then I guess this can also be achieved with exisiting file formats.
  
 Am I missing some obvious aspects of this new MQA format?


----------



## FFBookman

icebear said:


> I read a couple of articles incl. interviews with the Meridian developer of the MQA in the recent issue of A.S.
> From what I understand (which might not be the entire picture
> 
> 
> ...


 
  
  
  
 That's about what I sorted out from my various readings and discussions with encoding and mastering experts. Until I hear MQA myself compared to 24bit PCM it's just a bunch of theory.
  
 What I worry about in this case is a lot of the arguments against Pono applying here -- marketing speak and confusing tech to cover the real business case.
  
 In the case of MQA, I think record label-backed DRM might be the real reason for it's push. We shall see.
  
 In the case of Pono, Neil Young being a greedy capitalist pig was the ridiculous accusation. But the product uses almost all open standards and open market concepts, and young is a hippy who has taken a loss on the financial end of this whole thing.
  
 That said, Pono is a niche success and the player is near perfect, while MQA doesn't stand a chance in hell at mainstream success (without apple).


----------



## bigshot

ffbookman said:


> That's about what I sorted out from my various readings and discussions with encoding and mastering experts. Until I hear MQA myself compared to 24bit PCM it's just a bunch of theory.


 
  
 about the same as the difference between redbook and lossy in the test I sent you!


----------



## bigshot

(I realize though that the more pressure I put on you to complete the test, the more likely you are to peep at waveforms. But I don't care about convincing other people. I'm trying to help you figure things out.)


----------



## SandAndGlass

Greetings bigshot,
  
 I had read some of your posts since the end of last summer, tried to join on a few occasions before but my IE browser did not display the captcha's to enter. This time, I guessed that was maybe due to me not using any Adobe products on my laptop, I tried again using the Chrome browser and BINGO, success.
  
 I hadn't had any headphones since my rather old Sony's purchased some years back and was looking for info for some new headphones. When HiFiMan came up with some new models, I purchased their older, discounted HE-400's last fall, as I wanted to be able to have a more concise source than my speakers to better evaluate the resolution of digital music.
  
 I was interested in the new high resolution formats thinking that they may make some of the music fuller and richer than many CD's I have listened to in the past. I had never been a fan in the past of poorly sounding MP3 players and MP3 coded music files.
  
 A few years back, I had discovered significant improvements in compressed (MP3) digital music and figured that if MP3's could actually be made to sound good, then surely the new HD formats could really sound good. That's when I came across your posts with regard to MP3 at 320 kilobit rates and AAC 256. They made me stop and reevaluate things.
  
 I have been using Peachtree products for a few years now and agree with their product philosophy of getting the most out of MP3 files. I have set up my digital system around their products with good audio success. Right now, I am listening to paid Pandora at 192 KBS and I am under the opinion that I am able to stream at that bit rate and have it sound good to my ears. At this point, I have no complaints about the audio quality that I am hearing. I have yet to download a Hi-Res audio file.
  
 I would like to have the opportunity to download the test files that you have created and listen to them with my laptop connected to my iNova's USP input. I don't use the internal amp on the iNova and have several good quality amps and speakers to listen with. I am curious what my take on them will be?
  
 Best Regards,
  
 Larry


----------



## bigshot

Would you like FLAC or ALAC?


----------



## SandAndGlass

FLAC - I don't own any apple products, so that would be the best for me, my portable devices are all Android.


----------



## FFBookman

bigshot said:


> about the same as the difference between redbook and lossy in the test I sent you!


 

 Keep telling yourself that 320k = 1400k yet it never will.   It's a bad stance to try and hold.


----------



## cjl

ffbookman said:


> Keep telling yourself that 320k = 1400k yet it never will.   It's a bad stance to try and hold.


 
 It can absolutely sound identical, and you really aren't making a case otherwise. Instead of just standing there and yelling that "320k doesn't equal 1400k", how about you provide some evidence, such as an ABX you passed recently or something like that?


----------



## bigshot

cjl said:


> It can absolutely sound identical, and you really aren't making a case otherwise. Instead of just standing there and yelling that "320k doesn't equal 1400k", how about you provide some evidence, such as an ABX you passed recently or something like that?


 

 He just backed down from a promise he made last month to do a listening test for me and identify the lossless original sample mixed in among 9 lossy samples of various codecs and bitrates. I guess that answers the question.


----------



## FFBookman

bigshot said:


> He just backed down from a promise he made last month to do a listening test for me and identify the lossless original sample mixed in among 9 lossy samples of various codecs and bitrates. I guess that answers the question.


 

 Why would I possibly have to "prove" to you that 1400k > 320k  ? 
  
 That's not my job if you don't understand that.
  
 You are claiming that stereo-PCM sounds about the same to you at 320k as it does at 1400k (redbook). 
  
 And you are claiming, I guess, that 320k also sounds about the same to you as 4000k (24/192) with the same material?
  
 These are problems with your ears and your perception. These are not my problems.
  
  
 You "challenge" as it's constructed has nothing to do with basic math, it has to do with tricking your perception to convince you that smaller files are good enough.
  
 If they are good enough for you, guess what, you can have all the 320k mp3's in the world, for free, and you can probably fit 10 million of them on 3 SD cards.  Have a good time with that. When you want to hear the full version of your music, come find me.


----------



## FFBookman

cjl said:


> It can absolutely sound identical, and you really aren't making a case otherwise. Instead of just standing there and yelling that "320k doesn't equal 1400k", how about you provide some evidence, such as an ABX you passed recently or something like that?


 

 Not with stereo music, no way is it identical, unless the music was recorded :
  
 a) with so little headroom as to pump all program to the max
 b) using fake instruments at low bitrates
 c) with heavy digital processing on voice and anything natural
 d) using artificial (digital) reverbs
  
 If you bring me a piece of music that meets these 4 criteria it will be harder to tell the hi from the low, maybe impossible.
  
 But this is not because 320k = 1400k, it's because that artist/producer chose to only use 320k of bandwidth making that song.
  
 Why did they do that?  Because the lowest common denominator format is 320k and people like you run around trying to convince people that 10% = 100%.  
  
 For some reason you get traction in consumer audio world but not in any other digital media, because writing and discussing sound quality is something that goes into nerdland immediately. Convenience rules in the junk music world.


----------



## cjl

ffbookman said:


> Why would I possibly have to "prove" to you that 1400k > 320k  ?


 
 Because lots of tests have shown that it's an exceedingly subtle difference, only audible with very careful, fast-switch comparisons on specially chosen "killer" samples? You're the one making the claim that goes against the preponderance of current evidence, so you have to support it or we will assume that you're talking nonsense (and it seems that in this case, that's a pretty safe assumption).


----------



## bigshot

ffbookman said:


> Why would I possibly have to "prove" to you that 1400k > 320k  ?


 
  
 Uh... to back up your claim that the difference is easy to hear?
  
 I think it's pretty obvious that you KNOW that lossy can sound exactly like lossless and high bitrates don't matter. You just don't want to admit that you are wrong. If you truly believed what you say, you would think it would be very easy to prove your point and you would leap at the chance to prove all of us wrong.


----------



## FFBookman

bigshot said:


> Uh... to back up your claim that the difference is easy to hear?
> 
> I think it's pretty obvious that you KNOW that lossy can sound exactly like lossless and high bitrates don't matter. You just don't want to admit that you are wrong. If you truly believed what you say, you would think it would be very easy to prove your point and you would leap at the chance to prove all of us wrong.


 

 320k ≠ 4000k.
  
 320k ≠ 1000k.
  
 Amazing you "science" people are so afraid of the basic bandwidth math involved here.


----------



## bigshot

Strutting about making noise doth not a point prove.


----------



## RRod

ffbookman said:


> 320k ≠ 4000k.
> 
> 320k ≠ 1000k.
> 
> Amazing you "science" people are so afraid of the basic bandwidth math involved here.


 
  
 And 4000k != 4000000000000000k. What's your point? At some point we can hear tones. You're offering no proof to the contrary, just tired appeals to "math". You sully the word.


----------



## FFBookman

cjl said:


> Because lots of tests have shown that it's an exceedingly subtle difference, only audible with very careful, fast-switch comparisons on specially chosen "killer" samples? You're the one making the claim that goes against the preponderance of current evidence, so you have to support it or we will assume that you're talking nonsense (and it seems that in this case, that's a pretty safe assumption).


 

 I'm talking truth, you people are so full of nonsense with these "preponderance of current evidence"  
  
  
 GIVE ME A BREAK.
  
  Go into a recording studio and tell me about evidence.
  
 Talk to a mastering engineer that down samples all day and tell me about evidence.
  
 You people are literally fighting a fight from like 1992, when computers started getting fast enough to move more than 16bit data around.
  
  
 You are the funniest group of crazies on the internet.   Not like political nuts, but your own special kind of "i'm smart yet totally confused" kind of way.
  
 I literally learned about 24bit audio 25 years ago. I finally heard it myself probably 18 years ago. I thought it was pretty obvious that the only reason to downsample music is convenience.
  
 If you are arguing about convenience, you have an argument.  A 5mb song file is more convenient than a 50mb file which is more convenient than a 200mb file. But guess what, the original always sounds better than the down samples.
  
 I'm trying to save you few backwards FUD spreaders from yourself, and I'm trying to help society by letting people know that you might sound smart but you have your heads so far up your azzes about this it's sad.


----------



## bigshot

ffbookman said:


> Go into a recording studio and tell me about evidence.


 
  
 Uh... I've supervised more recording sessions and sound mixes than I can count. You're marching around claiming victory, but you aren't interested in backing up anything you say. You have ten samples... nine of which you claim sound like they were recorded in a cardboard box. Just tell me which one doesn't sound like it was recorded in a cardboard box and I'll take you seriously again.


----------



## GearMe

Currawong said:
			
		

> .
> bigshot: Last I checked, this forum was about science. I don't recall it being "*Mock products I don't know anything about*." so I'm locking this thread.




Kinda feeling like Amos on this!

FWIW, I've got no dog in this fight either way...MQA could be a bunch of marketing hooey or a breakthrough; hoping for the latter but have been disappointed many times over the years.

That said, Bigshot, it would be much more helpful if you'd spent your time reviewing the paper Meridian submitted to the AES (http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=17501), summarizing the salient points for us in laymen's terms, and then refuting them one-by-one...just sayin'.

The stuff below is non-productive...


==========================================================================================================


bigshot said:


> I've done direct A/B switched, volume matched comparison using excellent equipment and multiple sets of ears. I also set up a listening test with Fraunhofer MP3, LAME MP3 and AAC from 192 to 320 against lossless and have provided the test to dozens of people. No one yet has been able to consistently ID much of anything above 192 Fraunhofer. If you would like to try the test yourself, I would be happy to give you a download link.







bigshot said:


> Here is how it works. You let me know if you want an ALAC or FLAC file. I will send you a download link. In the file are music samples- one choral and the other orchestral repeated ten times. The samples were selected by a golden eared audiophile as being the most difficult music for lossy formats to compress. One of the ten is the original lossless version. The other nine are Fraunhofer MP3, LAME MP3 and AAC at 192, 256 and 320. You listen to the samples and rank them from best to worst. Then you send your ranking to me, and I will tell you what each sample was. It's actually quite fun. But there is one rule that you have to agree to. This is a listening test only. You have to promise not to open the file in a sound editing program.
> 
> PM me and let me know if you would like ALAC or FLAC and I will send it to you.







bigshot said:


> I heard from someone who looked up MQA's patent. Apparently most of it has to do with authorization keys and DRM. Not surprising, I guess. No one would buy into it for sound quality. That's already been done.







bigshot said:


> It's funny, because people keep saying, "Listen to it and make up your mind" but when you say, "I've already listened to AAC 256 which is audibly perfect,  smaller, more efficient to stream and open source"; then they turn around and start pointing at the numbers to convince you that you are missing something. If I can't hear it, I don't care. I don't need inaudible frequencies.







bigshot said:


> I have found that the point of audible transparency with lossy formats is 320 for LAME MP3 and 256 for AAC.







bigshot said:


> Back in March, I sent you a test file with samples of various lossy codecs and bitrates, and you said you were going to listen to and identify the compressed samples. Have you had a chance to do that yet? If you let me know what you think of each sample 1 to 10, I'll let you know which ones are which.







bigshot said:


> Any results to post on the audio quality of the samples I sent you?







bigshot said:


> I have prepared the results for your listening test as soon as you'd like to post your impressions of samples 1 to 10. You said you would listen to the file in your Pono. I would be interested to hear if the Pono reveals artifacting that other players don't.







bigshot said:


> You aren't allowed to open the file on your recording rig, remember? You agreed that you would just listen and not examine waveforms. Just load it on your pono and listen and make notes on the samples from 1 to 10. Let me know which sounded best and worst, and which ones were in-between. Try and rank them as best as you can. When you post your results, I'll let you know what each sample is.







bigshot said:


> I had one person who took my test who listened with his ears. But when his ears failed to do what he was convinced they could do, his ego made him resort to peeping at waveforms. I'm glad you won't need to do that and will accept what your ears tell you.







bigshot said:


> about the same as the difference between redbook and lossy in the test I sent you!







bigshot said:


> (I realize though that the more pressure I put on you to complete the test, the more likely you are to peep at waveforms. But I don't care about convincing other people. I'm trying to help you figure things out.)







bigshot said:


> Uh... to back up your claim that the difference is easy to hear?
> 
> I think it's pretty obvious that you KNOW that lossy can sound exactly like lossless and high bitrates don't matter. You just don't want to admit that you are wrong. If you truly believed what you say, you would think it would be very easy to prove your point and you would leap at the chance to prove all of us wrong.







bigshot said:


> Strutting about making noise doth not a point prove.







bigshot said:


> Uh... I've supervised more recording sessions and sound mixes than I can count. You're marching around claiming victory, but you aren't interested in backing up anything you say. You have ten samples... nine of which you claim sound like they were recorded in a cardboard box. Just tell me which one doesn't sound like it was recorded in a cardboard box and I'll take you seriously again.


----------



## bigshot

Buy me a copy for my birthday and send it to me. I'm not subscribed to the AES, I'm afraid.


----------



## Harry Manback

"If you are arguing about convenience, you have an argument. A 5mb song file is more convenient than a 50mb file which is more convenient than a 200mb file. But guess what, the original always sounds better than the down samples."

What does bit depth have to do with sample rate? They are independent variables.


----------



## calaf

I beg to disagree with @GearMe and Currawong here. While bigshot may be accused of feeding a troll in this thread (and perhaps of trolling a fair bit on his own) his posts to this thread have followed a logical path. If I may try to summarize it as I reread the thread

 What is MQA?
Oh! It is about retrieving info above 44KHz. There is nothing audible above 44KHz.
The usual bandwidth arguments ensue. @bigshot offers other members to blind-test lossless/lossy and they tell him to get stuffed and go listen to MQA.
  
 How is that different from 99% of the discussions in the Sound Science forum, which I usually try to steer clear from precisely because threads never get anywhere?


----------



## Roly1650

calaf said:


> I beg to disagree with @GearMe
> and Currawong here. While bigshot may be accused of feeding a troll in this thread (and perhaps of trolling a fair bit on his own) his posts to this thread have followed a logical path. If I may try to summarize it as I reread the thread
> 
> What is MQA?
> ...



There's a #4 that needs adding: @bigshot, your posts have all been Schitt, but you need to buy this report I'm linking, study it and give us a complete synopsis of what it means.
Which would be amongst the most ridiculous posts I've read in Sound Science. And @bigshot was the problem?


----------



## nick_charles

roly1650 said:


> There's a #4 that needs adding: @bigshot, your posts have all been Schitt, but you need to buy this report I'm linking, study it and give us a complete synopsis of what it means.
> Which would be amongst the most ridiculous posts I've read in Sound Science. And @bigshot was the problem?


 
  
  
 Sigh, it is not even something as grand as a report of "something" it is a "this is what we are going to do based on some theory.." and it starts badly by talking about _diminishing returns_ when the ARA (Bob Stuart's posse) are notorious for dissing other approaches without _ever_ doing bias-controlled tests...


----------



## arnyk

pwiles1968 said:


> There is  a lot more info here with several articles - http://www.realhd-audio.com/
> 
> As far as I can tell is is not a new codec, it can be imbedded in existing codecs such as FLAC, it involves adding additional information embedded in the file, if you have an MAQ decoder you get the extra info, if not it plays as normal.
> 
> ...


 
  
 In fact the ability of 16/44 to transport differences in timing is very good - much, much better than the ear's ability to discern timing differences. So better timing  is a red herring.
  
 I find it ironic that Mark Waltrip is commenting on timing measured in microseconds here:
 http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=3857 when the "final" hi-rez audio samples he delivered to AVS contained timing errors about a thousand times greater, as demonstated with both technical proof and ABX evidence that the difference is easy to hear:
  
  http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=107570&view=findpost&p=895219 .


----------



## Joe Bloggs

arnyk said:


> In fact the ability of 16/44 to transport differences in timing is very good - much, much better than the ear's ability to discern timing differences. So better timing  is a red herring.
> 
> I find it ironic that Mark Waltrip is commenting on timing measured in microseconds here:
> http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=3857 when the "final" hi-rez audio samples he delivered to AVS contained timing errors about a thousand times greater, as demonstated with both technical proof and ABX evidence that the difference is easy to hear:
> ...




What inherent timing limit is there to 16/44.1, if any? As far as I can tell there is none, it is the timing accuracy of the ADC that matters.


----------



## Don Hills

joe bloggs said:


> What inherent timing limit is there to 16/44.1, if any? As far as I can tell there is none, it is the timing accuracy of the ADC that matters.


 

 Assuming perfect clocking, it's the bit depth (strictly speaking, the noise floor) that sets the limit. There's some debate about the correct way to calculate the theoretical minimum for a given bit rate and depth. I recall JJ and a couple of others discussing it a while back, unfortunately I can't find the discussion. But even for 16/44.1, it's pretty darn small.


----------



## arnyk

joe bloggs said:


> What inherent timing limit is there to 16/44.1, if any? As far as I can tell there is none, it is the timing accuracy of the ADC that matters.


 
  
 I would not expect any significant inter channel timing difference between the DAC and the line driver/output/headphone amps The channels are supposed to be identical, and usually are very close.
  
 The threshold of audbiility for this is about 10 microseconds. The 10 microsecond number has been confirmed by ABX testing of actual 16/44 sample rate files. The testing has not been extensive so improvement might be possible.
  
 The resolution difference due to 16/44 coding is down in the picoseconds. Something like 1 / (2 * PI * sample rate * number of digital levels). 
  
 A number of articles by people who should know better have claimed the resolution limit for 44 KHz sampling is one sample time, which would be about 22 microseconds, but actual measurements (and of course listening tests) are consistent with the far lower number suggested above.


----------



## Baxide

nick_charles said:


> Sigh, it is not even something as grand as a report of "something" it is a "this is what we are going to do based on some theory.." and it starts badly by talking about _diminishing returns_ when the ARA (Bob Stuart's posse) are notorious for dissing other approaches without _ever_ doing bias-controlled tests...


 

 You know how marketing works. I have to laugh every time I see the Duracell advert when the claim is made that their batteries last 7 times longer than ordinary batteries. But they never say what an ordinary battery is.


----------



## arnyk

ffbookman said:


> 320k ≠ 4000k.
> 
> 320k ≠ 1000k.
> 
> Amazing you "science" people are so afraid of the basic bandwidth math involved here.


 
  
 Just simplistic numbers.
  
 Over and over again we find that ears perform well up to certain readily achievable technical levels, and just plain stop getting better.
  
 Numbers for the sake of numbers can increase indefinitely.


----------



## xionc

arnyk said:


> A number of articles by people who should know better have claimed the resolution limit for 44 KHz sampling is one sample time, which would be about 22 microseconds, but actual measurements (and of course listening tests) are consistent with the far lower number suggested above.


 
  
 Please post source of the studies with measurements and listening tests (of course only ABX are valid, as per 16/44.1 crowd mantra).


----------



## Speedskater

xionc said:


> Please post source of the studies with measurements and listening tests (of course only ABX are valid, as per 16/44.1 crowd mantra).


 

 It's about many papers and articles that make an incorrect statement about time resolution. I think that we have another thread that measures or demonstrates time resolution.


----------



## xionc

Too bad post above does not address my question.
  
 There is no way to get sub-sample, sharp peak of signal. You can only get time-smeared version of it.


----------



## Speedskater

I don't think that any of the papers were about "sub-sample, sharp peak of signal".
  
 And just what does "sub-sample, sharp peak of signal" mean?


----------



## cjl

xionc said:


> Please post source of the studies with measurements and listening tests (of course only ABX are valid, as per 16/44.1 crowd mantra).


 
 You don't need listening tests to demonstrate subsample timing resolution of 16/44.1. You can demonstrate it with measurements very easily.
  
 Now, if you wanted to demonstrate the audibility of subsample timing shifts, you'd need an ABX, but if you just want to demonstrate that the format is capable of that kind of timing resolution, a simple measurement on an oscilloscope will suffice. It's shown very clearly at around 21 minutes in this video:
  
 http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml


----------



## cjl

xionc said:


> Too bad post above does not address my question.
> 
> There is no way to get sub-sample, sharp peak of signal. You can only get time-smeared version of it.


 
 If you have a sharp peak with a duration less than 1 sample period, of course it will get "smeared" out, since the only way to have a <1 period peak is to have substantial content above Nyquist frequency. The smearing happens because of the bandlimiting that is needed for sampled reconstruction to work. The timing of that peak however is not restricted at all - it can be placed anywhere in the signal you want, down to the microsecond (or better), even though you're only sampling once every 22 microseconds or so.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

From top to bottom:
1. An impulse at 88200Hz at a "slot" that happens to match a sample at 44100Hz
2. The impulse resampled to 44100Hz
3. An impulse at 88200Hz that "falls between the cracks" of 44100Hz
4. The impulse of (3) resampled to 44100Hz
5. (2), upsampled to 352800Hz with standard sinc resampling
6. (4), upsampled to 352800Hz with standard sinc resampling

(5) and (6) are upscaled in amplitude by the same amount and you can see that they both touch the top of the graph--so you can see that not only is the waveform derived from the 44.1kHz inputs the same shape, they are also of the same height.


----------



## arnyk

cjl said:


> You don't need listening tests to demonstrate subsample timing resolution of 16/44.1. You can demonstrate it with measurements very easily.
> 
> Now, if you wanted to demonstrate the audibility of subsample timing shifts, you'd need an ABX, but if you just want to demonstrate that the format is capable of that kind of timing resolution, a simple measurement on an oscilloscope will suffice. It's shown very clearly at around 21 minutes in this video:
> 
> http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml


 
  
 The files for doing an ABX study of this issue can be found here:
  
 http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=107570&view=findpost&p=899713
  
 The designated sample delays are for 24/192. Since we've got positive ABX results for a 2 sample dealy, the ability of 16/44 to encode and decode subsample delays is supported.
  
 People who talk about "The evidence of their ears" should download these files and FOOBAR2000 and its ABX plug-in and obtain some real and genuine "Evidence of their own ears".  No out-of-pocket cash required.


----------



## FFBookman

cjl said:


> Because lots of tests have shown that it's an exceedingly subtle difference, only audible with very careful, fast-switch comparisons on specially chosen "killer" samples? You're the one making the claim that goes against the preponderance of current evidence, so you have to support it or we will assume that you're talking nonsense (and it seems that in this case, that's a pretty safe assumption).


 

 Show me an ABX test that proves anything sounds better than anything else.


----------



## RRod

ffbookman said:


> Show me an ABX test that proves anything sounds better than anything else.


 
  
 ABX is for testing if differences can be heard, not about testing preference.


----------



## FFBookman

https://youtu.be/r_wxRGiBoJg
  
 discuss...


----------



## FFBookman

rrod said:


> ABX is for testing if differences can be heard, not about testing preference.


 

 differences between a memory and a real sound.
 or preferences between  a memory and a real sound?
  
 either way, you aren't comparing the two directly.  memory of sound and sound processing are done by two very different parts of the brain.  
  
 this invalidates ABX tests for mixed music quality testing, as far as i'm concerned.


----------



## RRod

ffbookman said:


> differences between a memory and a real sound.
> or preferences between  a memory and a real sound?
> 
> either way, you aren't comparing the two directly.  memory of sound and sound processing are done by two very different parts of the brain.
> ...


 
  
 If I walked into a room and you had a favorite movie of mine on, and you asked me if it were in 720p or 1080p, I might have a hard time telling. If, while I was watching the movie, you suddenly changed it from 720p to 1080p, I'd be able to tell (assuming the screen size is large enough). My "memory" of the movie would have nothing to do with it.


----------



## maverickronin

ffbookman said:


> differences between a memory and a real sound.
> or preferences between  a memory and a real sound?
> 
> either way, you aren't comparing the two directly.  memory of sound and sound processing are done by two very different parts of the brain.
> ...


 
  
 You might want to rethink that logic a little bit...
  
 Since it's also impossible to compare 2 sounds by playing them at the the same time, that only leaves memory.  If memory is also invalid for comparisons then there's no way left for humans to compare any sounds at all.  Therefore it's impossible for you to definitively state the24/192 FLAC sounds any different than 32kbps created from a circa 1996 encoder because there is _no _valid way for humans to make such comparisons.


----------



## FFBookman

rrod said:


> If I walked into a room and you had a favorite movie of mine on, and you asked me if it were in 720p or 1080p, I might have a hard time telling. If, while I was watching the movie, you suddenly changed it from 720p to 1080p, I'd be able to tell (assuming the screen size is large enough). My "memory" of the movie would have nothing to do with it.


 

 Visual is different, we can flash an image in our mind and overlay that for a quick comparison.
  
 I see pixels, I can roughly estimate how many there are in a small section of the video that I focus on. You change resolutions, I rescan and recount the pixels in that area and determine if resolution has gone up or down.
  
 Also all of the site data comes in through the eyes. If we imagine an image overlay, it appears in our view just like the original.
  
  
 But our ears do not work that way, they cannot overlay a previous sound image over an existing one. 
  
 The sound exists only in our imagination. We have to reconstruct what/who/where the sound was made and we do it instantly.
  
 Real sound is vibration and enters our body from all angles, and every hair follicle has a mechanoreceptor that transmits vibration data to the brain. As your head and body move the sound is adjusted and analyzed. There's also far more emotion generated by the music than the flickering screen.
  
  
  
 Finally -- if you knew the TV test was coming and you reviewed the movie in 720p and 1080p before the test looking for tells, you would be able to go right to that section and determine the resolution.
  
 Same way you can find crash cymbal decays, phase shifts, hi hat detail, and string noise in 24bit audio.


----------



## RRod

So you accept ABX as a valid means of testing differentiation of screen resolutions?


----------



## icebear

ffbookman said:


> Visual is different, *we can flash an image in our mind and overlay that for a quick comparison.*
> 
> I see pixels, I can roughly estimate how many there are in a small section of the video that I focus on. You change resolutions, *I rescan and recount the pixels in that area* and determine if resolution has gone up or down.
> ....


 
  
*ROFL, *
 are there any instructions how to learn this feat 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			











.  Rainman can learn something from you for sure. Can you also do the dumped on the floor match trick - I mean these are like a 100 count max. but screen pixels will for sure be a 100 times more.
 This is great stuff !!!


----------



## FFBookman

rrod said:


> So you accept ABX as a valid means of testing differentiation of screen resolutions?


 

 I believe that it will be more accurate when done visually, because we can overlay and/or store off to the side of our visual space a rough approximation of the image while looking at the current image.
  
 Audio just doesn't work like that, you can't compare back, there's no visual cues to temporarily store.


----------



## FFBookman

icebear said:


> *ROFL, *
> are there any instructions how to learn this feat
> 
> 
> ...


 

 Maybe my explanation was funny to you but it's very obvious to me, not funny at all.
  
 If an image is on a screen I can quickly search for lines, shading, and anti-aliasing to determine the granularity of the image. I can take an educated guess based on known resolutions before the switch is even made.
  
 Then if you switch the resolutions I can stare at the exact same spot or find a similar visual pattern and look at jaggies again. If there is about the same as before, resolution stayed the same. More jaggies, less resolution. Very simple, we all do this everyday.
  
 Visually we can keep a ghost/memory of the detail and compare it intimately with a new image. Sound cannot be stored and recalled in the same way, and it cannot be ghosted/or freeze-framed in our mind.
  
 Sorry I don't have the psychosomatic wherewithal to explain further. Laugh your way to further reading.


----------



## FFBookman

icebear said:


> *ROFL, *
> are there any instructions how to learn this feat
> 
> 
> ...


 

 You don't need rainman to determine if there's 256 matches or 5600 matches on the floor.


----------



## icebear

Throwing movies doesn't work either


----------



## bfreedma

Quote:

Originally Posted by FFBookman 


Maybe my explanation was funny to you but it's very obvious to me, not funny at all.



If an image is on a screen I can quickly search for lines, shading, and anti-aliasing to determine the granularity of the image. I can take an educated guess based on known resolutions before the switch is even made.



Then if you switch the resolutions I can stare at the exact same spot or find a similar visual pattern and look at jaggies again. If there is about the same as before, resolution stayed the same. More jaggies, less resolution. Very simple, we all do this everyday.



Visually we can keep a ghost/memory of the detail and compare it intimately with a new image. Sound cannot be stored and recalled in the same way, and it cannot be ghosted/or freeze-framed in our mind.



Sorry I don't have the psychosomatic wherewithal to explain further. Laugh your way to further reading.







Can you cite your source for the highlighted quote? I see no reason for the differentiation.


----------



## FFBookman

bfreedma said:


> Can you cite your source for the highlighted quote?  I see know reason for the differentiation.


 

 Not currently, no, I have no links for you.  Keep searching and you will find.  Focus on the differences between the visual cortex and the auditory cortex. There are plenty of differences. You might find that the earbrain is far more sensitive to resolution and degradation and has a wider dynamic range than anything visual.
  
 But believe me I didn't make this up. I read and watch lots of lectures on this topic, mostly anything involving the human senses, sound in particular. 
  
 Here's one of my favorite quotes on this topic:


> The human ear has an extraordinarily large sensitivity range of a trillion to one, allowing us to hear a rocket launch or the footfalls of a cat on a carpet.  According to Werner Gitt, the ear is our highest-precision sense organ, capable of responding over twelve orders of magnitude without switching (The Wonder of Man, p.21).  Some of this sensitivity is amplified by the eardrum and middle ear ossicles, but the paper reported above shows even more fine-tuning inside the cochlea.  Gitt’s book is highly recommended for generating a profound feeling of awe over the design of our senses.  Proverbs said, “The seeing eye, and the hearing ear, the Lord has made them both” (Prov. 20:12)


----------



## bfreedma

ffbookman said:


> bfreedma said:
> 
> 
> > Can you cite your source for the highlighted quote?  I see know reason for the differentiation.
> ...




You made the claim and then direct me to support it for you? I've long suspected you are making this up as you go - this exchange adds to that presumption.


----------



## FFBookman

bfreedma said:


> You made the claim and then direct me to support it for you? I've long suspected you are making this up as you go - this exchange adds to that presumption.


 

 I'm learning as I go. I'm a scientist and a thinker. Some of you decided long ago you already understood everything.
  
 Did you know most of the important studies about the human body's nuanced reaction to vibration and sound have been done in the last 10 years?  No possible way telephone engineers from the 1940's could have determined how best to enjoy digitally recorded music.
  
 Established science is just starting to understand the capabilities of our senses. Just scratching the surface in the last 10 years. We are currently writing the book, or rewriting it based on finding so many false truths in past literature.
  
Take the nose for example. A recent study has pegged the figure at 1 trillion which is almost a hundred million times over the general consensus on the ability of detecting odors by humans.  Hey what's this -- a link!   
  
 If the nose is indeed a hundred million times more accurate than _they_ used to believe, who do you believe now?   Were our ancestors that scientifically stupid, or are our detection and measuring systems improving?  Perhaps our testing method changed.
  
 Edit- also note that studying our senses falls right between science and medicine, and neither of these disciplines care 1 decibel about consumer music tastes.


----------



## bfreedma

ffbookman said:


> bfreedma said:
> 
> 
> > You made the claim and then direct me to support it for you? I've long suspected you are making this up as you go - this exchange adds to that presumption.
> ...




Comically, that link also states a relatively low auditory capability.

You state that many of us "decided long ago" what the capabilities of the auditory system is. When you have actual vetted studies to contradict current knowledge, I'd be happy to consider them. Your ramblings, obfuscations, and unproven theories don't get anywhere near that.

When you win your Nobel, feel free to come back and gloat. Until then, your empty claims and willful abandonment of known human auditory capabilities aren't nearing the threshold required to change my opinion on the topic.


----------



## icebear

ffbookman said:


> I'm learning as I go. *I'm a scientist and a thinker. *Some of you decided long ago you already understood everything.
> 
> ....
> Take the nose for example. A recent study has pegged the figure at 1 trillion which is almost a hundred million times over the general consensus on the ability of detecting odors by humans.  Hey what's this -- a link!
> ...


 
 quote from link : _[Participants were told to identify the odd one out. Each subject was made to go through hundreds of these tests and the assumption was made that subjects’ performances would be similar in recognizing all possible smells able to be made in the lab. The researchers inferred that an average human nose can distinguish over 1 trillion odors. ]_
  
 As scientist you should better be able to judge the quality of the information you read.
 Even in so called peer reviewed publications there are numerous errors and stuff needs to be retracted but this mis-information is clearly lacking credibility.
  
 If the eye is able to differentiate a limited amount of colors that does not mean that we can only perceive a limited of visual impressions. There is no number you can put to the objects we are able to see.
  
 If the ears are only able to differentiate a certain number of tones, that does not limit the amount of acoustic impressions we can perceive. There again is no number you can put to music and noises that we can hear and perceive as different.
  
 Making up some incredible numbers to get "web attention" for smell in the way described in this whatever, I wouldn't even call it study.
 Using classic triangle testing - or ABX, to determine people can differentiate exactly what ?
 Quote: [to detect *different *odors]. LOL that isn't exactly what I would call scientifically precise.
 How different?
 Different intensity, different chemical materials, single materials, essential oils, flavor or fragrance compositions? What?
  
 Making up a number of theoretical possible combinations of existing smelling chemicals and claiming quote :
[and the *assumption was made* that subjects’ performances would be similar in recognizing *all possible smells able to be made in the lab*.]
  
 Serious science, huh ? Very entertaining though 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




 ROFL


----------



## arnyk

ffbookman said:


> I'm learning as I go. I'm a scientist and a thinker. Some of you decided long ago you already understood everything.
> 
> Did you know most of the important studies about the human body's nuanced reaction to vibration and sound have been done in the last 10 years?  No possible way telephone engineers from the 1940's could have determined how best to enjoy digitally recorded music.
> 
> ...


 
  
 The link provided fails to link the actual scientific paper involved which is:
  
http://vosshall.rockefeller.edu/assets/file/BushdidScience2014.pdf
  
 The explanation for the historic error in the estimate number of different odors that a human can perceive is given in the paper:
  
 "The lay and scientific literature typically claims that humans can discriminate 10,000 odors, but this number has never been empirically validated. We determined the resolution of the human sense of smell by testing the capacity of humans to discriminate odor mixtures with varying numbers of shared components. On the basis of the results of psychophysical testing, we calculated that humans can discriminate at least 1 trillion olfactory stimuli."
  
 The paper is linked in its entirety, and is short and a fairly easy read. The situation is further clarified there.
  
 The point is that there have been empirical studies related to hearing going back to no later than Helmholtz (ca. 1850) so there is no logical comparison between the literature of the sensation of sound and the literature of the sensation of odors, once the actual scientific details are known.
  
 The growth in number of papers about the perception of sound that have been published in the past 10 years is easily explainable by the general growth in scientific knowledge that has been going on for decades.
  
 Furthermore much of the growth in knowledge about the perception of sound has related to the study of masking, which explains why certain sounds have _*not *_been heard. Therefore presuming that the growth  in understanding in this area has necessary resulted in scientific proof that we hear more than once thought, is _*false*_.
 ,


----------



## Ruben123

ffbookman said:


> Maybe my explanation was funny to you but it's very obvious to me, not funny at all.
> 
> If an image is on a screen I can quickly search for lines, shading, and anti-aliasing to determine the granularity of the image. I can take an educated guess based on known resolutions before the switch is even made.
> 
> ...




Lol so you're saying you can't compare two pieces of music because your ears are not designed to do that. But hey you CAN compare when you know what you're listening to. Thanks for all fun.


----------



## FFBookman

@arnyk  10 + 10 = 20


----------



## FFBookman

ruben123 said:


> Lol so you're saying you can't compare two pieces of music because your ears are not designed to do that. But hey you CAN compare when you know what you're listening to. Thanks for all fun.


 

 You can't compare two pieces of mixed music reliably by quick switching between them, correct.
  
 You have to listen for well over 30 seconds, closer to 1:00-3:00 to focus on the sound in the room, both your room and the "room" in the mix. You have to listen to how those two interact.
  
 You also have to listen to content that is expressing dynamics and particular timbre or detail that you know intimately.
  
 You can't do this playing someone else's music selection or switching back and forth quickly.


----------



## FFBookman

btw - glad the rest of this board isn't full of the snarky butt holeishness of this board.  i waded in b/c i thought the overall tone was immature and dismissive so i'm now part of it.  the fact that a majority of you are so wrong while sounding so right, i just couldn't let go of my past internet battle senses.
  
 this sound science board is really a gem.  thx for the memories. i don't know that i've ever been dismissed and called stupid or crazy as much as here, you all hold a special place in my heart.  
  
 and with that, i'm going to levitate and send ESP to my wife with lunch suggestions.


----------



## Ruben123

ffbookman said:


> You can't compare two pieces of mixed music reliably by quick switching between them, correct.
> 
> You have to listen for well over 30 seconds, closer to 1:00-3:00 to focus on the sound in the room, both your room and the "room" in the mix. You have to listen to how those two interact.
> 
> ...




You can abx it that way, you can choose the track length you want if you take the test yourself


----------



## arnyk

ffbookman said:


> You can't compare two pieces of mixed music reliably by quick switching between them, correct.
> 
> You have to listen for well over 30 seconds, closer to 1:00-3:00 to focus on the sound in the room, both your room and the "room" in the mix. You have to listen to how those two interact.
> 
> ...


 
  
  
 For someone who calls themselves "a learner" I see a great deal of presumption of superior personal authority.
  
 You wrote this, right?
  


> I'm learning as I go. I'm a scientist and a thinker. Some of you decided long ago you already understood everything.


  

  
 By what authority do you say: "You can't compare two pieces of mixed music reliably by quick switching between them, correct."


----------



## FFBookman

arnyk said:


> For someone who calls themselves "a learner" I see a great deal of presumption of superior personal authority.
> 
> You wrote this, right?
> 
> ...


 

 By the authority of where our brain processes sound verses where our brain processes the recollection of sound. They aren't even in the same regions of the brain. 
  
 Most are unable to shift the perspective suitably and fairly compare sound quality against memory of sound quality when using a fully mixed signal.   Too much complexity in the signal.
  
 Test tones? Yes. Single instruments or samples? Yes. We can store enough short-term memory of these simple sounds to make a logical decision as to which is better.
  
 A fully mixed signal as complex as a piece of professionally recorded music? There is too much data to quickly store it in memory, intake another mix or version of the same mix of the same music, and compare the two accurately.  We just don't have the brains to do that kind of recording and accurate playback of sound from memory, and we can't compare sounds in parallel because of their effect on each other. 
  
 This is the opposite from checking video resolution or image resolution. Watching pixelation and detail of movement is easy to A/B/X test and see the resolution increase and decrease.
  
  
 Some of us can do these mix-recollection gymnastics after much training but it's not a natural way to listen to music. I do it in a similar method to visual testing -- look for the pixels and basically count how many there are in a small area -- more pixels means lower resolution. I listen for the high-hats, crash cymbals, and layers of guitar distortion trying to find the 'tells' to focus on during the test.  
  
 If I can't hear any loss (pixels) I go about figuring out if it's 16/44 or higher, which gets as much qualitative as quantitative for me. How much signal is there, how much are the speakers moving, how active is the air, how big is the soundstage. Then I basically pick which one sounds deeper and wider to me. But at that point, you are tricking yourself, you are forgetting what you heard, you are completely out of line with normal listening.
  
 Which is why you can't find more than 50% of people that can pass any tests constructed with the problems I outline above, such as ABX.  It's the test, it's not our ears, it's not 16/44, and it's not snake oil. It's the test itself that is full of fatal flaws.
  
 I continue to lay these out with as much descriptiveness as I can spare.


----------



## sonitus mirus

You can always ABX 30 minutes of your most intimately familiar music over a week or longer if you want.  ABX is not only about fast switching of very short sound samples.  Science shows that this is the most reliable way to identify differences, but nobody is preventing you from testing 2 enormous files and listening to each of them for days at a time before deciding which file is 24/96 and 16/48.


----------



## arnyk

ffbookman said:


> By the authority of where our brain processes sound verses where our brain processes the recollection of sound. They aren't even in the same regions of the brain.


 
 That would appear to be the authority of your personal beliefs and nothing else. OK, you have some bizarre personal theories. You also don't seem to know how to spell the word versus. Why should I suspend disbelief to become one of your disciples?


----------



## GearMe

arnyk said:


> That would appear to be the authority of your personal beliefs and nothing else.*OK, you have some bizarre personal theories. You also don't seem to know how to spell the word versus. *Why should I suspend disbelief to become one of your disciples?



Nice...personal attacks and correcting grammer grammar; well done, sir, well done!


----------



## edstrelow

maverickronin said:


> Since it's also impossible to compare 2 sounds by playing them at the the same time, that only leaves memory.  If memory is also invalid for comparisons then there's no way left for humans to compare any sounds at all.


 
 Not true.  You just do different types of experiments.  The typical study proposed in these forums is a study with a group of untrained observers and as one of the few persons in this forum who has done human experimenting for a living, I can say this is not how research studies of such topics are carried out.  Essentially the statistical noise in these studies is just too large and the odds are that you will not find any differences.  BTW research journals generally don't publish null results for this reason and because they could  be the reuslt fo sloppy experimenting.
  
 The original post is perfectly correct, in comparisons of two sounds at different times, memory and immediate perception are hopelessly confounded, unlike in vison or touch.  How might you get around this?  One technique is the method of adjustment  in which you change the nature of the stimulus as the listener is hearing it to see how much change a listener needs before it is detectable.  We  do this in vision for example when we change the characteristics of a photo, eg., adding more color.  Generally I can see the change as it is happening better than if I were given 2 pictures to compare at the same time.   I should add that none of these techniques are perfect and that gaining real knowledge of the senses is quite difficult to achieve.


----------



## CountryBoy

^ 'memory and immediate perception are hopelessly confounded' - the very heart of the A/B listening debate (along with confirmation bias/placebo effect).


----------



## CarstenF

bigshot said:


> I have found that the point of audible transparency with lossy formats is 320 for LAME MP3 and 256 for AAC.




I just read an interview with one of the inventors of MP3 (MPEG layer 3) from Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. He said that they could correctly reproduce almost all sounds with MP3 but they could not get castagnettes (English castanets?) to sound right. He said that when they developed AAC as a successor they got this right. That's why he recommends AAC over MP3.


----------



## Harry Manback

gearme said:


> Nice...personal attacks and correcting grammer grammar; well done, sir, well done!




I have Arny blocked because this behavior is the norm for him.


----------



## upstateguy

harry manback said:


> gearme said:
> 
> 
> > Nice...personal attacks and correcting grammer grammar; well done, sir, well done!
> ...


 

 You may want to revisit that.


----------



## Harry Manback

upstateguy said:


> You may want to revisit that.




Care to elaborate?


----------



## upstateguy

harry manback said:


> upstateguy said:
> 
> 
> > You may want to revisit that.
> ...


 

 PM sent


----------



## reginalb

edstrelow said:


> Not true.  You just do different types of experiments.  The typical study proposed in these forums is a study with a group of untrained observers and as one of the few persons in this forum who has done human experimenting for a living, I can say this is not how research studies of such topics are carried out.  Essentially the statistical noise in these studies is just too large and the odds are that you will not find any differences.  *BTW research journals generally don't publish null results* for this reason and because they could  be the reuslt fo sloppy experimenting.
> 
> The original post is perfectly correct, in comparisons of two sounds at different times, memory and immediate perception are hopelessly confounded, unlike in vison or touch.  How might you get around this?  One technique is the method of adjustment  in which you change the nature of the stimulus as the listener is hearing it to see how much change a listener needs before it is detectable.  We  do this in vision for example when we change the characteristics of a photo, eg., adding more color.  Generally I can see the change as it is happening better than if I were given 2 pictures to compare at the same time.   I should add that none of these techniques are perfect and that gaining real knowledge of the senses is quite difficult to achieve.


 
  
 Also because most people don't find them interesting, and there is less grant money in null results. Null is a result, but in my experience, the reason you've given has literally never been why one wasn't published.
  
 I think a much better method is unlimited repeats of any section of ABX. Whenever I've been able to hear an artifact in one example of a track, I can quickly and easily confirm it, from memory. It's not really that difficult. And the point of using an untrained listener is to get at cost-benefit. If you have to go through extensive training, then strain to try to hear a difference between two formats, most people aren't going to want to shell out a significant additional sum of money to get said format.  It doesn't help with enjoyment of the music, and cost usually outweighs benefit.
  

 All of that said, if you have an enormous amount of money to spend, who cares? My problem is shoveling snake oil at people, such that they strain their budget for something that wasn't ever worth it in the first place. I don't care about the guy spending $100,000 on his vinyl system, he can probably afford it. I care about the guy that makes 30k a year spending 5% of that on an MP3 player. To say that iriver is doing anything beyond leveraging information asymmetries to make a quick buck (I know you aren't, I'm on a rant here) is a mistaken belief, if you ask me. /rant


----------



## castleofargh

it's probably a little bit of everything.
 for a scientist, getting a null result mostly shows the failure to identify differences. it can give an incentive not to care too much about a format, but it doesn't prove that no audible difference exists.
  
 then as mentioned, it's not like there is a CD lobby doing marketing and sponsored research to prove CD is as good as highres. nobody cares to demonstrate that. myself, I don't feel much of a need, I sure did my own experiment involving me and myself, and drew my conclusions. but for the next guy, don't know, don't care. it's not my job to pick his audio format. there is no driving force behind CD like when it was a new format.
  
 lastly, as it's been perfectly demonstrated through marketing, something doesn't really have to be, for people to believe it is. so at some point if I was an industry insider with big power, I would probably put most of my money on marketing instead of research.


----------



## AtrafCreez

Newbie. Is audio streaming like Tidal, spotify, etc always higher quality audio than youtube streaming/
 Thanks


----------



## peterinvan

When will we finally be able to try Tidal MQA streaming?
  
 I have my Meridian Explorer 2 in place, ready and waiting.
  
 Hope to hear an announcement this week from the CES.


----------



## peterinvan

Just downloaded two tracks from 2L.   Bjørn Morten Christophersen: Oak & Mayfly in 24/96 and MQA.  $6 downloads
  
 https://shop.klicktrack.com/2l/
  
 24/96 is 152Kb
  
 MQA is 85Kb
  
 Listening thru Foobar2000 > iFi IUSB > Jitterbug > Meridian Explorer2 > EL84 tube amp > Mission V63 towers.
  
 I am disappointed that the MQA green light did not show on the Explorer2.
  
 The MQA version is playing at 44.1 Khz.
  
 I cannot hear any difference between these two tracks. 
  
 P.S.
 Also downloaded a track from MEZZOTINTS.  Nice SQ, but no MQA light on Explorer.


----------



## peterinvan

CES news...
  
_...from a technical point of view we can confirm the Tidal/MQA service works. Here at CES Unveiled there was a working demo on a Mac laptop through the MQA-enabled Meridian Explorer 2 DAC and headphones, with MQA music files provided via music label 2L on Tidal._
  
 Does anyone have a clue how to stream MQA tracks on Tidal?


----------



## spruce music

peterinvan said:


> Just downloaded two tracks from 2L.   Bjørn Morten Christophersen: Oak & Mayfly in 24/96 and MQA.  $6 downloads
> 
> https://shop.klicktrack.com/2l/
> 
> ...


 

 Don't have an MQA capable DAC, but are you sure Foobar is setup for bitperfect playback with no other things going on?  Using WASAPI or ASIO.  You also might try another piece of playback software.  Also, is there a bit of driver software for the Explorer 2 required for operation above 96 khz (usually there is when using Windows)?


----------



## sonitus mirus

peterinvan said:


> CES news...
> 
> _...from a technical point of view we can confirm the Tidal/MQA service works. Here at CES Unveiled there was a working demo on a Mac laptop through the MQA-enabled Meridian Explorer 2 DAC and headphones, with MQA music files provided via music label 2L on Tidal._
> 
> Does anyone have a clue how to stream MQA tracks on Tidal?


 
  
 This was just a working demo at the CES event.  It has not been made available to the public as of yet, as far as I can tell.  Provided that you have the latest driver installed from Meridian and followed the basic setup instructions, you should be able to play an MQA file.  There are also playback settings in Foobar that might need to be set under File>Preferences>Playback>Output.  You probably have everything setup correctly, but it doesn't hurt to double check.  It happens to all of us at one point or another.
  
 https://www.meridian-audio.com/support/personal-audio-support/explorer-2/


----------



## peterinvan

spruce music said:


> Don't have an MQA capable DAC, but are you sure Foobar is setup for bitperfect playback with no other things going on?  Using WASAPI or ASIO.  You also might try another piece of playback software.  Also, is there a bit of driver software for the Explorer 2 required for operation above 96 khz (usually there is when using Windows)?



 


Thanks for your reply.

I am using the Meridian USB2 ASIO drivers in Foobar2000. 
Windows DAC properties are set to "no enhancements" and "Exclusive".
Latest Meridian drivers: WINDOWS DRIVER V1.68_19 November 3, 2015


When playing 24/96 two lights are on. 24/196 shows three lights.

I believe the first light is supposed to turn green to indicate MQA processing?


----------



## spruce music

peterinvan said:


> spruce music said:
> 
> 
> > Don't have an MQA capable DAC, but are you sure Foobar is setup for bitperfect playback with no other things going on?  Using WASAPI or ASIO.  You also might try another piece of playback software.  Also, is there a bit of driver software for the Explorer 2 required for operation above 96 khz (usually there is when using Windows)?
> ...


 

 Yes, I think it turns green for MQA and it turns blue if you have MQA studio, meaning they were using MQA end to end on the recording.  I would think the 2L tracks should turn the LED blue.
  
 You could try Music Bee.  A bit of a clunky interface, but it works well and will do ASIO and WASAPI.  Would allow you to try it and see if the MQA indicators light.
  
 http://getmusicbee.com/  Only do a direct download linked from this page.  If you decide to give it a try I can point you to the place to engage ASIO which is somewhat hidden away in the menu.


----------



## spruce music

peterinvan said:


> spruce music said:
> 
> 
> > Don't have an MQA capable DAC, but are you sure Foobar is setup for bitperfect playback with no other things going on?  Using WASAPI or ASIO.  You also might try another piece of playback software.  Also, is there a bit of driver software for the Explorer 2 required for operation above 96 khz (usually there is when using Windows)?
> ...


 

 I watched a Bob Stuart panel on MQA at the RMAF 2015 today.  Near the very end a question about the Explorer 2 and hearing some full MQA examples was asked.  Mr. Stuart said the Explorer 2 had the .9 version of MQA.  It could not fully authenticate something like the 2L files from what he said.  He said the update to 1.0 status should happen near the end of the year.  This did not sound like a driver update rather something of a firmware update.  So if you know the process for that you might check for 1.0 status being available.


----------



## peterinvan

spruce music said:


> I watched a Bob Stuart panel on MQA at the *RMAF 2015* today.  Near the very end a question about the Explorer 2 and hearing some full MQA examples was asked.  Mr. Stuart said the Explorer 2 had the .9 version of MQA.  It could not fully authenticate something like the 2L files from what he said.  He said the update to 1.0 status should happen near the end of the year *(2015)*.  This did not sound like a driver update rather something of a firmware update.  So if you know the process for that you might check for 1.0 status being available.


 

 Hi
  
 Checked their site:
  
 https://www.meridian-audio.com/support/personal-audio-support/explorer-2/
  
 No sign of firmware update yet.


----------



## Gringo

In the Uk Meridian have announced that " MQA firmware will be available on Thursday, 4th February 2016"

"Explorer² and the Prime Headphone Amplifier firmware can be obtained via the Support section of the Meridian website. These updates are designed to be downloaded by users directly."

"For the 818v3, 808v6, Special Edition Loudspeakers and 40th Anniversary System firmware please contact your Meridian Premium Partner to discuss the firmware installation options."

As yet there is not a great deal of MQA material available but so far those who have purchased or downloaded free examples have said that undecoded MQA files sound superior to regular CD on their systems.


----------



## peterinvan

gringo said:


> In the Uk Meridian have announced that " MQA firmware will be available on Thursday, 4th February 2016"
> 
> "Explorer² and the Prime Headphone Amplifier firmware can be obtained via the Support section of the Meridian website. These updates are designed to be downloaded by users directly."
> 
> ...




Any indication that the Director (Direct) will have an MQA update?


----------



## Gringo

Nothing mentioned on thier website, l don't think it's likely personally as it has never been mentioned in any of their announcements as far as I know.


----------



## Gringo

MQA Firmware for the Director2 is now available on the Meridian website for download


----------



## peterinvan

MQA firmware for Explorer2. 

https://www.meridian-audio.com/support/personal-audio-support/explorer-2/

No update for Director (Direct) DAC. :mad:


----------



## Gringo

Sorry, I meant to type Explorer2, 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





  There is a firmware update for the Prime as well.  I understand one or two people have had an issue installing it but the feedback from those who have done so, so far is that the results are as good as what was promised.


----------



## lamode

Now that I've finally found the time to read up on MQA and I understand the algorithm, I'm sill not impressed. It's a cute trick but it doesn't achieve anything worthwhile. It's NOT equivalent to lossless 192/24 quality (not that anyone could hear the difference anyway), and the problem of streaming 192/24 lossless is becoming less and less of an issue with each passing year. There's just no point in introducing another format.
  
 Oh, and the claim that this helps people to listen to 192/24 on portable devices which couldn't handle full 192/24 bandwidth makes me chuckle. People really think they can benefit from streaming 192/24 to their phones? I guess there's one born every minute.


----------



## Gringo

Are your comments based on the assumption of your understanding of what you have read is correct, on what you have heard or both? I only ask as I am unsure if you have heard MQA decoded.


----------



## lamode

gringo said:


> Are your comments based on the assumption of your understanding of what you have read is correct, on what you have heard or both? I only ask as I am unsure if you have heard MQA decoded.


 
  
 I don't need to hear it to know that it is technically inferior.
 If you want better sound, we need better recordings. The studios are the weak link in the chain and have been for quite some time.


----------



## Gringo

Well I believe we can be absolutely certain that 50% of what you say is completely irrefutable, the rest is oppinion based on your understanding of some of the evidence. On the latter, we all need to make our own minds up.


----------



## britneedadvice

From 'The Absolute Sound' CES2016 Show Report-
  
 "*Most Significant Trend
 MQA* is not quite a bonafide trend but fingers crossed for its widespread adoption. My first experience with this technology in the *Vandersteen* exhibit room was nothing short of exhilarating."
  
Many other similar reports both Trade and Personal. Where's the doubters now!


----------



## watchnerd

britneedadvice said:


> From 'The Absolute Sound' CES2016 Show Report-
> 
> "*Most Significant Trend
> MQA* is not quite a bonafide trend but fingers crossed for its widespread adoption. My first experience with this technology in the *Vandersteen* exhibit room was nothing short of exhilarating."
> ...


 
  
 I think Absolute Sound said similar things about DVD-A, SACD, and HDCD...


----------



## ralphp@optonline

britneedadvice said:


> From 'The Absolute Sound' CES2016 Show Report-
> 
> "*Most Significant Trend
> MQA* is not quite a bonafide trend but fingers crossed for its widespread adoption. My first experience with this technology in the *Vandersteen* exhibit room was nothing short of exhilarating."
> ...


 

 Quoting "The Absolute Sound" on anything having to do with audio technology is like quoting Bozo The Clown on quantum mechanics.


----------



## watchnerd

ralphp@optonline said:


> Quoting "The Absolute Sound" on anything having to do with audio technology is like quoting Bozo The Clown on quantum mechanics.


 
  
 I think you're being completely unfair to Bozo and his lack of embarrassing statements on physics...


----------



## ralphp@optonline

watchnerd said:


> I think you're being completely unfair to Bozo and his lack of embarrassing statements on physics...


 

 True. At least Bozo knows well enough to keep his mouth shut when it comes to quantum mechanics. On the other hand, The Absolute Sounds has knows no bounds when it comes to spreading misinformation.


----------



## icebear

britneedadvice said:


> From 'The Absolute Sound' CES2016 Show Report-
> 
> "*Most Significant Trend
> MQA* is not quite a bonafide trend but fingers crossed for its widespread adoption. My first experience with this technology in the *Vandersteen* exhibit room was nothing short of exhilarating."
> ...


 
  
*Here *






!
  
 when you search the TAS website NEWS sections for MQA you'll get 20+ results.
 They obviously like one of their sponsor's/advertiser's product.
 That's completely OK, as long as the reader is aware of this positive bias.
  
 I am not into streaming and I have a decent disc player, a DAC and a MBP with Audirvana in case I long for highrez downloads to play. I don't need another proprietary new encoding format and licensed decoding hardware. This is like SACD in the download and streaming age, yeah you might be able to listen to the new files w/o the Meridian decoder but you don't get the full SQ ... hybrid SACD anyone?


----------



## britneedadvice

I'll take that as only 3 ? (doubters) Not bad for this site !!


----------



## Gringo

No problem with doubters, healthy sceptisism is good. Technology that offers better listening experience is to be welcomed with caution as false promises are not completely unknown and just because something is better does not ensure it will be a great success. Individuals however making comments and expressing them as fact rather than opinion does I feel lower the whole debate. Derisory comments against those with a different point of view only undermines the commenters arguement. Examining all the evidence available to you and that includes listining is the only way to give real weight to the discussion, remembering that making money is not a crime. No one is compelled to buy anything and we can all choose to stick with LP's, CD's, MP3's etc. Existing equipment, expensive or not, is always going to be superceded, (I believe that to be a fact of life), and not being able to freely steal music are factors which should not play any part of the arguement.
(Just a few thoughts not intended to insult or upset anyone, happy listening to all)


----------



## watchnerd

I have no doubt Meridian has done solid R&D on MQA.
  
 But I just don't see why I would need this.
  
 I can already stream lossless, both at home and mobile.
  
 The better impulse response is interesting, but unreproducible with current transducers, including microphones to capture such a fast rise time (at least by any spec I've ever seen).
  
 High resolution audio is something I know I can't pass an ABX test vs regular lossless, so don't need that, either.
  
 What's the point of MQA?


----------



## ralphp@optonline

watchnerd said:


> I have no doubt Meridian has done solid R&D on MQA.
> 
> But I just don't see why I would need this.
> 
> ...


 

 The point of MQA is to give Meridian a proprietary technology that can then be licensed for use by others. In other words: MONEY, as in money flowing from your bank account into their bank account.


----------



## watchnerd

gringo said:


> I can't quantify how much is down to the remastering other than to say the very latest improved digital filtering/timing techniques are being used to compensate for and correct errors, that the original filters that DAC's used and consequently introduced in the first place.





>


 
  
 What "latest digital filtering" innovation is going to allow you to get around the sinc function of Fourier pairs?


----------



## Gringo

As you have taken the time and effort to go back through the thread you will be aware that I don't pretend to be clued up on the technical side of things. With regard to your question you will have also have noted that much of the technology is being kept firmly under wraps for commercial reasons. I can only assume this is where the important processes are taking place with regard to digital filtering/timing techniques. I make no pretence that I have any understanding of "sinc function Fourier pairs" so would not dream of making any comment, (I rightly or wrongly guess that you assumed that I would not have a clue). As with any technology, nothing stands still and refining and improving is ongoing so much so that as consumers we have to every so often weigh up the benefits and decide if they are worthwhile to us personally and a variable degree of this will inevitably be subjective.  As I have said several times previously, we should all be both sceptical and critical but we should also not dismiss out of hand without using our ears and listening. What I can say with full confidence is that I have listened to MQA on more than one occasion and I think it has a lot to offer. Being just a simple sole, for me the bottom line is that at the end of the day all the numbers ultimately amount to nothing either way, the enjoyment of what I am listening too and if I can afford it is what really counts. If the answer is no it's not worth it then it's not such a big deal because I'm very happy with my existing set up anyway.
 As always, these are just my thoughts, no offence is intended and I have no wish to belittle or upset anyone.


----------



## watchnerd

gringo said:


> As you have taken the time and effort to go back through the thread you will be aware that I don't pretend to be clued up on the technical side of things. With regard to your question you will have also have noted that much of the technology is being kept firmly under wraps for commercial reasons. I can only assume this is where the important processes are taking place with regard to digital filtering/timing techniques. I make no pretence that I have any understanding of "sinc function Fourier pairs" so would not dream of making any comment, (I rightly or wrongly guess that you assumed that I would not have a clue). As with any technology, nothing stands still and refining and improving is ongoing so much so that as consumers we have to every so often weigh up the benefits and decide if they are worthwhile to us personally and a variable degree of this will inevitably be subjective.  As I have said several times previously, we should all be both sceptical and critical but we should also not dismiss out of hand without using our ears and listening. What I can say with full confidence is that I have listened to MQA on more than one occasion and I think it has a lot to offer. Being just a simple sole, for me the bottom line is that at the end of the day all the numbers ultimately amount to nothing either way, the enjoyment of what I am listening too and if I can afford it is what really counts. If the answer is no it's not worth it then it's not such a big deal because I'm very happy with my existing set up anyway.
> As always, these are just my thoughts, no offence is intended and I have no wish to belittle or upset anyone.


 
  
 The question about sinc and Fourier pairs isn't meant to belittle.
  
 However, it is an important question when we talk about signal processing.  Signal processing isn't as simple as throwing more CPU horsepower at the algorithms and magical things will happen if you're clever and have enough compute horsepower.
  
 It is governed by some pretty iron-clad mathematical laws and physics (this isn't just for audio, either) that govern the relationship between time domain and frequency domain.  In this case, the relationship between impulse response (and ringing) is tied into the nature of a filter implementation.  There are certain patterns that are established, some common ones look like this:
  

  
  
  
  
 So when a company says they're going to improve impulse response (my interpretation of what they mean when they talk about reduced 'temporal blurring'), a person familiar with signal processing theory will say:
  
 "Okay, if you want to optimize for the best possible impulse response it means you're going to be using a gentler, minimum phase filter....which is potentially going to leave more noise in the frequency domain or, alternatively, you're going to have to roll off the high-end earlier."
  
 Remember, while compute power has increased immensely in the last decades, the signal processing upon which audio is based is decades old and still applies.
  
 ;TLDR: if MQA really is improving impulse response by using a less-aggressive filter, this a big departure from Redbook specs and would change the spectral and noise content of music unless address via some other unknown means.


----------



## spruce music

watchnerd said:


> The question about sinc and Fourier pairs isn't meant to belittle.
> 
> However, it is an important question when we talk about signal processing.  Signal processing isn't as simple as throwing more CPU horsepower at the algorithms and magical things will happen if you're clever and have enough compute horsepower.
> 
> ...


 
 I know I have mentioned it a couple times.  It seems they can manage this with compressive sensing sampling and reconstruction algorithms.  It may just be marketing speak.  I don't have a good understanding of compressive sampling/sensing except in a very general way.  If signals meet certain metrics you can accurately sample and reconstruct them with a very low bit rate which can encompass a very wide frequency range.  So under the right conditions and for the right kind of signal the hard limits and trade offs you show in your post don't necessarily apply any more.
  
 Just do a google search for compressive sensing or compressive sampling.  Especially do so using google scholar.  Plenty of short papers giving outlines of how it works.
  
 I still think they are mostly trying to gain money for themselves and also am not convinced temporal blur is a problem.  It would have been better to simply apply compressive sensing in place of normal PCM and drop all the other junk.  Perhaps we could have accurately reconstructed audio with parameters equal to 24 bit 60 khz sample rates at the bit rate of 128k mp3.  Now that would be worthwhile.  Of course Meridian couldn't control that or make money from it.


----------



## watchnerd

spruce music said:


> I know I have mentioned it a couple times.  It seems they can manage this with compressive sensing sampling and reconstruction algorithms.  It may just be marketing speak.  I don't have a good understanding of compressive sampling/sensing except in a very general way.  If signals meet certain metrics you can accurately sample and reconstruct them with a very low bit rate which can encompass a very wide frequency range.  So under the right conditions and for the right kind of signal the hard limits and trade offs you show in your post don't necessarily apply any more.


 
  
 How would reconstruction algorithms help them deal with increased noise in the stopband that result from using a minimum phase filter?


----------



## spruce music

watchnerd said:


> How would reconstruction algorithms help them deal with increased noise in the stopband that result from using a minimum phase filter?


 

 I am probably not the person to give a definitive answer about that.  Read some of the papers on compressive sensing.  Even then I may have it wrong.  My idea is they will be able to unfold this into rather high sample rates and use minimum phase filtering that has a very wide transition band so they don't get these noise artefacts below 20 khz. Then again it would nice if they weren't so secretive and just spilled the beans about what they are really doing.


----------



## watchnerd

spruce music said:


> I am probably not the person to give a definitive answer about that.  Read some of the papers on compressive sensing.  Even then I may have it wrong.  My idea is they will be able to unfold this into rather high sample rates and use minimum phase filtering that has a very wide transition band so they don't get these noise artefacts below 20 khz. Then again it would nice if they weren't so secretive and just spilled the beans about what they are really doing.


 
  
 I'm actually very familiar with compressive sensing and have used it in sparse coding for RF data.
  
 You might be able to sparse sample the top octave (10khz - 20khz), which would potentially reduce stopband noise inversely proportional to the sample sparsity (i.e. few samples = high reduction in noise), but one obvious problem is that the top octave may not be sufficiently incoherent to allow compressive sensing to work in a way that sounds authentic as opposed to artificial.
  
 Then again, given how hearing deteriorates with age, and the rolled-off euphonia that analog tape and tubes exhibit and that some people seem to like, it might be psychoacoustically fine.
  
 But one thing it wouldn't be for sure is Redbook....it would be something new.


----------



## spruce music

watchnerd said:


> I'm actually very familiar with compressive sensing and have used it in sparse coding for RF data.
> 
> You might be able to sparse sample the top octave (10khz - 20khz), which would potentially reduce stopband noise inversely proportional to the sample sparsity (i.e. few samples = high reduction in noise), but one obvious problem is that the top octave may not be sufficiently incoherent to allow compressive sensing to work in a way that sounds authentic as opposed to artificial.
> 
> ...


 

 Okay, sounds like you are in a better position to judge how much that could contribute.  I am no expert in that area and did not want to try and pretend I was.  What you described about it sounding authentic rather than artificial is something I have been wondering about it as well. 
  
 So many prefer tubes or tape or vinyl and confuse that with fidelity it is a continual issue in audio IMO.  I do understand I preferred tubes and reel tape until I got hands on an ADC which clearly showed how utterly transparent digital is compared to those mediums. I can still enjoy those things I just know better than to try and make digital sound more like analog.  Has Meridian done something of that sort in the hopes of people hearing it and saying "oooh.....ahhhh! sounds like analog which we know is right". Everyone almost will quickly declare it 'better sounding'.  I am more interested in recordings being of high fidelity.  Let me massage to my preferences on the playback end if I choose to do so.


----------



## watchnerd

spruce music said:


> Okay, you sounds like you are in a better position to judge how much that could contribute.  I am no expert in that area and did not want to try and pretend I was.  What you described about it sounding authentic rather than artificial is something I have been wondering about it as well.
> 
> So many prefer tubes or tape or vinyl and confuse that with fidelity it is a continual issue in audio IMO.  I do understand I preferred tubes and reel tape until I got hands on an ADC which clearly showed how utterly transparent digital is compared to those mediums. I can still enjoy those things I just know better than to try and make digital sound more like analog.  Has Meridian done something of that sort in the hopes of people hearing it and saying "oooh.....ahhhh! sounds like analog which we know is right". Everyone almost will quickly declare it 'better sounding'.  I am more interested in recordings being of high fidelity.  Let me massage to my preferences on the playback end if I choose to do so.


 
  
 What's even more interesting is that if they do use sparse sampling, it could be equated to being partially lossy, which would create an interesting case where 'old school' Redbook would be a more true reconstruction of the original waveform than sparse sampling approximation, even if the latter sounds more 'analog'.
  
 Which would create an odd world where those who like 'analog sound' might prefer the version with 'missing bits', which is close to the accusation that anti-digital people have used for decades....
  
 Zany.


----------



## spruce music

watchnerd said:


> What's even more interesting is that if they do use sparse sampling, it could be equated to being partially lossy, which would create an interesting case where 'old school' Redbook would be a more true reconstruction of the original waveform than sparse sampling approximation, even if the latter sounds more 'analog'.
> 
> Which would create an odd world where those who like 'analog sound' might prefer the version with 'missing bits', which is close to the accusation that anti-digital people have used for decades....
> 
> Zany.


 

 Yes, and the replies to questions about whether it is lossy or not have been dodged.  They use terms like "audibly lossless".  It is clear some versions will be lossy over 30 khz from what they have said.  It isn't clear if all versions will be except Studio MQA which supposedly isn't.  Maybe it is just a lousy rollout with lousy PR handling, but it sure seems like *intentional obfuscation* about what it really is other than don't worry we and all these studio guys say it is wonderful.


----------



## watchnerd

> They use terms like "*audibly lossless*".


 
  
 Oh that's just horrible.
  
 I guess we should call 320k CBR MP3, LAME V0, and 256k AAC  "audibly lossless", too.


----------



## watchnerd

As additional info (graph from Archimago), this is what you get if you strip out the 16 bits of musical content and focus on the lower 8 bits where MQA does weird stuff:
  

  
  
 Basically, white noise, the kind you would get with dithering.  Or, taken differently, possibly a lossy ultrasonic reconstruction scheme based on parse sampling. And because it's random it's not easily compressible.


----------



## watchnerd

spruce music said:


> What you described about it sounding authentic rather than artificial is something I have been wondering about it as well.


 
  
_"Without any idea of what I was testing for, she clearly preferred the original "DAT" 16/44, describing the MQA version as sounding "synthetic" in ways similar to my description above with ABX testing... Well, what can I say, can't disagree with my better half's ears - younger, better looking and she plays the piano as well "_
  
 http://archimago.blogspot.com/2016/01/measurements-mqa-master-quality.html


----------



## Gringo

Thanks watchnerd for the helpful response, I actually learned stuff. I wish I was informed enough to provide answers to your questions but alas I am not. I am going to guess that you have seen the two Hans Beekuyzen MQA analysis videos on YouTube which are the best totally independent explanation I have come across of MQA. His comments are much more insightful than anything I could offer and he does say that how Meridian actually achieve what they claim, is a closely kept secret and only time will prove how accurate their claims are.
 I have absolutely no problem with your sceptisism of MQA which is a healthy position to take and I did not wish to imply you were trying to be-little me, that comment was more a reflection on other comments from some followers of this thread on the forum which were not directed at myself but rather another where they 
 indulged in insults and name calling. 
As to Meridians reticence to divulge technical details, I guess if I was suddenly blessed with the insight to come up with a new way of doing something which could make money I would not go and tell everybody but would try and capitalise on it. Does that make me a money grabber? If it does, then does this mean that everyone who ever patented an idea is a money grabber? Trying to hood wink the consumer, yes that is totally reprehensible and if proven should be condemed. As others have said, Meridian's PR might not be all that it should be but Bob Stewart certainly comes over as an honest and pationate guy where music reproduction is concerned. As an analogy, be careful when swimming in the sea and watch out for preditors but remember despite the occasional shark most aquatic life is a wonder to behold.


----------



## watchnerd

gringo said:


> As to Meridians reticence to divulge technical details, I guess if I was suddenly blessed with the insight to come up with a new way of doing something which could make money I would not go and tell everybody but would try and capitalise on it. Does that make me a money grabber? If it does, then does this mean that everyone who ever patented an idea is a money grabber?


 
  
 You're mixing up patents and trade secrets.
  
 Trade secrets aren't disclosed, like the formula for Coca Cola.
  
 Patents are publicly disclosed.  In exchange for sharing the invention, the patent holder is given an exclusive right to use for a limited time.  Meridian has already filed for this, so unless they're either still pending or there is some key piece that they haven't patented, their ability to be rewarded is protected.
  
 I don't object at all to inventors seeking financial reward.  What I do object to is misinformation, and some of Meridian's terminology and turns of phrase are coming awfully close to the line of obfuscation, if not crossing it.


----------



## watchnerd

Regarding "temporal blurring" and the need for a faster impulse response:
  
 Here is the fastest impulse response of a real acoustical event (not an electrical pulse signal) I've ever seen recorded.  It's an electrical spark discharge.  Note that each sample period (dot) is 10 micro-seconds, so whole first complete peak-to-trough cycle is about 70 micro-seconds. Recorded at 24/96khz, 5 cm distance.
  

  
  
 That's really fast!
  
 What kind of filter / impulse response combo gets close to that?
  

  
 Wow, that looks awesome!  Now what kind of filter gives me that?
  

  
 Hurm...well that doesn't look like much of a filter at all...what does that do to the sound?
  

  
 GAH!  That's horrible, and very very audible.
  
 So clearly Meridian isn't takings things to that extreme.  So what might they do instead?
  
 Well, they could use a filter that looks like this...
  

  
 Not bad, about -4 db down at 20khz.  Which looks like this in the audio band:
  

  
 Not bad at all.  With some noise-shaped dithering you mash down those peaks at the expense of a higher noise floor, but still keep it all well below the audible range.  And you get an impulse response that looks like this:
  

  
 Pretty good, practically no pre- or post-ringing.  Where can you get this awesomeness?  Well, it's one of the standard filters built into ProTools, the most popular DAW software, probably used to mix and master most of the music you listen to.
  
 Which brings up the key point:
  
*Whatever MQA is trying to do on the playback end, everything else in the production chain impacts the lowest common denominator*.  Even if MQA has impulse response as good as the ProTools example above, it doesn't really matter if the microphone, ADC, the mixing software, the DAC, and the speakers/headphones aren't equally good.
  
 Combine that with:
  
 1. Reduced compressibility due to noise generation / ultrasonic reproduction in the least 8 bits.
  
 2. Unusual synthetic reproduction of the top octaves
  
 3. A format that requires MQA-compatible playback HW/SW to reach maximum potential
  
 4. A hybrid of lossless and lossy approaches
  
 5. Possibly DRM-equipped
  
 6. No smaller for streaming 16bit lossless
  
 ....this all seems like, at best, a lot of work for little gain.  And at worst a giant vendor lock-in scheme for a technology format that is likely to never really take off on a wide scale (see HDCD, SACD, etc.).


----------



## watchnerd

As I had speculated previously, using a minimum phase / gentler slope in order to achieve better impulse response runs the danger of higher noise in the audible band.
  
 Well, it would appear that Meridian has not reinvented physics or signal processing math.  MQA is in fact noisier than high resolution PCM, even played back on Meridian hardware:
  

  
 That's a whopping 12 dB more noise in the top band.
  
 So for those who equate 'more analog' to 'more tape hiss type noise', I guess they'll like it.


----------



## Gringo

Sorry  "watchnerd" for the mix up regarding patents and trade secrets but it still does not necessarily make someone a money grabber in my opinion
  
 Quote:


> What I do object to is misinformation, and some of Meridian's terminology and turns of phrase are coming awfully close to the line of obfuscation, if not crossing it.


 
 I'm not for one moment proposing to defend anything Meridian have said about MQA but I have seen quite a lot of misinterpretation by others about what MQA is or is not.  I do feel that Meridian have not been pro-actively enough in making it sufficiently clear is that the "lossless" tag is only in the sense of audible lossless.
 Of the claims by Meridian that come to mind I have noted the following:
  
 1. Meridian have stated quite clearly that the only information which is lost is the random 0's and 1's below the audible threshold floor due to that being where the "folded data" is stored, this is yet to be independently analysed and proved correct or not
  
 2. They have claimed that you don't need the MQA hardware/software to be able to download and play MQA encoded material, (you just don't get the major benefits of MQA) so existing equipment is not made redundant.  They have proved this to be absolutely the case and there are a number of early adopters on line who have confirmed this to be so.
  
 3.  They have claimed that the files size for MQA files is not much more than regular CD's.  2L's free online MQA files appear to bear this out and are there for any one to see and access
  
 4.  They claim that some artefacts induced in the original transference from masters can be corrected.  The jury as far as I can see is still out on that one as there is yet to be any independent technical analysis. (There are a number of early adopters saying that they have downloaded and listened to un-decoded MQA material and claim it is slightly better than regular CD)
  
 5. They claim that MQA decoded will give a better audio quality than CD and be on a par with "Hi-Res files" or better.  Again independent analytical study is yet to prove this to be true or not (again early adopters are already claiming that their downloaded and decoded MQA experience is providing a significant improvement over regular CD and generally on par or slightly better than "Hi- Res"
  
 6.  They claim that what the artist or engineer signs off is what you get.  This clearly depends on the integrity of whoever signs of the file but the MQA decoder does not light up if the file is not bit perfect compared to the signed off file and this is proving to be the case by the early adopters.
  
 Off the top of my head I can't think of a claim made by Meridian regarding MQA that is false or intentionally meant to deceive, (I'm sure someone will put me right if I am wrong)


----------



## watchnerd

For the record,  didn't refer to them as a money grabber.
  
  
 Regarding everything else:
  
 Quote:


gringo said:


> I'm not for one moment proposing to defend anything Meridian have said about MQA but I have seen quite a lot of misinterpretation by others about what MQA is or is not.  I do feel that Meridian have not been pro-actively enough in *making it sufficiently clear is that the "lossless" tag is only in the sense of audible lossless.*


 
  
 There is nothing to make clear - "audible lossless" is a term they invented, clearly designed to allow some level of conflation with "lossless".  There is no term of art called "audible lossless.   The correct term is "transparent".
  
 "Audible lossless" is clearly a made-up term designed to disguise the fact that MQA, in certain scenarios, is at least partially lossy.
  
  


gringo said:


> 1. Meridian have stated quite clearly that the only information which is lost is the random 0's and 1's below the audible threshold floor due to that being where the "folded data" is stored, this is yet to be independently analysed and proved correct or not


 
  
 AKA, they're throwing away data.  Benign or not, TBD, but they're chucking out data.  Much of which they're throwing out will be noise-shaped dither data, which is put there on purpose to reduce quantization noise.
  
  


gringo said:


> 3.  They have claimed that the files size for MQA files is not much more than regular CD's.  2L's free online MQA files appear to bear this out and are there for any one to see and access


 
  
 Not much bigger = bigger.  It's not as efficient as being compressed.
  
  


gringo said:


> 4.  They claim that some artefacts induced in the original transference from masters can be corrected.  The jury as far as I can see is still out on that one as there is yet to be any independent technical analysis. (There are a number of early adopters saying that they have downloaded and listened to un-decoded MQA material and claim it is slightly better than regular CD)


 
  
 Slightly better in what way? When you take out the 8 bits that MQA uses for secret sauce, they're both 16bit PCM formats.
  
  


gringo said:


> 4.  They claim that some artefacts induced in the original transference from masters can be corrected.  The jury as far as I can see is still out on that one as there is yet to be any independent technical analysis. (There are a number of early adopters saying that they have downloaded and listened to un-decoded MQA material and claim it is slightly better than regular CD)
> 
> 5. They claim that MQA decoded will give a better audio quality than CD and be on a par with "Hi-Res files" or better.  Again independent analytical study is yet to prove this to be true or not (again early adopters are already claiming that their downloaded and decoded MQA experience is providing a significant improvement over regular CD and generally on par or slightly better than "Hi- Res"


 
  
 Did you see the noise graph posted above? It has 12 dB more noise from artifacts than 24bit/192khz PCM.  Clearly:
  
 a. They haven't dealt with the noise very well
 b. How is that in any way "on a par with "Hi-Res files" or better?
  
  


gringo said:


> 6.  They claim that what the artist or engineer signs off is what you get.  This clearly depends on the integrity of whoever signs of the file but the MQA decoder does not light up if the file is not bit perfect compared to the signed off file and this is proving to be the case by the early adopters.


 
  
 Being bit perfect isn't the issue. I can sell you a bit perfect file that is a perfect representation of a horrible music production chain with bad editing, compression, and poor filter choices that MQA can't undo.


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## Gringo

Sorry watchnerd if I gave the impression that I was saying that you referred to Meridian as money grabbers, that is a term that others have used in this thread, forgive me if I don't specifically point fingers on this point.

Audible lossless is not a term that Meridian made up but rather one that I used to try and explain a point, (obviously not very well) so your statement "clearly a made-up term, designed to disguise the fact that MQA, in certain scenarios is at least partially lossless" is not really fair, plus they have gone on record to say that it is not lossless in the strictest sense.

1. I bow to your superior knowledge regarding the noise floor, I had always been lead to believe it was random meaningless 0's and 1's that served no purpose. Clearly from what you say, it does have an impact on the sound quality, though I have no idea what as I obviously have never heard a music file without the 0's and 1's

3. Yes MQA files are slightly bigger than CD's,(I see no point in getting bogged down in semantics) but this is overall minimal and they have never claimed parity of size with CD's. As far as I am aware Meridian have only claimed that streaming MQA compared to Hi-Res is more efficient because of the smaller data files

4. Those that claim MQA is slightly better undecoded than standard CD have documented their reasons for this this on line for anyone to read. This is obviously subjective which is why I used the term "claim". I personally don't know so that is why I have not offered an opinion.

5. Similar comments to point 4 apply to the decoded files they have downloaded. I agree your tests seem to say something quite different. Either you or they are wrong or the data being presented is not strictly valid in some way ( I don't know either way and I am happy that you will believe perfectly reasonably that you are correct), I don't know how Meridian have done what they claim but I now thanks to your efforts have an idea of what they might have done.

6. On this point we are clearly in complete agreement and as I said - it is all down to the integrity of the person signing off the material. Unless proved otherwise, I am happy to accept that you have integrity and what you say is true, in the same way I think it is wrong to automatically assume Meridian don't have integrity just because I don't understand the workings of their technology which seems to be the stance of some people's comments on this forum

DRM keeps being mentioned on the thread but I am unsure as to why as again, Meridian have stated very clearly on more than one occasion that MQA does not encorporate DRM

I would be interested to know if you listened to the undecoded and decoded MQA files, whether it was before or after conducting your tests and what your thoughts were regarding its musicality.

You have clearly gone to a lot of effort in the interesting tests you have conducted and that is very much appreciated, especially as you have gone to the bother of borrowing or purchasing an Explorer2

As I have said before, I am not clued up on the technical side but I have heard MQA and was very impressed. The only reason for my making comments are that I percieve there have been many misunderstandings and claims from those who have not heard MQA and some appear to have an over eagerness to dismiss something which might just possibly offer a real step forward.

I personally am sitting on the fence and am happy to let time prove if it is worthwhile and takes off or not
I'm now off to listen to some music


----------



## ralphp@optonline

I might be opening up a can of worms here but....
  
 What strikes me as odd is that rather than knock MQA for not being able to exactly reproduce the content of a true high resolution audio file what we really should be asking is does a properly encoded/decoded MQA file sound any better than a standard CD resolution file?
  
 Over the years I've found that the high end audio community has a nasty habit of building entire sub-industries out of beliefs that are,at best, unproven and, at worst, scientifically impossible. An example of unproven is expensive after market power cords. An example of scientifically impossible would be the need for expensive digital cables (coax, USB, HDMI, Ethernet, etc.) High resolution digital audio falls into the unproven category but that has not stopped Meridian from developing MQA, which for all intents and purposes may be completely unnecessary - that is until there is solid scientific proof that high resolution digital audio is better than standard CD resolution digital audio.


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## watchnerd

ralphp@optonline said:


> I might be opening up a can of worms here but....
> 
> What strikes me as odd is that rather than knock MQA for not being able to exactly reproduce the content of a true high resolution audio file what we really should be asking is does a properly encoded/decoded MQA file sound any better than a standard CD resolution file?
> 
> Over the years I've found that the high end audio community has a nasty habit of building entire sub-industries out of beliefs that are,at best, unproven and, at worst, scientifically impossible. An example of unproven is expensive after market power cords. An example of scientifically impossible would be the need for expensive digital cables (coax, USB, HDMI, Ethernet, etc.) High resolution digital audio falls into the unproven category but that has not stopped Meridian from developing MQA, which for all intents and purposes may be completely unnecessary - that is until there is solid scientific proof that high resolution digital audio is better than standard CD resolution digital audio.


 
  
 Here's the interesting thing about MQA, in terms of listening tests:
  
 16/44 vs 24/XX is an apples - apples comparison.  It's all basically "standard" PCM, Redbook or Redbook on steroids.  
  
 MQA, on the other hand, has so much other stuff going on that I wouldn't consider comparisons to standard high-resolution a like vs like comparison.
  
 It wouldn't shock me at all if people can ABX MQA vs FLAC without too much difficulty given how much manipulation is going on with MQA.
  
 As for which they would prefer in a blind test, that would be interesting, indeed.


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## watchnerd

csmx1234 said:


> Oh nice!


 
  
 I know, right?  Seriously. It's like 'whoa'. That's how nice it is.


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## watchnerd

*MQA a "Soup Sandwich"*
  
_"Right now MQA is like a soup sandwich. Nobody outside of MQA really knows what it is exactly. The message from MQA is hard to understand, partly because it's such a large undertaking. There's the MQA recording studio pieces of the puzzle, the consumer device playback pieces of the puzzle, and the different methods used to create MQA files that sit on a continuum from a white glove process going back to the original master recordings to a much more low-touch process that will likely be used to convert larger catalogs of music, and many other pieces. Talking to manufacturers at CES about MQA was interesting as well. Some were puzzled as to what was going on with MQA while others were surprised to see their names listed as MQA partners on signage at the show. This raised the question of what exactly is an MQA partner. I currently don't have an answer to that question. Then came Friday night at CES. At 5:29 PM I, and other journalists, received the following text message:

"MQA is undergoing "Proof of Concept" with its partners here at CES, and as part of that there will be a small, but important clarification from MQA and AURALiC coming later today...please hold up any coverage of the two partners until the clarification is sent out today."

I don't want to get into the gritty details of what happened, but I believe we are in for more confusion in the coming months."_


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## dcginc

Just heard MQA files for the first time today at my local hi fi shop where I also bought a mojo as well.

Spent some time listening to The Doors Riders on the Storm via a 100 wpc Moon Audio integrated amp and DAC, Bluesound Node 2 streamer decoding the MQA files on a USB stick driving a pair of stand mounted Focal loudspeakers.

What stunned me was how the drums sounded. You could hear and feel a real three demensional quality to the drum sticks hitting the surface of the drums.

Never heard that from any hi fi rig before. Of course the vocals sounded great, clear, clean, well musical.

I rushed home, fired up Tidal, played Riders on the Storm through my three-way active ATCs. Could not replicate the nuances of the drum kit I heard decoded from MQA in the shop. My mudic sounded flat, very two- dimensional. 

Pretty stoked to hear more from the master, Bob Stuart and his MQA magic.


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## ralphp@optonline

dcginc said:


> Just heard MQA files for the first time today at my local hi fi shop where I also bought a mojo as well.
> 
> Spent some time listening to The Doors Riders on the Storm via a 100 wpc Moon Audio integrated amp and DAC, Bluesound Node 2 streamer decoding the MQA files on a USB stick driving a pair of stand mounted Focal loudspeakers.
> 
> ...


 

 The above listening experience is useful as a subjective, sighted listening. Nothing more, nothing less.


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## Gringo

It however does become a little bit more when the overwhelming majority of those who have heard MQA say similar things. All the more reason to go and listen for yourself before making up your mind how worthwhile you think it might turn out to be. In my opinion, it will still need more providers e.g. Tidal before it has any chance of taking off and not to be consigned to the graveyard of good ideas such as Betamax, SACD etc.


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## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> It however does become a little bit more when the overwhelming majority of those who have heard MQA say similar things. All the more reason to go and listen for yourself before making up your mind how worthwhile you think it might turn out to be. In my opinion, it will still need more providers e.g. Tidal before it has any chance of taking off and not to be consigned to the graveyard of good ideas such as Betamax, SACD etc.


 

 So far the overwhelming majority of "the overwhelming majority of those who have heard MQA" are high end audio industry flacks. Over the years there have been many, many miracle technologies introduced to improve the sound of mp3s and other types of digital audio files and in each and every case these "technologies" have proven to be nothing more then some very cleverly disguised form of equalizer. I will wait until MQA proves that it is something more than all those other "miracles".


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## Gringo

Absolutely fine with that, we all have to make our own decisions.  I may well be interpreting the tone of your comment incorrectly, (if I am then I apologise), but it seems your simply not prepared to listen until MQA have proven that is not some clever equalizer which for me is puzzling. As mentioned before, there is nothing wrong in healthy scepticism, but I prefer to research as much as I can but the final decision is to use my ears and follow the time warn mantra of "at the end of the day, it does not matter one iota what manufacturers, sales people, friends or technical data says, listen and if you like what you hear then it is right for you"  The bottom line for me is that I don't much care what the technical wizardry is, (very interesting as it might be), but whether my listening experience is made more enjoyable at a price that I am prepared to pay. This last point is obviously totally subjective and the outcome will be different for everyone.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> Absolutely fine with that, we all have to make our own decisions.  I may well be interpreting the tone of your comment incorrectly, (if I am then I apologise), but it seems your simply not prepared to listen until MQA have proven that is not some clever equalizer which for me is puzzling. As mentioned before, there is nothing wrong in healthy scepticism, but I prefer to research as much as I can but the final decision is to use my ears and follow the time warn mantra of "at the end of the day, it does not matter one iota what manufacturers, sales people, friends or technical data says, listen and if you like what you hear then it is right for you"  The bottom line for me is that I don't much care what the technical wizardry is, (very interesting as it might be), but whether my listening experience is made more enjoyable at a price that I am prepared to pay. This last point is obviously totally subjective and the outcome will be different for everyone.


 

 Very nicely stated. One thing to keep in mind with respect to MQA is that it is riding along as just another piece of the overall high end audio hype regarding high resolution digital audio, something that I've heard for myself many, many, many times and more often than not just leaves my wondering what all the fuss is about. Take any high resolution digital audio file (24bit/88.2 or 96 kHz), down sample the file to standard CD resolution (16bit/44.1kHz) and then playback both files and determine if you can hear any difference between the two files.
  
 High end audio has a very long history of building huge houses on the shakiest of foundations - just look at the house built for after market power cords. Hell, the entire high end audio cable industry is built on sand. Power conditioners, fancy high end wall outlets, high end music servers, high end Ethernet cables, high end blank CDs etc. Remember: there's a sucker born every minute.


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## Gringo

Yes, you are absolutely right, many claims in the Hi-Fi world have been called into question.  As with any field of commerce,the world of Hi-Fi is littered with false and/or over embellished  claims.  It can be a minefield for the unwary but we have to keep ears open to worthwhile advancements when they come round.  If people can hear the difference that mega-bucks cables etc. offer that's down to them and their wallet.


----------



## sonitus mirus

gringo said:


> Yes, you are absolutely right, many claims in the Hi-Fi world have been called into question.  As with any field of commerce,the world of Hi-Fi is littered with false and/or over embellished  claims.  It can be a minefield for the unwary but we have to keep ears open to worthwhile advancements when they come round.  If people can hear the difference that mega-bucks cables etc. offer that's down to them and their wallet.


 
  
 The audiophile industry is not like any other field of commerce.  It may not be absolutely unique, but some of the outrageous or empty claims would be illegal if similar assertions were spread around in other types of commerce.  There is no regulation.  I mean, gee whiz, at a minimum this industry should have to spend huge amounts or resources on lawyers and lobbyists to be able to get away with the type of fantastic embellishments being thrown about in an effort to influence their customer base.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> Yes, you are absolutely right, many claims in the Hi-Fi world have been called into question.  As with any field of commerce,the world of Hi-Fi is littered with false and/or over embellished  claims.  It can be a minefield for the unwary but we have to keep ears open to worthwhile advancements when they come round.  If people can hear the difference that mega-bucks cables etc. offer that's down to them and their wallet.


 
 A slight correction is in order: "If people _*think that they*_ hear the difference that mega-bucks cables etc. offer that's down to them and their wallet."
  
 Quote:


sonitus mirus said:


> The audiophile industry is not like any other field of commerce.  It may not be absolutely unique, but some of the outrageous or empty claims would be illegal if similar assertions were spread around in other types of commerce.  There is no regulation.  I mean, gee whiz, at a minimum this industry should have to spend huge amounts or resources on lawyers and lobbyists to be able to get away with the type of fantastic embellishments being thrown about in an effort to influence their customer base.


 
  
 Perhaps a good motto for the Sound Science sub-forum would be these words from Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter:
  
 "Though I could not caution all, I still might warn a few:
 Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools."


----------



## Gringo

It is all down to degree when it comes to false/over embellished claims but I can think of quite a number from slimming aids, herbal remedies, car manufactures, penis enlargement aids, fuel additives, sports equipment but lets not go there. I would agree the world of Hi-Fi may well be in a league of it's own


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> It is all down to degree when it comes to false/over embellished claims but I can think of quite a number from slimming aids, herbal remedies, car manufactures, penis enlargement aids, fuel additives, sports equipment but lets not go there. I would agree the world of Hi-Fi may well be in a league of it's own


 

 Hi-Fi has the added advantage of a whole slew of golden eared writers and editors who willingly confirm and expand upon the most outrageous claims made by the manufacturers (aka their advertisers and hence their paychecks) without requiring even the slightest bit of proof or valid scientific reasoning. Remember it's all made out to be some kind of magic when nothing cause be further from the truth. Add internal bracing to a speaker and it will perform better. Use better quality electronic components and the product will perform better. For the engineers working behind the scenes it's all well understood science but for the marketing people and their more than willing accomplices in the high end audio media it's all MAGIC!


----------



## Gringo

A slight correction is in order: "If people _*think that they*_ hear the difference that mega-bucks cables etc. offer that's down to them and their wallet."
  
 That correction seems quite reasonable to me
  
 "Though I could not caution all, I still might warn a few:
 Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools."
  
 Exactly, that's why I first posted on this forum. Many were dismissing a technology out of hand without hearing it should be   open to challenge just as those who might extol a technology without hearing and comparing to comparable ones.


----------



## sonitus mirus

gringo said:


> Exactly, that's why I first posted on this forum. Many were dismissing a technology out of hand without hearing it should be   open to challenge just as those who might extol a technology without hearing and comparing to comparable ones.


 
  
 Yes, but if someone were to make the claim that they could make the Earth rotate faster, I want to see some real data or legitimate testing to confirm this result.  Just listening is akin to just feeling that the Earth is rotating faster.  If you were isolating your ears when comparing, I would give the evaluation more credence; though, as often is the case, just listening brings along all the various bags of bias along for the ride.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> A slight correction is in order: "If people _*think that they*_ hear the difference that mega-bucks cables etc. offer that's down to them and their wallet."
> 
> That correction seems quite reasonable to me
> 
> ...


 

 The technology was/is being dismissed "out of hand" simply because Meridian has chosen to wrap the technology around an air of mystery, magic and voodoo and has enlisted all the usual suspects to sing the praises of this magical breakthrough, all without providing real proof the sonic improvements. Sure they can show and have shown that a MQA file will unpack into some kind of equivalent to a real high resolution digital audio file but they have not clearly shown that the MQA file sounds better than a true high resolution audio file nor even better than a standard resolution audio file. And staged demos attended by the self-proclaimed "golden eared" high end media most definitely don't count as proof.
  
 Basically all we have to go on with respect to the sonic improvements offered by MQA is hype and hype ain't worth crap.


----------



## sonitus mirus

I'll go as far to say that MQA might sound different, possibly even better to most.  If it is different, what makes it different, and was it truly necessary to create a completely new, proprietary format to accomplish this difference/improvement?  If the output of a properly decoded MQA file could be captured and converted into a standard 16/44.1 PCM file, would there be any measurable differences?  If yes, would these differences be audible?


----------



## ralphp@optonline

sonitus mirus said:


> I'll go as far to say that MQA might sound different, possibly even better to most.  If it is different, what makes it different, and was it truly necessary to create a completely new, proprietary format to accomplish this difference/improvement?  If the output of a properly decoded MQA file could be captured and converted into a standard 16/44.1 PCM file, would there be any measurable differences?  If yes, would these differences be audible?


 

 As I stated previously until it is conclusively shown that an MQA encoded/decoded file has NOT been altered by some form of equalization then MQA encoding remains unproven. Remember that even a slight change in the overall volume can distort a listener's sonic impressions, as in slightly louder sounds slightly better. And that is one of many, many tricks that can be employed.


----------



## Gringo

> The technology was/is being dismissed "out of hand" simply because Meridian has chosen to wrap the technology around an air of mystery, magic and voodoo and has enlisted all the usual suspects to sing the praises of this magical breakthrough, all without providing real proof the sonic improvements. Sure they can show and have shown that a MQA file will unpack into some kind of equivalent to a real high resolution digital audio file but they have not clearly shown that the MQA file sounds better than a true high resolution audio file nor even better than a standard resolution audio file. And staged demos attended by the self-proclaimed "golden eared" high end media most definitely don't count as proof.
> 
> Basically all we have to go on with respect to the sonic improvements offered by MQA is hype and hype ain't worth crap.


 
 I don't see where you get "Meridian has chosen to wrap the technology around an air of mystery, magic and voodoo and has enlisted all the usual suspects to sing the praises of this magical breakthrough, all without providing real proof the sonic improvements"
  
 Reading and listening to what Meridian have actually said, as far as I can see dose not merit such a sweeping statement.  They have not gone into fully detailed explicit explanation of MQA for obvious commercial reasons and there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What actual "magic and voodoo" are you claiming they have specifically espoused?
  
  
 "has enlisted all the usual suspects to sing the praises of this magical breakthrough, all without providing real proof the sonic improvements"
  
 Others have sung MQA's praises which is down to them and not Meridian.  If Meridian choose to quote these comments in publicity material quoting sources that is perfectly normal and acceptable practice just as any other company might do.
  
 Where is the evidence of your claim that Meridian "enlisted all the usual suspects", any company will publicise and promote their wares to the relevant media but you appear to make it all seem like a big conspiracy and if this is so I can see no evidence of this.
  
 Where has Meridian claimed that "MQA file sounds better than a true high resolution audio"? The only audio superiority that I have found claimed by Meridian is that it is superior to standard MP3 and also going back to the original masters, some improvements can be made as original erroneous artifacts introduced by early DACs can be addressed.
  
 As regards to proof of MQA technology veracity, Meridian have published their scientific papers explaining the principles and arguments behind MQA and as far as am aware no official paper has been published that refutes their claims. I don't see any of their competitors challenging or making counter claims. To the general public, (in that I include you and I), they don't have to prove anything. Like any other manufacture they demonstrate their wares, offer it for sale and the public if interested audition and make their own mind up.  There is absolutely nothing dishonest, underhand or disingenuous about that.
  
 I totally agree that "staged demos attended by the self-proclaimed "golden eared" high end media most definitely don't count as proof", has anyone argued otherwise? That's why we use our own ears.
  
 "Basically all we have to go on with respect to the sonic improvements offered by MQA is hype and hype ain't worth crap."
  
 What specific hype are you referring to here? Is the source actually from MQA or Meridian?


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> I don't see where you get "Meridian has chosen to wrap the technology around an air of mystery, magic and voodoo and has enlisted all the usual suspects to sing the praises of this magical breakthrough, all without providing real proof the sonic improvements"
> 
> Reading and listening to what Meridian have actually said, as far as I can see dose not merit such a sweeping statement.  They have not gone into fully detailed explicit explanation of MQA for obvious commercial reasons and there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What actual "magic and voodoo" are you claiming they have specifically espoused?
> 
> ...


 

 Okay so I'm guilty of using some of the same hyperbole that so all too often tossed about regarding high end audio. So far the MQA technology appears to be little more than a nice technological and engineering feat with yet to be proven real world applications. Is that better?
  
 The main issue with MQA is that it is proprietary and will do nothing to improve a consumer's existing digital audio collection. Useful for streaming services - sure but again this is of limited scope since first the service has to agree to whatever price Meridian will be charging and then needs to encode the existing files with MQA - a time consuming and costly process. Plus the streaming service's subscribers must have the hardware to decode the MQA files. That's asking an awful lot and it sounds like a lose (fee to Meridian) - lose (time and cost to encode to MQA) - lose (limited number of subscribers capable of decoding MQA) to me.
  
 And that's leaving aside any discussion of the actual sonics.


----------



## Gringo

> Yes, but if someone were to make the claim that they could make the Earth rotate faster, I want to see some real data or legitimate testing to confirm this result.  Just listening is akin to just feeling that the Earth is rotating faster.  If you were isolating your ears when comparing, I would give the evaluation more credence; though, as often is the case, just listening brings along all the various bags of bias along for the ride.


 
 If MQA were claiming to re-invent the laws of physics I think your argument would have real merit.  In everything I have read published by them, they are not.
  
 "just listening brings along all the various bags of bias along for the ride." That's just life and impacts every aspect of life hence with Hi-Fi you listen, you consider and you make your mind up. If we only consider technical proof we would just read the tech and then purchase without audition.  Do you buy Hi-Fi kit and not listen first because of your bias baggage might get in the way?
  
 I have read lots of claims on the subject of MQA which are presented as facts when they are opinions and/or based on incorrect sources.  I personally claim absolutely nothing with regard to MQA other than I have listened and was impressed.  Does that prove anything? no of course not other than I was impressed. I don't claim it's the next best thing since the dawn of time,  simply I recommend others listen before making their mind up. Whether you or anyone else chooses to do so is simply up to you


----------



## Gringo

> Okay so I'm guilty of using some of the same hyperbole that so all too often tossed about regarding high end audio. So far the MQA technology appears to be little more than a nice technological and engineering feat with yet to be proven real world applications. Is that better?
> 
> The main issue with MQA is that it is proprietary and will do nothing to improve a consumer's existing digital audio collection. Useful for streaming services - sure but again this is of limited scope since first the service has to agree to whatever price Meridian will be charging and then needs to encode the existing files with MQA - a time consuming and costly process. Plus the streaming service's subscribers must have the hardware to decode the MQA files. That's asking an awful lot and it sounds like a lose (fee to Meridian) - lose (time and cost to encode to MQA) - lose (limited number of subscribers capable of decoding MQA) to me.
> 
> And that's leaving aside any discussion of the actual sonics.


 
 Totally agree. In a nut shell, time will tell


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> If MQA were claiming to re-invent the laws of physics I think your argument would have real merit.  In everything I have read published by them, they are not.
> 
> "just listening brings along all the various bags of bias along for the ride." That's just life and impacts every aspect of life hence with Hi-Fi you listen, you consider and you make your mind up. If we only consider technical proof we would just read the tech and then purchase without audition.  Do you buy Hi-Fi kit and not listen first because of your bias baggage might get in the way?
> 
> I have read lots of claims on the subject of MQA which are presented as facts when they are opinions and/or based on incorrect sources.  I personally claim absolutely nothing with regard to MQA other than I have listened and was impressed.  Does that prove anything? no of course not other than I was impressed. I don't claim it's the next best thing since the dawn of time,  simply I recommend others listen before making their mind up. Whether you or anyone else chooses to do so is simply up to you


 

 I think that what is happening is that what Meridian is saying and claiming is being mixed up with all the usual hype being applied by the high end audio community. I don't think that Meridian is claiming that MQA is a sonic breakthrough but that is being claimed by others. Until there are thorough listening tests, both long term subjective, sighted listening and some well controlled double blind tests, the jury remains out.


----------



## sonitus mirus

gringo said:


> If MQA were claiming to re-invent the laws of physics I think your argument would have real merit.  In everything I have read published by them, they are not.
> 
> "just listening brings along all the various bags of bias along for the ride." That's just life and impacts every aspect of life hence with Hi-Fi you listen, you consider and you make your mind up. If we only consider technical proof we would just read the tech and then purchase without audition.  Do you buy Hi-Fi kit and not listen first because of your bias baggage might get in the way?
> 
> I have read lots of claims on the subject of MQA which are presented as facts when they are opinions and/or based on incorrect sources.  I personally claim absolutely nothing with regard to MQA other than I have listened and was impressed.  Does that prove anything? no of course not other than I was impressed. I don't claim it's the next best thing since the dawn of time,  simply I recommend others listen before making their mind up. Whether you or anyone else chooses to do so is simply up to you


 
  
 For such things as DACs, amplifiers, and interconnects, I try and find gear at an affordable price in a form factor that suits my needs and with typical industry-wide measurements that suggest it should be audibly transparent or very nearly so. For the source material, anything available in a well encoded lossy format is fine for streaming and general playback, and CD quality is fine for archiving.  I simply have not found any significant benefits to my listening enjoyment with more expensive equipment with specifications that are overkill or with HD files that share a similar mastering with a standard CD or well-encoded lossy file.
  
 I've discovered that the least reliable information to use is someone's review from simply hearing the equipment or music files.  Headphones and speakers are different, but with a nice EQ, this really isn't as important, to a certain extent.
  
 There are differences, to be sure, but these are most likely far smaller than many make them out to be.   I can't find an impartial analysis of MQA that would indicate that it is necessary to improve the status of audio quality.  If the plan is to remaster every piece of music (not likely), are the benefits actually from using MQA, or could all of the sonic improvements already be captured in current technologies?


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## ralphp@optonline

The funny thing is that Meridian is one of the few respected "high end" audio manufacturers that is trying to move the technology of home audio away from the source->preamp->power amp->speaker paradigm and towards the active speaker centered system. Meridian's "Digital Active DSP Loudspeaker" makes great use of the "digital" part of audio. I believe the setup is pretty much digital source -> DSP active speaker. Nice and simple. But hey this is Head-fi and while Meridian does make headphone amp and DACs, they presently don't make headphones.


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## Gringo

Quote:


> For such things as DACs, amplifiers, and interconnects, I try and....


 
 A great deal of sense in what you say and as you quite rightly say, if you don't find any worthwhile benefits, you don't purchase.
  


> I can't find an impartial analysis of MQA...


 
 Quite agree, I'm still waiting too.
  


> If the plan is to remaster every piece of music (not likely), are the benefits actually from using MQA, or could all of the sonic improvements already be captured in current technologies?


 
 I would guess only high demand and new recordings will receive the MQA process if the technology gains traction. From what I can glean, the sonic improvements, (the jury is still out on that), come from current technologies.  MQA's main claims, which appear to be fully vindicated, is a) that file size for streaming of Hi-Res quality is significantly reduced and b) the file has to be bit perfect before you get confirmation that you are getting what whoever, (artist, producer, Mastering engineer, etc) signed off, (lots of scope for cynicism here).  I don't see any value for the likes of Chart busters vol.147 or those purely aimed at radio and bargin basement downloads.


----------



## Gringo

> Meridian is one of the few respected "high end" audio manufacturers...


 
 This is one of the reasons why I have been encouraging people not to just dismiss what they say out of hand, why would a relatively small company with a first rate reputation simply throw it away with false or over embellished claims?

  
 I am interested as to what those who have heard MQA through their systems have to say. What in their opinion are the apparent benefits/drawbacks/minimal or no difference observations  with their head amps, DACs, phones? I have seen a couple of claims of "big improvements" which does make me suspicious as they seemed to have spent very large sums of money on systems, (which I could never afford), so might be a little biased. The more people that audition will help to give some perspective.


----------



## castleofargh

gringo said:


> I am interested as to what those who have heard MQA through their systems have to say. What in their opinion are the apparent benefits/drawbacks/minimal or no difference observations  with their head amps, DACs, phones? I have seen a couple of claims of "big improvements" which does make me suspicious as they seemed to have spent very large sums of money on systems, (which I could never afford), so might be a little biased. The more people that audition will help to give some perspective.


 
  
 are you really interested? some of the first guys to give a feedback, post because of the popularity there is to gain from being first. they're willing to take a risk for that and often exaggerate, because if the feedback is called "nothing to read", they won't get any attention. the next ones often prefer to reassure themselves(after all, it's hard to find anybody as insecure as an audiophile) by reading what has already been said, and they obviously get influenced by what they read.
 and that's how you end up reading copies of terms and sentences from the first 3 famous guys, inside tens of "personal feedbacks".
  
 on audio forums we're in a system worst than simple honest subjectivism. it's really challenging to find value in people's feedbacks, because of how they let themselves be influenced by manufacturers propaganda and known reviewers. so I really have no hope whatsoever that more feedbacks will help give some perspective.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 and I'm not even counting all those who will de facto say it's better because they ride the "more always sounds better" bandwagon for ultrasounds, and those who will de facto spit on MQA when they see it's not really 24bit in most cases. "hermagerd no dyrnamirc!!!"
 I expect even more false assumptions than we got with the pono or DSD.


----------



## Gringo

> are you really interested? ....


 
 If I was not interested in learning stuff and finding out others opinions why would I bother reading anything on this forum? Note I am not interested in saying how clever and knowledgeable I am, (quite the opposite in fact), and I don't brag about equipment I have. I am fully aware that you need caution when considering others opinions but I am not so jaundiced and full of cynicism as to feel everyone else's opinion is not valid for a multitude of possible reasons. Call me naive by all means but I like to think there are some out there who are honest enough to know they are not always right and try to express balanced opinions, (how successful they are - well that's another matter and of course I include myself in that).
 Please note that I am not accusing you or anyone else of anything and there is no intent to upset or offend anyone.


----------



## castleofargh

gringo said:


> > are you really interested? ....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 






 no worries friend, just say what you think. you offended nobody. after all I'm the one who came with my dark vision on feedbacks. ^_^
 my point, and it's certainly no more than my opinion, was that while you can find plenty of genuinely honest people(with more or less success in attempting to tell the truth, usually less), I do not believe in such a situation, that numbers improve our capacity to get some perspective about a product. unlike usual statistics, the widely shared opinion in the end has no guaranty to be linked to what really is happening(for the reasons I gave previously).
 so IMO it's better to just make your opinion by yourself, right or wrong, at least it's yours.
 or to try and find feedbacks from a very limited number of people you have learned to trust from past feedbacks and evidence that they did test the matter at hand using a satisfactory method. and then indeed there is a point in wasting hours on forums like we all here do. ^_^ just so that we can put our hands on those few brave people we will trust a little bit more than the rest.
  
 surely my vision is mostly cynicism, but past experiences lead me there.


----------



## Gringo

Hey castleofargh, we all have to learn by our experiences the best we can. A good mantra regarding others opinions which I think fits quite well with what you say is "Learn by others mistakes but make your own"
  
 Happy listening


----------



## rrollens

I own the Onkyo DP1X DAP. Today they enabled MQA. I downloaded some free files and am now hooked. I live in the US, and really would like to purchase some MQA recordings. Where to I go online to purchase? Thx.


----------



## tmarshl

rrollens said:


> I own the Onkyo DP1X DAP. Today they enabled MQA. I downloaded some free files and am now hooked. I live in the US, and really would like to purchase some MQA recordings. Where to I go online to purchase? Thx.


 
 MQA downloads available at Onkyo Store at $24 each:   https://www.onkyomusic.com
  
 Look under "Recommended" tab for MQA downloads.


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## rrollens

tmarshl said:


> MQA downloads available at Onkyo Store at $24 each:   https://www.onkyomusic.com
> 
> Look under "Recommended" tab for MQA downloads.


 

 Thank you so much. Did it and bought two albums. Also found that 2L site also is avaialbe to those of us who live in the US. MQA is a game changer.


----------



## castleofargh

rrollens said:


> Thank you so much. Did it and bought two albums. Also found that 2L site also is avaialbe to those of us who live in the US. MQA is a game changer.


 

 how is that? MQA doesn't offer anything superior to basic PCM. the only possible interest is for streaming music online because the resolution may adapt to the bandwidth.  they just put the same chocolates in another box. the taste shouldn't be different if it's done as advertised.


----------



## sonitus mirus

castleofargh said:


> how is that? MQA doesn't offer anything superior to basic PCM. the only possible interest is for streaming music online because the resolution may adapt to the bandwidth.  they just put the same chocolates in another box. the taste shouldn't be different if it's done as advertised.


 
  
 The streaming version is technically a lossy version, so FLAC/ALAC should be equal or superior to any MQA stream.  It seems like an overly complicated method of EQing from everything I've read about it, so it may sound different. It does not seem like anything special that could not be recreated using PCM, but PCM does not include proprietary licensing costs to use.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

sonitus mirus said:


> It seems like an overly complicated method of EQing from everything I've read about it, so it may sound different.


 
 Nailed it - at its core all MQA is yet another form of equalization.


----------



## peterinvan

ralphp@optonline said:


> Nailed it - at its core all MQA is yet another form of equalization.




Lots of clarification needed on misunderstanding and myth... See Bob's response...

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/694-comprehensive-q-mqa-s-bob-stuart/


----------



## ralphp@optonline

peterinvan said:


> Lots of clarification needed on misunderstanding and myth... See Bob's response...
> 
> http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/694-comprehensive-q-mqa-s-bob-stuart/


 

 A link to Computer Audiophile in the Sound Science section?!?!? Please give us a break.


----------



## Gringo

"A link to Computer Audiophile in the the Sound Science section ?!?!? Please give us a break."

Have you read it? It seems that those who have, (including ardent doubters), are agreed it is a very impressive article which deals with many misconceptions about what MQA is or is not.

Those who are genuinely interested in music quality rather than simply espousing preconceptions will find it interesting but be warned it is a lengthy read and much of it is beyond the average persons understanding of music recording and transmission.


----------



## RRod

gringo said:


> "A link to Computer Audiophile in the the Sound Science section ?!?!? Please give us a break."
> 
> Have you read it? It seems that those who have, (including ardent doubters), are agreed it is a very impressive article which deals with many misconceptions about what MQA is or is not.
> 
> Those who are genuinely interested in music quality rather than simply espousing preconceptions will find it interesting but be warned it is a lengthy read and much of it is beyond the average persons understanding of music recording and transmission.


 
  
 An article with this image in it:

  
 isn't to be taken seriously. Streaming quality same as cassette? LP same quality as DVD-A? I must have taken my crazy pills this morning.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> "A link to Computer Audiophile in the the Sound Science section ?!?!? Please give us a break."
> 
> Have you read it? It seems that those who have, (including ardent doubters), are agreed it is a very impressive article which deals with many misconceptions about what MQA is or is not.
> 
> Those who are genuinely interested in music quality rather than simply espousing preconceptions will find it interesting but be warned it is a lengthy read and much of it is beyond the average persons understanding of music recording and transmission.


 

 I repeat using anything taken from the Computer Audiophile as a reliable source of technical information is, at best, a fool's errand and will just leave one knowing less than before one started.
  
 And reading the article only reinforces the opinions of those who say that at its core MQA is just a fancy equalizer. All the rest is just window dressing. MQA = equalizer is all one needs to know about MQA.


----------



## Gringo

You don't confirm that you have actually read the article and make such a sweeping generalised statement about the articles reliability that some might question the reliability of your comments.

I would repeat that the article is most certainly worth reading if one wishes to gain some insight about the thinking behind MQA. I however make no claims about the veracity of the article, I leave that for others.


----------



## Gringo

You or I might just possibly be misreading the simple chart. I read it as a very generalised comparison of a media's convienence of use to its audio quality and is not trying to compare audio quality between different media.


----------



## RRod

gringo said:


> You or I might just possibly be misreading the simple chart. I read it as a very generalised comparison of a media's convienence of use to its audio quality and is not trying to compare audio quality between different media.


 
  
 I'm not misreading anything.


----------



## Gringo

Funny that, I was thinking the same thing.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> You don't confirm that you have actually read the article and make such a sweeping generalised statement about the articles reliability that some might question the reliability of your comments.
> 
> I would repeat that the article is most certainly worth reading if one wishes to gain some insight about the thinking behind MQA. I however make no claims about the veracity of the article, I leave that for others.


 

 I'll make you a deal:
  
 You confirm the veracity of the article and I will read it.
  
 Personally I don't make a habit of reading self serving press releases, which until you or someone else confirms the veracity of the article, is all that I will take the article to be. And once again, the parts of the article that I did read only confirmed my suspicions that MQA is nothing more than some fancy equalization. I.E. the only way to "improve" the sound of an existing recording is by some form of equalization or digital signal processing (which is also just another form of equalization). And more to the point equalization, regardless of how fancy or how "new" is NOT revolutionary.


----------



## Gringo

As you read at least a very small part of the article I will assume that you are aware that the article is one of the two inventors of MQA responses to a great many questions submitted by many different people, many of them with very serious doubts about it.

On reflection hold that statement, I realise that you clearly don't otherwise you would have absolutely no justification to call it a "self serving press release" which it patently is not.

As Bob Stewart has gone to great lengths and in considerable depth to address a whole range of very searching questions which is considerably more than I have ever read from any other manufacturer, I find your reluctance to read it a little puzzling. Are you concerned that he might have something of real worth to say that you are unable to refute?

Of what you have read, what aspects are inaccurate? what specific false statements or claims has he made? If you have not been able to identify any, then your reason for not reading his answers in full undermines the merits of any arguement you put forward.

I am quite prepared to say that I simply don't understand everything he says, but he certainly puts forward authoritive reasoning. Of those who put forward the original questions I am yet to hear any of them counter is reasoning. If you do have valid reasoned arguments to contradict what he states in the article, I would be very happy for you to enlighten me.

Your stance that you won't read the article until someone else proves to you that he is right and yet will continue to dismiss and argue against it's merits, for me at least, simply undermines the credibility of your claims. I hope you do not take offence at my comments as I intend none.


----------



## tmarshl

I will withhold judgement until I have the opportunity to listen to MQA properly derived from a Master recording, on my very own system in my listening room.  
  
 I also believe that the only way that MQA will attain broad adoption is if it is used in streaming (Tidal).  Paying $24 per downloaded album is a non-starter.


----------



## RRod

gringo said:


> I am quite prepared to say that I simply don't understand everything he says, but he certainly puts forward authoritive reasoning. Of those who put forward the original questions I am yet to hear any of them counter is reasoning. If you do have valid reasoned arguments to contradict what he states in the article, I would be very happy for you to enlighten me.


 
  
 See the comments below the article and a quick response from Archimago here. The question isn't so much if they can encode high frequency content into the LSBs of a 44.1/48k carrier and then recover that information to yield a "better" impulse response. It's about the resulting quality, both for decoded and non-decoded streams, and the DRM potential, not to mention the whole big question of what we can actually hear as humans in terms of "blur" or "smear".


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> As you read at least a very small part of the article I will assume that you are aware that the article is one of the two inventors of MQA responses to a great many questions submitted by many different people, many of them with very serious doubts about it.
> 
> On reflection hold that statement, I realise that you clearly don't otherwise you would have absolutely no justification to call it a "self serving press release" which it patently is not.
> 
> ...


 
 Okay I read the article ad it is indeed a very, very self serving press release.
  
 Here are some choice quotes from the article:
  
 "In brief, MQA is a philosophy more than it is ‘just a codec’." Really? Really? What?!?!?
  
 "We are very serious about the problem that, in the internet era, the average level of sound quality has declined for most music fans." Again really? So smartphones do not sound better than cassette Walkmans?
  
 "The fact that the decline of physical media has effectively disconnected several generations from simple discovery and playback has accelerated the process." Ever heard of Spotify or Apple Music or Pandora?
  
 "Q9. Regarding my disappointment from hi res audio (with some exceptions of course) as a holy grail digital format I believe that MQA is the last format standing between Real evolution in digital audio and Redbook-mp3 total domination in the long term.
  
 A9. We are inclined to agree. It’s an important problem we are solving and requires insight, perspective and determination. We are up for the chance to make recorded music more enjoyable and more available. We have been very pleased by the number and quality of very positive comments and support. The key difference is we are taking the solution inside the music industry. This inclusive approach makes it slower to get going, but we hope more effective in the end."
  
 If the above question and answer aren't the very definition of self serving then i don't know what is.
  
 "temporal blur" this is a video, not an audio, term.
  
 The remaining 80 or so Q&As do very little as far as presenting any additional useful information but he does answer lots of pretty much pointless questions, though this is not his fault.
  
 And in light of the current market forces facing record companies I highly doubt there exists the will to spend time to properly remaster anything short of the Beatles. But that is a different issue than the technological aspects of MQA, which only careful listening will either confirm or deny.
  
 Perhaps a better question for the audiophile would be why is MQA even being discussed when it is very clearly works as PCM and is not DSD? (Please note: that is very much meant to be sarcastic.)


----------



## Gringo

tmarshal's comment about reserving judgement and auditioning MQA utilising a system that he is comfortable with is a welcome piece of common sense. Totally agree that cost and availability have yet to addressed as yet, if they are not then MQA is a complete non flier regardless of any claims to its audio merits.


----------



## Gringo

""In brief, MQA is a philosophy more than it is ‘just a codec’." Really? Really? What?!?!?"

You may not like or agree with the statement but stating MQA's philosophy regarding the technology is quite a reasonable thing to do in the context of responding to a very large number of questions. 


"We are very serious about the problem that, in the internet era, the average level of sound quality has declined for most music fans." Again really? So smartphones do not sound better than cassette Walkmans?"

The highly compressed MP3 sound quality being listened to by the average user is probably on a par with audio cassettes. Those that use HD quality files on their smartphones are unquestionably in a minority and certainly not to be confused with the majority

""The fact that the decline of physical media has effectively disconnected several generations from simple discovery and playback has accelerated the process." Ever heard of Spotify or Apple Music or Pandora?""

There is a whole generation out there who only listen to music via Spotify etc. and have never listened on anything remotely akin to a quality playback system

""Q9. Regarding my disappointment from hi res audio (with some exceptions of course) as a holy grail digital format I believe that MQA is the last format standing between Real evolution in digital audio and Redbook-mp3 total domination in the long term.

A9. We are inclined to agree. It’s an important problem we are solving and requires insight, perspective and determination. We are up for the chance to make recorded music more enjoyable and more available. We have been very pleased by the number and quality of very positive comments and support. The key difference is we are taking the solution inside the music industry. This inclusive approach makes it slower to get going, but we hope more effective in the end."

If the above question and answer aren't the very definition of self serving then i don't know what is."

To comment positively about MQA in relation to the question posed I believe is perfectly reasonable response. Labelling the response as self serving seems just a tad bias

""temporal blur" this is a video, not an audio, term."

temporal blur is simply a statement that means degradation of a signal over time and is most certainly not a video term. The term can be used in the context of any data transference.

"The remaining 80 or so Q&As do very little as far as presenting any additional useful information but he does answer lots of pretty much pointless questions, though this is not his fault."

The rest of the question addressed are not pointless. The fact that some have conducted "tests" to disprove MQA and he has systematically pulled their analysis to pieces is very much to the point. I note you have not refuted a single technical point expressed in any of the responses to the questions, (as some questions were clearly quite hostile, his responses are all the more note worthy).

"And in light of the current market forces facing record companies I highly doubt there exists the will to spend time to properly remaster anything short of the Beatles. But that is a different issue than the technological aspects of MQA, which only careful listening will either confirm or deny."

You are absolutely on the ball with the last comment and only time will tell

"Perhaps a better question for the audiophile would be why is MQA even being discussed when it is very clearly works as PCM and is not DSD? (Please note: that is very much meant to be sarcastic.)
[/quote]"

I simply ignored the sarcasm


----------



## castleofargh

@Gringo , try to do something about how you quote. it's close to impossible to understand who's talking.
  
  
 MQA offers something, time will tell if people want it. now the entire purpose of the format is to make files that can send smaller resolution when the streaming speed is limited. please guys don't go creating another white whale. it's not a superior format, it's not doing more than highres, it will not sound magically superior to anything.  the purpose of the format is the ability to scale down, not up!!!!!!


----------



## Baxide

I have been following this thread for some time now in the hope that I would eventually understand it based on the supplied information. But after reading 20 pages I can't say that many others who have given an explanation, understand it either! Some of the explanations given by contributors are not even backed up or suggested by the inventors. That's the first sign that we are all confused.
  
 But let's to get back to the information that Meridian has released, and that has been written about at http://www.expertreviews.co.uk
 1. The format is based on mp3, but lossless. We can say that with a degree of certainty, since that is the format mentioned in just about every press release or review of the system.
 2. MQA, basing their research on neuroscience and psychoacoustics rather than frequency graphs and oscilloscopes _So it is not necessarily  bit accurate. _
 3. The technology is not treating audio frequency and timing data equally, but focuses more on the timing data. _So frequency accuracy is sacrificed. _
 4. Their research is based on neuroscience and psychoacoustics rather than frequency graphs and oscilloscopes. _So the key to the system is in what we hear, not the accuracy of original audio track itself._
 5. It is designed for streaming.
  
 I don't quite understand what the benefits of this system is supposed to be offering, if its key concept is based on making it possible to stream otherwise very large audio tracks, in a far smaller size. The accuracy of the frequency of the playback is important. If that is given a backseat in MQA, then the perceived technical benefits do not justify the amount of tampering on the original recording.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> tmarshal's comment about reserving judgement and auditioning MQA utilising a system that he is comfortable with is a welcome piece of common sense. Totally agree that cost and availability have yet to addressed as yet, if they are not then MQA is a complete non flier regardless of any claims to its audio merits.


 
 I completely agree. At present MQA is little than a promise of great things to come.........
  


gringo said:


> ""In brief, MQA is a philosophy more than it is ‘just a codec’." Really? Really? What?!?!?"
> 
> You may not like or agree with the statement but stating MQA's philosophy regarding the technology is quite a reasonable thing to do in the context of responding to a very large number of questions.
> 
> ...


"

 I simply ignored the sarcasm [/quote]

 I stand by my original statements. MQA is a form of signal processing combined with a codec, it is not a philosophy. Again pure marketing BS.
  
 At what bit rate do mp3s sound worse than cassettes? To my ears even 128kps mp3s sound much better than cassettes. And at 192kps and above mp3s sound almost the same as flac files. MP3s are not the real problem, over use of dynamic range compression is the much, much, much bigger problem and the reason today's popular sounds so bad. This serious problem is not even mentioned, since this very real problem could be fixed without the need for MQA.
  
 The comment on streaming was about discovering new music and not about sound quality of the playback system.
  
 If Q9 & A9 do not seem like prime examples of Marketing 101 then I suggest that you retake the course.
  
temporal blur is simply a statement that means degradation of a signal over time and is most certainly not a video term. The term can be used in the context of any data transference.
  
 No, go back and read the article and google "temporal blur" - it's a video/visual term.
  
 And while all the remaining questions do contain lots of technical information, they do little to help one understand why MQA is going to be such a game changer or why the music in a MQA file will sound so much better or be worthwhile for the end user.


----------



## Gringo

"I stand by my original statements. MQA is a form of signal processing combined with a codec, it is not a philosophy. Again pure marketing BS."

The article states "We see from the questions that some people have been confused but this is generally because they are approaching, trying to understand, or forcing the discussion on MQA, from a different conceptual frame of reference. In brief, MQA is a philosophy more than it is ‘just a codec’."

The clue here is the words "more than just" . You maintain its BS but for those who don't concur from your point of view the term of BS could just as equally be applied to your interpretation.

"At what bit rate do mp3s sound worse than cassettes? To my ears even 128kps mp3s sound much better than cassettes. And at 192kps and above mp3s sound almost the same as flac files. MP3s are not the real problem, over use of dynamic range compression is the much, much, much bigger problem and the reason today's popular sounds so bad. This serious problem is not even mentioned, since this very real problem could be fixed without the need for MQA."

No one has used the term " mp3s sound worse than cassettes"" other than you. I used the phrase "MP3 sound quality being listened to by the average user is probably on a par with audio cassettes" and the key words here are "the average user" who are listening at low rates. That with the added problem of the loudness wars, which you quite rightly refer to, results in terrible quality.

Remember, the chart being referred is not MQA's but "it’s the opinion of top music label heads of what they delivered to the average customer and where they want to go."

"The comment was about discovering new music and not about quality of the playback system"

I misunderstood/misinterpretedyour original comment, the comment in the article I think you are referring to is:-
"The decline in physical media has effectively disconnected several generations from simple discovery and playback has accelerated the process." 

This I believe refers to the fact that the majority of those downloading and streaming" do so with regards to single tracks rather than downloading or streaming and listening to whole albums and discovering music they would not have otherwise heard. I am sure you would agree that often the favourite track on an album turns out to not be the original track that was the reason you purchased the album for.

Your reference to Q9. A question was put to him and he responded just as he did to some very negative ones. He ducked no questions and simply answered them all. In this context your comment about marketing is completely without foundation. As mentioned at the begining of the article, he asked the reader to please not take answers out of context which was I believe you are doing here.

Oxford English Dictionary - Temporal:- relating to time, 'the spatial and temporal dimensions of human interference in complex ecosystems' 
The word temporal in conjunction with the term blur is not the sole domain on the video world and I repeat can be applied to any data transference medium where space/ time can have an impact.

As to the other questions and there values, he can only answer what he is asked and they do help to explain what MQA is or is not which I believe was the purpose of the exercise. If these are not the answers you want then I suggest you ask MQA directly. If MQA takes off and that is a massive if, then being able to stream and store High quality music files much more readily is or will be a game changer for me. If and again it's another massive if, if the MQA mastering takes place and brings improved quality that has been alluded to then that is significant. Remember that MQA do not claim that their system trounces current hi-def files other than some issues with original DAC's that introduced artifacts can be addressed, if this proves to be the case then that is great. If it is all a house of cards built on sand then we will all get to find out in due course and for me at least it won't cost a penny as like many I am waiting to see. I hope it turns out for the good but in the mean time I won't decry or extol it without justification but try to take a rational view and wait and see.

Has any one listened to MQA and said "no, it's no good"? I have read lots by people basically trashing it who have not yet listened to it. Totally unscientific and unreliable but the comments I have read by those that have are all positive.
I have not had an opportunity to do direct comparisons with existing HD files so although I was impressed when auditioning MQA, for me the jury is still out.


----------



## Gringo

baxide said:


> I have been following this thread for some time now in the hope that I would eventually understand it based on the supplied information. But after reading 20 pages I can't say that many others who have given an explanation, understand it either! Some of the explanations given by contributors are not even backed up or suggested by the inventors. That's the first sign that we are all confused.
> 
> But let's to get back to the information that Meridian has released, and that has been written about at http://www.expertreviews.co.uk
> 1. The format is based on mp3, but lossless. We can say that with a degree of certainty, since that is the format mentioned in just about every press release or review of the system.
> ...




1. MQA is not based on MP3, once unfolded and played back, every bit of data from the original mastered file is reproduced other than the "random 0's and 1's that were originally below the noise floor. In other words you hear exactly the same as a HD file other than that below the noise floor. 

2. See 1. Above the noise floor it is bit accurate.

3. The statement is not MQA's. Where does it say they are not paying full regard to frequency accuracy?

4. From what I gather MQA are trying to get closer to the original performance and at the same time address some of the artifacts introduced by the original DAC's 

5. It is designed for streaming, downloading and CD's

Benefits as far as I understand it is some slight improvement in audio quality, HD quality more convienently due to much smaller file size. For some that will be great and others will question its tangible value.

Whether it will actually happen and benefits be real/worthwhile is yet to be seen.


----------



## Gringo

castleofargh said:


> @Gringo , try to do something about how you quote. it's close to impossible to understand who's talking.
> 
> 
> MQA offers something, time will tell if people want it. now the entire purpose of the format is to make files that can send smaller resolution when the streaming speed is limited. please guys don't go creating another white whale. it's not a superior format, it's not doing more than highres, it will not sound magically superior to anything.  the purpose of the format is the ability to scale down, not up!!!!!!


 
 Sorry, I will try and do better, please accept my apologies
  
 From what I have read it is not doing anything more than highres other than rectifying some artefacts that recording studio DAC's introduced in the past and some compensation for "Temporal Blur" but I have no idea how this is achieved or in fact possible but MQA seem to think it is. The file size is significantly smaller when transferred but is restored to its original bit accurate format other than some of the random 0's and 1's below the noise floor. If this all pans out, (big if), then very superior to MP3 and possible slight improvement on Highres, (but very debateable)
  
 If my understanding is correct the only "smaller resolution"  aspect is again only in respect to the data below the noise floor
  
 Totally agree with the doubt about if people will actually want it.


----------



## RRod

gringo said:


> If my understanding is correct the only "smaller resolution"  aspect is again only in respect to the data below the noise floor


 
  
 I do find it slightly annoying that all of a sudden "below the noise floor" is being used to justify delivery of a hi-res format, while at the same time hi-res advocates will assure you that you need 24-bits, even though the differences between it and 16-bits are well below the noise floor of any actual room in which I've ever listened to music at high volumes. It's also interesting to see that delivery bandwidth suddenly matters, even though the same people will often tout how streaming speeds are perfectly adequate for hi-res FLAC streaming as a "why not" justification for higher rates/bits.
  
 The main issue of course is that none of this technical wizardry will compel record labels to release actual good masters, so I guess we'll all be enjoying hi-resolution brickwalled albums soon enough. \o/


----------



## Gringo

rrod said:


> I do find it slightly annoying that all of a sudden "below the noise floor" is being used to justify delivery of a hi-res format, while at the same time hi-res advocates will assure you that you need 24-bits, even though the differences between it and 16-bits are well below the noise floor of any actual room in which I've ever listened to music at high volumes. It's also interesting to see that delivery bandwidth suddenly matters, even though the same people will often tout how streaming speeds are perfectly adequate for hi-res FLAC streaming as a "why not" justification for higher rates/bits.
> 
> The main issue of course is that none of this technical wizardry will compel record labels to release actual good masters, so I guess we'll all be enjoying hi-resolution brickwalled albums soon enough. \o/




1) please excuse my ignorance and I would be very greatful if you or anyone else on the forum could enlighten me - what role do the random 0's and 1's below the noise floor contribute to the actual music that we hear? I had always been lead to believe that are merely random and well below the hearing threshold. If they have no discernible impact then I am not bothered about the area they occupy being temporarily used to store higher resolution data.

2) MQA have stated very emphatically that with regard to MQA being a DRM system the following:-
NO it ISN’T. We have no idea where this rumour came from, but we advise circumspection about the motives of those who persist in repeating this falsehood.

In fact, MQA is the antithesis of a DRM system: everyone can hear the music without a decoder!

Even FLAC requires a decoder, so does AAC, MP3, etc; vinyl and optical discs require players. There isn’t anyone who can’t play an MQA file on a mobile phone or an existing system.

DRM is about limiting access, tracking or copy protection. MQA does none of these.

MQA is about getting access to the definitive essence of great performances, with sound quality that is not otherwise achievable and reassuring you when you have it.

MQA files and decoders exist today, they can’t suddenly stop access to the music.

MQA does carry provenance, metadata and (optionally) creation rights information that might help the artist or publisher. It does not (unlike some downloads) carry information tracking the purchaser and we reject audible watermarks.
MQA does not have a DRM component."

As far as assertions of a walled garden, MQA also state explicitly "An MQA encapsulated file can be replayed without a decoder. This cannot be construed as a walled garden in any way."

I don't see how they can be more clear. We can only wait and see or call them liars which would be churlish and foolhardy in the extreme as no one as yet as been able to prove with one iota of evidence otherwise.


----------



## RRod

gringo said:


> 1) please excuse my ignorance and I would be very greatful if you or anyone else on the forum could enlighten me - what role do the random 0's and 1's below the noise floor contribute to the actual music that we hear? I had always been lead to believe that are merely random and well below the hearing threshold. If they have no discernible impact then I am not bothered about the area they occupy being temporarily used to store higher resolution data.
> 
> 2) MQA have stated very emphatically that with regard to MQA being a DRM system the following:-
> NO it ISN’T. We have no idea where this rumour came from, but we advise circumspection about the motives of those who persist in repeating this falsehood.
> ...


 
  
 1) They don't. My point was that neither does any of the 8 lower bits of any 24-bit track I've ever heard at listening volumes.
  
 2) I didn't mention DRM in my previous post; were you referring to the one before? Either way, proof will be in the pudding, so we shall see.
  
 The "doesn't need a decoder" argument isn't compelling. Support for FLAC is pretty darn easy to get; it's like complaining about needing to get an unzip utility.


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## Roly1650

rrod said:


> 1) They don't. My point was that neither does any of the 8 lower bits of any 24-bit track I've ever heard at listening volumes.
> 
> 2) I didn't mention DRM in my previous post; were you referring to the one before? Either way, proof will be in the pudding, so we shall see.
> 
> The "doesn't need a decoder" argument isn't compelling. Support for FLAC is pretty darn easy to get; it's like complaining about needing to get an unzip utility.



Not forgetting of course, that without a flac decoder you'd be wasting your time downloading all those MQA samples so thoughfully available from their technology partners 2L. Everyone a flac....

http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html. 

There's disingenuous and then there's flat out confusing the issue.


----------



## Gringo

rrod said:


> 1) They don't. My point was that neither does any of the 8 lower bits of any 24-bit track I've ever heard at listening volumes.
> 
> 2) I didn't mention DRM in my previous post; were you referring to the one before? Either way, proof will be in the pudding, so we shall see.
> 
> The "doesn't need a decoder" argument isn't compelling. Support for FLAC is pretty darn easy to get; it's like complaining about needing to get an unzip utility.




1) If this is so, then when some reviewers have claimed MQA is effectively lossless they are basically correct to all intent and purpose regarding listening to music

2) The proof is here and now. Anyone can go to the 2L website and download free MQA music files, (very limited and niche), and play them on your system, media player or smart phone at approximately cd quality with out any problems. The only caveat is that you don't get the full fat MQA treatment without a decoder that is MQA enabled.


----------



## RRod

gringo said:


> 1) If this is so, then when some reviewers have claimed MQA is effectively lossless they are basically correct to all intent and purpose regarding listening to music
> 
> 2) The proof is here and now. Anyone can go to the 2L website and download free MQA music files, (very limited and niche), and play them on your system, media player or smart phone at approximately cd quality with out any problems. The only caveat is that you don't get the full fat MQA treatment without a decoder that is MQA enabled.


 
  
 1) Well then the claim is really "audibly indistinguishable", but then they're basically aiming to be as good as higher-bitrate lossy codecs.
  
 2) It's all about what starts happening after money is made, but of course they deserve the benefit of the doubt until something is actually detected and proven.


----------



## Gringo

rrod said:


> 1) Well then the claim is really "audibly indistinguishable", but then they're basically aiming to be as good as higher-bitrate lossy codecs.
> 
> 2) It's all about what starts happening after money is made, but of course they deserve the benefit of the doubt until something is actually detected and proven.




1) "audibly indistinguishable" is a good way of putting it. I think they might well be aiming to be up with lossless codecs and if the truly are indistinguishable then lossless and lossy labels become totally irrelevant from the consumers point of view.

2) you can say that about most aspects of life. MQA or any other company can invent what they like, ultimately it will all be up to the record companies and download/streaming services. If they see money in it then it will happen if not it won't.


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## Joe Bloggs

The following graphic has been posted regarding MQA's audible effect on the noise floor of a sample 2L recording:


It would seem that the format introduces significant in-band noise whether it has been decoded or not.


----------



## gregorio

> Originally Posted by *Gringo* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> [1] From what I have read it is not doing anything more than highres other than rectifying some artefacts that recording studio DAC's introduced in the past ...
> 
> [2] "audibly indistinguishable" is a good way of putting it. I think they might well be aiming to be up with lossless codecs and if the truly are indistinguishable then lossless and lossy labels become totally irrelevant from the consumers point of view.


 
  
 1. Recording studios DAC's do not cause any artefacts, so there's nothing to rectify!
  
 2. If they are aiming to be "audibly indistinguishable" from lossless codecs (highres, standard-res, flac, alac) then they are competing with high bitrate MP3s and AACs. Pretty much all consumer players already include support for AAC, MP3 or both. So why do we need another format which does not provide either any audible or functional improvement?
  
 MQA, as you describe it, appears to be nothing more than an exercise in marketing, rather than anything useful as far as audio is actually concerned.
  
 G


----------



## lamode

rrod said:


> An article with this image in it:
> 
> 
> isn't to be taken seriously. Streaming quality same as cassette? LP same quality as DVD-A? I must have taken my crazy pills this morning.


 
  
 Yes, that chart is really off.
  
 The problem isn't technology though, it's the consumer. We've had the technology to download lossless 16/44 files for over 20 years, but consumers chose the convenience of MP3 instead. The mainstream audio market just doesn't care about SQ.


----------



## Gringo

gregorio said:


> 1. Recording studios DAC's do not cause any artefacts, so there's nothing to rectify!
> 
> 2. If they are aiming to be "audibly indistinguishable" from lossless codecs (highres, standard-res, flac, alac) then they are competing with high bitrate MP3s and AACs. Pretty much all consumer players already include support for AAC, MP3 or both. So why do we need another format which does not provide either any audible or functional improvement?
> 
> ...


 
  
 1. Perceived wisdom generally accepts that each step of capturing, storing, manipulating and playing back music causes degradation and introduces artefacts, (this includes ADC's and DAC's, more so with legacy equipment). The general perceived wisdom is therefore less conversion, corrections and amplification results in more transparent, dynamic and realistic sound, (this has been used on forums to criticise MQA).

  
 2. Addressing of issues of temporal blur and reducing of file sizes during downloading/streaming


----------



## Gringo

joe bloggs said:


> The following graphic has been posted regarding MQA's audible effect on the noise floor of a sample 2L recording:
> 
> 
> It would seem that the format introduces significant in-band noise whether it has been decoded or not.


 
  
 It would seem that the format does not introduce significant in-band noise whether it has been decoded or not
  
 Extract from Computer Audiophile MQA Q&A article:-
  
  
*PLEASE COMMENT ABOUT THESE INVESTIGATIONS/BLOGS*


*Q82*. Please comment on these posts.
  
a.               http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2016/01...s-and-big.html (Blog post has been removed by author - Editor)
 In this blog you will see, that from the technical point of view, MQA have around 13 Bit of “lossless” information and everything below 14 Bit is “lossy”. Doesn't mean that is will not sound good, it just means, that this is not a lossless codec, it is lossy (from the technical point of view).
b.     http://www.computeraudiophile.com/bl...ires-flac-674/

*A82*. We have paraphrased the assertions: 13

*i) “MQA have around 13 Bit of “lossless” information and everything below 14 Bit is “lossy”*

 This is incorrect. In general, the MQA system can reach in excess of either 23-bit dynamic range capability or 3–6 bits below the content noise in the audio band.

*ii) “Without a decoder we hear 13 bits, that isn’t CD quality”.*

 Here is a classic case of comparing apples to oranges. When we talk about CD quality sound we don’t expect an answer that says ‘it can’t sound like CD, because I can see only 13 bits’. Do we listen with our instruments? Even after years of working in this area we can’t look at an FFT plot and tell you how something will sound. We can maybe tell you the information capacity of the signal or the channel. One clue why it doesn’t help is in the second ‘F’ (for Fourier).

 In any case the 13-bit number is wrong. Try as we might there is no way to tell the information capacity of a channel from a spectrogram (as in one of the cited posts) – the graphs look pretty but are basically meaningless.

 As described earlier, if you don’t have a decoder, the channel capacity appears to be typically > 15 bits for the files on the 2L Testbench and this is limited by considerations of compatibility, not coding space. The noise is frequency shaped to minimise audibility, as it is for many well-produced CDs. If you have a decoder then, depending on the authoring parameters, the noisefloor in the recording should not be increased anywhere there is music signal.

*iii) Paraphrase: ‘The Nielsen recording shows that MQA are cheating. They take a 16-bit recording and give us back a 24-bit file with lots of noise in it’.*

 Wrong. All one had to do was read Morten’s notes to guess it might have been remastered to 24 bits, See A40.


*Nielsen: 2L-120 Track 1*

 As can be seen in the following, the inherent noisefloor of MQA in this recording is actually: 

*Without Decoder*: MQA channel noise is lowest around 4kHz @ 17.5 bits with a channel capacity of
 15.8 bits which has been shaped. The MQA noise is always below that of the CD release.

*With Decoder*: MQA channel noise is lowest around 4kHz @ 24.3 bits with a channel capacity of
 over 23 bits which has been shaped.

 We have added to the graph (from our earlier note on the 2L website) to make this clear.


  
  






(High Resolution Image)



Note: the 24-bit Master and MQA (decoded) peak noise curves overlay and are not separately visible.

 These graphs confirm that 2L’s Original, CD and MQA versions of the files are consistent in level and response. Of course spectral plots using FFT have no time-domain information, but we can use them to compare the peak spectrum of the Original, CD, and MQA with and without a decoder.
 Also shown is a comparison of the background noise throughout each version and the reference level for 16-bit TPDF dither in a channel sampled at 44.1 kHz. 14 15

In the graphs the peak and noise-floor curves overlay for both MQA decoded and Original master. We can also see that the shaped noise introduced by the MQA encoder and ‘heard’ without a decoder is removed by the decoder and is also below that of the CD release, even without decoding.

*Additional curves explained*:

*With a Decoder*: Brown (with open circles): This shows the underlying end-to-end MQA channel noisefloor (with a decoder) in this recording, which *clearly shows that here the inherent noise of the MQA process is at least 10 bits (i.e. 60dB) below the noisefloor in the recording* at all frequencies up to 22.05 kHz and close to 24 bits between 4kHz and 20 kHz.

*Navy*: shows the level of 24-bit TPDF dither for reference.

*No Decoder*: Magenta (with open stars): This shows the underlying MQA noisefloor for the listener with no decoder. It is lowest around 4 kHz and 12 kHz to minimise impact; is essentially below the 16-bit level up to 14 kHz and is always below the noise of the CD version. The inherent noise in the recording dominates below 15 kHz.16

*Note*: The noise seen by a Legacy (no-decoder) listener is the sparse signalling channel, not lossy noise in the file.


*iv) Paraphrase: ‘MQA increases the noise in some recordings’ (an experiment using Explorer 2).*

 The underlying thesis in this blog has been to demonstrate that, because MQA uses burying techniques in the lossless folds, that somehow the dynamic range is restricted to 16 bits or fewer. We showed this to be incorrect regarding the Nielsen recording. We also disagree with the blog’s findings in the case of 2L ‘Blågutten’ from Quiet Winter Night. The graph below shows analysis of:


  





(High Resolution Image)

  
·         *Files*: Background noise levels in original DXD source and MQA file.17
·         *Explorer2* analogue output when receiving: MQA (decoded in Explorer2) and the 192 kHz PCM version on the 2L testbench (background noise).18
·         *References*: showing 16- and 20-bit noisefloor @ 352 kHz (note, 9dB lower than at 44 kHz).
·         *Analysis*: The underlying MQA channel noisefloor in this file.
·         *Hearing thresholds* (steady-state) referenced to a playback acoustic gain of 105dB SPL.



The end-to-end core MQA noise floor in these encodings is always at least: 5 bits below the noise- floor of the recording up to 11 kHz, 4 bits below up to 22 kHz and is 3 bits below at 44.1 kHz (audio). However, no common DAC chip will reveal this due to internal noise. Even in these great 2L recordings we don't often see hall/microphone/ADC noise below the 16-bit noise spectral level -- not surprising given the fundamental thermal limit for microphones. See [2] and brown curve above.

In our experiment we don’t see the Explorer2 output deviate from the DXD or 192 kHz versions below 33 kHz. Above that there is rising dither from the DAC, but its origin is not lack of dynamic range.

 The mastering engineer can set encoding or playback parameters where noise level can be increased or decreased in some frequency regions, but is not due to lack of dynamic range in the MQA system.

 We should point out some key points for those less skilled in reading such plots:
  
I.                FFT analysis like this does not give any clear indication of how it is going to sound because temporal information is excluded.
 II.        The dynamic range is huge; the silence in the recording is 1/3 the way up the graph. For steady noise we hear nothing in the shaded areas.
III.        Even at high listening levels (e.g. acoustic gain of 112 dB), the noisefloor of the un-decoded MQA should be inaudible if the playback system is linear and has a flat response. With a decoder the noise is more than 20dB lower. [2][5][6][7][8]
IV.        Very few headphones or loudspeakers can reproduce above 40 kHz (shaded blue area).
  V.        Very few microphones pick up above 40 kHz, including in this recording.
VI.        Noisefloor above 44.1 or 48 kHz (especially at these levels) is more artefact than audio.[3]




13 There is an issue of bias: we take exception to blogs that block us from posting corrections!
14 The analysis uses 21.53Hz bins (=44100/2048 and 351800/16384) giving an offset of +13.33 dB wrt 1Hz. 
15 2L sensibly use shaped quantisation for their CD releases.
16 Of course not all DACs can reach this low level of in-band noise.
17 Graph displayed up to 88.2 kHz for best comparison with blog.
18 The analogue output of Explorer2 was captured at 352.8 kHz/24bit in a Pyramix workstation using the Horus converter. The analogue noisefloor of the ADC is around 20 bits. Files were sent to the Explorer2 using Foobar.


----------



## gregorio

gringo said:


> 1. Perceived wisdom generally accepts that each step of capturing, storing, manipulating and playing back music causes degradation and introduces artefacts, (this includes ADC's and DAC's, more so with legacy equipment).


 
  
 It does not include DACs, legacy or otherwise! A studio DAC is there so that the engineers can hear what they are doing, what's in the digital files they are manipulating. The output of a studio DAC is routed to the studio speakers, it is NOT routed back into the actual digital audio files being manipulated. In other words, a studio's DAC is part of the studio's monitoring chain NOT part of it's recording, editing, mixing or mastering chain and it therefore cannot possibly introduce any artefacts!
  


gringo said:


> The general perceived wisdom is therefore less conversion, corrections and amplification results in more transparent, dynamic and realistic sound, (this has been used on forums to criticise MQA).


 
  
 I have no idea who you are referring to when you say "_general_ perceived wisdom"? It's certainly NOT the "perceived wisdom" of those who actually record and produce music/audio for a living! To start with, who even says that transparent, dynamic and realistic sound is in anyway desirable? Have you ever actually heard a  "transparent" rock band, IE. A rock band with no amplification or "corrections"? Without amplification, reduced dynamic range (and various other corrections), it's not even recognisable as a rock band! Secondly, a high quality commercial pop/rock (or any derivative genre) recording is likely to contain dozens of conversions and 100+ corrections. Obviously, the whole point of a correction is to correct something, to make it better, not worse! Lastly, less amplification would only result in more transparent, dynamic and realistic sound if there were too much amplification the first time round, otherwise it will result in LESS transparent, dynamic and realistic sound!!
  


gringo said:


> 2. Addressing of issues of temporal blur and reducing of file sizes during downloading/streaming


 
  
 This makes no sense. If "temporal blur" is an audible artefact which MQA addresses, then by definition it is not "audibly indistinguishable" from lossless or the best lossy codecs. If it is not an audible artefact then why address it (and why are you mentioning it)? You can't have it both ways! And, it's reducing file sizes relative to what, a 256vbr AAC?
  
 G


----------



## Gringo

gregorio said:


> It does not include DACs, legacy or otherwise! A studio DAC is there so that the engineers can hear what they are doing, what's in the digital files they are manipulating. The output of a studio DAC is routed to the studio speakers, it is NOT routed back into the actual digital audio files being manipulated. In other words, a studio's DAC is part of the studio's monitoring chain NOT part of it's recording, editing, mixing or mastering chain and it therefore cannot possibly introduce any artefacts!
> 
> 
> I have no idea who you are referring to when you say "_general_ perceived wisdom"? It's certainly NOT the "perceived wisdom" of those who actually record and produce music/audio for a living! To start with, who even says that transparent, dynamic and realistic sound is in anyway desirable? Have you ever actually heard a  "transparent" rock band, IE. A rock band with no amplification or "corrections"? Without amplification, reduced dynamic range (and various other corrections), it's not even recognisable as a rock band! Secondly, a high quality commercial pop/rock (or any derivative genre) recording is likely to contain dozens of conversions and 100+ corrections. Obviously, the whole point of a correction is to correct something, to make it better, not worse! Lastly, less amplification would only result in more transparent, dynamic and realistic sound if there were too much amplification the first time round, otherwise it will result in LESS transparent, dynamic and realistic sound!!
> ...




I am sure you are aware that downloadable or streaming files can go through the process of conversion from analogue to digital and back again more than once before the final processed master file is created. Manipulation of the signals between these processes do impact the recording and can degrade the original audio capture. The fact that the fingerprint of legacy ADC's & DAC's is known and corrections can be made to account for them is an established principle. Obviously what was not captured can not be restored but added artefacts can be manipulated. This is my understanding though it seems yours might be quite different.

I used the "general perceived" comment to point out the contradictions that can be found in comments offered that on the one hand say that MQA only degrades and others which say MQA can not have an impact. As you stated, you can't have it both ways

As I understand it, ( and I don't pretend to understand all of it), Without the "white glove" treatment MQA is audibly indistinguishable but with it, sonic improvements are gained, (the degree/worthwhileness of improvement or otherwise I would not dream of speculating on).

When you question file size compared to what, you must know the answer to that if you have been following the thread. MQA reduces the file size of a hires file to that similar to a CD file for transference purposes and restores it to full bit perfect PCM on decoded playback

As you are clearly quite clued up on recording studio technology, if you can spare the time, (I am not being cynical), please read the computer audiophile Q&A article and tell me what answers are not correct, what factual inaccuracies can you identify. I would be very keen to know as I again, don't understand all of it.

It seems to me some contributors know a little/ know a lot about recordings and there transference and because they don't know all the facts, misinterpret/misunderstand MQA and are quick to dismiss it without ever having actually heard it. I repeat an earlier question I posed, have you or anyone else who has contributed to this topic actually heard a decoded MQA file and from what you have heard with your own ears actually concluded that is not comparable/ better or is of poorer quality? As ever we can all make as many tests, graphs, discuss technicalities as much as we like but they don't tell you what the music sounds like. I take it as read that the readers/contributers to this thread are concerned how good the music sounds to them above all else.


----------



## icebear

If somebody seems to be on the payroll or has some other kind of stake in the topic of this thread,
 doesn't it usually require a registration as member of the trade with a clear indication for which church he is praying?


----------



## asymcon

Firstly, they did take time and energy to make their website very appealing. That's usually first sign of shady business.
  
 Secondly, looking at the graphs, MQA looks just like regular 44/24 PCM, with flat 20bit TDPF noise floor. Nothing really extraordinary.
  
 And lastly, I did a quick null-test between Et Misericordia 96/24 downsampled to 44/24 and MQA recording. I didn't expect perfect match, as my resampling algorithm is different from theirs, but both recordings were nearly identical, and when nulled, the only remaining stuff was above 8k which was attenuated by good 20dB.
 So for what I can say is that it's simply resampled "original recording", priced 10% higher than 96/24.
  
 Alas, they use very unscientific words in their "papers":
 "music origami"
 "highly optimal"
 "sound quality will be extremely high"
  
 Avoid, if possible.
  
 PS: Is there ANY reason for 352.8k? Looking at the spectrals, it's just noise above 30k, so what's the point?
 I guess take more HDD space.


----------



## Gringo

icebear said:


> If somebody seems to be on the payroll or has some other kind of stake in the topic of this thread,
> doesn't it usually require a registration as member of the trade with a clear indication for which church he is praying?




Sorry if I am jumping to false conclusions but I assume the comment is referring to me.

As previously stated, I have absolutely no vested interest in MQA other than I have heard it, was impressed, hope it comes to fruition but until I have been able to audition it in direct comparison to standard highres music I am sitting on the fence. I do however reserve the right to challenge what I percieve as unjustified dismissal of MQA by those who have not heard it.

So far the silence has been deafening from those who have actually heard it and feel critical. Because I have had the audacity to post counter arguments with material I have read then some how I am accused of being on the pay role.

Some might consnstru that you are in the payroll of other vested interests against MQA as you could not find fault with the arguement so had to resort to trying to challenge and undermine the person posting it. (Please note I said "some", I don't accuse you personally of anything but exercise might right to counter what I feel is a completely unfounded comment about myself).

I try and conduct disscusions without insulting, making false accusations or casting slurs against anyone as I believe that approach only undermines a persons point of view and credibility.

I still look forward to input from those who have actually heard MQA, negative or positive.


----------



## asymcon

How to decode this MQA information anyway? I couldn't find any software that could do it.
  
 As long as only proprietary hardware can decode it, what's the point? It is supposed to be "folded" high-res PCM stream, so why should it depend on the DAC to do its magic, when it should be easily decoded through software.
  
 Feels like they have something to hide.


----------



## Gringo

asymcon said:


> Firstly, they did take time and energy to make their website very appealing. That's usually first sign of shady business.
> 
> Secondly, looking at the graphs, MQA looks just like regular 44/24 PCM, with flat 20bit TDPF noise floor. Nothing really extraordinary.
> 
> ...


 
 An appealing website is "usually the first sign of a shady business".  From this one might conclude that if you are an honest person/company then it is best not to have an appealing website because you give the impression your dishonest.  Sorry but this for me seems to fall in to the great conspiracy camp.
  
 The article was a Q&A session, none of the questions were ducked and many were openly hostile but still fully addressed.  The article does not even pretend to be a scientific paper.  I refer you to a comment at the outset asking readers not to take the responses out of context.
  
 MQA is criticised as being lossy and criticised for also for needless high resolution?
  
 What did you think when you listened to the music?


----------



## gregorio

gringo said:


> I am sure you are aware that downloadable or streaming files can go through the process of conversion from analogue to digital and back again more than once before the final processed master file is created. Manipulation of the signals between these processes do impact the recording and can degrade the original audio capture.


 
  
 Why do you think that "streamable files can go through the process of conversion from analogue to digital and back again more than once before the master file is created"?
  


gringo said:


> The fact that the fingerprint of legacy ADC's & DAC's is known and corrections can be made to account for them is an established principle.


 
  
 I'm not sure what you mean by "legacy ADCs/DACs"? Top studio ADCs/DACs were audibly transparent over a dozen years ago, cheaper (project studio) ADCs/DACs were audibly transparent by about 8-10 years ago and I don't know of any commercial studios which use ADCs/DACs older than these. In other words, there is no "fingerprint" of studio ADCs/DACs and so obviously, there is nothing to "correct"! Stating otherwise is certainly not an "established principle".
  


gringo said:


> When you question file size compared to what, you must know the answer to that if you have been following the thread. MQA reduces the file size of a hires file to that similar to a CD file for transference purposes and restores it to full bit perfect PCM on decoded playback ...


 
  
 Yes, I do know that but this highlights the contradiction in your posts. On the one hand you effectively state the principle that what happens below the noise floor is not "describable" (is "audibly indistinguishable") and is therefore irrelevant, a principle I would agree with generally by the way. On the other hand you state that MQA reduces a hi-res file to CD file size and then restores it again. These two statements contradict each other because a hi-res file is audibly indistinguishable from a CD format file. In other words, just converting a hi-res file to say 16/44.1 is audibly indistinguishable to start with, there is no audible benefit to restoring a 16/44.1 file back to hi-res. Furthermore, the better lossy codecs which already exist also achieve "audibly indistinguishable" but with file sizes smaller than MQA promises. Therefore, if you are talking about "audibly indistinguishable" and file size, MQA offers no audible benefit and a larger file size, the opposite of what you appear to be arguing!
  


gringo said:


> As you are clearly quite clued up on recording studio technology, if you can spare the time, (I am not being cynical), please read the computer audiophile Q&A article and tell me what answers are not correct, what factual inaccuracies can you identify. I would be very keen to know as I again, don't understand all of it.





> http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/694-comprehensive-q-mqa-s-bob-stuart/


 
  
 I could go through the article point by point but it would take many hours and many pages. So I'll deal with a few specific points and generalisations of the inaccuracies:
  
 "*The steady dissolution of the album as a creative work and reduction in inherent sound quality from vinyl or CD to MP3 is more than unsettling*" - This is inaccurate. A high 320 MP3 has far higher "inherent sound quality" than vinyl. However, there's no doubt that there can easily be an "actual" reduction in sound quality between many 320 MP3 releases and many older vinyl releases. This is because, as the article sort of mentions, the current economic climate of the recording industry dictates far less resources (time, money, talented personnel, facilities) are invested in making a recording today than in the past. This can (and almost always does) impact at least one (and commonly every!) aspect of the music recording creation process; composition, arrangement/orchestration, performance, recording, editing, mixing and mastering! Given the same resources as was once the case, a modern 320 MP3 release would have a higher sound quality than vinyl!  In other words, any sound quality reduction is due to the quality of the (resource limited) master and is NOT inherent to the format itself! As a general point, the interviewee consistently (and deliberately IMO) mixes and confuses these two COMPLETELY UNRELATED considerations. He also (again deliberately IMO) erroneously lumps all MP3s together. A 128 (or lower) MP3 can usually be easily discerned from lossless but not so with a modern high bitrate MP3. This is a common trick employed by those trying to market something as better than MP3.
  
 As far as audible quality is concerned, given an equal quality master Fig. 1 should be very different indeed! The relationship between reel to reel and LP is fine but reel to reel should be slightly lower than ideal. CD, DVD-A/SACD should both be the same, equal to ideal and therefore slightly higher than reel to reel. A download (given say a 320 MP3 OR 256vbr AAC) should be invisibly lower than ideal but still a little higher than reel to reel.
  
*"The problem that MQA is addressing is how to transport an analogue signal to another time or place. It is the analogue signal from the mixing desk that the producer heard and that is the signal that you want to reproduce at your loudspeaker." *- This is essentially just another example of the same thing, confusing/mixing up different practises, terms or considerations. This is a particularly bad example though, for these reasons:
  
 1. Typically mixing desks do not output an analogue signal in the first place! Typically, mixing desks are either physical digital (digital in and out) mixing desks or virtual mixing desks (still obviously digital in/out). Analogue mixing desks are a rarity and becoming rarer.
  
 2. Neither a producer nor any other human being can hear an analogue signal! Human beings (which include most producers 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




) can only hear acoustic signals. What a producer actually hears is therefore the output of their speakers in the studio environment and this is what they base all their production decisions on. This is why mastering and mastering facilities exist in the first place! The analogue signal derived from the digital files and the so called ADC "fingerprint" is complete nonsense in relation to what the "producer heard", unless of course you've got exactly the same speakers as the producer, installed and calibrated in exactly the same acoustic environment. This is going to make about a thousand times more difference than any inaudible "fingerprint"! This fact also makes Fig. 2 a nonsense. A CD played in a mastering studio compared with the original master file will sound identical! However, they do label fig. 2 as "Notional" sound quality and I'm sure many audiophiles do have the "notion" that the master file does somehow sound superior to the CD. 10 mins with an ABX test in a mastering studio would easily demonstrate that "notion" to be false!
  
_*"[1] In general, the MQA system can reach in excess of either 23-bit dynamic range capability or [2] 3–6 bits below the content noise in the audio band." *_- Two obvious points here:
  
 1. There is no analogue signal to store or transport which has anywhere near 23 bit dynamic range!
  
 2. Given that the "content noise" floor on most commercial recordings is around -40 to -50dBFS that's about 8bits of dynamic range. 3-6 bits below means that MQA would be 11-14bits. Even the widest dynamic range commercial recordings pretty much never exceed 60dB (10bits) in which case MQA would achieve 13-16bits. This is less than (or at best equal to) standard 16bit lossless or indeed a high bitrate MP3.
  
_*"Even in these great 2L recordings we don't often see hall/microphone/ADC noise below the 16-bit noise spectral level -- not surprising given the fundamental thermal limit for microphones." *_- Actually, we NEVER see noise below the 16bit level in a real recording. The very quietest mics achieve a dynamic range of about 90dB which is 15bit, on top of that we have to add acoustic noise from the hall and noise from the mic pre-amp. In practise we rarely see a recorded dynamic range of more than about 12-13bit. And, this is deliberately reduced down to 10bit or less during mixing or mastering anyway.
  
 However, I agree with the idea of introducing some actual practical and audible limitations to the discussion, the audiophile world could really do with a great deal more of that IMO! My problem with the interviewee is that he applies these physical and audible limitations when it suits the purposes of selling his new codec and then does precisely the opposite to suit some other marketing point. For example, increasing noise outside the audible band doesn't matter but improving impulse response outside the audible band does? And, "temporal blur" is a meaningless term he appears to have just invented and the numbers in fig. 3 and 4 also appear invented or if not completely invented then certainly manipulated to worse case test scenario rather than what happens in practise.
  
 In conclusion, the whole thing comes across as a typical audiophile bunch of marketing BS. Arguably more sophisticated marketing BS than many but still marketing BS nonetheless. It could be a successful new codec, because it offers some potential marketing opportunities to a number of different segments of the industry; content distributors, retailers and hardware manufacturers. Beyond these potential marketing benefits there appears to be no chance of any actual audible or convenience benefits over what already exists. This is certainly what all the misrepresentation, deliberate confusion of issues, invented terminology and double standards indicates but, I can't be absolutely 100% certain until more info is forthcoming of what's actually going on "under the hood" and the creation tools are available to run some independent real world tests to ascertain if there is anything more than just marketing BS to it.
  
 G


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## Gringo

asymcon said:


> How to decode this MQA information anyway? I couldn't find any software that could do it.
> 
> As long as only proprietary hardware can decode it, what's the point? It is supposed to be "folded" high-res PCM stream, so why should it depend on the DAC to do its magic, when it should be easily decoded through software.
> 
> Feels like they have something to hide.


 
 If you read the article you will see why MQA have gone for an end to end process as their reasons are clearly set out.
  
 The only way I know of to decode MQA as yet is via Meridian's Explorer 2, Meridian's "818" (which is horrendously expensive), or the recent offerings from Onkyo or Pioneer.  By the way I am not in the pay of any of these companies either.
  
 "As long as only proprietary hardware can decode it, what's the point?"  
 Files can be played on your existing equipment, MQA claim they are completely compatible if you choose to purchase MQA files, (existing users seem to be all in agreement that this is so and claim some sonic benefits but I would not vouch for that).  You only get the full MQA treatment if you invest in equipment with the appropriate software. They are not giving MQA away for free and you can't rip it from anywhere as far as I know. As ever, no one has to purchase it and it poses no threat to your existing equipment or downloads.  The only possible cost to anyone who does not want to go with MQA that I can see is if record companies and streaming services some time in the future only produce MQA files and decided to charge more than regular download files which I don't believe is at all likely, (this is only an opinion before anyone starts to shoot me down in flames).  It is not DRM but they have ensured that you can't hear full fat MQA with out paying which I suspect is behind much of the criticism of MQA.


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## Gringo

Gregorio
  
 You clearly have a much superior understanding of the topic than myself and all though I have serious doubts regarding your interpretations and arguments, I would not insult you by challenging your conclusions without factual evidence that I do not have.

  
 One thing I do wonder about is why, (if MQA's claims are true, why evidently artists and producers, (not those who stand to gain financially as they don't own the companies/streaming services unless we accuse them of all being bribed or in the pay of MQA), have stated so positively their enthusiasm for it.  Please remember that I don't believe that everyone in the recording industry is corrupt and only out to promote bogus products.
  
 Have you heard MQA?, If so what were your opinions of its merits or otherwise?  This last question alas never gets answered on this forum


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## ralphp@optonline

gregorio said:


> In conclusion, the whole thing comes across as a typical audiophile bunch of marketing BS. Arguably more sophisticated marketing BS than many but still marketing BS nonetheless. It could be a successful new codec, because it offers some potential marketing opportunities to a number of different segments of the industry; content distributors, retailers and hardware manufacturers. Beyond these potential marketing benefits there appears to be no chance of any actual audible or convenience benefits over what already exists. This is certainly what all the misrepresentation, deliberate confusion of issues, invented terminology and double standards indicates but, I can't be absolutely 100% certain until more info is forthcoming of what's actually going on "under the hood" and the creation tools are available to run some independent real world tests to ascertain if there is anything more than just marketing BS to it.
> G


 
 So that makes two posters who feel that the whole MQA thing is little more than some very good marketing.
  
 My suggestion to Gringo is that if you want lots and lots of feel good responses that completely agree with you and those who also see MQA as the latest and greatest Holy Grail of high end audio then stick to the High-end Audio Forum, where the BS filter is completely turned off.
  
 Here in the Sound Science forum the BS filter is set to ultra deluxe super high


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## gregorio

> Originally Posted by *Gringo* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> One thing I do wonder about is why, (if MQA's claims are true, why evidently artists and producers, (not those who stand to gain financially as they don't own the companies/streaming services unless we accuse them of all being bribed or in the pay of MQA), have stated so positively their enthusiasm for it.


 
  
 According to the article: _*"Many recording and mastering engineers have testified that MQA improves very considerably on the conventional methods, recreating the sound they actually hear or remember from the original session or, in the case of archive material, the sound from an analogue tape recorder."*_ - What does this actually mean?
  
 1. How many is "many"? 5, 500? Don't forget, there are some nutters out there, even amongst recording and mastering engineers, especially now that the entry cost to calling oneself a recording or mastering engineer is only about $1,000. When I started, entry price was nearly six figures just for a "demo" studio and well into seven figures for a proper studio and no one started as an "engineer".
 2. What are "conventional methods"? Mastering a CD and converting it to a 128 MP3 is a conventional method. Given that or some similar, I would testify that "MQA improves very considerably on the conventional methods"!
  
 There is almost no talk of MQA in the pro audio engineering community currently. This means that very few have access to the creation tools, so again, what is "many"? The quoted statement appears nothing more than hyperbole at the moment and has no real meaning.
  


> Originally Posted by *Gringo* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> Have you heard MQA?, If so what were your opinions of its merits or otherwise?  This last question alas never gets answered on this forum


 
  
 No but again, it's pointless. I have no idea how or if they have doctored either their example MQA files or whatever they are using for comparison. Hearing some improvement, no difference or poorer quality is meaningless without access to original files and being able to create a MQA version of those files myself (and in other formats for comparison).
  
 G


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## Gringo

Thanks Grigo for the comments you offer which seem well reasoned. From what you state I think it would be more reasonable to say that MQA's claims are still suspect and need more constructive proof than to use the term hyperbol but then that is your perogative.

It would appear that you are assuming that however many engineers etc they are referring to, you are assuming they are all nutters or novices which seems a little over judgemental, they could just as well be renowned, we simply don't know but then again you are perfectly entitled to your opinion.

I totally agree that reliable comparisons need to take place and reserve judgement until that happens.


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## Gringo

Gregarious, sorry for getting your name wrong in the previous post.


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## Gringo

ralphp@optonline said:


> So that makes two posters who feel that the whole MQA thing is little more than some very good marketing.
> 
> My suggestion to Gringo is that if you want lots and lots of feel good responses that completely agree with you and those who also see MQA as the latest and greatest Holy Grail of high end audio then stick to the High-end Audio Forum, where the BS filter is completely turned off.
> 
> Here in the Sound Science forum the BS filter is set to ultra deluxe super high




Above is a completely unfair and deliberate misrepresentation.

Fact - I have on more than once asked for comments both positive and negative regarding those who have heard MQA.

Fact - I have never claimed anything for MQA but have simply posted challenges to some of the comments offered against it, (some that I believe to be overtly bias and stated misconceptions or deliberate misrepresentations)

Fact - I have stated unequivocally that I am yet to be convinced of MQA's merits until direct comparisons can be independently made.

Your comments would seem to suggest that if someone does not agree with you then their comments are defacto without any merit and dismissed insultingly. This I believe says more about your shortcomings than mine.


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## Gringo

Gregorio, total incompetence on my part not realising predictive text had caused me to get your name wrong yet again. Sorry, I can offer no excuses.


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## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> Above is a completely unfair and deliberate misrepresentation.
> 
> Fact - I have on more than once asked for comments both positive and negative regarding those who have heard MQA.
> 
> ...


 

 Woe slow down a minute and let's backup a bit.
  
 I've been following high end audio for more years than I care to admit so let's just say at least 30 years. And during all those years I've seen and heard many, many claims about Audio Nirvana finally being reached. Everything from magic clocks to super thick cables and wires to mp3s that sound better than wav files to ultra high resolution digital audio to magic jitter reducers to DSD. And each and every time the claims did not match the reality. That's what is known as marketing.
  
 And as I've stated before MQA is being marketed to those who want to believe in the impossible. The impossible in this case is that once something is recorded, either digital or analog, that original recording will always be the best possible source. Sure the original recording can be "improved" by using equalization but in the end it is the original recording that sets the limits on the final sound quality. Add to this the fact that in order for MQA to succeed the superiority of high resolution audio (24bit and 88.2 kHz and above) has to be established as an irrefutable fact. And until the high end audio world can prove this last statement then processes like MQA will also remain unproven. Which is not to say that MQA doesn't do exactly what it claims to do but rather more of so what, at least until that time.
  
 It's kind of like all those AC power conditioners - each and every power supply in each and every piece of audio equipment "conditions" the power since they all convert the incoming AC into DC and can easily handle the normal deviations of voltage and frequency.
  
 Basically the high end audio game is all about building these complicated belief systems (by they be about cables, power conditioning, bit rates, jitter, etc.) on totally unproven foundations. Kick away the rotten foundation and it all comes crashing down like the house of cards that it actually is.
  
 By the way, I will go out on a limb here and state that MQA will never be "officially" subjected to double blind testing. Oh sure, there will be tons of testimony from all the usual high end audio mouthpieces but no real testing. Sighted listening tests have little to no value.


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## Gringo

ralphp@optonline said:


> Woe slow down a minute and let's backup a bit.
> 
> I've been following high end audio for more years than I care to admit so let's just say at least 30 years. And during all those years I've seen and heard many, many claims about Audio Nirvana finally being reached. Everything from magic clocks to super thick cables and wires to mp3s that sound better than wav files to ultra high resolution digital audio to magic jitter reducers to DSD. And each and every time the claims did not match the reality. That's what is known as marketing.
> 
> ...


 
 Firstly, I stand by the complaints I posted regarding untrue comments about myself, if by "Woe slow down a minute and lets backup a bit" you are retracting the comment against me then that's all fine.
  
 The comments you offer regarding your past experiences, as far as I am concerned, are given in a far more fair and unbiased manner and I completely concur with the vast bulk of what you say and have had many similar experiences.
  
 In all my postings I have tried to strike a balance, eg

someone posts a graph with detailed explanations which I then acknowledge that I am not in a position to counter and will accept unless I discover something better.
 2.     The graph and comments are latter in my opinion proved by MQA to be completely incorrect misinterpretations.
 3.     The same graph is then posted with an incorrect conclusion again so I posted the detailed MQA rebuffal.  
 4.     Another poster then accuses MQA of using terminology not appropriate for a white paper when they knew it wasn't a white paper in the first place and again I challenge that. 
  
 Yes companies can make false claims, guild the lily etc. but so can the opposite camp.  All I have ever done, where my limited knowledge will allow, is to urge people to offer balanced comment to the best of their ability. If you or I believe a person or company is being biased then responding with equally bias comments is just as reprehensible.
  
 If someone proves me wrong, I will be the first to concede the fact
 If someone holds different views to mine, then I am happy to simply acknowledge that we disagree
 If someone counters my arguments and I am not confident in my ability to refute them, I will stay quiet or acknowledge I am unable to refute them
 If someone makes factual inaccurate statements, (deliberate or otherwise and in particular about myself), I reserve the right to say so but will refrain from insults, slurs or the use of abusive language
 I don’t believe it putting people or companies on pedestals and that includes MQA
  
 If tests, advertising etc, in whatever form they are conducted say one thing but my ears tell me something different over extended multiple auditions then rightly or wrongly I will always go with my ears because they are what I enjoy both live and recorded music with.  That said I believe I don’t have a closed mind and am interested in what others might have to contribute to any given topic
  
 When offering my opinion I hope I make it clear it is only my opinion and do not assert it is better than anyone else’s, (I would be one of the first to acknowledge that they are perfectly entitled to their opinion)


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## gregorio

gringo said:


> From what you state I think it would be more reasonable to say that MQA's claims are still suspect and need more constructive proof than to use the term hyperbol but then that is your perogative.


 
  
 From what I state, I don't think that would be "more reasonable" to say that "MQA's claims are still suspect". From what I've stated, MQA's claims are largely based on incorrect "facts", inaccuracies, misrepresentations, confusion of the issues and double standards. "Hyperbole" is a lenient term to use IMO, for what appears to be deliberate deceit, rather than just exaggeration. Having said this, it is possible that this is just an extremely misguided marketing strategy designed to compete with all the other deliberately deceitful marketing in the audiophile world and that there is actually something of real benefit to MQA. However, I think this is unlikely and my position (and what I've tried to state) is that my concerns about MQA's claims are far more serious than just "still suspect". Likewise, ralphp@optonline's characterisation of what I've stated isn't completely accurate either, as I'm not absolutely certain there's nothing to the "whole MQA thing".
  
 My actual position is somewhere between "still suspect" and it's definitely all just BS but from what's been presented so far, I am closer to ralphp's characterisation of what I've stated than to yours. I can completely sympathise with your position though, from your perspective, "from what _ state" is not even half of it, it's obviously also about what the interviewee has stated and without an expert level of knowledge, how can judge who to trust?
  
 G
_


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## Joe Bloggs

>



They put forward that image, yet their own image shows that the TPDF dithering of CD is below the noise floor of both the MQA AND CD master throughout the spectrum.

Since there are no higher-res versions of 2L-120 track 01 available for comparison, I downloaded the file set for 2L-111 track 15 instead (another track they produced graphs for).

I compared the MQA file noise floor with both that of the CD-quality download provided and that of the 352kHz master manually remastered to CD quality 16/44.1 format via TPDF dither. The results are as follows:



As you can see the TPDF encoded CD format is lower in noise than the MQA file entirely throughout the range.

*IN OTHER NEWS,* the same 352kHz master, converted to 24/88.2 and saved as FLAC level 8, yielded a 13.1MB file (compared to the MQA FLAC's 15.9MB). The noise spectrum of the 24/88.2 file is included for comparison...
*edit:* please disregard this last part as it turned out I'd screwed up the project settings for the file export.


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## sonitus mirus

gringo said:


> If tests, advertising etc, in whatever form they are conducted say one thing but my ears tell me something different over extended multiple auditions then rightly or wrongly I will always go with my ears because they are what I enjoy both live and recorded music with.  That said I believe I don’t have a closed mind and am interested in what others might have to contribute to any given topic


 
  
 This is the fundamental issue that will always be at odds with the other side of these kinds of debates.  If sighted bias or other factors are influencing your opinion, it will continue to do so unless you can definitively show to yourself that you are actually hearing what you think you are hearing.  If it is not possible to conduct a valid ABX test or you simply do not believe in them and you don't understand the mathematics and biology well enough to be swayed or at least be skeptical, these discussions go absolutely nowhere.  Each party leaves in a huff thinking that others are stubborn and ignorant.
  
 I think people are listening to wonderfully recorded music and it happens to be in an MQA format.  Someone already tested an MQA file and PCM and there didn't appear to be any significant audible differences shown in a null test.  The noise from MQA seems to be greater than from a CD.  I could take a well-encoded MP3 file and boost the bass and treble a bit and probably get several people to believe this format is better than Red Book if I used marketing magic.  Because MP3 is not proprietary and can be dissected and verified, we would scoff at this idea.  I'm seeing red flags with MQA.  I can't simply listen to MQA and make up my mind, because there is nothing to accurately compare it with until neutral parties have an opportunity to test this format more rigorously.


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## Gringo

Gregorio - thanks for the useful comments


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## Gringo

sonitus mirus said:


> This is the fundamental issue that will always be at odds with the other side of these kinds of debates.  If sighted bias or other factors are influencing your opinion, it will continue to do so unless you can definitively show to yourself that you are actually hearing what you think you are hearing.  If it is not possible to conduct a valid ABX test or you simply do not believe in them and you don't understand the mathematics and biology well enough to be swayed or at least be skeptical, these discussions go absolutely nowhere.  Each party leaves in a huff thinking that others are stubborn and ignorant.
> 
> I think people are listening to wonderfully recorded music and it happens to be in an MQA format.  Someone already tested an MQA file and PCM and there didn't appear to be any significant audible differences shown in a null test.  The noise from MQA seems to be greater than from a CD.  I could take a well-encoded MP3 file and boost the bass and treble a bit and probably get several people to believe this format is better than Red Book if I used marketing magic.  Because MP3 is not proprietary and can be dissected and verified, we would scoff at this idea.  I'm seeing red flags with MQA.  I can't simply listen to MQA and make up my mind, because there is nothing to accurately compare it with until neutral parties have an opportunity to test this format more rigorously.


 
 Agreed, all sorts of factors can influence us such as suggestions/experiences/prior knowledge/advertising etc etc and I totally agree with the idea of waiting and making your mind up after rigorous testing. How neutral the testing is just like everything else open to debate. I could construe that were you eventually to get to conduct whatever test you wanted that you would not be unbiased, (I hasten to add that I am not for one moment doing so), because of your already expressed concerns  as I will maintain that looking at graphs does not tell us what it sounds like.  I personally am not worried about originals, remasters, equalisation etc. but rather what sounds the best to me which may well be quite different to you. We can agree to differ on my idea of ultimately using your own ears. As far as I am concerned the jury is still out on MQA


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## sonitus mirus

gringo said:


> Agreed, all sorts of factors can influence us such as suggestions/experiences/prior knowledge/advertising etc etc and I totally agree with the idea of waiting and making your mind up after rigorous testing. How neutral the testing is just like everything else open to debate. I could construe that were you eventually to get to conduct whatever test you wanted that you would not be unbiased, (I hasten to add that I am not for one moment doing so), because of your already expressed concerns  as *I will maintain that looking at graphs does not tell us what it sounds like*.  I personally am not worried about originals, remasters, equalisation etc. but rather what sounds the best to me which may well be quite different to you. We can agree to differ on my idea of ultimately using your own ears. As far as I am concerned the jury is still out on MQA


 
  
 I used a mic and software with graphs to set up my speakers.  Otherwise, why not just pour a few glasses of wine and turn the volume up?   I'm only attempting to remove emotion from the equation as best as I reasonably can.  My past experiences are what led me to think this way.  I've shown to myself that I was easily tricked when not appropriately isolating my hearing.


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## castleofargh

there is no need to go so far as to dress up as goths to remove emotions from the listening test. we have plenty of examples of people who prefer the lesser sound.
 when I enjoy vinyls more, when I enjoy a colored tube amp, when I enjoy +15db bass boost on my headphone, when imagine dragons win music awards with an horribly distorted and saturated song....
 the mistake is to assume that if I prefer something, then it's the one with better sound fidelity. this has never ever been a rule.


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## Gringo

castleofargh said:


> there is no need to go so far as to dress up as goths to remove emotions from the listening test. we have plenty of examples of people who prefer the lesser sound.
> when I enjoy vinyls more, when I enjoy a colored tube amp, when I enjoy +15db bass boost on my headphone, when imagine dragons win music awards with an horribly distorted and saturated song....
> the mistake is to assume that if I prefer something, then it's the one with better sound fidelity. this has never ever been a rule.


 
 I can whole heartedly agree with this.


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## sonitus mirus

castleofargh said:


> there is no need to go so far as to dress up as goths to remove emotions from the listening test. we have plenty of examples of people who prefer the lesser sound.
> when I enjoy vinyls more, when I enjoy a colored tube amp, when I enjoy +15db bass boost on my headphone, when imagine dragons win music awards with an horribly distorted and saturated song....
> the mistake is to assume that if I prefer something, then it's the one with better sound fidelity. this has never ever been a rule.


 
  
 I chose the word "emotion" poorly.  It was meant to be in a context of something like an unconscious bias.


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## Joe Bloggs

sonitus mirus said:


> I chose the word "emotion" poorly.  It was meant to be in a context of something like an unconscious bias.




Too late, we all know you're a pointy-eared Vulcan now


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## Gringo

joe bloggs said:


> They put forward that image, yet their own image shows that the TPDF dithering of CD is below the noise floor of both the MQA AND CD master throughout the spectrum.
> 
> Since there are no higher-res versions of 2L-120 track 01 available for comparison, I downloaded the file set for 2L-111 track 15 instead (another track they produced graphs for).
> 
> ...




Maybe I am being completely inept in reading the 1st graph, (which is quite possible), that you refer to but it seems to me that you are drawing inaccurate conclusions.

The noise floor of the track being examined, (not chosen by MQA but rather one used to originally criticise them), shows the undecoded MQA noise floor almost exactly the same as the CD file up to just below 15khz and from there on it is progressively lower. The undecoded MQA channel noise floor signal between 0khz and about 14 kHz is below the reference CD signal noise floor apart from briefly at 9khz.

The decoded MQA channel noise floor signal is at all stages indistinguishable with that of the 24 bit master signal. The CD signal of -120 dB TPDF you refer to is a reference signal and not the CD signal that is being compared to MQA. Note that the MQA noise floor signal is virtually identical to that of the 24 bit TPDF reference signal between 5khz and 20khz

As I think you have misinterpreted that first graph I am offering no comment whatever on your second example. I note that it does not go into similar detailed comparison and does not even offer a legible key of which signal is which.

In the other news comment there is no indication of what level FLAC the MQA signal was so the indicator of file size might not be representative of like with like


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## Joe Bloggs

gringo said:


> Maybe I am being completely inept in reading the 1st graph, (which is quite possible), that you refer to but it seems to me that you are drawing inaccurate conclusions.
> 
> The noise floor of the track being examined, (not chosen by MQA but rather one used to originally criticise them), shows the undecoded MQA noise floor almost exactly the same as the CD file up to just below 15khz and from there on it is progressively lower. The undecoded MQA channel noise floor signal between 0khz and about 14 kHz is below the reference CD signal noise floor apart from briefly at 9khz.
> 
> The decoded MQA channel noise floor signal is at all stages indistinguishable with that of the 24 bit master signal. The CD signal of -120 dB TPDF you refer to is a reference signal and not the CD signal that is being compared to MQA. Note that the MQA noise floor signal is virtually identical to that of the 24 bit TPDF reference signal between 5khz and 20khz




The TPDF is the actual digital noise floor of the CD if you use TPDF dither. The reason why the actual CD has higher high frequency noise is probably because it uses noise-shaped dither, which trades higher high freuqency noise for lower low-frequency noise.

But as the TPDF noise floor was shown by their own graph to be lower than the actual noise floor throughout the range, I thought about what would happen if you used TPDF dither and the result is shown in my second graph--in which purple is the CD track downloaded from 2L, green is MQA, red is the CD track I synthesized from the 352kHz master using TPDF dither, and blue is the 24bit/88.2kHz track. (You can see the legend if you click on the picture then click on the link to the original size pic)


----------



## sonitus mirus

joe bloggs said:


> Too late, we all know you're a pointy-eared Vulcan now


 
  
 I never completed my Kolinahr discipline training.


----------



## gregorio

gringo said:


> Maybe I am being completely inept in reading the 1st graph...


 
  
 Don't worry about it, that graph is completely all over the place and makes no sense. I didn't even bother addressing it earlier.
  
 For example:
  
 1. The original recording was on a DAT, which is limited to 16bit. How did it suddenly become 24bit?
 2. I have no idea where/how they get those figures for the noise floor on the master. They look bizarre though.
 3. The CD noise floor doesn't make any sense either.
  
 I can't comment on any of the MQA items on the graph.
  
 G


----------



## HIFIMAD

well said cd is more than enough i have 24/96 tracks and a sacd player not that much better sound for the extra cost .


----------



## Joe Bloggs

gregorio said:


> gringo said:
> 
> 
> > Maybe I am being completely inept in reading the 1st graph...
> ...




Don't know about (1) (there's another recording graphed that did have a DXD source), but regarding (2), TPDF creates a noise floor around -90dB overall, but when you do a Fourier analysis it's different and the dB levels mean something different. Like I said, when I manually applied 16 bit TPDF dither on the DXD master downsampled to 44.1kHz, I did indeed get a lower noise floor than the undecoded MQA.


----------



## gregorio

joe bloggs said:


> but regarding (2), TPDF creates a noise floor around -90dB overall, but when you do a Fourier analysis it's different and the dB levels mean something different.


 
  
 Absolutely, my bad. Been spending too much time reading spectrograms with overlaid waveforms, forgot about frequency bins on an FFT for a moment!
  
 G


----------



## icebear

In the latest edition of one of the usual suspect magazines MQA is the headline story. It's being sold as THE best thing since sliced bread and no surprise there are feature articles about Meridian equipment that you will need to decode the "folded data" properly and just by chance there are ad pages by Meridian, too LOL 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





.
 I didn't buy it although there were articles about other stuff that might be an interesting read but no thanks


----------



## Gringo

icebear said:


> In the latest edition of one of the usual suspect magazines MQA is the headline story. It's being sold as THE best thing since sliced bread and no surprise there are feature articles about Meridian equipment that you will need to decode the "folded data" properly and just by chance there are ad pages by Meridian, too LOL  .
> I didn't buy it although there were articles about other stuff that might be an interesting read but no thanks:angry_face:


 

If it's the magazine I think you are referring to, then many here might not want to read it as it may make your blood boil. Unbridled enthusiasm is very much the tone and clearly the reviewer is a complete convert full or glowing terminology that many here would dismiss as hyperbole or BS. 

As for the ads, if I was in their shoes I in all honesty I would place them as well just like any other manufacturer.

As always it's reader/buyer beware as all might not be as it is shown but it does not follow that it definitely is not.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> If it's the magazine I think you are referring to, then many here might not want to read it as it may make your blood boil. Unbridled enthusiasm is very much the tone and clearly the reviewer is a complete convert full or glowing terminology that many here would dismiss as hyperbole or BS.
> 
> As for the ads, if I was in their shoes I in all honesty I would place them as well just like any other manufacturer.
> 
> As always it's reader/buyer beware as all might not be as it is shown but it does not follow that it definitely is not.


 
 350 posts and finally the truth emerges - MQA is indeed the greatest thing since sliced bread! The golden eared Gods have finally spoken and their hearing is unimpeachable and cannot be questioned. Remember if the golden eared Gods heard it then it has to be the truth.
  
 So step aside DSD because MQA is now the Next Big Thing in High End Audio (that is until next month).


----------



## Gringo

ralphp@optonline said:


> 350 posts and finally the truth emerges - MQA is indeed the greatest thing since sliced bread! The golden eared Gods have finally spoken and their hearing is unimpeachable and cannot be questioned. Remember if the golden eared Gods heard it then it has to be the truth.
> 
> So step aside DSD because MQA is now the Next Big Thing in High End Audio (that is until next month).




The pendulum swings back and forth between two, ( to mind mind at least), extremes. What I do find interesting is that from the images within the article the wide range of MQA streamable files waiting in the wings. The sooner they are made available to everyone, the sooner everyone can start to get their own head round whether it is any good or all smoke and mirrors.


----------



## castleofargh

personally I don't have and certainly won't buy a device just so that I can read MQA.


----------



## Gringo

castleofargh said:


> personally I don't have and certainly won't buy a device just so that I can read MQA.




Neither would I without being convinced MQA truly has something worthwhile to offer. The more files readily available to everyone brings nearer the the chance to do proper real life comparisons before making ones minds up. Of course those who already have made there minds up don't need to bother, they can just take the plunge regardless of whether it turns out to be a charde or they can not take the time to audition it safe in their knowledge that they are right in the first place and it's all nonsense.


----------



## upstateguy

gringo said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > personally I don't have and certainly won't buy a device just so that I can read MQA.
> ...


 
  
 I would think, at the very least, that the guys who bought into Hi-Rez will also buy into this.


----------



## Baxide

upstateguy said:


> I would think, at the very least, that the guys who bought into Hi-Rez will also buy into this.


 

 Some hi-res files are markedly better than their low-res version, but it is so dependent on a range of factors. But I do like 24/96 as my regular format size to use.


----------



## gregorio

baxide said:


> Some hi-res files are markedly better than their low-res version, but it is so dependent on a range of factors. But I do like 24/96 as my regular format size to use.


 
  
 Just to clarify, there is no audible difference between hi-res and low-res "files", only audible differences between what is in those files. Obviously so in the case of different songs, not quite so obvious but still noticeable in the case of different versions/masters of the same song and of course, unnoticeable in the case of exactly the same version/master.
  
 G


----------



## upstateguy

castleofargh said:


> personally I don't have and certainly won't buy a device just so that I can read MQA.


 
  
 Hey CoA, how are you?  I don't log on very often any more, but I see you're doing a great job as Sound Science Moderator.  It's refreshing to see the objective point of view on Head-Fi without getting deleted.
  
 Now about the post.  I agreed with you at first but this is what happened to me. 
  
 Like many of us, I have accumulated a few rigs, that have migrated into different rooms.  One of them is a computer rig out to a Blue Circle Thingee usb to spdif transport, then to a Stello DA100, then to a Woo3 preamp and then out to an amp with speakers. 
  
 So here's what happened.  I was listening to internet radio on foobar while I was surfing and I absent-mindedly clicked on something in my collection that didn't play. It turned out that the Blue Circle Thingee only decodes 16 bit over usb.  The Stello DA100 will play 24/96, so all of a sudden I had a bottle neck with the old Thingee.
  
 No problem, I fired up the SoX resampler and it played.  But it bothered me on some obscure level in the back of my mind. 
  
 Normally, just like you, I wouldn't buy a device just to play something that didn't look any different on my spectrum analyzer program or sound any different to my ears, but I did anyway. 
  
 It annoyed me subconsciously until I finally grabbed a Peachtree X1 converter on Amazon which decodes 24/192.... and the old Blue Circle Thingee was retired. 
  
 Now I find myself glancing at the Stello, but only does 24/96....  My NorthStar MK2 does 192.....
  
 I always thought I wouldn't buy a device just to play something. LOL 
  
 Never say never!


----------



## upstateguy

gregorio said:


> baxide said:
> 
> 
> > Some hi-res files are markedly better than their low-res version, but it is so dependent on a range of factors. But I do like 24/96 as my regular format size to use.
> ...


 
  
*+1 ** there is no audible difference between hi-res and low-res "files" just differences in versions used for the masters.*


----------



## castleofargh

upstateguy said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > personally I don't have and certainly won't buy a device just so that I can read MQA.
> ...


 

 well thank you, but the total of my moderator actions has been to quietly bark from time to time when the delivery guy sounds too irrational for my taste, hoping for things to calm down before moderation is needed. Brooko has been putting on the mask of justice once or twice already, making his actions objectivelly more significant than mine. and Joe and currawong still act more than they talk.
  
 about MQA, of course if someone can see a use, they should go for it. I really was talking only for myself. it's pretty safe to say that if I end up with a MQA-able device some day, it will not be because I was looking for MQA. and about that statement, as they say in Billions, "I am not uncertain".^_^  I still stick to mp3 instead of aac(when aac is clearly better) just because I dislike apple, that's the kind of pig headed guy I am.


----------



## upstateguy

castleofargh said:


> upstateguy said:
> 
> 
> > castleofargh said:
> ...


 
  
 I mostly stream stuff, been doing it for years.  There's so much *free* high bit rate stuff around that I haven't bought a CD in a long time. 
  
 Regarding mp3, I think the majority of my stuff is in mp3 too.  You might want to check out the Radio Paradise streams.  They have streams in mp3, oog, and aac.  It gives you a good basis for comparison because you can toggle back and forth between formats during the same song.


----------



## Gringo

For those interested, below is a link, (very favourable/totally biased/complete hyperbole/massive con trick conspiracy - take your pick), to another review of MQA
http://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-mytek-and-ab-c-will-come-later#zcBC3uhlLb808AdZ.97


----------



## sonitus mirus

gringo said:


> For those interested, below is a link, (very favourable/totally biased/complete hyperbole/massive con trick conspiracy - take your pick), to another review of MQA
> http://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-mytek-and-ab-c-will-come-later#zcBC3uhlLb808AdZ.97


 
  
 It is useless advertising to me. 
  
 This is the same guy that wrote this review.   
  
 http://www.audiostream.com/content/audioquest-vodka-ethernet-cable-and-diamond-ethernet-cable#Oo9pVaXWK0D6tm1X.97
  
 I only believe that he believes he is hearing a difference.


----------



## castleofargh

give him a rock and he'll make an article about how it changed the sound in a revolutionary way. that's Lavorgna to me. just like the sun will set, he will hear a difference.
 really not my favorite blogger.


----------



## Gringo

The MQA band wagon might just be beginning to start rolling
http://www.whathifi.com/news/warner-music-group-becomes-first-big-label-to-adopt-mqa


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> The MQA band wagon might just be beginning to start rolling
> http://www.whathifi.com/news/warner-music-group-becomes-first-big-label-to-adopt-mqa


 

 From the intro sub-headline: "Warner Music Group confirms that it has signed a long-term licensing deal for MQA."
  
 And licensing means money and money means a new revenue stream for Meridian (yes I know MQA and Meridian are two separate companies and I'm the King of England 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




).
  
 The video below says it way better than I can:


----------



## Gringo

ralphp@optonline said:


> From the intro sub-headline: "Warner Music Group confirms that it has signed a long-term licensing deal for MQA."
> 
> And licensing means money and money means a new revenue stream for Meridian (yes I know MQA and Meridian are two separate companies and I'm the King of England :evil: ).
> 
> The video below says it way better than I can:




Do you expect a company to give their products away? Nothing wrong in revenue streams, without them there would be no music industry or any other industry for that matter. The irony is that the music track you refer to is one where Mark Knopfler is commenting on those who are simply jealous of highly successful musicians and wrongly believe that they don't have to work for what they achieve.


----------



## watchnerd

castleofargh said:


> give him a rock and he'll make an article about how it changed the sound in a revolutionary way. that's Lavorgna to me. just like the sun will set, he will hear a difference.
> really not my favorite blogger.


 
  
 Ditto


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> Do you expect a company to give their products away? Nothing wrong in revenue streams, without them there would be no music industry or any other industry for that matter. The irony is that the music track you refer to is one where Mark Knopfler is commenting on those who are simply jealous of highly successful musicians and wrongly believe that they don't have to work for what they achieve.


 

 Lighten up a little. Just to clarify: "the money for nothing" refers not to the MQA technology but rather the fact MQA is completely unnecessary,as in there will NEVER be a double blind test that proves that an MQA sounds BETTER (not different, BETTER) than a standard flac file made from a 16bit/44.1kHz (CD quality) file. So it truly will money for nothing for MQA/Meridian.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

ralphp@optonline said:


> gringo said:
> 
> 
> > Do you expect a company to give their products away? Nothing wrong in revenue streams, without them there would be no music industry or any other industry for that matter. The irony is that the music track you refer to is one where Mark Knopfler is commenting on those who are simply jealous of highly successful musicians and wrongly believe that they don't have to work for what they achieve.
> ...




You could say that about a double blind test of any subject. DBT is not preference testing. 

Just because we believe there's no perceivable improvements to be made over Redbook standard doesn't mean we can get our logic all tied up like a laundry basket of panties


----------



## Gringo

ralphp@optonline said:


> Lighten up a little. Just to clarify: "the money for nothing" refers not to the MQA technology but rather the fact MQA is completely unnecessary,as in there will NEVER be a double blind test that proves that an MQA sounds BETTER (not different, BETTER) than a standard flac file made from a 16bit/44.1kHz (CD quality) file. So it truly will money for nothing for MQA/Meridian.




Sorry but I don't follow your logic and was only pointing out the irony of your choice of analogy. If there is never any blind testing of MQA then the only thing that truly proves is that there was never any blind testing of MQA.

Your perfectly entitled to your opinion, I claim nothing for it other than for me it might turn out to be interesting.


----------



## tmarshl

It strikes me that this is the same kind of discussion which was provoked by the introduction of DSD a couple of years ago: engineers vs. fanboys.  My decision gets made by my own hearing.  The ultimate decision concerning the viability of any format will be made by the market.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

tmarshl said:


> It strikes me that this is the same kind of discussion which was provoked by the introduction of DSD a couple of years ago: engineers vs. fanboys.  My decision gets made by my own hearing.  The ultimate decision concerning the viability of any format will be made by the market.


 

 And remember MQA is PCM based, not DSD. So I guess that means that DSD is no longer the audiophile flavor of the month. Damn what about all those DSD enabled DACs - the junk heap awaits!
  
 But wait - how about DSD files made from MQA encoded PCM! Then they could sell new DACs that play PCM, MQA-PCM, DSD and MQA-DSD. And a  whole new market born.
  
 Isn't this hobby fun?!?!?


----------



## Gringo

ralphp@optonline said:


> And remember MQA is PCM based, not DSD. So I guess that means that DSD is no longer the audiophile flavor of the month. Damn what about all those DSD enabled DACs - the junk heap awaits!
> 
> But wait - how about DSD files made from MQA encoded PCM! Then they could sell new DACs that play PCM, MQA-PCM, DSD and MQA-DSD. And a  whole new market born.
> 
> Isn't this hobby fun?!?!?




Hobbies and rationality are very rarely comfortable bedfellows


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> Hobbies and rationality are very rarely comfortable bedfellows


 
 That should read: Audiophiles and rationality are very rarely comfortable bedfellows.


----------



## cjl

ralphp@optonline said:


> Lighten up a little. Just to clarify: "the money for nothing" refers not to the MQA technology but rather the fact MQA is completely unnecessary,as in there will NEVER be a double blind test that proves that an MQA sounds BETTER (not different, BETTER) than a standard flac file made from a 16bit/44.1kHz (CD quality) file. So it truly will money for nothing for MQA/Meridian.


 

 Hell, I'd settle for different. That would at least show that it's doing something audible.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

cjl said:


> Hell, I'd settle for different. That would at least show that it's doing something audible.


 

 Which is exactly why I used the word "better" since it appears that MQA does do some sort of signal processing, aka equalization, and that would mean that MQA files should/would sound "different". But, and this is a very, very BIG BUT, different does not EQUAL better.


----------



## watchnerd

cjl said:


> Hell, I'd settle for different. That would at least show that it's doing something audible.


 
  
 Based on the spectrals I've seen, I don't doubt that it's doing something potentially audible.
  
 However one could argue that what it does isn't true to the recording.


----------



## Gringo

watchnerd said:


> Based on the spectrals I've seen, I don't doubt that it's doing something potentially audible.
> 
> However one could argue that what it does isn't true to the recording.




Very big If, but if any technology/artist improves upon the original recording I s that a bad thing? I am not, repeat not claiming MQA does so, but simply posing the question. Before anyone gets too upset, I am fully aware that subjectivity can have a crucial impact here.


----------



## watchnerd

gringo said:


> Very big If, but if any technology/artist improves upon the original recording I s that a bad thing? I am not, repeat not claiming MQA does so, but simply posing the question. Before anyone gets too upset, I am fully aware that subjectivity can have a crucial impact here.


 
  
 As long as we acknowledge that "improve" can mean "changing reproduction via signal processing to make it sound different", then it's no better or worse than using EQ, DSP IIR filters, or room correction.
  
 Personally, though, I'd rather have such decisions made as part of the playback system, as opposed to be embedded directly into the recording.  Especially if it's done ex post facto without input from the original recording engineers.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gringo said:


> Very big If, but if any technology/artist improves upon the original recording I s that a bad thing? I am not, repeat not claiming MQA does so, but simply posing the question. Before anyone gets too upset, I am fully aware that subjectivity can have a crucial impact here.


 
  
  


watchnerd said:


> As long as we acknowledge that "improve" can mean "changing reproduction via signal processing to make it sound different", then it's no better or worse than using EQ, DSP IIR filters, or room correction.
> 
> Personally, though, I'd rather have such decisions made as part of the playback system, as opposed to be embedded directly into the recording.  Especially if it's done ex post facto without input from the original recording engineers.


 
 I think that a little clarification is in order.
  
 What exactly is an "original recording"?
  
 First let's state that we are talking about electronically reproduced audio and not Edison's original acoustic wax cylinders. Okay what is a recording? Simply put it an timed electrical signal produced by a microphone which converts the sound waves, aka air pressure variations, into an analogous electrical signal. In the case of a digital recording the electrical signal is converted into a digital signal.
  
 Once the electrical or digital signal is created there are no more voices or instruments "there" since "there" is just an electrical signal. A wire carrying this signal doesn't "know" the signal is an audio recording, to the wire it is just an electrical signal just like any other electrical signal.
  
 And once this the recording is made is no way to "improve" the sounds recorded on the signal. All that is possible is for the signal to be processed. The signal can be amplified, it can be filtered, only parts of the signal can be amplified (which is what an equalizer does) but the original electrical signal produced by the microphone will always be the "best" possible signal. Anyone who states otherwise is simply misinformed.
  
 And so I agree with watchnerd - other than the processing which is done by the original recording engineers all other post recording processing should be at the discretion of the listener.
  
 All of the above explains why I have always insisted that MQA, with respect to its ability to "improve the original recording", is nothing more than a fancy equalizer.


----------



## groovyd

snake oil


----------



## gregorio

ralphp@optonline said:


> And once this the recording is made is no way to "improve" the sounds recorded on the signal. All that is possible is for the signal to be processed. The signal can be amplified, it can be filtered, only parts of the signal can be amplified (which is what an equalizer does) but the original electrical signal produced by the microphone will always be the "best" possible signal. Anyone who states otherwise is simply misinformed.


 
  
 So, virtually all the record labels, recording studios, mastering studios, professional mix and mastering engineers and producers of commercial audio recordings for about the last half century are "simply misinformed"?
  


ralphp@optonline said:


> ...other than the processing which is done by the original recording engineers all other post recording processing should be at the discretion of the listener.


 
  
 Recording engineers rarely, if ever, add any processing. Have you ever heard raw, unedited, unmixed, recorded tracks?
  
 G


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gregorio said:


> So, virtually all the record labels, recording studios, mastering studios, professional mix and mastering engineers and producers of commercial audio recordings for about the last half century are "simply misinformed"?
> 
> 
> Recording engineers rarely, if ever, add any processing. Have you ever heard raw, unedited, unmixed, recorded tracks?
> ...


 

 The key words being "unmixed" and "tracks" because once the tracks are mixed down to two stereo tracks there is no way to unmix them. So one either has separate tracks or a mixed down stereo recording. By the way, I suggest that you speak with some recording engineers and ask them just ow much one can edit a recorded track - other than applying some equalization the track can not be changed.


----------



## gregorio

ralphp@optonline said:


> The key words being "unmixed" and "tracks" because once the tracks are mixed down to two stereo tracks there is no way to unmix them.


 
  
 You seem to be getting confused with recording and mixing and not taking account of mastering at all! When one records "the original electrical signal produced by the microphone", one has a track. These recorded tracks can be mono or stereo (or even in surround) and are edited, mixed and processed in potentially a virtually infinite number of different ways. When mixing is complete, the final mix is sent to a mastering engineer who will apply a further round of processing and NOT just EQ and amplification! This editing and mixing always occurs and mastering is standard procedure for commercial releases and this is because that "original electrical signal produced by the mic" is virtually never "the best"!
  


ralphp@optonline said:


> By the way, I suggest that you speak with some recording engineers and ask them just ow much one can edit a recorded track - other than applying some equalization the track can not be changed.


 
  
 It's really not at all wise to include the line "_Anyone who states otherwise is simply misinformed_" when making statements on a subject you obviously don't know much about. And just so we're clear here, are you really telling a highly experienced professional recording and mastering engineer to go and talk to a recording engineer?!
  
 G


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gregorio said:


> You seem to be getting confused with recording and mixing and not taking account of mastering at all! When one records "the original electrical signal produced by the microphone", one has a track. These recorded tracks can be mono or stereo (or even in surround) and are edited, mixed and processed in potentially a virtually infinite number of different ways. When mixing is complete, the final mix is sent to a mastering engineer who will apply a further round of processing and NOT just EQ and amplification! This editing and mixing always occurs and mastering is standard procedure for commercial releases and this is because that "original electrical signal produced by the mic" is virtually never "the best"!
> 
> 
> It's really not at all wise to include the line "_Anyone who states otherwise is simply misinformed_" when making statements on a subject you obviously don't know much about. And just so we're clear here, are you really telling a highly experienced professional recording and mastering engineer to go and talk to a recording engineer?!
> ...


 

 First things STOP THE PERSONAL ATTACKS, please. There is no need for them since I believe this is just simple misunderstanding of what I'm trying to say, probably because I'm not expressing myself correctly. So let me try again.
  
 The point I'm trying to make is that MQA is claiming to somehow fix existing, fully mixed and mastered recordings and my point is that the only to fix existing fully mixed and mastered recordings is via some form of equalization, regardless of the fancy name one gives that equalization. It is not more complicated than that.
  
 So for example I listen to lots and lots of jazz, some of new and some old. On the old recordings, say a Charlie Parker recording from the late 1940s, recorded in mono. And say the recording features the great drummer Max Roach. Well guess what back in the early 1940s only about 50% or so of the super dynamic sound of Max Roach playing the drums was captured on the original recording - there is almost no high end and very little impact. The only way to "fix" these shortcoming is by equalization. So one tries to boost the high end but that just means that the existing tape hiss is boosted along with Max's cymbals. And all the power of Roach's drumming, which needs sharp and forceful transients is also lost.
  
 So in addition to equalization being the only real tool available, equalization does have limits.
  
 What has always struck me as odd is that although the high end audio press and many audiophiles claim that complete and total fidelity to the original recording is the goal, they are somehow willing to overlook equalization as long one calls it by a new name.


----------



## Baxide

The more I read up on this MQA, the more I come to the conclusion that it is very similar to stereo transmission on FM. On FM you have the pilot tone that determines if you got a strong enough signal to decode as stereo, or not. That in turn gives you a wider audio spectrum signal. But the catch is the claim that the extra info is somehow folded on top of the normal signal does raises one serious question: if the bandwidth wasn't there to transmit the high resolution data in its full glory, where does the extra bandwidth suddenly appear from to have the extra data superimposed on the other bit of data? If you need a decoder just to extract that info, you might as well have streamed the unprocessed audio in the first place. There won't be any adverse effect on the sound, except in countries with a poor internet bandwidth.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

baxide said:


> .....except in countries with a poor internet bandwidth.


 
 Or slow cellular data networks.


----------



## gregorio

ralphp@optonline said:


> First things STOP THE PERSONAL ATTACKS, please.


 
  
 What? Attacking others and then shouting "stop the personal attacks" when they respond in kind, just inflames the situation even more. If you don't want people to respond in kind then it's really very simple, don't attack others in the first place!
  


ralphp@optonline said:


> I believe this is just simple misunderstanding of what I'm trying to say, probably because I'm not expressing myself correctly. So let me try again.


 
  
 Either you have failed again to express yourself correctly or you are expressing yourself clearly but are yourself "misinformed".
  


ralphp@optonline said:


> So for example I listen to lots and lots of jazz, some of new and some old. On the old recordings, say a Charlie Parker recording from the late 1940s, recorded in mono. And say the recording features the great drummer Max Roach. Well guess what back in the early 1940s only about 50% or so of the super dynamic sound of Max Roach playing the drums was captured on the original recording - there is almost no high end and very little impact. The only way to "fix" these shortcoming is by equalization.


 
  
 No it is not, you are "misinformed"! Commonly in these types of situations, not only is EQ not "the only way to fix this shortcoming", it is sometimes no way to fix this shortcoming! EQ effectively works on the same principle as multiplication, if there's no signal in the desired band, no amount of EQ will help. 5 x 0 = 0, 10000 x 0 is still zero! Either no fix is possible or some process/es other than EQ would be required, the use of an Aural Exciter for example. And, Aural Excitement was included in the very first (semi) automatic mastering processor 20 years ago.
  


ralphp@optonline said:


> The point I'm trying to make is that MQA is claiming to somehow fix existing, fully mixed and mastered recordings and my point is that the only to fix existing fully mixed and mastered recordings is via some form of equalization ...


 
  
 No it is not! You should apply your advice to yourself and go and talk to a recording/mastering engineer, although you are "talking" with one now and it doesn't seem to be making any difference! There are many potential processes besides just EQ which MQA could be applying. In fact, it's pretty inconceivable that MQA is only applying EQ because even the first mastering specific processor 20 years ago was capable of far more than just EQ! In addition to EQ and the aforementioned Aural Exciterment, MQA could potentially employ any or all of the following; compressing, expanding, companding (and multi-band versions of all these), shuffling, bass excitement, dynamic noise reduction, transient shaping, plus a few others and, it could be applying them in L/R or M/S.
  
 G


----------



## Baxide

gregorio said:


> What? Attacking others and then shouting "stop the personal attacks" when they respond in kind, just inflames the situation even more. If you don't want people to respond in kind then it's really very simple, don't attack others in the first place!
> 
> 
> If the truth may be told, you do approach others on the forum as if they are of a lesser intelligence than you, who must then be taught a lesson by you. But you do not seem to notice the offence that it causes. I have already started to avoid interacting with any topic where you are actively involved in. There was another poster on here who exhibited the same kind of exhibitionist approach towards other forum posters. Luckily he got banned eventually. It was around the same time that I think that you joined up. Just saying.


----------



## Don Hills

baxide said:


> If the truth may be told, you do approach others on the forum as if they are of a lesser intelligence than you, who must then be taught a lesson by you. ...


 
 I think he doesn't suffer fools gladly.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exciter_%28effect%29
  
 "An *exciter* (also called a *harmonic exciter* or *aural exciter*) is an audio signal processing technique used to enhance a signal by dynamic equalization, phase manipulation, harmonic synthesis of (usually) high frequency signals, and through the addition of subtle harmonic distortion."
  
 Gee I wonder how that word "equalization" sneaked in there?


----------



## gregorio

baxide said:


> If the truth may be told, you do approach others on the forum as if they are of a lesser intelligence than you, who must then be taught a lesson by you.


 
  
 If the truth really were told, then there would be no need for me to correct or refute it, would there?
  
 G


----------



## Baxide

A famous line in a famous movie goes like this; "The truth? You can't handle the truth".
 But more importantly, when the poster becomes the topic, then there is nothing else to add to that discussion.


----------



## gregorio

> Originally Posted by *ralphp@optonline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> "An *exciter* (also called a *harmonic exciter* or *aural exciter*) is an audio signal processing technique used to enhance a signal by dynamic equalization, phase manipulation, harmonic synthesis of (usually) high frequency signals, and through the addition of subtle harmonic distortion."
> 
> Gee I wonder how that word "equalization" sneaked in there?


 
  
 Gee, I wonder how the words "phase manipulation" and "harmonic synthesis" sneaked in there? And, I don't know how the word "equalisation" sneaked in there, an actual Aural Exciter only uses phase manipulation and harmonic synthesis, not EQ!
  
 G


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gregorio said:


> Gee, I wonder how the words "phase manipulation" and "harmonic synthesis" sneaked in there? And, I don't know how the word "equalisation" sneaked in there, an actual Aural Exciter only uses phase manipulation and harmonic synthesis, not EQ!
> 
> G


 

 Regardless, the Aural Exciter is an audio signal process, which means that it is processing the signal after the recording has been made. Once the audio signal is created during the recording process whatever is captured during the recording is fixed - in other words and as I stated earlier, if there is not enough cymbal then one boosts the high end - all the high end, not just the cymbals unless the cymbals were recorded on an entire separate track - highly unlikely since cymbals are part of the drums.
  
 Based on this principle I wonder how MQA is going to "fix" a fully digital recording since there would no analog master available to run through the super duper MQA magic analog to digital converter.


----------



## gregorio

ralphp@optonline said:


> Regardless, the Aural Exciter is an audio signal process, which means that it is processing the signal after the recording has been made. Once the audio signal is created during the recording process whatever is captured during the recording is fixed - in other words and as I stated earlier, if there is not enough cymbal then one boosts the high end - all the high end, not just the cymbals unless the cymbals were recorded on an entire separate track - highly unlikely since cymbals are part of the drums.


 
  
 Again, you are confusing the recording process with the mastering process. Once the instruments/tracks have been recorded they can be changed completely independently of any other instrument/track. In the mastering process all those recorded tracks have been mixed together and cannot be unmixed. However, there may still be the possibility of processing certain individual elements. Cymbals for example produce high freq transients so a gate to a processor could be opened just for the HF and just for the duration of those transients and although you would still be processing all the HF in mix, the cymbal transients will dominate over all/most other elements in the mix for those instants when the gate is open, effectively giving the ability to process the cymbals independently. There are a number of routinely used mastering tricks/techniques available to effectively isolate and process individual or limited numbers of elements in the mix. Which of those tricks/techniques MQA employs and how intelligently we don't yet know.
  
 The main point I was addressing however was your repeated assertion that EQ is the only process which can be applied during mastering/re-mastering. That assertion is incorrect and, it's certainly not "simply misinformed" to point out that it's incorrect, it was "simply misinformed" to make that assertion in the first place!
  
 G


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gregorio said:


> Again, you are confusing the recording process with the mastering process. Once the instruments/tracks have been recorded they can be changed completely independently of any other instrument/track. In the mastering process all those recorded tracks have been mixed together and cannot be unmixed. However, there may still be the possibility of processing certain individual elements. Cymbals for example produce high freq transients so a gate to a processor could be opened just for the HF and just for the duration of those transients and although you would still be processing all the HF in mix, the cymbal transients will dominate over all/most other elements in the mix for those instants when the gate is open, effectively giving the ability to process the cymbals independently. There are a number of routinely used mastering tricks/techniques available to effectively isolate and process individual or limited numbers of elements in the mix. Which of those tricks/techniques MQA employs and how intelligently we don't yet know.
> 
> The main point I was addressing however was your repeated assertion that EQ is the only process which can be applied during mastering/re-mastering. That assertion is incorrect and, it's certainly not "simply misinformed" to point out that it's incorrect, it was "simply misinformed" to make that assertion in the first place!
> 
> G


 

 I'm confused - these gates are what if not EQUALIZATION? Please clearly explain to poor, ignorant me how these gates are NOT a form of equalization. Thanks!
  
 "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"


----------



## gregorio

ralphp@optonline said:


> I'm confused - these gates are what if not EQUALIZATION? Please clearly explain to poor, ignorant me how these gates are NOT a form of equalization. Thanks!


 
  
 A "gate" is simply a device (software or hardware) which opens, allowing a signal to pass or closes and does not allow the signal to pass. Typically a gate is used to open and close an additional path/routing to another processor and some processors have a gate built in. Again typically, a gate is triggered to open upon exceeding a user definable amplitude threshold and stays open for a user definable amount of time and/or until the amplitude falls below that threshold.
  
 A gate has nothing to do with EQ! I just don't get your preoccupation with EQ to the utter exclusion of all the other miriad types of processing available/possible.
  
 G


----------



## ralphp@optonline

gregorio said:


> A "gate" is simply a device (software or hardware) which opens, allowing a signal to pass or closes and does not allow the signal to pass. Typically a gate is used to open and close an additional path/routing to another processor and some processors have a gate built in. Again typically, a gate is triggered to open upon exceeding a user definable amplitude threshold and stays open for a user definable amount of time and/or until the amplitude falls below that threshold.
> 
> A gate has nothing to do with EQ! I just don't get your preoccupation with EQ to the utter exclusion of all the other miriad types of processing available/possible.
> 
> G


 

 Got it! Thank you.


----------



## L8MDL

Is MQA DOA?
by John Siau

http://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa


----------



## Baxide

Isn't that what we are debating? We don't really need a link to the views of someone else outside of head-fi. I am sure that there is enough knowledge taking part in this thread to match or even surpass that of the authors of such pieces.


----------



## castleofargh

baxide said:


> Isn't that what we are debating? We don't really need a link to the views of someone else outside of head-fi. I am sure that there is enough knowledge taking part in this thread to match or even surpass that of the authors of such pieces.


 
 you don't react to a link to Lavorgna's lucid dreams 2 pages ago, but you react like this for Siau and what is IMO a very reasonable article? I'm confused.


----------



## Baxide

I am quite happy to read what others have contributed towards the thread, without having to comment on their own conclusion and reasoning. But to drag an outside link into it where the writer cannot be challenged by anyone with an opposing view is attempting to give the external view a higher level of credibility. That's IMHO is not a genuine way to conduct a discussion. It's one's personal view and opinion of the subject that matters. Not the opinion of a non-participant.


----------



## L8MDL

My apologies for the post. I didn't realize this was such an elitist thread.


----------



## Roly1650

l8mdl said:


> My apologies for the post. I didn't realize this was such an elitist thread.



After being force feed a steady diet of "Bob Stuart said, so it must be true" and links to the usual nutty gooney birds in the media, by the threads resident shill, it was quite refreshing reading the viewpoint of a well regarded industry insider who doesn't appear to have a dog in the fight.

Thanks for the link, interesting read, got any more?


----------



## upstateguy

l8mdl said:


> My apologies for the post. I didn't realize this was such an elitist thread.


 
  
 I didn't realize that an opinion from the Director of Engineering at Benchmark was an external view with a *low* level of credibility.


----------



## sonitus mirus

roly1650 said:


> After being force feed a steady diet of "Bob Stuart said, so it must be true" and links to the usual nutty gooney birds in the media, by the threads resident shill, it was quite refreshing reading the viewpoint of a well regarded industry insider who doesn't appear to have a dog in the fight.
> 
> Thanks for the link, interesting read, got any more?


 
  
 It was certainly not enlightening, but his opinions closely resembled my own on the subject.
  
 Though, as Benchmark sells DACs, I would think that there is a very large dog in this fight in the form of possible licensing fees to have a little "MQA" emblem stamped onto their products.


----------



## upstateguy

sonitus mirus said:


> roly1650 said:
> 
> 
> > After being force feed a steady diet of "Bob Stuart said, so it must be true" and links to the usual nutty gooney birds in the media, by the threads resident shill, it was quite refreshing reading the viewpoint of a well regarded industry insider who doesn't appear to have a dog in the fight.
> ...


 
  
 That's an interesting point. 
  
 If they don't open source it, or make licenses really inexpensive, I wonder if MQA would catch on any better than the other formats that came and went before it?


----------



## watchnerd

upstateguy said:


> That's an interesting point.
> 
> If they don't open source it, or make licenses really inexpensive, I wonder if MQA would catch on any better than the other formats that came and went before it?


 
  
 Is that counter to their business plan to generate replacement revenue for other expiring Meridian licenses?


----------



## Joe Bloggs

l8mdl said:


> My apologies for the post. I didn't realize this was such an elitist thread.




Or proudly plebian thread? By the same reasoning one could link to an article from Science or a peer-reviewed academic journal and he could throw it out the same way?

Besides Baxide, what's to stop you from posting your comments on the article here? It's not like anyone here is able to challenge Meridian's assertions on their home ground in the first place?


----------



## upstateguy

watchnerd said:


> upstateguy said:
> 
> 
> > That's an interesting point.
> ...


 
  
 Can't generate any income from an unadopted format.


----------



## Gringo

l8mdl said:


> Is MQA DOA?
> by John Siau
> 
> http://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa


 
 Seems that MQA has not given up just yet going by the article in Stereophile http://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers#zXAgUzxxogkY1FAY.97
 Most goes way above my head but they appear to put forward a very knowledgeable case and address the detractors very systematically with science.  Never seen any other company go into such depth. Still think the absence of a wide range of MQA material is their biggest problem.
  
 I await the counter arguments


----------



## L8MDL

gringo said:


> Seems that MQA has not given up just yet going by the article in Stereophile http://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers#zXAgUzxxogkY1FAY.97
> Most goes way above my head but they appear to put forward a very knowledgeable case and address the detractors very systematically with science.  Never seen any other company go into such depth. Still think the absence of a wide range of MQA material is their biggest problem.
> 
> I await the counter arguments




Much smoke and mirrors always makes me suspicious.


----------



## icebear

They are offering a solution to a non-existent problem
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




:
 Storage space and bandwidth limitation.
  
 5TB, USB-3 external hard drive, Seagate $129 ... just a 2 second search, so maybe cheaper offers are available. That's a lot of songs... .
 TV industry is pushing 4k Ultra HD TV's ... what's the data amount per second needed to stream 4k video? And exactly how much is needed for music?
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 And people listening on the go or in their cars, or any other means of commute, they don't care about high rez either, roughly 95% of the population is just fine with mp3.
 There is just no need for a new coding format that requires the consumer to buy hardware that is equipped to decode the format and obviously consumers don't want to buy yet another version of the songs in their existing music library.
  
 And for the "science" aspect :
 There is a lot of semi fishy arguments about what has been proven and accepted as truth and piles of their own interpretation, which apparently are hard to nail down where they miss the point without investing a lot of time and money* trying to understand the concept. To me this is science of marketing BS, not really physics or acoustics or even proper statistical analysis.
  
 * I tried to access the mentioned references from this paragraph:
*QUOTE[*
_[It has been known since at least 1946 that the Fourier time-frequency uncertainty inherent in conventional signal analysis can be 'beaten' by human listeners, and by a significant margin.[31][32] Indeed, recent experimental studies have shown temporal discrimination at least 5 times higher.[33][35][36] _
*]UNQUOTE*
  
 And all of them are "pay per view" i.e. subscription only
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




, so much for giving access to the references that prove your point.
  
 And as always:
 The amount of effort put into pushing some idea is directly proportional to the size of the carrot ... eh the potential profit, if the concept takes off.


----------



## RRod

icebear said:


> * I tried to access the mentioned references from this paragraph:
> *QUOTE[*
> _[It has been known since at least 1946 that the Fourier time-frequency uncertainty inherent in conventional signal analysis can be 'beaten' by human listeners, and by a significant margin.[31][32] Indeed, recent experimental studies have shown temporal discrimination at least 5 times higher.[33][35][36] _
> *]UNQUOTE*
> ...


 
  
 Hydrogen had a good discussion, with this post providing a good synopsis of how the results don't mean what people want them to mean.


----------



## Gringo

l8mdl said:


> Much smoke and mirrors always makes me suspicious.




Being suspicious is healthy but the "smoke and mirrors" bit without clarification could be interpreted as bias.


----------



## Gringo

icebear said:


> They are offering a solution to a non-existent problem:rolleyes: :
> Storage space and bandwidth limitation.
> 
> 5TB, USB-3 external hard drive, Seagate $129 ... just a 2 second search, so maybe cheaper offers are available. That's a lot of songs... .
> ...




Wife streaming tv, son playing X-box on line, daughter streaming Spotify whilst on line and me trying to listen to Tidal premium - not everyone has fast broadband and for many of us file size is important.

Your comments about the science seems to imply that you, (like me), don't understand much of the science so it must be simply an unethical marketing scheme. I differ in that I don't simply dismiss something because I don't fully understand it, I will wait open minded for more evidence and the chance to do real life comparisons.

So you have to pay to see the papers, hardly MQA's fault. That does not invalidate them.

If MQA don't address their detractors and questioners they would be accused of hiding and not providing information the public requires. I for one think they have gone way further than other hi-fi companies in justifying and explaining thier technology. If they make money, good luck to them, that is no worse than any one else trying to earn a dollar. No one has to buy into the technology.


----------



## Gringo

rrod said:


> Hydrogen had a good discussion, with this post providing a good synopsis of how the results don't mean what people want them to mean.




It would be more accurate to say "sometimes" or "often" results don't mean what people want them to mean.


----------



## castleofargh

in the end it's all a fancy game of "who do I decide to trust?" and "what do I decide to call important?". the average audio consumer shouldn't worry too much given the specs of our gears/ears/listening environment. but the guys trying desperately to sell MQA, of course they care a lot, and so do the people who have meridian as a sponsor or business partner. it's the highres argument all over again, except that here they're more realistic about the added bit depth needed for good sound, the format's design not only admits 24bit is a waste of good space, it uses it to store sample rate data instead. so there is hope, maybe the next "revolution" will do the same but also admit that higher sample rates aren't really necessary, and create an amazing 18/50 highres flac format. wow much sound quality, very space saved! highres doge is amazed by this real revolution!
  
 or why not a lossy format pushed to -80db instead of being around -60db with max mp3? we could even go with something the size of 16/44 flac that would have better perceptual quality than flac for the 0.01% of people claiming to hear a difference with highres or 16/44wave ^_^.  the possibilities for an "audio revolution" are endless. some like myself would be fine with a revolution where all masters are simply available at all PCM formats for one price. but I wouldn't want to ruin the fun they have creating more products out of nothing to get more of our money.
  
  
 what annoys me a little with MQA is how they try to pitch it to the consumer, when it was obviously made for the music streaming providers. it's a tool that offers to store one file and output a variety of file formats from it depending on bandwidth available. so it's obviously a tool to save storage space on those guys servers. to us consumers, it really doesn't change anything.


----------



## Roly1650

gringo said:


> Wife streaming tv, son playing X-box on line, daughter streaming Spotify whilst on line and me trying to listen to Tidal premium - not everyone has fast broadband and for many of us file size is important.



Glad you bought that up, but sorry, you are just flat out wrong, with a file size over double that of rbcd, the last users who get any benefit from MQA are those without fast broadband, (who, presumably aren't/can't trying to download/stream hi-res). Go look at the 2L website for confirmation, file size isn't something that needs a deep understanding to comprehend. File size might be important to you, but apparently, not important enough.


----------



## icebear

gringo said:


> ...
> Your comments about the science seems to imply that you, (like me), don't understand much of the science so it must be simply an unethical marketing scheme. I differ in that I don't simply dismiss something because I don't fully understand it, I will wait open minded for more evidence and the chance to do real life comparisons.
> 
> So you have to pay to see the papers, hardly MQA's fault. That does not invalidate them.   ...


 
 I'm not  PhD scientist but by logical thinking ability isn't too shabby 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





, so when someone throws around claims and backs with scientific references, I feel challenged to read further into these. If the source has merit and properly explains problem, experiment and result, then I have rarely faced a situation, where I was not able to decide, if what they claim is solid or if they are stretching the truth like a politician ... or marketing guys for that matter. There are case where the amount of sources and data is so vast, most likely on purpose, that it would just be a waste of my time to go through all of it. And I leave it at that.
  
 If reference numbers are given to sources and these sources are not accessible, then my conclusion is you have something to hide.
 Why not citing sources in the public domain and everybody can take a look and verify the claims have merit or not ... kind of "peer review" in times of the internet
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 If there are only very few sources on the topic and no other related publications following up on it, then this is an indication that the either the point of view in that source was wrong and just nobody wanted to flat out tell it like it is, or the topic is not relevant.


----------



## Gringo

roly1650 said:


> Glad you bought that up, but sorry, you are just flat out wrong, with a file size over double that of rbcd, the last users who get any benefit from MQA are those without fast broadband, (who, presumably aren't/can't trying to download/stream hi-res). Go look at the 2L website for confirmation, file size isn't something that needs a deep understanding to comprehend. File size might be important to you, but apparently, not important enough.


 
 Are you deliberately misinterpreting me?  I made no reference to RBCD.  When looking at the 2L test bench site MQA file size is very significantly smaller compared to the various other hi-res formats and it is high res I would like to be able to stream. I fully accept that file size may be of no consequence to you but to me and many others it is.  I try to offer comments without untoward bias which alas is a standpoint not everybody subscribes to.


----------



## Gringo

icebear said:


> I'm not  PhD scientist but by logical thinking ability isn't too shabby
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
 So are you claiming that the material referenced is extensive deliberately to confuse and discourage people from scrutinizing it, if so what is your evidence or is this just a biased opinion?
  
 Your last sentence simply expresses your opinion and is simply not a logically valid argument.


----------



## Roly1650

gringo said:


> Are you deliberately misinterpreting me?  I made no reference to RBCD.  When looking at the 2L test bench site MQA file size is very significantly smaller compared to the various other hi-res formats and it is high res I would like to be able to stream. I fully accept that file size may be of no consequence to you but to me and many others it is.  I try to offer comments without untoward bias which alas is a standpoint not everybody subscribes to.



Not misrepresnting you one scintilla, you didn't qualify your remarks with reference to anything, go look at your post again. No mention of 24 bit, 16 bit or anything else. You made the statement, which in it's context and in isolation, was and is wrong, MQA files are over twice the size of rbcd, so offer disadvantages to those with minimum broadband speed, who, because of that are unlikely to be streaming 24 bit audio, (are there even any service providers? If the answer to that is no, then your point is still moot?). The misrepresentation is entirely yours in the context you stated it, but glad to see you've now qualified your remark, we aren't clairvoyant. And you simply can't escape the fact that the claim has been made that MQA files are "close", (closer is the right answer) in size to rbcd, must be new maths that gets that answer.


----------



## icebear

gringo said:


> So are you claiming that the material referenced is extensive deliberately to confuse and discourage people from scrutinizing it, if so what is your evidence or is this just a biased opinion?
> 
> Your last sentence simply expresses your opinion and is simply not a logically valid argument.


 

 Just for clarification:
 Everything I post here is just that ... my opinion 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 And for my last scentence ... the number of citations in other peer reviewed publications or papers is indeed a good indicator for the importance of a source publication.
 The other way around: lack of citations is usally an indication for the opposite. If that's not logical for you, I can't help it


----------



## Gringo

My comment "Wife streaming tv, son playing X-box on line, daughter streaming Spotify whilst on line and me trying to listen to Tidal premium - not everyone has fast broadband and for many of us file size is important." is simply not wrong, the statement stands on its own merits. The fact that you make assumptions about it and apply your chosen context and pursue a line of arguement to suit your own opinions does not negate it. 

Please look again at my original comment and specifically identify which words are a misinterpretation without applying your own assumptions/bias and point out the said misrepresentation.

I agree completely there have been comments about MQA being comparable in size to cd and on the basis of the material available on the L2 website this is simply not borne out. 

I Note you offer no comment regarding the much smaller MQA file size compared to other hi-res file types, I might be wrong but I assume you are not contesting this.


----------



## Gringo

I have no issues with people expressing opinions but too often it is presented as evidence/facts. Sorry but I still disagree and maintain the sebnt acne is not logical. Because pre Meglean there was no known evidence of the world being round did not mean it was flat despite the all perceived wisdom of the time.


----------



## icebear

gringo said:


> I have no issues with people expressing opinions but too often it is presented as evidence/facts. Sorry but I still disagree and maintain the sebnt acne is not logical. *Because pre Meglean *there was no known evidence of the world being round did not mean it was flat despite the all perceived wisdom of the time.


 
  
 OK, your logic is a little different than mine 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 First of all, I think you are referring to the explorer Magellan
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan
  
 And citations of works, publications, discoveries can only happen after the fact, not before (pre).
 I guess it was quickly accepted by those who were trying to get somewhere, that the earth was indeed not flat.
 Organizations basing their "wisdom", power and influence on that overcome terra centric model of our world struggled with the new evidence for quite a while.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 To get back on topic
 I am sure the future of the music industry will not center around MQA
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 ... just my opinionated $0.02.


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

So the idea is that the increase in time resolution from higher sampling rates impacts perceived audio quality but the wider frequency band does not. So remove the high frequency content, but don't decimate the data. And voila, you have high res audio with compression. 

WHY?! 

Why, in an age where 150Mbps WAN all the way to the desktop is phenomenally cheap, where 200GB can fit into a package the size of a fingernail, where a 32-bit 768KHz DAC can fit in the palm of your hand, is ANYONE studying new or not-so-new ways of compressing audio?

Who cares if you can hear the higher frequencies or not? Who cares if there is a noticable difference between 44.1KHz and 192KHz? It costs almost nothing to stream or download or store the higher res, uncompressed music. 

Just give me the 24/192 uncompressed... I'm not complaining about the size or quality. Stop trying to solve problems that don't freaking exist. 

I'm getting off my soapbox now. 

Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon


----------



## icebear

grumpyoldguy said:


> So the idea is that the increase in time resolution from higher sampling rates impacts perceived audio quality but the wider frequency band does not. So remove the high frequency content, but don't decimate the data. And voila, you have high res audio with compression.
> 
> WHY?!
> 
> ...


 
  
 The "problems" they supposedly are trying to solve are indeed a non issue for the consumer.
 The actual problem they are tackling is creating a new source of turnover and profit
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




.
 That's what you do when you are in business, nothing wrong it but selling it as the next revolution in audio quality ... sigh.


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

No, when you are in business you try to be the first person to solve a problem and sell the solution at market. This isn't that... Not even remotely. 

Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon


----------



## jagwap

grumpyoldguy said:


> So the idea is that the increase in time resolution from higher sampling rates impacts perceived audio quality but the wider frequency band does not. So remove the high frequency content, but don't decimate the data. And voila, you have high res audio with compression.
> 
> WHY?!
> 
> ...




But Tidal and others don't have unlimited bandwidth for millions of customers. 

Also I cannot fit 1.5TB on my phone or DAP yet. 

The situation occurs outside of your living room.


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

jagwap said:


> grumpyoldguy said:
> 
> 
> > So the idea is that the increase in time resolution from higher sampling rates impacts perceived audio quality but the wider frequency band does not. So remove the high frequency content, but don't decimate the data. And voila, you have high res audio with compression.
> ...




So obviously the answer is reducing the content of files... Not improving DAP board design or network technologies. Bring everything to the lowest common denominator, right?

Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon


----------



## jagwap

grumpyoldguy said:


> So obviously the answer is reducing the content of files... Not improving DAP board design or network technologies. Bring everything to the lowest common denominator, right?
> 
> Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon




Well that's the statement of a troll or an ill informed but opinionated elitist. 

The lowest common denominator would be using less than 128kb/s MP3. This is as far ahead of that as 4K DLP is to 480p. 

MQA doesn't intend to lower the quality of the audio. 192kHz/24b even losslessy compressed has a lot of redundant information. How much is redundant is being learnt more each year. This is format designed by the people who came up with MLP (minus Michael Gerzon, a sad loss to the industry) the hirez lossless format so good Dolby bought it. 

Is it a commercial venture? Sure. Is it better than we have now, at these data rates, definitely. 

Also you are overlooking the compensation of limited quality ADC conversation MQA can do.


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

I've been called a troll before, but never ill informed or an elitist. In this case I'm certainly neither. Easy to throw insults from behind a computer screen. 

Removing information simply because the file is too big is not an acceptable answer. 

24/192 audio uses less bandwidth than streaming HD video and is a smaller market (fewer users) as well. If Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, etc. can stream 1080p to their customer base, Tidal could do the same with uncompressed high res audio. 

With dual SD slot DAPs you can get 400GB of storage plus whatever is on board. And if that's not enough you can swap out SD cards. 













Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon


----------



## jagwap

grumpyoldguy said:


> I've been called a troll before, but never ill informed or an elitist. In this case I'm certainly neither. Easy to throw insults from behind a computer screen.
> 
> Removing information simply because the file is too big is not an acceptable answer.
> 
> ...




192kHz/24b losssless 2 channel is around 6Mb/s, more than most HD video streaming. But HD is usually heavily lossily compressed. Blueray is also lossy video, at >30Mb/s, but quite a lot of that is lossless multichannel audio. 

I get where you're coming from. I'm an audiophile and have spent over 25 years designing high end audio, and streaming devices. Did you know that most wifi streaming devices comvert whatever comes in to their own native sample rate, usually 44.1 or 48kHz? Even the high end hifi brands? Usually with indifferent asynchronous sample rate converters. 

I don't think mp3 is good enough. Its inherent HPF ruins the music. AAC is much better if above 320kb/s, but it looses something. 

MQA is effectively lossless upto 96kHz sampling rate at 24b,as long as there isn't a huge peak of noise above 20kHz,which music doesn't have (tens of thousands of tracks tested). So as it also has the timing info above 96kHz,and the ADC correction, I would rather have MQA than 96kHz/24bit, if you're open to an expert opinion. You don't give that impression.


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

We're just not going to find common ground on this topic brother. 








Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon


----------



## jagwap

grumpyoldguy said:


> We're just not going to find common ground on this topic brother.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Possibly not when it comes to MQA. 

For me Hi Res is all good but only when the source material is worthy. So much of the 96 & 192kHz stuff is compressed to hell by the record label. 

Take a look at http://dr.loudness-war.info/

Most releases and re-releases after 1996 are squashed beyond music. 

The fact that the highest dynamic range version of most popular music available today is on vinyl is hilarious, disturbing, and not surprising when you look at vinyl sales.

P. S. Not trolling you, trolling the music industry


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

This I agree with 100% 

Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon


----------



## jagwap

grumpyoldguy said:


> This I agree with 100%
> 
> Sent from my E5803 using a highly trained, special forces carrier pigeon




Then the middle ground is you and me, teaching the recording industry with blunt weapons (verbal and conclusive weapons)


----------



## noplsestar

Hi, I´m sorry to ask that question, because maybe it was answered before:
  
 Is MQA "better" than a normal 24/96 hi res song I download from HD Tracks etc.? Or has it the same quality?
  
 Thanks


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

noplsestar said:


> Hi, I´m sorry to ask that question, because maybe it was answered before:
> 
> Is MQA "better" than a normal 24/96 hi res song I download from HD Tracks etc.? Or has it the same quality?
> 
> Thanks


 
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/blogs/miska/some-analysis-and-comparison-mqa-encoded-flac-vs-normal-optimized-hires-flac-674/
  
 If your source is not MQA capable, it will be worse.
  
 Unrelated note... this also shows that an MQA equivalent FLAC is actually smaller than the MQA encoded file. But it would require on-the-fly encoding which would be unreasonable for a music distribution service to undertake.


----------



## fate64

Still have yet to see many MQA compatible dacs coming out.


----------



## old tech

cer said:


> That is a genuinely lovely graph. Reel-to-reel and LP both much better quality than DVD-A/SACD. Streaming worse than cassette. Definitely not stupid or wrong or anything.


 

 Surely that graph alone is a red flag?  Anyone with some studio experience, let alone knowledge in basic audio engineering could see through this rubbish.  I mean just going by objective measurements of the analog signal would place DVD-A/SACD at the top, followed by CD (though audibly indistinguishable from no. 1), and then hi fi vcr, then reel to reel, then a large gap followed by vinyl and then the cassette. Streaming, depending on the bit rate is equal to the rankings above - eg if I stream DSD through my Naim it is exactly the same as listening to it on the SACD player. All of this is not a personal, subjective opinion, but verified by the metrics.
  
 That the purveyors would use such false information suggests that MQA really offers nothing over what we already have and is just a marketing exercise aimed at the gullible end of audiophiles.  Their marketing departments would know that the gullible ones who actually believe reel to reel and vinyl to be higher resolution than CDs and hi res are typically the same ones that spend truck loads of money on placebo (eg high end cables, power conditioners, cable lifters etc, and now it is hoped, MQA).


----------



## haiku

While I follow all the news about high res audio, and I own a lot of 24/96 up to DSD128 albums, I´ve noticed over the last few weeks that I mostly listen to 16/44 albums. Just shows, that CD Quality recordings seem to be all I need to enjoy my music.


----------



## vincik

What is major opinion on MQA here on headfi (sory, dont want to read all posts)? They present it as a whole new level of quality, totally different from old formats, but isn't it just a more efficient way of compression and all that talk just pure marketing? I have tried some MQA test tracks, but only on classic device without ability to fully handle this format, so i didn't here any difference compared to 16/44 flac of course. Thanks for answer.


----------



## jagwap

vincik said:


> What is major opinion on MQA here on headfi (sory, dont want to read all posts)? They present it as a whole new level of quality, totally different from old formats, but isn't it just a more efficient way of compression and all that talk just pure marketing? I have tried some MQA test tracks, but only on classic device without ability to fully handle this format, so i didn't here any difference compared to 16/44 flac of course. Thanks for answer.




There are a lot of naysayers here, so be aware. A lot of accusations of marketing and cash grab.

I think that is unfair. Malcolm Stuart is not a snake oil salesman, and along with Peter Craven is amongst the smartest inovators in the audio industry.

The biggest thing MQA claims is that it looks after the signal from the earliest point of the mastering process to DAC output. The time domain is claimed to be accurately preserved better than 192kHz can. It is not technically lossless, but it is claimed, with some techincal backup, to be effectively lossless.

If you listen to MQA material undecoded I think you get some of the mastering ADC improvement, depending the age of the mastering.


----------



## watchnerd

vincik said:


> What is major opinion on MQA here on headfi (sory, dont want to read all posts)? They present it as a whole new level of quality, totally different from old formats, but isn't it just a more efficient way of compression and all that talk just pure marketing? I have tried some MQA test tracks, but only on classic device without ability to fully handle this format, so i didn't here any difference compared to 16/44 flac of course. Thanks for answer.


 
  
 MQA will not take over the world, nor will it become a new standard.
  
 It's trying to solve a problem that doesn't need to be solved in 2017 -- I can get full lossless streaming on my cell phone. why do I need a partially lossy encoder?


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> MQA will not take over the world, nor will it become a new standard.
> 
> It's trying to solve a problem that doesn't need to be solved in 2017 -- I can get full lossless streaming on my cell phone. why do I need a partially lossy encoder?




Told you.


----------



## icebear

watchnerd said:


> MQA will not take over the world, nor will it become a new standard.
> 
> *It's trying to solve a problem that doesn't need to be solved in 2017* -- I can get full lossless streaming on my cell phone. why do I need a partially lossy encoder?


 
 1. *that*
 2. they want the consumer to buy their favorite music in yet another new format
 3. they want the consumer to buy new equipment to be capable of the proprietary decoding (de-origami)
 4. it's DOA, even more than the SACD





  
 I guess that makes me one of the nay sayers


----------



## jagwap

icebear said:


> 1. *that*
> 2. they want the consumer to buy their favorite music in yet another new format
> 3. they want the consumer to buy new equipment to be capable of the proprietary decoding (de-origami)
> 4. it's DOA, even more than the SACD
> ...




Yup.

The horseless carriage will never catch on. Bah humbug.


----------



## icebear

There is more than this new horseless carriage already around that are doing a very fine job.
 It's obviously not the one and only "first ever" horseless carriage even though it comes with patents filed galore.


----------



## HipHopScribe

jagwap said:


> Yup.
> 
> The horseless carriage will never catch on. Bah humbug.


 
  
 Except in this case the horseless carriage already exists, and has been working fine, but now you're trying to make rotary engines happen, when pretty much everyone is fine with their V8s, V6s and inline-fours. Now, the rotary engine might have a couple advantages, it might have its useful applications, but well, how many people do you see driving around in horseless carriages with rotary engines? I live down the street from one guy with an RX-8, but that's pretty much it.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> Yup.
> 
> The horseless carriage will never catch on. Bah humbug.


 
  
 MQA is not a technological improvement.
  
 Is it higher SQ than lossless? No.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> MQA is not a technological improvement.
> 
> Is it higher SQ than lossless? No.




Says you.

However it is clearly stated that time domain is better separated in MQA than 192kHz 24 bit.

Whether that is important remains to be seen, as this thread and forum in general does not recognise the papers published on the matter.

However it is a technological improvement.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> Says you.
> 
> However it is clearly stated that time domain is better separated in MQA than 192kHz 24 bit.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Yes, says me -- it's partially lossy.
  
 That is not better than lossless.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Yes, says me -- it's partially lossy.
> 
> That is not better than lossless.




I get where you're coming from, but it losslessly encoding everything within an amplitude envelope to 96kHz. That envelope is reduced in level as frequency increases based on some assumptions, but as long as you don't want to reproduce 28kHz at > -6dBFS (my estimation) then you're as good (or better if you take onboard the rest of the system) as 96kHz. I think this is a reasonable assumption for now.

MQA assumes that > 96kHz is useful mostly for timing, so does that differently. You are entitled to disagree. However I have yet to see a decent hypothesis as to why 192kHz helps otherwise, so I am staying open minded and encoraged that anyone is putting in decent work in this area.

I want lossless. I also want progress as audio isn't perfect yet.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> watchnerd said:
> 
> 
> > MQA is not a technological improvement.
> ...


 
  
 they make use of some bit depth data(so MQA has higher noise level) to play with the time domain. as we're dealing with sine waves, both axis are linked and it's not magic. it's done in reverse all the time to improve the noise floor with noise shaping where you basically move the noise into the ultrasound and then filter those frequencies to get rid of them. 
   they can move stuff around as much as they like, I don't mind when none of this is likely to be audible on its own, but it's not superior to anything and it's not an improvement. the engineers didn't just become pregnant with extra data while converting the PCM album to MQA.


----------



## icebear

jagwap said:


> Says you.
> 
> However it is clearly stated that time domain is better separated in MQA than 192kHz 24 bit.
> 
> ...


 
 Although I was sceptical from the start on this"innovation" I tried to dig deeper and a lot of "published papers" are not in the public domain. I.e. you have to pay to read them. If I do invest my time to read to get a better understanding that is enough investment from my side towards anyone who has only one goal ... to get my money anyway.
  


jagwap said:


> I get where you're coming from, but it losslessly encoding everything within an amplitude envelope to 96kHz. That envelope is reduced in level as frequency increases based on some assumptions, but as long as you don't want to reproduce 28kHz at > -6dBFS (my estimation) then you're as good (or better if you take onboard the rest of the system) as 96kHz. I think this is a reasonable assumption for now.
> 
> MQA assumes that > 96kHz is useful mostly for timing, so does that differently. You are entitled to disagree. However I have yet to see a decent hypothesis as to why 192kHz helps otherwise, so I am staying open minded and encoraged that anyone is putting in decent work in this area.
> 
> I want lossless. I also want progress as audio isn't perfect yet.


 
  
 The upper frequency limit important for timing? Listen to some JVC redbook XRCD's. Read about meticulous taking care of synchronizing ever step of the production chain. There is audible proof of what the lowly
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 RB specs with only 22khz upper limit is capable of. All the 96/192/384kHz or quad DSD at 4...MHz good for timing? If 96kHz supposedly is better than 22kHz then why isn't 192kHz even better than 96kHz? Just because of their file size handling limitations, I guess. Give my a break. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 You can screw up timing along the way many times, starting at mic selection, mic positioning, multi miking and multi track recordings and that has a much more significant impact than the storage format. All the enveloping / origami idea and defolding the data on the fly when decoding? Very hard to believe that this improves timing.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 Audio (or any form of reproduction) will never attain perfection.
 The level of quality available today of sound or image quality is certainly good enough to be thoroughly enjoyable.
 Progress consequently is very difficult to achieve when you are already so close that any improvement can not be significant (or obvious to the consumer wallet).


----------



## icebear

castleofargh said:


> they make use of some bit depth data(so MQA has higher noise level) to play with the time domain. as we're dealing with sine waves, both axis are linked and it's not magic. it's done in reverse all the time to improve the noise floor with noise shaping where you basically move the noise into the ultrasound and then filter those frequencies to get rid of them.
> they can move stuff around as much as they like, I don't mind when none of this is likely to be audible on its own, but it's not superior to anything and it's not an improvement. *the engineers didn't just become pregnant with extra data while converting the PCM album to MQA.*


 
 ROFL


----------



## jagwap

icebear said:


> Although I was sceptical from the start on this"innovation" I tried to dig deeper and a lot of "published papers" are not in the public domain. I.e. you have to pay to read them. If I do invest my time to read to get a better understanding that is enough investment from my side towards anyone who has only one goal ... to get my money anyway.
> 
> 
> The upper frequency limit important for timing? Listen to some JVC redbook XRCD's. Read about meticulous taking care of synchronizing ever step of the production chain. There is audible proof of what the lowly
> ...


 
 I have some of those papers.  I'd love to share, but I promised I wouldn't, as they are watermarked back to the owner.
  
 I agree timing can be screwed up easily.  AC coupling the signal, or poor bass port tuning is the easiest.  Luckily PCM is DC coupled (unlike mp3! Explains a few things), and interestingly so is most Meridian kit.  And I'm not talking DC servos either.  The time domain is vastly overlooked.  Linkwitz-Riley crossovers and EQ do horrible things to the waveform.
  
 You are right, that CD can resolve timing well if properly dithered and looked after.  (96kHz is better than 44.1kHz, and yes 192kHz is better than 96kHz). Have a look at the Stereophile article of Bob Stuart answering questions.  It is the resolving ability between transients MA can beat 192kHz.  He has listened to all these points and answered them. http://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers#ovlywfEKoio6uJMx.97
  
 Is it audible?  Some say yes, some say no.  But I prefer to listen to those who heard it, than those who have made their mind up before even trying.
  
 Thank you for a considered discussion, rather than the "la-la-la fingers in my ears, it sounds the same with my fingers in my ears" that happens here too much.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

.


----------



## castleofargh

well let's not start a contest about who's got the biggest.. ear.
 but I do agree that looking for what makes a clearly audible difference, instead of stretching out the small stuff until it looks important, seems like the right thing to do. and solving the "problems" of a format(PCM) that people still fail to identify in blind test against other formats to this day, well it doesn't feel like a priority. 
  
 if MQA becomes big, so be it, I'm fine with a gazillion formats as long as I can pick an album in the one I want for less than 30$. but if they start making masters only for MQA the same way they do with DSD just to force people to buy compatible devices, then I'm gonna be pissed off.


----------



## icebear

jagwap said:


> ...
> Is it audible?  Some say yes, some say no.  But* I prefer to listen to those who heard it, *than those who have made their mind up before even trying.
> Thank you for a considered discussion, rather than the "la-la-la fingers in my ears, it sounds the same with my fingers in my ears" that happens here too much.


 
*I prefer to listen to it myself, *not to 2nd hand impressions of people who I don't know.
 I have heard the HE-1000 when it was hyped and I also had a session with the Orpheus II and both did not impress me as much as all the chatter might make me expect. I have not heard MQA and won't make an effort to do so. I bought a new DAC maybe 4 years ago that also handles DSD (just to be future proof I thought...), how many DSD files do I have today? ... about two, if I am not mistaken, somewhere on a laptop. Paying 4x as much for a DSD download file than a red book CD or even SACD version? Not from my wallet.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 Enjoyment of music is about the content and artistic delivery first, second about the way it has been captured. This makes about 90% in my book. And then maybe 8% is about the engineer working within the limitations of the recording medium to get the best of it and maybe 2% is about the format itself. Just a rough guess of course and YMMV.


----------



## watchnerd

castleofargh said:


> if MQA becomes big, so be it, I'm fine with a gazillion formats as long as I can pick an album in the one I want for less than 30$. but if they start making masters only for MQA the same way they do with DSD just to force people to buy compatible devices, then I'm gonna be pissed off.


 
  
 Well, that is the business model....


----------



## Embo16

One thing (in fact many things but let's just state one) that bugs me is the licensing aspect of it. That "MQA Certified" thing.
  
 A quote of Jason Stoddard from Schiit Audio:
 


> MQA wants:
> 
> Licensing fees from the recording studios
> Licensing fees from the digital audio product manufacturers
> ...


 
  
 If it becomes very popular to the point that it's a trend, they have leverage over : recording studios, digital audio product manufacturers, DAC/DAP manufacturers and so on.


----------



## RRod

embo16 said:


> One thing (in fact many things but let's just state one) that bugs me is the licensing aspect of it. That "MQA Certified" thing.
> 
> A quote of Jason Stoddard from Schiit Audio:
> 
> ...


 
  
 But it resolves like 5m of air!!!


----------



## sonitus mirus

Until I've been shown otherwise, I'll continue to maintain that MQA isn't fixing anything consumers care about.   It is only attempting to fix things the industry cares about in an effort to increase profits and gain more control over distribution.  You know, the good ol' days.


----------



## Embo16

rrod said:


> But it resolves like 5m of air!!!


 
 Wow !! well if it resolves 5m of air then.. hahah
  
 "Master Quality Authenticated" they said, we don't have the same definition of Master Quality to say the least.


----------



## watchnerd

embo16 said:


> One thing (in fact many things but let's just state one) that bugs me is the licensing aspect of it. That "MQA Certified" thing.
> 
> A quote of Jason Stoddard from Schiit Audio:
> 
> ...


 
  
 An interesting question is if MQA-decoding is compatible with R2R or mandates DS DACs.
  
 Of course you could just do it all in general compute....


----------



## flargosa

If we cannot hear the difference between 320 kbps vs CD.  How will MQA benefit us? Will it add that last 0.001% in audio fidelity?


----------



## jagwap

icebear said:


> *I prefer to listen to it myself, *not to 2nd hand impressions of people who I don't know.
> I have heard the HE-1000 when it was hyped and I also had a session with the Orpheus II and both did not impress me as much as all the chatter might make me expect. I have not heard MQA and won't make an effort to do so. I bought a new DAC maybe 4 years ago that also handles DSD (just to be future proof I thought...), how many DSD files do I have today? ... about two, if I am not mistaken, somewhere on a laptop. Paying 4x as much for a DSD download file than a red book CD or even SACD version? Not from my wallet.
> 
> 
> ...


 

 I will not disagree with any of that.
  
 My main bugbear is the additional level compression added to most popular music releases since 1996, to make each sound louder than the last.  Far more important than the medium..  
  
 Are Warner remastering their back catalogue to MQA so they can re-sell it?  Sure.  But the people behind MQA do have a genuine desire to advance the art, while staying in business.  Maybe, just maybe there is someone at Warner who cares too, perhaps.
  
 My point here is that most are denying there can be any improvement in audio storage, streaming, or mastering.  Like luddites smashing weaving machines.  If there was never any improvement to audio people would still be listening to vinyl in large numbers.  Oh wait a minute...


----------



## RRod

jagwap said:


> My main bugbear is the additional level compression added to most popular music releases since 1996, to make each sound louder than the last.  Far more important than the medium..


 
  
 Why do you need a proprietary medium to fix the loudness wars?
  


jagwap said:


> Are Warner remastering their back catalogue to MQA so they can re-sell it?  Sure.  But the people behind MQA do have a genuine desire to advance the art, while staying in business.  Maybe, just maybe there is someone at Warner who cares too, perhaps.


 
  
 If someone at Warner "cared", then they wouldn't need to remaster albums in the first place…
  


jagwap said:


> My point here is that most are denying there can be any improvement in audio storage, streaming, or mastering.  Like luddites smashing weaving machines.  If there was never any improvement to audio people would still be listening to vinyl in large numbers.  Oh wait a minute...


 
  
 None are actually denying that: they are denying that MQA is a necessary or sufficient vessel for such improvements. And what exactly is the market share of vinyl compared to digital these days?


----------



## icebear

jagwap said:


> I will not disagree with any of that.
> 
> My main bugbear is the additional level [1]compression added to most popular music releases since 1996, to make each sound louder than the last.  Far more important than the medium..
> 
> ...


 
  
 1. Compression has also nothing to do with the medium but everything with the processing/production of the recording and the intended target audience and their way of listening ... and that is usually mass market and NOT audiophile nerds. MQA will not change anything about that marketing driven trend.
  
 2. *LOL*





 ... do you know anyone personally? The second part of the sentence is the ONLY thing of relevance here.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 Otherwise it would be open source with no royalties for anybody.
  
 3. Most people are just fed up and rolling their eyes with the next big thing of advancement being forced into the ears. Especially when the entire argumentation is on the pretty weak side of things and significant improvements that are easy to hear just didn't happen in the last 10 years. Once you are are close to the live sound as the best recordings there simply can't be much of an improvement. When I listen to some classical recordings from the 60's captured with just 3 microphones on 35mm magnetic tape running at 30ips transferred to redbook format, I start to doubt if there has been any significant improvement in the last 50 years.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> My point here is that most are denying there can be any improvement in audio storage, streaming, or mastering.  Like luddites smashing weaving machines.  If there was never any improvement to audio people would still be listening to vinyl in large numbers.  Oh wait a minute...


 
  
 Your conclusion is ridiculous.  I simply don't believe MQA is a solution to any problem.  Better masters would benefit PCM, too, and without any proprietary licensing that drives prices higher.  I suppose one would have to subscibe to the notion that HD files are superior to Red Book, but there is no proof of that either.  But only then might the storage and streaming issues be a concern, if the listener wanted to cram a bunch of 24/192 files onto a media player or phone.  Bah!  To me the whole idea is silly and it is just a potential money grab with a lot of powerful entities pulling strings behind the curtain.


----------



## Gringo

Things seem to have started to move regarding MQA and it seems as if it is not quite DOA as some on the forum have pronounced. I gather that Tidal have just made available over 160 MQA albums for streaming including quite a number of big name artists such as Beyoncé, Fleetwood Mac, Doors, Coldplay, Bruno Mars to name a few. I don't have an MQA enabled playback device so can offer no comment on if the quality MQA have suggested it will deliver is actually being realised but from a few comments I have read of those that have, they seem very upbeat to say the least. Obviously lots more independent and open minded auditioning is going to need to take place before we will know the real truth of the matter as opposed to all the speculation that has been made on this and other forums.


----------



## jagwap

icebear said:


> 1. Compression has also nothing to do with the medium but everything with the processing/production of the recording and the intended target audience and their way of listening ... and that is usually mass market and NOT audiophile nerds. MQA will not change anything about that marketing driven trend.
> 
> 2. *LOL*
> 
> ...


 

 1. Agreed it is off topic.  I was just replying to your point about music content and adding this.
  
 2. Yes.   I have met Bob Stuart briefly, met Peter Craven multiple times, worked closely with ex-Meridian employees, and am friends with an ex-Meridian DSP engineer.  They are all good people who are massive audiophiles working to improve the state of the art, while making a living.  I have no financial axe to grind, and do not benefit from MQA now.  I just work in the industry and feel that the naysayers are being closed-minded and not giving new things a chance because they love to be negative know-it-alls.
  
 3. There isn't a lot of improvement over 30ips tape.  It is better than CD in a variety of ways (not ALL).  Domestic playback is not even close to live yet.  The best I've heard is MBL or some good electrostatics that are not pushed too hard.  We cannot have live or 30ips in our homes.


----------



## sonitus mirus

gringo said:


> Things seem to have started to move regarding MQA and it seems as if it is not quite DOA as some on the forum have pronounced. I gather that Tidal have just made available over 160 MQA albums for streaming including quite a number of big name artists such as Beyoncé, Fleetwood Mac, Doors, Coldplay, Bruno Mars to name a few. I don't have an MQA enabled playback device so can offer no comment on if the quality MQA have suggested it will deliver is actually being realised but from a few comments I have read of those that have, they seem very upbeat to say the least. Obviously lots more independent and open minded auditioning is going to need to take place before we will know the real truth of the matter as opposed to all the speculation that has been made on this and other forums.


 
  
 Many would argue that Tidal's days are numbered.  I read a humorous blog comment a few months ago where a listener was raving about how great his MQA file sounded, only to be told later that the firmware update to allow his DAC to decode the MQA file properly would not be released until several months later.   This isn't the "just listen" crowd, typically.  I'm certain we will read about all the many veils being lifted and the pureness of the sounds, with nothing to support these claims that hasn't already been pitched in the marketing material.


----------



## jagwap

rrod said:


> Why do you need a proprietary medium to fix the loudness wars?




I was answering an off topic point that the performance is more important by saying another thing matters. Perhaps if MQA really insists on having only the original recording, it can bypass the loudness war compression, as this usually happens well after it has left the studio. Hope springs eternal, but the record labels still have belligerent numpties in charge.



> If someone at Warner "cared", then they wouldn't need to remaster albums in the first place…




Your missing the fact that the original ADCs and other PCM mastering equipment was only state of the art at the time of mastering. Remasters before the loudness war kicked off again often sounded better because the new ADC had better performance. MQA can compensate for many of the correlated errors if the ADC is known. If the analogue master is available they will use that.


> None are actually denying that: they are denying that MQA is a necessary or sufficient vessel for such improvements. And what exactly is the market share of vinyl compared to digital these days?




Yes many here are denying that. "Lossless is perfect, we don't need this. I can stream 192kHz, even if you can't so I'm ok"

The market share of vinyl is around 5% and growing, but it was a joke. I don't think vinyl fans are luddites. They like the sound of less level compression as I do.


----------



## spruce music

embo16 said:


> Wow !! well if it resolves 5m of air then.. hahah
> 
> "Master Quality Authenticated" they said, we don't have the same definition of Master Quality to say the least.


 

 Easy fix.  Always listen 10 meters from your speakers and MQA has nothing to offer.


----------



## jagwap

spruce music said:


> Easy fix.  Always listen 10 meters from your speakers and MQA has nothing to offer.




Ideal solution on this forum.


----------



## RRod

jagwap said:


> I was answering an off topic point that the performance is more important by saying another thing matters. Perhaps if MQA really insists on having only the original recording, it can bypass the loudness war compression, as this usually happens well after it has left the studio. Hope springs eternal, but the record labels still have belligerent numpties in charge.
> Your missing the fact that the original ADCs and other PCM mastering equipment was only state of the art at the time of mastering. Remasters before the loudness war kicked off again often sounded better because the new ADC had better performance. MQA can compensate for many of the correlated errors if the ADC is known. If the analogue master is available they will use that.
> Yes many here are denying that. "Lossless is perfect, we don't need this. I can stream 192kHz, even if you can't so I'm ok"
> 
> The market share of vinyl is around 5% and growing, but it was a joke. I don't think vinyl fans are luddites. They like the sound of less level compression as I do.


 
  
 I like less compression too, but I'm a classical fan so I get to view the loudness thing from afar with a mint julep (knock on wood).
  
 I'm skeptical of the whole ADC thing. Find me an remaster that had literally nothing different other than the ADC used and give me some blind test results and then we can talk. I mean that's the whole rub, right? It's not that we think "lossless is perfect" it's that we believe "humans are imperfect" and thus don't jump on the bandwagon of every human venture that claims to improve audio.


----------



## jagwap

rrod said:


> I like less compression too, but I'm a classical fan so I get to view the loudness thing from afar with a mint julep (knock on wood).
> 
> I'm skeptical of the whole ADC thing. Find me an remaster that had literally nothing different other than the ADC used and give me some blind test results and then we can talk. I mean that's the whole rub, right? It's not that we think "lossless is perfect" it's that we believe "humans are imperfect" and thus don't jump on the bandwagon of every human venture that claims to improve audio.




All of that sounds reasonable, possibly because you are. But others here are not jumping on the bandwagon. There are commissioning an on coming train, filling it with hate and fueling it with assuptions.


----------



## watchnerd

flargosa said:


> If we cannot hear the difference between 320 kbps vs CD.  How will MQA benefit us? Will it add that last 0.001% in audio fidelity?


 
  
 I've done multiple ABX test for my ability to differentiate Redbook vs high resolution and I cannot tell the difference.
  
 As for the importance of the alleged improved impulse response, DSD used to make that argument, too.
  
 And given the amount of other DSP I have going on in my system, it's not going to survive unmolested anyway.


----------



## watchnerd

Here is what Benchmark has to say about the flaws of MQA:
  
"There is no question that MQA degrades the quality of the audio for users who do not have an MQA decoder. The compatible portion of the MQA signal is equivalent to about 13 to 15 bits at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz. The loss of resolution is due to down sampling, dither noise, and pseudo-random noise from the high-frequency compression channel which occupies the lower 8 to 11 bits. When fully decoded, the resolution of MQA is limited to 17 bits at 96 kHz. *Miska has shown that an MQA file actually occupies more space than a lossless 96 kHz 18-bit PCM file!* Why settle for 17 bits when you can have an 18-bit file in a smaller package? MQA may be promising a sonic benefit and file-size benefit that it cannot deliver!"
  
 https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> All of that sounds reasonable, possibly because you are. But others here are not jumping on the bandwagon. There are commissioning an on coming train, filling it with hate and fueling it with assuptions.


 
 others don't really need you to call them out every 2 posts and tell them what they're thinking. they probably know at least that better than you.
  
  if we're on the matter of assumptions, how much evidence do we have that higher than 44.1 or 48khz is audible to people while listening to music? if you can reply without a Meridian sponsored paper, that'd be cool and we'd learn something instead of being told that we're closed minded for not caring about a problem we don't have.
 the empirical evidence is anecdotal when comparing highres PCM to 16/44, a configuration where both noise floor and time domain are improved. yet MQA would be a clear audible improvement when they improve time domain only while increasing the noise floor? kind of a funny claim don't you think? maybe it's the added noise that makes it audibly "superior"?
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 oh but wait, we also have a paper on DSD vs redbook and the results are the same as with highres, not significant. so the time domain argument looks pretty fragile at an audible level with 44.1 and higher.
  
 those are not assumptions. MQA hanging in the middle pretending to be an audible improvement, that's the assumption. one contradicting the other experiments.
  
  
 if I understood correctly, MQA is basically PCM with data about ultrasounds coded in the LSBs, so something like 12 or 13bit and I imagine a little above 96khz of sample rate(depending on how many bits they hijack), but it's presented in a 16/48 PCM file. where is the evidence that it's audibly superior to an actual 16/48 PCM of the same size? what if we used the same size for 8bit PCM and whatever khz(too lazy to calculate), and we used some of the extra ultrasounds for noise shaping? would it sound different? better? inferior? I'm tempted to say it's all the same stuff when the global data exceeds 16/44. that's what blind testing of actual music suggests to me on DAC without a low pass filter starting rolling off like mad at 15khz.
 all I've seen from MQA propaganda were listening tests compared to low mp3 (member pono? I member), and file size talks against 24/96 or 24/192 lol. so a file of 16/48 is smaller than 24/96? I feel like a math genius for suspecting it was true all along.
  
  
 anyway, the format isn't really lightweight, has unproved audible merits, and smaller lossy formats(as MQA is lossy!) would make more sense in most practical situations IMO.
  
 and that's why many people are unimpressed by MQA.
  
  
 PS:I've been a train driver for a few years, so on that subject of assumption and train, you were right on. ^_^


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> others don't really need you to call them out every 2 posts and tell them what they're thinking. they probably know at least that better than you.
> 
> if we're on the matter of assumptions, how much evidence do we have that higher than 44.1 or 48khz is audible to people while listening to music? if you can reply without a Meridian sponsored paper, that'd be cool and we'd learn something instead of being told that we're closed minded for not caring about a problem we don't have.
> the empirical evidence is anecdotal when comparing highres PCM to 16/44, a configuration where both noise floor and time domain are improved. yet MQA would be a clear audible improvement when they improve time domain only while increasing the noise floor? kind of a funny claim don't you think? maybe it's the added noise that makes it audibly "superior"?:rolleyes:
> ...




Ah, a more measured reply.

MQA stores the 24 to 48kHz at 17.2bits effective resolution. It is able to do this as it effectively removes the MSB end as there are assumed to be no large peaks above 20kHz. Is 17 bits enough resolution for something you say you can't hear?

Below 24kHz MQA has between 18 - 23.85 bits, depending on the type of MQA stream. Typical will be better than 19 bit. The MQA argument is this are far lower than the noise in the recording. I'm less convinced here, as uncorrolated noise adds. But they've done their homework.

But this isn't the reason MQA thinks it is worthwhile. It is fixing the time smear of the ADC and DAC, and keeping it intact from input to output. All in a format backwards compatable with every joe-schmo bit of kit, but giving high res to those who want it.

Tidal are online. Hopefully Apple buy them and MQA-ize itunes and apple music, and our mastertapes get faithfully reissued without pointless additional compresion. The leveling algorithm on itunes and apple music makes it redundant.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> You are right, that CD can resolve timing well if properly dithered and looked after.  (96kHz is better than 44.1kHz, and yes 192kHz is better than 96kHz). Have a look at the Stereophile article of Bob Stuart answering questions.  It is the resolving ability between transients MA can beat 192kHz.  He has listened to all these points and answered them. http://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers#ovlywfEKoio6uJMx.97


 
  
 Up to the Nyquist point, there is NO DIFFERENCE in timing between 44.1kHz and 96kHz (or 192kHz). The determining factor is the accuracy of the clock in the ADC, which is the same clock/accuracy within the ADC at every sample rate. The stereophile article you quoted is full of typical audiophile marketing BS, specifically designed to fool the unwary. I say "typical" because the first page employs a deliberate mis-direction, a deliberate confusion of scale/context which is one of the most common tricks employed to dupe audiophiles/consumers:
  
 "_In these circumstances in particular, our hearing is the primary sense by which we detect danger, and speed of detection and rapid estimation of direction and range is of the essence. As too is the ability to separate direct sound from short-delay or closely-spaced reflections—which naturally require the resolution of short time intervals that are independent of frequency or bandwidth of the source. Our understanding of natural soundscapes, reverberation, animal vocalisations and speech, requires adjustable time/frequency balances which, up until now, have not been adequately accounted for in audio system design._"
  
 Yes, humans have an amazing ability to detect "short-delay, closely-spaced reflections" but without scale/context, this statement is nonsense and while the last sentence appears entirely reasonable (without scale/context), it's actually nothing more than an obvious/ridiculous bald-faced lie once we consider the appropriate scale/context. So what is the appropriate scale/context? The effect of short-delay reflections has been known since the 1940's and quantified in the early 1950's, in what is now known as the Haas Effect. The Haas Effect describes the fact that we can't discriminate two individual identical sounds if the delay between them is sufficiently short. Instead, we hear only a single sound and the second (shortly-delayed) sound is perceived as just acoustic information of the first sound. If we lengthen the delay beyond a certain point then we hear two distinct sounds, with the second sound appearing to be a distinct echo. If we reduce the delay sufficiently, we no longer hear the second sound as acoustic information but merely as a frequency and/or amplitude modulations (phase cancellations/summations). So, what scale are we talking about for human perception of acoustic information (the Haas Effect)? 1 milli-second up to around a 100 milli-seconds or so, depending on the attack/transient of the sound in question. A fast attack sound with a large transient, such as a snare drum rim-shot for example, might provide acoustic information with a delay as short as only 3ms or so but a sound with a longer attack, such as say a string section would require far longer, maybe more than 100ms, while with speech, we're looking at around 2ms-50ms. Considering the blink of an eye takes roughly 200ms or so, our ability to derive acoustic information is roughly 100 times more acute, amazing indeed. *BUT*, without appropriate context this amazing ability is meaningless. Rather than comparing this ability to the blink of an eye (or something even longer) the article is comparing it to digital audio formats and now we're talking about an entirely different scale. Timing deficiencies/errors in digital audio, even lowly redbook 44.1/16 CD is measured not in milli-seconds nor even micro or nano-seconds but in the tens of pico-seconds. Our "amazing ability" relative to this scale is not quite so amazing, in fact it's many orders of magnitude away from even being sufficient, let alone amazing!!!! The same is true of our other senses, humans have amazing vision relative to most other species but it's not even adequate if we compare it to an electron microscope or the Hubble Telescope.
  
 With this context, the last sentence can now be seen for the deliberate marketing BS/lie that it is. Digital audio provides more than a million times the temporal resolution than the human ear is capable of resolving for the stated purpose of "natural soundscapes, reverberation, animal vocalisations and speech"!! It's just smoke and mirrors designed to separate you from your money and with this false information and the power of human perception biases they hope/expect that you'll never even recognise that you've been duped. Indeed, I expect at least some audiophiles to wax lyrical about it but depending on human perception biases is rather risky/fickle. Sometimes all but the most extremely gullible audiophiles fail to fall for this type of marketing ploy, other times virtually all of them do. It largely depends on the amount of marketing/supporting marketing.
  
 G


----------



## djlethal

Thanks for the informative post, gregorio.
  
 I don't know if this has been mentioned, since I haven't read the full 33 pages of the thread, but archimago has some pretty good articles on MQA.
  
 Check out for example this article that details the lossy nature of the MQA codec or this article for measurements into how MQA actually performs.
  
 Before I knew thread existed, I posted the same stuff on the other thread in CES news.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> But this isn't the reason MQA thinks it is worthwhile. It is fixing the time smear of the ADC and DAC, and keeping it intact from input to output. All in a format backwards compatable with every joe-schmo bit of kit, but giving high res to those who want it.
> .


 
  
 "Any attempts at "time-domain optimization" of the energy envelope will produce aliasing. This aliasing causes timing errors in the onset of transient events. With "time-domain optimization", transients tend to get reproduced in synchronization with the digital samples. The "optimized" digital system no longer has a continuous time response. The optimization removes inaudible ultrasonic pre-ring and creates an artifact that resembles jitter. Benchmark believes that this is a poor trade-off at 44.1 kHz sample rates and a complete mistake for higher sample rates. Again, we prefer the option of 96 kHz 18-bit audio or 96 kHz 24-bit audio to MQA-encoded audio."
  
 https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa


----------



## watchnerd

Listening MQA 'Masters' via the Tidal desktop app.
  
 Not having any kind of 'OMG' magical moment. Sounds like lossless PCM to me.


----------



## upstateguy

> Originally Posted by *gregorio* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...


 
  QFT


----------



## headfry

jagwap said:


> Ah, a more measured reply.
> 
> MQA stores the 24 to 48kHz at 17.2bits effective resolution. It is able to do this as it effectively removes the MSB end as there are assumed to be no large peaks above 20kHz. Is 17 bits enough resolution for something you say you can't hear?
> 
> ...


 

 Kudos to you on your persistent defence of what you know is right. IMHO, many of the  MQA skeptics will be revealed to be armchair critics that are just wrong on this topic.
 Similar refutals can be found by those that believe that any USB cable over a cheap well constructed cable meeting USB spec is a rip off, even though the 
 evidence is that (with a system of sufficient resolution and musical quality) everything matters, including quality digital cables - even ethernet.
  
 Good work. The truth on MQA will soon be widespread...already starting.


----------



## 435279

I'd be interested to see relative DR figures for some of the Coldplay albums on Tidal in MQA

 A head full of dreams sounds like it has much more dynamic range, not as "shouty" as the CD version. Of course it could just be because I know I'm listening to the Master version.
  
 If it is higher than the average track score of 4 for the CD, which I suspect it is, then I will enjoy MQA albums for that reason at least.


----------



## gregorio

headfry said:


> 1. Similar refutals can be found by those that believe that any USB cable over a cheap well constructed cable meeting USB spec is a rip off, even though the
> *evidence* is that (with a system of sufficient resolution and musical quality) everything matters, including quality digital cables - even ethernet.
> 
> 2. The truth on MQA will soon be widespread...already starting.


 
  
 1. Off topic but briefly: That ALL depends on how you define "evidence". The word "evidence" is quite well defined in science (valid, reliable and repeatable, for example) and is actually a bedrock of science and why science exists. On the cable forum "evidence" is also apparently loosely defined, although as; pretty much any anecdote from any source regardless of bias/agenda/vested interest. Therefore, "evidence" in the cable forum is pretty much the antithesis of "evidence" as far as science is concerned and conversely, scientific evidence is frowned upon or even outright banned in the cable forum. We're more open minded here in the science forum, in that we don't outright ban nonsense, biased and/or purely anecdotal evidence. However, if you're going to have the nerve to post that sort of nonsensical, antithesis of scientific evidence here in the science forum then you're going to end up looking more than a little foolish/ignorant.
  
 2. I detailed a couple of blatant lies in my last post but it appears that's not the "truth" you're hoping will become widespread? If so, it seems like you've also got an almost precisely opposite definition of the word "truth" as well! Are there many other words you define oppositely? And, doesn't that cause severe confusion when conversing with anyone other than extreme audiophiles? 
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

headfry said:


> Kudos to you on your persistent defence of what you know is right. IMHO, many of the  MQA skeptics will be revealed to be armchair critics that are just wrong on this topic.
> Similar refutals can be found by those that believe that any USB cable over a cheap well constructed cable meeting USB spec is a rip off, even though the
> evidence is that (with a system of sufficient resolution and musical quality) everything matters, including quality digital cables - even ethernet.
> 
> Good work. The truth on MQA will soon be widespread...already starting.


 

 Thanks. 
  
 I do not know for sure MQA is an improvement, but I am open to it and hope it improves the masters.  I like lossless and alway try to get the highest resolution available once I've found  the best master.  Unfortunately That means my music collection is too big to go in any portable product.  So I am interested in having this on a phone.  AAC is OK, but MP3 is awful.
  
 My objection was the statements in this thread, that it was A: not and innovation, because it is, and B: it is just a money grab by getting people to re-buy they music.  As I know the people and organisation behind it care about advancing the art as a motivation to continue in the business, I thought that unfair and insulting.  Especially when it was said with such fervour and glee.  It doesn't sound like marketing and snake oil (except the marketing department statements at the beginning) to me, but a well thought out and imaginative solution to improving streaming and high res storage.
  
 Let's see.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> headfry said:
> 
> 
> > Kudos to you on your persistent defence of what you know is right. IMHO, many of the  MQA skeptics will be revealed to be armchair critics that are just wrong on this topic.
> ...




For me it has nothing to do with the existence of nefarious intentions or lack thereof (it does seem like MQA has been a flop as a money grab). Something can be crafted with the best of intentions and still be completely without technical merit. But one side, one may even argue the major side, of audio consists of people's ability to make subjective somethings out of objective nothings. I suppose the whole audio industry would long since have gone bankrupt without this ability in the majority of the population so I shouldn't badmouth that either, nor should anybody take this as an insult.


----------



## watchnerd

headfry said:


> Kudos to you on your persistent defence of what you know is right. IMHO, many of the  MQA skeptics will be revealed to be armchair critics that are just wrong on this topic.
> Similar refutals can be found by those that believe that any USB cable over a cheap well constructed cable meeting USB spec is a rip off, even though the
> evidence is that (with a system of sufficient resolution and musical quality) everything matters, including quality digital cables - even ethernet.
> 
> Good work. The truth on MQA will soon be widespread...already starting.


 
  
 Leaving aside the facts....I've heard it.
  
 It's nothing to get excited about.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I do not know for sure MQA is an improvement, but I am open to it and hope it improves the masters.  I like lossless and alway try to get the highest resolution available once I've found  the best master.  Unfortunately That means my music collection is too big to go in any portable product.  So I am interested in having this on a phone.  AAC is OK, but MP3 is awful.
> 
> ...


 
  
 While I believe your intentions are legitimate and far from nefarious, one could take your position as being simply a mouthpiece for your buddies to help promote their agenda or maybe you are simply falling prey to the same marketing BS that they have perfected.  I'm a bit frustrated with Bob Stuart's recent actions with his seemingly intentional obfuscation about the MQA format, but I don't know the man personally and he might generally be a great person. Now his team has partnered with a group that I thoroughly detest and sincerely believe have absolutely no interest in the art or the artists that provide us with the wonderful music many of us enjoy.  With regards to the giant music labels that are backing MQA, this is an industry that is built around lawyers and typically scummy folks with a terrible reputation of screwing over consumers and artists for greed and control. 
  
 While the team that created MQA may care about advancing the art, they may be selling their souls in an attempt to make it a reality.  
  
 I just don't see how MQA is truly going to be an improvement based on the small amount of legitimate technical information I have been able to find about it.  For me, personally, any benefits that may exists are far too insignificant for me to get worked-up about, and any potential gains in audio quality would not trump the convenience that I now enjoy.


----------



## watchnerd

sonitus mirus said:


> Now his team has partnered with a group that I thoroughly detest and sincerely believe have absolutely no interest in the art or the artists that provide us with the wonderful music many of us enjoy.


 
  
 To what group are you referring?


----------



## sonitus mirus

watchnerd said:


> To what group are you referring?


 
  
 The major record labels and RIAA are continually stifling innovation and attacking consumers with ridiculous lawsuits.  The fact that some are latching on to MQA should be alarming in of itself.
  
 http://about.7digital.com/news/warner-music-group-and-mqa-enter-long-term-licensing-deal


----------



## watchnerd

sonitus mirus said:


> The major record labels and RIAA are continually stifling innovation and attacking consumers with ridiculous lawsuits.  The fact that some are latching on to MQA should be alarming in of itself.
> 
> http://about.7digital.com/news/warner-music-group-and-mqa-enter-long-term-licensing-deal


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> Ah, a more measured reply.
> 
> MQA stores the 24 to 48kHz at 17.2bits effective resolution. It is able to do this as it effectively removes the MSB end as there are assumed to be no large peaks above 20kHz. Is 17 bits enough resolution for something you say you can't hear?
> 
> ...


 
  
 so I give what I imagine to be a credible possible example at 16bit and you reply with an example at 24bit... not sure what it's supposed to tell me?
  
 the time smearing thing is something I fail to find significant anytime it's being brought up. to me it's a philosophy more than anything else, where we decide that one axis of a 2 dimensional sine signal is more important than the other axis(which is already silly at a math level and shows how we're really just talking preferences here instead of factual improvements).
 time smearing, blablah, so scary, that comes up with discrete DACs, with negative feedback, with DSD, now with MQA, and every time the argument conveniently forgets all about amplitude accuracy/linearity, to focus only on how much better the time domain can be. and then they prove it with an impulse response and that sure enough must impress everybody who doesn't understand the nature of an impulse response (same with square waves). but the sad truth is that an impulse is an infinite number of frequencies, so not getting the same result after band limiting is perfectly normal and not implying anything about a messed up sound, unlike the marketing guys showing it. sure all the frequencies we don't give a crap about are gone, so drawing vertical lines without very high frequencies is not possible. well look how lucky we are, music content doesn't have vertical lines in the first place. problem solved.
 all I see are 2 faces of the same coin and any play pretend improvement is always only one side at the cost of the other side. always. and I'm sure all electrical and sound engineers know all about that and how everything is always a compromise, and trying to make one thing look very good usually comes at a price somewhere else.
 I have yet to find a controlled situation where the way we band limit music and where, would matter to me audibly as long as it's done at a frequency outside of my hearing range. it's really as simple as that. I've had a few DACs that would make an audible difference while playing 44.1khz because of a really bad filter or maybe for some other reason. but even with those crap DACs, usually just moving on to 48khz was enough to make me stop noticing most differences and any idea of ringing or whatever was gone even with specific test signals. maybe I'm wrong, I just haven't seen a convincing experiment disproving my guess.


> All in a format backwards compatable with every joe-schmo bit of kit, but giving high res to those who want it.


 
 not sure we share the same definition of highres. increasing the noise floor to increase the sample rate, I see that as a sort of reverse noise shaping, not as high res.
 and anybody can get highres, at best MQA will end up offering it in a slightly smaller file, thus the streaming argument. but once again, there is no sound improvement of any kind, data is data and it was taken somewhere. that somewhere will be a higher resolution PCM that anybody could buy if they wish to, and in the process they'd get an objectively higher resolution than the MQA. they don't build data they just displace it in the noise so that the totally inconsequential low level stuff in the ultrasounds won't take full 16 or 24bit extra samples to be registered. so yeah MQA solved the problem I never had in the first place, getting me more ultrasonic content in less space than PCM. that much is a reality if you do care it's for you.
  
 I can't wait to read about people who will tell they can hear low level noises from the coding while playing the MQA file on a normal device. it will probably be false, but then again, it could be true, just like with time smearing sounding so bad. ^_^
  
  


headfry said:


> Kudos to you on your persistent defence of what you know is right. IMHO, many of the  MQA skeptics will be revealed to be armchair critics that are just wrong on this topic.
> Similar refutals can be found by those that believe that any USB cable over a cheap well constructed cable meeting USB spec is a rip off, even though the
> evidence is that (with a system of sufficient resolution and musical quality) everything matters, including quality digital cables - even ethernet.
> 
> Good work. The truth on MQA will soon be widespread...already starting.


 
 instead of going off topic for false reasons, I'll just point you to https://www.quantasylum.com/content/Products/QA401.aspx   they explain how the device doesn't come with a usb cable and they suggest where you can buy one ^_^. look at the cable they link while they're selling a very good (amazing for the price IMO) measurement device. it's worth all the silly one time anecdotes in the world.
  
 and sure, everything matters, why stop at one banana when I can buy 500 bananas? makes sense. more is better. 
 again that's more of a philosophical concept than a legitimate point. for starters, it's not something demonstrated to be audibly true under controlled test. each and every variable tested on the matter of audibility always reveals a threshold. so experience contradicts your guess, which for science is _evidence_ that your guess is wrong. thanks for coming.


----------



## headfry

The proof is in the pudding..... after some time - a few months -we"ll see what the verdict is from 
established, credible professional reviewers and users. 

Sure, there's flim-flam and it's good to have some degree of skeptism.


----------



## watchnerd

headfry said:


> The proof is in the pudding..... after some time - a few months -we"ll see what the verdict is from
> established, credible professional reviewers and users.
> 
> Sure, there's flim-flam and it's good to have some degree of skeptism.


 
  
 Oh gods no.
  
 Subjective audiophile press are (mostly) the biggest whores in the industry.


----------



## Don Hills

jagwap said:


> ... Luckily PCM is DC coupled (unlike mp3! Explains a few things), ...


 
 Nope. MP3 goes down to DC. Look elsewhere for your explanations.


----------



## Don Hills

jagwap said:


> ... Perhaps if MQA really insists on having only the original recording, it can bypass the loudness war compression, as this usually happens well after it has left the studio....


 
  
 Nope. The "Master" that is approved for release (and which, after MQA processing, becomes the "Authenticated" master) has already been through "Loudness Wars" processing.


----------



## jagwap

don hills said:


> Nope. MP3 goes down to DC. Look elsewhere for your explanations.




Put a 30 squarewave throught it and come back to me. Then you will see the effects of the high pass filter.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Oh gods no.
> 
> Subjective audiophile press are (mostly) the biggest whores in the industry.




I've met quite a few of them, and they are not as bad as you wnat them to be. Sure there are some complete wankers, but they are the minority.


----------



## jagwap

don hills said:


> Nope. The "Master" that is approved for release (and which, after MQA processing, becomes the "Authenticated" master) has already been through "Loudness Wars" processing.




Do you have proof? I'm waiting for more than one to be uploaded to the loudness database.


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> The major record labels and RIAA are continually stifling innovation and attacking consumers with ridiculous lawsuits.  The fact that some are latching on to MQA should be alarming in of itself.
> 
> http://about.7digital.com/news/warner-music-group-and-mqa-enter-long-term-licensing-deal




I thought he was going to say the Richemont group, who have a major shareholding in Meridian. All they are guilty of is making some very nice but overpriced watches.

Sure the record labels can be guilty of being scumbags, but they also bring people most of their music, so inevitable if a format is going to take off.

Can you see another way a new format could be successful without engaging these organisations?


----------



## asymcon

2L now refers to MQA as "Original Resolution". 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




 Looks like bright future, qobuz release crudely watermarked music, MQA outputs shaped noise with higher amplitude than regular Red Book releases.
 Guess, I'll just stick to 44.1/16 and 48/16 despite being referred to as 32-year-old early digital relic. For some reason, when done properly, I can't find a single fault in there.


----------



## Don Hills

jagwap said:


> Put a 30 squarewave throught it and come back to me. Then you will see the effects of the high pass filter.


 

 Done it. No effect.
 Generated a square wave, exported to WAV file, converted to MP3 with LAME 3.995 V0 quality, imported the MP3 file. 
  

  
 Top trace: 30 Hz "digital" square wave.
 2nd trace: Same file after converting to MP3
 3rd trace: 30 Hz "real" square wave, as would be recorded by a real ADC digitising a square wave. Note the Gibbs effect.
 4th trace: Same file after converting to MP3
  
 I'd need to write a bit of code to generate a WAV file with a steady DC offset to test, but I'm sure the result will be the same - the MP3 encoder will encode the DC offset. I often see MP3 music files with DC offsets.
  
  
 The point is that there is no low frequency limitation in the MP3 specification. A competent encoder / decoder will code / decode right down to DC.


----------



## asymcon

don hills said:


> I'd need to write a bit of code to generate a WAV file with a steady DC offset to test


 
 Here (44.1kHz and 48kHz):
  
 For use with LAME, this might be better (-6.02dBFS to avoid clipping):


----------



## RRod

Top = wav
 Bottom = lame 128
  
 Yep, no problems with the biases.


----------



## jagwap

don hills said:


> Done it. No effect.
> Generated a square wave, exported to WAV file, converted to MP3 with LAME 3.995 V0 quality, imported the MP3 file.
> 
> 
> ...




Interesting *twerls moustache*.

When I did that there was a very large slope on the square wave, resembling a 7Hz high pass filter. I'll try and remember which software I was using.


----------



## Don Hills

Thanks for the offset files.
  
 Top trace input FLAC at "-6.02 dB amplitude", stereo.
 Bottom trace ditto, MP3.
  

  
 The apparent "noise"on the MP3 version is actually an Audacity display artifact, there's an extremely slight level difference. The WAV file is at -6.02 dB, the MP3 file is -6.012 dB. "Amplifying" the MP3 signal by -0.008 dB gets rid of the "noise". Also note the standard MP3 "gap" at the beginning, and that the encoder appears to assume the initial value is zero.


----------



## Don Hills

jagwap said:


> Do you have proof? I'm waiting for more than one to be uploaded to the loudness database.


 
  
 Proof? It's the way the business works. Granted, there may be more than one "master", for example there might be one for CD, one for high-res, one for vinyl etc. But each of those has been approved for release only after all the processing has been done. If you want more proof, think about this: Warners have apparently processed tens of thousands of tracks in a short time. There is no way they could have actually remastered all of those tracks before MQA encoding, and I very much doubt any significant number of them had any additional ADC-specific correction added.
  
 Musicians play the music. A tracking engineer records it. The interested parties (musicians, their management, the producer, record company reps) approve the sounds.
  
 The multi-tracks go to the mixing engineer who mixes them down to 2-track. The interested parties approve the result.
  
 The 2-track goes to the mastering engineer who balances levels and EQ etc so that the tracks play together as an album. If you're lucky, the result is approved by the interested parties and is sent to the pressing plants / upload sites / MQA encoding. If you're not lucky, it gets rejected and the mastering engineer is told to "make it louder".
  
 It's also somewhat misleading to say that MQA brings you what was heard in the studio. It implies that you're getting the best possible sound. But before it was approved it was heard on boomboxes, car stereos, lounge systems, headphones etc. Alterations were made to the sound if required so it played acceptably across different systems. What gets approved can be a compromise - somewhat less than the best possible "studio quality". All MQA really does is to assure you that what you get is (almost) what went into the MQA encoder.


----------



## limpidglitch

don hills said:


> Done it. No effect.
> Generated a square wave, exported to WAV file, converted to MP3 with LAME 3.995 V0 quality, imported the MP3 file.
> 
> 
> ...


 
  
 Using SoX it is pretty easy to create  dc-shifted test files
  
 f.ex:
  
 sox -n -r 48k -b 16 square30-dc.wav synth 1 square 30 vol 0.48 dcshift 0.5
 sox -n -r 48k -b 16 sine30-dc.wav synth 1 sine 30 vol 0.48 dcshift 0.5
 sox -n -r 48k -b 16 silence-dc.wav synth 1 sine 30 vol 0 dcshift 0.5
  
 for f in *-dc.wav
 do
   lame -S -V0 $f "${f%.*}".mp3
 done


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> I've met quite a few of them, and they are not as bad as you wnat them to be. Sure there are some complete wankers, but they are the minority.


 
  
 Friendly whores


----------



## Don Hills

limpidglitch said:


> Using SoX it is pretty easy to create  dc-shifted test files
> 
> ...


 
  
 Thanks. I carry a Swiss Army knife in real life, but forgot about the audio equivalent.


----------



## jagwap

don hills said:


> Proof? It's the way the business works. Granted, there may be more than one "master", for example there might be one for CD, one for high-res, one for vinyl etc. But each of those has been approved for release only after all the processing has been done. If you want more proof, think about this: Warners have apparently processed tens of thousands of tracks in a short time. There is no way they could have actually remastered all of those tracks before MQA encoding, and I very much doubt any significant number of them had any additional ADC-specific correction added.
> 
> Musicians play the music. A tracking engineer records it. The interested parties (musicians, their management, the producer, record company reps) approve the sounds.
> 
> ...


 

 I have a colleague who went to a CD pressing plant.  He saw the compression added there.  No producers or mastering engineers.  Just a compressor "turned up to eleven" by an operator under orders from management.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Friendly whores


 

 There's a word for you too.  Probably get me banned...


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> There's a word for you too.  Probably get me banned...


 
  
 Go for it!


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> I have a colleague who went to a CD pressing plant.  He saw the compression added there.  No producers or mastering engineers.  Just a compressor "turned up to eleven" by an operator under orders from management.


----------



## Don Hills

jagwap said:


> I have a colleague who went to a CD pressing plant.  He saw the compression added there.  No producers or mastering engineers.  Just a compressor "turned up to eleven" by an operator under orders from management.


 
  
 Pictures, or it didn't happen. Plants take digital input (a DDP CD image, or at a pinch a CD-R) and produce a bit-perfect replica. And even then they have problems with clients complaining that the pressed CD sounds different than the one that was approved for pressing, although they compare equal bit for bit.


----------



## watchnerd

don hills said:


> Pictures, or it didn't happen. Plants take digital input (a DDP CD image, or at a pinch a CD-R) and produce a bit-perfect replica. And even then they have problems with clients complaining that the pressed CD sounds different than the one that was approved for pressing, although they compare equal bit for bit.


 
  
 And adding compression would not make for a bit-perfect replica....
  
 There is no way I believe this ridiculous fable without strong proof.


----------



## jagwap

don hills said:


> Pictures, or it didn't happen. Plants take digital input (a DDP CD image, or at a pinch a CD-R) and produce a bit-perfect replica. And even then they have problems with clients complaining that the pressed CD sounds different than the one that was approved for pressing, although they compare equal bit for bit.


 

 Fair enough.  It was a story told by someone I worked with for a few years, and has a good reputation in the industry, but I get you are not convinced.
  
 In this case if the client is the record label and they wanted the compression?  I doubt very much the artists and producers are happy with the loudness war.
  
 Oh, wait, he also wrote as a journalist as well as designing audio, therefore he must be lying!!! (I still believe him, as he is generally not full of BS)


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Go for it!


 

 Nah, I like it here.
  
 Well Head-Fi in general.  The "Sound Science" section seems to be full of vitriolic opinionated types who believe their own BS.  I approach audio as "we don't know everything yet".  I prefer proof and scientific explanation, but if blind testing proves something weird, I don't dismiss it if there is not a rational explanation, yet.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Fair enough.  It was a story told by someone I worked with for a few years, and has a good reputation in the industry, but I get you are not convinced.
> 
> In this case if the client is the record label and they wanted the compression?  I doubt very much the artists and producers are happy with the loudness war.


 Yeah, there's no way it happened that way. There's not a producer or label on earth that would surrender final control to a pressing plant without some means of approval. Pressing plants are exact analogs of printing companies. They may have the capability of modification of the original, but they will deny it, and will claim to only make exact copies of what is provided. Ever work with a printing company? It's garbage in, garbage out, we don't change a thing. However, they'll send you a "proof" to make sure you're getting what you want.  CD plants are even more so, bit perfect, master to release, and don't send a proof because, well, it's bit-perfect. 





jagwap said:


> Oh, wait, he also wrote as a journalist as well as designing audio, therefore he must be lying!!! (I still believe him, as he is generally not full of BS)


 
  
 I'll put my money on the story suffering from "telephone" mutation somewhere along the line. I've worked with pressing plants (and printers...same thing), they will not take that responsibility, ever.  They want to make replicas of your master, that's it.  If they provide mastering services, that's a separate deal, and there would have been an approval process that would pass back to the producer.  Regardless, it's not a matter of course.  Compression is always a choice, it just depends who's making it.


----------



## jagwap

OK. By the way the producer was Robert John Lange. 

So you're saying these producers sign off on the loudness war style compression, and the artist? I've read about some of them claiming it's better, but they cannot all think it's an improvement?


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> Nah, I like it here.
> 
> Well Head-Fi in general.  The "Sound Science" section seems to be full of vitriolic opinionated types who believe their own BS.  I approach audio as "we don't know everything yet".  I prefer proof and scientific explanation, but if blind testing proves something weird, I don't dismiss it if there is not a rational explanation, yet.


 
 science is fairly simple as a method, you make a guess, you test for it and see if you can disprove it. if you can't you end up with better confidence in the guess and start using it as a base to make other new and more elaborate guesses that will also need to be tested. etc.
 because we start most of the time with skepticism and null hypothesis in mind, we find perfectly normal to reject any claim until it's been fully tested. you decide to see it as being narrow minded, but it's really not that at all. as soon as some tests are done and fail to disprove something, we("we" is a little pedant, I'm not remotely close to being a scientist^_^) start to look into it more seriously. and if we really can't disprove something, then we adapt our model with that new information. always moving, always improving and always ready for that day when something we thought absolute ends up partially or entirely disproved. it's in the game.
  
 but such a system doesn't have time or care for any and all unsupported claims coming from all over the world all the time. claims without evidence belong in the "it may be true but we don't have to care" box. we can care if we wish to, but we very much don't have to. that's also a needed part of the scientific method, else people would be testing any and all the stupid ideas that every other dude got while in the shower and real progress would be massively hindered by fact checking stupid crap.
  
 in this particular case, digital data is fairly well known, smaller files rarely have more data without compression, DAC filters transient response needed for audibility and all that is also fairly well understood. so when people come saying they made a file smaller that sounds better, skepticism even if joined with sarcasm, is very much the normal answer. even more so when we still have so much trouble proving that 16/44 isn't transparent even to this day. when you have all those cards in hand, it's very hard to just believe it's better anything.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> pinnahertz said:
> 
> 
> >
> ...


 

 it's fairly simple, the analogy with printing is IMO wrong because it's actually way more complicated to ensure the exact replica just by means of color profile. but otherwise it's the same. let's say I'm asking for 100000 CD of my album, I deliver the original album and they make 100000 CDs with changes I didn't agree with. well I'll just say, "do them again! I didn't pay for that" and they're totally fracked.
 of course if anything is done, it's gone through the decision makers on the other side of the deal. nobody could hope to keep a business otherwise.
  
 now what I could perfectly imagine, would be a master with the highest peak at -10db for some reasons. if I was the pressing factory guy, I would ask if they're ok with moving everything up by a few db. such a scenario or similar might be what your friend witnessed?


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> OK. By the way the producer was Robert John Lange.
> 
> So you're saying these producers sign off on the loudness war style compression, and the artist? I've read about some of them claiming it's better, but they cannot all think it's an improvement?


 
 No, that's not what I said.
  
 The loudness war is a choice.  The choice is made by the one writing the check, probably not the artist, perhaps not the producer, who could just be following direction from whoever writes his check.
  
 Follow the money.  Always.  
  
 I have no idea what anyone thinks, but the one responsible for the decision to play in the loudness war has his reasons.  I would guess the choice is driven by either a desire to compete with the loudness of other recordings or some sort of egomaniacle need to be the big dog.  But I wouldn't presume to fully understand a choice I would never make.  Sorry.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> OK. By the way the producer was Robert John Lange.
> 
> So you're saying these producers sign off on the loudness war style compression, and the artist? I've read about some of them claiming it's better, but they cannot all think it's an improvement?




Sorry, but unless you offer up documentary proof of what happened, your story has all the credibility of a "(certain famous doctor said...) don't boil your water twice or you WILL die a horrible death" forwarded whatsapp group message.


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> Sorry, but unless you offer up documentary proof of what happened, your story has all the credibility of a "(certain famous doctor said...) don't boil your water twice or you WILL die a horrible death" forwarded whatsapp group message.




Sure, just like the "others say they can hear a difference but they are all wrong because I will not believe anyone can hear something I don't want to believe."

I heard from someone I trust that they witnessed the compression happened in this way. Take it any way you want. But PLEASE will you all calm the #!*@ down and stop being such a precious bunch of misanthropes.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> No, that's not what I said.
> 
> The loudness war is a choice.  The choice is made by the one writing the check, probably not the artist, perhaps not the producer, who could just be following direction from whoever writes his check.
> 
> ...




I agree, follow the money. Which is why I believe it is the record label not the artist that wants it. So I find it unlikely it is done in the studio infront of them. I assumed the post production mastering was the most likely. But when I heard this surprising story, it only made sense in that even the producer was bypassed.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> I heard from someone I trust that they witnessed the compression happened in this way. Take it any way you want. But PLEASE will you all calm the #!*@ down and stop being such a precious bunch of misanthropes.


 
  
 I don't think that word means what you think it does.
  
 We haven't expressed a hatred for our fellow man.
  
 We just don't give a lot credence to your ideas.
  
 Not the same thing.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> I don't think that word means what you think it does.
> 
> We haven't expressed a hatred for our fellow man.
> 
> ...




There have been quite a few unjustified insults to people you haven't met. I think it fits.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> There have been quite a few unjustified insults to people you haven't met. I think it fits.




I think the frustration shown here by the locals when you insist on continuing to rain on scientifically backed ideas of what consists a requirement for a hifi system and what doesn't, are largely the same as the frustration shown by the inhabitants of the rest of the forum if someone insists on raining on their novel ideas backed by fancy anecdotes.

The difference though, is people in the main forums just press the red flag en masse and the troublemaker is soon whisked out of the thread. We don't have that luxury here. :rolleyes:


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> I think the frustration shown here by the locals when you insist on continuing to rain on our scientifically backed ideas of what consists a requirement for a hifi system and what doesn't, are largely the same as the frustration shown by the inhabitants of the rest of the forum if someone insists on raining on their novel ideas backed by fancy anecdotes.
> 
> The difference though, is people in the main forums just press the red flag en masse and the troublemaker is soon whisked out of the thread. We don't have that luxury here. :rolleyes:




So is that why it is so bitter and twisted in Sound Science?

Maybe the powers that be can add a thumbs down button. Then the fun can really start. There will be a frenzy of button pushing to rival the Simpsons https://youtu.be/vYglvcLwkK4


----------



## Joe Bloggs

I think it is "bitter and twisted" because people here realize every day that 90% of hi-fiers won't recognize good sound if it hit them in the face unless it came gilded in 10kg of audiophile technobabble and a price tag Bill Gates would start to wince at. Take my home system for example. Forced resampling of everything to 44100Hz, stuffed through the stock Windows mixer and then this monstrosity of corrections and HRTF simulations that would scare every audiophile out of their wits. But if they closed their eyes and *listened* to it... 



...they just might realize that everything they thought they knew about hifi audio is wrong.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> I have a colleague who went to a CD pressing plant.  He saw the compression added there.  No producers or mastering engineers.  Just a compressor "turned up to eleven" by an operator under orders from management.


 
  
 I'm afraid I too find this very difficult to believe, for a number of reasons. Firstly, a CD plant does not have the monitoring capability to hear what the effect of adding more compression would be, as compression not only affects levels but positioning and tonal balance as well and, on tracks which already have high amounts of compression, adding more compression wouldn't make the track/album appreciably louder, it would just make it more distorted. Secondly, they couldn't use a compressor, it would have to be a limiter, as applying even a small amount of compression to an already mastered track would red line it. Applying a lot of compression would, depending on the mastered track, result not just in the occasional digital clip but large amounts of digital clipping all over the place! BTW, I assume that by the use of the word "compression" you actually mean the "make-up gain" setting, as compression itself actually reduces the (peak) levels. Thirdly, mastering compressors and limiters are not linear, they typically have a sonic signature, a desired, specifically chosen sonic signature for that album/track. A CD plant applying it's own compression/limiting would most likely change that carefully chosen and already approved signature.
  
 The application of master-buss compression and/or limiting is a mastering process, it's (part of) what the mastering house has been paid for. If more loudness is required, the producer would go back to the mastering house and expect them to make the required adjustments, and then expect to approve those adjustments. In all my years in the business, I have experienced the occasional pressing mistakes/errors by CD plants but never the deliberate changing of the audio itself.
  
 Quote:


jagwap said:


> So you're saying these producers sign off on the loudness war style compression, and the artist? I've read about some of them claiming it's better, but they cannot all think it's an improvement?


 
  
 I would go a step further than that and state that not only do producers and artists sign off on loudness war style compression, it's the producers and artists who are the cause of the loudness wars in the first place! In general, producers and artists do not want/like too much compression, however, they also don't want their track/s to sound quieter than other artists'/producers' tracks. Even those artists who specifically state they don't want too much compression and/or don't want to contribute to the loudness war at the start of the mastering process almost always end up doing exactly that, because their desire to be louder (or at the very least, NOT quieter) almost always ends up trumping their desire for less compression!
  
 G


----------



## limpidglitch

gregorio said:


> I would go a step further than that and state that not only do producers and artists sign off on loudness war style compression, it's the producers and artists who are the cause of the loudness wars in the first place! In general, producers and artists do not want/like too much compression, however, they also don't want their track/s to sound quieter than other artists'/producers' tracks. Even those artists who specifically state they don't want too much compression and/or don't want to contribute to the loudness war at the start of the mastering process almost always end up doing exactly that, because their desire to be louder (or at the very least, NOT quieter) almost always ends up trumping their desire for less compression!
> 
> G


 
  
 What, are you saying that maybe Rick Rubin wants his music to sound like that? Impossible.
 And Lars Ulrich? I can't believe it.


----------



## Morkai

> Guess, I'll just stick to 44.1/16 and 48/16 despite being referred to as 32-year-old early digital relic. For some reason, when done properly, I can't find a single fault in there.


 


 I just tried spotify vorbis -q9 against TIdal MQA used with a meridian explorer² used in passthrough mode to get the full "mqa experience".

 Oh my god the sound is so much... the same. However there is a beautiful blue led lighting up on the meridian when playing MQA.


----------



## asymcon

morkai said:


> vorbis -q9


 
 On top of that, try 140kbit VBR Ogg-Opus with comp=10 against that vorbis (and eventually MQA). 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




  
  


morkai said:


> However there is a beautiful blue led lighting up on the meridian when playing MQA.


 
  
 Another Pono Provenance? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 
 Such practice is getting very frequent in the audiophile market.


----------



## headfry

morkai said:


> I just tried spotify vorbis -q9 against TIdal MQA used with a meridian explorer² used in passthrough mode to get the full "mqa experience".
> 
> Oh my god the sound is so much... the same. However there is a beautiful blue led lighting up on the meridian when playing MQA.


 
  I believe you're in the minority...even without an MQA dac (Mojo) to me the difference in SQ from non-MQA to MQA
 is quite profound....you're already hearing from many comparing the improvement like moving from
 digital to high end LP playback, other analogies also.,,like going from a low-res MP3 to a Hi-Res file or from a budget dac to
 an excellent high end one......the non-MQA 
 sounds glassier/grainy. sound stage quite flat and overall listening experience quite fatiguing ........whereas the (partially) decoded MQA file sounds much more like live
 music....much cleaner, more refined,  liquid, smooth, beautifullynuanced with a much blacker background and better, natural 3D sound stage with excellent
 imaging stability and believability. to me, instruments, voices, recorded environment....everything...  sounds much, much more musical
 ...much higher data retrieval with major reduction in perceived distortion!
  
  
Much more relaxed, natural and musical!
  
...like a major-ly constrictive, obstructive blanket of digital glare/grain/flat soundstage, harshness and grittiness has somehow
been removed...
  
  
of course the recording needs to be good to begin with.
  
  
 Overall tremendous improvement to my ears!
  
 I recommend that everyone listen and decide for yourself...and share if you like!
 I predict the reviewers will be overwhelmingly positive about the improvement.
  
 Wait and see. ...If you don't like it that's fine......it's not everyone's experience, it's your perceptions with your music in your system,
 opinions for sure will vary.
  
  
  
 ...one to check out is Joni Mitchell's Hejira...nght and day difference immediately apparent to me!


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I agree, follow the money. Which is why I believe it is the record label not the artist that wants it. So I find it unlikely it is done in the studio infront of them. I assumed the post production mastering was the most likely. But when I heard this surprising story, it only made sense in that even the producer was bypassed.


 
 Mastering is never done in the presence of the artist (except for the self-produced indys), and bypassing the producer on an artistic decision would be not the norm, and I would think, cause to terminate the relationship.  Mastering involves hundreds of subjective decisions.  If the situation involved a record company, a hired producer, and an artist worth making thousands of CDs of, there would certainly also have been a hired mastering engineer with the proper studio and gear.  But hey, anything's possible I guess.
  
 The trouble I have with the story is this _"__He saw the compression added there." _You don't "see" compression unless you're looking at a resulting waveform on a computer screen.  He would have to have been in plain sight of that, or heard the result.  
  
   "_No producers or mastering engineers._ "  That's a mastering operation.  To pull it off there would have to at least be someone there would cold follow explicit instructions and verify the result in a well designed and appointed studio.
  
_"Just a compressor "turned up to eleven"  _That's clearly an emotional response, and an observation that would have had to be either a waveform or something audible. There's not much these days that is "just a compressor", and there's no one knob you can "turn up to 11".  There are typically 4 or 5 separate controls in a compressor, and loudness-war processing isn't anywhere near that simple, it involves much, much more.  I'm not saying he didn't observe something, but I am saying the story is potentially exaggerated, inaccurate, or incomplete. 
  
_"by an operator under orders from management."  _Management of what?  The implication of the story, perhaps unintentional, is it was the orders of the CD plant management. That's the big problem here.  That's not something any CD pressing facility would ever do unless they are trying to sink their business quickly.


----------



## asymcon

headfry said:


> I believe you're in the minority...even without an MQA dac (Mojo) to me the difference in SQ from non-MQA to MQA
> is quite profound....


 
 Exactly! The difference is night and day. The MQA appears....noisier than the original recording.


----------



## castleofargh

just like with anything else, if it makes some people happy, good for them. I say take joy wherever you can find some.
 now one thing is sure, being easily moved by sighted subjective experiences from random people on the internet isn't this sub section's strongest suit.


----------



## watchnerd

headfry said:


> .you're already hearing from many comparing the improvement like moving from
> digital to high end LP playback, other analogies also.,,like going from a low-res MP3 to a Hi-Res file or from a budget dac to
> an excellent high end one......


 
  
 I've also heard it.  Sounded like good PCM to me.
  
 Nothing special, no OMG moment.
  
 Those other statements you quote seem massively over-hyped.


----------



## gregorio

headfry said:


> I believe you're in the minority...even without an MQA dac (Mojo) to me the difference in SQ from non-MQA to MQA is quite profound....you're already hearing from many comparing the improvement like moving from digital to high end LP playback, other analogies also.,,like going from a low-res MP3 to a Hi-Res file or from a budget dac to an excellent high end one......


 
  
 That's precisely why a sound science forum is needed and why science itself exists! It doesn't make any difference whether he's in the minority or how many share those subjective opinions. At one time the majority believed the earth was flat, that Radium was a healthy additive and of course, snake oil was an actual product which many people bought! This is especially the case in the audiophile world where many/most of the initial subjective opinions posted/published are by those who have some agenda or vested interest or who are susceptible to influence from those who do. Furthermore, these analogies/opinions you've listed are even more worthless because they're either effectively impossible or undesirable.
  
 G


----------



## asymcon

Enjoy the relative freedom of Sound Science for subjective opinions. I was publicly reprimanded on an unnamed forum just for asking which is the best way to evaluate or measure cable differences. Just the notion of that thread - "hey, this cable might be altering the sound, how do I measure it", was too much and the thread was closed because I didn't present any evidence to the table (of course, how could I if that was the point of that thread). 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 Sorry for offtopic. 
  
 What worries me on MQA is that it's presented as "better-than-CD" quality, while it looks just like some extra dithering noise. Of course, marketers and to some measure even audio engineers don't care about the data, just how profitable is this invention. So the "good" might be replaced with the "worse". Reasonable comparison would be DAB and DAB+ in broadcasting world. Both are inferior to analog FM stereo broadcast in regard to SQ, yet they're pushed as something innovative, "low-noise" and "digital" (ring a bell?). So much that IRT in Germany is set to discontinue analog FM broadcast by 2020. 
 Not saying CDs and 48/16 will be met with the same destiny, just that these "inventions" hurt the already well estabilished, and high-quality standard which is no less than Red Book.


----------



## castleofargh

MQA  can do better than CD as it can be "stocked" into any PCM file of any resolution. so that much is true and the only real question is to decide if for example 16/48 MQA would be better than 16/48 PCM. more samples for less bits? apples and oranges, pick your practical preference ^_^.


----------



## headfry

watchnerd said:


> I've also heard it.  Sounded like good PCM to me.
> 
> Nothing special, no OMG moment.
> 
> Those other statements you quote seem massively over-hyped.


 
 Exactly....while the plain FLAC recording sounds to me quite degraded by comparison.
  
  
 Good one to try on Tidal is again Joni Mitchell's Hejira...obvious and big improvement. Other recordings
 tend to also sound a lot better with MQA to my ears...(which is all that matters to me).


----------



## jagwap

asymcon said:


> Exactly! The difference is night and day. The MQA appears....noisier than the original recording.


 
 OK. A measurable difference.  I would prefer it not to be there but hardly damning.
  
 But really, is this audible? Only higher out of the presence band and < 104dBFS (I assume dBFS is the scale?)


----------



## asymcon

jagwap said:


> OK. A measurable difference.  I would prefer it not to be there but hardly damning.
> 
> But really, is this audible? Only higher out of the presence band and < 104dBFS (I assume dBFS is the scale?)


 
 This looks suspiciously similar to noise-shaped dithering noise based on ATH noise-shaping. It's designed not to be overly audible, but its amplitude vary with input signal. Dithering noise of this level is expected of a 16bit track, not 24bit. Furthermore such MQA track is also more expensive than its 16bit CD-quality counterpart.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

asymcon said:


> jagwap said:
> 
> 
> > OK. A measurable difference.  I would prefer it not to be there but hardly damning.
> ...




The quoted was referring to undecoded MQA playback, which everyone freely admit is measurably worse than plain CD.


----------



## asymcon

joe bloggs said:


> The quoted was referring to undecoded MQA playback, which everyone freely admit is measurably worse than plain CD.


 

 Not everyone:


headfry said:


> I believe you're in the minority...even without an MQA dac (Mojo) to me the difference in SQ from non-MQA to MQA
> is quite profound....


 
  
  
 The concern here is that to decode MQA, there are currently no freely available software decoders. Save for a few DACs which can do it in their hardware layer. Yet the point of MQA was not to replace current hires offerings, but to cram their "resolution" into smaller sized package. Lack of software decoder thus limits full potential of MQA to those DACs equipped with appropriate hardware.
 This sounds very much more like marketing strategy than honest approach of genuinely improving currently widespread Red Book capabilities.
 HDCD took the same approach, and failed.


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> The quoted was referring to undecoded MQA playback, which everyone freely admit is measurably worse than plain CD.




From this graph, it's only worse above 7kHz, if it isn't level dependant. Not a sensitive area of hearing at low levels.


----------



## watchnerd

asymcon said:


> This looks suspiciously similar to noise-shaped dithering noise based on ATH noise-shaping. It's designed not to be overly audible, but its amplitude vary with input signal. Dithering noise of this level is expected of a 16bit track, not 24bit. Furthermore such MQA track is also more expensive than its 16bit CD-quality counterpart.


 
  
 They'd be better off just doing SRC to 18bits using standard means...the files would be smaller.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> They'd be better off just doing SRC to 18bits using standard means...the files would be smaller.


 

 But then it couldn't be decoded to the far superior version without the nasty time smearing.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> But then it couldn't be decoded to the far superior version without the nasty time smearing.


 
  
 Oh, but that's the rub...in the new HW-less version, it will have the "nasty time smearing" because the DAC implements the choice of filter.
  
 And it's the filter that determines the level of pre/post ringing.
  
 (which, BTW, has not proven to be audible)


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Oh, but that's the rub...in the new HW-less version, it will have the "nasty time smearing" because the DAC implements the choice of filter.
> 
> And it's the filter that determines the level of pre/post ringing.
> 
> (which, BTW, has not proven to be audible)


 

 Is there a hardware-less version?


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> Is there a hardware-less version?


 
  
 Yep. MQA on Tidal works with a desktop client.
  
 You can hook up any external DAC you like, doesn't need MQA inside.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Yep. MQA on Tidal works with a desktop client.
> 
> You can hook up any external DAC you like, doesn't need MQA inside.


 

 Ah, but that will not be "full fat" MQA, unless there is an apodizing filter option on the DAC maybe?
  
 Are the standards slipping already?  I can sense your pleasure from here.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> Ah, but that will not be "full fat" MQA, unless there is an apodizing filter option on the DAC maybe?
> 
> Are the standards slipping already?  I can sense your pleasure from here.


 
  
 Apparently not enough HW manufacturers wanted to make MQA-capable DACs.
  
 Without wide enough adoption, MQA will never take off.  
  
 So Meridian had to go back to the drawing board and make MQA-lite.
  
 Which is even more pointless than regular MQA.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Apparently not enough HW manufacturers wanted to make MQA-capable DACs.
> 
> Without wide enough adoption, MQA will never take off.
> 
> ...


 
 So just ADC correction, and 96kHz/23bit for 48kHz/24 bit file size.  
  
 Well we cannot have compromise.  Otherwise RedBook would be considered good enough.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> So just ADC correction, and 96kHz/23bit for 48kHz/24 bit file size.
> 
> Well we cannot have compromise.  Otherwise RedBook would be considered good enough.


 
  
 If the Tidal implementation becomes the standard model (and I suspect Roon will implement it the same way), you're getting compromise.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> If the Tidal implementation becomes the standard model (and I suspect Roon will implement it the same way), you're getting compromise.


 

 If you don't connect a MQA DAC.  I suspect Tidal will not promote that difference.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> If you don't connect a MQA DAC.  I suspect Tidal will not promote that difference.


 
  
 They barely mention it at the bottom footer of the page.
  
 Far above that, they say:
  
 "*How can I listen to TIDAL Masters (master-quality recordings)?*
All you need is a TIDAL HiFi membership to access thousands of master-quality albums only through the TIDAL desktop application."
 
[emphasis added mine]


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> They barely mention it at the bottom footer of the page.
> 
> Far above that, they say:
> 
> ...


 

 Your emphasis has always been clear.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> watchnerd said:
> 
> 
> > They'd be better off just doing SRC to 18bits using standard means...the files would be smaller.
> ...


 
 but you're chasing after something that has yet to be proved to have a clear impact on music listeners.
 I see nothing wrong with the desire to improve on things, but I find disturbing to do it for some unclear claims that there will be audible improvement.
  
  


jagwap said:


> watchnerd said:
> 
> 
> > Apparently not enough HW manufacturers wanted to make MQA-capable DACs.
> ...


 
 most tests do suggest that you can have transparent audio at 16/44. in fact redbook has been considered enough for playback purpose since the day it came out and never clearly been proved to not be enough ever since. for practical implementation and low cost, 16/48 could be a good idea or maybe just oversample everything all the time, but it's not necessary to achieve audible transparency. well if it is it hasn't been clearly demonstrated.


----------



## headfry

MQA to my ears is a real winner!
  
 And this is just with Tidal software decoding to Mojo.....most clearly heard through my higher end headphones
 (Mojo is after all designed primarily for headphone listening).
  
  
 Listening to the Tidal HIFI album, then the MQA/Master is night and day....the former
 sounds shrouded in digital haze/grain, relatively flat, with thinner bass. 
 MQA removes much of the digital veil...leaving a much smoother and nuanced
 experience to my ears...with a naturally coherent/stable soundstage and black background...much more musical!
  
 - currently enjoying (good track to try; there are countless out there):
  
 Holding on to Nothing from Cros by David Crosby
  
  
 In my opinion, while it may not sound better than other high end formats...
 the fact that a streaming format matches (or maybe even exceeds) these in musicality is good enough for me!


----------



## icebear

How many albums of your preferred music have you purchased?
 quote from your profile:
 [Music Preferences
 prog rock
 roots/folk-influenced rock
 progressive jazz]
  
 If the higher perceived quality does make a difference in these genres, then how may albums will you repurchase as MQA files and how much will it cost you? Condolences to wallet.


----------



## headfry

thanks for your thoughtful reply ib!
  
 I will repurchase none as Tidal selection is good enough for me,
 not all of the titles I want are in Master but c'est la vie. Also, I don't
 plan to purchase a new dac anytime soon. Regular Tidal HIFI still
 very listenable, just that Master is better.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> but you're chasing after something that has yet to be proved to have a clear impact on music listeners.
> I see nothing wrong with the desire to improve on things, but I find disturbing to do it for some unclear claims that there will be audible improvement.
> 
> 
> most tests do suggest that you can have transparent audio at 16/44. in fact redbook has been considered enough for playback purpose since the day it came out and never clearly been proved to not be enough ever since. for practical implementation and low cost, 16/48 could be a good idea or maybe just oversample everything all the time, but it's not necessary to achieve audible transparency. well if it is it hasn't been clearly demonstrated.


 

 I know.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

Time smearing of what?

It has always been known that the lowpass filter "smears" only at the transition band (20-22kHz in the case of redbook), and whether this smearing is audible depends on whether the transition band frequencies are themselves audible.

Hence anything above 16/48 is beyond all possible reproach.



Above, waveform of brickwalled impulse, below, note that in the frequency analysis it is shown that the "smeared" frequencies are exclusively between 20 and 22kHz.


----------



## watchnerd

headfry said:


> In my opinion, while it may not sound better than other high end formats...
> the fact that a streaming format matches (or maybe even exceeds) these in musicality is good enough for me!


 
  
 It's not good enough for me.
  
 For the same data rate, I'd rather have SRC 18bit from 24bit, which is both smaller and doesn't require all the lossy stuff that MQA uses.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> It's not good enough for me.
> 
> For the same data rate, I'd rather have SRC 18bit from 24bit, which is both smaller and doesn't require all the lossy stuff that MQA uses.




But 18 bit is more lossy than the fully decoded MQA below 24kHz.

Sound like stubbornness to me.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> But 18 bit is more lossy than the fully decoded MQA below 24kHz.
> 
> Sound like stubbornness to me.


 
  
 How so?
  
 Lossless is lossless.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> How so?
> 
> Lossless is lossless.




If you SRC and output 18 bit from an original 24 bit depth, that is not lossless.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> If you SRC and output 18 bit from an original 24 bit depth, that is not lossless.


 
  
 Yes, it is.
  
 SRC conversion does not involve lossy compression.
  
 How do you think 24bit/96khz masters get turned into 16bit/44.1khz Redbook?
  
 It's by sample rate conversion, plus dithering.
  
 24bit/96khz is lossless and 16bit/44.1khz is lossless....well, hopefully that is axiomatically clear that the process is lossless, too.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> watchnerd said:
> 
> 
> > It's not good enough for me.
> ...




Look.

One "format" (MQA FLAC) attempts to encode high frequency data in the least significant bits within severe limitations (e.g. that the resulting difference must sound like benign noise on an undecoding player). Resulting encoded stream is run through another encoder which is not designed to extract regularities from such a stream, resulting in bigger files.

The other format (hi-res FLAC) simply ups the sample rate and depth and sends the result to an encoder to do what it's always been designed to do.

It's obvious before any empirical analysis which will be more efficient.

And, if noise-shaped dithering is taken into account, the 18-bit FLAC would also have more than 18 bits of accuracy in the audible range.

(why we're even discussing accuracy in the _inaudible_ range as well in the first place is totally beyond me...)


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Yes, it is.
> 
> SRC conversion does not involve lossy compression.
> 
> ...




It is not lossy compression in the sense of MP3 which tries to use psychoacoustics to throw away data. But it is data compression with loss of data by raising the noise floor. Everything in digital audio is a sample of real life until you get down to quantum levels, and even then...


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> Look.
> 
> One "format" (MQA FLAC) attempts to encode high frequency data in the least significant bits within severe limitations (e.g. that the resulting difference must sound like benign noise on an undecoding player). Resulting encoded stream is run through another encoder which is not designed to extract regularities from such a stream, resulting in bigger files.
> 
> ...




You mean like SBM (super bit mapping). Not new, and looking at the MQA diagrams of folding stuff, I suspect it is being used there too.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> It is not lossy compression in the sense of MP3 which tries to use psychoacoustics to throw away data. But it is data compression with loss of data by raising the noise floor. Everything in digital audio is a sample of real life until you get down to quantum levels, and even then...


 
  
 You're making up your own terms.
  
 The industry standard definition is that both are lossless.  One is high resolution lossless the other is standard (Redbook) lossless.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> You mean like SBM (super bit mapping). Not new, and looking at the MQA diagrams of folding stuff, I suspect it is being used there too.


 
  
 SBM is just Sony's name for noise-shaped dithering used in a 20bit to 16bit SRC.
  
 Noise-shaped dithering is now standard in pretty much every well-regarded SRC library, from SoX to what's built into PT.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

In any case MQA is not even attempting to be close to the original.

Following files are derived from Britten: Frank Bridge Variations - Romance--TrondheimSolistene on 2L Hires Test Bench. The 24/352.8 highest resolution master is taken. Top, this file downsampled to 44.1kHz, 10bits, then inverted and the difference from the original plotted. Bottom, the MQA version directly downloaded, inverted and the difference from the original plotted.




With the magnitude of differences seen, I dare say that the MQA is a complete remastering of the original and that any discussion of how well it preserves the original recording is completely moot.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> You're making up your own terms.
> 
> The industry standard definition is that both are lossless.  One is high resolution lossless the other is standard (Redbook) lossless.




You prefer truncation and decimation as terms for throwing way data. Sure.

But taking a 24 bit file and converting to 18 bit is losing data. Just because you want to use a different word doesn't change that. Same for 96kHz decimated to 48kHz or ASRC to 44.1kHz.

A lossy process.


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> In any case MQA is not even attempting to be close to the original.




Now that is very unfair. They are attempting to be close to the oringinal. That is what they are trying to do.

Now if you want to argue if they are successful, that can be debated.

Careful, your bias is showing.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> Now that is very unfair. They are attempting to be close to the oringinal. That is what they are trying to do.
> 
> Now if you want to argue if they are successful, that can be debated.
> 
> Careful, your bias is showing.




One simply cannot sincerely try to be close to the original and screw it up so badly in the process. Conclusion, they aren't sincerely trying. Judge by one's actions, not words.

Your turn?


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> Following files are derived from Britten: Frank Bridge Variations - Romance--TrondheimSolistene on 2L Hires Test Bench. The 24/352.8 highest resolution master is taken. Top, this file downsampled to 44.1kHz, 10bits, then inverted and the difference from the original plotted. Bottom, the MQA version directly downloaded, inverted and the difference from the original plotted.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




So what file are you subtracting the MQA from? Your original PCM 352.8/24? 

Are you decoding into full MQA?

If the original file that doesn't take into account that the MQA may have less time smearing, and this difference is the error in the standard decoding.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> joe bloggs said:
> 
> 
> > Following files are derived from Britten: Frank Bridge Variations - Romance--TrondheimSolistene on 2L Hires Test Bench. The 24/352.8 highest resolution master is taken. Top, this file downsampled to 44.1kHz, 10bits, then inverted and the difference from the original plotted. Bottom, the MQA version directly downloaded, inverted and the difference from the original plotted.
> ...




Less time smearing than the 352.8kHz master recording?

What makes you think this is even physically possible?

Not decoded, but it was stated that the undecoded accuracy is no worse than 13 bits. I went all the way down to 10 bits for comparison.


----------



## eio

what's the advantage of MQA over lossless compression of hi-res source?
  
 and how about lossless compression of a slightly lossy, processed signal by enforcing some assumption (such as lipschitz condition)?


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> Less time smearing than the 352.8kHz master recording?
> 
> What makes you think this is even physically possible?
> 
> Not decoded, but it was stated that the undecoded accuracy is no worse than 13 bits. I went all the way down to 10 bits for comparison.




I was looking on my phone and didn't see the scale. These are huge differences in instantainious magnitude.

However, numerical subtraction is impossible if the master is taken again. A tiny difference of a few samples would cause errors like these. This is only a valid test if all processing is in the digital domain. Even then a tiny phase shift would ruin the test.

This is not proof of a poor encription.

Edited to reduce exaggeration.


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> Less time smearing than the 352.8kHz master recording?
> 
> What makes you think this is even physically possible?
> 
> Not decoded, but it was stated that the undecoded accuracy is no worse than 13 bits. I went all the way down to 10 bits for comparison.




Hey, just a few blank samples at the beginning of the file could cause this.


----------



## jagwap

eio said:


> what's the advantage of MQA over lossless compression of hi-res source?
> 
> and how about lossless compression of a slightly lossy, processed signal by enforcing some assumption (such as lipschitz condition)?




Careful now. They're feisty in here.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> You prefer truncation and decimation as terms for throwing way data. Sure.
> 
> But taking a 24 bit file and converting to 18 bit is losing data. Just because you want to use a different word doesn't change that. Same for 96kHz decimated to 48kHz or ASRC to 44.1kHz.
> 
> A lossy process.


 
  
 We'll try again:
  
 Is 16bit/44.1khz FLAC lossless?


----------



## Joe Bloggs

FWIW I agree it is obvious that downsampling to a lower bit depth / sample rate is a lossy process.


----------



## watchnerd

eio said:


> what's the advantage of MQA over lossless compression of hi-res source?


 
  
 Meaning like MQA vs FLAC?


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> We'll try again:
> 
> Is 16bit/44.1khz FLAC lossless?




You missed a few words:

"Is 16bit/44.1khz FLAC a lossless version of a 16bit/44.1khz PCM WAV file?" Yes.


"Is 16bit/44.1khz FLAC a lossless version of a 24bit/96khz PCM WAV file sample rate convered down?" No.


----------



## eio

watchnerd said:


> Meaning like MQA vs FLAC?


 
 yes, with the same source sample format.


----------



## jagwap

eio said:


> yes, with the same source sample format.




You may find opinions vary here, and some will be given as fact despite them being opinion.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> You missed a few words:
> 
> "Is 16bit/44.1khz FLAC a lossless version of a 16bit/44.1khz PCM WAV file?" Yes.
> 
> ...


  

  
 Quote:


joe bloggs said:


> FWIW I agree it is obvious that downsampling to a lower bit depth / sample rate is a lossy process.


 
  
 Lossless has a very specific meaning in terms of PCM audio: the ability to perfectly preserve 16bit/44.1khz PCM (Redbook) audio.
  
 From this point of view, SRC is not a lossy process as the data that is discarded does not result in fidelity below Redbook.
  
 This is why different jargon, such as downsampling or decimation, is used to refer to the conversion process...because it isn't lossy when it comes to outputting Redbook-level audio.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Lossless has a very specific meaning in terms of PCM audio: the ability to perfectly preserve 16bit/44.1khz PCM (Redbook) audio.
> 
> From this point of view, SRC is not a lossy process as the data that is discarded does not result in fidelity below Redbook.
> 
> This is why different jargon, such as downsampling or decimation, is used to refer to the conversion process...because it isn't lossy when it comes to outputting Redbook-level audio.




Your example gave 96kHz 24 bit to 44.1kHz 16 bit. This is ASRC (Asynchronous Sample Rate Conversion) which is imperfect. The amount of precision affects the dynamic range. The best hardware ones I have used have 140dB noise floor (TDM4192) which is considerably higher than the 24dB theory. Not bad, but not a bit perfect reproduction.

Lossless doesn't just apply to Redbook.

Lossless means an encoding which can be restored back to a bit perfect copy. You cannot decimate 96kHz 24 bit to 44.1kHz 16 bit and back again and get the identical file.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Lossless has a very specific meaning in terms of PCM audio: the ability to perfectly preserve 16bit/44.1khz PCM (Redbook) audio.
> 
> From this point of view, SRC is not a lossy process as the data that is discarded does not result in fidelity below Redbook.




Wait a minute...

If this is true {which it isn't}, then as MQA fully decoded achieves better than 96.33dB (16 bit) dynamic range, and 22.1kHz (44.1kHz sample rate) {which it does}, then by this definition MQA is lossless.


----------



## watchnerd

eio said:


> yes, with the same source sample format.


 
  
 Firstly, MQA attempts to deliver high-resolution audio with a smaller data size than it has in FLAC, without losing any fidelity.  In theory this should be useful for streaming situations where bandwidth may be constrained.
  
 In practice, the importance of consuming less bandwidth for home audio playback is pretty dubious in an era where streaming of HD video over broadband is common, which is much 'fatter'.
  
 But does MQA succeed in making smaller files? Some question this, saying you can SRC FLAC to 18bits, equivalent resolution to MQA, and actually get smaller files.
  
 Secondly, and more controversially, MQA claims to deliver better time domain performance by addressing "time smear", which is a reference to ringing associated with filters used in the DA conversion process.  MQA claims this delivers better quality sound, although even they seem to be cautious about exactly how audible this is.
  
 How important is this?
  
 1. Pre- and post-ringing occurs in the vicinity of the cut-off filter, which for Redbook audio is 22khz.
  
 2. Listening tests where subjects listen to different digital filters with different degrees of pre- and post-ringing have not shown a strong preference or even audibility
  
 Which leads to:
  
 Is MQA higher quality than a 24bit/96khz standard FLAC file?  No, nor does it claim to be.
  
 Does MQA playback pass a DBT ABX test where it is preferred vs standard Redbook with statistical confidence?  I haven't heard of any DBT tests of MQA at all.


----------



## eio

jagwap said:


> You may find opinions vary here, and some will be given as fact despite them being opinion.


 
 reading the white paper and this thread...interesting


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> Wait a minute...
> 
> If this is true {which it isn't}


 
  
 Yes, it is true.  
  
 Proper SRC of 24bit/96khz to 16bit/44.1khz preserves Redbook levels of fidelity.  Thus, from a Redbook definition, it is lossless.
  
 Everything that is discarded is beyond Redbook specs.
  
 Explain how that isn't true?


----------



## watchnerd

eio said:


> reading the white paper and this thread...interesting


 
  
 Here is Benchmark's critique of MQA:
  
 https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Yes, it is true.
> 
> Proper SRC of 24bit/96khz to 16bit/44.1khz preserves Redbook levels of fidelity.  Thus, from a Redbook definition, it is lossless.
> 
> ...




This isn't the definition of lossless.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Firstly, MQA attempts to deliver high-resolution audio with a smaller data size than it has in FLAC, without losing any fidelity.  In theory this should be useful for streaming situations where bandwidth may be constrained.
> 
> In practice, the importance of consuming less bandwidth for home audio playback is pretty dubious in an era where streaming of HD video over broadband is common, which is much 'fatter'.
> 
> ...




You missed the time smear correction of the ADC.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> This isn't the definition of lossless.


 
  
 Which part of "from a Redbook definition" did you not understand?


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Which part of "from a Redbook definition" did you not understand?




So from your very singular position, decoded MQA is lossless?


----------



## eio

watchnerd said:


> Here is Benchmark's critique of MQA:
> https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa


 
 benchmark talked about 18bit flac being smaller than MQA, which can be a death sentence to MQA if it is evaluated properly and generally applies to various musical content.
  
 but benchmark haven't said much about the 18bit source: is it dithered (i bet not)? on what content?
 as of the unknown 18bit pcm having better quality than MQA...well, that's their opinion, i don't know...
 those things are crucial, MQA guys must have some reason to use such a complicated scheme afterwards. it all comes down to compression ratio.
  
 personally i would consider MQA really revolutionary if it can achieve ~2x compression ratio than flac on the same 17bit ditherd (or 24bit source) pcm stream, given the quality loss is as small as they claimed.
  
 anyway, it is an interesting compressor


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> So from your very singular position, decoded MQA is lossless?


 
  
 From a Redbook POV?
  
 Probably (or nearly so), but where the lazy filter (necessary for that reduced ringing) of MQA starts to kick in matters, as well as the ability of the origami algorithm to restore flatness.  
  
 Graphs like this make it looks like it starts to kick in at around a sample rate of 30khz, which is below Redbook standard:
  

  
  
 Which ends up shaving a teensy bit from the top octave:
  

  
 Which is then supposed to be fixed by the magic origami unfolding process:
  

  
 I haven't seen any independent tests yet on just how well this works and if there are boundary conditions in the algorithm solution set that cause problems.
  
 And how true in audio terms can we regard the results given the appearance of aliased components that were not present in the original recording? 
  
 This is all highly theoretical and I'd like to see more direct head to head measurements.


----------



## watchnerd

eio said:


> benchmark talked about 18bit flac being smaller than MQA, which can be a death sentence to MQA if it is evaluated properly and generally applies to various musical content.
> 
> but benchmark haven't said much about the 18bit source: is it dithered (i bet not)? on what content?
> as of the unknown 18bit pcm having better quality than MQA...well, that's their opinion, i don't know...


 
  
 Did you click on the link the article?  It would have lead you to:
  
 http://www.computeraudiophile.com/blogs/miska/some-analysis-and-comparison-mqa-encoded-flac-vs-normal-optimized-hires-flac-674/
  
 There is discussion in the comments section regarding dither.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> From a Redbook POV?
> 
> Probably (or nearly so), but where the lazy filter (necessary for that reduced ringing) of MQA starts to kick in matters, as well as the ability of the origami algorithm to restore flatness.
> 
> ...




My understanding is that the "lazy filtering" or apodizing filter only effects those frequencies when the sample rate is 44.1 - 48kHz. When reconstructed to 96kHz the low pass filter poles are doubled in frequency so the 20kHz passband is untouched.

Also it is generally part of the DAC, so may not be there in the digital file. Not sure on this, but it seems likely.


----------



## watchnerd

Some simple comparison testing here:
  
 http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/mqa-ces-27127/index18.html#post501224
  
"As evidenced by the graph, the original recording contains nothing of value about 16kHz, only sigma-delta modulator noise. The MQA encoding has filtered this out and replaced it with ... something. Here the MQA version has lower noise level well into the (somewhat) audible band, so it's no surprise if it sounds better. However, it would probably sound better still if it was simply filtered with a cutoff at 16kHz. Also of interest is that the difference at lower frequencies seen in the first sample is pretty much absent here.

From this I would say the claims that MQA preserves full CD quality even without a decoder are clearly bunk. What an MQA decoder might do is anyone's guess at this point."


----------



## eio

watchnerd said:


> Did you click on the link the article?  It would have lead you to:
> http://www.computeraudiophile.com/blogs/miska/some-analysis-and-comparison-mqa-encoded-flac-vs-normal-optimized-hires-flac-674/
> There is discussion in the comments section regarding dither.


 
 sorry i missed that link, thanks!
  
 Miska did a 3x (surprise!) downsample on the 18bit file, and dithered (probably, Miska didn't explicitly say it) with TPDF, which is not an outstanding dithering algorithm and introduces noise into audible band.
 personally i don't think it's a fair comparison.


----------



## jagwap

jagwap said:


> My understanding is that the "lazy filtering" or apodizing filter only effects those frequencies when the sample rate is 44.1 - 48kHz. When reconstructed to 96kHz the low pass filter poles are doubled in frequency so the 20kHz passband is untouched.
> 
> Also it is generally part of the DAC, so may not be there in the digital file. Not sure on this, but it seems likely.




Looking on my phone again. Redbook is the standard for CD. It does not include sample rates other than 44.1kHz or more than 16 bit. So 30kHz is way above the filtering requirements of redbook.


----------



## eio

i know this is a funny idea but maybe it can be subjectively evaluated by amplifying the very quiet moments in music, and slow it down to make ultrasonics audible?


----------



## Morkai

eio said:


> i know this is a funny idea but maybe it can be subjectively evaluated by amplifying the very quiet moments in music, and slow it down to make ultrasonics audible?


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> Looking on my phone again. Redbook is the standard for CD. It does not include sample rates other than 44.1kHz or more than 16 bit. So 30kHz is way above the filtering requirements of redbook.


 
  
 Yes, it was ridiculous late at night. I conflated sample rate and filter in my haze. Fixing post.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Yes, it was ridiculous late at night. I conflated sample rate and filter in my haze. Fixing post.


 

 It's time for sleep here.
  
 It was a slow day, so thanks for the entertainment.


----------



## castleofargh

eio said:


> watchnerd said:
> 
> 
> > Here is Benchmark's critique of MQA:
> ...


 
  
  you wouldn't just convert your 24/96 to 24/96MQA, because the MQA doesn't pull the extra samples from a hat, it needs the higher sample version PCM as encoding basis. so forget your idea of a better flac, it's not that at all. it's a different arrangement of resolution ratio that ends up in a container that doesn't look like a different arrangement of resolution ratio. it's the only rel confusing part really. they decide what they want to keep (or can keep depending on the amplitude) and that ends up hidden in a PCM file, that file can be encoded in any lossless format you want, the same way wave can. for the converter it's factually the same format. so you will get your MQA as a FLAC, that's no problem at all.
  
 I see it as a different resolution. no more, no less. more samples, less bit depth. there is nothing revolutionary.
 12/384 stereo would be about 67mb for a minute
 24/192 would be about 67mb for a minute.
 look I made a revolutionary format of 12/384 that has higher "resolution"(not really), and my impulse response looks much better than a 24/192 file so I can claim to solve "time smearing" and misguide people in thinking that it really has better definition. as long as I don't talk too much about the noise floor going up in my marketing, surely I have the format of the future.  reminds you of something?
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
  
 we can pretend to argue forever, if you believe ultrasound content will save your life, then go for stuff with high sampling rate and be happy(DSD 128 must be the real bomb). if like me you know for a fact that you can't hear the difference past 16/44 on correctly implemented DACs, ultrasounds will always be a waste of space however you encode them. it's really that simple IMO.


----------



## TheTrace

I'm extremely sceptical about the benefits of the MQA technology itself to the point where I'm uninterested. It seems if there are benefits it's pretty much for steaming, most of the time I like using native files on my device and stream at home. 

However what I am interested in is if they're using better masters (or remastering) for the MQA albums and if that's what the improvement is. If the masters are better than what I can find on CD and Hi res due to remastering, I may have an interest to obtain some albums. Been searching high and low for the answers to that.


----------



## eio

i need much more understanding and testing to know it better.


----------



## sonitus mirus

thetrace said:


> I'm extremely sceptical about the benefits of the MQA technology itself to the point where I'm uninterested. What I am interested in is if they're using better masters (or remastering) for the MQA albums and that's what the improvement is. Been searching high and low for the answers to that.


 
  
 I suspect it is not a true remastering, though there may be some exceptions, considering the number of files available at Tidal.  It would seem that something akin to a signal EQ is occurring in the process to convert original tracks to an MQA format.   From what I could see, the MQA version is different enough to not be directly comparable to a FLAC version, in the same way that different masters are not comparable.  I guess, then, the answer is sort of, depending on the technical definition of mastering.
  
 Wondering if a fully decoded MQA file could recorded to PCM and to be compared in a blind listening test.  Can't just do the test with software alone, until a proper decoder is developed that would be able to be used in fast switching with precise volume level matching.  It could be done with the right hardware, but it would be challenging to set up and proctor.


----------



## watchnerd

castleofargh said:


> we can pretend to argue forever, if you believe ultrasound content will save your life, then go for stuff with high sampling rate and be happy(DSD 128 must be the real bomb). if like me you know for a fact that you can't hear the difference past 16/44 on correctly implemented DACs, ultrasounds will always be a waste of space however you encode them. it's really that simple IMO.


 
  
 Agreed.  
  
 I stopped caring about high resolution once I failed enough ABX tests.


----------



## icebear

eio said:


>


 

 You only need a modicum of common sense. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




 The new encoding and origami data folding is not going to improve the SQ over existing uncompressed high rez formats. It's NOT the bee's knees.
 They can not, just by use of proprietary What algorithm improve already existing recordings. To eliminate "time smear" that has been embedded at time of recording?
 And they want your money, pretty simple isn't it?


----------



## limpidglitch

castleofargh said:


> we can pretend to argue forever, if you believe ultrasound content will save your life, then go for stuff with high sampling rate and be happy(DSD 128 must be the real bomb). if like me you know for a fact that you can't hear the difference past 16/44 on correctly implemented DACs, ultrasounds will always be a waste of space however you encode them. it's really that simple IMO.


 
  
 I know it has been brought up before (by RRod among others), but even 16/44.1 is more than enough.
  
 I put together a little script that creates 10-16bit versions of a given input file. The files are themself 16bit, but the data is of lower resolution. I've only gone through a few, but already at 12bit it is getting really difficult to hear a difference.
  
 #!/bin/bash
 for i in {10..16}
 do 
   sox "$1" -b 16 -r 44100 "${1%.*}-${i}bit.wav" \
     dither -s -p $i stats 2>&1 | grep depth
 done
  
  
 eio, this might be a good place to start. Rather than reading all sorts of opinions, test yourself and get some real data


----------



## castleofargh

limpidglitch said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > we can pretend to argue forever, if you believe ultrasound content will save your life, then go for stuff with high sampling rate and be happy(DSD 128 must be the real bomb). if like me you know for a fact that you can't hear the difference past 16/44 on correctly implemented DACs, ultrasounds will always be a waste of space however you encode them. it's really that simple IMO.
> ...


 

 oh sure, I keep 16/44 as reference because that's what we have.
 I still believe 48khz is a move that will be done at some point if only to stop the nonsense with video using 48 and audio using 44.1.


----------



## ColdFlo

Telling the truth is not allowed so deleted


----------



## jagwap

thetrace said:


> However what I am interested in is if they're using better masters (or remastering) for the MQA albums and if that's what the improvement is. If the masters are better than what I can find on CD and Hi res due to remastering, I may have an interest to obtain some albums. Been searching high and low for the answers to that.


 
 This is also my main hope.  Originally it was part of the MQA claim, that the original master would be reprocessed with an approved ADC, which would hopefully reduce the ridiculous level compression we have been putting up with for decades, and we get our music back.


----------



## ColdFlo

>


 
 Go read about MQA some when asked about ripping what is the first thing Dr. Stuart talks about.... that pirating has decimated the recording industry and we need a method that "makes music more available".  Translation:  WE NEED TO GET RECORD COMPANIES PAID CAUSE THEY ARE THE SOURCE AND THEY HOLD ALL THE MARBLES.....  
  


jagwap said:


> This is also my main hope.  Originally it was part of the MQA claim, that the original master would be reprocessed with an approved ADC, which would hopefully reduce the ridiculous level compression we have been putting up with for decades, and we get our music back.


 
  
 Seems to me no one knows the answers here or the chips involved other than its embedded data below the noise floor.  But you are all sure you should shell out money every month to get a subscription(and pay for a dac that they license and hand hold and watch the entire process thats insane).  If its merely a chip and license thats all it should be this whole thing reads like propaganda that never gives a straight answer and just keeps discusssing theories.  I want to know what this is in real terms... a chip? a license? and a monthly streaming fee?  I mean what does this do that usb class 2 audio doesnt?  saves internet bandwidth? Seems like that wouldnt be a problem if we had internet speeds like some other countries.... and do they have a patent?  how come someone else cant copy this method and then make a software decoder and cut their chip their license and their data format out of the loop all together?  I'm not saying Im going to do this but I dont like someone coming in and taking over the whole world with propaganda and simple data scheme.....
  
 So everyone with a totl dac will be out of luck and now you have to buy one of these other dacs that Meridian has hand held and an AudioQuest DragonFly cause it doesnt have usb audio class 2?  and how come so many brands and record companies are already jumping on board? so fast? cause its some kind of attack on mp3 pirating thats why.....  I just want it explained how? cause its left out of all their propaganda about it......
  
Mod Edit - removed language and personal attacks


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> I suspect it is not a true remastering, though there may be some exceptions, considering the number of files available at Tidal.  It would seem that something akin to a signal EQ is occurring in the process to convert original tracks to an MQA format.   From what I could see, the MQA version is different enough to not be directly comparable to a FLAC version, in the same way that different masters are not comparable.  I guess, then, the answer is sort of, depending on the technical definition of mastering.
> 
> Wondering if a fully decoded MQA file could recorded to PCM and to be compared in a blind listening test.  Can't just do the test with software alone, until a proper decoder is developed that would be able to be used in fast switching with precise volume level matching.  It could be done with the right hardware, but it would be challenging to set up and proctor.


 

 It was originally supposed to be a true remastering.  That may be seriously compromised as you say, but I'm keeping an eye on it.
  
 It is not EQ as such.  There is more to a signal than frequency response.  If only the digital master is available, but the ADC is known, and it is an early one which has known issues, the claim is that some of those issues can be compensated.  Jitter unfortunately may not be fixed I suspect, and early ADCs were not great there.
  
 I imagine it can. Maybe the output of the Tidal desktop app could be captured and put through a DAC with a switchable appodizing filter would be the nearest simple way.  The Tidal app must output PCM.


----------



## limpidglitch

castleofargh said:


> I still believe 48khz is a move that will be done at some point if only to stop the nonsense with video using 48 and audio using 44.1.


 
  
 Yeah, most software, hardware and formats are 44.1/48 agnostic at this point. 44.1 is essentially just a vestige of the CD era, no real point in keeping it around.
 Plus, 48 is a so much nicer number than the messy 44.1.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> oh sure, I keep 16/44 as reference because that's what we have.
> I still believe 48khz is a move that will be done at some point if only to stop the nonsense with video using 48 and audio using 44.1.


 

 Ironic, given 44.1kHz came from NTSC and PAL video:
  
NTSC:

 245 × 60 × 3 = 44,100

 245 active lines/field × 60 fields/second × 3 samples/line = 44,100 samples/second

 (490 active lines per frame, out of 525 lines total)

PAL:

 294 × 50 × 3 = 44,100

 294 active lines/field × 50 fields/second × 3 samples/line = 44,100 samples/second

 (588 active lines per frame, out of 625 lines total)


----------



## ColdFlo

Well finally watchnerd posted some real info about Benchmark's critique of MQA but others say that the difference is moot.......... but I noticed at the bottom they have applied for the patent and so they are trying to corner the market and make the recording market dependent on them.  This is merely a scheme to attack mp3 pirating, sell it to the recording industry and get them their Blockbuster Music money back like in the 90s.
  
Mod Edit - Removed personal attacks


----------



## RRod

limpidglitch said:


> I put together a little script that creates 10-16bit versions of a given input file. The files are themself 16bit, but the data is of lower resolution. I've only gone through a few, but already at 12bit it is getting really difficult to hear a difference.


 
  
 For many (popular) tracks I've tried it's only a fade-out or single softer section that makes them need even that. Something that starts loud and stays loud can get into 8-bit range before things get even noticeable, let alone annoying. The next trick is to see how low you can push the sample rate before you hear things. One really starts to see how lossy codecs can work if you think about doing these things on small sections of the track one-at-a-time.
  


castleofargh said:


> oh sure, I keep 16/44 as reference because that's what we have.
> I still believe 48khz is a move that will be done at some point if only to stop the nonsense with video using 48 and audio using 44.1.


 
  
 This seems to be the viewpoint of Opus: resample everything to 48k and get on with life.


----------



## jagwap

coldflo said:


> snipped




No special chips are required as I understand it. Just careful design within a specification.

MQA has nothing to do with USB class2 as a format.

There's nothing wrong with fighting priracy if some money actually gets into the artist's hands. But there this may not help, as the record labels and streaming services are taking the lion's share. See articles by David Burne.

Mod Edit - removed personal attacks


----------



## jagwap

rrod said:


> For many (popular) tracks I've tried it's only a fade-out or single softer section that makes them need even that. Something that starts loud and stays loud can get into 8-bit range before things get even noticeable, let alone annoying. The next trick is to see how low you can push the sample rate before you hear things. One really starts to see how lossy codecs can work if you think about doing these things on small sections of the track one-at-a-time.




I listened to some similar treatment, but it only samlled loud compressed stuff.


> This seems to be the viewpoint of Opus: resample everything to 48k and get on with life.




This is fine. However my point is shouldn't we, as people who hopefully love audio for the music, strive to move forward and inovate? 

Currently we cannot reproduce an ensamble as if it is there in the room with us. Most of this is almost certainly because of accousic problems. However as those problems are solved is it beyond the relm of possiblity that current standard def formats may find wanting? Shouldn't we try to be ahead of the other issues?

MQA is trying to do that along with lower the file size. I suspect as the file size becomes less relevent they may do an unfolded version which just does the ADC and DAC correction.


----------



## limpidglitch

rrod said:


> For many (popular) tracks I've tried it's only a fade-out or single softer section that makes them need even that. Something that starts loud and stays loud can get into 8-bit range before things get even noticeable, let alone annoying. The next trick is to see how low you can push the sample rate before you hear things. One really starts to see how lossy codecs can work if you think about doing these things on small sections of the track one-at-a-time.
> 
> 
> This seems to be the viewpoint of Opus: resample everything to 48k and get on with life.


 
  
 I'm a little impatient, so I created a selection of files i assumed to be close to worst case. I already knew loud and noisy stuff in 8bit, even without noise shaping, is quite tolerable.
 Re sample rate. I only recently realized I no longer can hear the 'mosquito' tone, which is at about 17kHz I believe. I got a bit bummed, I must admit.


----------



## watchnerd

rrod said:


> For many (popular) tracks I've tried it's only a fade-out or single softer section that makes them need even that. Something that starts loud and stays loud can get into 8-bit range before things get even noticeable, let alone annoying. The next trick is to see how low you can push the sample rate before you hear things. One really starts to see how lossy codecs can work if you think about doing these things on small sections of the track one-at-a-time.


 
  
 Have you seen the 16 bit vs 8 bit dithered vs 8 bit listening tests with fadeout?
  
 http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_dithering.php


----------



## watchnerd

coldflo said:


> Ok you computer nerds and noobs have all got the wrong idea.  This technology I think its a trick and Ive been doing some reading but it all sounds and reads like propaganda and brainwash to me....  I can tell already by the Q and As around the net along with the fact the actual technology and chips are never discusssed that this is really for the RECORD COMPANIES to get back their lost revenue cause of pcs and pirate mp3s.  So from this context can someone explain the trojan horse gotchas of this technology?  I dont care about the Computer Weenie cynical "you cant hear more than 1 FPS debates" that bs is more than dead to me.  So lets get this thread on the right track and stop wasting time and discover the real reason for this new streaming technology.
> 
> OK to reiterate how is this tech a gotcha and a money maker for the record companies?(I already know Meridian is going to get their money thats obvious cause no one would spend the time and money on this propaganda campaign if they didnt).  LOL artists signing off on MQA files(they wouldnt take the time to do this unless it meant money for them this whole thing to me reads like a new market inculcation)(get everyone participating and doing little things and then make money a hard requirement)....."Its not a file format" yeah its just a data format.... lie to me some more.


 
  
 I don't think you are entirely wrong.
  
 Warner Music has signed an agreement with MQA and Warner Music definitely cares about money more than sound quality.
  
 The question is:
  
 How much is them seeing a new revenue stream (upsell you the same crap again for the 7th time) or a new way to control content?


----------



## watchnerd

Yes, Meridian has filed for a patent.


----------



## RRod

watchnerd said:


> Have you seen the 16 bit vs 8 bit dithered vs 8 bit listening tests with fadeout?
> 
> http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_dithering.php


 
  
 Yeah I guess I should have qualified that as "8-bit-undithered range". Noise shaping does wonderful things.


----------



## ColdFlo

jagwap said:


> No special chips are required as I understand it. Just careful design within a specification.
> 
> MQA has nothing to do with USB class2 as a format.
> 
> There's nothing wrong with fighting priracy if some money actually gets into the artist's hands. But there this may not help, as the record labels and streaming services are taking the lion's share. See articles by David Burne.


 
 No it is not biased to be against something that is going to gouge money out of the world market.  It is on the other hand biased to be for it.  No it definitely requires circuits and I know they are going to use off the shelf dacs so they wont be modified dac chips.  Yes it is inherently, directly, in competition with usb audio class 2.  See what I mean nothing wrong with fighting piracy what about monopolys of record companies that push propaganda.  
  


watchnerd said:


> I don't think you are entirely wrong.
> 
> Warner Music has signed an agreement with MQA and Warner Music definitely cares about money more than sound quality.
> 
> ...


 
 Bob Stuart thinks hes some kind of audio genius and thinks he can brainwash the world and make hundreds of millions in the process but it will fail. All of you guys sound younger than I am.
  
  


watchnerd said:


> Yes, Meridian has filed for a patent.


 
  
 Its a non opensource codec(opposite of flac but close to it in function but a patented paid controlled version), usb decoder chip that feeds a dac(essentially, a paid version of usb class 2(that makes royalties on every track streamed across it) with the added benefit of 1/3rd internet bandwidth(I dont think they even really care about this this is just a ruse feature to sell it to you they can afford the bandwidth)), and mirrored hardware on the production side to sell to them too and an end to end patented owned system that no one will be able to copy only be licensed and if you want high quality streaming you will pay your monthly fee and buy a seperate 600- several thousand dollar dac(if you really want to take advantage of that quality lets face it DragonFly is not going to cut it for any of us thats a consumer level computer weenie product).  Thats where they mess up the dac is mega gouging and its a monthly fee.  Anyone who wants to pay for this is a complete idiot and frankly I think you are aiding the destruction of 99% of the way the head-fi market is now.
  
 When your blowing money on albums at 20 bucks a pop your gonna find your dac money is gonna get allot slimmer.  Sure the monthly fee will be cheaper at first but it will get worse when some solution(for record companies) becomes popular and then its going to be really hard to dig it back out again.  There is a reason they want it decoded right next to the dac chip.  They want it to be super hard for you to siphon off a digital copy.  It will require hardware mods to do it.  I bet there is some security feature that isnt being talked about yet as well.  Tidal just lets you download all those files? besides it wont be long before someone comes up with a software codec to crack the digital oragami so there will be other encryption involved.
  
Mod Edit - removed personal attacks


----------



## RRod

jagwap said:


> I listened to some similar treatment, but it only samlled loud compressed stuff.
> This is fine. However my point is shouldn't we, as people who hopefully love audio for the music, strive to move forward and inovate?
> 
> Currently we cannot reproduce an ensamble as if it is there in the room with us. Most of this is almost certainly because of accousic problems. However as those problems are solved is it beyond the relm of possiblity that current standard def formats may find wanting? Shouldn't we try to be ahead of the other issues?
> ...


 
  
 I think we have perspective differences. I come from the classical world, where stuff has pretty much sounded (mostly) uniformly excellent for a long time. There's very little reason to have a bad-sounding recording in the genre unless you just really like some 1920s performance of the Ring. If I put on some of my better string quartet stuff on my floorstanders and have the family away, you bet I get a sense of having the ensemble in the room. Yet I'm not at all concerned with what Meridian is trying to do, because I can't blind test 38k versus 44.1k, so what do I care about time-smearing?
  
 There's so much that can be fixed to make music sound great and MQA isn't going to force any of it to happen. It's like with Pono: just demanding hi-res formats doesn't suddenly stop sausage mastering. All the folding and apodizing in the world isn't going to turn the Death Magnetic CD into the Guitar Hero version. It isn't going to fix bad mic placement, or bad mixing, or bad mastering. Now do I think it's good to make things better? Sure. But not if it distracts from issues that might make a bigger difference. It's like if you tell someone their goalpost is 10 feet off-center, and they respond by gilding it.


----------



## jagwap

> Its a non opensource codec, usb decoder chip that feeds a dac(essentially), and mirrored hardware on the production side to sell to them too and an end to end patented owned system that no one will be able to copy only be licensed and if you want high quality streaming you will pay your monthly fee and buy a seperate 600- several thousand dollar dac.  Thats where they mess up the dac is mega gouging and its a monthly fee.  Anyone who wants to pay for this is a complete idiot and frankly I think you are aiding the destruction of 99% of the way the head-fi market is now.




Why do they "mess up the DAC"? Meridian have quite a good track record with DACs, and they do not insist you play MQA to make it work. It plays PCM too.

I've been designing audio electronics for several decades. What makes your opinion more valid? 

Removed personal attacks


----------



## jagwap

A f





rrod said:


> I think we have perspective differences. I come from the classical world, where stuff has pretty much sounded (mostly) uniformly excellent for a long time. There's very little reason to have a bad-sounding recording in the genre unless you just really like some 1920s performance of the Ring. If I put on some of my better string quartet stuff on my floorstanders and have the family away, you bet I get a sense of having the ensemble in the room. Yet I'm not at all concerned with what Meridian is trying to do, because I can't blind test 38k versus 44.1k, so what do I care about time-smearing?
> 
> There's so much that can be fixed to make music sound great and MQA isn't going to force any of it to happen. It's like with Pono: just demanding hi-res formats doesn't suddenly stop sausage mastering. All the folding and apodizing in the world isn't going to turn the Death Magnetic CD into the Guitar Hero version. It isn't going to fix bad mic placement, or bad mixing, or bad mastering. Now do I think it's good to make things better? Sure. But not if it distracts from issues that might make a bigger difference. It's like if you tell someone their goalpost is 10 feet off-center, and they respond by gilding it.




A fair point.

The audio leveling used in apple music, itunes and spotify will do a better job of discoraging the loudness wars.


----------



## icebear

jagwap said:


> I listened to some similar treatment, but it only samlled loud compressed stuff.
> This is fine. However my point is shouldn't *we, as people who hopefully love audio for the music, strive to move forward and inovate?[1]*
> 
> *Currently we cannot reproduce an ensamble as if it is there in the room with us.[2] *Most of this is almost certainly because of accousic problems. However as those problems are solved is it beyond the relm of possiblity that current standard def formats may find wanting? Shouldn't we try to be ahead of the other issues?
> ...


 
 LOL, 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




  
 1. I certainly think that for _us the people _there are much more serious issues to solve than a new licensed file format
  
 2. a) Yes absolutely, because everyone and his grandmother are focusing on topics that are close to irrelevant to the ability to capture live music. Recordings from the late 50 and 60 on analog tape with just three microphones live to two or three track open reel are simply stunning. The arguments about what file format is superior are completely wasted. The choice and positioning of the microphone in the room and in relation to the musicians is so much more important than PCM vs DSD, 24bit vs 32 bit or high rez vs red book and obviously the latest and greatest MQA. The digital format is just the recording medium, the sound gets captured by the microphone, the medium is just there to preserve what has been captured and avoid any degradation during post processing. All choices that the people involved in the production make are much more essential for the sound than the format itself. These choices and particularly any compression does not depend on the format itself but by marketing decisions. MQA is not going to change anything in this respect.
  
 2.b) Given capable speakers and an appropriate room the reproduction can be pretty darn good nowadays and again the file format is by any measure NOT the limiting factor here.


----------



## eio

limpidglitch said:


> I know it has been brought up before (by RRod among others), but even 16/44.1 is more than enough.
> 
> I put together a little script that creates 10-16bit versions of a given input file. The files are themself 16bit, but the data is of lower resolution. I've only gone through a few, but already at 12bit it is getting really difficult to hear a difference.
> 
> ...


 
 yes, even undithered 12bit is acceptable for compressed music, 16bit is mostly necessary for highly dynamic music like classical.
  
 but it seems there is NO way to decode MQA in software for now,  which made it hard to test.
 and this approach made it smells kinda bad.


----------



## eio

jagwap said:


> The audio leveling used in apple music, itunes and spotify will do a better job of discoraging the loudness wars.


 
 personally i think the loudness war is also meant to satisfy customers' needs...most people consume music in noisy environments now, that results in extremely low SNR, hence the necessity of extremely low DR in content...


----------



## haiku

As long as the guys from Schiit Audio keep their opinion about MQA, I won´t bother with it. I think they know their stuff and they´re reasonable.


----------



## jagwap

eio said:


> personally i think the loudness war is also meant to satisfy customers' needs...most people consume music in noisy environments now, that results in extremely low SNR, hence the necessity of extremely low DR in content...




I think that is one logical reason for it. 

The reality does appear to gone past that and end up the music industry trying to out shout each other

An example: DAB radio, (where a built in optional compressor was available for the hardware manufacture to dial in) the commercial radio stations all added huge compression, to be louder than the others to try and get more customers for their paying advertisers'. Far more compression than is needed for intellablity. Really unfortunately the BBC followed suit. I was there as they installed the digital Optimods for this. We were all very sad. The AES a few years later gave a lecture on this from an engineer from the BBC showing the damage done. Even Radio 3 uses it during drive time. It could all be in the receiver as an option.

(Back on topic) Now that people are listening on iems, noise cancelling headphones and hopefully at home on a decent setup, I really hope they can turn the dial back, and the new intelligent car av systems can add a speed related compression when needed. If MQA is an end to end process as originally advertised, and evidence is starting to suggest that is fading, this may help. 

My cynical side says "fat chance"

Edit: Oh,good news. It seems some DAB systems are adopting the same normaisation software that is making the mastered in compression less relevant.


----------



## limpidglitch

jagwap said:


> I think that is one logical reason for it.
> 
> The reality does appear to gone past that and end up the music industry trying to out shout each other
> 
> ...


 
  
 I thought DAB as other broadcasting in Europe were covered by the same R128 EU recommendation?
 We're adopting DAB here in Norway as well. Yesterday the first of 18 blocks shut down their FM transmitters and within the end of the year we will be entirely without FM (except for a few special exceptions).
  


eio said:


> yes, even undithered 12bit is acceptable for compressed music, 16bit is mostly necessary for highly dynamic music like classical.
> 
> but it seems there is NO way to decode MQA in software for now,  which made it hard to test.
> and this approach made it smells kinda bad.


 
  
 You don't need to test MQA directly.
 Either you can test if moderate degradation of regular audio is audible. If it isn't, then that's a strong indication a moderate improvement won't matter either.
 Or you can test the claims of MQA. Decoded MQA is claimed to be some lesser version of 24/96, so why not just compare that with regular audio?


----------



## jagwap

limpidglitch said:


> I thought DAB as other broadcasting in Europe were covered by the same R128 EU recommendation?
> We're adopting DAB here in Norway as well. Yesterday the first of 18 blocks shut down their FM transmitters and within the end of the year we will be entirely without FM (except for a few special exceptions)




I hope (and expect) it is DAB+, not original DAB. From memory DAB was an old inefficient codec like AC2. DAB+ is AAC.


----------



## limpidglitch

jagwap said:


> I hope (and expect) it is DAB+, not original DAB. From memory DAB was an old inefficient codec like AC2. DAB+ is AAC.


 
  
 Yes, it's DAB+. I don't think there are any stations broadcasting old DAB, hence DAB+ is usually referred to as simply DAB now.
 Old DAB was mp2 (a longstanding broadcasting standard), DAB+ is HE-AAC.


----------



## haiku

Interesting read
  
 http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=35624


----------



## sonitus mirus

haiku said:


> Interesting read
> 
> http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=35624


 
  
 Fantastic!  Someone with the ability and time to put into words most of my immediate concerns.  Thanks for the link.


----------



## TheTrace

Sigh.. I finally got around to listening to some MQA albums on tidal with some familiar music. I've been researching about MQA on the internet for the last two years basically along with everything else I'm watching.

I don't believe this format is improving anything, let me just state that first. Like I was suspecting and actually pretty pissed about, why the **** don't they use these noticeably improved masters during initial release? Then I get reminded of capitalism and greed and it all comes back to me. I wonder what's going to come of this. 

I already had a tidal subscription before MQA integration, honestly because of the discount I get while attending school. Otherwise I have a lossless home library and AAC to go so if they inflate the price at any point I'm gone.


----------



## jagwap

limpidglitch said:


> You don't need to test MQA directly.
> Either you can test if moderate degradation of regular audio is audible. If it isn't, then that's a strong indication a moderate improvement won't matter either.
> Or you can test the claims of MQA. Decoded MQA is claimed to be some lesser version of 24/96, so why not just compare that with regular audio?




I'm not sure I follow you.

The claims of MQA are (were?) that it competes with and betters in some areas 192kHz and I thought 24 bit.

The fact that it takes up the bandwidth of 48kHz 24 bit lossless is the selling point.

Opviously these claims are being disputed here. Moreover the motivation of doing this is also in strong dispute.

From my poit of view, knowing the people behind it, the first point is plausible even if most here dispute it.

The second point is dependant on your point of view also. I don't trust the music labels in entirety, but I don't accuse MQA of anything other than advancing the art and making a living


----------



## limpidglitch

jagwap said:


> I'm not sure I follow you.
> 
> The claims of MQA are (were?) that it competes with and betters in some areas 192kHz and I thought 24 bit.
> 
> ...


 
  
 16, 24 or 32bit; 96, 192 or 352.8kHz, it doesn't matter. Their selling points, they don't matter.
 What matters is, if you can't even hear a difference between the sensible and the patently ridiculous, MQA won't make a lick of a difference either.


----------



## ThomasHK

watchnerd said:


> Agreed.
> 
> I stopped caring about high resolution once I failed enough ABX tests.


 
 Thank you. More people should come to that conclusion and this industry would be a lot more interesting.


----------



## watchnerd

thomashk said:


> Thank you. More people should come to that conclusion and this industry would be a lot more interesting.


 
  
 The first step to recovery from audio abuse is admitting you have a problem.


----------



## ThomasHK

I've just come up with a pretty neat trick to debunk the whole MQA story on Tidal.
  
 In the sound card settings you can enable "MQA passthrough". What's great is that with a non-MQA compatible external device (or your Macbook/Laptop soundcard), the MQA additional magic data will basically just remain folded in the noise of the 48 or 44.1 kHz file.
  
 I want to pay however can hear the difference blindfolded between the software unfolded and folded version a lot of money.


----------



## watchnerd

thomashk said:


> In the sound card settings you can enable "MQA passthrough".


 
  
 I have no idea what you're referring to.
  
 Can you show a screenshot?


----------



## headfry

The diiference is obvious to me with my gear, DBT test wouldn't prove
anything relevant to me ... really enjoying Tida- unfolded MQA to Mojo!


----------



## watchnerd

> DBT test wouldn't prove anything relevant to me ...


 
  
 Why wouldn't it prove anything relevant to you?


----------



## ThomasHK

watchnerd said:


> I have no idea what you're referring to.
> 
> Can you show a screenshot?


 

  
 Under the settings -> streaming tab, next to your sound card name is cog wheel that takes you to these settings


----------



## watchnerd

thomashk said:


> Under the settings -> streaming tab, next to your sound card name is cog wheel that takes you to these settings


 
  
 Oh, in the Tidal desktop app....
  
 Wasn't clear to me you were referring to the Tidal app.


----------



## GuyUnder

I bought an Meridian Explorer 2 to evaluate the impressive specs of MQA -- high definition audio packed into a 44.1 24-bit stream, DAC correction and analog-to-digital studio correction. The high definition claims are definitely true.


----------



## watchnerd

guyunder said:


> I bought an Meridian Explorer 2 to evaluate the impressive specs of MQA -- high definition audio packed into a 44.1 24-bit stream, DAC correction and analog-to-digital studio correction. The high definition claims are definitely true.


 
  
 Which claims? And in what way are the claims definitely true?
  
 See, this is Sound Science.  You just keep saying stuff without data.  There are other parts of the site for opinion sharing.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Which claims? And in what way are the claims definitely true?
> 
> See, this is Sound Science.  You just keep saying stuff without data.  There are other parts of the site for opinion sharing.




You don't say the same thing when someone says they don't think they can hear a difference. Again just an opinion without statistically backed up DBT.

I keep seeing stuff like "I've just come up with a pretty neat trick to debunk the whole MQA story on Tidal". This just sounds like people here are out to kill the format without giving it a chance.

I feel a bias in this thread, and this corner of the forum in general. 

Let's have balance please?


----------



## TadMorose

jagwap said:


> You don't say the same thing when someone says they don't think they can hear a difference. Again just an opinion without statistically backed up DBT.
> 
> I keep seeing stuff like "I've just come up with a pretty neat trick to debunk the whole MQA story on Tidal". This just sounds like people here are out to kill the format without giving it a chance.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Agreed 100%. Also, there is a lot of misinformation floating around about MQA. If people really wanna learn what it is, they should spend some time reading this:
  
 http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/694-comprehensive-q-mqa-s-bob-stuart/


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> You don't say the same thing when someone says they don't think they can hear a difference. Again just an opinion without statistically backed up DBT.
> 
> I keep seeing stuff like "I've just come up with a pretty neat trick to debunk the whole MQA story on Tidal". This just sounds like people here are out to kill the format without giving it a chance.
> 
> ...





>


 
  
 I'll repeat the question, since went down a divergent path that is not what this thread is about:
  
 Which claims? And in what way are the claims definitely true?


----------



## watchnerd

tadmorose said:


> Also, there is a lot of misinformation floating around about MQA.


 
  
 What misinformation are you referring to?


----------



## TadMorose

watchnerd said:


> What misinformation are you referring to?


 
  
 Some people saying MQA is lossy and has DRM.


----------



## watchnerd

tadmorose said:


> Some people saying MQA is lossy and has DRM.


 
  
 Lossy gets complicated because it depends if you're talking about lossy relative to Redbook or lossy vs the original high resolution file.
  
 Is MQA lossy relative to Redbook?  No.
  
 Is MQA lossy relative to a 24bit/96khz file?
  
 Yes.  It throws away information and attempts to create new, substitute information using the origami algorithm.  If it didn't, it wouldn't be able to offer a smaller file size.
  
 Does it have DRM?  Not in the traditional sense, not  yet.  But it is watermarked.
  
 But, really, the technical details really shouldn't matter to end users (although DRM does).
  
 I would have no technical problem with MQA's complex process if:
  
 1. It actually solved a problem for me.  Which it doesn't, for me.
  
 2. Sounds waaaay better than lossless Redbook.  Which it doesn't, for me.
  
 Some MQA samples I've heard sound like good, well-mastered Redbook.  Others sounded average
  
 It was in no way an earth-shattering OMG moment.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> watchnerd said:
> 
> 
> > Which claims? And in what way are the claims definitely true?
> ...




This is the debating equivalent of walking out of your bunker in the middle of a gunfight and shouting "oh for Christ's sake stop fighting me and surrender already!"

Next you'll say that Newton was biased in his thesis that objects would only fall down when dropped and not up


----------



## watchnerd

@GuyUnder
  
 MQA isn't going to succeed or fail based on a debate amongst a few dozen people in this particular corner of the internet.
  
 If you think MQA is the best thing ever, have fun, enjoy.  Leave this crowd of skeptics in your rear view mirror and go enjoy music.
  
 No need to try to convince the hard-noses here or evangelize on behalf of MQA.
  
 Forces much bigger than this thread will determine MQA's fate.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> You don't say the same thing when someone says they don't think they can hear a difference. Again just an opinion without statistically backed up DBT.


 
  
 How would anyone objectively demonstrate that a difference could not be heard?  Those claims cannot be definitively proven, and no rational person should expect anyone to provide any proof.  Now, if there is a difference to be heard, THAT can be demonstrated.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> @GuyUnder
> 
> 
> MQA isn't going to succeed or fail based on a debate amongst a few dozen people in this particular corner of the internet.
> ...




Where the fun in that?

I'm just pointing out that the debating is not even handed or scientific. It is often opinion, and as you said should take place elsewhere.

Also


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> This is the debating equivalent of walking out of your bunker in the middle of a gunfight and shouting "oh for Christ's sake stop fighting me and surrender already!"
> 
> Next you'll say that Newton was biased in his thesis that objects would only fall down when dropped and not up




No, it's taking the higher ground. I'm hiding a flame thrower and bazooker behind my back.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> No, it's taking the higher ground. I'm hiding a flame thrower and bazooker behind my back.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> Where the fun in that?
> 
> I'm just pointing out that the debating is not even handed or scientific. It is often opinion, and as you said should take place elsewhere.
> 
> Also


 
  
 So a troll, then.
  
 Well, at least we know.


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> How would anyone objectively demonstrate that a difference could not be heard?  Those claims cannot be definitively proven, and no rational person should expect anyone to provide any proof.  Now, if there is a difference to be heard, THAT can be demonstrated.




I was involved in such a test. The idea was to see if data identical CDs could sound different from different pressing plants. The test was set up by Prism Sound, a pretty proffesional bunch involved with mastering ADCs and pro DACs.

14-15 CDs, looking identical, with only a number on them. I forget the sample size but it was more than a hundred people.

The statistical conclusion was they sound different I remember. I certainly heard a difference.

So it is possible, but non trivial.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> So a troll, then.
> 
> Well, at least we know.




I wasn't a troll when I starting discussing this. But the naysaying trolls taught me how this thread is navigated.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> I wasn't a troll when I starting discussing this.


 
  
 But admitting you're a troll now...
  
 As I said, at least we know.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> But admitting you're a troll now...
> 
> As I said, at least we know.




I'll admit something when you open your mind.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> But admitting you're a troll now...
> 
> As I said, at least we know.




I'm not trolling. In internet parlance I can be said to be "white-knighting" for the MQA side, and people who think they hear audiable differences.


----------



## GuyUnder

The claim that MQA unpacks high-resolution audio in an MQA DAC is true. Wether using Tidal or streaming an MQA file via other software, the blue "MQA studio" lights up. It even works if you transcode the 24-bit FLAC to ALAC. Others with Mytek DACs have reported MQA files showing up as 88 or 96 kHz on the DAC,

I own the 2L Mozart Violin Concerto in MQA. Since this album was mastered in DXD and the DXD version is available for download direct comparsons are possible. The difference between the DXD master and the 44.1 version is pretty obvious, and when playing it via Roon through the Meridian Explorer 2 it's obviously a high resolution version. 2L claims the MQA is the original master resolution, and 2L is a reputable label.

What I'm really interested in is the promise of advanced psychoacoustic features like corrections to studio recordings and DAC-specific tailoring.


----------



## RRod

guyunder said:


> I own the 2L Mozart Violin Concerto in MQA. Since this album was mastered in DXD and the DXD version is available for download direct comparsons are possible. The difference between the DXD master and the 44.1 version is pretty obvious, and when playing it via Roon through the Meridian Explorer 2 it's obviously a high resolution version. 2L claims the MQA is the original master resolution, and 2L is a reputable label.


 
  
 2L is also the biggest format whore in the classical business (good sounding stuff, though). I tried once to get their test-bench downsamples to match up with what I could make in SoX but I couldn't, which means that they're doing something special (non-linear-phase filter etc.) for the conversion. This is as opposed to say BIS whose hi-res samples I can get to null-out except for dither. So again, companies just bound and determine to obfuscate by pouring special sauce on everything.


----------



## asymcon

2L, while thinking of every possible technical detail in their rec sessions, thousands spent on DXD multitracks and vintage ribbon mics, positioning musicians in various ways to get their Aura 9.1 experience, still manage to sound somewhat boring and repetitive. I bought their Magnificat. While genuinely good music, it doesn't hold up after multiple listenings. 
 Their mix is just so perfect, it's boring. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 
  
@RRod Can you try to null 2L's MQA vs. downsampled 96/24? I had difficulties with it, as MQA doesn't seem to sync properly to the original.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

rrod said:


> guyunder said:
> 
> 
> > The claim that MQA unpacks high-resolution audio in an MQA DAC is true. Wether using Tidal or streaming an MQA file via other software, the blue "MQA studio" lights up. It even works if you transcode the 24-bit FLAC to ALAC. Others with Mytek DACs have reported MQA files showing up as 88 or 96 kHz on the DAC,
> ...




I think the salient problem here, rather than what 2L does or doesn't do with their MQA masters, is a breakdown in logical reasoning. A light lights up (simply indicating that an MQA stream has been detected) or a format indicator changes (simply indicating that the input is now formatted at the new sample rate; any old resampling process can cause the same) are taken as evidence that "MQA unpacks high-resolution audio".

DXD is taken and compared against redbook. Putting aside any possible problems with the comparison methodology (starting with the fact that the comparison is sighted), quite what this has to do with an MQA vs Redbook comparison totally escapes me. The 2L labelling of "original resolution" is obviously false--even the MQA decoded stream is formatted at "88 or 96kHz" as he himself states, not 352kHz. Again, the stream being formatted at a certain sample rate shouldn't be taken as evidence that it contains the original resolution of that rate, but if even the rate *labelling* is lower than 352kHz...

Of course it is technically true that MQA unpacks some audio beyond the nominal resolution of the format the FLAC file is in, but the provided proof... are irrelevant.


----------



## asymcon

joe bloggs said:


> A light lights up (simply indicating that an MQA stream has been detected) or a format indicator changes (simply indicating that the input is now formatted at the new sample rate; any old resampling process can cause the same) are taken as evidence that "MQA unpacks high-resolution audio".


 
 And how this visual indicator skews subjectivist's judgement over said recording, regardless of any audible differences.


----------



## headfry

These critiques remind me of the angry, self-satisfied posts about SQ differences of digital cables,
and how a $20 Belkin USB is all you need, after all 0's and 1's travel down the cable the same way
as through a Siltech Anniversary USB orWireworld Platinum.. and that the expensive USB cables in THEIR
OPINION were in no way significantly better sounding and certainly way overpriced snake oil .

Well in my opinion the above argument is nothing but self-righteous, arrogant ignorance - (of course some 
higher priced digital cables can give significant SQ improvements in a quality setup) - all done 
with the same attitude by several posters on MQA being no better sounding and just looking
to discredit what many hear as a major advance in music streaming delivery SQ.....
which I hear as much better than the non MQA FLAC versions on Tidal and on par with other hi-res formats- perhaps significantly better.

I don't need a DBT to know that MQA/Tidal Masters in general sound obviously much better than their non-MQA 
counterparts - myMojo and music have never sounded this good before through Tidal. And this is without DAC MQA decoding,
which I expect to be even better!

Like I said a few days ago.... the verdict on MQA will be overwhelmingly positive -
it's already starting.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I was involved in such a test. The idea was to see if data identical CDs could sound different from different pressing plants. The test was set up by Prism Sound, a pretty proffesional bunch involved with mastering ADCs and pro DACs.
> 
> 14-15 CDs, looking identical, with only a number on them. I forget the sample size but it was more than a hundred people.
> 
> ...


 
 No, that is your opinion, and was not the conclusion.  The conclusion of resulting paper clearly states, "Listening tests have so far failed to produce convincing evidence for consistent sonic differences among the TD-2 disc sets.", and goes on to explain possible reasons for individual experts opinions that they hear differences.  But the data did not support theory that CDs from different plants repeatably sound different. The paper is actually fairly well done, though the comparison method was hampered by the inability to instantly compare samples, thus affecting final resolution.
  
 Also, that was in 1996. One might expect a few refinements in both players and pressing plants in the intervening years.  
  
 The paper can be found *here.*


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> No, that is your opinion, and was not the conclusion.  The conclusion of resulting paper clearly states, "Listening tests have so far failed to produce convincing evidence for consistent sonic differences among the TD-2 disc sets.", and goes on to explain possible reasons for individual experts opinions that they hear differences.  But the data did not support theory that CDs from different plants repeatably sound different. The paper is actually fairly well done, though the comparison method was hampered by the inability to instantly compare samples, thus affecting final resolution.
> 
> Also, that was in 1996. One might expect a few refinements in both players and pressing plants in the intervening years.
> 
> The paper can be found *here.*


 

 My appologies.  I remember the result incorrectly.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

headfry said:


> These critiques remind me of the angry, self-satisfied posts about SQ differences of digital cables,
> and how a $20 Belkin USB is all you need, after all 0's and 1's travel down the cable the same way
> as through a Siltech Anniversary USB orWireworld Platinum.. and that the expensive USB cables in THEIR
> OPINION were in no way significantly better sounding and certainly way overpriced snake oil .
> ...




Well... I get that it is a popular audiophile opinion that "everything matters" when it comes to sound quality, including which way the wind happened to be blowing at the power plant powering your listening room from a hundred miles away on the day you are listening, to say nothing of whether said power plant happens to be coal-fired, nuclear or hydroelectric (coal-plant powered audio rigs sound warmer while hydroelectric powered rigs sound more liquid, I've been told). Fine. Suppose you are correct. I have the business interests of the company I represent to look after and can only go so far at alienating potential future customers, even in unrelated chitchat.

What I don't get is, why this "everything matters" mentality never extends to the very things that even pro audio practitians agree *do* make huge differences. Compare:

1. The difference in signal between that presented by regular CD audio and that presented by MQA can be quantified in terms of distortion figures at something like 0.000x% THD. If the decoded continuous waveforms of CD and MQA were plotted on top of each other using 0.1mm pencil lead with a 1 meter axis height, you'll still probably have a hard time finding any point where the curves do not completely overlap to the naked eye.

2. The difference between whatever waveform is specified by CD or MQA, and that actually produced by whatever headphones you own, look *nothing alike*. Gross frequency response deviations occur in the audible band to the tune of 10s of dBs, warping the resulting waveform beyond anything but the crudest recognition. *Yet any time some technically minded audio enthusiast suggests using equalization to combat these distortions,* the most probable result is half the community dismissing him as a green amateur unschooled in the mysterious ways in which EQ will "further degrade the signal", making it "only a bandaid suitable for the worst recordings" or making said "amateur's" "pathetic system sound even worse". 

3. This is to say nothing of the fact that audio on headphones sound nothing like the sound on the loudspeakers that most music were mastered for. A few technically oriented companies tout niche HRTF simulation solutions that attempt to compute the way each sound bounces around in a real listening room and enter BOTH the listener's ears with complex frequency and phase relationships, yet the average headphone audiophile is again content to shell out sums of money well in excess of that which could buy him such solutions, to (again) buy more expensive cables and hi-res audio equipment. The difference such HRTF simulation makes goes beyond "huge" and borders on the "infinite": a plain headphone system receiving signal on the left channel will produce no signal whatsoever on the right channel (leading to a classic "left right and centre blobs in your head" soundstage, whereas a HRTF-enabled headphone system will produce delayed, attenuated sound of meticulously computed phase on the right channel to simulate the effect of a left loudspeaker going around your head to reach your right ear. And yet... 

Moreover, audiophile-approved solutions get a free "if at first you don't succeed..." pass if one doesn't hear a positive change the first time round: the solution is to buy more and more expensive / different pieces of kit until one finally notices the difference. OTOH, said audiophile will literally give an EQ all of one minute of screen time, throw a few sliders at random, and, if the sound does not change for the better immediately, forever, forever consign EQ to a bin of "perpetual failures". 

/rant


----------



## Steven Stone1

TO add actual information to this thread here is a seminar hosted by AES that was held last night in Canada - https://www.facebook.com/AESmontreal/videos/1174201429344035/ - It features Bob Stuart explaining MQA - my fave quote is"The goal of MQA was to add no more distortion to the digital process than one meter of air adds to an analog signal."


----------



## watchnerd

joe bloggs said:


> 3. This is to say nothing of the fact that audio on headphones sound nothing like the sound on the loudspeakers that most music were mastered for. A few technically oriented companies tout niche HRTF simulation solutions that attempt to compute the way each sound bounces around in a real listening room and enter BOTH the listener's ears with complex frequency and phase relationships, yet the average headphone audiophile is again content to shell out sums of money well in excess of that which could buy him such solutions, to (again) buy more expensive cables and hi-res audio equipment. The difference such HRTF simulation makes goes beyond "huge" and borders on the "infinite": a plain headphone system receiving signal on the left channel will produce no signal whatsoever on the right channel (leading to a classic "left right and centre blobs in your head" soundstage, whereas a HRTF-enabled headphone system will produce delayed, attenuated sound of meticulously computed phase on the right channel to simulate the effect of a left loudspeaker going around your head to reach your right ear. And yet...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
  
 Not to threadjack, but does HRTF work with regular music?
  
 I thought it had to be encoded in the software and decoded by the hardware.  Can it just be induced with the right kind of headphones?


----------



## asymcon

Crossfeed could be considered lite version of "industrial-quality" HRTF.


----------



## GuyUnder

joe bloggs said:


> Well... I get that it is a popular audiophile opinion that "everything matters" when it comes to sound quality, including which way the wind happened to be blowing at the power plant powering your listening room from a hundred miles away on the day you are listening, to say nothing of whether said power plant happens to be coal-fired, nuclear or hydroelectric (coal-plant powered audio rigs sound warmer while hydroelectric powered rigs sound more liquid, I've been told). Fine. Suppose you are correct. I have the business interests of the company I represent to look after and can only go so far at alienating potential future customers, even in unrelated chitchat.
> 
> What I don't get is, why this "everything matters" mentality never extends to the very things that even pro audio practitians agree *do* make huge differences. Compare:
> 
> ...




With my lo-fi headphones (HD668B, K553) and mid-fi headphones (HD600) not only is EQ recommended I find it necessary to correct the worst FR imbalances. With any of my hi-fi headphones (HE-6, TH900, Utopia) EQ is worthless and all attempts result in making the headphones sound much worse than before. I've heard that a real tube / analog EQ is much better but I have no experience with those.

Crossfeed sounds like trash I can't imagine anyone would enjoy that. Possibly this high-end solution is a different animal though.

Anyway since discovering native DSD decoding and SRC-bypass streaming I'll never go back to PCM so all of these software solutions won't work for me any longer.


----------



## garysohn

I am using the desktop ap with Tidal premium. I live in a rural area and I only get about 8-10 mbps.  I can play the Masters version, but it cuts out.  I thought the idea was to have a file that would be higher quality, but would be unfolded and be playable with a lower Mbps.  It isn't working for me at these speeds.  My primary interest is to have Tidal playable with phone (eventually). But if it won't play on the desktop then it won't play on the phone.


----------



## asymcon

guyunder said:


> With any of my hi-fi headphones (HE-6, TH900, Utopia) EQ is worthless and all attempts result in making the headphones sound much worse than before.


 
 Damn, I should then remove all parametric EQs from all my projects and resign to equalization through boutique analog gear, because other producers seem to do so. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 
 But wait, I don't have high-end headphones, so it's all dandy.


----------



## castleofargh

headfry said:


> These critiques remind me of the angry, self-satisfied posts about SQ differences of digital cables,
> and how a $20 Belkin USB is all you need, after all 0's and 1's travel down the cable the same way
> as through a Siltech Anniversary USB orWireworld Platinum.. and that the expensive USB cables in THEIR
> OPINION were in no way significantly better sounding and certainly way overpriced snake oil .
> ...


 
 if that's fine for you, great, but it isn't fine in this section of the forum where blind testing is one of the very few methods recognized to prove audible differences.
 of course if you came with measurements for 2 tracks showing that one has like 3db variations in the signature somewhere audible, because other blind tests have already confirmed this magnitude to be audible, we would agree with you that the files can and should sound different. and that without a need for more evidence. but faith in the random online stranger telling us to believe him, it's not very scientific nor very safe in general. I hope you can understand at least that point of view on the matter.
  
  
 so far evidence that higher sample rate above 44.1khz does sound different hasn't clearly been demonstrated in controlled tests. MQA increases the sample rate(and decreases the bit depth) compared to some PCM file of the same size. my reasoning and it seems to be shared with a few others, is that if just more samples has failed to be clearly demonstrated as sounding better, why in Stevie Wonder's name, would the exact same thing but with a little loss in bit depth, result in a clear improvement in sound?  that doesn't feel logical based on what we know so far.
 and if something is obviously audible when just increasing the sample rate isn't, it would suggest a loss in objective fidelity instead of proof of a "revolution".
  
 we're not saying MQA must sound bad or that if you have a MQA device you're a loser, there really is no need to fight this as if your honor was on the line over some BS file format. there are more important stuff in life.
 our conclusion doesn't seem too far fetched, and relies on a good deals of controlled tests(personal or not). it doesn't however prove that MQA must always sound identical to the PCM version on all devices, because our reasoning is based on the format and suppose a transparent DAC at 16/44 playing the same master. so our point of view doesn't mean you're automatically a liar for saying you notice a change, but you also don't make any effort to verify yourself that you don't get fooled by some different master or a little light or maybe a tiny change in volume level, or a possible delay added when MQA is active... so don't blame us for not putting much value in your claim as it has none of the components of a valid claim and all the components of a personal opinion.
  
 it's a simple enough system, we believe in measurements and blind tests, results from those let us build some confidence on a few matters, and that confidence then can be used as building block to test and assess other matters. if all you bring is a personal belief, we can't do anything with it. it's inconclusive, we can't even be sure it's true. and if it is, because you didn't control anything, we cannot hope to find out a cause. so we're stuck with "I believe vs he believes" that goes nowhere and serves no purpose. you telling us again and again how you can hear a difference isn't making your claim more significant or less empty of evidence.
 and that's why we find subjective opinions from sighted tests to be a waste of time in such circumstances. not because we don't care for at least our own subjectivity(I do very much), but because we cannot conclude anything objective from an opinion.
  
 now my personal opinion, because I have one to, like anybody else. nothing proved, nothing objective, just me, myself, and I:
 if they don't offer to the consumer free converters we can use on our highres PCM files, it's going to be annoying as hell and almost as impractical as DSD. it will also make it harder to measure stuff. and just that would make me dislike MQA. the license on the format is another reason. how R&D should be focused on things that could really improve listening experience would be another personal reason. having to get a MQA DAC is another one. and no matter how it's presented, MQA is asking for money to allow manufacturers to implement it in their devices, and indirectly we'll be the ones paying for it. even if there was a clear audible benefit to MQA(and that hasn't been established objectively at this time), all those other reasons would still make me wish MQA didn't exist. so as you can see, my opinion isn't as simple as believing it sounds better or not.


----------



## oldmate

This is all I need to know about MQA.
  
 http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=35624
  
 Anything marketed under and protected by a registered trade name is bad for all of us.
  
There is more to this than "improved" sound quality.


----------



## oldmate

Edited.


----------



## sonitus mirus

oldmate said:


> This is all I need to know about MQA.
> 
> http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=35624
> 
> ...


 
  
 It has been brought up recently.
  
 http://www.head-fi.org/t/733233/tidal-lossless-streaming/3165#post_13166552
  
 http://www.head-fi.org/t/745608/mqa-revolutionary-british-streaming-technology/660#post_13166546
  
 http://www.head-fi.org/t/805832/new-dragonfly-black-and-red-discussion/2445#post_13171124
  
 http://www.head-fi.org/t/784602/chord-mojo-dac-amp-faq-in-3rd-post/29100#post_13171127


----------



## oldmate

Ok, thanks.


----------



## jagwap

oldmate said:


> This is all I need to know about MQA.
> 
> http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=35624
> 
> ...




What, like Compact Disc?

Philips R&D department in Eidhoven was effectively funded by the liscence fee from that for 20 years. Kept Philips going. Now Philips consumer audio is owned by Gibson, and their TVs are chinese owned. Eindhoven was a centre of excellence for tv innovation.

This industry needs to make money, or this forum will be just moaning about the good old days when there were products.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> This industry needs to make money, or this forum will be just moaning about the good old days when there were products.


 
  
 Sure, but CD really was revolutionary.  It was a game changer, revolutionized the whole industry.
  
 It was objectively superior in terms of measurements and convenience.  No flipping records, instant track FFWD!  No rewinding!  No tape wearing out!
  
 It obviously sounded different than LPs or cassettes.  No popping or ticks!  No tape hiss!
  
 MQA doesn't tick near as many boxes.


----------



## watchnerd

Well, this is certainly something that's not very pretty for a hot new format:
  

  
 Taken from Archimago's recent post: http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/01/comparison-tidal-mqa-music-high.html


----------



## ThomasHK

watchnerd said:


> Well, this is certainly something that's not very pretty for a hot new format:
> 
> 
> 
> Taken from Archimago's recent post: http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/01/comparison-tidal-mqa-music-high.html


 
 Actually, that's exactly what you would expect. Without the software decoding, the folding process leads to a higher noise floor when played back. That's by design and means the format is reverse compatible with 44.1/48 kHz capable DACs. The outcome is as I (and others) expected: the folding process is a neat (all be it) lossy process that allows to capture higher res formats in a smaller container. Will it sound better than the original high res file? Absolutely not. Will it sound better than a 44.1/48 kHz downsampled version? I don't believe it will and so far studies on High Res vs. CD have been not very positive now have they


----------



## watchnerd

thomashk said:


> Actually, that's exactly what you would expect. Without the software decoding, the folding process leads to a higher noise floor when played back. That's by design and means the format is reverse compatible with 44.1/48 kHz capable DACs. The outcome is as I (and others) expected: the folding process is a neat (all be it) lossy process that allows to capture higher res formats in a smaller container. Will it sound better than the original high res file? Absolutely not. Will it sound better than a 44.1/48 kHz downsampled version? I don't believe it will and so far studies on High Res vs. CD have been not very positive now have they


 
  
 I agree, it is exactly what I expect.
  
 Which is why I think MQA is stupid.
  
 It's not better than the original high resolution file.
  
 Undecoded, it's worse than Redbook.
  
 File size for streaming? Really not an issue today.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Sure, but CD really was revolutionary.  It was a game changer, revolutionized the whole industry.
> 
> It was objectively superior in terms of measurements and convenience.  No flipping records, instant track FFWD!  No rewinding!  No tape wearing out!
> 
> ...




But if it mayve ticks some, why be so boolean?


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> But if it mayve ticks some, why be so boolean?


 
  
 What boxes does it tick for the masses who don't care about high resolution?


----------



## jagwap

What boxes did CD tick for cassette fans, or hipsters who love vinyl.
  
 CD took a long time to catch on with the masses.  Saturation occurred more than ten years after launch.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> What boxes did CD tick for cassette fans, or hipsters who love vinyl.
> 
> CD took a long time to catch on with the masses.  Saturation occurred more than ten years after launch.


 
  
  
 I guess the question about what MQA is going to bring to the masses who don't care about high resolution was too hard, eh?


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> I guess the question about what MQA is going to bring to the masses who don't care about high resolution was too hard, eh?


 

 No, I'm just showing how easily your argument can be turn back on itself when it is only bias.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> No, I'm just showing how easily your argument can be turn back on itself when it is only bias.


 
  
 No, you're avoiding the question.


----------



## headfry

it's funny to me that when a genuine advancement comes in streaming music technology in the form of SQ and compatibility with all devices brings out so much contrariness, paranoia, anger and indignation. Pity. But if you look at other readers comments and forums elsewhere on different topics....same thing.
  
 as for MQA, first, the argument is that it doesn't sound any better and/or some kind of scam. Then, accusations of money grabbing and monopolization (but surely stealing music online is OK, right?). Whatever......same kind of arguments that I see against the SQ 
 of high quality digital cables - such as USB - as if Siltech, Wireworld, Anticables et al are all a bunch of thieves.
 .
  
 It's not as if other audiophile formats are going away....and Bob Stuart is not some kind of Machiavellian character.
  
 Nuanced discussion is appreciated, it's the hysteric, knee-jerk arguments from many who haven't even
 given it a fair audition.
  
  
 Anyway, all of this isn't going to rain on my parade.
  
  
 ...enjoy Tidal Masters folks!


----------



## watchnerd

headfry said:


> Nuanced discussion is appreciated, it's the hysteric, knee-jerk arguments from many who haven't even
> given it a fair audition.


 
  
 I've given it an audition.  Several, actually.
  
 It does not improve upon existing high resolution 24bit/96khz formats.
  
 So there is no advancement in sound quality.


----------



## limpidglitch

jagwap said:


> What boxes did CD tick for cassette fans, or hipsters who love vinyl.


 
  
 Better sound, track selection, no generational loss, compact size?
 All undeniable plusses, yet uptake took many years. How does MQA compare?
  
 Vinyl hipsters are more a product of the digital age, aren't they?


----------



## headfry

watchnerd said:


> I've given it an audition.  Several, actually.
> 
> It does not improve upon existing high resolution 24bit/96khz formats.
> 
> So there is no advancement in sound quality.


 

 Thanks for your reasoned and good natured feedback....which I'm all for.
  
 to my ears, both hi res and MQA sound great assuming the master's good...
 but MQA is a much smaller package suitable for streaming to a very wide audience.


----------



## sonitus mirus

watchnerd said:


> Well, this is certainly something that's not very pretty for a hot new format:
> 
> 
> 
> Taken from Archimago's recent post: http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/01/comparison-tidal-mqa-music-high.html


 
  
 Great analysis from Archimago.  I especially enjoyed his summation of "extreme audiophiles" towards the end and his jab at the press in his post scriptum.


----------



## watchnerd

sonitus mirus said:


> Great analysis from Archimago.  I especially enjoyed his summation of "extreme audiophiles" towards the end and his jab at the press in his post scriptum.


 
  
 Yeah, I loved this quote:
  
"I could care less whether the lossy "unfolding" goes out to 192kHz or 384kHz; all smoke and mirrors as far as I am concerned since it's inaudible plus lacking in decent recordings. Furthermore, even inexpensive high-resolution DACs are remarkably accurate these days so whatever tweaking is being done for individual DACs is highly dubious and more than likely perceptually meaningless. Nonsense complexity like this especially if gushingly embraced by the audiophile press will only serve to confuse the public and remind the typical music lover what they've suspected for a long time; "extreme audiophiles" are emotionally insecure obsessive-compulsives cognitively weak in performing reality testing and prone to the use of superlatives in advertising and media. Dear readers, IMO don't be an "extreme audiophile" and end up like that ."
  
 I'm in 100% agreement with him on those points.


----------



## watchnerd

headfry said:


> but MQA is a much smaller package suitable for streaming to a very wide audience.


 
  
 But that's the problem: *it isn't.*
  
 It isn't really any smaller than equivalent bit depth using SRC and dithering.
  

  
 The MQA version is *only 188 KB* smaller than the version using standard 24-96 to 24-48 SRC with dithering!  It's less than half a percent different in size.
  
 That's nothing, certainly isn't going to make a noticeable difference on consumed bandwidth, and is a lot of extra steps compared to the simpler alternative.


----------



## sonitus mirus

watchnerd said:


> But that's the problem: *it isn't.*
> 
> It isn't really any smaller than equivalent bit depth using SRC and dithering.
> 
> ...


 
  
 From my limited understanding, the benefit with MQA file size can be found with hardware decoding of 24/192 and 24/176.4.  I believe the same MQA file being streamed is "unfolded" to be played back in the HD format it originated in with a fully certified MQA DAC as has been illustrated before in the following link:  http://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-decoding-explained#k9gvYv4VEgzXcgkT.97
  
 For me, though, this is a non-issue, as I don't see any significant audible gains in either of these HD formats.  They just waste resources, at best.


----------



## watchnerd

sonitus mirus said:


> From my limited understanding, the benefit with MQA file size can be found with hardware decoding of 24/192 and 24/176.4.  I believe the same MQA file being streamed is "unfolded" to be played back in the HD format it originated in with a fully certified MQA DAC as has been illustrated before in the following link:  http://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-decoding-explained#k9gvYv4VEgzXcgkT.97
> 
> For me, though, this is a non-issue, as I don't see any significant audible gains in either of these HD formats.  They just waste resources, at best.


 
  
 This comes back to what Archimago said:
  
 Do you really care about that ultrasonic content?


----------



## eio

watchnerd said:


> Taken from Archimago's recent post: http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/01/comparison-tidal-mqa-music-high.html


 
 finally a decoded test.
 audio diff looks good, compression rate over 24/96 looks reasonable but not excellent.
  
 looks like it might not have a clear advantage over a 17~18 bit dithered flac.


----------



## headfry

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/06/an-inconvenient-truth-mqa-sounds-better/


----------



## watchnerd

headfry said:


> http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/06/an-inconvenient-truth-mqa-sounds-better/


 
  
 Sighted listening test.


----------



## headfry

and just so happens to mirror what I hear and many others do as well.


----------



## watchnerd

headfry said:


> ...and mirrors what I'm hearing and what many others do as well.


 
  
 But this is Sound Science, where sighted listening tests are considered less valid.


----------



## RRod

headfry said:


> and just so happens to mirror what I hear and many others do as well.


 
  
 Maybe a testimonial is good data, maybe it isn't. You need control to make data useful for science. Archimago has put effort into controlling things, so I put more weight into his assessment than a whole slew of uncontrolled assessments across the internet.


----------



## icebear

headfry said:


> http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/06/an-inconvenient-truth-mqa-sounds-better/


 
  
  


headfry said:


> and just so happens to mirror what I hear and many others do as well.


 

 All good and fine ... given them [MQA] the doubt that they are on to something here, i.e. post processing the orig. master file to eliminate some timing errors of early generation ADC's and potentially it might sound better (no solid proof delivered yet!), then obviously they can give this step to the public if they are about to "advance the art of audio reproduction"...
 BUT they are implementing a new chain of technology (encoding) rights control and make the consumer pay for all of it.
 Not from my wallet


----------



## watchnerd

icebear said:


> post processing the orig. master file to eliminate some timing errors of early generation ADC's


 
  
 Pre-ringing has nothing to do with the generation of the ADC.  It's based on the type of filter used.
  
 You can have FIR or IIR filters, which have different ringing characteristics.  Also the steepness of the slope.
  
 This has nothing to do with ADC generation, really.  It's just the signal processing math and how the _sinc_ function works.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> I've given it an audition.  Several, actually.
> 
> It does not improve upon existing high resolution 24bit/96khz formats.
> 
> So there is no advancement in sound quality.




I thought you required statisical double blind listening tests before any conclusions can be made. Sole opinions are not valid.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Sighted listening test.




Same as yours I guess.


----------



## jagwap

limpidglitch said:


> Better sound, track selection, no generational loss, compact size?
> All undeniable plusses, yet uptake took many years. How does MQA compare?
> 
> Vinyl hipsters are more a product of the digital age, aren't they?




There were plenty of vinyl fans before hipsters were invented. They had a point. Many early CD players sounded poor, and vinyl has been honed for over a hundred years. It's specs may have sucked in comparison, but it could sound great.


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> I thought you required statisical double blind listening tests before any conclusions can be made. Sole opinions are not valid.


 
  
 You are correct regarding my listening impressions.  They are not valid as data.
  
 I was merely stating the fact that I had listened as a fact, as there were claims that some on this thread weren't even listening.
  
 As for this statement:
  
 "It does not improve upon existing high resolution 24bit/96khz formats.  So there is no advancement in sound quality."
  
 That is not a listening impression.


----------



## watchnerd

LOL!


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> You are correct regarding my listening impressions.  They are not valid as data.
> 
> I was merely stating the fact that I had listened as a fact, as there were claims that some on this thread weren't even listening.
> 
> ...




More accurately perhaps:

"It has *not yet been proven to *improve upon existing high resolution 24bit/96khz formats *as far as I am aware*.  So there is no *current statisically proven evidence of * advancement in sound quality *that I personally acknowledge*."


----------



## watchnerd

jagwap said:


> More accurately perhaps:
> 
> "It has *not yet been proven to *improve upon existing high resolution 24bit/96khz formats *as far as I am aware*.  So there is no *current statisically proven evidence of * advancement in sound quality *that I personally acknowledge*."


 
  
 No, that's not my stance.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> No, that's not my stance.




I noticed. You lean in a particular direction on this.

But I was stating it in an impartial and scientific way, given it is this forum.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

.


----------



## old tech

jagwap said:


> More accurately perhaps:
> 
> "It has *not yet been proven to *improve upon existing high resolution 24bit/96khz formats *as far as I am aware*.  So there is no *current statisically proven evidence of * advancement in sound quality *that I personally acknowledge*."


 
 And there are large trial studies which could find any evidence that 24/96 improves on 16/44 for sound quality on playback.  Perhaps one day with genetic engineering and hearing implants this evidence will be forthcoming.


----------



## jagwap

old tech said:


> And there are large trial studies which could find any evidence that 24/96 improves on 16/44 for sound quality on playback.  Perhaps one day with genetic engineering and hearing implants this evidence will be forthcoming.




But this is discussing a comparison between MQA and these lossless rates. Anecdotal comments are suggesting a difference, but so far there is no scientific study this forum recognises showing this.


----------



## gregorio

headfry said:


> and just so happens to mirror what I hear and many others do as well.


 
  
_"The earth is flat." _- This statement "just so happens to mirror what I" see from my bedroom window and EVERYONE else sees from their window "as well". I've raised your "many others" with "everyone" and there we have it, unanimous confirmation that the earth is indeed flat!!
  
 Do you really believe that "logic" and therefore that the earth really is flat? If not, then why apply that exact same "logic" here in the SCIENCE forum? Or if you do believe the earth is flat, why are you even here in the first place, don't you know that science does NOT accept that the earth is flat?
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> .


 

 ​.


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> _"The earth is flat." _- This statement "just so happens to mirror what I" see from my bedroom window and EVERYONE else sees from their window "as well". I've raised your "many others" with "everyone" and there we have it, unanimous confirmation that the earth is indeed flat!!
> 
> Do you really believe that "logic" and therefore that the earth really is flat? If not, then why apply that exact same "logic" here in the SCIENCE forum? Or if you do believe the earth is flat, why are you even here in the first place, don't you know that science does NOT accept that the earth is flat?
> 
> G


 

 ​Why is the person looking at something new the one who believes the earth is flat.  Historically it was the other way around, with very stubborn belief systems stopping people from accepting a round earth.  What if the current position is the one that can only see to the horizon, and there is more to see people "got out of the bedroom looking out of the window" and took a walk. A long one.
  
 While the reports on all this are still anecdotal, there should  be no statements of fact.


----------



## djlethal

jagwap said:


> ​Why is the person looking at something new the one who believes the earth is flat.  Historically it was the other way around, with very stubborn belief systems stopping people from accepting a round earth.  What if the current position is the one that can only see to the horizon, and there is more to see people "got out of the bedroom looking out of the window" and took a walk. A long one.
> 
> While the reports on all this are still anecdotal, there should  be no statements of fact.


 
  
 archimago's blog post is anything but anecdotal. It's as close to a scientific test as you can get without the encoder itself.
  
 If you can't acknowledge that, I don't think your arguments belong in this forum.


----------



## jagwap

djlethal said:


> archimago's blog post is anything but anecdotal. It's as close to a scientific test as you can get without the encoder itself.
> 
> If you can't acknowledge that, I don't think your arguments belong in this forum.




I can acknowledge that. He's doing good work. He's getting more and more information out there on the numbers regarding MQA.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> ​Why is the person looking at something new the one who believes the earth is flat.


 
  
 That person is not necessary the one who believes the earth is flat, UNLESS: They're publishing conclusions based solely on false information and/or their perception!
  


jagwap said:


> While the reports on all this are still anecdotal, there should  be no statements of fact.


 
  
 Agreed, but here's the problem: There have been many "statements of fact" already, from Bob Stuart himself. Many of which are demonstrably false or more accurately, the individual facts themselves are true but the relationship between them and the conclusions stated/implied are deliberately false. For example, "since the 1950's CO2 levels have increased significantly" and "since the 1950's obesity levels have increased significantly". Both these statements are indeed true facts but relating them incorrectly and drawing the conclusion of; "therefore CO2 causes obesity" is false. Or, "As ice-cream consumption increases, the number of drowning deaths increases" is a true fact but then stating or implying "therefore, eating ice-cream causes drowning" appears to be an entirely logical conclusion but is of course complete nonsense. ... Notice I said above "deliberately" false, because it's inconceivable that Bob Stuart actually believes these false relationships/conclusions are true (either his own published "facts" or my quoted examples!).
  
 This begs the question, why publish so many deliberately false facts? The almost inescapable answer is: 1. There are not any/enough true facts to support the marketing claims and reason for MQA to exist and 2. They do not expect their target consumers to realise these "facts" are false.
  
 I cannot say with absolute certainly that MQA is snake oil. All I can honestly say is that the official presented "facts" very strongly suggest that it is and therefore I'm going to require some quite exceptional evidence to convince me that MQA is legitimate. And by "exceptional evidence", I most definitely do not mean; subjective testimonials from those justifying/validating/supporting their observations (biased opinions) with the supplied false "facts" (marketing), regardless of who is supplying such testimonials or how many!!!!
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> That person is not necessary the one who believes the earth is flat, UNLESS: They're publishing conclusions based solely on false information and/or their perception!
> 
> 
> Agreed, but here's the problem: There have been many "statements of facts" already, from Bob Stuart himself. Many of which are demonstrably false or more accurately, the individual facts themselves are true but the relationship between them and the conclusions stated/implied are deliberately false. For example, "since the 1950's CO2 levels have increased significantly" and "since the 1950's obesity levels have increased significantly". Both these statements are indeed true facts but relating them incorrectly and drawing the conclusion of; "therefore CO2 causes obesity" is false. Or, "As ice-cream consumption increases, the number of drowning deaths increases" is a true fact but then stating or implying "therefore, eating ice-cream causes drowning" appears to be an entirely logical conclusion but is of course complete nonsense. ... Notice I said above "deliberately" false, because it's inconceivable that Bob Stuart actually believes these false relationships/conclusions are true (either his own published "facts" or my quoted examples!).
> ...




I won't dispute any of that. Thank you for a well thought out answer. Better than most recently.

I haven't seen the deliberate false facts from Mr. Stuart. Or if I have I did not interpret them as definately false, but I can take on face value that you do. The original marketing was just that: marketing.

I do not say MQA is an improved audio reproduction, but I wait to see if it is. I will not right it off, just because it does not sit right with my current thinking.

Until we can fool people in double blind tests that reproduced audio and music is indistinguishable from reality, our work is not done. It is nowhere near that stage yet.


----------



## limpidglitch

jagwap said:


> There were plenty of vinyl fans before hipsters were invented. They had a point. Many early CD players sounded poor, and vinyl has been honed for over a hundred years. It's specs may have sucked in comparison, but it could sound great.


  
 Sure.
 Now, what about watchnerds original question?
  
  
 Quote:


jagwap said:


> ​Why is the person looking at something new the one who believes the earth is flat.  Historically it was the other way around, with very stubborn belief systems stopping people from accepting a round earth.  What if the current position is the one that can only see to the horizon, and there is more to see people "got out of the bedroom looking out of the window" and took a walk. A long one.
> 
> While the reports on all this are still anecdotal, there should  be no statements of fact.


 
  
 I think you have this backwards.
 Round earth is the the old stance, going as far back as we have recorded history.
 Flat earth is the new idea, propounded by contemporary jokers and eccentrics.


----------



## jagwap

limpidglitch said:


> I think you have this backwards.
> Round earth is the the old stance, going as far back as we have recorded history.
> 
> Flat earth is the new idea, propounded by contemporary jokers and eccentrics.




No.

Next you'll be telling us it's turtles all the way down!


----------



## limpidglitch

jagwap said:


> No.
> 
> Next you'll be telling us it's turtles all the way down!


 
  
 Well maybe there are 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




  
 Belief in a flat earth was common way way back when, before we undertook longer ocean travels, true.
 But ever since the Hellenistic and early christian era it has been very much a fringe position.
 I might have exaggerated with the "written history" point, neglecting that it goes back more than a couple of thousand years in most cultures.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> Yeah, I loved this quote:
> 
> "I could care less whether the lossy "unfolding" goes out to 192kHz or 384kHz; all smoke and mirrors as far as I am concerned since it's inaudible plus lacking in decent recordings. Furthermore, even inexpensive high-resolution DACs are remarkably accurate these days so whatever tweaking is being done for individual DACs is highly dubious and more than likely perceptually meaningless. Nonsense complexity like this especially if gushingly embraced by the audiophile press will only serve to confuse the public and remind the typical music lover what they've suspected for a long time; "extreme audiophiles" are emotionally insecure obsessive-compulsives cognitively weak in performing reality testing and prone to the use of superlatives in advertising and media. Dear readers, IMO don't be an "extreme audiophile" and end up like that ."
> 
> I'm in 100% agreement with him on those points.


 

 Where is his statistcal DBT you require?  Him and his wife, who lost interest, and he didn;t use an MQA decoding DAC.


----------



## jagwap

limpidglitch said:


> Well maybe there are
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

 So flat earth is the older stance.
  
 Anyway, it is a bad analogy and just insulting to those it is aimed at.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

I'll part ways with an analogy:

Researchers: People walking over this ditch are prone to fall into it without realizing it, and start having hallucinations of being kidnapped by Martians.

Everyone else: (from the bottom of the ditch) I walked over the ditch and I feel just fine! What a load of hogwash! Oh but look at this Martian trying to kidnap me! And they said there were no Martians! What a bunch of morons!


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> I'll part ways with an analogy:
> 
> Researchers: People walking over this ditch are prone to fall into it without realizing it, and start having hallucinations of being kidnapped by Martians.
> 
> Everyone else: (from the bottom of the ditch) I walked over the ditch and I feel just fine! What a load of hogwash! Oh but look at this Martian trying to kidnap me! And they said there were no Martians! What a bunch of morons!


 

 Nurse? I'll have what he's having!


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> I haven't seen the deliberate false facts from Mr. Stuart. Or if I have I did not interpret them as definately false ...


 
  
 I gave you just such an example of a false statement/conclusion earlier in the thread (post #489). There are one or two obvious factual errors but actually it's a very cleverly written article with very few factual errors that I can easily spot. I say "easily spot" because the author has presented much of the data in very convoluted ways, using atypical scales and measurements, where the only purpose appears to be a deliberate attempt to make it far more difficult than it should be to interpret that data. The more obvious falsehoods come in the form of conflating different things. For example, computational neuroscience models and potential areas of speculation/research suggested by those models, presented as actual evidence of what we can hear, as well as the aforementioned factual errors such as: "_A central axiom of MQA is that sound we hear is analogue; digital technology is most useful for storage, transformation or transmission_." - Oh dear, I hope that's not a central axiom of MQA because the sound we hear is obviously acoustic, NOT analogue, unless everyone has an electrical input instead of ears which I don't know about?!
  
 G


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> gregorio said:
> 
> 
> > _"The earth is flat." _- This statement "just so happens to mirror what I" see from my bedroom window and EVERYONE else sees from their window "as well". I've raised your "many others" with "everyone" and there we have it, unanimous confirmation that the earth is indeed flat!!
> ...


 
 I believe that this is a good remark.
 we are never sure that the models we call truth will never be disproved or at least improved over time. actual scientists know that better than anybody else.
 now does it change what we should count as relevant and make everybody accept anything just in case? of course not. the requirements to get strong confidence don't change. there is a difference between never totally closing an investigating file, and opening a new one anytime a random guy comes with some empty claim. of course we could, but we really don't have to.
 if Meridian wished to show objective improvement, they would show them instead of just saying they exist or that they strongly believe it matters. 
 want to test audibility, do it with blind tests, not with sighted Pavlov like situations, waiting for the light signal to tell us what to feel.
  
 also there are a few things we're pretty confident about already because of actual research and controlled testing. like how the average guy doesn't hear a difference with more samples past a certain level. which is too bad as it's at the core of MQA format and is something that again, they say they feel is making a difference when the evidence we do have is suggesting they are wrong.
  
 so what reason would a guy like me have for "opening" his mind to the idea that they're right? the fact that Bob looks like such a nice dude? I'm not really moved by that. advertising was never my favorite source of facts. or should I care about the few guys saying they clearly hear a difference, but don't have a clue as to why blind testing is a necessity? again, not the most convincing source of relevant information.
 so you're right, there should be no statements of fact, with that I agree wholeheartedly. on all sides we jump to conclusions way too fast. but back to my file opening point, I could care and consider the ideas and testimonies from uncontrolled tests, but because there is no actual evidence of anything, I don't have to. my point isn't that I know for a fact that MQA can't sound different, my point is that so far it's an empty claim and that's how people should treat it IMO.


----------



## watchnerd

castleofargh said:


> I believe that this is a good remark.
> we are never sure that the models we call truth will never be disproved or at least improved over time. actual scientists know that better than anybody else.
> now does it change what we should count as relevant and make everybody accept anything just in case? of course not. the requirements to get strong confidence don't change. there is a difference between never totally closing an investigating file, and opening a new one anytime a random guy comes with some empty claim. of course we could, but we really don't have to.
> if Meridian wished to show objective improvement, they would show them instead of just saying they exist or that they strongly believe it matters.
> ...


 
  
 We're not starting from zero here.
  
 As you said, there has been ample listening test data showing that 320kps is transparent to Redbook, and that high resolution is transparent to Redbook.
  
 In the face of such precedent, the burden of proof is to establish that MQA actually makes an audible quality difference.
  
 I'm open to new data, but when there is ton of prior existing data on one side, and very little to zero on the other, cries for "balance" are ignoring the preponderance of pre-existing evidence that is already part of the literature.
  
 When/if there is more data credible data from MQA on audibility, I will re-evaluate in light of prior studies.  
  
 But in the mean time I remain skeptical due to findings from prior research.
  
 *(unless MQA is intentionally delivering non-flat FR in the audible range, in which case a whole different debate ensues about whether that is appropriate or not)


----------



## Morkai

Step 1) Come up with a ******** proprietary audio technology
 Step 2) Convince Jay-Z to back-it up through the failure that is tidal. 
 Step 3) ???
 Step 4) PROFIT !!!


 Btw I too did buy a meridian explorer² just to test MQA. I too thought there was a difference.. until I abxed it. From then on, no difference could be heard. Same story each and everytime.
 All you "subjective" audiophile have nothing against A/B test right ? Then explain me why you need to see which device is playing to tell the difference ! 


 I can make my cat eat veterinary tablets just by making acting like it's a yummy yummy gift. 


 Glad to see meridian can do the same thing with you people.


----------



## VNandor

watchnerd said:


> We're not starting from zero here.
> 
> *As you said, there has been ample listening test data showing that 320kps is transparent to Redbook, and that high resolution is transparent to Redbook.*
> 
> ...


 
 This statement like this is not true. There are some samples which can't be encoded properly by even aac which is as far as i know the best lossy codec out there. I'm sure quite a few people could abx it if they tried hard enough with "proper" equipment. I can dig up the link to the said sample if you don't believe me and try it for yourself.
  
 Edit: It is true that testing were done but its conclusion does not always hold true.


----------



## RRod

vnandor said:


> This statement like this is not true. There are some samples which can't be encoded properly by even aac which is as far as i know the best lossy codec out there. I'm sure quite a few people could abx it if they tried hard enough with "proper" equipment. I can dig up the link to the said sample if you don't beleive me and try it for yourself.


 
  
 Exceptions that prove the rule, though. The fact that one can point to specific samples shows just how hard it is to find things that break the lossy codecs at higher bitrates. If the other side were saying "man there are these certain bits of tracks where I can eek out a bit of difference" then we'd have a different discussion, but typically it's "man, XYZ format sounds SOOOOO much better on EVERY track than ABC format!"


----------



## watchnerd

vnandor said:


> This statement like this is not true. There are some samples which can't be encoded properly by even aac which is as far as i know the best lossy codec out there. I'm sure quite a few people could abx it if they tried hard enough with "proper" equipment. I can dig up the link to the said sample if you don't beleive me and try it for yourself.


 
  
 Please provides the published test that provides contradictory evidence.
  
 As an aside, since both MP3 and AAC uses pyschoacoustic models based on music, it wouldn't be surprising if some weird, non-music corner case is not transparent.


----------



## watchnerd

vnandor said:


> This statement like this is not true.


 
  
 Also, it was a two part statement, covering both lossy vs Redbook and Redbook vs high resolution.
  
 For the MQA case, the Redbook vs high resolution comparison is the more relevant of the two.


----------



## VNandor

watchnerd said:


> Please provides the published test that provides contradictory evidence.
> 
> As an aside, since both MP3 and AAC uses pyschoacoustic models based on music, it wouldn't be surprising if some weird, non-music corner case is not transparent.


 

 Would it count if I properly published my findings in one of head-fi's thread?
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 The sample I'm talking about is taken from electronic music, granted.


----------



## watchnerd

vnandor said:


> Would it count if I properly published my findings in one of head-fi's thread?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
  
 File links? Online samples?  Something?


----------



## VNandor

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,49601.0.html
  
 eig.wv was the easiest to me (and the only one I tested with aac as well).
  
 I used dbpoweramp for the encoding, 320kbit cbr aac.
 For the testing I used foobar's abx plugin with no dsp applied. I did a 12/15 but couldn't take 15 trials in a row so it was actually 3x 4/5.
  
 I realize lossy vs. lossless doesn't have much to do with this thread, I just thought I would point it out they aren't always sounding the same.


----------



## castleofargh

vnandor said:


> watchnerd said:
> 
> 
> > We're not starting from zero here.
> ...


 

 the important nuance here is the test and if it will give the same result on all players and DACs(thus showing it's actually the file making the audible difference).
 if the test is your favorite music at normal listening level, then it's really hard to A/B even on lossy files at 320(and probably a little below).
 now if you use specific test signals and try to find a fault, it's always possible. after all there is an objective difference, all we need is find the situation where it turns out to also be audible.
 I've had experiences where mp3 wasn't transparent, and also when 16/44 and highres didn't sound the same. but the vast majority of those situations could be solved with a little thinking(levels, computer set up, another converter....), another player, or another DAC. the file alone is rarely the cause for audible differences in my experience. but of course if I didn't care to look for reasons, and wished really hard for highres to sound better, I would probably have stopped at "I heard a difference, I knew it, highres rox".  in fact I believe that several testimonies about highres are from people who heard windows resampler or a crappy 44.1 filter on their DAC. and that's why abx fails even when they really heard a difference, because a proper abx will usually have both files in a container at the same resolution.


----------



## watchnerd

castleofargh said:


> in fact I believe that several testimonies about highres are from people who heard windows resampler or a crappy 44.1 filter on their DAC. and that's why abx fails even when they really heard a difference, because a proper abx will usually have both files in a container at the same resolution.


 
  
 Yes, there is also the important Non-Oversampling DAC / No Filter DAC caveat.


----------



## Gringo

gregorio said:


> I gave you just such an example of a false statement/conclusion earlier in the thread (post #489). There are one or two obvious factual errors but actually it's a very cleverly written article with very few factual errors that I can easily spot. I say "easily spot" because the author has presented much of the data in very convoluted ways, using atypical scales and measurements, where the only purpose appears to be a deliberate attempt to make it far more difficult than it should be to interpret that data. The more obvious falsehoods come in the form of conflating different things. For example, computational neuroscience models and potential areas of speculation/research suggested by those models, presented as actual evidence of what we can hear, as well as the aforementioned factual errors such as: "_A central axiom of MQA is that sound we hear is analogue; digital technology is most useful for storage, transformation or transmission_." - Oh dear, I hope that's not a central axiom of MQA because the sound we hear is obviously acoustic, NOT analogue, unless everyone has an electrical input instead of ears which I don't know about?!
> 
> G




So often comments made in this thread are presented as science but are actually just opinions and speculation.
"presented much of the data in very convoluted ways..." this is simply an opinion 

"... where the only purpose appears to be deliberate attempt to make it far more difficult than it should be to interpret that data." again this is an opinion betraying what some might argue is inherent bias.

Acoustic sound waves we hear are analogue. I have an analogue watch which outputs movement and audible ticks and it does not contain a battery.

I could put much more weight to all the supposedly "scientific arguments" throughout this thread if they were presented better. Comments such as unproven, doubtful, requires verifying evidence, contry to the evidence published (reference provided) etc. are much more meaningful. Question and challenge claims/arguments robustly but casting aspersions is simply not helpful 

No insults or offence is intended, just my reflections


----------



## watchnerd

I'm a firm believer that DSP, both in the form of active speakers with DSP crossovers and for room EQ, is the future direction of meaningful improvements in home audio playback.
  
 This runs from modestly ambitious speakers like the KEF LS50 Wireless up to the Kii Three and finally to cost-no-object speakers like the Beolab 90.
  
 None of these concepts are MQA compatible.
  
 This disqualifies MQA for those interested in such platforms and locks MQA HW buyers into old architectures based on passive transducers.


----------



## Gringo

watchnerd said:
  
 "I'm a firm believer that DSP, both in the form of active speakers with DSP crossovers and for room EQ, is the future direction of meaningful improvements in home audio playback.
  
 This runs from modestly ambitious speakers like the KEF LS50 Wireless up to the Kii Three and finally to cost-no-object speakers like the Beolab 90.
  
 None of these concepts are MQA compatible.
  
 This disqualifies MQA for those interested in such platforms and locks MQA HW buyers into old architectures based on passive transducers.
  
 I think you may well be right regarding the future of meaningful improvements in home audio playback.
  
 Meridian actually produce active DSP speakers capable of exploiting MQA when matched to an appropriate MQA enabled DAC but they are for most people prohibitively expensive. I may well be quite wrong but I can't see KEF and B&O rushing anytime soon to embrace MQA.
  
 I have heard it said that one of the reasons MQA was completely split off from Meridian was to try and make MQA a more palatable option for Meridian's market competitors. I think only if MQA really does take off in a very significant way will the likes of Keff, B&O, Linn etc. embrace it and the jury is still out on that one and many on this forum believe is doomed to failure.
  
 I also understand that there are over 600 MQA titles available on Tidal and that Warner are planning to release over 30,000 titles.  It will still in my opinion need the other major record labels plus Spotify and Apple to do likewise for MQA to really succeed.
  
 No insults or offence is intended, just my reflections


----------



## castleofargh

@Gringo the name of this section is not ideal IMO. but it's fairly obvious that not everybody is a scientist and that it's not the purpose of this section. ideally we try to stick to consensus and more or less basic principles of the scientific method. most of all we try to make clear what is objective and what is subjective. but that's the ideal situation, there is no actual rule forcing people to back up their claims(and that's really annoying sometimes). so without evidence, as you say, it's proper to treat everything as opinions. that's probably the best advice one can give in life.
  
  
 about DSP it's not impossible, they only need to decode the salsa, then apply DSPs, and after that, go do the actual DAC job. so software decoding of MQA will give options. but for whatever unclear stuff they do with the full MQA package and hardware decoding in the DAC, that will not make things simple. but hey, many people are ok with DSD so everything is possible.


----------



## watchnerd

castleofargh said:


> many people are ok with DSD so everything is possible.


 
  
 Do any of the recent digital input active speakers natively handle DSD, either?
  
 I've only read about them handling 24/192 PCM.


----------



## gregorio

gringo said:


> ... this is simply an opinion
> 
> No insults or offence is intended, just my reflections


 
  
 Your "reflections" are valid but my opinions are not?
  


gringo said:


> Acoustic sound waves we hear are analogue.


 
  
 What are acoustic sound waves analogous to?
  
 G


----------



## watchnerd

gregorio said:


> Your "reflections" are valid but my opinions are not?
> 
> 
> What are acoustic sound waves analogous to?
> ...


 
  
 Come on, guys.  
  
 Don't get into some stupid semantics battle on the meaning of the word 'analog' when it comes to real world sound traveling through the air.
  
 It has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.


----------



## Gringo

Totally agree, I have no intentions of playing semantics and will leave it there and let others interpret what they thought regarding the validity of my comments one way or the other.


----------



## old tech

It may be semantics but this is a sound science forum.  We do not hear analog (we can't hear electrons down a wire or magnetic tape particles) and acoustic sound is not analog.
  
 The way humans hear acoustic sound is a combination of analog and psuedo digital (ie the on/off firing of hair cells and neurons), but that is by the way.


----------



## watchnerd

old tech said:


> It may be semantics but this is a sound science forum.  We do not hear analog (we can't hear electrons down a wire or magnetic tape particles) and acoustic sound is not analog.
> 
> The way humans hear acoustic sound is a combination of analog and psuedo digital (ie the on/off firing of hair cells and neurons), but that is by the way.


 
  
 If you guys want to debate how we hear and what to call it, as a courtesy to the rest of us who want to talk MQA, do you mind creating a separate thread?


----------



## old tech

jagwap said:


> But this is discussing a comparison between MQA and these lossless rates. Anecdotal comments are suggesting a difference, but so far there is no scientific study this forum recognises showing this.


 
 Yes, that is what I was getting at - perhaps in a cryptic manner.


----------



## jagwap

watchnerd said:


> I'm a firm believer that DSP, both in the form of active speakers with DSP crossovers and for room EQ, is the future direction of meaningful improvements in home audio playback.
> 
> This runs from modestly ambitious speakers like the KEF LS50 Wireless up to the Kii Three and finally to cost-no-object speakers like the Beolab 90.
> 
> ...


 
  


watchnerd said:


> Do any of the recent digital input active speakers natively handle DSD, either?
> 
> I've only read about them handling 24/192 PCM.


 

 Yes, some from Sony: SRS-X9, Yamaha NX-N500. Of course it may be a DSD to PCM conversion.  Hard to say without detailed electrical measurements, which a rare thing with active speakers.
  
 There is nothing particularly difficult about add DSD or MQA to active speakers.
  
 Edit: Oh, of course multiple Meridian speakers have MQA.


----------



## jagwap

gringo said:


> watchnerd said:
> 
> "I'm a firm believer that DSP, both in the form of active speakers with DSP crossovers and for room EQ, is the future direction of meaningful improvements in home audio playback.
> 
> ...


 

 I wouldn't rule out B&O.  A bunch of very smart engineers unfortunately being decimated by large redundancies, and the company is for sale.  B&O Play is another beast entirely: almost all engineering is done by Chinese and Taiwanese design houses.  
  
 Linn and Naim are Meridian competitors, so it will be interesting.  B&W less so.  Harman may be a bit busy with a re-org after Samsung bought them.
  
 But for sizeable penetration you need the likes of Sony, Panasonic, Samsung/Harman, LG, Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer... Wait, the last two already have MQA products out!


----------



## Dadracer

I have been a Tidal HiFi convert for a couple of years now to the point where it has become my main source of audio/music over my physical media sources of Vinyl and CD. It is just so easy to use and the choice is so much wider than my own collection of discs.
  
 So then I was of course very interested in the possibility of MQA, despite having no relevant hardware on either of my systems.
  
 I therefore "invested" in a Meridian Explorer2 as a toe in the water exercise to try it and see if I could determine a difference and then if that difference was preferable to the system I had for Tidal streaming.
  
 In short then yes there is a difference and yes it is preferable to red book in the albums I have heard so far. It is not a complete answer as the number of MQA albums as Tidal Masters is relatively small in comparison to the Tidal HiFi collection but I am sure that will grow over time to hopefully include some of my favourites. I appreciate that there are also MQA albums for download, but I am not a great fan of downloads from their pricing as 1 album can be most of a months Tidal subscription, but that will be different for different folks to choose.
  
 So in conclusion and for today, I am pleasantly surprised with MQA right now and would recommend folks to try it in their systems as an ME2 is not expensive (you can get it on Amazon at a discount!!!) and hopefully it will succeed and go on to even better things.


----------



## gregorio

dadracer said:


> [1] So then I was of course very interested in the possibility of MQA, despite having no relevant hardware on either of my systems.
> 
> [2] In short then yes there is a difference and yes it is preferable to red book in the albums I have heard so far.
> 
> [3] So in conclusion and for today, I am pleasantly surprised with MQA right now [4] and would recommend folks to try it in their systems as an ME2 is not expensive (you can get it on Amazon at a discount!!!) and hopefully it will succeed and go on to even better things.


 
  
 1. Why were you "of course" very interested in MQA?
  
 2. Yes, of course there is a difference. For starters, one obvious difference is that a blue light comes on with an MQA stream. No one is suggesting that switching on a blue light is the only thing that MQA does, for one thing, it's effectively a lossy compression format.  As such, it can't actually be better than the CD or another format original it's encoding/compressing, it can ONLY be worse. The two main questions we therefore have here in the science forum are: A. How much worse? Is it audibly worse or are the deficiencies only measurable rather than audible? and B. Is it actually more functional than the data compressed formats which already exist? Answering these two questions would go a long way to answering the ultimate question as far as MQA is concerned: Is it of any actual benefit to the consumer or is it effectively nothing more than a snake oil marketing exercise?
  
 3. I'm not questioning your stated preference or that you're pleasantly surprised, I'm only questioning what's caused it. As MQA can't actually be better, at best only audibly indistinguishable (the same), the only possible explanation is one of the following: 1. The MQA files/streams you've heard are not the same masters as your red book albums, 2. You personally have found lower fidelity ("worse") to be "preferable" in the streams you've heard or 3. That blue light has created a bias/placebo effect which is affecting your perception.
  
 4. This recommendation is indicative of either: 1. Someone who realises they've been suckered by the marketing/shills and wants others to be in the same boat, 2. Someone who doesn't yet realise they've been suckered and is therefore giving misleading advice, or 3. A shill. ... If you have any new information/evidence, info/evidence acceptable in this forum (IE. NOT sighted/anecdotal evidence), then please post it. That would be both helpful to this thread and avoid the current indication of your contribution.
  
 G


----------



## Dadracer

gregorio said:


> dadracer said:
> 
> 
> > [1] So then I was of course very interested in the possibility of MQA, despite having no relevant hardware on either of my systems.
> ...


 
 Thanks for your kind diatribe, and in answer to your questions........
  
 1.Why can I not be very interested? I mentioned that I had been a Tidal user for a while so the prospect of Higher Fi for the same money seemed to me at least worth trying out.
  
 2. Unlike yourself I am not an expert on how digital formats operate but it was my understanding that MQA is not merely a lossy compression format. Also can you then educate me why it is impossible for MQA to be better than red book in a simple fashion so that I will be able to understand it. I cannot answer your other questions regarding measurements and the science of MQA, but it sounds like you have all the answers already so could you share them with me?
  
 3. Ok, if you are not questioning my stated preference........then why are you questioning my stated preference? It might not agree with what you have heard ( i presume here that you have made this comparison for yourself) but it does not make it any less true to my ears. Remind me again why MQA streams cannot be better than red book?
  
 4. None of the above. I just honestly stated what my experience was. I have no connection with MQA or Meridian, and I apologise as it has so clearly offended you that you have been moved to such a tantrum. I thought one of the greatest strengths of Head Fi forums was for people to send in their thoughts and feedback on new kit without the need for double blind clinical trial data published in a peer reviewed journal.


----------



## 435279

@Dadracer
  
 Thank you for sharing your views about MQA.
  
 I'm listening to Tidal MQA too and I'm also, like you enjoying it very much. I'm not comparing it to any other format, just listening to it for what it is.
  
 After all isn't that what this hobby/common interest of ours all about.


----------



## Dadracer

steveoliver said:


> @Dadracer
> 
> Thank you for sharing your views about MQA.
> 
> ...


 
 Well yes up until about an hour ago, thank you.


----------



## 435279

dadracer said:


> Well yes up until about an hour ago, thank you.


 

 No problem, we all have different views and opinions. Don't let others alter or affect yours too much, only you really know what you like to listen to.


----------



## VNandor

dadracer said:


> I thought one of the greatest strengths of Head Fi forums was for people to send in their thoughts and feedback on new kit without the need for double blind clinical trial data published in a peer reviewed journal.


 
 This is the only sub-forum of Head-Fi where if you say this sound better than that, you can be asked (in a good manner) to provide evidence. It can be a listening test where you try to eliminate as much bias as you can, links to such tests that has been already done, or at least some insight of why it could sound better etc... People usually come here because they think this is the minimum standard to have a meaningful discussion. Of course, noone can force you to try to prove the difference you heard came from the the different file formats but if you think sighted evaluation trumps it all, then please consider NOT posting in this sub-forum.
  
 Maybe you can ask a moderator to move this thread out of sound science forum, or you can start a new one (not here) so people won't jump on you yelling "blind-test or didn't happen."


----------



## Dadracer

vnandor said:


> dadracer said:
> 
> 
> > I thought one of the greatest strengths of Head Fi forums was for people to send in their thoughts and feedback on new kit without the need for double blind clinical trial data published in a peer reviewed journal.
> ...


 
 Perhaps if I had been asked in a "good manner" rather than being called a shill I might have been less dismayed.
  
 Fair enough, although in my defence I didn't appreciate this was a sub forum as I was merely looking for an active MQA discussion thread and certainly not for one devoted to confirmed scientific data only. Consequently I will withdraw from any further posting here and to avoid upsetting anyone else.
  
 Kind regards


----------



## gregorio

dadracer said:


> 1.Why can I not be very interested? I mentioned that I had been a Tidal user for a while so the prospect of Higher Fi for the same money seemed to me at least worth trying out.
> 
> 2. ... can you then educate me why it is impossible for MQA to be better than red book in a simple fashion so that I will be able to understand it.
> 
> ...


 
  
 1. I did not state you could/should not be interested, I asked why you were interested. Your answer appears to be; "because the marketing indicated the prospect of higher fidelity".
  
 2&3. Providing it's the same recording/master as your CD, then if MQA is losslessly compressing, then the best it can be is identical, if MQA is lossy compressing then whatever it's loosing is lost permanently, IE. It cannot be recovered (A basic tenet of Shannon's Information Theorem), although that loss maybe inaudible. Either way, MQA cannot be better.
  
 4. Assuming you really are being honest (and we've no way of knowing for sure) then that narrows down the options to only one: Based on your assertion of something which is physically impossible (see 2&3 previously), your recommendation was indicative of "_2. Someone who doesn't yet realise they've been suckered and is therefore giving misleading advice_". As you haven't yet posted any info/evidence (acceptable to this sub-forum) then you haven't so far countered this indication.
  
 4a. Really, what made you think that? The proliferation of audiophile snake oil products and the marketing BS and shills which exist here on head-fi specifically to pervert peoples' "thoughts and feedback" commonly turns that "one of the greatest strengths" into one of it's greatest weaknesses and is why there's a need for a Science Forum in the first place!
  
 G


----------



## Dadracer

gregorio said:


> dadracer said:
> 
> 
> > 1.Why can I not be very interested? I mentioned that I had been a Tidal user for a while so the prospect of Higher Fi for the same money seemed to me at least worth trying out.
> ...


 
 Just as a final summation for the defence and before I go back to listening to some music.
  
 1. It's not what my answer "appears to be". It is my factual answer.
  
 2. If the master is recorded at a higher fidelity then it should sound better than a lower fidelity copy. Or am I missing something? If the master and the CD are both recorded at the same fidelity then I grant you they should sound the same.
  
 3. I don't care what you believe regarding my honesty. On the other hand as you cannot provide facts to substantiate your own conclusions then your facts are not facts no matter how much italics you use.
  
 4. Its a shame then you cannot be more welcoming or understanding if and when someone walks into the wrong sub forum.
  
 5. Out of interest where are your facts and empirical data to support your premise that MQA cannot be better than red book?
  
 Kind regards


----------



## VNandor

dadracer said:


> 5. Out of interest where are your facts and empirical data to support your premise that MQA cannot be better than red book?
> 
> Kind regards


 
 The reason why pretty much nothing (not only MQA) can be "better" than red book (16bit/44.1kHz) is because red book is practically perfect for what it is used for to begin with. It can perfectly store  bandlimited signals up to 22.05 kHz and down to -96dBFS.
  
This video explains the basics of digital audio in a comprehensible way. If you don't take his words for granted (even though the oscilloscopes confirm what he says) you can read about the math behind sampling and quantization and how it works.


----------



## cjl

vnandor said:


> The reason why pretty much nothing (not only MQA) can be "better" than red book (16bit/44.1kHz) is because red book is practically perfect for what it is used for to begin with. It can perfectly store  bandlimited signals up to 22.05 kHz and down to -96dBFS.


 
  
 I'm in a nitpicky kind of mood, so just to make sure this is perfectly accurate, redbook doesn't perfectly store signals at any level, it always adds some noise or distortion. That noise level can be well below even -96dBFS though if dither is applied intelligently, allowing encoding of signals under -100dBFS in some cases.


----------



## castleofargh

@Dadracer you don't have to leave, it's not a scientist only subsection(else I would be out ^_^).
  
 why people like me don't believe in the miracle new format(whatever it is, this time it's MQA, last time it was DSD, and soon enough something else will come from another guy who will wish to be the one to make money), is that to this day there is no clear evidence that 16/44 PCM can't be audibly transparent. so when a format claims to sound better, it's an empty claim as far as objective evidence is concerned. and it's not that the money guys pushing for highres formats didn't try to get proof of audible superiority, they actually try too hard and it shows.
  
 the other argument for MQA is that it will have new masters. well I didn't know people were forbidden to do new masters in PCM ^_^. it's not an argument in favor of MQA, it's more like blackmail to me. "if you want that great sounding master that we're releasing, you need to buy this format". and again it's really not new, DSD is often like that, many DVD audio are like that, even the old giant golden discs were using the different master trick to try and force people to join in. and in the process, fool some who don't know better with how different it's sounding. almost as if it was an entirely different mastering... oh wait!
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




  
 the last point is simply practical. the vast majority of published albums are PCM, and most of the old stuff have been saved as PCM too. so when you buy your favorite stuff, statistically, they will be PCM turned to MQA. that should make it pretty obvious why MQA won't be superior, you don't pull new digital data from a hat.  and again it's nothing new, most DSD masters come from PCM files, or at least where mastered in PCM and then converted back to DSD. and it can only be the same with MQA because you can't really apply DSPs onto a MQA file, that would ruin the code for the "origami" stuff. so on one hand the marketing argument is always that XXXXX sounds better than PCM, while the vast majority of the files come directly from PCM, or at least will be mastered as PCM. that kind of nonsense doesn't sit well with everybody, and because it's been the same game over and over since digital audio exists, some of us can't even pretend to be curious anymore.
  
  
 and that's just us consumers, because at a pro level there are other reasons for DAC manufacturers not to want to have the sister firm of Meridian(they make DACs too) to demand to know all about the secret sauce used in their DACs. several manufacturers have already said their piece on the matter and they're not all thrilled by the prospect. to say it nicely.
  
  
 so of course it's logical to be exited about new stuff, even more so with that much marketing telling us what to think. and yes they have new masters and some must sound great, after all they're counting on it to subjectively legitimize the format so I'm sure they took some care in making the first few remasters.  but as I said before, fool me once...


----------



## headfry

the real question is whether decoded MQA sound significantly better
 than Redbook and better in some ways than the same remastering
 undecoded - and compared to an album remastered the same way
 without MQA.
  
  
 I say yes - more analogue sounding, cleaner, fresher,
 more musical on a well-mastered MQA album. Blacker
 background, removal of digital hash/edge/grain....
  
 ..more tangibility of the playing and sound of the instruments....
 better soundstage/imaging/3D
  
just listening to Yours is No Disgrace from the Yes Album...
  
  
 Chris Squire's bass so well coheses the song,,,,,,he was an under rated 
 component of the band - MQA Master, Tidal decoded allows me to more fully appreciate
 the musicianship and vision of this group  - removes a major barrie. from me more fully enjoying 
 and appreciating the track or album, and more consistently.
  
  
 the sound quality, so easily achieved and convenient......greatly enhances 
 my enthusiasm and capacity for more musical enjoyment.
  
 The SQ of MQA has convinced me and thousands of others.....
 companies often fail to maintain their success long-term.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

headfry said:


> the real question is whether decoded MQA sound significantly better
> than Redbook and better in some ways than the same remastering
> undecoded - and compared to an album remastered the same way
> without MQA.




The real question is whether an unattributed quote from an unknown person* simply *asserting* various ways in which MQA better without showing any methodology by which such conclusions are arrived at should be taken as any evidence for or against the argument... 

*It wouldn't really matter WHO such unsupported assertions are attributed to, but that there isn't even a valid attribution is another nail in the coffin...


----------



## watchnerd

headfry said:


> The evidence is overwhelming . . .for quality cables


 
  
 For quality cables, yes.
  
 For expensive audiophile cables, no.
  
 Oh, and I've tried MQA.  Technical objections aside, it was not in any way such a transformative listening experience for me that would make me willing to part with more money compared to good Redbook.


----------



## castleofargh

headfry said:


> the real question is whether decoded MQA sound significantly better
> than Redbook and better in some ways than the same remastering
> undecoded - and compared to an album remastered the same way
> without MQA.
> ...


 
 come on now, next post we'll learn how MQA cures the common cold and will fill in your tax return for you every year.
 even in an appreciation thread this would look massively overkill.


----------



## gregorio

> Originally Posted by *headfry* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> [1] I've read countless diatribes against the worth of quality, higher priced USB cables from the 1's and 0's people
> [2] The evidence is overwhelming, both for quality cables ...
> ...


 
  
 1. Those people would be the digital audio people, as opposed to the people who are ignorant of what the word "digital" even means and are therefore easily suckered.
  
 2. The question isn't how much evidence there is, the question is why is there so much and what's the quality of that evidence? The answer to the former is because those selling expensive cables have marketing budgets whereas those disputing that marketing do not. The answer to the latter is easy to judge, providing one has a basic understanding of science. Shockingly, it appears that many do not and therefore give the marketing undue credence. The  fact is, that the actual scientific evidence overwhelmingly refutes the marketing BS pseudo-science of audiophile cables, etc., but requires a little effort to find and understand. Which is why this sub-forum exists!
  
 3. To treat it as the absolute truth is far sillier! Do you really believe any and all marketing presented to you and if so, how on earth do you survive? To be sceptical until there is valid scientific evidence/proof is not silly, it's prudent and is effectively why science itself was developed in the first place! Do you not believe in any science?
  
 4. Why would you ask for that when you've just effectively called us "silly"?
  


headfry said:


> [1] the real question is whether decoded MQA sound significantly better than Redbook and better in some ways than the same remastering undecoded - and compared to an album remastered the same way without MQA.
> [2] I say yes - more analogue sounding, cleaner,
> [3] The SQ of MQA has convinced me and thousands of others.....


 
  
 1. No, that's not the real question as science answered that question before MQA was even invented. It might/would appear to be a real question for those who are ignorant of the science though.
  
 2. Some audiophiles, particularly the more extreme ones, do appear to find a lower fidelity "more analogue" sound to be "better". For those of us who value high fidelity though, we want to avoid the unwanted distortions of analogue storage. Your statement contradicts itself, either MQA is less analogue sounding and therefore "cleaner" or "more analogue sounding" and dirtier.
  
 3. Many thousands of people are convinced climate change doesn't exist, that vaccines cause autism and at one time many thousands were convinced that radium and tobacco were beneficial to health, that lead in petrol was harmless, that the earth was flat. that snake oil really did relieve joint pain, etc. etc. It's really not that hard to convince thousands or even millions of people, given a sufficient marketing budget, especially if those people are ignorant of science!
  
 G


----------



## WindowsX

I'm sure many who argued in here never heard MQA playback from MQA hardware decoding capable DAC before, let alone testing products and making measurements.


----------



## pinnahertz

gregorio said:


> 3. Many thousands of people are convinced climate change doesn't exist, that vaccines cause autism and at one time many thousands were convinced that radium and tobacco were beneficial to health, that lead in petrol was harmless, that the earth was flat. that snake oil really did relieve joint pain, etc. etc. It's really not that hard to convince thousands or even millions of people, given a sufficient marketing budget, especially if those people are ignorant of science!
> 
> G


 
 Bubbles popped!  Damn.


----------



## gregorio

windowsx said:


> I'm sure many who argued in here never heard MQA playback from MQA hardware decoding capable DAC before, let alone testing products and making measurements.


 
  
 What has that got to do with anything? I'm sure many here have never measured or jumped off a skyscraper to test gravity, measured, tested and applied snake oil to see if it really does relieve joint pain, etc. We don't need to do these and countless other things because we have science, that's why science was invented! The only reason we may choose to do our own audio tests/measurements is if we wish to confirm the science or if the science indicates a result at or very close to audibility.
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> @Dadracer
> you don't have to leave, it's not a scientist only subsection(else I would be out ^_^).
> 
> why people like me don't believe in the miracle new format(whatever it is, this time it's MQA, last time it was DSD, and soon enough something else will come from another guy who will wish to be the one to make money), is that to this day there is no clear evidence that 16/44 PCM can't be audibly transparent. so when a format claims to sound better, it's an empty claim as far as objective evidence is concerned. and it's not that the money guys pushing for highres formats didn't try to get proof of audible superiority, they actually try too hard and it shows.
> ...




Ah, another well reasoned argument from you. Why can't the others here be as forthcoming, and not come across as patronising and dismissive. It may be too late and he has already unsubscribed.

I don't disagree with most of what you say as possibilities, except that there cannot be an improvement on RedBook. It smacks of earlier predictions like "there will never be a need for more than five computers worldwide" or that denying "satellites would improve phone telegraph and TV" or that anyone would "need more than 637kB of memory". Smart people said these things.

Do you really believe that in 50 - 100 years we won't have a better audio format, which is more efficient and sounds better? Maybe it encodes specific parts of the audio in a lossy fasion to enhance perception, while keeping the audio band hi res...?


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > @Dadracer
> ...




http://www.head-fi.org/t/805362/objectivists-for-sound-improvements-in-audio-technology-your-ideas-for-improving-audio
http://www.head-fi.org/t/745608/mqa-revolutionary-british-streaming-technology/690#post_13173314

People need to stop mistaking objectivist audiophiles for Luddites resisting change and advancement. The mistake can only happen because you guys always dismiss our suggestions for audio improvements out of hand and we're always reduced to arguing YOUR wild ideas instead.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

windowsx said:


> I'm sure many who argued in here never heard MQA playback from MQA hardware decoding capable DAC before, let alone testing products and making measurements.




http://www.head-fi.org/t/833439/trying-something-is-a-valid-requirement-before-dissing-it-really


----------



## WindowsX

joe bloggs said:


> http://www.head-fi.org/t/833439/trying-something-is-a-valid-requirement-before-dissing-it-really


 
  
 I think you have a messed up logic from creating a new thread from my statement about MQA. Reading your post in there really sickened me so I'll answer here.
  
 Do any of you guys know how MQA really works? Have you found the paper describing how it really works before? Is there any soul in head-fi doing MQA measurements with supported MQA hardware decoding DAC? I'm not on MQA boat for this but it's pained to see cancer people trying to blame MQA when they're clearly ignorant about how it works.
  
 Lately all cheap objectivists are trying to blame everything for the sake of getting better sound even though they have absolutely zero understanding about it. I though science forum is a place where people trying to make advancement in audio quality yet it's exactly the opposite. This thread is the proof of it. None of you guys showed any evidence about MQA will be good or bad stuff. It's all speculations in the air so let's chill out and do some real science works.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> I don't disagree with most of what you say as possibilities, except that there cannot be an improvement on RedBook. It smacks of earlier predictions like "there will never be a need for more than five computers worldwide" or that denying "satellites would improve phone telegraph and TV" or that anyone would "need more than 637kB of memory". Smart people said these things.


 
  
 Are you really going to conflate those two vastly different things? What one person with a vested financial interest predicted vs extremely well established, known scientific facts? Even they they were a smart person, smart people can sometimes say dumb things, which incidentally, is one of the main reasons why science exists in the first place! The limits of human hearing have been known for around a century and countless thousands of tests done in the ensuing century has resulted in a more detailed understanding of those limits but NO conclusive evidence which refute those limits. As Redbook easily encompasses all those limits, then it should be patently obvious that no improvement is possible until human hearing evolves higher limits or until a way is found to bypass human hearing.
  
 G


----------



## Joe Bloggs

windowsx said:


> joe bloggs said:
> 
> 
> > http://www.head-fi.org/t/833439/trying-something-is-a-valid-requirement-before-dissing-it-really
> ...




http://www.head-fi.org/t/745608/mqa-revolutionary-british-streaming-technology/810#post_13207695


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> Are you really going to conflate those two vastly different things? What one person with a vested financial interest predicted vs extremely well established, known scientific facts? Even they they were a smart person, smart people can sometimes say dumb things, which incidentally, is one of the main reasons why science exists in the first place! The limits of human hearing have been known for around a century and countless thousands of tests done in the ensuing century has resulted in a more detailed understanding of those limits but NO conclusive evidence which refute those limits. As Redbook easily encompasses all those limits, then it should be patently obvious that no improvement is possible until human hearing evolves higher limits or until a way is found to bypass human hearing.
> 
> G




No. Saying it is unlikely to improve on Redbook is fine. Saying you *Cannot* improve on it is unreasonable. 

Until real life is indistinguishable from reproduced audio it unreasonable to rule out improvements.


----------



## WindowsX

joe bloggs said:


> http://www.head-fi.org/t/745608/mqa-revolutionary-british-streaming-technology/810#post_13207695


 
  
 I checked your links, found no explanation about MQA, no test or measurement about MQA, moving out.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

jagwap said:


> gregorio said:
> 
> 
> > Are you really going to conflate those two vastly different things? What one person with a vested financial interest predicted vs extremely well established, known scientific facts? Even they they were a smart person, smart people can sometimes say dumb things, which incidentally, is one of the main reasons why science exists in the first place! The limits of human hearing have been known for around a century and countless thousands of tests done in the ensuing century has resulted in a more detailed understanding of those limits but NO conclusive evidence which refute those limits. As Redbook easily encompasses all those limits, then it should be patently obvious that no improvement is possible until human hearing evolves higher limits or until a way is found to bypass human hearing.
> ...




Recording format has little to do with current audio's limits in realism.


----------



## jagwap

joe bloggs said:


> Recording format has little to do with current audio's limits in realism.




Sure, acoustic issues are the main problem, but if they get fixed, wouldn't it be shame if the industry was ruled by decisions on this forum with people with their fingers in their ears that 16 bit 44.1kHz was enough.

Live music is more than 96dB DNR.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] No. Saying it is unlikely to improve on Redbook is fine. Saying you *Cannot* improve on it is unreasonable.
> 
> [2] Until real life is indistinguishable from reproduced audio it unreasonable to rule out improvements.


 
  
 1. I'm not saying we can't improve on 16/44.1, we can and we have. However, as those improvements are beyond the very well researched and known limits of human audibility, they are by definition, inaudible. What's really "unreasonable", is to suggest that the limits of human audibility are several (or hundreds) of times higher than nearly a century of scientific evidence demonstrates.
  
 2. Firstly, even infinite audio resolution, fidelity (or what ever you want to call it) would NOT achieve that because real life is not just audio! Science dictates that our experience of the real world is a perception manufactured by the brain from all the senses. Your statement is effectively the same as stating that: it's unreasonable to rule out improvements in multi-vitamin pills until taking one is indistinguishable from eating a meal in a fancy restaurant. Which demonstrates a quite profound misunderstanding of both the purpose of multi-vitamin pills and of human perception/experience!
  
 Secondly, the fact that audio recordings can sometimes elicit the recall of a real experience or sometime generate a moderately convincing illusion of reality, even of a "reality" which never or could never exist, is testament to 150 years or so of scientific/technological advancements as well as of advancements in the skill of those employing that technology to elicit those illusory perceptions. There certainly are further improvements possible in eliciting these perception illusions HOWEVER: 1. They are entirely concerned with the actual information we store in the container, not the size of the container. IE. To be improvements they have to be audible and as 16/44.1 is already a container big enough to store all that is audible, a bigger container cannot make be an improvement and 2. These improvements in audio technology/manipulation may be good enough to completely fool some people but they can never be indistinguishable from real life. If that's the goal, it's a goal which can never be realised by audio recording (as mentioned above), a completely new/different technology would be required (of which audio recording could not be more than just one part).
  
 G


----------



## headfry

gregorio said:


> What has that got to do with anything? I'm sure many here have never measured or jumped off a skyscraper to test gravity, measured, tested and applied snake oil to see if it really does relieve joint pain, etc. We don't need to do these and countless other things because we have science, that's why science was invented! The only reason we may choose to do our own audio tests/measurements is if we wish to confirm the science or if the science indicates a result at or very close to audibility.
> 
> G


 

 this argument is discredited 100% to me...with all due respect.
  
 Similar argument is that the 1's and 0's people used to laugh at those 
 looking at improving SQ with upmarket USB or ethernet cables....
 the laughing continues by armchair critics yet enthusiasts and
 professional reviewers alike have heard the difference that certain 
 high priced digital cables make in a resolving system - and most
 importantly, I've heard and appreciated the differences
  
 so that laughing has been revealed to full of it
  
 the 1's and 0's arguments often go too far, sure it's fine to be sceptical
 of marketing claims and sure there are bad values out there 
  
 but do you not agree that an Audioquest Vodka ethernet cable could outperform
 and very much improve Musical SQ vs a well made, reasonably priced Belkin in a high quality system?
  
 do you not agree that certain high calibre USB cables such as
 Wireworld Platinum, Siltech Anniversary or Curious Cable can
 sound MUCH better than a Belkin Gold USB or Blue Jeans/generic USB
 in a resolving system?
  
 in short, science and logic may say one thing, but nothing that I've heard and enjoyed 
 has made me question the SQ of MQA - on a quality MQA master the MUSICAL
 quality is so much better!
  
 Your argument ain't going to harsh my mellow
  
 it's not going to dampen my enthusiasm


----------



## gregorio

headfry said:


> [1] this argument is discredited 100% to me...with all due respect.
> 
> [2] do you not agree that certain high calibre USB cables such as Wireworld Platinum, Siltech Anniversary or Curious Cable can
> sound MUCH better than a Belkin Gold USB or Blue Jeans/generic USB
> ...


 
  
 1. Fine, you don't believe in science and don't know what the word "digital" means. That's your prerogative but then why come to a science based forum in the first place?
  
 2. No I do not agree because I have enough understanding of the basic science to know it can't make an audible difference. Can a USB cable of the same "calibre" but which is just sold at a much higher price be perceived by some as sounding better (some of the time)? Sure, that's not even particularly rare!!
  
 3. You may choose to dismiss all the science and all logic but again, why then would you choose to come here, and not just come here but then post illogical and unscientific misinformation? Don't you agree that would be insulting and extremely antagonistic to a sound science sub-forum? And if you do agree, what do you think is the only rational conclusion which can be drawn about your motive/s for being here?
  
 G


----------



## WindowsX

Excuse me, can somebody show me topics about MQA explanation, demonstration, or evaluation in Head-Fi? There seem to be heated discussion about MQA here but I can't find any tangible information about it here. greg, can you show me test measurements result of MQA from your side to support your scientific claim?


----------



## pinnahertz

headfry said:


> this argument is discredited 100% to me...with all due respect.
> 
> Similar argument is that the 1's and 0's people used to laugh at those
> looking at improving SQ with upmarket USB or ethernet cables....
> ...


 The problem is, if you think one data cable sounds better than another, that implies one or both of them must be altering the data passing through it. The purpose of a data transmission cable is to pass data unchanged...which means, uncorrupted. Data corruption can easily be detected by comparing the transmitted data to the original. A change of even one least significant bit can be easily detected, and would be, as an error. When a signal is passed through a cable there are possible changes. If the signal were analog, where the signal is a combination of amplitude and frequency, it's possible for a cable to alter something in amplitude, and that effect may change with frequency. The change, if large enough, may become audible. However, digital data is not transmitted with those parameters separated, amplitude and frequency are combined into a bit stream. Any change to that bit stream results in the system not being able to recover the original data, and that produces errors. Errors in a digital audio bitstream don't just modify the data, it ruins it.  Modifications to digital audio data that produce an audible change other than increased noise require consistent arithmetic computations performed on each and every word.  That's not something a cable can do.  It impresses it's effect without considering the numerical value of the data, and that's results in random noise, sometimes extremely loud bursts of it. But a digital cable cannot impose an audio modification, like a change in high end, low end, imaging, etc., because none of those characteristics exist separately in the data stream. The idea that a digital transmission cable, USB, Ethernet, coaxial, etc., can have any sort of effect on the reconstructed audio other than to create some form of noise, is ridiculous.  


headfry said:


> in short, science and logic may say one thing, but nothing that I've heard and enjoyed


 The classic argument is, "Science is wrong. I trust my ears"...and ignore the well understood properties of human bias, expectation, misdirection, placebo, etc. Now, don't get me wrong, people have been cured by taking placebos. Their effect is powerful, and provable. So much so that you can be given two placebos, told one IS a placebo, and the other (identical in every way) cures your malady. The one you know is a placebo will do nothing, the other identical one will have your expected effect.  It's not like this is debatable, medical research uses it as a reliable form of control in drug testing.  





headfry said:


> has made me question the SQ of MQA - on a quality MQA master the MUSICAL
> quality is so much better!
> 
> Your argument ain't going to harsh my mellow
> ...


 
 Ok. That's fine. There's no definitive research to disprove what you hear with MQA yet.  There's also nothing that proves what you hear is real either. What there is, in abundance, is powerful claims and suggestions of what it does. Bias, and a lot of it.


----------



## gregorio

windowsx said:


> [1] There seem to be heated discussion about MQA here but I can't find any tangible information about it here. [2] greg, can you show me test measurements result of MQA from your side to support your scientific claim?


 
  
 1. You noticed the heated discussion but not the various links to information or the discussion of them?
  
 2. Already addressed above. And, why do you continue to post here even though the "Burden of proof" has been explained to you many times and is even linked to on the landing page for this sub-forum?
  
 G


----------



## WindowsX

gregorio said:


> 1. You noticed the heated discussion but not the various links to information or the discussion of them?
> 
> 2. Already addressed above. And, why do you continue to post here even though the "Burden of proof" has been explained to you many times and is even linked to on the landing page for this sub-forum?
> 
> G


 
  
 1. To be honest, those links has no explanation about MQA, no demonstration or test result about it. Forgive me if I miss some so could you share again?
  
 2. To my understanding, it's you who claimed that MQA has no improvement. I'd like to see how you reached that conclusion if you really did follow scientific approach to obtain enough data to draw that conclusion.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> The problem is, if you think one data cable sounds better than another, that implies one or both of them must be altering the data passing through it. The purpose of a data transmission cable is to pass data unchanged...which means, uncorrupted.




That is an incorrect assumption, like many on this forum. Many times a difference between cables is due to RF interference or suppression, and grounding issues.



> Bias, and a lot of it.




Yes, here there is. Most of it negative towards MQA, and anyone who questions Redbook as perfect.


----------



## ThomasHK

windowsx said:


> Excuse me, can somebody show me topics about MQA explanation, demonstration, or evaluation in Head-Fi? There seem to be heated discussion about MQA here but I can't find any tangible information about it here. greg, can you show me test measurements result of MQA from your side to support your scientific claim?




You can look for some of my posts in the other thread about Tidal master files. I did read the patents and other info surrounding MQA and have expressed my criticism based on my background (academic and work) in audio dsp. 

You are right though, there is no study yet that proves or disproves MQA to sound better/worse than pcm. But I wouldn't hold my breath... It's proven impossible to even prove the audible differences of high res over redbook so I'm not convinced it will be any different with MQA.


----------



## gregorio

windowsx said:


> 2. To my understanding...


 
  
 Ypu mean your misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation.
  


jagwap said:


> Yes, here there is.


 
  
 Yes, there is a great deal of bias here. Bias against myth, superstition, quacks, mediums, astrologers, snake oil salesmen and anyone else who refutes (or attempts to pervert) the science without any reliable evidence. This is the science forum, what did you expect?
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> Ypu mean your misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation.
> 
> 
> Yes, there is a great deal of bias here. Bias against myth, superstition, quacks, mediums, astrologers, snake oil salesmen and anyone else who refutes (or attempts to pervert) the science without any reliable evidence. This is the science forum, what did you expect?
> ...




When I landed here I didn't expect patronising, dismissive, self rightious and blinkered.

Now I've been here a while, I've learnt to expect it, but not accept it.


----------



## WindowsX

thomashk said:


> You can look for some of my posts in the other thread about Tidal master files. I did read the patents and other info surrounding MQA and have expressed my criticism based on my background (academic and work) in audio dsp.
> 
> You are right though, there is no study yet that proves or disproves MQA to sound better/worse than pcm. But I wouldn't hold my breath... It's proven impossible to even prove the audible differences of high res over redbook so I'm not convinced it will be any different with MQA.


 
  
 I'm interested in your criticism about MQA. I also wrote mine and shared it in another community which is not here because I don't have evidence to backup my assumptions. Can you share the link again in case I missed yours?
  
 By the way, comparing to another failure and raise conjunction that this one should also fail without proper tests and measurements is one kind of fallacy that every true objectivist should avoid, no matter how obvious it seems.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> When I landed here I didn't expect patronising, dismissive, self rightious and blinkered.


 
  
 You mean statements like "_That is an incorrect assumption, like many on this forum._" (from your previous post!)? If you don't expect it from others, why do you do it yourself?
  
 As you didn't explicitly agree, I'm not clear, are you saying science should not be biased against myth, superstition, shills, snake oil salesmen or any others attempting to pervert science?
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> You mean statements like "_That is an incorrect assumption, like many on this forum._" (from your previous post!)? If you don't expect it from others, why do you do it yourself?
> 
> As you didn't explicitly agree, I'm not clear, are you saying science should not be biased against myth, superstition, shills, snake oil salesmen or any others attempting to pervert science?
> 
> G



It should. But when new observations come a good scientist does not dismiss them as impossible. Neither are they proven without more investigation. They can be kept open as ideas. Exploring them can lead to discovery.

I have found plenty of things in my journey designing audio equipment which could not be explained at the time. But they could be repeated. So I used these techniques to my advantage. Later many have been explained or measured and proved.

I have worked with those who only would work on what an Audio Precision would tell them and never listen to the product. Their products were solid enough, but often didn't sound as good.


----------



## sonitus mirus

There isn't much to say about MQA audio quality, and it will probably remain speculation until its likely fall into obscurity.
  
 There does not appear to be any evidence to suggest that any differences being heard have anything directly to do with the format.  To suggest otherwise is quite an amazing notion, based on our current understanding, and one that would require significant, objective proof to be presented.  As of now, the only side with this ability is the creators of MQA, and for whatever reasons, they have not made a reasonable attempt to provide this evidence.
  
 What has been presented as a possible improvement in audio quality discusses "time smear".  However, this data is misrepresented through level of scale, and to date, no evidence has been shown that would point to the amount of time smear differences being audible.  Not even remotely close to being audible.   
  
 I have to suspect that if any differences are actually being heard, these must be a result of the mastering or signal processing.  Why the same mastering and/or signal processing could not be achieved using the current PCM format is perplexing, and has yet to be proven to be true.  If it can't be shown, it is in the best interest to withhold this information from the consumers.  If it can be shown, it would be in the best interest to make this evidence clearly available to the consumers.  Am I supposed to believe that after all of the years of effort to create this new format and convince the market to take notice, that they are now taking the lazy way out and simply deciding not to show definitive proof that their product actually does what it claims to be able to do?
  
 That all I have to say about the matter.  I admit, my eyes roll when I read more anecdotal experiences as if this should be enough to show how great MQA should be.  In this industry with the history behind it, it is simply not going to cut it.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] It should. [2] But when new observations come a good scientist does not dismiss them as impossible. ... [3] They can be kept open as ideas. [4] Exploring them can lead to discovery.


 
  
 1. Hallelujah, welcome to the community brother!
  
 2. What new observations? We're not talking about new observations but exactly the same observations we've been seeing for decades, observations which have been have been studied, explored and demonstrated by science to be false. Also, 1. By definition a good scientist would obviously not be a good scientist if they refused to believe in science and logic. 2. A good scientist would never dream of refuting already accepted science without some pretty exceptional evidence. 3. A good scientist knows that accepted science which has also been proven mathematically requires even more extraordinary evidence. 4. A good scientist knows that sighted tests are highly unreliable and do not even constitute the most basic level of acceptable evidence, let alone "exceptional evidence" and are even further away from "even more extraordinary evidence"!
  
 3. If science has already debunked the idea, then it should not be kept open as an idea, or are you going back on your opening statement (#1)?
  
 4. The discovery of what, that Joseph Fourier, Claude Shannon and a host of other scientists were all wrong? That the mathematically proven foundation upon which digital audio is based is wrong, that more than a century of electrical engineering is all wrong, that nearly a century of studying the limits of human hearing is all wrong? As I mentioned previously, there are discoveries/innovations still being made but not discoveries which disprove decades or centuries of accepted science, accepted science which goes well beyond a few misinformed audiophiles and is directly used by or affects the vast majority of the entire human population every single day!
  
 G


----------



## tmarshl

This thread is getting boring. Cynicism and bickering don't interest me.  I was hoping to learn something.  Unsubscribed.


----------



## castleofargh

headfry said:


> gregorio said:
> 
> 
> > What has that got to do with anything? I'm sure many here have never measured or jumped off a skyscraper to test gravity, measured, tested and applied snake oil to see if it really does relieve joint pain, etc. We don't need to do these and countless other things because we have science, that's why science was invented! The only reason we may choose to do our own audio tests/measurements is if we wish to confirm the science or if the science indicates a result at or very close to audibility.
> ...


 
 so now we're back to:
 roses are red
 violets are blue
 everything I say is true.
  
 I'm sorry but you clearly are very bad at making a point. if you need to reassure yourself about cable expenses so badly, do it in a proper topic about cables. and if said topic is in the sound science section, do it with objective evidence and verified knowledge instead of strawman arguments, or better yet, go do it in another section. there is an entire dedicated sub section for cables, it's not that hard to find it and post about your cable love over there.
 and same thing for MQA. this topic is about MQA but it's still very much in the sound science section. it's a simple matter of posting in the proper sections of the forum and showing a little respect for the theme of the section. if you don't care nor trust controlled tests and measurements, and prefer to rely on your own feelings from sighted experience, maybe don't post in the sound science section.
  
  


jagwap said:


> Ah, another well reasoned argument from you. Why can't the others here be as forthcoming, and not come across as patronising and dismissive. It may be too late and he has already unsubscribed.
> 
> I don't disagree with most of what you say as possibilities, except that there cannot be an improvement on RedBook. It smacks of earlier predictions like "there will never be a need for more than five computers worldwide" or that denying "satellites would improve phone telegraph and TV" or that anyone would "need more than 637kB of memory". Smart people said these things.
> 
> Do you really believe that in 50 - 100 years we won't have a better audio format, which is more efficient and sounds better? Maybe it encodes specific parts of the audio in a lossy fasion to enhance perception, while keeping the audio band hi res...?


 

 well audibility levels are unlikely to make giant leaps unless we start feeding radioactive stuff to babies again. that part is very much limited by human hearing thresholds. while not everybody has the same, the order of magnitude is known for many variables and few humans are likely to escape those by a significant margin.
 as for objective improvement, of course we can and will. as long as there is somebody willing to pay for it, progress will be made and applied. but PCM isn't limited in resolution, right now exists DXD that's just PCM at a crazy sample rate. and people do mastering with that. PCM doesn't have to mean 16/44. why I find that it's enough is not based on technology but on how I and so many others fail to pass a blind test against higher resolutions(as long as the DAC doesn't mess up the low pass too much). so just like I don't feel the need for a 50 megapixel camera or a 1200dpi printer, my own body limitations tell me that I don't have a use for crazy sample rates as a passive music consumer.
 it's not that we cannot improve, it's that there is no clear need to do it, and if there was one, it could be done with PCM as far as basic signal resolution is concerned. DACs get a beneficial trick from oversampling/upsampling, it's nice for very basic reclocking that can end up reducing jitter, and it's nice because the designer doesn't have to spend much on the low pass filter. we could have gone for a MQA kind of ratio with more samples in 16bits or even less if replay gain was implemented in the DAC instead of the player(did I just invent a new format?). and we'd get the same benefits for the filters without the DAC having to oversample much if at all. but would that be progress?
 it's a practical options, like going for 48khz as we talked about before to match video. there are plenty of stuff we could do, it's amplitude over time and sine waves, even something as dumb as DSD ends up working just fine, so we can imagine any play around amplitude and time and make whatever file format we wish to make. adding code inside every sample of the format like MQA does allows for even more fun, but also clearly limits what we can do with the file and how much errors we can accept while streaming. if I start reducing the digital gain or use some EQ before the data is extracted and turned back to actual PCM, then it's all ruined and lost. we can work around such problem by doing the extraction first, so we'll most likely end up with a flac file to extract to MQA, to extract to PCM before we can fool around with DSPs and send that as PCM to the DAC. but it's still a restriction if we want to apply whatever salsa MQA claims to do at the DAC level. in the end if we're going to end up with PCM anyway, they should have called that a compression format like flac, not a revolution. 
 but if something better/more practical than PCM was to come, it would need to allow for at least the same potential to work on it without having to convert back to PCM. if like DSD they have to sacrifice so much to avoid using PCM, it's not a progress, it's just an inconvenient sidetrack IMO.


----------



## ThomasHK

windowsx said:


> I'm interested in your criticism about MQA. I also wrote mine and shared it in another community which is not here because I don't have evidence to backup my assumptions. Can you share the link again in case I missed yours?
> 
> By the way, comparing to another failure and raise conjunction that this one should also fail without proper tests and measurements is one kind of fallacy that every true objectivist should avoid, no matter how obvious it seems.




http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/345#post_13204243

This was in response to questions about this previous statement. 

--> http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/330#post_13203995


My take on temporal deblurring

http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/255#post_13175525

http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/300#post_13180262


----------



## WindowsX

thomashk said:


> http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/345#post_13204243
> 
> This was in response to questions about this previous statement.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Thank you. While I do agree that de-blurring doesn't contribute to major audio improvement. However, it's not like there's no audible difference with MQA comparing to redbook format. I also found other information like phase alignment, hardware decoding with analog process, oversampling filter to upsample 44.1/48khz to 2x software/4x hardware with respective filters.
  
 It looks like MQA has ability to setup different digitial filter environment for each track so it can benefit some audiophiles. Going as far as no audible difference to redbook is like there's no audible different between different digital filters in DAC too which is unlikely.


----------



## limpidglitch

windowsx said:


> …it's not like there's no audible difference with MQA comparing to redbook format.


 
  
 You state that like it's a fact.


----------



## ThomasHK

windowsx said:


> *However, it's not like there's no audible difference with MQA comparing to redbook format. *
> 
> 
> ==> What? where's the proof? Show me the study using A/B/x the same track in MQA and redbook. The key words are _same track_ and _study._
> ...


----------



## watchnerd

thomashk said:


>





> ==> OK, but that's just making changes to the interpolation and/or anti-aliasing filters. Sure, they can make a difference in sound, but what does that have to do with MQA? Any AD/DA C maker can decide to use these types of settings or not.


 
  
 Hell, my Raspberry Pi, <$100, has different multiple DAC filter choices.
  
 I guess that makes it high end.


----------



## WindowsX

Looks like I word it wrongly. My apologies. I mean there's no evidence showing MQA and redbook has no audible difference right now so let's not be hasty to judge MQA before you can evaluate it properly. For oversampling filter, I mean oversampling AD/DA kernel with MQA digital filter.


----------



## watchnerd

windowsx said:


>





> I mean there's no evidence showing MQA and redbook has no audible difference right now


 
  
 No, the burden of proof is on the inventors to show that it is audibly different, not the other way around.
  
 The person making the claim is the one that needs to show the evidence.


----------



## WindowsX

watchnerd said:


> No, the burden of proof is on the inventors to show that it is audibly different, not the other way around.
> 
> The person making the claim is the one that needs to show the evidence.


 
  
 Who made the claim? and what claim? I only answered ThomasHK statement about not finding any claim and proof about MQA and redbook stuff.


----------



## watchnerd

windowsx said:


> Who made the claim? and what claim? I only answered ThomasHK statement about not finding any claim and proof about MQA and redbook stuff.


 
  
 You just said...
  


windowsx said:


> I mean there's no evidence showing MQA and redbook has no audible difference right


 
  
 You're saving that there is no evidence that they're not different.
  
 The burden of proof isn't to prove that they're different.
  
 The burden of proof is to prove that they are.
  
 Based on prior studies and evidence, it is more correct to say, "There is no evidence yet that MQA is audibly different from Redbook."


----------



## WindowsX

I've just corrected my sentence in previous post.
  


> Looks like I word it wrongly. My apologies. I mean there's no evidence showing MQA and redbook has no audible difference right now so let's not be hasty to judge MQA before you can evaluate it properly.


 
  
 I didn't meant to make any claim.


----------



## castleofargh

if I may, your recurrent problem is that you systematically want us to study/disprove empty claims. and that's just like disproving there is a tea pot in orbit around Saturn, it's leading nowhere and wasting everybody's time. first get evidence of something. and only after that is done, we can study it, we can perhaps try to replicate the experiment, confront it to other possible findings... and if we fail to disprove the evidence, then we use it to advance in our knowledge and revise our position on the subject. 
 proper things in the proper order. half the topics getting you in trouble those days and making you think of us as closed minded idiots are because of this. you seem to feel that we should be open to what other people claims without proof. but we can't and don't want to do that. the simple act of making a challenging claim without anything to back it up is in itself the necessary and sufficient condition for everybody else to distrust the claim and whoever made it.
  
  the MQA guys come with a new format and some claim that it has superior sound, it's their job to prove it and the burden is 100% on them.  it doesn't matter what you or I believe to be the truth, the objective truth doesn't care about personal belief. only strong evidence will determine a proper conclusion and we don't have any so far.
  
  
  I go one step further only because I'm a curious guy, I do not need to:
 the added noise should be too low to be audible. and most tests about the audibility of increased sample rate failed to clearly demonstrate audible improvement. so based on what we already know about digital audio, no reason to think this will be a revolution, be it in MQA or anything else.
 filters could end up doing something audible(if well done it shouldn't though), but as mentioned by Thomas, nobody needs MQA to fool around with some special filtering sauce in DACs, and many manufacturers do just that already.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

In HIS mind the evidence for his claims (subjective impressions) are overwhelming, when such a type of evidence has been discredited by formal studies over and over again.

He starts topics with the express intention of proving somethig unprovable rather than to find out the truth of the matter. (Even stating this in as many words in the middle of one of his threads). He throws anything and everything at the wall hoping it would stick. And when the evidence points toward something he doesn't believe in, he states things like "but we know this is wrong so (the evidence) cannot be right" as though anything he believes in is incontrovertible truth. When I proved the bit-perfectness of digital transmission of audio data on an even more challenging setup than his (physical output to USB audio device, physically looping back to S/PDIF audio input, as opposed to pure software loopback), he continues on his merry way citing positive user impressions as if they were more important than anything I posted. Why do we continue to entertain him in this subforum?


----------



## castleofargh

oh sure it's the very typical tendency to look for clues that agree with an already made opinion. and then some "you can't disprove it so it must be true". logical fallacy through and through. but I don't believe(at least I hope not) that he's doing this only to troll. IMO it's a more basic problem of not understanding why we find ok to reject stuff without proof that they're false. some reading on the scientific method might help clear that up and see that when we reject something, we're not necessarily claiming the opposite point. sometimes I even agree with the an idea, but the way it's claimed is so irrational that I can only reject it and wait for proper evidence.


----------



## WindowsX

I think you guys are way too much biased about me. Well, I was partly at fault from my past threads too.
  
 I didn't intend to make any claim about MQA here. There's no shred of evidence regarding MQA from what I can see here, only speculations from people who never study with materials. If you want to play armchair scientist and argue for the sake of argument, fine. Don't count me in because I make my point clear that I have no intention to make any claim about MQA.
  
 If there's any claim you think I'm making, sorry but that's misunderstanding and I'm still observing for clear evidence about MQA from real tests with materials not armchair experiment. If you're certain there's a clear evidence about MQA, please submit again and I'll look into it. What Joe Bloggs posted before were all speculations without real tests with MQA product itself.
  
 By the way, what is the claim again? If it's about MQA improving sound quality and stuff, you guys should ask Meridian. I don't have luxury to debate with stuff I have no experience with like you guys. I'm only observing here and think it's gone too far for being skeptical.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

windowsx said:


> I think you guys are way too much biased about me. Well, I was partly at fault from my past threads too.
> 
> I didn't intend to make any claim about MQA here. There's no shred of evidence regarding MQA from what I can see here, only speculations from people who never study with materials. If you want to play armchair scientist and argue for the sake of argument, fine. Don't count me in because I make my point clear that I have no intention to make any claim about MQA.
> 
> ...




I love how when I linked to a dozen things that I (based on my years of experimentation) believe can make way better difference to audio quality you dismissed with a one-line "not MQA related, disregard". If that doesn't show your single mindedness about MQA I don't know what does.

It's as if you came in this forum armed with a cheat sheet of all the things you know have been rejected by science or not scientifically proven and is determined to stuff every one of those things down our throats. When shown scientifically proven, truly useful alternative tweaks to your audio system you plug your ears and go "lalala~I can't hear you". :rolleyes:


----------



## WindowsX

joe bloggs said:


> I love how when I linked to a dozen things that I (based on my years of experimentation) believe can make way better difference to audio quality you dismissed with a one-line "not MQA related, disregard". If that doesn't show your single mindedness about MQA I don't know what does.
> 
> It's as if you came in this forum armed with a cheat sheet of all the things you know have been rejected by science or not scientifically proven and is determined to stuff every one of those things down our throats. When shown scientifically proven, truly useful alternative tweaks to your audio system you plug your ears and go "lalala~I can't hear you".


 
  
 Then explain me how it's related to MQA. I'm too dumb to understand why your links will prove anything about MQA. Maybe I can understand if you could elaborate by explaining how MQA works and how your associated experiments can relate to MQA itself to the point  that you can prove your claim with it.


----------



## RichardTownsend

Hi all, I guess you may be familiar with this AES paper? It's freely available to download

http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20170128/18296.pdf

Here is the conclusion:

In summary, these results imply that, though the effect is perhaps small and difficult to detect, the perceived fi- delity of an audio recording and playback chain is affected by operating beyond conventional consumer oriented lev- els. Furthermore, though the causes are still unknown, this perceived effect can be confirmed with a variety of statis- tical approaches and it can be greatly improved through training.

So I'll assume that it is possible to improve on redbook for some people some of the time. 

Can MQA be as good as redbook or better? In theory it can. Redbook, as you are aware, is at 16/44.1. MQA is streamed at 24/44.1 or 24/48. So the whole of a red book signal can be contained in an MQA stream with 8 bits left over. MQA does not actually use all those 8 bits, the amount used depends on the musical signal above 20kHz. 

The musical content above 20kHz is very limited (low in amplitude) and almost always is at less than 65kHz, and usually less than 45kHz. So it's possible to represent this content using a small number of bits at 44kHz, and this is what MQA does, storing it in the least significant bits of the MQA stream. If an ultrasonic signal had a very high amplitude, MQA could not represent it, and in this sense, MQA is lossy. But in practice this never occurs.

The MQA decoder rebuilds the hi res signal by unpacking the data into a PCM stream at a higher bit rate for DA conversion.

MQA is actually much more complex than this, particularly in relation to time-domain accuracy, which I don't understand at all.

Bw,

Rich


----------



## pinnahertz

richardtownsend said:


> Hi all, I guess you may be familiar with this AES paper? It's freely available to download
> 
> http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20170128/18296.pdf
> 
> ...


 
 Oh brother. _*THAT*_ unfortunate paper again. Do you understand what "meta-analysis" is? The conclusions might reflect a massive amount of statistics, but there are several huge problems. Not the least of which is the very first study cited in the paper was done 2 years before the introduction of the CD. Where was the Hi-Res system then? But, most significantly, _no study revealed one single individual who could reliably and repeatably identify Hi-res in a comparison._ The results showed that over the massed amount of data Hi-res was picked at a rate of 3% better than random guessing. Significant you say? Or was the entire paper biased? 18 papers were selected out of 80 available to compile.
  
 Was the author biased? He held these positions:
 • Co-Chair of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Technical Committee on High-Resolution Audio
 • General Chair of the 31st AES Conference; New Directions in High Resolution Audio, 2007
  
 How do you think he selected the tests to compile? And even if he cherry-picked the ones that kinda-sorta supported the audibility of Hi-res, the best...the absolute BEST he could come up with is 3% better than random guessing, with over 12K tests.  
  
 The paper has been largely discredited elsewhere, no need for me to go on. 


richardtownsend said:


> So I'll assume that it is possible to improve on redbook for some people some of the time.


 
 And that's the assumption the author, and those supporting and advancing MQA would want you to arrive at. But look carefully...very, very carefully.  _Nobody_ got it right reliably or repeatedly. Nobody. That means everybody got it wrong nearly half of the time, and 47% were as good as guessing or worse.   If the act of incorrectly selecting Hi-res over Redbook would result in your immediate death, you'd stand a much, much better chance of survival playing Russian Roulette (3.5:1) over correctly picking HRA ( 53:47).
  
  And from that we're all supposed to jump on board and assume any version of Hi-res audio is clearly, reliably audibly better to everyone.
  
 No, I don't think so.


----------



## RichardTownsend

Pinnahertz,

Thanks for your analysis, that's very interesting. I notice that after training there was an average of 60% accuracy in discrimination. Still not great, but better. Can you point me to any academic criticism of this paper?

Bw,

Rich


----------



## jagwap

.


----------



## spruce music

richardtownsend said:


> Thanks for your analysis, that's very interesting


 

 Similar to pinnahertz summary of the meta analysis consider Meridians tests related to MQA's abilities.  The AES presentation which won an award.  It compared well recorded 192/24 music to down-sampled 44 or 48 khz music to access whether time smearing of filtering was audible.  They assembled a group of trained listeners, trained specifically to hear these filter effects.  For the low rates versions they used unusually narrow transition bands of 400-500 hz rather than the 2050 to 4000 hz which is normal.  The training was using a highly narrow 100 hz transition to make the effect more audible than normal.  Dithering was the less than optimum rectangular rather than TDPF or shaped dither.  All of this in a very quiet listening room using a top notch system with full response to 40 khz even at the speakers. 
  
 The result exceeded barely the 5% threshold.  So with the many trials they correctly picked the bad time smearing filters 56% of the time instead of 50% that would have been guessing.  So would it have even reached that if a wider transition band were used or if your speakers don't do 40 khz or if you have not been carefully trained to hear just this effect?  So okay such things might barely be audible.  It has to be an exceptionally minor effect. 
  
 So then jumping to MQA why the idea its time smearing reduction results in a whole new big step forward in sound quality?  Chances are very few people have the gear, ear, training or listening area to show it at all.  And when it shows it is scarcely better than a coin toss.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> .


 
 Message received (even though it was edited out here...email gets it to me).  
  
 No, I won't.  
  
 I will not stand by and watch mis/dis-information be deliberately propagated to support a scientifically unproven concept.  
  
 As I said, the paper has been discredited elsewhere.  I recently got the impression that links to other forums aren't acceptable here, and while I'm not sure that's true, I'm not taking time to dig around and figure that one out.  It won't take a lot to find the paper discussed and dissected in multiple locations.  It didn't exactly fly under the radar.


----------



## castleofargh

the meta analysis paper is highly controversial on many levels, most of which if I'm being honest, where pointed out by the author. but him making mention of those problems isn't the same as him solving them. 
  
 personally I keep the noob approach to all this and always try to see apple to apple comparisons by getting an idea of the magnitudes involved.
 when looking at the results, even if I was to 100% trust them(which I really don't), they're not exactly mind blowing numbers. we'd get much better results if we started to test music vs music 0.5db louder. would I pay for the perceived improved bass, soundstage, level of details that +0.5db bring to my listening experience? in sighted tests, probably. and it's in fact happening all year long in audio. but once properly informed about what's going on, I doubt that I would still be willing to pay more. and I certainly wouldn't buy a new DAC for.
  
  
 which is really the noob way of saying that I agree with @spruce music and @pinnahertz clear posts.


----------



## pinnahertz

spruce music said:


> So then jumping to MQA why the idea its time smearing reduction results in a whole new big step forward in sound quality?  Chances are very few people have the gear, ear, training or listening area to show it at all.  And when it shows it is scarcely better than a coin toss.


 
 Let me ask this, which I have not seen discussed yet.  In order to compensate for time-smearing that already exists in a recording, you would have to know precisely the characteristics of that time smearing mechanism to be able to apply the inverse.  If you had the impulse response of the recording system, you could apply an inverse filter.  The problem I have is, in any given recording, there's no way to know the impulse response.  Even if you did know the exact device used in recording, you wouldn't know how many round trips through A/D > D/A  may have been made (early digital recordings were often mixed on an analog desk).  The composite full-system impulse response is completely unknown.  _So how on earth are you going to apply the inverse?  _
  
 Now, if you've made the original, know what going on in detail, and have done all that work during MQA encoding, AND have fully characterized the playback chain, all the way to the ears...then you may have something.  But, that's not what we have.  At best, an MQA "player" may be characterized within itself.  But what happens next?  Analog to the speakers?  Digits, DSP,  speakers?  And, of all things in the chain to be concerned about it's time-smearing profile, we seem to be ignoring the elephant herd in the room: speakers themselves and the room they're in.  
  
 Not to mention the miniscule number of 40kHz tweeters (almost none flat, BTW), and within that tiny segment, their virtually universal inability to deliver anything but a pencil-beam width of ultrasonic energy into the room where every surface, even the hard ones, are ultrasonic absorbers.  If any of it actually gets to someone's ear (singular), all they have to do is move a bit, and they're out of the main ultrasonic lobe, and will miss pretty much two decades of ultrasonic response.  
  
 Straighten me out if I've missed something.


----------



## RRod

spruce music said:


> The result exceeded barely the 5% threshold.  So with the many trials they correctly picked the bad time smearing filters 56% of the time instead of 50% that would have been guessing.  So would it have even reached that if a wider transition band were used or if your speakers don't do 40 khz or if you have not been carefully trained to hear just this effect?  So okay such things might barely be audible.  It has to be an exceptionally minor effect.


 
  
 Of course every person hailing MQA regularly listens to modern, low-level recordings of gamelan music at Skywalker Studios and isn't just someone listening to the umpteenth mix/master of DSotM in their apartment…
  


pinnahertz said:


> Straighten me out if I've missed something.


 
  
 Don't you keep a list of the 80s-vintage ADCs you thought were horrible and that messed up so many early digital albums?


----------



## pinnahertz

rrod said:


> Of course every person hailing MQA regularly listens to modern, low-level recordings of gamelan music at Skywalker Studios and isn't just someone listening to the umpteenth mix/master of DSotM in their apartment…


 
 My test music is the full Ring cycle in the original Klingon.
  


rrod said:


> Don't you keep a list of the 80s-vintage ADCs you thought were horrible and that messed up so many early digital albums?


 
 It's a short list, and not in "list" form, but I do know the common ones. And it turns out, as "bad" as they were, they really weren't the problem with early CDs at all.
  
 But that's another bowl of gagh entirely.


----------



## spruce music

pinnahertz said:


> Let me ask this, which I have not seen discussed yet.  In order to compensate for time-smearing that already exists in a recording, you would have to know precisely the characteristics of that time smearing mechanism to be able to apply the inverse.  If you had the impulse response of the recording system, you could apply an inverse filter.  The problem I have is, in any given recording, there's no way to know the impulse response.  Even if you did know the exact device used in recording, you wouldn't know how many round trips through A/D > D/A  may have been made (early digital recordings were often mixed on an analog desk).  The composite full-system impulse response is completely unknown.  _So how on earth are you going to apply the inverse?  _
> 
> Now, if you've made the original, know what going on in detail, and have done all that work during MQA encoding, AND have fully characterized the playback chain, all the way to the ears...then you may have something.  But, that's not what we have.  At best, an MQA "player" may be characterized within itself.  But what happens next?  Analog to the speakers?  Digits, DSP,  speakers?  And, of all things in the chain to be concerned about it's time-smearing profile, we seem to be ignoring the elephant herd in the room: speakers themselves and the room they're in.
> 
> ...


 

 Okay I'll write in everything needed to straighten you out just below this sentence.
  
  
  
  
  
  
 ......


----------



## pinnahertz

spruce music said:


> Okay I'll write in everything needed to straighten you out just below this sentence.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
 Thanks.  I've found enlightenment.


----------



## watchnerd

rrod said:


> Don't you keep a list of the 80s-vintage ADCs you thought were horrible and that messed up so many early digital albums?


 
  
 I just avoid that whole era.


----------



## pinnahertz

watchnerd said:


> I just avoid that whole era.


 
 I wish I could have.


----------



## Don Hills

spruce music said:


> ... So then jumping to MQA why the idea its time smearing reduction results in a whole new big step forward in sound quality?  Chances are very few people have the gear, ear, training or listening area to show it at all.  And when it shows it is scarcely better than a coin toss.


 
  
 For me, the most telling piece of evidence is that when demoing, the MQA people never compare the original track against the MQA encoded track. They only ever play the MQA track.


----------



## Dadracer

pinnahertz said:


> richardtownsend said:
> 
> 
> > Hi all, I guess you may be familiar with this AES paper? It's freely available to download
> ...


 
  
 It seems that you require scientific proof absolute for anything to be true (or not).
  
 Now that a published meta analysis is held up as such scientific proof the paper is immediately derided and the authors integrity called into question. If this paper was subject to peer review and given the authors position it seems highly unlikely it would be published if it is biased or lacking integrity no? Or maybe you have some data on the peer reviewers?
  
 Even if it is a meta analysis, that doesn't make its conclusions unsupported. The author is allowed to choose the data for the meta analysis according to those studies which fit into his protocol is he not? That is the purpose of a meta analysis so that you can use a series of data from different sources.
 The data from the stats ( that p value stuff) confirm some of the people can tell a difference between "red book" and "hi res" most of the time (when trained)  
  
 So at the very worst you have to conclude more work needs to be done to confirm it one way or the other  and so at best the jury is still out.......
  
  
 Ok, I'm going this time and will leave you all to it and get back to actual listening to music in a range of formats and resolutions.
  
 Kind regards


----------



## spruce music

don hills said:


> For me, the most telling piece of evidence is that when demoing, the MQA people never compare the original track against the MQA encoded track. They only ever play the MQA track.




Yes that too. If the superior sound was so evident why did they very carefully make the direct comparison unavailable at every public demo. The reverse would have been very convincing if MQA were great.


----------



## pinnahertz

dadracer said:


> It seems that you require scientific proof absolute for anything to be true (or not).


 
 If a technology is being advanced by one manufacturer to the point of widespread adoption, yes, scientific proof would be required to justify its use and associated expense. There are far too many non-technical factors in its advancement, and no manufacturer is totally magnanimous. There should be a clear and definite advantage to those paying for the technology (that would be the buyer. If that advantage is minimal, not universally detectable and at best vague, what we have is concept heavily weighted to the manufacturer. The only way to detect either condition is with scientific testing. And we have none of that now.


dadracer said:


> Now that a published meta analysis is held up as such scientific proof the paper is immediately derided and the authors integrity called into question. If this paper was subject to peer review and given the authors position it seems highly unlikely it would be published if it is biased or lacking integrity no? Or maybe you have some data on the peer reviewers?


 
 If you google around a bit you'll find that this discussion is over 6 months late, and that the paper has been severely criticized already in multiple forums. My objections are hardly new or original, but at least may balance the view.


dadracer said:


> Even if it is a meta analysis, that doesn't make its conclusions unsupported. The author is allowed to choose the data for the meta analysis according to those studies which fit into his protocol is he not? That is the purpose of a meta analysis so that you can use a series of data from different sources.


 
 When you hand-pick the data you include you bias the result. No meta-analysis would do otherwise, but then when the authors highly public position on the subject is well known we have to declare the entire project as biased.


dadracer said:


> The data from the stats ( that p value stuff) confirm some of the people can tell a difference between "red book" and "hi res" most of the time (when trained)


 
 Hardly "most of the time". It's interpretations like that that cause the issues.


dadracer said:


> So at the very worst you have to conclude more work needs to be done to confirm it one way or the other  and so at best the jury is still out.......


 
 No, the jury hasn't heard any actual evidence yet. They're not out, they're still waiting to hear it. And given the difficulty and expense, we may never get that evidences. The test is hard to do. You need controls everywhere. Test material that has true provenance, both in the original and encoded version. You need precisely matched playback devices that can be synchronised. You need a massive number of testers, many trials, and careful categorizing of data. You'll even need several different playback systems in several different rooms. This is not a small project, and no individual or even small informal group can pull it off. It would take a large organization, like university level, or non-partisan industry association to fund it and do it. We may never get it done. That's why a meta-analysis is attractive, it gets a lot of existing data into an analysis.  But it's hardly definitive. Yet many are hanging their hat on that study as "proof-positive".  It's not.  In the absence of good scientific data, there's no need to cling to a possibly biased meta-analysis with results overing around random guessing as proof-positive.


----------



## watchnerd

pinnahertz said:


> And given the difficulty and expense, we may never get that evidences. *The test is hard to do*. You need controls everywhere. Test material that has true provenance, both in the original and encoded version. You need precisely matched playback devices that can be synchronised. You need a massive number of testers, many trials, and careful categorizing of data. You'll even need several different playback systems in several different rooms. This is not a small project, and no individual or even small informal group can pull it off. It would take a large organization, like university level, or non-partisan industry association to fund it and do it. We may never get it done.


 
  
 This brings up my benchmark rule for what qualifies as "transformative" in audio:
  
 The more difficult the test regime needed to detect an advancement in quality, the less of an advancement it is.
  
 Or conversely:
  
 The less difficult a test regime needed to detect an advancement in quality, the more of an advancement it is.
  
 78 vs 33. Mono vs Stereo. LP to CD.  These were all so transformative we didn't need to conduct blind tests; the differences were obvious to everyone.
  
 High resolution audio, MQA or otherwise, is a joke compared to the giants that came before.


----------



## Dadracer

pinnahertz said:


> dadracer said:
> 
> 
> > It seems that you require scientific proof absolute for anything to be true (or not).
> ...


 
 The author clearly did not "cherry pick" his data but applied a scientific protocol to determine which studies to include that fell within that protocol and which were not. If you understood a meta analysis then you should know this. It is also noted in the reference section.
 So the author is biased because he has a high profile position within the Professional Audio community. That's like calling Einstein biased in his papers because he was a famous public figure in the field of Physics. Do you have data to support your allegations of bias?
 It's not me saying most of the time, that's what the statistics say. 
  
 You can have your own conclusions of course but they don't agree with the data which is where I came in and now am definitely leaving. Please don't reply.Goodbye forever. 
  
 Kind regards


----------



## gregorio

dadracer said:


> [1] It seems that you require scientific proof absolute for anything to be true (or not).
> 
> [2] Now that a published meta analysis is held up as such scientific proof the paper is immediately derided and the authors integrity called into question. [2a] If this paper was subject to peer review and given the authors position it seems highly unlikely it would be published if it is biased or lacking integrity no?
> 
> ...


 
  
 1. I can't speak specifically for Pinnahertz but generally, "no". Very little in science is supported with absolute proof, science is mostly based on the preponderance of quality evidence. The theory of Evolution, climate change, relativity, quantum mechanics and countless others besides. In fact, we'd have to throw out much/most of science if we required "proof absolute". In practice with audio, it's a case of taking the known evidence (such as the physiology of the human ear for example) and correlating that with practical studies to hopefully result in the best possible *quality evidence.*
  
 2. Yes, it has been held up as "scientific proof" but only by those who don't know what science (or scientific proof) actually is! At best this meta-analysis contributes to the scientific evidence, it's not proof of anything and no real scientist or anyone who understands the process of science would dare claim it as scientific proof, including the author! This statement is true not just of this meta-analysis but of all the published studies it includes (and those it doesn't). For example, the Meyer & Moran study, which is so commonly quoted, likewise does not _prove _that SACD cannot be distinguished from CD, it's just contributory scientific evidence. What separates the various studies is the *quality* of the scientific evidence it provides.
 2a. No!! Firstly, you appear to misunderstand what "peer review" is, or rather, what it is not. It is not a guarantee of accuracy or lack of bias! Nature magazine puts it well, stating: "_Whether there is any such thing as a paper so bad that it cannot be published in any peer reviewed journal is debatable. Nevertheless, scientists understand that peer review per se provides only a minimal assurance of quality, and that the public conception of peer review as a stamp of authentication is far from the truth._". Again, this applies equally to studies which evidence that humans can differentiate hi-res from CD as it does to those which don't. Secondly, the "author's position" has no baring on the matter, even if he were the most respected scientist on the planet he would still have to go through peer review and then scrutiny by the wider expert/scientific readership. This is in fact a fundamental tenet of science, that no one person's reputation, position, integrity and any other potential biases are reduced as much as possible. And lastly, when a study/paper is commissioned/funded by a company with a vested financial interest in a particular conclusion, that automatically calls into question the "integrity" of a conclusion which is favourable to that company and impacts the judgement of that evidence's *quality*.
  
 3. Yes s/he is but the danger of course is in the reverse process occurring. That the protocols/parameters are initially set to include certain specific data and exclude certain other data beneficial to a desired conclusion!
 3a. It does NOT "confirm" that at all, all it confirms is that the data examined indicates a statistically significant probability with a low level of confidence.
  
 4. No, that cannot work. No amount of work could confirm (prove) that hi-res cannot be differentiated, even if everyone on the planet was tested, that still wouldn't be "proof absolute" because we can't test all those who have lived or will live. In general, science cannot "prove absolute" a negative, that something does not exist. Also relevant here is the burden of proof, it's not up to science to prove that hi-res cannot be differentiated, those claiming it can must prove it with science. Which unlike the impossibility of proving a negative, can be done, we just need two things: Firstly, a correlation with physiology, a means by which human physiology would allow the sensing of the differences and secondly, enough evidence of sufficient *quality* that there are those who can employ their physiology to accurately differentiate.
 4b. No it's not! The first condition has never been met. Even those who claim that differentiation is possible have never demonstrated how it is possible; the differences between hires and 44/16 are outside both the demonstrated limits of human hearing and any human physiological mechanism which could allow for such differentiation. Additionally, the second condition has not been adequately met, which brings us back to the *quality *of evidence and, two considerations:
  
 A. Without the first condition being met we're going to require exceptionally high quality evidence because to accept that evidence we would also have to accept that the science of physiology is wrong or at least, far more incomplete than science currently accepts.
  
 B. Compared to the usual quality of evidence (anecdotal, sighted tests), this meta-analysis is far higher quality BUT still quite questionable evidence. I have several problems with it but the most severe is that in effect, it's not a meta-analysis! If we remove just one of the studies (Theiss 1997), we loose our statistically significant probability. Without that one result, the probability falls back to within the statistical limits of random guessing. In other words, the paper's conclusion is effectively based solely on the Theiss study! A cynical person could therefore effectively see this recent paper as nothing more than just a re-hash of the 20 year old Theiss paper, although I don't believe there is any evidence to support that this was in fact the deliberate intention of the author. The Theiss paper (and several other similar papers) has a critical flaw. I myself (along with others) have passed hires (96/24 vs 44/16) blind and double blind tests on numerous occasions, more than a dozen different tests/studies. Good, level balanced, same recording, highend equipment (studio environment) tests/studies! Every single time though it has been proven that it was not actually a comparison between hires and 16/44 but some other factor, a programming issue at 44.1kHz by a DSP processor or IMD. The latter is a particularly common issue, so much so that Sony requires SACD players to implement a LPF at 30kHz (or at most, 50kHz), to help combat the issue downstream. The Theiss study did not consider, test for or eliminate, IMD. Even were this meta-analysis far less questionable, still it would not be sufficient to meet the exceptionally high quality evidence required, it would though suggest the need for further investigation but as it stands, it doesn't!
  


watchnerd said:


> 78 vs 33. Mono vs Stereo. LP to CD.  These were all so transformative we didn't need to conduct blind tests; the differences were obvious to everyone.


 
  
 We have to be a little careful here, careful we don't fall into the same logical trap as many audiophiles. Although the differences between the formats you listed should be somewhat/very obvious to everyone, we can't rely purely on this latter fact. Even if some difference is within the limits of audibility and apparently obvious to everyone, blind testing can't hurt and provides an additional level of surety/quality to the evidence. After all, the difference between Baa and Faa in the McGurk Effect is also obvious to everyone!
  
 G


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

gregorio said:


> 1. I can't speak specifically for Pinnahertz but generally, "no". Very little in science is supported with absolute proof, science is mostly based on the preponderance of quality evidence. The theory of Evolution, climate change, relativity, quantum mechanics and countless others besides.


 
  
 Those particular subjects are more obscure than wave physics. Wave theory is very completely defined by math and physics, and as such, finding absolute proof is not out of the question.
  
 So to the OP, yes... absolute proof for most audio related things is expected.


----------



## pinnahertz

grumpyoldguy said:


> Those particular subjects are more obscure than wave physics. Wave theory is very completely defined by math and physics, and as such, finding absolute proof is not out of the question.
> 
> So to the OP, yes... absolute proof for most audio related things is expected.


 
 Audio involves human perception.  Wave theory does not.  Human perception is still under study, and while some characteristics can be described by math, a lot of how sound is perceived has to be defined by complex sets of conditions and variables, range of normal, etc.  Have a look at "Psychoacoustics", perhaps the example of "masking".  
  
 There are problems getting anything mathematically absolute in psychoacoustics.  Curves abound, and the general understanding is hardly complete. 
  
 I'm on board with the scientific view of the "best possible quality of evidence".  However, if the current "best quality" hovers around the statistical noise floor, that's a bit too far from "absolute" to be even acceptable.


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

pinnahertz said:


> Audio involves human perception.  Wave theory does not.  Human perception is still under study, and while some characteristics can be described by math, a lot of how sound is perceived has to be defined by complex sets of conditions and variables, range of normal, etc.  Have a look at "Psychoacoustics", perhaps the example of "masking".
> 
> There are problems getting anything mathematically absolute in psychoacoustics.  Curves abound, and the general understanding is hardly complete.
> 
> I'm on board with the scientific view of the "best possible quality of evidence".  However, if the current "best quality" hovers around the statistical noise floor, that's a bit too far from "absolute" to be even acceptable.




Is MQA about perceived quality? Or about reconstructing the original recording in the least amount of bandwidth?

One is about psychoacoustics, so I'd agree with you. 

The other is an optimization problem, which is just math and engineering.


----------



## pinnahertz

grumpyoldguy said:


> Is MQA about perceived quality? Or about reconstructing the original recording in the least amount of bandwidth?
> 
> One is about psychoacoustics, so I'd agree with you.
> 
> The other is an optimization problem, which is just math and engineering.


 
 If it were only about reconstruction of an original in less bandwidth, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  
  
 I really hate to put this in a post here, for so many reasons...but...visit their site, read their stuff, check the press releases.  It's difficult to navigate, and the Blue Smoke is thick.  At the bottom of the How It Works page is a link for "music professionals".   Keep drilling.... eventually you find this:
  
 "Unlike analogue transmission, digital is non-degrading. So we don’t have pops and crackles, but we do have another problem – pre- and post-ringing. When a sound is processed back and forth through a digital converter the time resolution is impaired – causing ‘ringing’ before and after the event. This blurs the sound so we can’t tell exactly where it is in 3D space. MQA reduces this ringing by over 10 times compared to a 24/192 recording."
  
 See any problems in that?  To get more you have to sit through a video, but...well....you decide if the Blue Smoke is thicker or has cleared.  They claim to un-do "time-smear" in existing recordings too.


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

pinnahertz said:


> If it were only about reconstruction of an original in less bandwidth, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
> 
> I really hate to put this in a post here, for so many reasons...but...visit their site, read their stuff, check the press releases.  It's difficult to navigate, and the Blue Smoke is thick.  At the bottom of the How It Works page is a link for "music professionals".   Keep drilling.... eventually you find this:
> 
> ...




They're trying to snag licensing deals... I miss the days when engineering was about solving problems, not just making money.


----------



## pinnahertz

Would I be labeled a cynic if I just said "follow the money"? 

We do have more than one free lossless codec. Just sayin'...


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

pinnahertz said:


> Would I be labeled a cynic if I just said "follow the money"?
> 
> We do have more than one free lossless codec. Just sayin'...




No, you would be rational. 

I thought MQA was supposed to provide a mechanism to encode even higher resolution audio files with less incremental (or perhaps even less overall) bandwidth than directly encoding the same source using FLAC compression (for example).


----------



## pinnahertz

grumpyoldguy said:


> No, you would be rational.
> 
> I thought MQA was supposed to provide a mechanism to encode even higher resolution audio files with less incremental (or perhaps even less overall) bandwidth than directly encoding the same source using FLAC compression (for example).


 
 That is only one of its goals.


----------



## castleofargh

grumpyoldguy said:


> pinnahertz said:
> 
> 
> > Would I be labeled a cynic if I just said "follow the money"?
> ...


 
 to end up smaller than FLAC you need to also encode the MQA file in FLAC
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





. and the actual proper comparison never even exists because the uncompressed factual resolution of the signal coming from the MQA file isn't something standard like 24/96 or 24/192. it's not 24bit to begin with. only the container is a 24bit file.
 so like the rest, the argument is a tiny bit based on actual mechanism. adding data as bit depth takes less space than doubling or quadrupling the number of samples to record almost nothing. so in the quest to keep insignificantly low signal at inaudible frequencies, they do better than most other format IMO. but then the point is strongly forced onto people using inaccurate comparisons.  marketing...
  
 and I guess it's the same thing for "MQA reduces this ringing by over 10 times compared to a 24/192 recording". 
 you can guess that it's a BS claim that will work in a particular case measuring a particular thing. maybe the duration of ringing, maybe the amplitude of the second rise with some absolutely basic filter. maybe a minimum phase to make sure the amplitude can go higher?
 otherwise we almost all know there are many things that can be done with oversampling and filters to deal with ringing(usually at the cost of something else). even a Pono does that without any MQA nonsense(not that I personally think it's the better choice to focus only on getting good looking impulse response).
  
 whatever you look at, the "smearing" seems to be strongly attenuated in the time domain and then massively transferred into the technical explanations for the consumers.


----------



## danadam

Archimago's comparison of hardware vs software decoding: COMPARISON: Hardware-Decoded MQA (using Mytek Brooklyn DAC)


----------



## sonitus mirus

In case anyone was interested, Archimago's Musings has some new analysis of the MQA format using a Mytek Brooklyn DAC that can do hardware decoding.  Not sure if we can link directly to the blog, but it should be simple to find in a search.
  
 As I suspected, since it is nearly impossible for me to identify a difference between a well encoded mp3 and lossless 16/44.1, there is no benefit to be found in using MQA.  I'm confident that audiophiles aren't able to hear any differences either, but they can have their fun and fool themselves into believing that I am the ignorant one.
  
 Until I see any additional evidence, I'm going to call MQA an elaborate marketing stratagem.


----------



## L8MDL

http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/02/comparison-hardware-decoded-mqa-using.html


----------



## tmarshl

This is not a technical argument, merely an opinion.
  
 Downloaded DSD files vs Downloaded MQA files - DSD wins
  
 Streaming - MQA wins over other formats
  
 I have now been listening to MQA Masters streaming from Tidal for the last three days.  I am very pleased.   The music seems to have less distortion, each note has more clarity, arriving out of a background of absolute silence.  In short I like it a lot for what it does, and it is not fatiguing at all.  Is it as good as my native DSD playback? - no.  However, for a streaming solution, which (currently) gives me over 500 available Masters albums on Tidal and more to come, I think it is a great streaming solution.   If I were downloading albums of music files online (at $24 each) I would continue to select the DSD format, but MQA technology makes the Tidal streaming service much more enjoyable for the  investment.  When I do the value/pleasure calculation, I think that with rare exceptions, my hi-res downloading days are over - I am very pleased with the playback of MQA Master files via Tidal. As always, YMMV.


----------



## watchnerd

tmarshl said:


> This is not a technical argument, merely an opinion.
> 
> Downloaded DSD files vs Downloaded MQA files - DSD wins
> 
> ...


 
  
 You really should read this to understand what you aren't hearing:
  
 http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/02/comparison-hardware-decoded-mqa-using.html


----------



## gregorio

tmarshl said:


> [1] Downloaded DSD files vs Downloaded MQA files - DSD wins
> [2] Streaming - MQA wins over other formats
> [3] When I do the value/pleasure calculation, I think that with rare exceptions, my hi-res downloading days are over - I am very pleased with the playback of MQA Master files via Tidal.
> [4] As always, YMMV.


 
  
 1. If you read the article linked above, you would realise that all the differences between an original DSD file and a compressed MQA version are all below audibility. Therefore, if you believe DSD wins, it's for some reason other than the actual sound entering your ears (IE. A perceptual bias).
  
 2. That's the question which has dominated much of this thread. Clearly it's IMPOSSIBLE for MQA to "win" on SQ grounds over some of the formats which Tidal could have chosen, FLAC for example. The question is; does MQA provide any actual benefit over other already existing formats? The answer to this question has not been answered with absolute certainty but the evidence so far very strongly (almost indisputably) suggests the only benefit of MQA being in terms of a marketing gimmick.
  
 3. It's extremely unlikely that we all share your exact level/combination of perceptual biases, so we can't know what "pleasure" you are deriving from MQA and therefore can't dispute your personal value/pleasure calculation. However, your following statement makes no sense, as the whole point of MQA is as a distribution format for hi-res.
  
 4. Sure, one's "mileage may vary" regarding perception biases but this is the Sound Science forum where we're interested in what's happening to the actual sound rather than only individuals' biased responses to it. When dealing with the actual facts/science of sound, one's mileage cannot logically vary and therefore "As always, YMMV" cannot be true!
  
 G


----------



## castleofargh

tmarshl said:


> This is not a technical argument, merely an opinion.
> 
> Downloaded DSD files vs Downloaded MQA files - DSD wins
> 
> ...


 
 just to say that I greatly appreciate you making it clear that it's your opinion and feelings, and not claims about objective superiority.
 I wish everybody more interested in the subjective side of things would have that understanding.
  
 I don't see a reason why MQA would sound anything different, aside from the albums being remastered(which IMO shouldn't be seen as a MQA perk). but if you feel good playing MQA files, obviously whatever the actual reason, you should keep enjoying it. pleasure doesn't require objective reasons and it's very well that way.


----------



## headfry

If there was little improvement of MQA over standard remastering then the whole push for 
 MQA would simply be a very elaborate marketing ploy.


----------



## castleofargh

I totally agree but I guess we don't reach the same conclusion ^_^. the fight to be the owner of any standard format has been going on for a long time, and meridian certainly wouldn't cry if they could push more than MLP for audio DVDs and such. of course it's totally about money and control, most of the big moves in audio/video/computers are made for such reasons. why apple has proprietary everything? for our benefit? lol
 why sony always tried to force proprietary stuff from memory sticks to formats, even though it made them lose so many clients? because for a long time they thought the derived money would more than make up for it, and if with some luck their stuff could became a standard, then they made so much money.
 the video battles dvd vs blu ray, all the surround formats... you can look anywhere, it's always the same system. they're all big guys in groups or alone, trying to dominate a market with stuff they control/own. if the other guy has a technically better system you really believe they would stop trying to convince people to buy their stuff? come on.
  
 what we know for sure at the moment is that MQA files offer smaller size at the cost of more processing and a decrease in bit depth. smaller file size without loss of data is something you could already have with more compression levels in flac. but people usually don't use that because... it uses more processing.





gotta love the irony.
  
  
 and we also know that they remastered a good deal of albums to help you misunderstand that the format was night and day different. but hey, as I said, if they're good masters and you like them, good for you.


----------



## tmarshl

watchnerd said:


> You really should read this to understand what you aren't hearing:
> 
> http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/02/comparison-hardware-decoded-mqa-using.html


 

 As a matter of fact, I did read this very complete and well documented treatise.  I agree with its findings from a technical standpoint.  I can remember when similar arguments were made against DSD versus PCM (particularly by Linn engineers).   I ended up hearing enough of a difference in DSD to prefer DSD playback to PCM.  Although I have great respect for scientific inquiry, many of the arguments have ignored what may be a very important factor - psychoacoustics.    If I may quote from the Wikipedia article on psychoacoustics:
  
 "Hearing is not a purely mechanical phenomenon of wave propagation, but is also a sensory and perceptual event; in other words, when a person hears something, that something arrives at the ear as a mechanical sound wave traveling through the air, but within the ear it is transformed into neural action potentials. These nerve pulses then travel to the brain where they are perceived. Hence, in many problems in acoustics, such as for audio processing, it is advantageous to take into account not just the mechanics of the environment, but also the fact that both the ear and the brain are involved in a person’s listening experience."
  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics
  
 This discussion would be much easier if our final output was to an oscilloscope rather than a human brain.
  
 In a hobby where many pay ten times as much for a 10% improvement in perceived sound quality, I have learned to trust my own perceptions, and what brings me pleasure, rather than "expert" reviews.


----------



## watchnerd

tmarshl said:


> As a matter of fact, I did read this very complete and well documented treatise.  I agree with its findings from a technical standpoint.  I can remember when similar arguments were made against DSD versus PCM (particularly by Linn engineers).   I ended up hearing enough of a difference in DSD to prefer DSD playback to PCM.  Although I have great respect for scientific inquiry, many of the arguments have ignored what may be a very important factor - psychoacoustics.    If I may quote from the Wikipedia article on psychoacoustics:
> 
> "Hearing is not a purely mechanical phenomenon of wave propagation, but is also a sensory and perceptual event; in other words, when a person hears something, that something arrives at the ear as a mechanical sound wave traveling through the air, but within the ear it is transformed into neural action potentials. These nerve pulses then travel to the brain where they are perceived. Hence, in many problems in acoustics, such as for audio processing, it is advantageous to take into account not just the mechanics of the environment, but also the fact that both the ear and the brain are involved in a person’s listening experience."
> 
> ...


 
  
 Then you should be equally aware that psychoacoustics encompasses placebo effects.


----------



## tmarshl

watchnerd said:


> Then you should be equally aware that psychoacoustics encompasses placebo effects.


 

 Yes, of course I am.


----------



## gregorio

headfry said:


> If there was little improvement of MQA over standard remastering then the whole push for MQA would simply be a very elaborate marketing ploy.


 
  
 Personally, I disagree. If there were little improvement then MQA would be more than just a marketing ploy, although whether I personally (as a consumer) would want to buy into it would depend on how "little" that improvement was. The issue though, is that MQA appears to offer no improvement whatsoever over some existing formats, rather than just "little" improvement. BTW, MQA is not a type of mastering, it's just a distribution format. In other words, "standard mastering" still occurs, the only difference is what format the finished master is converted into.
  


tmarshl said:


> [1] This discussion would be much easier if our final output was to an oscilloscope rather than a human brain.
> [2] In a hobby where many pay ten times as much for a 10% improvement in perceived sound quality, I have learned to trust my own perceptions, and what brings me pleasure, rather than "expert" reviews.
> [3] "_Then you should be equally aware that psychoacoustics encompasses placebo effects._" - Yes, of course I am.


 
  
 1. This discussion might be easier but the actual creation of audio content would be impossible.
  
 2. Well it's much worse than that. Many pay ten times as much for completely variable amounts of perceived improvement but commonly 0% of actual improvement or even a negative percentage (IE. A degradation of SQ).
  
 3. Being aware of (and even quoting) psychoacoustics is certainly a step in the right direction but it is only the first step, an effectively meaningless first step unless we take a few more steps and then actually apply that gained knowledge! "Perception" is a very broad term covering a large number of effects, which could be broadly arranged into three groups: A. Accuracy/linearity: Our perception of some aspect of what enters our ears is linear/accurate. B. Global effects/perceptions: Inaccuracies/non-linearities which are the result of; (a) physiology, (b) some other evolutionary traits in how the brain processes information or (c) some shared experience/education. Given certain conditions (normal hearing being one obvious example), these perception effects are global, we all share these perceptions all the time. C. Perception biases: These effects are typically the result of information the brain receives from sources other than the ears and are therefore completely unrelated to the actual audio. These effects are also transitory and not global, meaning; they change with time (sometimes effectively instantaneously) and we don't all share them all the time. These perception effects can change or be eliminated entirely with new/different knowledge, a relatively subtle change in conditions (such as state of mind) or something as simple as closing one's eyes.
  
 A. Is self explanatory, although can vary from person to person and change within an individual, with training for example.
 B. An example of (a) would be our frequency response; a sharp roll-off of high and low frequencies within the audible range and increased sensitivity at around 3kHz. An example of (b) would be the stereo effect, although we need the added "given certain condition" of a suitable acoustic environment for it to work. An example of (c) would be harmony, the shared perception of relationships between musical notes (the western equal temperament scales/tuning), which interestingly is a learned global response rather than an innate ability.
 C. Other sources are most commonly the eyes and/or the brain's memory centres. This results in the so called placebo effect, a whole raft of cognitive biases based on stored knowledge and what we hear being altered by what we see.
  
 There are several observations about these 3 groups of perception effects:

Item C can completely override either A, B or A/B combined!
All commercial audio content is a combination of both A and B (hence #1 above and why just an oscilloscope would be impossible in practice) but generally tries to avoid C.
The vast majority of audiophile products rely on C, a surprising number exclusively. Personally, I want to avoid these products as at any moment in time any positive perception of them could permanently change and therefore that investment is either completely wasted or could have been achieved far more cheaply (allowing me to spend that money on real improvements).
It is possible to train/educate oneself to reduce many of the C category perception effects and there are methods which can stop them overriding A and B.
There are a considerable number of other interesting extrapolations/implications which can be taken from all this, which I'll leave for now but which you might be able to figure out for yourself in regards to your first post.
  
 G


----------



## castleofargh

gregorio said:


> Personally, I disagree. If there were little improvement then MQA would be more than just a marketing ploy, although whether I personally (as a consumer) would want to buy into it would depend on how "little" that improvement was. The issue though, is that MQA appears to offer no improvement whatsoever over some existing formats, rather than just "little" improvement. BTW, MQA is not a type of mastering, it's just a distribution format. In other words, "standard mastering" still occurs, the only difference is what format the finished master is converted into.
> 
> ...


 
 I think there is some talk about making stuff for MQA from step one and some very unclear talk about taking the ADC characteristics into account(could mean anything and nothing really, I couldn't find clear info).


----------



## headfry

The placebo effect is so strong with MQA that it has totally fooled many revered industry experts 
- such as Bob Ludwig - and esteemed reviewers such as John Darko and WhatHifi, as well
as countless other enthusiasts.


The general consensus so far is that it is about as good as DSD, SACD and even vinyl -
 with some even prefering the musicality to even these established tho niche formats (not a huge market
for audiophile formats it seems). Reason - more analogue, more ease, less digital haze and artifacts.


If you agree that MQA can sound as good as DSD (for example) but in a smaller,
more streamable package - then how is this a marketing scam?
...is it because of some of the claims you find questionable?


----------



## icebear

headfry said:


> ......
> 
> The general consensus so far is that it *is about as good as .... even vinyl *-
> ....
> ...is it because of some of the claims you find questionable?


 
  
*ROFL *





  
 1. I don't stream any music.
 2. Even if they found an algorithm to make old files more pleasant it's not a function of the format itself but they kind of remaster the old file into a PROPRIETARY format and you will need to buy a PROPRIETARY licensed DAC to decode that file or otherwise the tiny blue MQA LED won't light up.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 They want the consumer to pay once again for existing music they already have on the shelf and certain people in the industry are trying to push their plot.
 3. Not from my wallet.


----------



## headfry

It's fine that you don't stream music - to each their own- 
but to argue that this is a scam and a transparent money grab
is misguided IMHO based on all of the evidence to date -

If this could be duplicated simply by using a pleasant algorithm then 
let somebody do that - I don't see MQA as a filter, eq or whatever -
it simply allows (much) more natural and musical reproduction over standard FLAC for example.

There is no push to get anyone to change their hardware or to buy MQA for that matter -
it's a free market.


----------



## icebear

headfry said:


> ...
> 
> There is no push to get anyone to change their hardware or to buy MQA for that matter -
> it's a free market.


 
  
 So far it looks like you can also listen to MQA files using a normal DAC but it wouldn't sound as good as regular 16/44.
 If that's not pushing for the proprietary MQA licensed hardware then I don't know what it is.


----------



## tmarshl

gregorio said:


> Personally, I disagree. If there were little improvement then MQA would be more than just a marketing ploy, although whether I personally (as a consumer) would want to buy into it would depend on how "little" that improvement was. The issue though, is that MQA appears to offer no improvement whatsoever over some existing formats, rather than just "little" improvement. BTW, MQA is not a type of mastering, it's just a distribution format. In other words, "standard mastering" still occurs, the only difference is what format the finished master is converted into.
> 
> 
> 1. This discussion might be easier but the actual creation of audio content would be impossible.
> ...


 

 Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful reply.  Speaking only for myself, I am in this hobby for the pleasure I receive from listening to great music.  The end result is a combination of so many factors, that it can be dizzying to parse them all.  Rather than attempting to do that, I just sit back and enjoy whatever combination of composer, artist, label, recording format and equipment, mastering process and equipment, file format, distribution medium, playback, DAC, PreAmp, Amp, cables and headphones (or speakers) brings me the greatest pleasure at a reasonable cost.  For streaming via Tidal, MQA Masters meets that objective.


----------



## castleofargh

headfry said:


> It's fine that you don't stream music - to each their own-
> but to argue that this is a scam and a transparent money grab
> is misguided IMHO based on all of the evidence to date -
> 
> ...


 

 it's not about a scam. they have a product to sell, like anybody else, they're just trying to make money by pushing for it in any way they know how. it's a business. from scam to thinking those guys(or any other for that matter) are only thinking about consumers best interests and the quality of audio, there certainly is space to maneuver.
  
 now when you write stuff like: "it simply allows (much) more natural and musical reproduction over standard FLAC for example."  you write it as if was a given fact. you write nothing to suggest it's just your opinion based on nothing concrete, and that's misleading people. you are misleading people. the very thing we're talking about.
 have you got concrete evidence of a "more natural and musical reproduction"? blind test? what sort? 16/44 flac vs 16/44MQA? 16/44 MQA vs what might actually be something like 13/192 PCM or whatever the actual data resolution of the MQA files you tried once all extracted? how have you verified that the tracks were the same master at the same loudness? have you verified that the software extraction didn't apply some EQ or other stuff?
 you probably wouldn't even know where to start to make a proper listening test for that claim, yet you've repeatedly made statements like that one, and you've been adamant from day one that you know it sounds better. you're jumping to conclusion and decided that we all had to jump with you. that's not cool.
  
 provide proper actual evidence or stop writing stuff like that. I believe I've already asked you that very thing before for the very same reasons on this topic. you have evidence of something, share it so we can all make the proper conclusion. if not, do like  @tmarshl last page and make it clear that the stuff you say without evidence is only your personal opinion.


----------



## headfry

Yes - it's my opinion. When it cones to (consistently ling-term) musical satisfaction, it's all subjective.

There is plenty of theory - I guess you don't find it lives up to MQA's claims.


----------



## castleofargh

personally I'm just a grumpy disillusioned skeptic. ^_^ until I get some pretty strong reasons to believe otherwise, my default position is to decide that any statement about superiority without clear evidence of it, is BS.
 beyond that, I'm like the next guy and would love it if all my life I had been listening to crap and each "revolutionary" format could open my eyes a little more on all the audio goodness. that must be so nice. but so far the few practical tests I've done have given me the impression that a good record on a good enough DAC could sound marvelous in 16/44. and that so far everything pretending to make night and day differences in file formats, made so much that they could hardly ever score above 50/50 in controlled tests.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 so skepticism becomes more and more justified with each new "revolution".


----------



## icebear

castleofargh said:


> personally I'm just a grumpy disillusioned skeptic. ^_^ until I get some pretty strong reasons to believe otherwise, my default position is to decide that any statement about superiority without clear evidence of it, is BS.
> beyond that, I'm like the next guy and would love it if all my life I had been listening to crap and each "revolutionary" format could open my eyes a little more on all the audio goodness. that must be so nice. but so far the few practical tests I've done have given me the impression that a good record on a good enough DAC could sound marvelous in 16/44. and that so far everything pretending to make night and day differences in file formats, made so much that they could hardly ever score above 50/50 in controlled tests.
> 
> 
> ...


 

*+1*
 ... especially when this particular "revolution" is going on since 2014 already
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 and yet still no clear evidence at all that is is superior in a controlled test.


----------



## old tech

headfry said:


> The placebo effect is so strong with MQA that it has totally fooled many revered industry experts
> - such as Bob Ludwig - and esteemed reviewers such as John Darko and WhatHifi, as well
> as countless other enthusiasts.
> 
> ...


 
  
 I haven't yet read that is a general consensus, indeed I have yet to read or hear any conclusive evidence that DSD/SACD offers any improvement over CD with the same mastering.  As for vinyl, it is lower definition than CD (and that is evidence based) so saying it is as good as vinyl is just like saying CDs are as good as low bit rate mp3s.
  
 I would be sorely disappointed if MQA had an "analogue sound" as commonly defined.  I want it to be clean, linear and detailed not presented as an "analogue sounding" noise, veiled, coloured and rolled-off.


----------



## LajostheHun

headfry said:


> this argument is discredited 100% to me...with all due respect.
> 
> Similar argument is that the 1's and 0's people used to laugh at those
> looking at improving SQ with upmarket USB or ethernet cables....
> ...


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> it's not about a scam. they have a product to sell, like anybody else, they're just trying to make money by pushing for it in any way they know how. it's a business. from scam to thinking those guys(or any other for that matter) are only thinking about consumers best interests and the quality of audio, there certainly is space to maneuver.
> 
> now when you write stuff like: "it simply allows (much) more natural and musical reproduction over standard FLAC for example."  you write it as if was a given fact. you write nothing to suggest it's just your opinion based on nothing concrete, and that's misleading people. you are misleading people. the very thing we're talking about.
> have you got concrete evidence of a "more natural and musical reproduction"? blind test? what sort? 16/44 flac vs 16/44MQA? 16/44 MQA vs what might actually be something like 13/192 PCM or whatever the actual data resolution of the MQA files you tried once all extracted? how have you verified that the tracks were the same master at the same loudness? have you verified that the software extraction didn't apply some EQ or other stuff?
> ...




I agree with what you say. 

But it needs to work both ways. There are people stating as fact that it cannot be better than 44.1kHz 16 bit here, and there is no concrete evidense for that either.

I'm *not* saying it does sound better, yet, but it is still Schrodinger's Codec. We don't know yet.

Opinions are like **#@!*@!: There are plenty of them here (your grump self exluded)


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> I think there is some talk about making stuff for MQA from step one and some very unclear talk about taking the ADC characteristics into account(could mean anything and nothing really, I couldn't find clear info).




There definitely was at the beginning. It has gone a little hazy on the details since, possibly as people like Warner have signed up and insisted that this need not be compulsory.

This could be as the mammoth task of doing this is impractical.

The cynic in me thinks it is also likely to be because the execs want to churn out the loudness wars compressed rubbish again. If the public could hear what they've been subjected to I think it could reinvigorate the industry a little.

If all MQA did was end the loudness war, I would pay I would pay for that.


----------



## castleofargh

well I imagine it would mean interference from MQA or at the very least use of MQA fitted products, something we can't possibly imagine the recording industry to adopt as a standard just because someone said please.
  
 but at a technical level I'm still pathologically curious so I wonder what they wished to do on the recording side.
  
  
 and of course you're right that claims without evidence are wrong whatever the stance they take(I make way too many of those myself, but please don't tell anybody).
 unless the claims default on the most expected result based on what we know of the tech. then instead of a claim, we're stating the contemporary consensus. getting better time domain is something of a belief for a few DAC manufacturers that lacks evidence of clear audible impact above redbook(contrary to the insinuations about subjective benefits from the MQA vids/ITWs, and the foolish quote of 5 to 8µs as a relevant value out of context). in fact unless I'm missing something, I imagine it wouldn't be hard to make that time variable look good without ringing on an impulse while actually not having the best of resolution. filter-less NOS DAC style.

  
  
 now to be clear, I'm really not saying that higher sampling resolution can't be objectively beneficial, only that focusing only on time domain can be different from actually increasing fidelity.
  
 from the start I would have preferred if MQA had been presented only as a compression format for high sampling signals. I don't really have a problem with the tech, as it's obvious that increasing(or using part of) the bit depth takes less space than multiplying the number of samples.  no to me, it's like highres, pono, SACD, highres DAPs ... my personal hatred and wish to see them fail comes almost exclusively from cleverly misleading marketing that shouldn't exist and in a few cases, should IMO be prosecuted for false advertising.


----------



## ralphp@optonline

castleofargh said:


> .....no to me, it's like highres, pono, SACD, highres DAPs ... my personal hatred and wish to see them fail comes almost exclusively from cleverly misleading marketing that shouldn't exist and in a few cases, should IMO be prosecuted for false advertising.


 
  
 If this part of the high end audio could be prosecuted for false advertising then almost the entire high end audio industry would end up in court. Let's see there's cable and wires, power conditioners, anti-jitter devices to name just a few of the main offenders.


----------



## jagwap

ralphp@optonline said:


> If this part of the high end audio could be prosecuted for false advertising then almost the entire high end audio industry would end up in court. Let's see there's cable and wires, power conditioners, anti-jitter devices to name just a few of the main offenders.


 

 Cables make a difference, but not for the reason people usually state. Power conditioners can. Lower jitter does help (if it's actually lowering an issue).

 Cables can improve (or damage) the EMI performance of a system. I had a colleague, who hated the cable nonsense. He was trying to set up a blind listening test between to bits if kit, and he could not get them to sound the same. He swapped everything one by one between the systems trying to find what caused the very noticable difference. When he found the culprit he was insensed: A mains cable. He was a mild mannered gentleman working in a scientifically rigorous audio company, but by the way he describes it, there may have been rude words used that day.

 He tracked it down not to a fault, but a different RF performance of the IEC cable. It behaved differently to the others. It was in every other way normal. Just the length and twist caused it to allow certain frequencies through more.

 I think the cable industry is ripping people off a lot of the time. But not always. Our friend here who can't stop banging on about USB cables. He may be right, as even CE approved computers chuck out a f'tonne of crap down the shield of a USB cable if there is a ground loop. The best fix is a galvanically isolated USB adaptor, if its done well with a good eye pattern.


----------



## ThomasHK

castleofargh said:


> well I imagine it would mean interference from MQA or at the very least use of MQA fitted products, something we can't possibly imagine the recording industry to adopt as a standard just because someone said please.
> 
> but at a technical level I'm still pathologically curious so I wonder what they wished to do on the recording side.
> 
> ...


 
  
 https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3029674A1/en?inventor=John+Robert+Stuart&sort=new --> pre-ringing removal patent
 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150154969A1/en?assignee=Meridian+Audio+Limited&sort=new --> folding
  
 I remember seeing another one that described their idea for the "ideal" ADC/DAC process but I can't find it back...
  
 And there is also this: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=17497 --> paper by Stuart et al. about audibility of different filters in a playback system.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> well I imagine it would mean interference from MQA or at the very least use of MQA fitted products, something we can't possibly imagine the recording industry to adopt as a standard just because someone said please.




What I recall is that the main gripe from MQA was that the early ADCs did a bunch of stuff when mastering that was was not as good as the current batch. Jitter may not be correctable, so a re-master would be best, but if not available then some corrections could be done (yes, including the controversial time smear) on the digital master if the ADC is known.

As I say, the words I recall, not mine.



> but at a technical level I'm still pathologically curious so I wonder what they wished to do on the recording side.
> 
> 
> and of course you're right that claims without evidence are wrong whatever the stance they take(I make way too many of those myself, but please don't tell anybody).
> ...




I've seen a different study that found that 15uS is discernable between the ears for direction queues. Not the same claim, but it shows that timing is important. 



> from the start I would have preferred if MQA had been presented only as a compression format for high sampling signals. I don't really have a problem with the tech, as it's obvious that increasing(or using part of) the bit depth takes less space than multiplying the number of samples.  no to me, it's like highres, pono, SACD, highres DAPs ... my personal hatred and wish to see them fail comes almost exclusively from cleverly misleading marketing that shouldn't exist and in a few cases, should IMO be prosecuted for false advertising.




I think Neil Young's original claims about there being a mistake in the audio are really unfortunate, as he made them while talking to Meridian about making the Pono. So when the actual Pono player came out, he couldn't point to a mistake, as he no longer had the technology inside it that he thought could fix it, and he didn't have the magical mastered albums available on his website to download.

The pono player is a decent player for the money. The apodizing filter roll off at 44.1 & 48kHz means you are maybe not making a fair comparison when testing between Redbook and hi-res, but otherwise is beats (almost?) all phones.


----------



## jagwap

ralphp@optonline said:


> If this part of the high end audio could be prosecuted for false advertising then almost the entire high end audio industry would end up in court. Let's see there's cable and wires, power conditioners, anti-jitter devices to name just a few of the main offenders.




Just a clarification on the jitter thing: most of the audio industry (the non tweaky bits) often think as long as jitter is below 2ns it is fine. They think this because the AES-EBU reciever phase locked loop will remove it. However most AES-EBU receivers (thats SPDIF, TOSLINK, AES formats etc.) only filter jitter above 20kHz. 

*They only remove jitter outside the audio band!*. This means any audio band jitter may pass straight through to all the way to the DAC if no additional care is taken.

If you meant lumps of unobtainium placed on a CD player or DAC to remove jitter, then yes, have them strategically shaved, tarred and feathered and expelled from society.


----------



## jagwap

old tech said:


> I haven't yet read that is a general consensus, indeed I have yet to read or hear any conclusive evidence that DSD/SACD offers any improvement over CD with the same mastering.  As for vinyl, it is lower definition than CD (and that is evidence based) so saying it is as good as vinyl is just like saying CDs are as good as low bit rate mp3s.




I disagree. A few things about vinyl: it has been fine tuned and honed for over 100 years to squeeze the last drop of music out of a primative format. Note I say music, not resolution. I know that may prickle here, but a lot of the work in this area was not only measuremant based. It was through listening and fine tuning, supported by measurement. Concentrating on those things have resulted in performance that is subjectively better than measurements suggest. Maybe like a car that handles well beating a fast car in real world situations.

Also vinyl gets the less compressed master in the loudness war issue as the format doesn't do well with 3dB dynamic range signals, so often you are getting a closer version to the original sonically. How ironic.

Have you heard a well sorted high end turntable based system with some good non-recycled vinyl well mastered source material? It may surprise you at how well it performs. I've designed some phono stages and turntable motor drive circuits, and found the format to be musically rewarding. Perfect? No, but enjoyable, and often more satsifying in those early days of digital.

All too subjective for this end of the forum, but don't dismiss the old tech just because of the numbers. 1/4" tape is pretty good too.


----------



## spruce music

jagwap said:


> Just a clarification on the jitter thing: most of the audio industry (the non tweaky bits) often think as long as jitter is below 2ns it is fine. They think this because the AES-EBU reciever phase locked loop will remove it. However most AES-EBU receivers (thats SPDIF, TOSLINK, AES formats etc.) only filter jitter above 20kHz.
> 
> *They only remove jitter outside the audio band!*. This means any audio band jitter may pass straight through to all the way to the DAC if no additional care is taken.
> 
> If you meant lumps of unobtainium placed on a CD player or DAC to remove jitter, then yes, have them strategically shaved, tarred and feathered and expelled from society.


 

 Where in the world did you get this bit of erroneous information?  Firstly even if true it is clear from measurements that you aren't getting high jitter in the audible band.  Secondly it isn't true.  Not even close to true. Some devices uses ASRC to reduce jitter, some have multiple levels of crystal clocking and PLL loops.  I don't know of any that only filter jitter above 20 khz.  Get your facts straight please.


----------



## jagwap

spruce music said:


> Where in the world did you get this bit of erroneous information?  Firstly even if true it is clear from measurements that you aren't getting high jitter in the audible band.  Secondly it isn't true.  Not even close to true. Some devices uses ASRC to reduce jitter, some have multiple levels of crystal clocking and PLL loops.  I don't know of any that only filter jitter above 20 khz.  Get your facts straight please.


 

 ​Cirrus Logic, one of the main suppliers of AES-EBU receivers out there, every one except the Wolfson ones (they got these after they bought Wolfson) have zero jitter attenuation below 20kHz.  It's in their datasheets. Here are a couple.  They all do this.
  

  
  

 ​Now they don't say you shouldn't do any more to reduce the audio band jitter, but on it's own it is not going to do it.  I have seen plenty of products that rely on just this.
  
 ASRC can help, but ONLY if it also senses the jitter coming in and accounts for it.  Many turn the jitter into THD and then perfectly clock the now permanently distorted signal out again.
  
 Here is a good one:
​
 If it does not have this information then do not assume it is good at this.  I spoke to Texas Instruments design team about their high end ASCRs and they confirmed that there is attenuation, but they could not come up with numbers, a graph or anything to confirm its performance.  It probably good, but I cannot be sure.
  
 This guy knows a lot about it, as he worked on them: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/28814-asynchronous-sample-rate-conversion-8.html#post345995 (edited to add this link)
  
 I recommend reading the whole thread.
  
 Just straightening my facts.  Thank you for the reminder.


----------



## spruce music

jagwap said:


> ​Cirrus Logic, one of the main suppliers of AES-EBU receivers out there, every one except the Wolfson ones (they got these after they bought Wolfson) have zero jitter attenuation below 20kHz.  It's in their datasheets. Here are a couple.  They all do this.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
 This particular chip, which is long in the tooth, is used as AES receiver and as sample rate converter.  The same datasheet you took your graphs from show typical jitter at the output as 200 ps.  Not so bad.  I don't know that this chip represents the typical use with no other PLL's involved.


----------



## jagwap

spruce music said:


> This particular chip, which is long in the tooth, is used as AES receiver and as sample rate converter.  The same datasheet you took your graphs from show typical jitter at the output as 200 ps.  Not so bad.  I don't know that this chip represents the typical use with no other PLL's involved.




The first one yes it is. The CS8416 is not, and has been an industry standard for a longtime. 200ps under what conditions? If you input a signal with 100Hz sineusoidal jitter it will not be reduced very much. In a system where the CS8416 is the master that will be non ideal.

Anyway, we both digress. My point was that the dismissal of the above things out of hand is not always appropriate and that it is happening in the sound science is disappointing.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I disagree. A few things about vinyl: it has been fine tuned and honed for over 100 years to squeeze the last drop of music out of a primative format. Note I say music, not resolution. I know that may prickle here, but a lot of the work in this area was not only measuremant based. It was through listening and fine tuning, supported by measurement. Concentrating on those things have resulted in performance that is subjectively better than measurements suggest. Maybe like a car that handles well beating a fast car in real world situations.


 
 Better than measurements suggest? Only if how measurement relates to audibility is not understood.


jagwap said:


> Also vinyl gets the less compressed master in the loudness war issue as the format doesn't do well with 3dB dynamic range signals, so often you are getting a closer version to the original sonically. How ironic.


 
 Um...well...sort of. Better explanation *here.*


jagwap said:


> Have you heard a well sorted high end turntable based system with some good non-recycled vinyl well mastered source material? It may surprise you at how well it performs. I've designed some phono stages and turntable motor drive circuits, and found the format to be musically rewarding. Perfect? No, but enjoyable, and often more satsifying in those early days of digital.


 
 Yes, done it. And one better, did the comparison with a record actually verifiably cut from the identical master as the CD. Guess what? The CD and vinyl sounded identical except for surface noise at a bit more distortion on the vinyl.  In other words, the vinyl was not "more musical", and there was no "vinyl sound" other than noise and distortion. And the CD was indistinguishable from the master. The recording was not mastered for the loudness war, though. You cannot perform that comparison unless you have absolute certainty that both CD and vinyl were made from the same master (something that is mostly impossible).
  


jagwap said:


> All too subjective for this end of the forum, but don't dismiss the old tech just because of the numbers. 1/4" tape is pretty good too.


 
 Oh no... not 1/4" tape...good grief. Sure, it's good. Better than even 16/44? Not a chance. It was good for what it was. But it never fooled anyone into thinking what they were listening to was "live". The real comparison is to compare a live stereo bus output to an analog tape vs a digital recorder running in>out. You can pick out the tape every single time. But the digital recorder, even the early Sony PCM 16xx series, would fool the experts all the time.
  
 Do I dare mention...analog tape has it's own version of jitter? Oh yeah, and it's way more audible than the miniscule digital jitter everybody gripes about.
  
 Deja-vu, I KNOW I've written this post before!


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Better than measurements suggest? Only if how measurement relates to audibility is not understood.
> Um...well...sort of. Better explanation *here.*
> Yes, done it. And one better, did the comparison with a record actually verifiably cut from the identical master as the CD. Guess what? The CD and vinyl sounded identical except for surface noise at a bit more distortion on the vinyl.  In other words, the vinyl was not "more musical", and there was no "vinyl sound" other than noise and distortion. And the CD was indistinguishable from the master. The recording was not mastered for the loudness war, though. You cannot perform that comparison unless you have absolute certainty that both CD and vinyl were made from the same master (something that is mostly impossible).
> 
> ...




Excellent. 

I didn't say vinyl is better. Just it performs far better than many suspect given the measurements and what they suggest. Good to see you are not one of the many.

Yes 1/4" and vinyl have wow and flutter. They are both old tech. I'm just saying that they have been honed to within an inch of their lives, and as such are good. Digital was a bit wrough at the edges to start with, and is still improving.

Interesting link. I find the results on the loudness database suggest that the vinyl master versions are more often the pre loudness cooked ones, rather than specially done for vinyl.

Now if only this were true of MQA... It was supposed to be... (Back on topic)


----------



## ThomasHK

jagwap said:


> Excellent.
> 
> I didn't say vinyl is better. Just it performs far better than many suspect given the measurements and what they suggest. Good to see you are not one of the many.
> 
> ...


 
 Indeed, back on topic... I feel that if there are differences heard between the Tidal HiFi and Master versions, it's simply down to being different masters ... But I've said that before


----------



## jagwap

thomashk said:


> Indeed, back on topic... I feel that if there are differences heard between the Tidal HiFi and Master versions, it's simply down to being different masters ... But I've said that before




That is a reasonable speculation to make. But if life was fair, the same people who jumped on the people who said they could hear something, should also pounce on this statement, as there is no proof.

(So I am. As I whiteknight the subjectivists.)


----------



## ThomasHK

jagwap said:


> That is a reasonable speculation to make. But if life was fair, the same people who jumped on the people who said they could hear something, should also pounce on this statement, as there is no proof.
> 
> (So I am. As I whiteknight the subjectivists.)


 
  
 Well, if I could be arsed, I would create a loop back into an external sound card from my Mojo and look at the DR of the HiFi and Master versions of the same tracks. If there is a bigger difference than can be accounted by the format changes, there could only be one other explanation.


----------



## jagwap

thomashk said:


> Well, if I could be arsed, I would create a loop back into an external sound card from my Mojo and look at the DR of the HiFi and Master versions of the same tracks. If there is a bigger difference than can be accounted by the format changes, there could only be one other explanation.




Well Archimago did this 
http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/02/comparison-hardware-decoded-mqa-using.html?m=1 
http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/01/comparison-tidal-mqa-music-high.html?m=1
, but we don't know if these are the same pieces of music. Perhaps the listeners can go and try them, and them pm me with their results if they don't want to get beaten up here.


----------



## ThomasHK

jagwap said:


> Well Archimago did this
> http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/02/comparison-hardware-decoded-mqa-using.html?m=1
> http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/01/comparison-tidal-mqa-music-high.html?m=1
> , but we don't know if these are the same pieces of music. Perhaps the listeners can go and try them, and them pm me with their results if they don't want to get beaten up here.


 
 Where do you see comparison between Tidal HiFi and Master? He compares Tidal Master to HD tracks versions.


----------



## jagwap

thomashk said:


> Where do you see comparison between Tidal HiFi and Master? He compares Tidal Master to HD tracks versions.



Ah ok. My mistake.

Still, a valid test no?

Then again, it seems like I am the only one (apart from those who listen, reported, got flamed) who wants to know. Everyone else seems to enjoy shoot it down.


----------



## ThomasHK

jagwap said:


> Ah ok. My mistake.
> 
> Still, a valid test no?
> 
> Then again, it seems like I am the only one (apart from those who listen, reported, got flamed) who wants to know. Everyone else seems to enjoy shoot it down.


 
  
 What that test shows (in my eyes, and I think Archimago's...) is _there is very little difference between the high res HD tracks and the equivalent MQA streams on Tidal_
  
 What my gut feeling is (I need to proove this, I know), that the HiFi vs. Master files that have audible differences (like so many of the HF sheep claim) are DIFFERENTLY mastered files. 
  
 So, the HD tracks = MQA master
 But HiFi != MQA master 
  
 I really wish I had some proove, cause now it just sounds like I'm making things up... 
  
 But just have a look at this one: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr-max?artist=eagles&album=hotel+california
  
 There are no less than 4 different masters of the same Eagles album. with the most recent CD (i.e. 16/44 version scoring significantly worse on DR than the HD tracks versions).


----------



## jagwap

thomashk said:


> What that test shows (in my eyes, and I think Archimago's...) is _there is very little difference between the high res HD tracks and the equivalent MQA streams on Tidal_
> 
> What my gut feeling is (I need to proove this, I know), that the HiFi vs. Master files that have audible differences (like so many of the HF sheep claim) are DIFFERENTLY mastered files.
> 
> ...




I know. Drives be crazy tracking down the good versions. Every now and then a good one cannot be found, so I download a vinyl rip. I know this looks like I'm trying to wind people here up now, but sometimes that is the best option. For example: Beck - Morning Phase. The vinyl rip is so much better than anything else I can find. The hires, CD itunes... Compressed to hell.

As we have to rely on the likes of Warner to do the lion share of MQAb it's up to them if they want to screw it up again.


----------



## gregorio

headfry said:


> The placebo effect is so strong with MQA that it has totally fooled many revered industry experts
> - such as Bob Ludwig - and esteemed reviewers such as John Darko and WhatHifi, as well
> as countless other enthusiasts.


 
  
 Looking at the video of Bob Ludwig, I'm not convinced he has been "totally fooled". If anything, it's seems to be the other way around; he's one of those doing the fooling. IE. He's on the MQA payroll. There's some quite clever, considered wording going on if you listen carefully.
  


tmarshl said:


> [1] Speaking only for myself, I am in this hobby for the pleasure I receive from listening to great music.
> [2] The end result is a combination of so many factors, that it can be dizzying to parse them all.  Rather than attempting to do that, I just sit back and enjoy whatever combination of composer, artist, label, recording format and equipment, mastering process and equipment, file format, distribution medium, playback, DAC, PreAmp, Amp, cables and headphones (or speakers) brings me the greatest pleasure at a reasonable cost.
> [3] For streaming via Tidal, MQA Masters meets that objective.


 
  
 1. I believe you view is echoed by most/all in this sub-forum, although not necessarily all in the whole of head-fi, as quite a few appear to gain their pleasure from the owning and listening to the audio equipment itself, rather than the music.
  
 2. Again, you are broadly speaking for most/all of us, we all want "the greatest pleasure at a reasonable cost", where we appear to differ is how we achieve that goal. For me personally, for pleasure to be "greatest" it has to extend beyond the showroom, a friend's house or even my own environment for a short/limited time. I could for example choose to buy a new DAC (cable or whatever) to take full advantage of MQA, based on an initial listening or two and ignoring any science, placebo or other perceptual biases. For some amount of time I might satisfy my requirement of "greatest pleasure", right up until I become aware that it was only say placebo or until another product/marketing campaign (specifically designed to titillate perceptual biases rather than actual SQ) comes along which fools me and my senses into believing even greater pleasure, for again some amount of time, which may only be hours, days or months. Taking this approach I either A. Have to keep changing my equipment to satisfy my ever changing perceptual biases of what is "greatest" pleasure at that moment in time or B. I have to get off that ridiculous marketing driven bandwagon by eliminating/reducing as many of those biases as possible and realigning my definition of "greatest" with what's actually there rather than what I might think is there at any particular instant in time. The problem with "A" is that it's self defeating, "greatest" is either unattainable or never lasts for long AND it's certainly not at a "reasonable cost". There would be absolutely nothing "reasonable" about spending say $200 on a new, MQA capable DAC in the example above, if after a few days or weeks I no longer suffer from that placebo or other initial perception bias. Unless of course one considers $200 to be a "reasonable cost" for what maybe just a few days of "greatest pleasure"? "Reasonable cost" for me might be anything from about ten dollars to tens of thousands but it has to actually affect SQ for the better rather than just some of my short term perception biases.
  
 3. It may have met your objective at the time of posting but it doesn't meet my objective and it might not even meet your objective tomorrow. Personally, if I'm going to publicly offer my opinion/advice, then I like to be pretty sure I'm not just reinforcing a marketing ploy.
  


jagwap said:


> [1] There are people stating as fact that it cannot be better than 44.1kHz 16 bit here, and there is no concrete evidense for that either.
> [2] What I recall is that the main gripe from MQA was that the early ADCs did a bunch of stuff when mastering that was was not as good as the current batch.
> [3] I've seen a different study that found that 15uS is discernable between the ears for direction queues.
> [3a] Just a clarification on the jitter thing: most of the audio industry (the non tweaky bits) often think as long as jitter is below 2ns it is fine.


 
  
 1. That depends on how we define "better". If we are defining it in terms of what is audible, then there's a considerable amount of concrete (reliable) evidence, simply on the basis that under any normal listening conditions 44/16 already exceeds all audible parameters and therefore nothing can be "better".
  
 2. Possibly early ADC's did do a bunch of stuff when mastering. Not today or for many years though, as an ADC is typically not even part of the mastering chain/process! Actually, this comment is what makes the claims of MQA relatively meaningless. Most early CDs and many up to about 15 or 20 years ago, typically underwent several conversion stages; say an initial ADC during recording, then conversion back to analogue for mixing, then back to digital again during mastering or maybe round trips out of the digital domain for some analogue processing, which was also standard practice until about 10-15 years ago. Even if MQA "knows" the ADC used for recording, what about the ADC used during mastering or how many times those ADC artefacts were incurred or if, as was also commonly the case at some points in time, external clocks were employed at any of these conversion stages? What if there were some audible artefacts from these various conversions which were treated during mixing or mastering with some other processing? There's simply never (or hardly ever) going to be this level of detailed info available and if MQA is applying some "correction" for ADC jitter, in practise it's going to be effectively an entirely random correction, a correction just as likely to be worse than better. Although I'm talking about better or worse in terms of "technically" rather than audibly.
  
 3. That figure is I believe possible, under certain specific situations but is typically much higher in practice (with music).
 3a. Let's for a second accept your quoted figures of 2nS and 15uS. 2ns is 7,500 times more resolution/accuracy than the 15uS differentiation threshold you're quoting!! However, we cannot accept your figures because they're simply untrue: 1. The lowest discernible jitter I'm aware of, put the limit at about 200nS, which is actually far MORE sensitivity than what you're quoting for directional cues and 2. There have been NO pro ADCs I'm aware of with jitter anywhere even near the range of 2nS! You might find this paper from 2006 useful, as it deals with probably the most widely used pro ADC, DigiDesign 192 (from 2002-2010) and is specifically about jitter. both internal and that introduced by various clocking schemes. Incidentally, the ADC the 192 replaced (Digidesign's 888/24) was the first 24bit pro ADC commercially available and easily the most widely used during it's production run (1997-2002), it had jitter of 65pS (RMS)! So, if we take the lowest (200nS rather than 15uS) demonstrated limit of jitter discernibility, the first 24bit pro ADC of 20 years ago had jitter about 3,000 times lower!! So where exactly is this ADC jitter problem which MQA needs to fix?

  
 G


----------



## old tech

jagwap said:


> I disagree. A few things about vinyl: it has been fine tuned and honed for over 100 years to squeeze the last drop of music out of a primative format. Note I say music, not resolution. I know that may prickle here, but a lot of the work in this area was not only measuremant based. It was through listening and fine tuning, supported by measurement. Concentrating on those things have resulted in performance that is subjectively better than measurements suggest. Maybe like a car that handles well beating a fast car in real world situations.
> 
> Also vinyl gets the less compressed master in the loudness war issue as the format doesn't do well with 3dB dynamic range signals, so often you are getting a closer version to the original sonically. How ironic.
> 
> ...


 
 So you mean the mastering then, not format?  That is an album by album release comparison.  Yes there are many LPs of a particular album that sound better than the same on CD or hi res due to better mastering, thus it has always been even back in the day when I'd occasionally come across a pre-recorded compact cassette that sounded better than the LP.
  
 Your tone is very condescending.  I do have a high end turntable, cartridge/cart, phono pre-amp which is worth far more than my digital gear and choose my records with great care for pressing flaws - which of course is necessary to get sound anywhere near good digital.  It sounds very good but it doesn't sound as good as digital when playing a well mastered CD for example, and so it shouldn't by any analog measurement.
  
 It is also ironic that you mention modern mastering trends (eg loudness war, excess compression etc) yet you seem dismissive of early digital.  Some of my best sounding recordings are early digital.  For example my 1983 Sony B/T Dark Side of the Moon is the best sounding version I have of this album, much better than my half speed MFSL UHQR and even better than my Japan Sony Pro Series LP, which uses the same master.  Indeed, the B/T CD sounds the same as my Japan LP but cleaner, better top end, more nuanced bass and consistent across every track, rather than deteriorating as it gets towards the centre of the record - again exactly what the measurements say.
  
 But back to point, if we are talking format rather than mastering, you cannot place LPs at the same level of fidelity as CDs, SACDs or other hi res formats. And that is the issue I have with MQA, it doesn't solve the mastering problem.


----------



## jagwap

Quote:


gregorio said:


> 2. Possibly early ADC's did do a bunch of stuff when mastering. Not today or for many years though, as an ADC is typically not even part of the mastering chain/process! Actually, this comment is what makes the claims of MQA relatively meaningless. Most early CDs and many up to about 15 or 20 years ago, typically underwent several conversion stages; say an initial ADC during recording, then conversion back to analogue for mixing, then back to digital again during mastering or maybe round trips out of the digital domain for some analogue processing, which was also standard practice until about 10-15 years ago. Even if MQA "knows" the ADC used for recording, what about the ADC used during mastering or how many times those ADC artefacts were incurred or if, as was also commonly the case at some points in time, external clocks were employed at any of these conversion stages? What if there were some audible artefacts from these various conversions which were treated during mixing or mastering with some other processing? There's simply never (or hardly ever) going to be this level of detailed info available and if MQA is applying some "correction" for ADC jitter, in practise it's going to be effectively an entirely random correction, a correction just as likely to be worse than better. Although I'm talking about better or worse in terms of "technically" rather than audibly.
> G


 
 You make a fair point when regarding the mess that the signal can go through in a pop/rock studio, especially before digital desks.  DDD on the early CDs was often BS.  One thing you may not be aware of, Macolm Stuart is a bit of a classical and choral fan if I remember correctly (born out by Meridians collaborations with Tony Faulkner). I think we can assume a few less effects units and side chains then.


gregorio said:


> 3. That figure is I believe possible, under certain specific situations but is typically much higher in practice (with music).
> 3a. Let's for a second accept your quoted figures of 2nS and 15uS. 2ns is 7,500 times more resolution/accuracy than the 15uS differentiation threshold you're quoting!! However, we cannot accept your figures because they're simply untrue: 1. The lowest discernible jitter I'm aware of, put the limit at about 200nS, which is actually far MORE sensitivity than what you're quoting for directional cues and 2. There have been NO pro ADCs I'm aware of with jitter anywhere even near the range of 2nS! You might find this paper from 2006 useful, as it deals with probably the most widely used pro ADC, DigiDesign 192 (from 2002-2010) and is specifically about jitter. both internal and that introduced by various clocking schemes. Incidentally, the ADC the 192 replaced (Digidesign's 888/24) was the first 24bit pro ADC commercially available and easily the most widely used during it's production run (1997-2002), it had jitter of 65pS (RMS)! So, if we take the lowest (200nS rather than 15uS) demonstrated limit of jitter discernibility, the first 24bit pro ADC of 20 years ago had jitter about 3,000 times lower!! So where exactly is this ADC jitter problem which MQA needs to fix?
> 
> G


 
 You are misreading what I said (or meant).  I said the inter-ear timing detection was found to be better than 15us.  I was not relating to jitter.  My point was the ear is sensitive to timing issues.  Now when MQA starts saying 10us then that is within the bounds of a measurement error.
  
 Then the 2ns is generally the upper limit of what the audio industry specifies as too much, and I meant AES-EBU connections.  The consensus of audibility I have been aware of is closer to 250ps for jitter, so perhaps you have a typo in there? I hope so, or some people are being a bit careless with the clocks.  I have heard people claim that < 10ps is required, but I'll them fight that battle if they feel like it.  The type of jitter matters far more than a number, like nearly all the measurements.


----------



## jagwap

old tech said:


> So you mean the mastering then, not format?  That is an album by album release comparison.  Yes there are many LPs of a particular album that sound better than the same on CD or hi res due to better mastering, thus it has always been even back in the day when I'd occasionally come across a pre-recorded compact cassette that sounded better than the LP.
> 
> Your tone is very condescending.  I do have a high end turntable, cartridge/cart, phono pre-amp which is worth far more than my digital gear and choose my records with great care for pressing flaws - which of course is necessary to get sound anywhere near good digital.  It sounds very good but it doesn't sound as good as digital when playing a well mastered CD for example, and so it shouldn't by any analog measurement.
> 
> ...


 

 My tone was condicending because this forums is dismissive.  I misread you dismissing vinyl as being MP3 compared to CDs. 
  
 I mean mastering AND format.  Vinyl isn't perfect, but it is good, but yes digital is capable of being better.  But I'd put a great turntable above an indifferent digital system, but all things being equal as you describe I agree.
  
 I agree there are good early digital recordings.  It is a pity that as the technology improved, the mastering didn't often. I haven't found a good DSOTM yet.  I should try that one as so far memory (I know...) the vinyl has been better...  MFSL are often good, but not always the best.
  
 MQA was *going* to solve the mastering problem, well try to. But that has gone quiet.  Nothing on the loudness database yet (one inconclusive entry).  Hope spring eternal.


----------



## Gringo

Whatever your stance regarding MQA, it seems the MQA ball is certainly gathering momentum now that Capitol, (including all its many recording labels), has now signed up. The dead on arrival dismissive mentioned by some appears to be a little premature


----------



## jagwap

gringo said:


> Whatever your stance regarding MQA, it seems the MQA ball is certainly gathering momentum now that Capitol, (including all its many recording labels), has now signed up. The dead on arrival dismissive mentioned by some appears to be a little premature


 
  
 Not only Capitol (that's a lot), but Universal is getting onboard: ECM, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Capitol, Island, Def Jam, Decca, Verve, Blue Note, Virgin, and EMI.
  
 Well now we can all buy the White Album again... Wait, I think I've been in this thread too long... Your luddite juice is on me! (Edit: not directed at you in particular Gringo)


----------



## djlethal

jagwap said:


> [...]_indifferent_ digital system[...]



 


"After a careful psychological evaluation of its mental state, the subject has been declared unfit for the purposes of playing back music. The lack of _feeling_ and _empathy_ that the subject demonstrates (during playback) would strongly indicate that it suffers from a form of Digital Sonic Disorder (colloquially known as 'digititis'). 
Recommend immediate dismantlement and removal until such as time as a suitably _compassionate_ system can be found to replace it."


----------



## jagwap

djlethal said:


> jagwap said:
> 
> 
> > [...]_indifferent_ digital system[...]
> ...


 

 This audio nonchalance cannot be tolerated.  A relaxed sound could be mistaken for analogue!


----------



## ThomasHK

jagwap said:


> Not only Capitol (that's a lot), but Universal is getting onboard: ECM, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Capitol, Island, Def Jam, Decca, Verve, Blue Note, Virgin, and EMI.
> 
> 
> Well now we can all buy the White Album again... Wait, I think I've been in this thread too long... Your luddite juice is on me! (Edit: not directed at you in particular Gringo)




Not exactly surprising is it. 2016 was the first year streaming made any considerable money for the industry. The labels want to ride this wave of new revenue growth from paid subscriptions. MQA is just another way for them to charge more for the same thing... or did you really think the industry was interested in high res audio and "better sound"?


----------



## Gringo

jagwap said:


> Not only Capitol (that's a lot), but Universal is getting onboard: ECM, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Capitol, Island, Def Jam, Decca, Verve, Blue Note, Virgin, and EMI.
> 
> Well now we can all buy the White Album again... Wait, I think I've been in this thread too long... Your luddite juice is on me! (Edit: not directed at you in particular Gringo)


 

 ​Luddite - Nah not me, I'm still on the fence trying to be open minded. Ouch! another splinter
  
 Buy another copy of the White Album, no need I will just have another version to stream


----------



## jagwap

thomashk said:


> Not exactly surprising is it. 2016 was the first year streaming made any considerable money for the industry. The labels want to ride this wave of new revenue growth from paid subscriptions. MQA is just another way for them to charge more for the same thing... or did you really think the industry was interested in high res audio and "better sound"?


 
  
 I came to this thread to say I didn't think Meridian's motives were only a cash grab, although they should get paid for good work if it is done.  However, I have less evidence about the labels, so I will not defend them.

 I wish it made some for the artists.  Unless something has changed... David Byrne has been vocal about how they are getting screwed.
  
 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world  was the first of many I read by him.


----------



## jagwap

gringo said:


> ​Luddite - Nah not me, I'm still on the fence trying to be open minded. Ouch! another splinter
> 
> Buy another copy of the White Album, no need I will just have another version to stream


 

 I know, the fence they wall around here has spikes.  It goes right up...
  
 (please note the edit on the previous reply)


----------



## jagwap

Is this new to this thread: http://bobtalks.co.uk ?


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> Is this new to this thread: http://bobtalks.co.uk ?


 
  
 How much marketing stuff do we need to include in a Sound Science forum?
  
 How about a look at some consumers attempting to analyze and discuss MQA?
  
*http://preview.tinyurl.com/hno6y6a*


----------



## WindowsX

mansr, he's a good guy. One one only few objectivists I respect. Though I don't personally agree with him in some aspects.


----------



## old tech

jagwap said:


> My tone was condicending because this forums is dismissive.  I misread you dismissing vinyl as being MP3 compared to CDs.
> 
> I mean mastering AND format.  Vinyl isn't perfect, but it is good, but yes digital is capable of being better.  But I'd put a great turntable above an indifferent digital system, but all things being equal as you describe I agree.
> 
> ...


 
 Of course, to an extent, sound quality is subjective to the individual.
  
 If you do decide to try the B/T CD, make sure it is the one with the early mastering and not the later TO releases.  This CD is often considered to be the holy grail of DSOTM.  AFAIK, it was a flat transfer of the Japanese Pro Series vinyl dub.  It does sound identical to that Japan LP but with the differences as described earlier.  To my ears, this CD sounds better than MFSL (CD or LP), the original solid blue triangle LP or the later SACD.
  
 Be aware though that this CD has pre-emphasis so needs proper de-emphasis if you are going to rip the tracks.
  
 http://www.pinkfloydarchives.com/Discog/Japan/DSCD1/JADS1.htm


----------



## ThomasHK

old tech said:


> http://www.pinkfloydarchives.com/Discog/Japan/DSCD1/JADS1.htm



That website is... Beautiful


----------



## jagwap

windowsx said:


> mansr, he's a good guy. One one only few objectivists I respect. Though I don't personally agree with him in some aspects.




Moi? Thanks. (Did you mean me?)

I'm an electronic design engineer predominantly designing audio equipment with 25 years experience. I use measurement, mostly Audio Precision, but I also listen.

Listening has given me a design edge when I found odd performance increases that cannot be discoved through conventional measurement. I always ensure I can repeat it, try to find out why, and try to measure and prove it. But if that is elusive, I carry on and don't dismiss it as false. The solution sometimes comes much later.

I use subjective (as insisted on by some), blind and double blind listening to test stuff. I also have run several listen panels and check the results.

Some of the above may be a surprise to those here.

I also listen to music, as music, as a listening test. Not excusively for micro details, air, punch, imaging, darkness, or any other objectivist term. But also as music, for emotional effect, timing, syncopation, anticipation, and overall satifaction. I have found this is rare in the industry. (Never worked directly for a pro audio company that actually listens to a product!)


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> windowsx said:
> 
> 
> > mansr, he's a good guy. One one only few objectivists I respect. Though I don't personally agree with him in some aspects.
> ...


 
 I believe this right here(bold part) is at the heart of our slight difference in world view. of course you're right that just because we fail to objectively confirm something, it doesn't mean we'll never do it, or that it doesn't exist. science wouldn't be science without the hope for future new measurement methods, new accuracy, and as a result new data for new models. 
 BUT, faced with the same situation, I wouldn't even get the idea that it's a performance increase(unless it's so massively obvious that the other system made animals run away). in fact most of the time I will assume it's a placebo. then if a blind test confirms an audible change, I'll assume it's a personal preference. only with objective confirmation will I become convinced that a change is an objective improvement. assessing the objective fidelity without objective tool makes no sense to me when most of the what we discuss here is usually about hardly audible changes within music at normal loudness. as it's fairly rare to have a really massive audible change that we don't know how to measure.
  
 a great many so called open minded views in audio about, things that cannot be measured but can be heard, or how blind test is wrong for listening test, are born from a mind deciding that a change was real and a fidelity improvement long before the guy had any mean to make that claim. that misplaced self confidence is so strong that many use it as a reason to reject controlled tests. absolute delusion!
 there is a difference between keeping possibilities in mind, and deciding that something is true simply because we feel it's the proper possibility.
  
 I know in this section of the forum we tend to lean too much on the other side of the boat and it's really not better. to that I answer that we're only humans and not an actual scientific community ^_^. when faced day after day with the most ludicrous empty claims and patho-logical fallacies, sooner or later everybody radicalizes.
 the extra special power we have is that because we trust proper evidence and reasoning, we have a tacit agreement to put up or shut up when asked to. we trust evidence more than ourselves so it's not too hard to make us admit when we're clearly and obviously wrong. I count this as a super power because the other extremists on the subjective side, tend to end all arguments with "agree to disagree, I know what I heard". that leads nowhere and proves nothing to nobody. 
 and at a personal level, I'm actually happy when proved wrong because that's instant improvement right there. also I must be wrong 50 times a day so I'm fairly open to the possibility of a +1 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





. that said, my default stand will still be overkill skepticism, as my almost allergic reaction to MQA marketing can demonstrate.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> I believe this right here(bold part) is at the heart of our slight difference in world view. of course you're right that just because we fail to objectively confirm something, it doesn't mean we'll never do it, or that it doesn't exist. science wouldn't be science without the hope for future new measurement methods, new accuracy, and as a result new data for new models.
> BUT, faced with the same situation, I wouldn't even get the idea that it's a performance increase(unless it's so massively obvious that the other system made animals run away). in fact most of the time I will assume it's a placebo. then if a blind test confirms an audible change, I'll assume it's a personal preference. only with objective confirmation will I become convinced that a change is an objective improvement. assessing the objective fidelity without objective tool makes no sense to me when most of the what we discuss here is usually about hardly audible changes within music at normal loudness. as it's fairly rare to have a really massive audible change that we don't know how to measure.
> 
> a great many so called open minded views in audio about, things that cannot be measured but can be heard, or how blind test is wrong for listening test, are born from a mind deciding that a change was real and a fidelity improvement long before the guy had any mean to make that claim. that misplaced self confidence is so strong that many use it as a reason to reject controlled tests. absolute delusion!
> ...




Well argued.

Let me qualify the part in bold a little: by conventional measurements I meant 20-20kHz frequency response, dynamic range, THD v frequency, THD v level, residual noise, IMD etc. The stuff every decent engineer does to characterise a product.

I did say it wasn't measurable. I either had to look further, deeper or differently. With enough time I found many of the causes, which led to minor areas of enlightenment. These may have been unlikely to have been found without listening tests, as the effect was caused by something unintuitive.

I'd love to explain in details to a more receptive audience some of these, becaus with hindsight some of them are obvious. However, they are the tools (and insights) of my trade. Also some here would have too much fun with "it cannot be true because there is no published study"

This is why I rebel against this thinking here that we have finished audio. Of course accoustic stuff isn't finished, but I mean nonsense like "all competently designed amplifiers sound the same" (but all respect to Peter Walker. A true genius), and cables don't make a difference. 

There is still a way to go:

Why do good valve amps sound that good? How do we get there with solid state?

What needs fixing with class D? It's getting really good now, but... No cigar.

I have ideas for these things. Conventional measurement do not show these things (as defined above), but different measurements can.

So temporal smear? I keep my ears open.


----------



## upstateguy

jagwap said:


> <snip>
> 
> Why do good valve amps sound that good? How do we get there with solid state?
> 
> <snip>


 
  
 Carver '85.


----------



## jagwap

upstateguy said:


> Carver '85.




Yes, he did a lot. But he didn't share all his work. Neither am I

Editing to add a link to the time he astounded Stereophile http://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge#mEZUgpQO0oemVYhj.97


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] You make a fair point when regarding the mess that the signal can go through in a pop/rock studio, especially before digital desks.  [1a] DDD on the early CDs was often BS.
> [2] One thing you may not be aware of, Macolm Stuart is a bit of a classical and choral fan if I remember correctly (born out by Meridians collaborations with Tony Faulkner). I think we can assume a few less effects units and side chains then.
> [3] I said the inter-ear timing detection was found to be better than 15us.  I was not relating to jitter.  My point was the ear is sensitive to timing issues.  Now when MQA starts saying 10us then that is within the bounds of a measurement error.
> [4] Then the 2ns is generally the upper limit of what the audio industry specifies as too much, and I meant AES-EBU connections.
> ...


 
  
 1. If anything, when digital desks came in the situation got worse. Early digital desks had poor on-board effects so more round-tripping was required.
 1a. Yes, agreed. A very similar situation to what we now have with "Hi-Res".
  
 2. Certainly there is a great deal less in classical music and real DDD was far more common as mixing classical music often required no more processing than a summing buss. We've still got the same basic problem however; the possibility of 2 ADCs in the entire production chain and maybe an external clock changing the jitter amount and spectrum of the ADC/s. However, none of this is particularly important as MQA is not specifically marketed/aimed at classical music but at music in general, of which classical is just a small niche.
  
 3. This whole "De-blurring" marketing angle they've decided to take is troubling. They appear to have taken 3 strands; filters/ringing, human acuity of directional cues and ADC jitter. Filters/ringing might have been a problem in the early days but not for quite a few years. Indeed, the comparison made was between early ADCs/DACs and MQA, rather than contemporary ones. Not a dissimilar marketing trick to Neil Young and the Pono; comparing Hi-res to standard res, using MP3 128kbps as the example of standard res. I don't get the human acuity of directional cues angle, 16/44.1 easily provides all the timing accuracy/resolution required within the range of human hearing. Trying to follow this angle through their marketing, then their published papers and then the references in their papers, just leads to purely theoretical areas of research rather than even a single scrap of evidence, beyond the well documented issue of jitter ...
  
 4. But MQA doesn't know what connections may or may not have been used or what jitter may have been introduced, all it professes to do AFAIK is to compensate for ADC induced jitter, presuming of course the ADC used is known and that they have appropriate jitter specs/data for it.
 4a. And I've heard people claim that pico seconds worth of jitter is too much and that we all need to be using femto clocks! If we're going to look at the actual evidence though, no, it was not a typo. It was as one time hypothesised that differentiation may be possible down to 20nS but a latter study demonstrated that most people can only differentiate jitter down to about 500nS of jitter but a few demonstrated the ability to differentiate down to 200nS (using music material). I can't remember the specific title of the paper or therefore provide a link to it (anyone else know it?) but it's 15-20 years old and I don't believe it's findings have been demonstrated to be false/incorrect.
  
 5. Depends on how you define "system" but assuming the same basic system, just effectively changing the player (turntable vs DAP/DAC) then no, even very cheap digital components (such as mass produced $2 DAC chips) are far more linear/accurate than high-end turntables. I don't dispute that very good vinyl/turntables can have euphonic distortions and can therefore sound good.
  
 6. Not sure I've seen exactly that claim but if it does exist then it's nonsense. Firstly, the loudness war is a composition, mixing and mastering problem, not just a mastering problem and secondly, even if it were just a mastering problem there's nothing MQA as a digital format could do about it. Could you link to that claim, I'd be interested to see what they say about it?

  
 G


----------



## old tech

thomashk said:


> That website is... Beautiful


 
 It certainly is.  It is my go to site for info on any Pink Floyd release, CD, LP and SACD.


----------



## upstateguy

jagwap said:


> upstateguy said:
> 
> 
> > Carver '85.
> ...


 

 Ity was a long time ago, I didn't think there was much to share. I thought he just nulled out the differences with resistors, listening to it with a Rogers speaker.


----------



## jagwap

upstateguy said:


> Ity was a long time ago, I didn't think there was much to share. I thought he just nulled out the differences with resistors, listening to it with a Rogers speaker.




"Just nulled" makes it sound simple. Nulling is not trivial. I worked at company that tried this more than once just in the frequency domain, for difference measurement: in verses out. It proved surprisingly tough for each amp. The best success they had was to brickwall bandpass the midband and take an FFT of the difference. But the phase difference is not clear.

Edit: the target was a lot more than 70dB as it was measurement purposes, but it is still not trivial to do 70dB.

Carver also tuned the individual harmonics, power bandwidth, and thats just the stuff we know.

Like stuff on this forum. Easy to say, difficult to prove.


----------



## pinnahertz

Just saw this:
*https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/mqa-is-bad-for-music*
  
 Interesting perspective. 
  
 Apologies if it's already been posted.  I can't keep up with this thread!


----------



## WhiteKnite

pinnahertz said:


> Just saw this:
> *https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/mqa-is-bad-for-music*
> 
> Interesting perspective.
> ...


 
 I left my tinfoil hat at home, oops.  
  
 I think some of those concerns would be valid if I ever saw MQA becoming a mainstream standard.  I don't think that is even the goal.  it is extremely niche now, and will likely remain in the realm of high res adoption numbers for a long time, possibly indefinitely.  I could see it threatening the high res services but that is a fairly small segment of the industry to be making such claims as in the article.


----------



## jagwap

whiteknite said:


> I left my tinfoil hat at home, oops.
> 
> I think some of those concerns would be valid if I ever saw MQA becoming a mainstream standard.  I don't think that is even the goal.  it is extremely niche now, and will likely remain in the realm of high res adoption numbers for a long time, possibly indefinitely.  I could see it threatening the high res services but that is a fairly small segment of the industry to be making such claims as in the article.


 
  
  
 By the way, Universal has just signed up, so there is a bit of momentum building.  Also Sprint bought into Tidal to the tune of 30%, so they are not going anywhere for a while.  Maybe that puts paid to the rumour that Apple was going to buy Tidal, or maybe not, but Tidal is the current largest outlet for MGA currently.
  
 A couple of points:
  
 We have no idea of how much MQA is demanding, and from whom.  Warner wouldn't have signed up if it was prohibitively expensive. 
  
 Linn is a direct competitor to Meridian, the once parent company of MQA, and they also have a very minor music label.  So you wouldn't expect them to be in favour.
  
 Get a double layer tinfoil hat now, cause there will be more to come I suspect.  Enjoy.


----------



## pinnahertz

whiteknite said:


> I left my tinfoil hat at home, oops.
> 
> I think some of those concerns would be valid if I ever saw MQA becoming a mainstream standard.  I don't think that is even the goal.  it is extremely niche now, and will likely remain in the realm of high res adoption numbers for a long time, possibly indefinitely.  I could see it threatening the high res services but that is a fairly small segment of the industry to be making such claims as in the article.


 
 Universal Music Group and Warner have deals with MQA. Wouldn't that be enough land in the mainstream somewhere?  With the shift away from physical media, past download, and now on to a focus on streaming, it's just a matter of a marketing push.  Is there even a  single reason UMG and Warner would NOT do that?


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> By the way, Universal has just signed up, so there is a bit of momentum building.  Also Sprint bought into Tidal to the tune of 30%, so they are not going anywhere for a while.  Maybe that puts paid to the rumour that Apple was going to buy Tidal, or maybe not, but Tidal is the current largest outlet for MGA currently.
> 
> A couple of points:
> 
> ...


 
 Pretty sure tin foil won't be enough, no matter how many layers.


----------



## icebear

jagwap said:


> By the way, Universal has just signed up, so there is a bit of momentum building.  Also Sprint bought into Tidal to the tune of 30%, so they are not going anywhere for a while.  Maybe that puts paid to the rumour that Apple was going to buy Tidal, or maybe not, but Tidal is the current largest outlet for MGA currently.
> 
> A couple of points:
> 
> ...


 
* LOL*





 Who do you think is paying the bill at the end of the day?
 .... yeah well 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




, .... *the consumer*, right ! There you go


----------



## jagwap

icebear said:


> * LOL*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

 Sure.  It's a consumer industry.  They're not selling missiles.
  
 So if you are a consumer wanting a streaming service, and you think you care about audio, what service are you going to choose?
  
 Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify are not lossless, but Tidal, Deezer, Onkyo and 7Digital are.
  
 I haven't compared them all, but some of the versions of the albums I've heard on Apple and Spotify are far from the best version.
  
 But Onkyo is really just part of 7Digital.
  
 Oh and 7Digital have signed up for MQA!
  
 There you go.
  
 Maybe the difference is I don't mind.  Let MQA make some money.


----------



## WhiteKnite

I'm not paying any more. I've had tidal since just after launch, and the price hasn't changed with MQA. Most albums on the masters list are not 192khz anyway so software decoding would actually handle their full quality. You just don't gain the apodizing filter or whatever magic the true MQA devices do, which would probably be dismissed by most in this section as inaudible voodoo. The only reason I got the ME2 dac is because I needed a new one anyway and it was on sale for €119 with 3 months of free Tidal. To me it sounds spectacular, and I freely admit it may be psychological but I enjoy knowing that my music is the highest streaming quality possible. I also think promoting higher quality audio and better masters is a good thing. Sure some/all of the benefits may be beyond provable audibility but I am also impressed by the technical aspects. I realize I don't have much of an argument from a scientific standpoint but neither do those highly speculative articles saying MQA has a negative impact on the industry.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> Sure.  It's a consumer industry.  They're not selling missiles.
> 
> So if you are a consumer wanting a streaming service, and you think you care about audio, what service are you going to choose?
> 
> ...


 
  
 All of the major music streaming services are nearly identical to almost everyone when it comes to music quality on practically all the gear they listen with in most environments.  Get the service that has the best features and value for your situation.  If you don't like something about the service you are using, try something else.


----------



## jagwap

whiteknite said:


> I'm not paying any more. I've had tidal since just after launch, and the price hasn't changed with MQA. Most albums on the masters list are not 192khz anyway so software decoding would actually handle their full quality. You just don't gain the apodizing filter or whatever magic the true MQA devices do, which would probably be dismissed by most in this section as inaudible voodoo. The only reason I got the ME2 dac is because I needed a new one anyway and it was on sale for €119 with 3 months of free Tidal. To me it sounds spectacular, and I freely admit it may be psychological but I enjoy knowing that my music is the highest streaming quality possible. I also think promoting higher quality audio and better masters is a good thing. Sure some/all of the benefits may be beyond provable audibility but I am also impressed by the technical aspects. I realize I don't have much of an argument from a scientific standpoint but neither do those highly speculative articles saying MQA has a negative impact on the industry.




Nicely put. Succinct and reasonable.


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> All of the major music streaming services are nearly identical to almost everyone when it comes to music quality on practically all the gear they listen with in most environments.  Get the service that has the best features and value for your situation.  If you don't like something about the service you are using, try something else.




I had a colleague use Spotify and Apple music for "a bit of a listen" listening test. It was on some so called quality bluetooth speakers. The quality was shocking. The Lo-Fi speakers sounded much better from my music on my phone.

I'm not suggesting it's the compressed format of the streaming services. It's the cersion of the albums they had on file. This is a far bigger influence, especially through Bluetooth on an expensive waste-of-plastic speaker.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify are not lossless, but Tidal, Deezer, Onkyo and 7Digital are.


 
  
 Not if they've just signed up to MQA they're not! You do realise that MQA is a lossy compression format rather than a lossless one like FLAC or ALAC?
  


whiteknite said:


> You just don't gain the apodizing filter or whatever magic the true MQA devices do, which would probably be dismissed by most in this section as inaudible voodoo.


 
  
 I'd be extremely impressed if, with musical material, you could ABX an apodizing filter from say an equally well implemented linear phase filter. If you want to hear/have a device which uses an apodizing filter, then just listen to an iPhone or iPod, even an old generation one!
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> Not if they've just signed up to MQA they're not! You do realise that MQA is a lossy compression format rather than a lossless one like FLAC or ALAC?
> 
> 
> I'd be extremely impressed if, with musical material, you could ABX an apodizing filter from say an equally well implemented linear phase filter. If you want to hear/have a device which uses an apodizing filter, then just listen to an iPhone or iPod, even an old generation one!
> ...


 

 I believe Tidal offers MQA as an option amongst the FLAC stuff.  As an upgrade.  Pedantic? You are, so I am.


----------



## WhiteKnite

gregorio said:


> Not if they've just signed up to MQA they're not! You do realise that MQA is a lossy compression format rather than a lossless one like FLAC or ALAC?
> 
> 
> I'd be extremely impressed if, with musical material, you could ABX an apodizing filter from say an equally well implemented linear phase filter. If you want to hear/have a device which uses an apodizing filter, then just listen to an iPhone or iPod, even an old generation one!
> ...




Oddly I did dig out my old 5.5g Ipod stack last week. 

I wasn't suggesting I, or anyone could ABX that, hence the voodoo comment. I fully acknowledge I hear no immediate difference in the sound, but I guess I still believe in magic just enough think MQA is a positive step towards greater musical enjoyment.


----------



## Don Hills

whiteknite said:


> ... To me it sounds spectacular, and I freely admit it may be psychological but I enjoy knowing that my music is the highest streaming quality possible. ..


 
  
 Actually, it isn't. They could stream the original un-encoded music. It might be more accurate to say that "... music is the highest streaming quality *available*."


----------



## WhiteKnite

don hills said:


> Actually, it isn't. They could stream the original un-encoded music. It might be more accurate to say that "... music is the highest streaming quality *available*."


 True enough. But I do appreciate the lower bandwidth for streaming.


----------



## ThomasHK

Just found this very interesting post by a guy called Ken Newton on Whatsbestforum.
  


> [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588)]I think there are two main issues which are affecting the success of so-called 'apodizing' reconstruction filters. One issue has been the confusion over what, exactly, defines an apodizing filter. As I recall, Peter Craven, who proposed this filter in an AES paper, defined apodizing as a minimum-phase reconstruction filter that featured a stop-band frequency that not only fully rejects the ultrasonic alias image band (of which, the ubiquitous half-band reconstruction filters do not fully), but also rejects the upper band edge of the original ADC used to for recording. To my thinking, that latter part was the innovative part of what Craven proposed, not so much the use of minimum-phase filters, which, while pretty much ignored for digital audio up to then, were also quite well known to DSP in general. In addition, I find the the name apodizing less than an accurate description. The name itself (which loosely means, 'to remove a foot') actually speaks to what's called filter 'windowing'. Such windowing is about lessening the abrupt transition effects of having a finite length filter kernel, when sampling theory calls for an infinitely long filter kernel.[/color][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588)][/color]
> [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588)][/color]
> [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588)]The other main issue affecting the wide adoption of apodizing, IMHO, is that it's founded on an unproven assumption. Which is that linear phase digital filter 'pre-ringing' is responsible for the negative subjective response many of we audiophiles have to 'the sound' of digital audio. Therefore, the use of a minimum-phase reconstruction filter would eliminate such pre-ringing at the playback end of the chain (by greatly increasing the post-ringing, it should be pointed out). However, the pre-ringing stemming from the ADC linear-phase brickwall anti-alias filter is already encoded on the CD. Can anything be done about it? Craven realized that this too could be removed if the playback filter stop-band was lowered enough to fully reject the Nyquist frequency, perhaps just a little bit below even that. Down to around 21.5KHz, or so.[/color][color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588)][/color]
> [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588)][/color]
> [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.870588)]The minimum-phase filters provided within DAC chips appear to meet the first half of what Craven proposed, which is the elimination of pre-ringing by the reconstruction filter, but not the other half, which is the elimination of pre-ringing encoded within the music by the ADC's linear-phase anti-alias via inclusion of the Nyquist frequency within the filter's stop-band. In either case, this elimination strategy is based on the assumption that pre-ringing is bad for the sound, which, while it may seem to make some intuitive sense, I don't believe has yet been proven correct[/color]


 
  
 Guess I have to dig up that AES paper by Craven.


----------



## jagwap

thomashk said:


> Just found this very interesting post by a guy called Ken Newton on Whatsbestforum.
> 
> 
> Guess I have to dig up that AES paper by Craven.




He's a smart fellow. Met him a few times, and I know people who worked with him directly. As he is a key member of the team on MQA, I imagine he approved those filters.


----------



## ThomasHK

jagwap said:


> He's a smart fellow. Met him a few times, and I know people who worked with him directly. As he is a key member of the team on MQA, I imagine he approved those filters.


 
  
 What intrigues me is this idea, which seems to me the whole idea behind the "removal of ADC time time smearing" the MQA marketing talks about
  


> However, the pre-ringing stemming from the ADC linear-phase brickwall anti-alias filter is already encoded on the CD. Can anything be done about it? Craven realized that this too could be removed if the playback filter stop-band was lowered enough to fully reject the Nyquist frequency, perhaps just a little bit below even that. Down to around 21.5KHz, or so.


 
  
 I can't quite wrap my head around that yet, but I'm sure the paper will explain it. Either way, like that Ken Newton guy also said, even if somehow you can remove the "imprinted" pre-ringing, was it actually audible in the first place? Not sure if there have been studies published that prove that.


----------



## ThomasHK

thomashk said:


> What intrigues me is this idea, which seems to me the whole idea behind the "removal of ADC time time smearing" the MQA marketing talks about
> 
> 
> I can't quite wrap my head around that yet, but I'm sure the paper will explain it. Either way, like that Ken Newton guy also said, even if somehow you can remove the "imprinted" pre-ringing, was it actually audible in the first place? Not sure if there have been studies published that prove that.


 
 Nevermind, I already got it!
  
 The ringing in the time domain is basically an oscillation at Fs/2 (i.e. Nyquist). So if you manage to filter this out, you're remove it. Huh... I never thought of it like that.
  
 There would be an even better way of doing this then. 
  

Upsample x 2
Deep notch filter at original Fs/2. You could do this without affecting the time domain if you do a technique called zero-phase filtering. Basically you run a signal through a filter twice. Once in normal time direction and once again reversed. The filter frequency response you get than is |H|^2 and thus zero phase.
Downsample
  
  
 Given that this could all be done offline in preparation of audio files (so not in real-time), there's no issues with delay or buffering. Of course the necessary care has to be taken with the up and downsample stages, but that's trivial stuff. I'm gonna mess around with this idea in Matlab next week.


----------



## gregorio

thomashk said:


> [1] What intrigues me is this idea, which seems to me the whole idea behind the "removal of ADC time time smearing" the MQA marketing talks about
> 
> [2] Either way, like that Ken Newton guy also said, even if somehow you can remove the "imprinted" pre-ringing, was it actually audible in the first place?


 
  
 1. I can't see that it is anything other than just marketing BS. ADCs do not "time smear", unless by "time smearing" we're talking about jitter, which is way, way below audibility.
  
 2. If it were, don't you think the recording engineer, producer, mix engineer, artist/s or mastering engineer would have removed it? In practice, none of those involved in making the recording would remove it because no one would buy an ADC which produced audible ringing in the first place and for that reason there are no pro ADCs on the market which produce audible pre-ringing.
  
 G


----------



## ThomasHK

gregorio said:


> 1. I can't see that it is anything other than just marketing BS. ADCs do not "time smear", unless by "time smearing" we're talking about jitter, which is way, way below audibility.
> 
> 2. If it were, don't you think the recording engineer, producer, mix engineer, artist/s or mastering engineer would have removed it? In practice, none of those involved in making the recording would remove it because no one would buy an ADC which produced audible ringing in the first place and for that reason there are no pro ADCs on the market which produce audible pre-ringing.
> 
> G


 
  
 See my post above. It's all about removing pre-ringing introduced by linear phase anti-aliasing filters. If you read my posts carefully, I never said that I believe this is audible, but it is starting to make sense to me now that you could get rid of it.


----------



## ThomasHK

thomashk said:


> Nevermind, I already got it!
> 
> The ringing in the time domain is basically an oscillation at Fs/2 (i.e. Nyquist). So if you manage to filter this out, you're remove it. Huh... I never thought of it like that.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Well... looks like I wasn't wrong. Just very quickly mocked together a quick Matlab script to try this idea.
  

Simple impulse 
Apply very basic equiripple low pass filter as antialiasing filter,
upsample x 2
then running a very deep notch filter ...
  
 eh voila. Lots of pre and POST ringing gone. I'm sure with some proper effort I could design the notch filter much better than I did now.
  

  
 Blue = original impulse of the anti-aliasing filter (also upsampled to plot on same graph)
 Red = same time signal after upsample and notch filter
  
 EDIT: a bit easier to see this way


----------



## jagwap

I





thomashk said:


> Well... looks like I wasn't wrong. Just very quickly mocked together a quick Matlab script to try this idea.
> 
> 
> Simple impulse
> ...




Interesting. The result is more symmetrical, which is mathmatically nice. It is doing similar things to the apodizing, but not concentrating on the leading ring.

Also note: if MQA are allowed to use plots of real music to not encode full scale 0dBFS at higher frequencies in order to state "virtually lossless", then you can assume a single 0dFS impusle is never going to happen, lowering the slew rate, particularly if a properly band limited input signal as stiplulated by Shannon theory is used.

Carefull with the original in band stuff: phase and ripple.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

Ringing would happen as long as there's any sharp transition band. If you notch out the ringing frequency, you're just lowering the transition frequency. What might have happened, is that your notch filter was less sharp than intended and created a slow rolloff filter in combination with the original.

To create a non-ringing lowpass filter is simple, it's simply a first order lowpass with Q of 0.5, the Q factor with critical damping:


It's just too gentle to be of much use especially for 44.1kHz audio.

For 44.1kHz audio, you use a steep brickwall, to heck with ringing and hope that the frequencies that ring (which you pushed as high as possible with the brickwall filter) are supersonic / inaudible. To 99% of the audience this is true.


----------



## sonitus mirus

joe bloggs said:


> For 44.1kHz audio, you use a steep brickwall, to heck with ringing and hope that the frequencies that ring (which you pushed as high as possible with the brickwall filter) are supersonic / inaudible. To 99% of the audience this is true.


 
  
 99% seems extremely low to me with regards to audibility, especially when using music.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

sonitus mirus said:


> 99% seems extremely low to me with regards to audibility, especially when using music.




Well sorry! It's just a number I pulled out of my ass with a 9.9% 95% confidence interval (both down and up  )


----------



## ThomasHK

joe bloggs said:


> Ringing would happen as long as there's any sharp transition band. If you notch out the ringing frequency, you're just lowering the transition frequency. What might have happened, is that your notch filter was less sharp than intended and created a slow rolloff filter in combination with the original.
> 
> To create a non-ringing lowpass filter is simple, it's simply a first order lowpass with Q of 0.5, the Q factor with critical damping:
> 
> ...




Yes and no. A 0.5 Q antialiasing filter wouldn't make sense in a real world application for a 44.1 signal as the roll-off would be too shallow. The technique I described is not changing the roll-off of the original low pass. By up sampling we're suddenly working with different rules. The notch filter with zero phase can be incredibly steep. All it would do is remove content with a periodicity of the original Fs/2, without changing the phase. It's literally zero phase. It's a technique used in signal processing of physiological signals (e.g. heart rate) where timing of certain time events is critical. 

Edit : late night drunkness spelling mistakes.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

thomashk said:


> joe bloggs said:
> 
> 
> > Ringing would happen as long as there's any sharp transition band. If you notch out the ringing frequency, you're just lowering the transition frequency. What might have happened, is that your notch filter was less sharp than intended and created a slow rolloff filter in combination with the original.
> ...




1. Note that I was making a 20kHz lowpass filter in a 384kHz upsampled stream. I noticed no magical effects.
2. A symmetrical linear phase brickwall filter can ring for all it wants and also be zero phase.
3. Trying to make a steep filter that does not ring at the transition band is like trying to pull oneself off the ground by one's shoelaces...


----------



## ThomasHK

joe bloggs said:


> 1. Note that I was making a 20kHz lowpass filter in a 384kHz upsampled stream. I noticed no magical effects.
> 2. A symmetrical linear phase brickwall filter can ring for all it wants and also be zero phase.
> 3. Trying to make a steep filter that does not ring at the transition band is like trying to pull oneself off the ground by one's shoelaces...




Sorry, but your second point makes no sense. A filter is either linear phase or the filtering is done so the outcome is zero phase (the forward + backward method I described e.g. the filtfilt command in matlab) . Let's continue this conversation tomorrow. I'm too wasted haha


----------



## Joe Bloggs

Well I meant that all frequencies would have zero phase shift relative to each other, either in a linear phase filter or an actual zero phase filter combo. Note however that in realtime audio processing the latter option (backward and forward filtering) is not viable.


----------



## jagwap

thomashk said:


> Sorry, but your second point makes no sense. A filter is either linear phase or the filtering is done so the outcome is zero phase (the forward + backward method I described e.g. the filtfilt command in matlab) . Let's continue this conversation tomorrow. I'm too wasted haha


 
  
  
 How do you do filtfilt in real life? In a playback device?  Without playing the whole piece backwards first?
  
 I have a plan for that if I can do it...


----------



## ThomasHK

jagwap said:


> How do you do filtfilt in real life? In a playback device?  Without playing the whole piece backwards first?
> 
> I have a plan for that if I can do it...




I haven't tried it, but I assume you could do it on buffers.


----------



## ThomasHK

joe bloggs said:


> Well I meant that all frequencies would have zero phase shift relative to each other, either in a linear phase filter or an actual zero phase filter combo. Note however that in realtime audio processing the latter option (backward and forward filtering) is not viable.




Sorry, I was a little wasted last night and didn't catch your point. Yes, a linear phase filter has constant group delay.


----------



## LajostheHun

gringo said:


> Whatever your stance regarding MQA, it seems the MQA ball is certainly gathering momentum now that Capitol, (including all its many recording labels), has now signed up. The dead on arrival dismissive mentioned by some appears to be a little premature




Not really, why the supply is improving indeed, the public at large will ignore it. A few thousands of headfiers and audio writers is not what the labels had in mind when they signed up. This will be another forgotten chapter soon in audio history.


----------



## Gringo

lajosthehun said:


> Not really, why the supply is improving indeed, the public at large will ignore it. A few thousands of headfiers and audio writers is not what the labels had in mind when they signed up. This will be another forgotten chapter soon in audio history.


 
 Some doubters make not like it, but MQA really has in fact arrived and the public if they wish can access it. How well consumers take it up in the future is something we can all have an opinion on but no one knows. Two out of the three major record labels signing up to MQA means in any bodies language that it is starting to gather momentum so therefore cannot be deemed to be dead on arrival. This means logically the earlier claims that it would be dead on arrival have been proved to be premature and therefor been found to be incorrect.  How long MQA lasts is a completely different thing which no one knows and we are all free to speculate.  I have no idea what the licencing agreements are but having presumably paid to have the MQA process applied to catalogues it is reasonable to assume Universal and Warner are confident to invest and that they won't be in ditching MQA any time soon despite voiced scepticism.
  
 As I now almost exclusively stream music, I can say that to my ears MQA music files, (that I have listened to on my non MQA rig), certainly don't seem inferior to other offerings that Tidal provides and has not cost me a penny piece more. I'm still on the fence awaiting the chance to do some extended MQA enabled listening tests before I make my mind up as to whether I will reach for my wallet or not.


----------



## castleofargh

personally, I'm against it on principle, like I'm against so many other stuff because I really believe there is work to be done to improve audio. and I'd like to see research and money focused on that instead of putting a pretty ribbon around something that was fine at the end of the 20Th century like digital file formats. thinking that the choice of digital format is really what stops music from sounding great is evidence that people have no idea how audio fidelity works in recording and playback systems. I'm not sure there is a playback system that can resolve 16/44 to our ears right now. probably one of the reasons why people have such a hard time telling it apart from higher resolutions in blind tests. the other being that our ears aren't the perfect sensor some imagine it to be, and once a hearing threshold is passed, that's it.
  
 now MQA is out, they get rich or not, people adopt it or not. it will most likely have the same impact on my audio life as SACD did, which is close to none. I like to read about those stuff because of the technical aspects(as I'm really a 6 year old in the body of an old guy asking "why?" every 10seconds
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





). but as far as my audio life is concerned, I find all those stuff meaningless, sometimes detrimental to my enjoyment of music.
 also for my personal use, a MQA DAC would be utterly meaningless anyway. I use some convolution as EQ and to try and decrapify stereo image on headphones, so by the time the digital signal is sent to the DAC, there is no MQA to decode anymore. in my audio life, MQA cannot even try to be more than a compression format. which is probably what it should have been advertised as. to me Meridian trying to use MQA to force their apodizing stuff into DACs as a single package, is where all that story started to smell. and the marketing did nothing to bring fresh air.
  
  
 ultimately, I hope people can purchase whatever they want and be happy with those choices. I just wish they can from time to time, remember the virtues of skepticism when confronted to massive marketing campaigns.


----------



## pinnahertz

castleofargh said:


> ultimately, I hope people can purchase whatever they want and be happy with those choices. I just wish they can from time to time, remember the virtues of skepticism when confronted to massive marketing campaigns.


 
 Purchase choice in the presence of new tech doesn't always happen.  HDMI would be a classic example of something becoming an industry standard that was ill-conceived, poorly executed, with specifications that are still in flux after 15 years, and the primary goal was hidden by the public "benefit" of a one-cable interconnect (which already existed at the time).  The primary coal was copy protection.  
  
 And now we have no choice.
  
 Hopefully MQA is offered by music distribution as optional, and should remain optional at the consumer end.  But we will end up paying for it one way of the other, as "we", as consumers, are at the bottom of the food chain.


----------



## LajostheHun

gringo said:


> Some doubters make not like it, but MQA really has in fact arrived and the public if they wish can access it. How well consumers take it up in the future is something we can all have an opinion on but no one knows.



It's not about doubters or "liking" it. It's the simple fact that the public in large don't care about sound quality, and now we have close two decades since the arrival of HR formats like SACD and DVD-A, then digital downloads,[ most recently Pono music] and based on those failures it's easy to make a similar projection for MQA like it or not. 



> Two out of the three major record labels signing up to MQA means in any bodies language that it is starting to gather momentum so therefore cannot be deemed to be dead on arrival. This means logically the earlier claims that it would be dead on arrival have been proved to be premature and therefor been found to be incorrect.



I never made that claim, but sure the extreme niche status that MQA have is nothing to write home about. it's not the labels that decide what is dead or not but the public, and so far other than some in the press and on boards like this MQA simply "don't exists" as far as the public concerns.




> How long MQA lasts is a completely different thing which no one knows and we are all free to speculate.  I have no idea what the licencing agreements are but having presumably paid to have the MQA process applied to catalogues it is reasonable to assume Universal and Warner are confident to invest and that they won't be in ditching MQA any time soon despite voiced scepticism.



Like I've said supply is only one side of any markets. The proprietary decoding is another issue and it will be a further obstacle for widespread adoption. 


> As I now almost exclusively stream music, I can say that to my ears MQA music files, (that I have listened to on my non MQA rig), certainly don't seem inferior to other offerings that Tidal provides and has not cost me a penny piece more. I'm still on the fence awaiting the chance to do some extended MQA enabled listening tests before I make my mind up as to whether I will reach for my wallet or not.



Other streamers will have to come into place with lesser subscription prices, what you already paying for Tidal would be a nonstarter to many.


----------



## LajostheHun

pinnahertz said:


> Purchase choice in the presence of new tech doesn't always happen.  HDMI would be a classic example of something becoming an industry standard that was ill-conceived, poorly executed, with specifications that are still in flux after 15 years, and the primary goal was hidden by the public "benefit" of a one-cable interconnect (which already existed at the time).  The primary coal was copy protection.
> 
> And now we have no choice.
> 
> Hopefully MQA is offered by music distribution as optional, and should remain optional at the consumer end.  But we will end up paying for it one way of the other, as "we", as consumers, are at the bottom of the food chain.




HDMI or anything like it was necessary for MCH audio transmission. SPDIF was not capable for that by design. Sure they could have updated it, but the goal was to reduce cable counts and simplify things with video in the same stream if needed. Yes copy protection was a big part of it and they have a designation abbreviation for it too.[ HDCP] however it is not exactly hidden from the public. HDMI specs are moving target since the constant change in need for transmission, mostly of the video side of things. For audio HDMI 1.4 is all one need probably even lower 1.2a. unless you have some crazy 32/384 or larger files to play.


----------



## Gringo

lajosthehun said:


> It's not about doubters or "liking" it. It's the simple fact that the public in large don't care about sound quality, and now we have close two decades since the arrival of HR formats like SACD and DVD-A, then digital downloads,[ most recently Pono music] and based on those failures it's easy to make a similar projection for MQA like it or not.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

 ​I could respond to all your comments but it would be just dealing with semantics which would be boring for you, me and everyone else so I will restrict myself to two points:
  
 I'm not convinced that the general public simply does not care about sound quality but rather most have not got a clue what it is and regard people who bang on about audiophile stuff as just a bunch of nerds.  I think the public at large need educating and need to throw away their Apple ear buds and understand that Beats are not the state of art as far as headphones are concerned but then that's just my opinion.
  
 For the record I did not say or intentionally imply that you personally made the claim regarding MQA being DOA so if I have caused offence please accept my apologies as none was intended.


----------



## LajostheHun

Not offended by the least, but as for educating the public, it seems your method would be a little heavy handed there, and quiet frankly if technical knowledge is important in this hobby, many "audiophiles" should be first in line to receive it.


----------



## pinnahertz

lajosthehun said:


> HDMI or anything like it was necessary for MCH audio transmission. SPDIF was not capable for that by design. Sure they could have updated it, but the goal was to reduce cable counts and simplify things with video in the same stream if needed. Yes copy protection was a big part of it and they have a designation abbreviation for it too.[ HDCP] however it is not exactly hidden from the public. HDMI specs are moving target since the constant change in need for transmission, mostly of the video side of things. For audio HDMI 1.4 is all one need probably even lower 1.2a. unless you have some crazy 32/384 or larger files to play.


 
 Yes, that's the "Kool-aid" line.  We "needed it" for the bandwidth, and we "needed it" for the single-cable solution.
  
 No, we didn't.  
  
 At the time of HDMI's inception there were already two viable single-cable solutions that could have been further developed, and actually have been:  IEEE-1394 (Firewire), and SDI.  Since then, both have progressed too, and now HD-SDI can interface with HDMI and handle 4K and all the audio formats just fine, but with a single 75 ohm coax that is easily field-terminated with BNC connectors, and has far better maximum length capability. IEEE-1394 is a data transmission method, and support multiple chained devices.  Neither was considered for the consumer "single cable" solution because neither has built-in handshaking for copy protection.  HDCP answered that need for content creators, which was key to having the whole consumer HD video thing work.  No studio wanted consumers to be able to get a studio-quality digital copy of their content for free.  Of course, that's stupid.  It's already a moot point, and easily circumvented.  Its Spy VS Spy.  The Spy lost. 
  
 Since then, we got DisplayPort, a rather thought-out but ill-fated single-cable solution.   You know what one of the primary differences between HDMI and DisplayPort is?  HDMI comes with a recurring and per-unit licensing fee.  
  
 Sound familiar?  
  
 And, of course, DisplayPort was late to the table, late always looses.  But don't anyone think that HDMI was a necessary solution.  I was an agreement between content owners and hardware manufacturers to block consumer copying, first, foremost, and fundamentally.  It's badly engineered, suffers from mechanical issues, electrical issues, length limits, and is not field-terminatable.
  
 Everything else about HDMI was already covered by the existing tech, or could be with very little effort. 
  
 Now parallel that with MQA.  See what I mean?


----------



## LajostheHun

Your point is taken but try not to simplify mine as "kool aid" :mad:

 Yes I'm aware of other options that was either used on PCs or pro gears but not on consumer devices. Sure the copy protection was why they were never considered, but I'm afraid that train has left the station a long time ago.


MQA is not present on any physical media presented to the public, but I certainly see where you are going with this, but like I've said the public ignores the "revolution" of HR audio, and until the labels decide to scrap all current standards there is no reason to raise the flag just yet.


----------



## pinnahertz

lajosthehun said:


> Your point is taken but try not to simplify mine as "kool aid"


 
 I used the label because that's the position presented to the "public", and pretty much everyone accepted it blindly. It's just simply not the true story.


lajosthehun said:


> Yes I'm aware of other options that was either used on PCs or pro gears but not on consumer devices. Sure the copy protection was why they were never considered, but I'm afraid that train has left the station a long time ago.


 
 True, of course, copy protection could certainly have been accomplished with any existing technology, they didn't need to invent a new one. My point is: A technology was forced on the public, it was unnecessary, and the benefits were not in the public's favor. And MQA, while not an exact parallel, is at least running on a parallel track, and that train is now boarding...fast.


lajosthehun said:


> MQA is not present on any physical media presented to the public, but I certainly see where you are going with this, but like I've said the public ignores the "revolution" of HR audio, and until the labels decide to scrap all current standards there is no reason to raise the flag just yet.


 
 Right, but go one step farther. The two primary road-blocks to HR audio's market penetration are: clear and unmistakable benefit (full market penetration can only be achieved with product or service with a 5-10-fold percieved improvement over the existing product/service), and actual, real, HR content (for practical purposes, non-existent, and up-sampling doesn't count).
  
 Transmission of HR...that's already done, and MQA isn't required to accomplish it.  
  
 MQA is presented as a benefit to consumers (spun as miraculous, but in reality, unconfirmed, and frankly, dubious at best), and is a financial benefit to one primary party, many secondary parties (content providers get to charge more/again for their entire library), but no clear benefit the ones actually paying for it.  Let just hope we still get a choice.


----------



## sonitus mirus

gringo said:


> I'm not convinced that the general public simply does not care about sound quality but rather most have not got a clue what it is and regard people who bang on about audiophile stuff as just a bunch of nerds.  I think the public at large need educating and need to throw away their Apple ear buds and understand that Beats are not the state of art as far as headphones are concerned but then that's just my opinion.


 
  
 I'm not convinced that the general public doesn't inadvertently have it right.  The majority of people around me stream music from Pandora or some other free or cheap streaming service over Bluetooth in their cars and via a web browser in the office on Friday afternoons using a pair of headphones that certainly cost well under $300, if not $30. When they go home, their neat little Amazon Echo they got this holiday season will play their favorite songs in the kitchen, too, while they are making dinner.  They think it is the bee's knees and it sounds fantastic.  This the general public.  Ask any of them about MQA.  Good luck educating them.  
  
 From what I've discovered, it seems that the audiophiles are the ones that need to be educated.


----------



## Gringo

sonitus mirus said:


> I'm not convinced that the general public doesn't inadvertently have it right.  The majority of people around me stream music from Pandora or some other free or cheap streaming service over Bluetooth in their cars and via a web browser in the office on Friday afternoons using a pair of headphones that certainly cost well under $300, if not $30. When they go home, their neat little Amazon Echo they got this holiday season will play their favorite songs in the kitchen, too, while they are making dinner.  They think it is the bee's knees and it sounds fantastic.  This the general public.  Ask any of them about MQA.  Good luck educating them.
> 
> From what I've discovered, it seems that the audiophiles are the ones that need to be educated.


 

 ​They have it right as regards value for money, for very little they get a great deal.  Right as regards to sound quality that is something quite different. My comment about educating was not in respect of MQA but of high quality audio in general. Whether the general public themselves want to be educated is also very debatable.  As regard to MQA, as far as I am aware, they don't advertise to the general public so of course they no zilch about it.


----------



## gregorio

gringo said:


> [1] This means logically the earlier claims that it would be dead on arrival have been proved to be premature and therefor been found to be incorrect.  How long MQA lasts is a completely different thing which no one knows and we are all free to speculate.
> [2] As I now almost exclusively stream music, I can say that to my ears MQA music files, (that I have listened to on my non MQA rig), certainly don't seem inferior to other offerings that Tidal provides and [3] has not cost me a penny piece more.
> [3a] I'm still on the fence awaiting the chance to do some extended MQA enabled listening tests before I make my mind up as to whether I will reach for my wallet or not.


 
  
 1. I can't remember if I was one of those who predicted DOA. My main focus has been that MQA appears to offer the consumer nothing, what has existed for many years already offers higher SQ and reduced file sizes. However, history has already famously demonstrated that higher quality does not necessarily win out (betamax vs vhs).
  
 2. And so it shouldn't. And, it certainly shouldn't seem superior either or rather, seem superior to what Tidal could have chosen. However, whether it does will depend on how rigorous your listening tests or how well your biases have been manipulated by the marketing. In theory, MQA should never sound inferior compared to HD lossless as everything MQA is discarding is inaudible anyway.
  
 3. Yet!!
 3a. If you do "reach for your wallet" then obviously MQA will have cost you. Furthermore, the content itself will eventually cost you too, one way or another: Either directly, in terms of eventually higher cost for MQA material or indirectly in terms of the cost being recouped from other parts of the chain, such as from the fees to artists, recording studios, etc. Most likely, eventually it will cost you both ways!
  
 G


----------



## astrostar59

Hmm, not sure I get this it will cost you? It is the same fee on Tidal as any hifi account.
  
 Next point, have any of the detractors heard MQA v other high res formats to compare?
  
 Historically getting access to HD files is / was currently cost prohibitive and a bit of a joke IMO. And I am convinced some were never actually high res originals to start with. MQA is trying to link the integrity of the source master through to the supply of that file, trying to avoid any degradation and trashing of the data and quality.
  
 In Tidal, if you can select MP3 for your mobile device, and Masters for your home system, what is the problem?
  
 Lets face it, when is there ever a free lunch in music formats, the chaos of SACHs, DSD, HD Masters. IMO about time someone took it on.


----------



## gregorio

astrostar59 said:


> [1] Hmm, not sure I get this it will cost you? It is the same fee on Tidal as any hifi account.
> 
> [2] Next point, have any of the detractors heard MQA v other high res formats to compare?


 
  
 1. It's the same fee currently, that may not always be the case but even if it is, MQA is not a charity it's a business, so if you (the consumer) is not paying who do you think will pay? And, have you not considered how having someone else pay is going to affect you (the consumer)?
  
 2. Why would we need to? MQA is a lossy format, it can't sound better than the original format it was recorded/mixed in or therefore a lossless format of that original such as FLAC. So the question is; why do we need to pay more (directly or indirectly) for a format with inferior SQ to those which already exist?
  
 G


----------



## astrostar59

gregorio said:


> astrostar59 said:
> 
> 
> > [1] Hmm, not sure I get this it will cost you? It is the same fee on Tidal as any hifi account.
> ...


 
 Wrong on all counts IMO. Do the research, and read up some more, then try it. All those points above are not valid. It is the misinformation that was flying around early last year, when nobody had heard it. Times have moved on.
  
 It does not cost more (in Tidal) and is not inferior to other formats.
  
 It is not lossy as compared to DSD or HD, but *all* formats are lossy to some degree next to the studio master. But IMO this is the best we have got to date and for free. And it is trying to get back to the source material, keep the integrity of that intact.i.e. not a bolt on like HD tracks. Great news IMO.
  
 There is a lot of trash for sale as 'high res' download. No idea what proportion, but the fact that there is any is not right.


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. It's the same fee currently, that may not always be the case but even if it is, MQA is not a charity it's a business, so if you (the consumer) is not paying who do you think will pay? And, have you not considered how having someone else pay is going to affect you (the consumer)?
> 
> 2. Why would we need to? MQA is a lossy format, it can't sound better than the original format it was recorded/mixed in or therefore a lossless format of that original such as FLAC. So the question is; why do we need to pay more (directly or indirectly) for a format with inferior SQ to those which already exist?
> 
> G


 

 Right, lets dig in.  Here we go again....
  
 1. MQA is a business, but I don't suspect they are looking to gauge anyone, just do well.  They will make plenty off a tiny percentage per track/album/device.  Meridian sold MLP for $0.5 million to Dolby, which is low for these sort of things.  Maybe Meridian was having one of their lean times.  That industry has its ups and downs. But stop looking for the worst in people, for a couple of minutes.
  
 2. Because sometimes new stuff comes from listening to the d@mn thing.  You cannot just sit there and say nothing makes a difference just because you didn't get off your @rse and listen, and missed a difference.  Oh wait, wrong forum...
  
 It could be the biggest thing it does is improve the master used for these releases.  If that ends up being true we all gain.  But I suspect that would annoy people here.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> Right, lets dig in.  Here we go again....
> 
> 1. MQA is a business, but I don't suspect they are looking to gauge anyone, just do well.  They will make plenty off a tiny percentage per track/album/device.  Meridian sold MLP for $0.5 million to Dolby, which is low for these sort of things.  Maybe Meridian was having one of their lean times.  That industry has its ups and downs. But stop looking for the worst in people, for a couple of minutes.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Read this thread.
  
 http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/highresaudio-stop-offering-mqa-31717/
  
 MQA made threats and this comment has been removed.  Granted, HIGHRESAUDIO has their own personal business reasons to avoid MQA, they had been selling this format for quite some time.  Reverse engineering from consumers has shown that these critical points are accurate, despite being muscled by MQA lawyers into changing the wording.
  


> _From HIGHRESAUDIO's Facebook page:_
> 
> _Breaking News: HIGHRESAUDIO to stop offering MQA. Proprietary system solutions and licensing models aren't what customers want. MQA is NOT lossless, the original signal is never recovered, estimate to recover at most 17bits (reduces the sampling rate), reduces the frequency range, SNR reduced by 3bit, aliasing with artifacts at 18kHz. MQA encoding filters manipulate drastically the original source. No analysis tools are available to verify the encoded MQA content. Therefore no quality control is possible. highresaudio.com stands for offering purity, original mastering source, none manipulated, tweaked or up-sampled content and codecs that are widely supported and offer use of freedom._
> _"We hope that MQA will adjust all the above issues. We are truly disappointed, the way MQA has progressed in the past year. We have been mislead and blinded by trust and promises."_


 
  
 They are a business and they act just like any business that only cares about profits.
  
 Why do consumers have to rely on a seller of a proprietary product to provide verification of its quality?  Maybe you believe all the marketing hoopla, but I won't trust them based on what I have witnessed thus far.


----------



## astrostar59

> jagwap said:
> 
> 
> >
> ...


 
 This is so simple. Forget the fisticuffs, and listen..... to MQA.
  
 Also think how much these high res companies have ripped us off for. And while we are accusing, lets look at the source of some of those 'HD' tracks. The MQA code will weedle out the fakes, maybe that is why highresaudio if flapping? Or panicking, the same thing in my book....


----------



## icebear

astrostar59 said:


> This is so simple. Forget the fisticuffs, and listen..... to MQA.
> 
> Also think *how much these high res companies have ripped us off for. *[1]And while we are accusing, lets look at the source of some of those 'HD' tracks. *The MQA code will weedle out the fakes, [2]*maybe that is why highresaudio if flapping? Or panicking, the same thing in my book....


 
 [1] if people can't judge with their own ears, if for double or triple the money, they are really getting something significantly better (or not) than these folks buying high rez files are plain credulous to marketing.
      That honestly isn't very intelligent and usually bad for your wallet.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  
 [2] As always: "Sheet* in sheet out" but when the blue MQA led is on, it's master quality authenticated sheet.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 (*pardon the modified spelling, otherwise ****)
  
 Unless you start listening and trusting your ears, you will always be taken for ride.
 It's fascinating how many people are screaming:
 "Here take me, I also want to hop on!"


----------



## jagwap

icebear said:


> [1] if people can't judge with their own ears, if for double or triple the money, they are really getting something significantly better (or not) than these folks buying high rez files are plain credulous to marketing.
> That honestly isn't very intelligent and usually bad for your wallet.:rolleyes:
> 
> [2] As always: "Sheet* in sheet out" but when the blue MQA led is on, it's master quality authenticated sheet.
> ...




I think the point he was making was you had to buy the high res file before finding out if it is high res (or other quality issues). It least currently with streaming you don't pay extra above lossless in order to try it.

I've bought good high res files, but some are worse than the CD. There's not much youncan do with some providers.


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## jagwap

I've signed up for the free trial of Tidal.  So far I like the service.  While there may be multiple copies of more famous albums, where you can choose the better one, when there is only one, often it isn't the over compressed more recent version, which is encouraging.
  
 So I've had "a bit of a listen" to the MASTER (MQA) versions of some of the tracks.  I put it in quotes as it is not a double blind ABX with a sample size of >100 tracks listen to by >100 people.  So I'm expecting derision from the usual luddites and grumpy old gits.  It's me putting what appear to be tracks from the same master, in a playlist and playing them not knowing which one I am listening to. 
  
 First thoughts are: there is a difference.  I cannot prove it is the same master, as I have only checked the sound and judged the compression is similar. So if someone can tell me how to put the output of Tidal app through Foobar and measure it, then I can have a better idea if they are.
  
 I've only got started, but so far only one track was more compressed than the HIFI lossless version when looking for pairs of tracks.  Which in itself is encouraging that the MQA process at Warner and others is perhaps usually choosing the best/closest to/original source.  This is great if so, and lines up with one or two of the original promises from MQA.
  
 When listening to pairs of apparently similar tracks, the MQA sounded better.  It is not night and day, but it is there. Percussive and transient instruments seemed better and a better flow to the rhythm and pace.  Piano and drum kits showed this the most, but also resulted in a dryer bass.  A drier bass can be associated with a better time alignment in the low end, resulting in better rhythm. 
  
 Now as I am not listening to hardware decoded MQA, and on one rig it is an old Dragonfly, so limited to 44.1kHz when 192kHz is output, it while it is not clear what this it from, higher sampling rate is unlikely to be the main reason.  Better masters is my first guess.  The time alignment I'm talking about tends to be in the mS not the uS MQA talk about.  Milliseconds less misalignment can be achieved by not putting it through a desk and effects again for re-mastering, as these usually add LF group delay through badly thought out HPF.
  
 I came to this thread, not to promote MQA, but to counter those slagging off people I have met and respect. I was on the fence on its performance.  I am not yet convinced, but this first listen is encouraging.
  
 Flame away fellas...


----------



## Joe Bloggs

.


----------



## Gringo

joe bloggs said:


> Believe it or not, "just listen" is one of the best ways to go hopelessly astray in the world of HiFi audio...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

 ​From this I draw the conclusion, (rightly or wrongly), that opting for something that does not sound as good is the way to go because the graphs say its better despite what my ears are telling me.
  
 In the end it does not matter one little bit, if after extended listening you think A is better than B despite what the anyone else says. You pay your money, you have to live with it, so it's your opinion that counts. My initial impressions on listening to MQA are favourable but until I can get the opportunity to do the required extended auditioning I remain on the fence.
  
 I don't believe for one moment that MQA is the new dawn of the music world where our listening experience will be improved beyond our wildest imagination but equally those who won't listen to it and claim it is just an evil marketing scam and MQA is Darth Vader out to subjugate the universe is equally silly.  Please excuse the deliberate  exaggerations used purely to try and lighten up the mood, no offence intended to anyone.


----------



## astrostar59

I try to listen to new gear at home on my own system as it stood at that point in time. Demos in showrooms are fine, but give you only an idea as no doubt room acoustics and other use of different speakers and amps used will not sound the same as your own gear.
  
 But, the ears are the final trust. No other way. If it was another way, so lets all go buy new clothes without either being able to see them or try them on. You get my drift. I absolutely don't see technical data as Gospel. But it is a starting point, and some information 'behind the scenes' of what a certain piece of gear is doing, how it measures. That is if we trust said measurements, for example many efficiency figures from speaker manufacturers are notoriously exaggerated.
  
 My current enthusiasm for MQA if fuelled by the A/B comparison in my system to HD tracks and standard Redbook v MQA tracks. It is early days but is enough to get me exited about it.
  
 I will bow out now and leave the politics and fisticuffs to others. But IMO this will all calm down as more get to hear for themselves. Smoke and Mirror theories will be prominent until that happens.
  
 I am also delighted iTunes is getting a big kick up the butt TBH, garbage quality for top dollar....


----------



## jagwap

gringo said:


> ​From this I draw the conclusion, (rightly or wrongly), that opting for something that does not sound as good is the way to go because the graphs say its better despite what my ears are telling me.
> 
> In the end it does not matter one little bit, if after extended listening you think A is better than B despite what the anyone else says. You pay your money, you have to live with it, so it's your opinion that counts. My initial impressions on listening to MQA are favourable but until I can get the opportunity to do the required extended auditioning I remain on the fence.
> 
> I don't believe for one moment that MQA is the new dawn of the music world where our listening experience will be improved beyond our wildest imagination but equally those who won't listen to it and claim it is just an evil marketing scam and MQA is Darth Vader out to subjugate the universe is equally silly.  Please excuse the deliberate  exaggerations used purely to try and lighten up the mood, no offence intended to anyone.




I've "discussed" things with joebloggs and his dissappering posts before.

He does have a point. It is extremely easy to convince yourself of a difference when it is small or non existent.

You may have gone beyond that point and how do they know that here, but their point here is placibo and influence is bigger than bit depth and sample rate.

I've been doing and organising listening tests in my career for years, and it is so easy to go on an incorrect path.

But as you say, new discoveries may only come from listening and leaving prejudice at the door. I am finding something in MQA, but I'm not ready to declare what it is.


----------



## astrostar59

jagwap said:


> gringo said:
> 
> 
> > ​From this I draw the conclusion, (rightly or wrongly), that opting for something that does not sound as good is the way to go because the graphs say its better despite what my ears are telling me.
> ...


 

 I agree. I try to drill it down to dead basics at home. For example, play a small cluster of say 4 tracks of various gendre you know *very *well. I use an incredibly well recorded trance track by Alex Morphe, well miked track by Beyonce, an edgy vocal track by the Cranberries and some well recorded Mozart string quartets. The Cranberries track will reveal any digital sibilance or edge, the Alex Morphe test bass dynamics and stage width, Beyonce test how real female vocals can sound, and the Mozart test the live orchestral acoustic and strings. Strings can be hash or thin on poor digital. My system, may not work for others, but the key IMO is *have a system* and keep it consistent. 
  
 I have heard those tracks hundreds of times on my system as it changed over the last 5 years at least.
  
 I play each track half way through, then quickly switch to the other piece of gear or in this case the MQA file. all volumes unchanged, the digital source is really close to 0dB to full volume on the source file.
  
 Try this process at least 10 times for each track, A/B each file. Then move to the next track. I rio realise some gear or a file type could display an increase in perceived quality in one area, lets say bass texture, but be worse at female vocals for example. It needs to be considered as a whole. Then sum up the changes (if any).
  
 I am also aware more detail can be a carrot, but can in the longer term annoy the hell out of me if it is not realistic and smooth delivery. The reason I have had years of love/hate in varying degrees with digital THB.
  
 I find that simple testing system has not let me down so far. The brain can forget an exact sound signature, so even the next day, you can be tricked. So all sessions need to be in real time and methodically repeated.
  
 There are exceptions to this however. Sometimes a different DAC or speakers convinces you very quickly if the jump in perceived quality if that big, or at least, inline with what you personally hear as more real sounding.
  
 So, again, in my view, demo's in a showroom have value but can be misleading. Demo rooms at hifi shows are even more misleading. Even headphone demos if the ambient level is high and you can't get to play your own music. And memory can play tricks of course when you are away from your own home system.
  
 I would never buy an audio piece now without getting it home for a long demo first.


----------



## gregorio

astrostar59 said:


> [1] Wrong on all counts IMO. Do the research, and read up some more, then try it. All those points above are not valid. It is the misinformation that was flying around early last year, when nobody had heard it. Times have moved on.
> [2] It does not cost more (in Tidal)
> [3] and is not inferior to other formats. [3a] It is not lossy as compared to DSD or HD,
> [4] but *all* formats are lossy to some degree next to the studio master.
> ...


 
  
 1. So you're saying that MQA _IS_ a charity in your opinion? I have done some research and "read up some more". If all my points are invalid in your opinion, no problem but this is the science forum, have you got any evidence to back up your opinion?
  
 2. So you're saying that the studios/mastering engineers do not have to license the MQA technology to create MQA masters, that DAC manufacturers do not have to license MQA to include an MQA decoder and that Tidal does not have to pay a licensing fee to stream MQA?
  
 3. So you're saying that the marketing material put out by MQA themselves is incorrect and in fact MQA is not lossy?
 3a. The company says it is lossy, FLAC on the other hand is provably lossless. I suggest you "read up some more", as apparently you haven't even read the company's own marketing materials, let alone the science which in some places supports their marketing and in others discredits it!
  
 4. Huh, so are you saying that MQA is lossy or are you saying that MQA isn't one of your "*all* formats"? It doesn't really matter I suppose because in reality you are of course incorrect: If I make a FLAC from a studio master, how exactly is that FLAC different to that studio master?
  
 5. If your opinion contradicts the very well known and accepted science and you provide no reliable evidence to back your opinion up, then here in the science forum your opinion is worthless. In fact, it's worse than worthless! The best compressed format we have to date is obviously FLAC, which is both bit perfect and free, as opposed to not bit perfect AND not free!
  
 6. Agreed, that's "not right". It's also not right to believe any old marketing BS thrown in your direction or at least it's not right for many/most of us here, which is one of the main reasons we're here in the first place and why here (the science forum) exists! Those of us interested in the actual facts know that when it came out, SACD was far more rigorous than MQA even purports to be. It could not be copied and only a small number of the top studios could afford the hardware required to record and master SACDs, so integrity of the master was automatically ensured. However, the reality as we now know was quite different, many of the SACDs were effectively adulterated and not by third parties creating adulterated forgeries but actually by those top studios and mastering engineers, on the instruction of record labels. MQA does nothing to change that situation, in fact, AFAIK it's easier/cheaper and therefore less restrictive than SACD was for the first several years!
  
 7. Again, you can believe any old marketing BS you want but the reality is that's it's pretty easy to create such a fake, a fake which would fool any code out there (including MQA). All it takes is a modicum of know how, a spectrum analyser and a couple of industry standard processors which have been around for several decades! I'm quite willing to publicly explain how if you want? I wouldn't be giving anything away because pretty much any music engineer, even fairly inexperienced ones, would know this.
  

 Quote:


jagwap said:


> 1. ... But stop looking for the worst in people, for a couple of minutes.
> 
> 2. Because sometimes new stuff comes from listening to the d@mn thing.  You cannot just sit there and say nothing makes a difference just because you didn't get off your @rse and listen, and missed a difference.  Oh wait, wrong forum...


 
  
 1. Huh? I'm not looking for the worst in people, I'm looking at what marketing actually is and why businesses exist. So, providing you know the difference between a business and a charity, "stop looking" at MQA as a charity when it doesn't even purport to be one!
  
 2. Yes, sometimes new stuff does come from listening but what has "sometimes" got to do with this thread? We're talking about MQA, a lossy compression format. Are you really saying that a listening test could demonstrate that a lossy compression format is better than a lossless format? If so, then yes, you are in the wrong forum because with that sort of listening test one could demonstrate pretty much anything, regardless of how ridiculous, which is why this forum only gives credibility certain types of listening tests!
  
 Quote:


gringo said:


> [1] ​From this I draw the conclusion, (rightly or wrongly), that opting for something that does not sound as good is the way to go because the graphs say its better despite what my ears are telling me.
> 
> [2] In the end it does not matter one little bit, if after extended listening you think A is better than B despite what the anyone else says. You pay your money, you have to live with it, so it's your opinion that counts.


 
  
 1. You of course are free to draw any conclusion you want from whatever source. For most of us here, "the graphs" are only a small part of a much larger picture of the fundamental principles of digital audio and how MQA fits into those principles. We also know that our ears are incapable of telling us anything directly (!) and that what happens in this indirect telling means that not only is our perception of hearing easily fooled but pretty much all the commercial audio content to which you listen absolutely relies on the fact our hearing can be fooled!
  
 2. If that were true, then all we'd do here is mock MQA light-heartedly for a while. However, it's not true because if enough people are taken in by the marketing BS and MQA becomes mainstream then not only do those who have been fooled suffer, we all do. While this article (linked to earlier by pinnahertz) is rather over alarmist IMHO, it does contain some very pertinent points. While you may not have been one of the 80 million or so who shared the opinion of those who used Napster, you, along with the rest of us, are all still paying the price. I'm not saying that MQA, even if it achieves deep market penetration, will have as massive an impact on the music industry as Napster but it will have some impact. MQA charges, even if consumers aren't charged directly, it will increase the cost of music production and distribution and as the return on investment in music production and distribution has fallen, so the logical business strategy is to reduce the amount of investment. Which is exactly what we've seen for the last couple of decades. If costs (due to MQA) increase, investment will have to decrease.
  
 There are some here looking to MQA to provide higher quality recordings/masters while apparently being completely ignorant of the fact that the logical outcome of supporting MQA is reduced investment in producing new recordings/masters (and that a lossy format can't be as good as a lossless one anyway). Does anyone here really believe that reduced investment leads to higher quality and/or more diversity?
  
 G


----------



## astrostar59

gregorio said:


> There are some here looking to MQA to provide higher quality recordings/masters while apparently being completely ignorant of the fact that the logical outcome of supporting MQA is reduced investment in producing new recordings/masters (and that a lossy format can't be as good as a lossless one anyway). Does anyone here really believe that reduced investment leads to higher quality and/or more diversity?
> 
> G


 
 My goodness, the effort in writing all that. Maybe 30 minutes. You know, in that time you could have tried MQA yourself, and not bothered with all that.
  
 I never said MQA is not going to cost something, even water costs something. But if you read further, the major labels are taking it on as a 'normal' As more do that, hopefully we will get our hands (or ears) on more decent copies of those studio masters. And if that process includes both the artists and the studios, it is all good in my book.
  
 My personal point was, in Tidal I pay nothing extra for MQA content. So, to me it is free. How that is financed behind the scenes I don't care, don't need to know. If the artists get a leg up and more commission on play figures, then that is very important to me. But how much the industry makes I don't want to know or care TBH. Apple has made more on iTunes than some countries Gross National Product. Selling MP3s in fact. Is that fairer than MQA, I say not.
  
 Also, how much I have spent on HD tracks. And a lifetime of CDs and before that tapes and before that vinyl. Lets remember how crappy the access to records was back then. I used to put a depo down at my local record shop, and wait 3 weeks to get hold of a Moody Blues Album for example. Yes, I liked the excitement of waiting for it, but no way do I want that to come back anytime soon.
  
 You know, there are some folk who say we didn't go to the moon...... the conspiracy theories, though highly entertaining ((as indeed this thread is) but after the Chinese probe flew past and took high resolution photos showing Apollo 17's landing gear, the lander and even the moon rover tyre tracks. But hey, some STILL say it never happened.


----------



## Joe Bloggs

gringo said:


> From this I draw the conclusion, (rightly or wrongly), that opting for something that does not sound as good is the way to go because the graphs say its better despite what my ears are telling me.
> 
> In the end it does not matter one little bit, if after extended listening you think A is better than B despite what the anyone else says. You pay your money, you have to live with it, so it's your opinion that counts. My initial impressions on listening to MQA are favourable but until I can get the opportunity to do the required extended auditioning I remain on the fence.




Well I really didn't want to start this...

But to elaborate, since starting my audiophile journey (admittedly over 10 years ago), all told I must have spent several solid weeks' worth of time performing my own measurements and designing my own sound processing algorithms / settings for particular headphones / other sound systems*. I hope to one day market my own solutions for improving audio experience, but so far I've found that there's nothing that can replace a healthy inquisitive mind on the part of the would-be audiophile and a willingness to learn and try many, many more things than one would rightly expect simply listening to music would require in the first place.

To further elaborate, I find that there's little in audio that one can simply buy and slot into one's system and expect an absolute improvement in system audio quality. For me, audio improvements have come 1% via purchases and 99% via perspiration (hard study and work). In particular I'm looking for hard solid improvements that last even if there's no pretty status lights to indicate that you're listening to "Hi-Res" of one sort or another, or anything of the sort... Whereas, if everyone into audiophilia worked the way I did, the HiFi industry would be roughly 99% poorer... There is practically no money to be had from audiophile education or installation services, everything is expected to be plug and play... and play roughly as much as they cost. And as far as I can tell, after such an expectation, the only reason why everyone isn't up in arms burning all HiFi companies at the stake is because audio quality is so unquantifiable, fickle and impressionable...

I should just shut up before I bankrupt the company I represent... :rolleyes:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/745608/mqa-revolutionary-british-streaming-technology/540#post_13156445
http://www.head-fi.org/t/811837/natural-crossfeed-on-headphones-earphones-for-foobar2000-v2-1-major-update-made-public
Some real-life examples of what I do with my own audio system (though the second link is by no means representative of audio quality at my end, especially considering that both headphone tuning and HRTF ought to be tuned on an individual basis for best quality)

*And yes, the process involved a surprising amount of reading at words, graphs and all kinds of exercise of the eyes and brain... but I do believe my ears are thanking me profusely for it these days.


----------



## Gringo

gregorio said:


> 1. You of course are free to draw any conclusion you want from whatever source. For most of us here, "the graphs" are only a small part of a much larger picture of the fundamental principles of digital audio and how MQA fits into those principles. We also know that our ears are incapable of telling us anything directly (!) and that what happens in this indirect telling means that not only is our perception of hearing easily fooled but pretty much all the commercial audio content to which you listen absolutely relies on the fact our hearing can be fooled!
> 
> 2. If that were true, then all we'd do here is mock MQA light-heartedly for a while. However, it's not true because if enough people are taken in by the marketing BS and MQA becomes mainstream then not only do those who have been fooled suffer, we all do. While this article (linked to earlier by pinnahertz) is rather over alarmist IMHO, it does contain some very pertinent points. While you may not have been one of the 80 million or so who shared the opinion of those who used Napster, you, along with the rest of us, are all still paying the price. I'm not saying that MQA, even if it achieves deep market penetration, will have as massive an impact on the music industry as Napster but it will have some impact. MQA charges, even if consumers aren't charged directly, it will increase the cost of music production and distribution and as the return on investment in music production and distribution has fallen, so the logical business strategy is to reduce the amount of investment. Which is exactly what we've seen for the last couple of decades. If costs (due to MQA) increase, investment will have to decrease.
> 
> ...


 

 ​Sorry but your response in point one still falls down completely. Again, following your argument we can be content on buying kit which sounds absolute rubbish compared to others because we can rely on the graphs etc telling us something its better.  I read with my eyes but listen with my ears so its my ears that have to be the final arbiter when listening.  If I were looking at a painting my eyes would have the final say regardless of what I might hear others say.
  
 As for point two, when your listening to your rig my opinions amount to zilch. Likewise when I am listening to my rig your opinions do not trump mine and that is all I was saying.  If you must have the last word then please feel free to blast away, I will leave it to others to decide whose opinion is worth considering.


----------



## astrostar59

joe bloggs said:


> gringo said:
> 
> 
> > From this I draw the conclusion, (rightly or wrongly), that opting for something that does not sound as good is the way to go because the graphs say its better despite what my ears are telling me.
> ...


 

 Er, I HAVE had major upgrades that did blow my socks off sir. I beg to differ. Just because you may not have, or it has come to you in another way doesn't make it fact or even the 'norm' either.
  
 I have had mistakes along the way, who hasn't lost some dough on an expensive DAC sale? But I have had some hits as well. For example finding Kevin Gilmours DIY designs, and finding a builder to build me a Stat amp or 2, that was a great experience TBH and one of the biggest SQ hikes in HP terms I have ever had. Like going for tinny little IEMs to a full blown Stat system.
  
 Then coming across horn speakers that seemed to fit my system so well. I am sure there are tons of stories along these lines on here.Thing is, not to get obsessed with technical aspects and suspicious of new tech. In my book, if it sounds better IMO, I want it, simple. Or if I can't afford it, I can respect it for what it is such as the HE-1.
  
 Life really is not so complicated. Well, it can be if folk wrap it up in non relevant spin offs.
  
 Signing off, going to blast my horn speakers and enjoy the music. Love this hobby....


----------



## castleofargh

1/ uncontrolled tests do not result in objective conclusions.
 2/ do we really have to once again explain how an objective fact isn't the same thing as a personal feeling? really? we're all wasting so much time because some people never learned how there can be more than one way to look at the world, and that testing for personal preferences isn't the same as testing for fidelity.
 some days I'm just tired of that crap.
  
 if the question is "do I enjoy this?" then the best and really the only way to get an answer is to try. the question is about feelings, and specifically my feelings. I'm not going to get the answer on a forum.
 but if the question is "does this format bring higher fidelity compared to PCM with the same signal resolution?" then just listening is a really foolish testing method leading nowhere. and there can be a all lot of objective based questions that will not and cannot find an answer with the "just listen" motto. even many listening tests require actual controls to be more than an opinion.
  

 want to know if something magical that cannot exist is in a MQA file?  the extracted MQA file is good old PCM, so no it's not possible that the format alone is making music better.
 so maybe it comes down to the DAC? but then many people used Tidal MQA music without a MQA DAC and still found the music to be different, better...  so there are 2 and only 2 possibilities:
 1/ placebo.
 2/ the damn album is a different one. which has nothing to do with it being compressed in a MQA file.
  
 so already with very basic logic, we know that if there is a difference, it's in the mastering. so people should stop talking nonsense as if the MQA format was something special. it isn't. it cannot be.
 maybe when using a MQA DAC something else would happen, but that's another problem with other testing requirements.
  
  
 if the all idea is that MQA is making good masters, ok they certainly did a few so that it would support the general propaganda about subjectively superior sound. just like SACD did at the beginning, just like pono masters did at the beginning, just like DVD, laserdiscs.....  any and all formats did it at the beginning to push their format and get people think the good sound had anything to do with the format. many people were arguing just like we are now about how good minidisc albums were sounding. lossy format and still some thought it was superior to CD. that's what we get when people can't even make the effort to see how a container isn't the content. and each time actual control testing showed how if the same music was used, people failed to notice a change(and sometimes for some lossy formats, they could but of course it was inferior audio). the obvious conclusion being that we don't need a new format to get the record guys to stop ruining the CD version on purpose.
 take the loudness war. all new formats made people believe that it would be the answer to the loudness war. how dumb are we to be grateful about that? it's the guy torturing you and saying, "now I will stop if you use that format". sure you can say thank you and love him for that if you're really broken inside and don't have a clue what is going on. but the loudness war exists in the first place because the record companies wanted it. and now the same guys go hand in hand with MQA letting us believe that they will save music from the ugly loudness war and poorly made masters?
 F all of them!(sorry I really don't know how to express that very clear idea in another way).
 they brought the loudness war on us, they treat the recording engineers like slaves asking them to make way too many albums in X versions way too fast. it makes me sick that anybody could actually be grateful when they decide not to cripple a few album in exchange of us doing what they want.
  
 so no getting a new format isn't just a happy event and more choice for the free world. it's a false answer to problems that were artificially created, often by the very guys bringing us the solution. when a vinyl has a better master than a CD(and it really happens for some moronic reason), it's not because vinyls is better. vinyl is a low fidelity format so why would a CD fail to sound as good? when MQA is software decoded and sounds better than the CD version, all it means is that we could have had that better sound in CD(or at the very least in highres PCM if you believe it makes audible difference). but it most likely never will, because that master will be exclusive to MQA container. I've said this many times, if all the music was available in all the formats, then I would be very happy to have as many formats as possible. because that's real choice. 
 but all we get in practice are artificial divisions for money (if not now with Tidal, don't worry, MQA isn't going to develop by licking rocks).


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## pinnahertz

Waaahoooo! What he said ^^. Go, castleofargh, go!


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## RichardTownsend

'so already with very basic logic, we know that if there is a difference, it's in the mastering. so people should stop talking nonsense as if the MQA format was something special. it isn't. it cannot be.'

 If MQA have improved the A to D process, which is what they claim to have done by reducing time domain distortion, then it certainly can be, even if the result is eventually converted to PCM. I'm not saying it IS better, but there's absolutely no reason why it CANNOT be better.


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## spruce music

richardtownsend said:


> 'so already with very basic logic, we know that if there is a difference, it's in the mastering. so people should stop talking nonsense as if the MQA format was something special. it isn't. it cannot be.'
> 
> If MQA have improved the A to D process, which is what they claim to have done by reducing time domain distortion, then it certainly can be, even if the result is eventually converted to PCM. I'm not saying it IS better, but there's absolutely no reason why it CANNOT be better.


 

 Look at the pretty little thing over there, (never mind what is going on over here).  Be mesmerized by your imagination.  This is what MQA is doing.
  
 There claim about fixing AD processes may be possible.  They have sort of backed off saying they could do that with everything.  How could they?  Most music is mixed with so many channels and processes getting there from here is simply not possible.  The number of recordings where this is even a possibility, even if it matters, even if it is audible, even if it is significant, all these ifs in the way, the recordings it could be done to are going to be a tiny horribly small percentage of all music. So the "benefits" of time domain distortion are pretty much not happening with most music(nearly all music).  Without that the other part of MQA is authenticating the master is the one intended.  With them converting "hi-res" files provided by the labels that actually isn't happening either. All that was just talk to get you interested in the wonder that is MQA.  So without fixing time domain in the original ADCs and without really authenticating anything for more than 95% of all MQA music what is left?  A reduced quality file if you don't have MQA decoding, and the chance of maybe having a little better quality if you do.  A lossy encoding of the original even then.


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## RichardTownsend

spruce music said:


> Look at the pretty little thing over there, (never mind what is going on over here).  Be mesmerized by your imagination.  This is what MQA is doing.
> 
> There claim about fixing AD processes may be possible.  They have sort of backed off saying they could do that with everything.  How could they?  Most music is mixed with so many channels and processes getting there from here is simply not possible.  The number of recordings where this is even a possibility, even if it matters, even if it is audible, even if it is significant, all these ifs in the way, the recordings it could be done to are going to be a tiny horribly small percentage of all music. So the "benefits" of time domain distortion are pretty much not happening with most music(nearly all music).  Without that the other part of MQA is authenticating the master is the one intended.  With them converting "hi-res" files provided by the labels that actually isn't happening either. All that was just talk to get you interested in the wonder that is MQA.  So without fixing time domain in the original ADCs and without really authenticating anything for more than 95% of all MQA music what is left?  A reduced quality file if you don't have MQA decoding, and the chance of maybe having a little better quality if you do.  A lossy encoding of the original even then.




Longer term, the idea is that new music is recorded using MQA. In that case it will be working with analogue input. It will be interesting to see how that sounds.


----------



## limpidglitch

richardtownsend said:


> If MQA have improved the A to D process, which is what they claim to have done by reducing time domain distortion, then it certainly can be, even if the result is eventually converted to PCM. I'm not saying it IS better, but there's absolutely no reason why it CANNOT be better.


 
  
 That's exactly what castle says, except he puts the burden of proof on the one set to make a financial gain. You know, the way it is done in markets based on tangible value.


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## spruce music

richardtownsend said:


> Longer term, the idea is that new music is recorded using MQA. In that case it will be working with analogue input. It will be interesting to see how that sounds.


 

 Something like a visit to a sausage factory I suppose.  Go to a studio to see how recordings get done. There are multiple tracks as in 24 or 48 or big time recordings even more.  Even if you have records of provenance showing exactly which ADC was used how useful is de-blurring time domain when there will be multiple levels of compression, EQ and many other processes performed on the various tracks involved.  Yet you somehow think MQA will be a big boost to fidelity?  Again, it could only help, IF it helps, a tiny minority of recordings.


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## RichardTownsend

spruce music said:


> Something like a visit to a sausage factory I suppose.  Go to a studio to see how recordings get done. There are multiple tracks as in 24 or 48 or big time recordings even more.  Even if you have records of provenance showing exactly which ADC was used how useful is de-blurring time domain when there will be multiple levels of compression, EQ and many other processes performed on the various tracks involved.  Yet you somehow think MQA will be a big boost to fidelity?  Again, it could only help, IF it helps, a tiny minority of recordings.




I actually produce my own material and I have an (in the box) studio. I think you're probably right it won't help a lot when there's a lot of digital eq, reverb, compression, use of samples etc, especially in pop and electronica, but for other genres where there are simpler recording techniques it could make a big difference. That would include classical, jazz, folk. Luckily I like those...


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## castleofargh

how would it make a big difference? do you have a clear vision of how they would plan to "improve" the signal at the recording?


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## NeoG

The divide - as it usually is in audio related matters - sits between the model of reality you prescribe to.
  
 One model deals with measured thresholds. No matter where you place MQA on the spectrum, it doesn't matter once it has reached at least the threshold of transparency. The rigorously studied psycho-acoustic model indicates we throw out anything outside of those parameters. In this model, MQA can only be a cash grab or a silly misguided endeavour. Any access to better masters or capturing processes are being locked behind a proprietary wall which can and will be used against you in the name of the mighty dollar.
  
 In the other model, there are virtually limitless exponentially reducing benefits to everything you do and every change you make potentially takes you closer to a facsimile of the real thing. The source of truth is your own experiences regardless of whether they line up with popular opinions or are met with derision. We do not fully understand everything and so everything can be a possibility, you need only be open to it. In this model, MQA is another step towards the goal. Any improvements the system can bring will not be turned away, and the creators clearly think the same way about it that you do.
  
 One of these models is driven by mass delusion, and the other by a healthy feedback process. But which one is which?


----------



## haiku

Here´s an interesting comment about MQA from Paul McGowan (PS Audio)
  
 "I can tell you our point of view, if you’re interested. So far, we too will not support MQA.

 It has nothing to do with costs. Which makes sense, if you think about it. What they charge is a big secret and we have yet to be let in on it, but they tell us it won’t “be much”. Fair enough. Let’s call it $10. Heck, call it $20 though I doubt that’s the case.

 Do you think $20 more for us or Benchmark matters if it helps sell DACs? Neither we nor any of the manufacturers I know would care about that. Sure, $20 is real money, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s chump change.

 I do believe that MQA can make many DACs sound better. You’ve heard it yourself – as has Harley.

 But that doesn’t mean IT is a miracle. It only means exactly what it means – that some DACs are helped. Others, like our own, are harmed.

 We have taken a great deal of time to play with MQA. Their hardware’s been available to us for quite some time – and in every case our DAC sounds worse. That’s why we haven’t implemented it. There’s nothing anyone could say that would make us add a feature or perceived benefit that would in any way damage what we do. Ain’t gonna happen.

 Bob Stuart has an open invitation to show us MQA can work in our DAC. If he or his team does, we’d be the first in line.

 It isn’t about cost. It’s about performance. And if the performance isn’t there, then we’re not interested."

 This might explain, why others such as Schiit, Linn, Bryston and other High End Companies don´t want to join the MQA Hypetrain. MQA just doesn´t sound good enough with ultra high resolution gear.


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## RichardTownsend

castleofargh said:


> how would it make a big difference? do you have a clear vision of how they would plan to "improve" the signal at the recording?




Good question. At the moment, I'm relying on what Bob Stuart has said about this, I have no independent knowledge of my own, and what they have revealed is quite limited. I have seen the plots showing how impulse responses are coded in MQA vs, for example, 192kHz PCM, and the time accuracy is significantly better in MQA. But how this is used to encode better PCM signals has not been revealed. So I don't have a clear vision of how this is done. But I'm hopeful, largely because I've heard comments from respected producers and engineers about improvements to their own material (and most of that was already in the digital domain). But we will only know for sure when the new material arrives.

One thing I've noticed is the the Mytek Brooklyn MQA ADC, which is similar to the one used to encode some of the Warner catalog, samples the incoming audio at 12 MHz. Just a straw in the wind, but it may indicate the timing precision available to the MQA encoder. 

In terms of MQA material that has already been encoded from analogue, in Tidal, the omens are good, although it's hard to know what to compare it to. For example, the Doobie Brothers 'Minute by Minute' MQA version says it was remastered in 2016 and so it's likely they have gone back to the original analogue tapes to do this. It sounds wonderful, way better than the standard version. But is this MQA or is it a general improvement in A to D? I Don't know. In general, material on Tidal MQA from the analogue era sounds great, and it really shows up the limitations of early digital recordings. But again we don't know how much MQA has contributed to that.


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## astrostar59

If you dig around, there are MQA versions of the same album release as the 44.1 versions. So far, in those cases MQA sounds better to me.
  
 On PS Audio's Paul McGowan, it is complicated IMO. I wonder how much of the mystery is the permanent up sampling aspect of his DAC? I don't pretend to know the answer, but many DACs use different filters and up sampling techniques to then output the analogue. Just maybe those very processes are negating the MQA approach in the DAC?
  
 This subject is gigantic and goes to the heart of digital and the 2 lane paths manufacturers have taken. Lately more seemingly are releasing non upsampled R-2R implementations, some discrete, others multiship. And some of those R-2R oddly still upsample (C1 DAC). God knows. Isn't in DAC up sampling looked down on by the MQA team? I read a bit of text in that QA on computer audiophile that seemed to be saying the 'time smearing' was part of it. 
  
 But I can say honestly, in my small time tests feeding 24/96K in my system, it sounds better than 44.1, and seems as good or better than many of my HD tracks. And there is no cost impact to me to do that which is why I am positive about it. Unless I change DACs I won't come across the 2nd and 3rd stage processing that MQA can do in a compliant DAC. So won't know if it is good or bad.
  
 It will interesting to see more feedback from users on MQA coming through. There is too much political intrigue, we need more solid feedback from owners systems IMO.
  
 Time will tell if manufacturers pick up on the MQA capability aspect. I am convinced it will sort itself out as these things seem to in time.
  
 I personally think it will as many audio fans will want CD or better quality streaming. Eveyone now knows MP3 is bad quality. If they don't those clients won't buy a Tidal hifi subscription anyway. The goal posts have moved and the days we have to pay for MP3 garbage as streaming or iTunes purchases has gone IMO. How the market for bought HD tracks will go I wonder.
  
 But oddly I think the vinyl market will keep going, and the recent revival will gain momentum. Go figure.


----------



## ThomasHK

astrostar59 said:


> If you dig around, there are MQA versions of the same album release as the 44.1 versions. So far, in those cases MQA sounds better to me.


 
  
 Can you give us a list? On Tidal it's impossible to tell. Thanks!


----------



## Pokemonn

i have heard MQA files vs PCM file at Fujiya Tokyo Headphone festival before.
 MQA file sound absolutely noticeable better/smoother/musical than conventional PCM file. it was very easy to heard differences between them.


----------



## castleofargh

richardtownsend said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > how would it make a big difference? do you have a clear vision of how they would plan to "improve" the signal at the recording?
> ...


 
  
 I whine about the impulse thing some pages back(or was it another topic?) do not just accept everything they say because it feels ok with the example they show. music is not just how fast an impulse response can stop. that's what they focus on so they show the objective data that makes only that part clear. marketing being marketing.
 not only many people would argue that what they propose is improved music, but making impulse responses look good is nothing new under the sun:
 https://www.ayre.com/pdf/Ayre_MP_White_Paper.pdf
 care for the "white paper" name because while it's a simple example of a few possibilities, the interpretations and claims about improvements are still only the Ayre guy's opinion. not facts.
 let's look at page 1 vs page 2. the impulse is clearly better on 2 "wow much time accuracy, such impress, woof woof!" the maximum frequency in the signal basically just goes higher. by the time the attenuation for proper band limiting is reached, we're factually at a higher frequency. if the signal had just been filtered with the first filter but at higher frequency, it would have looked better too.
 in the end it's a very basic and simple logic. to reconstruct an ideal impulse, you need to "stack" an infinite number of frequencies, just like with square waves. we see one signal but it's composed of so many sine waves of the right amplitude at the right phase. when you low pass the impulse you remove the highest frequencies, the ones that go up and down the fastest, so the ones that can "draw" vertical lines the best. so you can look at the impulse and think "OMG it's ringing the timing is ruined". or you can think "ok so it's the same sound without some ultrasounds that I can't hear anyway".  both are saying the same thing. if the record is a guitar and a dog whistle, filtering the ultrasounds out will make us lose most of the whistle, all the sounds we weren't hearing anyway. but the guitar is just fine. when we filter out some ultrasounds that's what we're doing, removing some signals that never really concerned us humans in the first place.
  
 one argument against my views on this, is about transient response. if we want to draw something with an instantaneous rise, we need crazy high frequencies. that is true. but here is my tiny little problem. do we notice the difference if some ultrasounds are missing and the signal doesn't climb as fast as it should? well I can think of a simple enough testing method. CD vs highres. more frequencies, much improved transient response. again it's a fact. but if it's so beneficial how come we have such a hard time telling both apart in a blind test? to me failing a blind test disproves the need for perfect transient reproduction.
 and it's about the same with filters, when they are clearly out of the audible range, we tend to fail blind tests. and it's obvious why, the ringing or whatever we call it, is happening outside our hearing range.  so why do we notice a change when we try different filters on some DACs? why is a MQA dac really changing the sound? why are Ayre bothering with their stuff? well the answer is on those graphs from the previous link. on page 2 the more gentle filter that improves time accuracy, it starts in the audible range and clearly rolls off the trebles in a perfectly audible way. time domain=wins frequency domain=loses. is that better sound? from an objective point of view it's obviously not, even if we were to disregard the extra aliasing. we have a 2 axis signal and we mess one up to make the second look good. then we show marketing stuff about only the one looking good. and this concept is used over and over by everybody including MQA. in fact even the compression process of MQA is losing bit depth for more samples. they can't pull resolution out of a hat, so they move it around from one variable to the next.
  
 back to the Ayre paper again, the third page is a well known, well liked kind of filter for the audiophile. because the ringing is delayed and many people think pre ringing is unnatural(fair enough). here there is phase shift so it's a bad filter from a time perspective, ringing plus shift. yet many people say that they like it better (I have a DAC working that way and one working like the first page, I can't tell the difference. but hey I'm not golden ear and 16khz is about as far as I go ^_^).  so already we have many people who do not agree that time should be the only focus right here in the audiophile world.
  
 the last page on the PDF isn't too far off from the meridian apodizing filter concept (included in MQA DACs). the PDF forgets to mention how it still has most of the elements deemed negative in page 2. like upper frequency roll off and extra aliasing(=more distortions), and some phase shift from the page 3 example. because like MQA, Ayre focus on what is important to them, not to the signal fidelity. they subjectively find that it's good. and why not, subjectivity is taste, some like justin bieber, some like celine dion. IMO those choices are just that, choices and cannot be called higher fidelity.
  
  
 /!\ warning etc.
*Now this is pure speculation*, but the ideas I can think about for the ADC/recording bit:
 we can take note of where the band limiting is done based on the ADC, then reencode the signal in MQA applying a more gentle filter starting at lower frequency(so cut the end again to change the shape of the cut). something along the idea of page 4. that way the so called "bad" filter that was picked by professionals because they're idiots and only MQA knows better(I assume that's how they think), is mostly cut out of the signal.
 I don't know if that's what they wish to do, but it would seem to fit the "make impulses great looking again". the upper freqs that were fine are now rolled off, the distortions levels have increased, there is probably a little phase shift, but hey, the impulse looks great! the consumer can dream of better sound if we only ever discuss time domain stuff.
  
 that was my wild guess about how MQA planned to "improve" the sound from ADCs.  the rest of the perceived improved audio I guess goes back to mastering and never needed MQA to be done right(or wrong).


----------



## RichardTownsend

castleofargh said:


> I whine about the impulse thing some pages back(or was it another topic?) do not just accept everything they say because it feels ok with the example they show. music is not just how fast an impulse response can stop. that's what they focus on so they show the objective data that makes only that part clear. marketing being marketing.
> not only many people would argue that what they propose is improved music, but making impulse responses look good is nothing new under the sun:
> https://www.ayre.com/pdf/Ayre_MP_White_Paper.pdf
> care for the "white paper" name because while it's a simple example of a few possibilities, the interpretations and claims about improvements are still only the Ayre guy's opinion. not facts.
> ...




Thanks Castle. I'm not really qualified to discuss this, I would like to be, but there you are  I did note that Bob Stuart himself has said that MQA currently has timing resolution equivalent to 768kHz PCM so it may well be in a few years that standard PCM of equivalent time resolution will be produced, when bandwidth is cheaper. Certainly I do not believe it's possible to give 96kHz or 192kHz PCM equivalent time resolution to 768kHz PCM whatever is done to it, but what exactly they have done is still a bit of a mystery.


----------



## NeoG

castleofargh said:


> I whine about the impulse thing some pages back(or was it another topic?) do not just accept everything they say because it feels ok with the example they show.




I would also point out that the impulse response has come up before with DSD, but the advertised impulse was a lie because they measured synthetic unfiltered samples without the mandatory output filter.

So you need to take this marketing material with a grain of salt until it can be independently verified.


----------



## astrostar59

astrostar59 said:


> If you dig around, there are MQA versions of the same album release as the 44.1 versions. So far, in those cases MQA sounds better to me.
> 
> On PS Audio's Paul McGowan, it is complicated IMO. I wonder how much of the mystery is the permanent up sampling aspect of his DAC? I don't pretend to know the answer, but many DACs use different filters and up sampling techniques to then output the analogue. Just maybe those very processes are negating the MQA approach in the DAC?
> 
> ...


 
  


neog said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > I whine about the impulse thing some pages back(or was it another topic?) do not just accept everything they say because it feels ok with the example they show.
> ...


 

 Where does an R-2R NOS DAC without a filter sit in all this? Audio Note, Zanden, others. If we go high resolution do we even need a filter? And do we need to upsample at all if said filter is requiring that to implement a harsh brickwall filter near the limit of Redbook. I don't fully understand it. I like some DS DACs which have filters and upsample to insane levels, but I also like (prefer) ones that don't upsample at all. IME and YMMV.
  
 Maybe, just, getting access to higher resolution and 'clean' copies of some of those classic studio masters, and the label / studios using current tech not early digital tech when CD first came out, we are getting to the point where the way a DAC operates can be simplified? i.e play the file bit perfect as is. I have no idea, this is my theory thrown out there for comment. But I do know I like what I hear on MQA and Tidal so far. It is good, a move in the right direction IMO and to me is no extra cost (with a standard hifi account).


----------



## NeoG

astrostar59 said:


> Where does an R-2R NOS DAC without a filter sit in all this? Audio Note, Zanden, others. If we go high resolution do we even need a filter? And do we need to upsample at all if said filter is requiring that to implement a harsh brickwall filter near the limit of Redbook. I don't fully understand it. I like some DS DACs which have filters and upsample to insane levels, but I also like (prefer) ones that don't upsample at all. IME and YMMV.


 
  
 At the moment we don't really know anything about what happens in hardware when the MQA process kicks in. The mechanism in which they claim to achieve greater "time resolution" is unknown to the general public. I don't think anyone outside of the creators of MQA could answer that question right now.
  
 I put "time resolution" in quotes because it's a glossy term that doesn't really describe what they are solving (hence people's scepticism, who are in the know). Dithered digital audio has time resolution out the wazoo even at 44/16. You can position a transient with far smaller spacing than 1 sample and far tighter spacing between channels than you can hear. It's honestly giving people the wrong impression. People's heads explode when they try to imagine it, but them's the breaks.


----------



## gregorio

astrostar59 said:


> [1] But if you read further, the major labels are taking it on as a 'normal' As more do that, hopefully we will get our hands (or ears) on more decent copies of those studio masters.
> 
> [2] And if that process includes both the artists and the studios, it is all good in my book. ... My personal point was, in Tidal I pay nothing extra for MQA content. So, to me it is free. How that is financed behind the scenes I don't care, don't need to know. If the artists get a leg up and more commission on play figures, then that is very important to me. But how much the industry makes I don't want to know or care TBH.
> 
> ...


 
  
 1. On what are you basing that hope? SACD was far more restrictive than MQA and did not solve that problem, so how is MQA going to succeed where SACD failed? You have absolutely nothing upon which to base that hope except MQA's marketing material.
  
 2. OK, now we're going from the ignorant/misinformed to the bizarre/surreal! If you (the consumer) is not paying more and the artists are having to pay more (towards the cost of MQA licensing), how is it you think the artists will get more rather than less?  SQ and artists getting a "leg up and more commission" is obviously not important to you at all, unless "my book" is the "_Tooth-Fairy Book of Business Economics_"?!!
  
 3. No, you cannot say that "honestly". You can say that dishonestly or misguidedly but not honestly because the methodology of your "small time tests" is the one MOST prone to dishonesty/being misguided. If you want to use "honestly" (especially here in the science forum) then the basic starting point has to be a testing methodology MOST prone to actually providing an honest result!
  
 4. You can't have it both ways! Either you understand/care about how it's all financed or you don't ("_How that is financed behind the scenes I don't care, don't need to know"_). And if you don't, then you can't have any idea how or in what way there is or will be a cost impact to you. We're not talking about the highly complex accounting schemes of multi-national conglomerates here, just the very simplest, almost grade school level, understanding of basic economics. It's a simple question; if the cost of making a product increases and that increase is not paid by the consumer, how do those making that product earn more without reducing the quality of that product? If you can answer this question then why aren't you the richest person on the planet and if you can't, then enough of the; "there's no cost/it's free" nonsense!
  


gringo said:


> [1] Again, following your argument we can be content on buying kit which sounds absolute rubbish compared to others because we can rely on the graphs etc telling us something its better.
> [2] I read with my eyes but listen with my ears so its my ears that have to be the final arbiter when listening.  If I were looking at a painting my eyes would have the final say regardless of what I might hear others say.
> [3] If you must have the last word then please feel free to blast away, [3a] I will leave it to others to decide whose opinion is worth considering.


 
  
 1. That's absolutely NOT "following my argument", it's the opposite of "following" it, it's perverting it! How does something which is provably higher fidelity/accuracy sound "absolute rubbish" compared to something else with provably lower fidelity/accuracy? There is a rational answer to this question but to arrive at that answer we have to go beyond the most superficial of appearances and the magic/superstition of the dark ages used to explain them!
  
 2. And that's a perfect example of dark age level superficial appearances! OK, that's a little extreme, not really dark ages, just say pre 19th century. Even in the 1800's it was strongly suspected that your "superficial appearance" was incorrect and by the mid 1900's there was so much overwhelming evidence that it wasn't even a serious question any more. You're of course free to believe any magic, superstition or superficial appearance you want but this is the science forum and science has known for a century or so that your ears are NOT the final arbiter, that your brain is! Now if you want to dispute this well known and accepted scientific fact no problem but you're going to have to bring a great deal more to the table than superficial appearance and your personal opinion about it!! Let's start with something simple, if your ears really are the final arbiter, how do you explain the McGurk Effect?
  
 3. I don't care if I have the last word or not, I care that here in the science forum that science has the last word.
 3a. I would hope that those who come to this forum do so because they want to be informed of the actual facts, rather than having to decide if one (or many) unsubstantiated opinion is worth more than another!!
  
 Quote:


richardtownsend said:


> If MQA have improved the A to D process, which is what they claim to have done by reducing time domain distortion, then it certainly can be, even if the result is eventually converted to PCM. I'm not saying it IS better, but there's absolutely no reason why it CANNOT be better.


 
  
 There absolutely is a reason why it cannot be better. For MQA to be better we have to assume: 1. That an improvement is possible/practical in the first place AND 2. That the improvement is actually audible AND 3. That MQA does actually implement an improvement which fulfils both of these requirements.
  
 1. Going back to a time when ADCs were less accurate means going back to a time when the workflow dictated unknown numbers of trips through an ADC and/or different ADCs. Therefore the amount or even direction of any compensation cannot be known. If we're talking about modern pro ADCs, then we're talking about so little time domain distortion that improvement is virtually impossible or where possible, impractical.
  
 2. We only have two basic possibilities for time domain distortion, jitter and filter ringing. For at least 20 years or more pro ADCs have had jitter several thousand times below any demonstrated ability to detect and almost without exception, have had a Nyquist point at several megahertz, so filter ringing is a complete non-issue. After digital conversion, decimation filter ringing is a possibility but even when decimating to 44.1, it's still well outside audibility. I'm personally not aware of any pro ADCs with switchable anti-alias or decimation filters, that idea is more a marketing idea for more expensive consumer DACs than an engineering idea for pro ADCs! And, in a typical recording, mixing, mastering chain there is still likely to be several/many applications of a decimation filter outside of the original ADC anyway.
  
 3. It's not been explained how MQA implements a solution to either of the above requirements! In their papers and marketing they speak about time domain distortion, though obfuscate somewhat by inventing the term "blurring". They also mention some few points about audibility but they don't relate those audibility points to the actual time domain distortion. They don't say how they could even calculate the time domain distortion. They don't say how they could compensate for that distortion even if they could calculate it. They don't, AFAIK, even explicitly say that they do attempt to calculate or compensate for it!
  
 G


----------



## RichardTownsend

I'm not sure why you think MQA might be making claims that are not true. They would have to be deliberately lying if what you are saying is correct. To make that claim you need very strong evidence indeed. 

I agree that MQA have not explained their solution to this and I wish that they would. But that is not all the same as saying they don't have one.

(edited to delete my specific questions as I decided not to argue the detail, lacking expertise)

Best,

Rich


----------



## old tech

richardtownsend said:


> *I'm not sure why you think MQA might be making claims that are not true. They would have to be deliberately lying if what you are saying is correct. To make that claim you need very strong evidence indeed.*
> 
> I agree that MQA have not explained their solution to this and I wish that they would. But that is not all the same as saying they don't have one.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Anyone or any organisation can claim anything, whether it is a lie, a belief or misinformed. Therefore the onus of proof is always on those making the claim. It is basic tenet of scientific methodology.
  
 For example, if I claim that unicorns exist it is up to me to provide evidence to back up my claim, not for others to try and prove me wrong.  And remember, extraordinary claims (ie a claim that goes against technical principles or common knowledge) require extraordinary proof.


----------



## NeoG

old tech said:


> Anyone or any organisation can claim anything, whether it is a lie, a belief or misinformed. Therefore the onus of proof is always on those making the claim. It is basic tenet of scientific methodology.


 
  
 I guess the roadblock is not a lack of trying to inform, but that people with the open model of audio reality I mentioned haven't hit any irreconcilable gaps that causes the view to break. Until they do there's no reason they would see anything you say as reasonable, no matter how many paragraphs. From that frame of reference it's irrational to impose the mentioned limitations until proven guilty.
  
 I don't think anyone that pays attention to their ears (read: subjectivist) as gospel has come here and brought up or commented on something that doesn't rest on that world view. It's like an iceberg at sea.. you are chipping away at the part you can see but there's a huge underlying platform that keeps rising up that's going to prevent you from making any significant progress.


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## old tech

neog said:


> I guess the roadblock is not a lack of trying to inform, but that people with the open model of audio reality I mentioned haven't hit any irreconcilable gaps that causes the view to break. Until they do there's no reason they would see anything you say as reasonable, no matter how many paragraphs. From that frame of reference it's irrational to impose the mentioned limitations until proven guilty.
> 
> I don't think anyone that pays attention to their ears (read: subjectivist) as gospel has come here and brought up or commented on something that doesn't rest on that world view. It's like an iceberg at sea.. you are chipping away at the part you can see but there's a huge underlying platform that keeps rising up that's going to prevent you from making any significant progress.


 
That is all and well, but in this case the onus of proof is on Bob Stuart that the end result is better sound quality than CD, hi res or even lossy codecs. He should put his money on obtaining this evidence, ie into a properly controlled science based tests rather than marketing out-takes.  Perhaps a large sample size double-blind study, using a variety of listeners with a variety of albums and a variety of streaming, regular playback devices and stereo systems comparing MQA, PCM hi res, CD and lossy streams of the same mastering source is not out of reach of Meridian’s resources. 

If the substance of his claim of sound superiority is the assurance of getting better masters rather than “time smearing” or whatever, then this too can be tested with the same methodology but comparing best available sources of each media.

Stuart is quick to criticise Myer and Moran, even excluding their hi res vs CD study from the meta-analysis he funded a while back.  However, whatever his reasons for doing so, if he is confident of his claims around MQA sound quality then why wouldn’t he sponsor a controlled scientific test to verify his claims?  As well as shutting down the pesky sceptics it would be a powerful marketing tool.

I think we all know the answer as to why.


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## NeoG

richardtownsend said:


> I agree that MQA have not explained their solution to this and I wish that they would. But that is not all the same as saying they don't have one.


 
  
 It basically comes down to how we separate the wheat from the chaff. A lot of people realise at some point that what they perceived is not what actually happened.. Hear things when there wasn't a sound and didn't see what they thought they saw.
  
 It happens, and it happens quite a lot. Spend some time in a room with an orange light, and walk into another room with a normal white light, everything will seem a strange tinge of blue for a moment. And then over a few seconds it shifts subtly and in an almost undetectable fashion.
  
 It happens so much, that we have to account for it when asking what the truth is when people are involved - to get any sort of information that really matches up together. What we have that matches up together when you take it into account is that MQA as a format is improving a process that doesn't need to improve.
  
 And you might ask "have you heard it?", to that I would ask - have _you_ really heard it? Have you sat down and had the only connection between you and the source, the sound that is reaching your ears? Have you known for sure, to stake your life on, that it is the same source you're hearing when you compare? Many would say they can sit down and connect with the sound where nothing else interferes when you close your eyes. And I'd say, you'd be the first person in history.
  
 That is why MQA is still in with the chaff until we make a concerted effort to figure out what makes it "better", or if "better" is even the right word to describe it. Until then the fallback position is that it's improving a process that doesn't need to be improved, and to say otherwise needs _extraordinary proof_.
  
 Interest in doing that is very low.. There's only so many times you keep on raising the bar to find nothing compelling before you stop and ask yourself "Why are we still raising the bar? there's nothing interesting in that direction"


----------



## astrostar59

Few points NeoG
  
 On basics not polities as many previous political / conspirousy theory posts from various authors. And I am ignoring the 2nd and 3rd stage MQA processing as I don't have an MQA compliant DAC.
  
 My tests in my system are in Tidal with a Hifi account. I have listened to various albums, and I believe the same version of the same album, looks like identical versions of that album (not a remaster v and older release).
  
 In all listing tests swopping back and forth, I much prefer the MQA version as played out at 24/96K. This is against the 44.1 version. various things about the sound are better, soundstage width, layering, texture, timbre etc. It appears as a nearer to the master version than the 44.1 files. The most obvious SQ hike though IMO is the quality of the treble regions, female vocals, electric guitar, violins. This to me has always been a test for digital on any DAC I have listened to, or owned in the past.
  
 So IMO there are definite improvement in Tidal using the MQA Masters versions.
  
 Wether MQA beats DSD or SACHS or HD Tracks copies of those same albums, I don't know. That is another subject I am not going to go into.
  
 IMO it is best to listen to the MQA music yourself, just try it out. If you hate it, fine. But I am betting most will hear a sound quality gain, and it is free so punters, so what is the issue? I can even hear a quality hike v 44.1 old version files on a Bluetooth speaker system using the Laptops own DAC, so even low level systems will benefit as well.
  
*Politics*
 Touching on this a bit in response to a LONGGGGG post earlier, I would answer the suspicion over royalties to the artists as a simple subject. Lets look at what has happened to digital music over the last 10 years. The amount of stolen music and pirating has gone insane. And then we have iTunes that charges way too much for poor quality. I am convinced that now we have Redbook and  quality streaming (finally) more people that stole music before, or simply never bought music as too much hassle with CDs, will now pay a subscription and stream it instead. Remember on Tidal you can stream as MP3 as well as hifi on a hifi account. So a family could have one subscription and the kids will use it on iPads etc.
  
 That is the way to get more folk to pay for music content. It is not IMO a new conn or artist rip-off. Probably the opposite in fact. And don't forget artists and labels are involved in Tidal.


----------



## NeoG

astrostar59 said:


> In all listing tests swopping back and forth, I much prefer the MQA version as played out at 24/96K. This is against the 44.1 version. various things about the sound are better, soundstage width, layering, texture, timbre etc. It appears as a nearer to the master version than the 44.1 files. The most obvious SQ hike though IMO is the quality of the treble regions, female vocals, electric guitar, violins. This to me has always been a test for digital on any DAC I have listened to, or owned in the past.


 
  
 I'm going to be blunt - and if you know me well enough you would get that I say these things in a purely observational fashion, I have no personal stock in what other people do and do not intend to offend - after reading audio magazines, websites and forums for years, there appears to be a very vague range of terms that people use when they are trying to explain an experience they had on the inside. As in to try to express a feeling of euphoria rather than a physical stimulation and work backwards from that until the right sounding words come about in the right combination.
  
 The four terms you used are very common, and along with the lack of or even hint of anything that is worse than before, is the kind of unanimously positive experience that rarely if ever happens when dealing with peoples preferences. I mean, if you step back and think about it.. how can the MQA version have touched on so many aspects of the sound, and you didn't find _any _of those changes to be worse than the original? For every volume setting on a dial, for every change in frequency response or audible phase change, someone won't like it. Don't you find it odd that you can find so many changes in something and not find something you don't like?


----------



## astrostar59

neog said:


> astrostar59 said:
> 
> 
> > In all listing tests swopping back and forth, I much prefer the MQA version as played out at 24/96K. This is against the 44.1 version. various things about the sound are better, soundstage width, layering, texture, timbre etc. It appears as a nearer to the master version than the 44.1 files. The most obvious SQ hike though IMO is the quality of the treble regions, female vocals, electric guitar, violins. This to me has always been a test for digital on any DAC I have listened to, or owned in the past.
> ...


 
 Conspiracy again? I have listened and listened, and so far nothing I prefer about the 44.1 versions in the same (apparent) album release.
  
 My four (as you are calling often misquoted) sound terms are really a very basic summary of the sound. I don't want to waffle on with pages of diatribe and that will get more attacks. Suffice to say after hours of hard core listening on my horn speakers and Stax 009 headphones, I know what I hear. To say otherwise is crazy as I am speaking of my ears, IMO.
  
 I have been obsessed with audio for 25 years, and will do anything to get a best sound that I can within cost constraints of course. I don't make stuff up, or bulls*** for the sake of it. I am a passionate audiophile. As in all forums, we share experiences, that is it. Only listen and try it, that is what I keep saying.... simple really. If you don't like it fine. If you do that is also fine. What I am excited about is we have choices and now Redbook and high res streaming for the masses has come (at last). It may be a rough edged diamond re software and some bugs, but I am convinced it will progress. iTunes has sat still for too long and had a monopoly. Apple music, it is too late IMO, and anyway still MP3.
  
 Going back to no negative, I can honestly say for example, I have never heard any MP3 file sound better than the Redbook file of the same recording. I am not saying that all MQA is the same over Redbook, but all the 96K I have heard so far is IMO. I have heard some HD Tracks sound a tiny bit better, some no better than Redbook. Some a lot better. YMMV.
 It is the mastering or the care in getting access to the best studio copy? No idea. But if MQA team do make some effort to do that, it will pay dividends.


----------



## NeoG

astrostar59 said:


> If I hear something that sounds better, more real, cleaner to me I don't need to be told by others I can't hear it.


 
  
 Consider yourself told.. It happens to everyone all the time, and to say you are immune is to say you are better than humanity. That's a bad attitude to have. We are all in this together when it comes to being fallible entities.


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## astrostar59

Forums are about sharing experiences, otherwise they would not exist. Those experiences are personal. I hope some find it useful, and make their own judgments, not listen to politics or technical theory.
  
 Just maybe, the reason we are all still arguing about digital audio 25 years after the 'perfect' medium was invented, is it is clear it wasn't perfect. But tech specs tried to tell everyone it was, hmm, maybe some are now not believing those specs?
  
 Try it, listen, if you like it fine, it not, also fine..... or don't listen, read the specs, and buy it anyway. Good luck with that idea.


----------



## bfreedma

astrostar59 said:


> Forums are about sharing experiences, otherwise they would not exist. Those experiences are personal. I hope some find it useful, and make their own judgments, not listen to politics or technical theory.
> 
> Just maybe, the reason we are all still arguing about digital audio 25 years after the 'perfect' medium was invented, is it is clear it wasn't perfect. But tech specs tried to tell everyone it was, hmm, maybe some are now not believing those specs?
> 
> Try it, listen, if you like it fine, it not, also fine..... or don't listen, read the specs, and buy it anyway. Good luck with that idea.


 
  
 For most of Head-Fi, you would be correct, but within Sound Science, it's normal operations to ask those making subjective claims to back them up with objective data.
  
 Can you be more specific on which "tech specs" that "some are now not believing" and provide supporting evidence showing the tech specs in question are not correct in how they describe audible audio?


----------



## old tech

astrostar59 said:


> Conspiracy again? I have listened and listened, and so far nothing I prefer about the 44.1 versions in the same (apparent) album release.
> 
> My four (as you are calling often misquoted) sound terms are really a very basic summary of the sound. I don't want to waffle on with pages of diatribe and that will get more attacks. Suffice to say after hours of hard core listening on my horn speakers and Stax 009 headphones, I know what I hear. To say otherwise is crazy as I am speaking of my ears, IMO.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Well we all can get fooled not so much by our ears, but our brains.  Placebo effects and expectation biases are well understood and is why level matched double blind tests are a must to check whether what we think we are hearing is actually what we are hearing.
  
 I don't think you are ********ting or making stuff up, I think you are just being human. While I agree than many 24/96 tracks sound better than the redbook version due to better masterings, it is interesting that you have not heard any that sound worse than redbook.   I could write a long list of redbook CDs that sound better than the hi res version, again due to mastering.  Compare the ear piercing loud, compressed ELO Discovery from HD Tracks with the smooth sounding 80s release CD as one of many examples.
  
 So if the real virtue of MQA is getting access to a studio copy, which one will it be?  Take the ELO example above, it is more likely we'll get the loud, compressed version rather than the early CD master (after all it is only 16/44 and that goes against the grain of what Stuart is preaching).  It is unlikely we'd get the original master tapes because even if it was possible, many would not sound that good without the touch of a mastering engineer before it gets to a dub master.  Consider that Pink Floyd's DSOTM has at least 11 known different digital masterings, again which one will we get?  It is highly unlikely we'll get the "holy grail" Japan master from the Pro Use master tapes.  And so on it goes.  The upshot is that MQA tries to fix non-issues related to hardware and formats but does address what actually is the issue today which is modern loud, excessively compressed and limited masterings.


----------



## astrostar59

bfreedma said:


> For most of Head-Fi, you would be correct, but within Sound Science, it's normal operations to ask those making subjective claims to back them up with objective data.
> 
> Can you be more specific on which "tech specs" that "some are now not believing" and provide supporting evidence showing the tech specs in question are not correct in how they describe audible audio?


 
 Well, that is not required. There is 25 years of tech specs on why Redbook CD replay and oversampling sounds best, better than vinyl. In some ways it does, in others not. And in some other way oversampling sounds worse. It is such a well trodden path here, there is seriously no point in going there TBH.
  
 That is what I am referring to here, not how MQA works. `I am saying, in 25 years of reading tech specs I have come to realise you must combine that with intensive listening and make your own mind up at that point. Example Esoteric DACs, look amazing on the specs, but I do not find they sound real, or amazing either. My opinion, but you can go to a lab and spends days telling me that DAC is best, but there are many who say it isn't.
  
 Just listen, then decide. Comparison by contrast is a good term.


----------



## gregorio

richardtownsend said:


> I'm not sure why you think MQA might be making claims that are not true. They would have to be deliberately lying if what you are saying is correct. To make that claim you need very strong evidence indeed.


 


old tech said:


> That is all and well, but in this case the onus of proof is on Bob Stuart that the end result is better sound quality than CD, hi res or even lossy codecs.
 
  
 As old tech, others and science in general states, it's not up to me to provide "very strong evidence indeed" to prove that their claims are false, it's up to them to provide the evidence that their claims are true. The burden of proof is all theirs and anyway, earlier in the thread I have a number of times explained how some of the evidence they have provided is incorrect.
  
 Regardless of all this though, we need to take account of modern marketing and by that I mean marketing techniques of the last half a century or so. AFAIK, I've read most of the marketing materials put out by MQA, including the published paper by Bob Stuart and I can't actually remember them explicitly stating MQA would sound better than CD. They certainly strongly implied it would and they re-enforced that implication with some testimonials of people stating that it does. In fact, in one of the main articles/interviews, Bob Stuart explicitly stated that without decoding, an MQA encode of even a hi-res master would be no better than a CD. There's still at least one person in the recent pages of this thread who has said MQA hasn't cost them anything (IE. They have not paid for a DAC which decodes MQA) and that MQA is in fact still better than CD, thereby contradicting not only the science but even the creator of MQA himself?!! So, has this person/s actually discovered something not indicated by the science and not actually designed into MQA by it's creator or are they just fooling themselves, victim/s of their own biased/flawed perception and of the marketing? Considering why modern marketing exists and that almost all commercial audio content relies on the flaws of human hearing perception in the first place, the answer to this question is about as cut and dried as it gets IMO!
  
 One other point; in one of the testimonials (by a very highly regarded mastering engineer) where a favourable comparison between CD and MQA was explicitly made, the actual comparison if you listen carefully to the words spoken, was between MQA and early CDs. Another rather common marketing trick, the same sort of marketing trick used by Neil Young when marketing the hi-res Pono and comparing it to standard res, using a 128kbps MP3 as the example of standard res! While most of the early CDs were pretty good considering it was a new technology, I'm sure some probably had some relatively serious time domain distortion compared with today's tech and of those which did, it's possible that some of those might be helped by MQA (or indeed some other mastering process). If so, then that mastering engineer was not lying in his testimonial, deliberately or otherwise. It could be argued that he was being somewhat misleading, as was Neil Young but there's no law against being somewhat misleading, in fact it's virtually a pre-requisite of modern marketing!!
  
 G


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## bfreedma

astrostar59 said:


> Well, that is not required. There is 25 years of tech specs on why Redbook CD replay and oversampling sounds best, better than vinyl. In some ways it does, in others not. And in some other way oversampling sounds worse. It is such a well trodden path here, there is seriously no point in going there TBH.
> 
> That is what I am referring to here, not how MQA works. `I am saying, in 25 years of reading tech specs I have come to realise you must combine that with intensive listening and make your own mind up at that point. Example Esoteric DACs, look amazing on the specs, but I do not find they sound real, or amazing either. My opinion, but you can go to a lab and spends days telling me that DAC is best, but there are many who say it isn't.
> 
> Just listen, then decide. Comparison by contrast is a good term.


 
  
 Sorry, but supporting your claims is part of the expected protocol in Sound Science.  As is the understanding that simply listening to decide "what is better" leaves all of us humans open to expectation and many other biases.  Particularly without any kind of apparent level matching, let alone some form of blind testing to back up one's subjective opinions.


----------



## gregorio

> Originally Posted by *astrostar59* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> 
> I know what I hear. To say otherwise is crazy as I am speaking of my ears ...


 
  
 Yes of course, 50+ years of science is crazy while you and a few other "passionate audiophiles" are apparently the only sane ones. This is the same point we always arrive at with many of the tiny niche of extreme audiophiles, a complete unwillingness or ability to understand the basics of modern science. I notice you ignored my comment about the McGurk Effect, are you really immune to it or are you just ignoring it because there can be no rational answer without admitting that you don't know what you hear?
  
 Of course, it's entirely your right not to be willing to understand or accept some of the basics of modern science, regardless of how ignorant I personally and the rest of us in the sound science forum might consider that attitude to be. However, why then would you come to this sound science community in the first place? What do you hope/expect to achieve?
  
 Quote:


astrostar59 said:


> There is 25 years of tech specs on why Redbook CD replay and oversampling sounds best, better than vinyl. In some ways it does, in others not. And in some other way oversampling sounds worse.


 
  
 What "some" or "other" ways does it sound worse? That's a rhetorical question because you cannot answer it without ignoring the science and resorting to nothing more than your subjective opinion, which is perfectly acceptable or even required by some/many other forums on head-fi but is unacceptable here in the sound SCIENCE forum!!
  
 G


----------



## RichardTownsend

old tech said:


> Anyone or any organisation can claim anything, whether it is a lie, a belief or misinformed. Therefore the onus of proof is always on those making the claim. It is basic tenet of scientific methodology.
> 
> For example, if I claim that unicorns exist it is up to me to provide evidence to back up my claim, not for others to try and prove me wrong.  And remember, extraordinary claims (ie a claim that goes against technical principles or common knowledge) require extraordinary proof.




I completely agree it is up to Bob Stuart et al to justify their claims; I am saying it's best to be circumspect about saying their claims are impossible, without full access to information about what they are doing.


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## astrostar59

gregorio said:


> What "some" or "other" ways does it sound worse? That's a rhetorical question because you cannot answer it without ignoring the science and resorting to nothing more than your subjective opinion, which is perfectly acceptable or even required by some/many other forums on head-fi but is unacceptable here in the sound SCIENCE forum!!
> 
> 
> G


 
 I see. I never realised it was your forum, sorry. So all the responses from members over the years demoing gear as a direct A/B is not valid, as clearly it is using their ears, not reading the 'sound science' you are talking about.
  
 I am not in anyway saying there wis no science, I am questioning some of that science may be wrong. Otherwise why do some folk prefer Vinyl. And some prefer oversampling, some prefer Redbook R-2R, etc. It is a subjective thing audio as it uses our ears primarily and is backed up by science. After all, we don't listen to music by looking at a scope. In fact a scope tell you not very much about how the music sounds.
  
 There was a video posted by the inverter of the Delta-Sigma chip, sorry, I forget his name. Anyway, the point is, after 20 years of tech he admitted they NEVER listened to the sound of a chip, only looked at specs. He admitted that was an error, and they hired 'golden eared' audiophiles to add to their research. We need both IMO.
  
 To detractor, theorists or techies, lets get some actual listening feedback from you guys, listen to Tidal Masters, do some A/B ing yourself, you may be surprised. It is the best way, and how this forum has helped folk IMO look at certain gear to try out. Lets face it, most of us don't need to know how it works, only if it sounds better. An interest in how it works is great, but only if that information is rock solid, proven. As many have found in digital it can be misleading, and not reflect real world listening.
  
 The valve v solid state debate is a fine example. Huge subjects that go on and on. Here we seem to have pages of theory and political intrigue, reasons to trash the idea of it, but few who actually have listened to MQA.


----------



## RichardTownsend

old tech said:


> That is all and well, but in this case the onus of proof is on Bob Stuart that the end result is better sound quality than CD, hi res or even lossy codecs. He should put his money on obtaining this evidence, ie into a properly controlled science based tests rather than marketing out-takes.  Perhaps a large sample size double-blind study, using a variety of listeners with a variety of albums and a variety of streaming, regular playback devices and stereo systems comparing MQA, PCM hi res, CD and lossy streams of the same mastering source is not out of reach of Meridian’s resources.
> 
> 
> 
> ...

I agree that this should be done, and I hope it will be. I know from my own experience that apparent differences between versions are strongly influenced by expectations. 

But I suspect there are problems with this kind of trial too (though I can't back this up with published references). One is that the stress of the trial could well impact people's power of discrimination; the second is the impact of the 'new' vs the 'old', i.e. people respond differently to the first hearing of something compared to subsequent hearings; another is how decisions are made to swap between sources - if done wrongly this can affect the sense of flow of the music and colour people's reactions, and finally the lack of familiarity with the systems and rooms used can have a big impact, particularly as people adapt to these as time goes by. Fatigue is also something that must be guarded against. And also the fact that powers of discrimination vary from person to person, so the relevance of findings for other people, rather than myself, is somewhat limited. And lastly, deciding what is 'better' is very difficult indeed. Real music often sounds less pleasant than people expect.

In many ways, from an individual perspective, the best thing to do would be a trial for myself, using familiar equipment in a familiar environment, listening to familiar material in a blind trial. I can get close to this, but I'm not quite there yet. I have a Mytek Brooklyn so I can turn off MQA processing with a mouse click and compare 24/48 with MQA at say 24/192. But as yet I can't do that in a blind way. Maybe that is possible somehow. Any suggestions as to how to do a good trial would be very welcome.


----------



## sonitus mirus

astrostar59 said:


> To detractor, theorists or techies, lets get some actual listening feedback from you guys, listen to Tidal Masters, do some A/B ing yourself, you may be surprised. It is the best way, and how this forum has helped folk IMO look at certain gear to try out. Lets face it, most of us don't need to know how it works, only if it sounds better. An interest in how it works is great, but only if that information is rock solid, proven. As many have found in digital it can be misleading, and not reflect real world listening.


 
  
 You don't seem to understand that any differences that you may be hearing are probably because of different versions which have absolutely nothing to do with the format being MQA, FLAC, ALAC, or a good quality lossy AAC.   Another possible explanation provided for any supposed differences is that the signal is being manipulated through the decoding process that makes it different from the original recording.  Consumers have reversed engineered MQA to the point where it seems extremely unlikely that anything done with MQA could be making any improvements.  Rather, all indications appear to show that it is actually inferior to a standard FLAC file when considering the loss of bits that could already be dropped in existing FLAC files to reduce the file size for streaming. There has been nothing but obfuscation and typical marketing blurbs provided by the creators.
  
 Some people have found that the MQA versions on Tidal sound worse.  But like your anecdotal evidence, their opinion is equally invalid as reliable proof, and for the same reason that was already explained to you several times.


----------



## RichardTownsend

sonitus mirus said:


> Rather, all indications appear to show that it is actually inferior to a standard FLAC file when considering the loss of bits that could already be dropped in existing FLAC files to reduce the file size for streaming. There has been nothing but obfuscation and typical marketing blurbs provided by the creators.


 
  
 Can you point me towards this analysis?


----------



## astrostar59

I would add my hope testing is done on various albums that appear to be the same versions as Redbook. It is getting way too complicated this thread. It really needs more folk to have a go, dig around and Tidal with MQA. I am delighted with it, but it seems there is a wall of folk who won't or don't accept that.
  
 Hey, that is how the world works I guess.
  
 I am thinking most of my quality gains are no doubt two things:
  
 1. A better source of the original album master tape, same mix but better source, or at least better integrity of the copy used.
 There is evidence in the past that even the same recoding has gone out and can sound different on tape and vinyl, CD releases. It's a mixed back and messy at best.
 So far the MQA I have been playing are better than the 44.1 versions.
  
 2. The access to 96K files as opposed to 44.1.
 I don't understand how this aspect is so annoying to people. Like a better copy of the negative, a finer grained photographic paper, it is a move towards better quality (in theory).
 I don't hear anyone saying MP3s sound better than Redbook.
  
 Now I am not saying MQA beats HD tracks, or SACHS or DSD files. I am saying so far IMO Tidal masters sound better than Redbook files.
  
 Flac is lossy? Is that a fact?
  
 The other thing in all of this to complicate things further, is there is evidence downsampling a studio master file in other than multiples of the original smears the sound. I am quoting what I have read but it makes sense to me. Try resampling a photo in Photoshop, it blurs the image much more if it is not a multiple.
  
 So I am wondering that is maybe why some MQA come out as 88.2 or 96K when sending without MQA processing. I also wonder if some of the HD Tracks I have bought in the past (the ones I thought were not so hot) were indeed down sampled in non multiple format. No idea, throwing it out there for discussion.
  
 Regardless, as I have said my findings are IMO and to my ears. I leave it to others to try it out. It is easy to do an A/B at home,. same setup, same volume. Dead easy. In fact, as I said, I can tell the treble timbre for example is better on a bluetooth kitchen system by A/Bing an album. It just sounds smoother and cleaner to me. YMMV and all this is IMO.


----------



## sonitus mirus

richardtownsend said:


> Can you point me towards this analysis?


 
  
 Yes, again, here are the links to some consumers attempting to provide analysis in lack of any real data, other than marketing and misrepresented charts, provided directly by the creators of the format.
  
 http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/mqa-technical-analysis-31311/
  
 http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/02/comparison-hardware-decoded-mqa-using.html
  
 http://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/02/musings-discussion-on-mqa-filter-and.html
  
 Edit:
 While I consider the source of this analysis to have a dog in this fight, they are repeating some commonly found themes.
  
 https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa


----------



## VNandor

astrostar59 said:


> I see. I never realised it was your forum, sorry. So all the responses from members over the years demoing gear as a direct A/B is not valid, as clearly it is using their ears, not reading the 'sound science' you are talking about.


 
 It is indeed the "sound science" forum (not "his forum" of course) and there you can be asked to do a BLIND test. If you refuse to, you won't get taken seriously by a lot of people. People usually come here because of this particular rule in the first place. If someone wanted to read an other flowery description of whatever the FOTM is, he can do it in countless other threads outside the sound science forum. The problem is not that you are using your ears, in fact the problem is that you use the rest of your senses as well. You can clearly do a blind test by using ONLY your ears, can't you?
  
  


astrostar59 said:


> I am not in anyway saying there wis no science, I am questioning some of that science may be wrong. Otherwise why do some folk prefer Vinyl. And some prefer oversampling, some prefer Redbook R-2R, etc. It is a subjective thing audio as it uses our ears primarily and is backed up by science. After all, we don't listen to music by looking at a scope. In fact a scope tell you not very much about how the music sounds.


 
 Some of "that" science might be wrong, however digital audio is built around mathematical theorems. The application of these theorems might be wrong however, it is a well established field to say at least. The subjective side of audio is not really backed up by science because subjective things are well, subjective. How we hear music is as close to physics as to psycho acoustics/psychology/neuroscience and this is because we are indeed not listening to music by looking at scope. These are the less established fields of audio and how we hear music.
 As a side note some folks prefer vinyl because fidelity does not equal subjective joy. There is nothing wrong with that.


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## danadam

Meanwhile, it seems 2L started bundling MQA instead of hi-res FLAC on their bluray audio disks: 2L - Bluray Audio Warning!


----------



## castleofargh

richardtownsend said:


> I completely agree it is up to Bob Stuart et al to justify their claims; I am saying it's best to be circumspect about saying their claims are impossible, without full access to information about what they are doing.


 
  that's a friendly social view, not a technical one. it is normal and necessary to reject empty claims(just watch the news to be forever convinced IMO). it is normal to be skeptical toward marketing.
  you think terms like "revolution" came to be associated with MQA by accident. half the articles about MQA got that coined in the title, and most who don't, have it somewhere in the article. it's only one funny "detail", but how can we not see marketing for what it is?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 @astrostar59 in the sound science section, we rely on measurements to check objective fidelity, and on blind listening tests to check audibility. If you reject argumentation based on those methods, you're in the wrong section of the forum. don't take it the wrong way, we're just discussing different things. the forum has many sections to discuss different subjects in different ways. if I start talking about blind testing in the cable section of the forum, I'll soon be asked to shut up and come back here to discuss it. if enough people complain, my post will most likely be removed pure and simple. so by default, and because it's the only place where it's allowed, this section is the blind test and measurement section. not an impression thread.
 you want to talk about feelings and taste as if they were relevant to signal quality, that's a fallacy. we all can prefer sounds of inferior fidelity as long as they're pleasing(vinyls). as for your "testimonies" about the sound of MQA, you're talking about how you feel based on sighted tests of songs you think may be the same master. how could we possibly find this relevant about anything? 
 you want to talk about how you feel, we want to talk about what is really heard. it's not a difference of opinion, you're talking about the wrong subject or at least you're talking about it in the wrong section.


----------



## RichardTownsend

sonitus mirus said:


> Yes, again, here are the links to some consumers attempting to provide analysis in lack of any real data, other than marketing and misrepresented charts, provided directly by the creators of the format.
> 
> http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/mqa-technical-analysis-31311/
> 
> ...




Thank you for those. I have seen the Archimago ones before, the others not. They will take some time to digest.

Archimago has some positive and some negative things to say. On the positive side, MQA does a very good job of reconstituting audio up to 44kHz with a 2L sample, with hardware decode slightly better than software (if not audibly so). On the other hand he sees no evidence of 'deblurring'.

Personally I regard the first finding, assuming his methods are good, as impressive. It means that when I stream MQA from Tidal, and it reports 88/96kHz or above, then I'm getting 88/96kHz audio. I am bandwidth limited here so that is great for me, and this could make a big impact on mobile music when it is rolled out to phones. It also reduces bandwidth costs for streaming services relative to standard PCM which could encourage wider rollout of hi res streaming. 

On The deblurring side, I'm going to wait to see how things evolve.


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## pinnahertz

One successful marketing technique is, if you can't find a problem to solve, create one.  Then supply the solution.  Your product will then own the market and be forever identified as the solution to that problem.  
  
 Not saying for certain that's what MQA has done, but look at the concept of "time blurring" for just a moment.  
  
 If it were such a major issue, why is it just popping up now?  There are been products with so-called apodizing filters in products for a few years now, but they've never hit the main stream, and have met with mixed reviews.  We've been aware of filter ringing for decades, and there have been many attempts to remedy ringing and the general phase response of filters, again, with limited and difficult to document results, pretty much without a good ABX study.  Heck, we don't even have a definitive high-res audio study yet!  It's puzzling, and we might wonder why, if any of that presents listeners with such huge and obvious improvements, isn't there a study to show that.  Instead we bump up the bit depth and sampling rate, because if nothing else, more must certainly be better, sans proof nor not. 
  
 So the questions become:
  
 1. To what degree is time blurring audible? This is the basic identification of the problem...does it exist, and to what extent.  That's a full-on ABX double-blind study, with a significant test subject base, trial count, etc.  The test would include varying degrees of blurring, and determine if blurring is audible at all, to what extent, and how much is required to be universally audible.
  
 2. Can a single apodizing filter correct blurring from all ADC and DAC filters in the chain?  That's a pretty huge claim.  A quick look at the concept of what an apodizing filter does would seem to indicate that there could not be one universal blurring correction, rather, it would have to be "designed" using some sort of convolution process, on the fly, or from some form of impulse response data.  There are some pretty big problems with convolution with no impulse data.  Again, a big ABX study. 
  
 3. Can the blurring correction of a single universal apodizing filter be audible to a significant number of listeners?  Another full-on ABX test, similar to, or included in the others. 
  
 The interesting thing about all of that is, if you look around, very little has ever been written about blurring and it's audibility, much less correcting for it in coding.  In fact, the main papers are written by none other than guess who? Yup, the MQA guys.  
  
 Ultimately, the question would be, is the MQA process clearly an audible improvement?  When things are an audible improvement to most listeners, the create differences on the order of stereo/mono, surround/stereo, etc.  To read the propaganda, the MQA difference should be a stereo/mono level difference, easily heard by better than 90% of listeners.  In reality, if it tests out in the 50%, or even slightly above area, we have quite a bit of exaggeration going on at very least. 
  
 When should we expect this burden of proof to be satisfied?  If MQA were that big a deal, that obvious an improvement, wouldn't we have it already as part of the marketing back-up?  Instead, we have lots of theory, math, and a product, but no statistical data.  None.  Zero.  
  
 To be clear, listening to what you think are original tracks via MQA on Tidal is not a valid comparison.  You have no provenance.  Throw that out right now.   Listening to a track and supplying a positive opinion is just as worthless.  The kind of proof required here is a major study-level project, require time and funding, preferably done by a "disinterested third party".  
  
 And that's why we don't have it from someone other than MQA.  The puzzle is, why don't we have it from MQA?  Didn't they do this?  Aren't the results overwhelmingly in support of the system?  
  
 There are far too many questions here, and almost zero answers.  
  
 The other thing that's just a little bothersome is the claims relating to the time resolution of hearing.  Lots of references are made to interaural time difference sensitivity, that of under 10us.  And while that's true, and verified, that's not the same thing as 10us of blurring (whatever that means).  We can already show that phase scrambling above a certain frequency is not audible, yet if applied to one channel only and played along with another unaltered channel, is clearly audible. So what are the real thresholds of audibility here?  Seems like a bit of misdirection has been done at very least.   Why would anyone make that mistake?  These are smart guys, they should know the difference between interaural delay and blurring.  Heck, they're the ones that invented the problem!
  
 I think we are at a point past "burden of proof" on MQA, we're on to needing real, scientific studies of both the core concepts and independent evaluation of the product.   Yet, MQA proliferates.  Is that because it's demonstrated for clients and they hear an obvious difference? If so, where are those demos, and are they spun or not?  There's something else going on.   As always, follow the money.


----------



## gregorio

astrostar59 said:


> [1] I never realised it was your forum, sorry.
> [2] So all the responses from members over the years demoing gear as a direct A/B is not valid, as clearly it is using their ears ...
> [3] I am not in anyway saying there wis no science, I am questioning some of that science may be wrong.
> [3a] Otherwise why do some folk prefer Vinyl.
> ...


 
  
 1. Yes, it is my forum, mine and everyone else's who are interested in the actual facts/science rather than the masses of marketing and marketing driven opinions. What I don't get is how you could "never realise" this, it is called the sound SCIENCE forum. What should it be called, in your opinion, to enable you to realise?
  
 2. If it were clear they were using their ears, then we would take them more seriously! On the contrary though, it's clear to anyone with a fairly rudimentary understanding of hearing/perception that they are not using their ears and typically don't seem to even know or care that they're not!!
  
 3. There are a couple of problems with this statement. Firstly, "questioning" is good, that's why most of us came here in the first place, because science is entirely based on not only questioning how/why things work but questioning it's own theories explaining how/why things work. The best minds have been doing that for many decades and in some areas of audio we've reached the point of actual proof rather than just theories based on evidence. Secondly, you have not come here "questioning"! Instead of asking questions, you have instructed us to A/B compare, called us/the science "crazy" for disagreeing with your opinion on how you hear, etc. So, you have not been questioning, you have been disputing and even disputing the science is perfectly acceptable, providing it's done the right way. However, the way you have chosen could hardly be less right! All you've provided to support/justify your "disputing" is your personal opinion and worse still, a personal opinion which is seemingly ignorant of the actual scientific proof, evidence, theories and knowledge that you are disputing?!
 3a. Now we're getting to the heart of it! Instead of coming here and asking about the science pertaining to this question, you've simply made up your own answer, an answer which contradicts the science. You then effectively call us "crazy" for not accepting your made-up answer in preference to the many decades of rigorous science. From our perspective, especially as you've presented absolutely nothing to substantiate your answer beyond your provably flawed perception, you are the "crazy" one! Although I personally don't believe that you are really crazy, in all likelihood you've just been led into making some crazy statements, due to being a victim of marketing specifically designed to take advantage of consumer ignorance.
  
 4. Now that's a truly bizarre statement! Audio existed long before there were even humans, let alone subjective human opinions about it. The recording and reproduction of audio is ENTIRELY about the science and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with our ears! The only time human ears have any relevance to audio is when looking at the human perception of audio and our subjective opinions of those perceptions and even then, human ears are only one part of that equation and commonly not even the most influential part!
 4a. An "error" in what sense? An error in marketing maybe but how is that an error as far as the audio itself is concerned? Audio recording and reproduction is a technology, the practical application of science to create a product. As far as audio itself is concerned, science can measure how precisely the audio coming out of a recording and reproduction chain matches the original audio which entered the system (or any part of the system) and therefore how accurately each part, group of parts or the whole system performs. Science can determine this orders of magnitude more precisely than human senses. What science can only inaccurately approximate or not do at all, is measure and predict how individual humans will judge their personal perception of that audio. For example, the Hubble telescope can measure light and produce images of cosmic structures many times more precisely/accurately than any human's eyes. However, what Hubble can't do is measure how humans will perceive those images, how subjectively pleasing or beautiful people will perceive those images to be. The most popular Hubble images are therefore not entirely Hubble images, they are "artist's impressions". It's the artist's job to change the Hubble image and make it more subjectively pleasing but these changes are obviously not making the image more accurate, if anything they're making it less accurate.
 So it is with audio. The "error" you've quoted, is an error in terms of ignoring how pleasing the product is to it's target consumers. If we're talking about "accuracy" though, it's not an error, if anything quite the reverse! A "golden eared" audiophile's (or anyone else's) subjective input is pretty much the last thing we would want to contaminate "accuracy" with!!
  
 4b. No one is arguing with your personal judgement of your personal perception, because that's effectively off topic and of no particular interest. We're discussing the claims of MQA, it's accuracy and efficacy. If you wish to discuss the issues of your personal judgement of your personal perception, start a new thread and by all means start one here in the science forum BUT ONLY IF you're actually interested in the science. Likewise, if you want to discuss the issues of other people's personal judgements of their personal perception, for example, getting biased feedback from others' sighted listening tests, then no problem but that's really a topic for a new thread and one better suited to a forum other than the science forum!
  
 There's a fair chance you'll miss the whole point of this post and come back with some comments about my perception but remember; a well considered, logical inference which is based on an irrational premise is still just nonsense!
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

Some debating points:
  
 Quote:


> Quote:Originally Posted by *pinnahertz* /img/forum/go_quote.gif
> One successful marketing technique is, if you can't find a problem to solve, create one.  Then supply the solution.  Your product will then own the market and be forever identified as the solution to that problem.
> 
> Not saying for certain that's what MQA has done, but look at the concept of "time blurring" for just a moment.
> ...


 
 Even Apple products are now filtering to remove the leading ringing, which is fairly mainstream? It may not be the full apodizing filter as put forward by Bob Stuart and Peter Craven (the main named guys on MQA) but neither is MQA according to "the internet".  Does Apple know everything? No, but they have a habit of hiring smart people at high salaries, who may know something.  
  


> We've been aware of filter ringing for decades, and there have been many attempts to remedy ringing and the general phase response of filters, again, with limited and difficult to document results, pretty much without a good ABX study.


 
  
 I've been in blind AB (not ABX) tests on apodizing filters, and there is a difference.  I'm not convinced it is the bluring or pre ringing, but may be the roll-off.  By the way I preferred the non-apodizing filter, but then at least I heard a difference, as did the several people who were involved.
  


> Heck, we don't even have a definitive high-res audio study yet!  It's puzzling, and we might wonder why, if any of that presents listeners with such huge and obvious improvements, isn't there a study to show that.  Instead we bump up the bit depth and sampling rate, because if nothing else, more must certainly be better, sans proof nor not.


 
   
I get that, but 16 bits does not give the inter-aural accuracy you show below.  Ooops, got my math wrong.
 Quote:


> So the questions become:
> 
> 1. To what degree is time blurring audible? This is the basic identification of the problem...does it exist, and to what extent.  That's a full-on ABX double-blind study, with a significant test subject base, trial count, etc.  The test would include varying degrees of blurring, and determine if blurring is audible at all, to what extent, and how much is required to be universally audible.


 
 That would be great.  I would like to see that.


> 2. Can a single apodizing filter correct blurring from all ADC and DAC filters in the chain?  That's a pretty huge claim.  A quick look at the concept of what an apodizing filter does would seem to indicate that there could not be one universal blurring correction, rather, it would have to be "designed" using some sort of convolution process, on the fly, or from some form of impulse response data.  There are some pretty big problems with convolution with no impulse data.  Again, a big ABX study.


 
 There is an  argument that the musicians and engineer can hear and fix some timing issues through the "feedback" of hearing it and playing/tuning.  This is tenuous as it really applies to bigger delays than the ones we are talking about.  I have from a guy on top of the musical instrumant industry that a musician can handle and correct for up to 10ms before they start getting affecting by it.


> 3. Can the blurring correction of a single universal apodizing filter be audible to a significant number of listeners?  Another full-on ABX test, similar to, or included in the others.


 
 Please do one you are happy with.  If any get published this forum shoots them down.

  


> The interesting thing about all of that is, if you look around, very little has ever been written about blurring and it's audibility, much less correcting for it in coding.  In fact, the main papers are written by none other than guess who? Yup, the MQA guys.


 
 I don't write up what I discover.  It may  not be a significant DSP/format system, but you keep your techniques to yourself to stay ahead.


> Ultimately, the question would be, is the MQA process clearly an audible improvement?  When things are an audible improvement to most listeners, the create differences on the order of stereo/mono, surround/stereo, etc.  To read the propaganda, the MQA difference should be a stereo/mono level difference, easily heard by better than 90% of listeners.  In reality, if it tests out in the 50%, or even slightly above area, we have quite a bit of exaggeration going on at very least.
> 
> When should we expect this burden of proof to be satisfied?  If MQA were that big a deal, that obvious an improvement, wouldn't we have it already as part of the marketing back-up?  Instead, we have lots of theory, math, and a product, but no statistical data.  None.  Zero.
> 
> To be clear, listening to what you think are original tracks via MQA on Tidal is not a valid comparison.  You have no provenance.  Throw that out right now.   Listening to a track and supplying a positive opinion is just as worthless.  The kind of proof required here is a major study-level project, require time and funding, preferably done by a "disinterested third party".


 
  
 Tracks have been supplied to reviewers, but they may not make you happy the way they test.
  


> And that's why we don't have it from someone other than MQA.  The puzzle is, why don't we have it from MQA?  Didn't they do this?  Aren't the results overwhelmingly in support of the system?
> 
> There are far too many questions here, and almost zero answers.
> 
> The other thing that's just a little bothersome is the claims relating to the time resolution of hearing.  Lots of references are made to interaural time difference sensitivity, that of under 10us.  And while that's true, and verified, that's not the same thing as 10us of blurring (whatever that means).


 
 That one I agree with, but I'm willing to wait to see what it is.
  
  



> We can already show that phase scrambling above a certain frequency is not audible, yet if applied to one channel only and played along with another unaltered channel, is clearly audible. So what are the real thresholds of audibility here?  Seems like a bit of misdirection has been done at very least.   Why would anyone make that mistake?  These are smart guys, they should know the difference between interaural delay and blurring.  Heck, they're the ones that invented the problem!
> 
> I think we are at a point past "burden of proof" on MQA, we're on to needing real, scientific studies of both the core concepts and independent evaluation of the product.   Yet, MQA proliferates.  Is that because it's demonstrated for clients and they hear an obvious difference? If so, where are those demos, and are they spun or not?  There's something else going on.   As always, follow the money.


 
 So the people who invented 12" 33rpm LP, 7" 45rpm, 1/4" tape, CD, DAT, DVD-A are all ripping us off?  They did it for money.  All of them.


----------



## astrostar59

gregorio said:


> There's a fair chance you'll miss the whole point of this post and come back with some comments about my perception but remember; a well considered, logical inference which is based on an irrational premise is still just nonsense!
> 
> G


 
 Question for you. You have lots of time as hugely long posts.
  
 Set up a test with some buddies and stream Tidal with some Redbook albums and MQA equivalent to a NON MQA compliant DAC. Listen to each track as a blind A/B same volume and controlled system.
  
 Come back and publish your findings.
  
 Can I suggest, this is where I am at right now, and I find the MQA sounds better on the albums I have found in the Master area. You need to take care to find the same release i.e. 2014 remastered for example, with the same track lengths. 
  
 I understand it may be impossible to 'prove' those releases are from the same studio recording. But in a decent test of albums you will begin to get a feel for the difference.
  
*Do we need to know the tech?*
 This is a big subject. I would like to know the tech at some point (in full). But it is not available at the moment. In the past many have been mislead by the up sampling and format wars of digital audio. Is it marketing, the true science of it or different point of view in the industry? As we know it is pretty impossible to know how good or how a DAC will sound looking at data, responses, charts and square wave patterns. For example we were told all 16 bit DACs were garbage, look at the square wave (stepped) pattern! But as many now knew, they can indeed sound better than many DS upsampled DACs. Then some have the filtering, others no filter. Does it sound better with or without it? Does 'science' prove how it will sound.
  
 My view is, we need to know as much as possible, but must not disregard the actual sonic performance as coming through our speakers. It we could, well, we don't need demos or need to hear anything at all. We just buy based on the tech specs in the back of the product leaflet. Good luck with that idea.
  
 An example is, can a driver of an F1 car be any good at driving it, if he doesn't know or understand how it works, how it was built? Of course he can. Likewise on a sensory level can a person admire a Picasso painting without knowing about the artist, his life and also the paint he used? 
  
 Do some tests guys, life really is much simpler than all this.....


----------



## gregorio

@astrostar59 OK, I was wrong, obviously there was a much higher than "fair" chance that you'd miss the point and continue the nonsense. Oh dear!
  
 G


----------



## astrostar59

gregorio said:


> @astrostar59 OK, I was wrong, obviously there was a much higher than "fair" chance that you'd miss the point and continue the nonsense. Oh dear!
> 
> G


 

 Oh dear, you don't want the 'at home demo challenge' then? You are lost in the tech, no hope.....


----------



## sonitus mirus

astrostar59 said:


> Oh dear, you don't want the 'at home demo challenge' then? You are lost in the tech, no hope.....


 
  
 I activated my Tidal account again for a month and listened to several MQA tracks. I found they sound the same in most instances, and I more often preferred the non-MQA tacks or my own CD rips where I believed I was hearing a difference.  I think you do too, but you have a bias toward wanting to believe that the MQA tacks are superior and that is influencing your results.  They really don't sound better.  You should listen again.  That is all you need to do.  Just listen.  You will see.  It's easy.


----------



## WindowsX

Do you guys drink Starbucks?


----------



## NeoG

Sometimes I think about drinking Starbucks but on the way there I pass 20 places serving better coffee so I never make it!

In Australia there is a barista on practically every street corner - sometimes two on the same corner.. So maybe the Starbucks analogy wouldn't apply to me.


----------



## sonitus mirus

So I'm back at home and listening to some more Tidal Masters.  I'm familiar with the Chicago Transit Authority album, so I fired up the MQA version, making certain that I have my DAC set for 24/96, and that Tidal's setting for both Exclusive Mode and Force Volume are checked.  Without any way to quickly switch back and forth between Tidal and another option, or to volume match any 2 tracks for comparison, I'm not able to make any reliable estimations regarding sound quality.  I'm not sure how anybody could.  I did notice that the drum pans in the Tidal MQA version were slightly different than what I heard in the Google Music version.  I'd have to say I'm almost certain that whatever version Google is using is a different master than the MQA version on Tidal.  I'm not sure I like one version better than the other, but they are not exactly the same, and for this particular track, my biases are pointing to the Tidal MQA version as being the better sounding track.  This is probably because I know that this version is probably mastered for a higher quality, and more care was taken during the mastering process.  Then again, it could be that Chicago's library of HD music is just converted directly from the same old version that has been out since the first CD was put out.  Who knows?  
  
 At this time, I'm not going to take anyone's word that Tidal MQA is better or worse than any other lossless version, and probably an overwhelming majority of lossy versions for that matter.  Without knowing more details about the versions being played, it is simply not practical to say if or why one might be better than another, or even if there is a difference at all.  Anyway, I have given Tidal another $11.99, so I will listen to some more "Masters" over the next month.


----------



## headfry

I've been listening to the Masters, Tidal decoded since they've come out and in no cases that I remember
 did the non-MQA album version sound better to me....they sound different, and generally MQA
 sounds cleaner, smoother, with obviously better soundstaging and imaging.
 The biggest difference is the removal of grain....which allows all of the above to come through -
  
  
 For me, neither expectation nor bias doesn't enter into it IMHO - I just know what I hear
 and for me it sounds much better, not just a little (and this is without an MQA dac).
  
 If it sounds a lot better and it musical enjoyment is enhanced significantly,
 why does attempting to tear down the scientific claims matter? In my opinion
 MQA is not a scam and its main benefits are real...at least to myself and to many others.
  
 ...anyone else have a similar take on MQA?


----------



## Joe Bloggs

Honestly, those of you arguing the point should all just make unsubstantiated claims that you'd A/Bed MQA vs Redbook CD and MQA sounded like s**t. It'd probably have much more impact on those concerned than any technical argument you can make. :rolleyes:


----------



## Joe Bloggs

sonitus mirus said:


> So I'm back at home and listening to some more Tidal Masters.  I'm familiar with the Chicago Transit Authority album, so I fired up the MQA version, making certain that I have my DAC set for 24/96, and that Tidal's setting for both Exclusive Mode and Force Volume are checked.  Without any way to quickly switch back and forth between Tidal and another option, or to volume match any 2 tracks for comparison, I'm not able to make any reliable estimations regarding sound quality.  I'm not sure how anybody could.




Get Virtual Audio Cable.


----------



## WindowsX

I'm sure one of those guys who argued about MQA drank at Starbucks before.


----------



## LajostheHun

headfry said:


> I've been listening to the Masters, Tidal decoded since they've come out and in no cases that I remember
> did the non-MQA album version sound better to me....they sound different, and generally MQA
> sounds cleaner, smoother, with obviously better soundstaging and imaging.
> The biggest difference is the removal of grain....which allows all of the above to come through -
> ...




Expectation bias is not something you just turn off or claim it won't enter into the session. We all have it period, which is why DBT was invented to remove those biases to interfere with the results.
yes lots of people have similar take on MQA as you do so what? you still in the wrong forum, unless you bring your validated DBT results instead.


----------



## LajostheHun

windowsx said:


> I'm sure one of those guys who argued about MQA drank at Starbucks before.



As opposed to "Stuart's Kool Aid"?


----------



## spruce music

headfry said:


> I've been listening to the Masters, Tidal decoded since they've come out and in no cases that I remember
> did the non-MQA album version sound better to me....they sound different, and generally MQA
> sounds cleaner, smoother, with obviously better soundstaging and imaging.
> The biggest difference is the removal of grain....which allows all of the above to come through -
> ...


 
  
  
*For me, neither expectation nor bias doesn't enter into it IMHO - I just know what I hear*
*and for me it sounds much better, not just a little (and this is without an MQA dac).*
  
 Sorry friend it doesn't work that way.  You are blinding yourself in a different way to say "I just know what I hear".  You don't have to stop at that.  You know more than that or at least can.
  
 Read the essay linked in the first post of this thread. 
  
 http://www.head-fi.org/t/838514/understanding-the-approach-in-sound-science-vs-the-rest-of-head-fi
  
 It will make it clear what I am referring to here.  The little excerpt may be enough.  Even the essay is only one page of reading.  So read and consider it. Even if you don't agree it should help you understand us here in the Sound Science sub-forum.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Some debating points:
> Even Apple products are now filtering to remove the leading ringing, which is fairly mainstream? It may not be the full apodizing filter as put forward by Bob Stuart and Peter Craven (the main named guys on MQA) but neither is MQA according to "the internet".  Does Apple know everything? No, but they have a habit of hiring smart people at high salaries, who may know something.


 
 Link? The fact that a company chooses to do something doesn't provide any information as to their motive. We could assume primarily that it was cost.


jagwap said:


> I've been in blind AB (not ABX) tests on apodizing filters, and there is a difference.


 
 Um..."sound science" forum...that won't fly.


jagwap said:


> I'm not convinced it is the bluring or pre ringing, but may be the roll-off.  By the way I preferred the non-apodizing filter, but then at least I heard a difference, as did the several people who were involved.


 
 Need I say...subjective opinion, biased testing...and again, "sound science" forum. Not going to fly.


jagwap said:


> I get that, but 16 bits does not give the inter-aural accuracy you show below.


 
 My comment above applies to that as well.


jagwap said:


> That would be great.  I would like to see that.
> Please do one you are happy with.  If any get published this forum shoots them down.


 
 I actually could do it, but there is one serious roadblock: I have no resources to fund the project, and no time for another labor of love project. I do have many of the pieces, and have administrated ABX tests. Backers are always welcome. It would be a published AES paper.


jagwap said:


> So the people who invented 12" 33rpm LP, 7" 45rpm, 1/4" tape, CD, DAT, DVD-A are all ripping us off?  They did it for money.  All of them.


 
 What an amazingly pedestrian analysis. No, I never said any of that. I would think a "rip off" would be defined as an expense without clear benefit. All of those had clear benefit and improvement over the preceding format, though not all were generally embraced in the market. Yes, all of the developers did it for the money. That's the world we live in. I have no issue with products or services with clear improvement or benefit. It's when the very motivation of the invention is enshrouded in a mysterious lack of scientific data, and the benefits are only clear when stated, but lack evidence or demonstration. Accepting that is the definition of "blind faith".


----------



## pinnahertz

Oh yeah, and the main reason we will never get ABX data from MQA is: Bob doesn't like the method!
  
 http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/tas-194-meridian-audios-bob-stuart-talks-with-robert-harley-1/
  
_"Sometimes when you’re looking for a difference between A and B, you can hear it quickly. Other times the difference between A and B can come on a time scale of minutes or even longer where you find that you’ve changed something and you don’t notice a change but find that you have a very different connection to the music. But if you are doing quick switching that mechanism gets broken._
  
_The problem with A/B switching, or blind listening tests, is that it doesn’t always eliminate things that we find to be important on a lot of time scales. Obviously you can do blind listening on long time scales, and that’s good. I don’t tend to do a lot of that, because typically what we’re trying to do is work out whether something we’re doing has made a difference rather than to prove that you can hear it."_

  
  
 So any objective data will have to come from outside MQA.


----------



## ThomasHK

pinnahertz said:


> _The problem with A/B switching, or blind listening tests, is that it doesn’t always eliminate things that we find to be important on a lot of time scales. Obviously you can do blind listening on long time scales, and that’s good. I don’t tend to do a lot of that, because typically *what we’re trying to do is work out whether something we’re doing has made a difference rather than to prove that you can hear it*."_


 
 Wait...


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Link? The fact that a company chooses to do something doesn't provide any information as to their motive. We could assume primarily that it was cost.


 
 I measured it, and so did http://archimago.blogspot.sg/2014/10/measurements-apple-iphone-4-iphone-6.html
  


pinnahertz said:


> Oh yeah, and the main reason we will never get ABX data from MQA is: Bob doesn't like the method!
> 
> http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/tas-194-meridian-audios-bob-stuart-talks-with-robert-harley-1/
> 
> ...


 
  
 I think you are showing bias.  He didn't say in your quote that he doesn't like ABX, he just states that it is not the only method he finds useful.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I measured it, and so did http://archimago.blogspot.sg/2014/10/measurements-apple-iphone-4-iphone-6.html
> 
> 
> I think you are showing bias.  He didn't say in your quote that he doesn't like ABX, he just states that it is not the only method he finds useful.


 
 Um....
  
_*The problem with A/B switching, or blind listening tests, is that it doesn’t always eliminate things that we find to be important on a lot of time scales. Obviously you can do blind listening on long time scales, and that’s good. I don’t tend to do a lot of that, because typically what we’re trying to do is work out whether something we’re doing has made a difference rather than to prove that you can hear it."*_
  
_(...which makes no sense.)_
  
 But ....you really think this is guy who will be sharing an in-depth ABX study of MQA?


----------



## spruce music

pinnahertz said:


> Um....
> 
> _*The problem with A/B switching, or blind listening tests, is that it doesn’t always eliminate things that we find to be important on a lot of time scales. Obviously you can do blind listening on long time scales, and that’s good. I don’t tend to do a lot of that, because typically what we’re trying to do is work out whether something we’re doing has made a difference rather than to prove that you can hear it."*_
> 
> ...


 

 Well you got Jeckle and Hyde here.  Good ole Bob, he talks one way for the audiophile press.  Then Robert the researcher acts differently for the AES crowd.
  
 Were you aware of the blind testing done in relation to some of the patent claims related to MQA? Specifically the audibility of digital filtering.
 https://secure.aes.org/forum/pubs/conventions/?ID=416
  
 Now no fan of MQA and I think Bob is trying to get in the middle of the distribution for quality music in a way I don't care for at all.  But Robert Stuart has and does make use of blind testing.  Yes, he panders to the audiophool crowd in interviews after all his business depends upon them so his solution to a non-problem can have market relevance.  Yet he also knows the difference.   I have several reservations about the paper on digital filtering.  Choices made etc.  Yet it was a blind test.  Not directly of MQA, but done at a time to throw doubt on filtering being transparent as if temporal blurring could be a real factor.  Doesn't jibe with MQA testimonials when his extensive testing found trained listeners could hear a difference in a highly artificial and extreme version of filtering 56% of the time instead of guesswork's 50%.  Still your red quote doesn't fit. 
  
edit from castleofargh: I removed the last sentence, maybe you could do without it or at least try to reword it in a way that works for TOS? personal attacks are a no go.


----------



## RichardTownsend

Guys, you throw around moral opprobium as if it doesn't matter. I have to say I don't care for your morals, let alone Bob Stuart's. I am out of this forum.


----------



## pinnahertz

spruce music said:


> Well you got Jeckle and Hyde here.  Good ole Bob, he talks one way for the audiophile press.  Then Robert the researcher acts differently for the AES crowd.
> 
> Were you aware of the blind testing done in relation to some of the patent claims related to MQA? Specifically the audibility of digital filtering.
> https://secure.aes.org/forum/pubs/conventions/?ID=416
> ...


 
 Ok, thanks.  Agreed with most.  I still don't think we should expect any testing data from MQA directly.  Many here have thought of this as a "burden of proof" issue, placed on MQA.  I don't think that works, and clearly (at least to me) it won't happen anyway.


----------



## pinnahertz

richardtownsend said:


> Guys, you throw around moral opprobium as if it doesn't matter. I have to say I don't care for your morals, let alone Bob Stuart's. I am out of this forum.


 
 Sorry you feel that way.  Some of us like to know that what we're paying for is actually worth anything.
  
 I stayed at a (terrible!) hotel recently where the WiFi was so slow as to be like the dial-up days.  When you logged in you were offered the opportunity to upgrade to a faster speed, for a rather ridiculous fee.  But, search as I might, asking the desk etc., nobody could actually tell me how fast. "Double" wouldn't be worth it.  10X, barely.  It was like, "Spend a lot more, get something better, just because we say so."  I  didn't know what I was paying for, so I didn't pay.  
  
 That's all this is: what are we getting, does it matter, and how much?  When there are no answers, just lots of opinion, one has to wonder why.


----------



## Gringo

pinnahertz said:


> Sorry you feel that way.  Some of us like to know that what we're paying for is actually worth anything.
> 
> I stayed at a (terrible!) hotel recently where the WiFi was so slow as to be like the dial-up days.  When you logged in you were offered the opportunity to upgrade to a faster speed, for a rather ridiculous fee.  But, search as I might, asking the desk etc., nobody could actually tell me how fast. "Double" wouldn't be worth it.  10X, barely.  It was like, "Spend a lot more, get something better, just because we say so."  I  didn't know what I was paying for, so I didn't pay.
> 
> That's all this is: what are we getting, does it matter, and how much?  When there are no answers, just lots of opinion, one has to wonder why.


 
 1. Perfectly reasonable attitude
 2. Always good to see others views, its not healthy to just consider views that simply agree with your own
 3. Calling for proof of claims is also perfectly reasonable
 4. Calling for proof but in doing so making claims about MQA, Bob Stuart using derogatory terms without equally compelling proof is also bad science
 4. Terms used such as "two faced audio businessman", "Duplicity is what it is​" are at best distasteful and simply underline inherent bias
  
 I guess many may feel "good riddance" but I am out here. Happy listening to you all
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 P


----------



## castleofargh

can I suggest that you guys just report a post when it goes out of hand? just explain why and a modo, even one as lethargic as myself, will deal with it accordingly.
 of course you're free to do whatever you want, but if we were to abandon ship anytime someone made a post that doesn't sit well with us, there would be no internet.


----------



## spruce music

gringo said:


> 1. Perfectly reasonable attitude
> 2. Always good to see others views, its not healthy to just consider views that simply agree with your own
> 3. Calling for proof of claims is also perfectly reasonable
> 4. Calling for proof but in doing so making claims about MQA, Bob Stuart using derogatory terms without equally compelling proof is also bad science
> ...


 
 It is not about Mr. Stuart not agreeing with my opinions.  In fact half the time he agrees almost completely with my understanding of things. I have owned a few pieces of Meridian gear and it is always very well made.  The comment is on more than just MQA.  I have read some of his papers or other comments then read interviews with the 'phile mags to find comments by him that simply seem incompatible with being from the same person they contradict so much.  They aren't someone trying to reconcile conflicts within their outlook either.  One group gets one Mr. Stuart and another group get the other Mr. Stuart.  If anything it frustrates that a company that makes good gear and someone of his ability does such things. Considering a lengthy complex expensive blind test with a large number of trained listeners carried out by Merdian compared to his quoted comment about why they don't find value in blind testing in my opinion it is simply a description of what went on.  An observation that one comment to an audiophile magazine is directly opposite the actual actions of the same person.
  
 As for MQA, Mr. Stuart's responses to how it works have been coy on every occasion.  I don't think he has ever answered the straightforward question about whether it is lossless with a simple yes or no or something close to that simple.  He will say it is audibly lossless.  The process is a bit complex and not easy to explain, but even on many questions where it is clear what the questioner wishes to find out he deflects.  For about a year public demonstrations were between MP3 and MQA.  Okay, but what everyone wanted was CD vs MQA or hires vs MQA and there is no way that could escape his notice.  Why play it so close to the vest?
  
 You said my terms underline inherent bias and you are correct.  I am biased toward facts and explanations of what this can do.  Otherwise it looks more and more like being sold a pig in a poke and a promise intended mainly to sell us all our music one more time.   I'll try and work around that bias.  I certainly would be for better sound quality, but a basic skepticism hasn't been calmed by the manner in which MQA has been rolled out.


----------



## castleofargh

it's not our first dance with Bob Stuart, and some have over the years built a strong opinion, I sure did. but again, personal attacks aren't allowed in this forum. you can show examples like you did very well, but please leave the personality judgment out of it.
  
 I get that I'm a hypocrite as I did the same thing except I attacked meridian's marketing instead of naming Bob, but rules are rules and somehow that's ok.


----------



## sonitus mirus

castleofargh said:


> it's not our first dance with Bob Stuart, and some have over the years built a strong opinion, I sure did. but again, personal attacks aren't allowed in this forum. you can show examples like you did very well, but please leave the personality judgment out of it.
> 
> I get that I'm a hypocrite as I did the same thing except I attacked meridian's marketing instead of naming Bob, but rules are rules and somehow that's ok.


 
  
 I'll simply refer to him as BS and let folks make their own inference.


----------



## pinnahertz

sonitus mirus said:


> I'll simply refer to him as BS and let folks make their own inference.


 
 Hey, now....!  
  
 I'll give him, and anyone else, every opportunity to prove his points.  But proof is, however, what we're after.  Lacking that, proof could come from a third party, and in this context, might have to.  
  
 Like I say, if it's that good, that obvious, that much of a game-changer, it should be easy to provide proof and put all this to rest once and for all.  It's not like everyone needs to be trained to hear it in a sighted test....right?


----------



## NeoG

spruce music said:


> Sorry friend it doesn't work that way.


 
  
 It's like being in the matrix, when you're inside all you can see is what's right in front of you according to your senses. I suppose the longer you accept it as the truth, the lower the chance you will ever break out.


----------



## ThomasHK

spruce music said:


> I have read some of his papers or other comments then read interviews with the 'phile mags to find comments by him that simply seem incompatible with being from the same person they contradict so much.  They aren't someone trying to reconcile conflicts within their outlook either.  One group gets one Mr. Stuart and another group get the other Mr. Stuart.  If anything it frustrates that a company that makes good gear and someone of his ability does such things.




That's just marketing though. I've seen it time and time again in my previous job. We the audio engineers would come up with an improvement to XYZ technology, always as much as possible proven with solid evidence and (blind) listening tests. The marketing team would then take that concept, name it, mold and shape it into a different beast. Now what happens when those audio engineers get in front of the press? You sell your soul to the devil and sing the company line. Been there, done that. 

You see the touch of marketing teams aaaaallll the time in descriptions of audio technologies.


----------



## jagwap

thomashk said:


> That's just marketing though. I've seen it time and time again in my previous job. We the audio engineers would come up with an improvement to XYZ technology, always as much as possible proven with solid evidence and (blind) listening tests. The marketing team would then take that concept, name it, mold and shape it into a different beast. Now what happens when those audio engineers get in front of the press? You sell your soul to the devil and sing the company line. Been there, done that.
> 
> You see the touch of marketing teams aaaaallll the time in descriptions of audio technologies.




I believe the progression goes:

Lies
Damn lies
Statistics
Specifications
Marketing
Management
Politicians


----------



## jagwap

Now in the context of this thread:

Lies. MQA will use the best original masters
Damn lies. It is lossless
Statistics. More people said they could hear the temporal blur
Specifications. Un decoded it is 48kHz 16 bit
Marketing. There be majik and dragons
Management. We are not in it for the money
Politicians. This is all fake news


----------



## gregorio

headfry said:


> [1] The biggest difference is the removal of grain....which allows all of the above to come through -
> 
> [2] For me, neither expectation nor bias doesn't enter into it IMHO - I just know what I hear
> and for me it sounds much better, not just a little (and this is without an MQA dac).
> ...


 
  
 1. There is no "grain", unless the artists put grain there and if they did, then MQA must be a very poor codec indeed if it can't maintain the artists' work! Same with the imaging and smoothness, etc!!!
  
 2. You are asking us to believe that either you're not a human being or that you're a particularly delusional one (because you seem to know that biases exist but for some reason believe they don't apply to you)? Pretty much all commercial audio content is based on fooling the "ears" and music doubly so. Therefore you cannot have it both ways, either your "ears" are not being fooled AND what you're hearing does not sound musical OR it does sound musical because your "ears" are being fooled. It doesn't really matter though, as the rest of us here are all human beings and the reason we're here is to understand how/why it works and thereby be less susceptible to some of the most pernicious, marketing driven delusions. So either way, your "humble opinion" does not apply to us and is completely irrelevant.
  
 3. Because science exists and was invented to separate fact from fiction. I want my "ears" to be fooled when listening to commercial audio but I want them to be fooled by the skill of the artists, NOT by a blue light or some marketing trick!
  
 4. Yes, apparently there are one or two here who are apparently either not human beings or are particularly delusional ones! If you're after support for your opinion though, you'd be much better off posting this question in one of the other forums, where members generally don't know or care whether their delusions are caused by the recordings (artists) themselves or by some marketing BS.
  
 Quote:


gringo said:


> 4. Calling for proof but in doing so making claims about MQA, Bob Stuart using derogatory terms without equally compelling proof is also bad science
> 5. Terms used such as "two faced audio businessman", "Duplicity is what it is​" are at best distasteful and simply underline inherent bias


 
  
 4. Agreed. However, while we don't know exactly what MQA is doing, Bob Stuart has supplied a significant amount of scientific evidence to support his claims for MQA. And, there is some pretty compelling evidence that this supporting evidence is not just inadvertently flawed but a deliberate attempt to mislead. For example, a central marketing point of MQA is that it improves temporal "blurring"/"smearing". How MQA improves this issue or even if MQA improves it are both irrelevant questions to start with, unless temporal blurring/smearing is actually an issue. To support/demonstrate that it is an issue, Bob Stuart cites his own published research on the audibility of typical digital filters. This research provides credible evidence that trained listeners (audio engineers) can differentiate certain parts of certain 192/24 recordings from that same material rectangular dithered to 16bit with a linear phase filter at 22kHz. 1. Why apply dither in the first place if one is testing filters? If testing filters, then test just the filter, don't confuse the test with dither and even if you do, don't apply the type of dither least likely to reduce audible quantisation error, use the industry standard, least audible dither type, noise-shaped triangular dither! 2. Who applies a filter at 22kHz? A typical reconstruction filter has a transition band of 2kHz, IE. At about 20kHz. Even mastering anti-alias filters have at least a 1kHz+ transition band. And, most DACs oversample and have simple, smooth, large transition bands. In other words, Bob Stuart's published research demonstrates the audibility of just about the least typical digital filters/dithering I can imagine! Looking at it in the most favourable light, Bob Stuart's paper is not just incompetent but almost unbelievably, every one of the mistakes increased the likelihood of audibility, rather than decreased it. Looking at it in the least favourable light, Bob Stuart is not incompetent at all and his supporting evidence is not a series of unbelievably coincidental mistakes but a deliberate attempt to mislead.
  
 Maybe there are a few commercial recordings out there with rectangular dither, maybe some of these also have an incredibly steep linear phase filter applied during mastering or by (non-oversampling) DACs with incredibly steep linear phase reconstruction filters and maybe there are consumers out there who have actually found such a recording and/or such a DAC and have hearing as good as audio engineers. However, I'm not aware of any such recordings, can't think of any reason why a mastering engineer would ever apply such settings in the first place and don't know of any DACs which do! So, Bob Stuart's supporting evidence is that MQA is trying to solve a real/documented problem. But, it's a problem so rare in practice, that there may not be a single consumer who has ever actually encountered it!
  
 5. While there is not absolutely unequivocal proof Bob Stuart is being a "two faced audio businessman", the balance of evidence is pretty compelling. I personally might be a little more cautious than @sonitus mirus about publicly insulting Bob Stuart but neither can I rationally disagree with his sentiments. If MQA were just some special audiophile box of dirt, I would have spent only a fraction of my time disputing it's claims but MQA has the potential to damage the entire industry rather than only the pockets of a few gullible audiophiles.
  
 G


----------



## headfry

astrostar59 said:


> The dumbness of this thread is incredible. I suggest someone starts it again as the MQA development / appraisal thread.


 
  
 I have felt the same way and I have done just that - join us here at the new MQA Appreciation Thread!:
  
  
  
http://www.head-fi.org/t/838888/mqa-appreciation-thread#post_13313903


----------



## castleofargh

enough.
 sorry for those who tried to explain things, it's hard to remove off topics and post from people who only listening to themselves without removing the answers to those posts.
 I can only suggest to those who think they're above proper listening test, to go discuss in the appreciation topic as suggested above if the guys in that sub forum will have it.
  
 in here we do believe in blind testing and proper controls before making hand waving conclusions about the sound, we don't force anybody to agree, but we do ask to respect that it's expected in this section. and if you want to debate that very point, we have many topics about blind testing. this topic isn't the place to challenge the scientific method with personal opinions.
  
 we have nothing against giving feedback on how we feel without listening controls, but then it isn't a demonstration of how the sound is and it isn't a proof that the sound is such and such. it's a personal feeling we share in case others feel the same way or not. just like we share a picture of our cat because we think someone might care. and that's it, no higher ground BS about how great I think I am at sitting in a chair, or how many expensive stuff I have failed to properly test over the years. the actual sound doesn't care about all that emotional baggage. just like it doesn't care about a blue light. I might care, and that might alter my view on MQA. but the sound is only just the sound.
 use feelings to express feelings, use evidence from proper tests to express confidence.
  
  
  
  
 now for MQA, can someone explain to me what the lossy part of the encoding is helping to reconstruct? I get the first 13bit or so are music in the audible range, then there is data to double the sample rate in lower bit values. but I don't really get what the extra lossy part is doing.


----------



## gregorio

castleofargh said:


> now for MQA, can someone explain to me what the lossy part of the encoding is helping to reconstruct? I get the first 13bit or so are music in the audible range, then there is data to double the sample rate in lower bit values. but I don't really get what the extra lossy part is doing.


 
  
 That's not been made entirely clear. There's a considerable amount of obfuscation going on and how much of that obfuscation it to protect the IP of the process and how much is for no reason other than marketing is impossible to know with the information available. From what I've gathered from the published info/interviews:
  
 An undecoded MQA stream provides a variable number of bits, apparently about 13-17 and a sample rate of 48kHz, although obviously the least significant bit and the last few kHz are presumably empty (or discarded to reduce file size) if you feed the MQA encoder with a 16/44.1 recording. If however you feed the encoder with say 24/96, the data in that higher sample rate (IE. The audio frequency content between about 24kHz and 48kHz) is "folded down" somehow into those lost 8 or so LSBs. A decoder is able to unfold that data in those lost LSBs and restore that audio frequency content. In effect, we have a 24/48 container which actually gives us say a 16/96 output. I'm presuming at this stage (but don't know) that MQA assigns more LSBs the higher the sample rate it's fed. So a 24/192 original might end up after MQA encoding/decoding at something like 13/192. That's still lossy of course but with say noise-shaped dither you could go down even lower than 13bits and not hear that loss of bits. A spectogram would reveal that noise-shaped dither with a substantial increase in noise in the ultrasonic freqs but within the audible band the dither noise would be below the noise floor of the recording itself. There could also be some amount of perceptual lossy techniques applied (like those employed by AAC and the later MP3s) to reduce the datastream requirement below that of 24/48 and done lightly enough it would never be audible but doing that would be a bit risky from a marketing point of view (if it ever became public knowledge). This raises the question; if what we get out is say 16/96, 13/192 or an equivalent, is that legitimately High Definition?
  
 My view is the whole thing is just silly, an exercise in extracting even more money as part of an ongoing evolution of lower investment in the actual quality of the art! A new format to distribute something (HD audio) which only exists as a marketing ploy in the first place is just silly, a consumer market gone mad! "Definition" does not get any higher than 16/44.1 as far as our ears are concerned.
  
 G


----------



## mswlogo

gregorio said:


> That's not been made entirely clear. There's a considerable amount of obfuscation going on and how much of that obfuscation it to protect the IP of the process and how much is for no reason other than marketing is impossible to know with the information available. From what I've gathered from the published info/interviews:
> 
> An undecoded MQA stream provides a variable number of bits, apparently about 13-17 and a sample rate of 48kHz, although obviously the least significant bit and the last few kHz are presumably empty (or discarded to reduce file size) if you feed the MQA encoder with a 16/44.1 recording. If however you feed the encoder with say 24/96, the data in that higher sample rate (IE. The audio frequency content between about 24kHz and 48kHz) is "folded down" somehow into those lost 8 or so LSBs. A decoder is able to unfold that data in those lost LSBs and restore that audio frequency content. In effect, we have a 24/48 container which actually gives us say a 16/96 output. I'm presuming at this stage (but don't know) that MQA assigns more LSBs the higher the sample rate it's fed. So a 24/192 original might end up after MQA encoding/decoding at something like 13/192. That's still lossy of course but with say noise-shaped dither you could go down even lower than 13bits and not hear that loss of bits. A spectogram would reveal that noise-shaped dither with a substantial increase in noise in the ultrasonic freqs but within the audible band the dither noise would be below the noise floor of the recording itself. There could also be some amount of perceptual lossy techniques applied (like those employed by AAC and the later MP3s) to reduce the datastream requirement below that of 24/48 and done lightly enough it would never be audible but doing that would be a bit risky from a marketing point of view (if it ever became public knowledge). This raises the question; if what we get out is say 16/96, 13/192 or an equivalent, is that legitimately High Definition?
> 
> ...


 

 Great Post !!
  
 To top that off MQA (Bob Stuart) says A/B testing isn't valid (because of conditioning), which is kind of admitting the difference is subtle.
 Yet, all the advocates claim they can clearly hear a significant difference. When I hear those types of claims I immediately dismiss them as valid.
 If it was clearly better I don't think these heated debates would exist.
  
 MQA can't prove it hasn't created a NEW problem in the audio that also can't easily be measured by science (because it's only subtlely and subjectively "better")
  
 MQA uses science claims that we can't sense below noise threshold.
 MQA ignores science claims that we can't detect anything above 20Khz.
  
 MQA uses science when it's convenient and ignores it when inconvenient.
  
 How convenient.


----------



## castleofargh

gregorio said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > now for MQA, can someone explain to me what the lossy part of the encoding is helping to reconstruct? I get the first 13bit or so are music in the audible range, then there is data to double the sample rate in lower bit values. but I don't really get what the extra lossy part is doing.
> ...


 
 I would make an educated guess that they target 17bit of final resolution in the best resolution precisely to be above redbook also in bitdepth and get all the psychological glory of high res.
  
 about the lossy part of the encoding, I'm not clear in my question because I'm not clear on the subject
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





, sorry. in this https://patents.google.com/patent/US20150154969A1/en?assignee=Meridian+Audio+Limited&sort=new   they consider plenty of situations, but I can't seem to find a clear statement that those are simplified tear down of the process, or all the stuff they wish to cover their ass with just in case they come to use it someday, or all the actual configurations available to MQA encoding depending on what we wish to achieve?
 I'm just not good at reading stuff like that TBH. I get it better than tax papers but not by much.
 some diagrams output higher bit depth than the uncompressed PCM signal for the first 13bit of the audible band, so I assumed the 3 lossy bits were used for that at least in part, but I can't get one interpretation that seems to work on all the models given. so for all I know I'm dead wrong about the role of those lossy 3 bits and the diagrams only show higher bit depth at the output because of the applied noise shaping?


----------



## pinnahertz

castleofargh said:


> I would make an educated guess that they target 17bit of final resolution in the best resolution precisely to be above redbook also in bitdepth and get all the psychological glory of high res.
> 
> about the lossy part of the encoding, I'm not clear in my question because I'm not clear on the subject
> 
> ...


 
 Well we know it's definitely lossy in the financial vector, probably by more than 3 bits.


----------



## spruce music

castleofargh said:


> I would make an educated guess that they target 17bit of final resolution in the best resolution precisely to be above redbook also in bitdepth and get all the psychological glory of high res.
> 
> about the lossy part of the encoding, I'm not clear in my question because I'm not clear on the subject
> 
> ...


 

 Its a multi-layered process for sure.  One of the ways it is lossy.  Even if you get a file decoded out of MQA that is 96 khz or 192 khz it has filtered content out above 35 khz.  They believe from their work frequencies above this aren't needed for audibly lossless conversion.  They have some tactics to maintain the lower blur (whatever that really is) of the higher sample rate while discarding info above 35 khz.   Some of what they compress into the lower bits is high frequencies at such low bit levels they can ignore all, but a very small number of bits.   So if nothing in the 20-35 khz range is using more than 4 least significant bits, then they throw out the upper 20 bits.  Part of this also involves subtractive dither combined with filtering.


----------



## gregorio

spruce music said:


> They believe from their work frequencies above this aren't needed for audibly lossless conversion.


 
  
 If it weren't for the parasitic nature of how they intend to make their money, you'd have to grudgingly admire what they've done:
  
 Firstly, there's no doubt that MQA is quite sophisticated. It adapts to the source material, either completely automatically or more likely, some combination of automatic and user selectable options in the encoder.
  
 Secondly, they've very carefully considered an audiophile end consumer target demographic. They've decided what is acceptable or desirable to audiophiles, coupled that with a requirement to lower the data demands of streaming HD audio and built their product. Where the demands of data reduction and audiophile acceptability cannot be reconciled, they simply redefine that unacceptable term and then obfuscate the fact that's what they've done! The terms lossy and lossless is a prime example. Lossless means you get out exactly what you put in; wav is lossless, there's no data compression and therefore no loss, FLAC is lossless, there is data compression but after decompression you get exactly what you started with. MQA is lossy, after decoding you don't get out what you put in but "lossy" isn't a very acceptable term to audiophiles. So what they've done is applied noise-shaped dither (which is apparently acceptable to audiophiles) to reduce the bit depth and as noise-shaped dither is specifically designed to be perceptually invisible the result is a lossy file which should sound lossless. So against all common usage, "lossless" in MQA marketing speak really means audibly lossless rather than actually lossless. MQA is counting on the fact that audiophiles are stupid enough not to realise they've redefined this term or think it's just irrelevant semantics even if they do. The reality is quite the opposite because using MQA's redefinition of "Lossless", AAC 256 VBR is also lossless, as are the modern high bitrate MP3s! In fact, using this new definition, about the only thing which is always definitely "lossy" is a 64kbps MP3 and there maybe some people who still couldn't hear the difference (so even a 64kbps MP3 would be "lossless" to them)! It's just marketing and perception. AAC is marketed as lossy and therefore perceived by audiophiles as lossy, if MQA is successful in it's marketing then audiophiles will perceive it as lossless.
  
 Of course, a DBX would reveal no audible difference between AAC 256, the original and MQA (if it's a competent codec). The solution to this problem is simply to use the marketing strategy of discrediting ABX, not a difficult task as far as most audiophiles are concerned but even on this point, Bob Stuart has been very clever/sneaky. Discrediting ABX would result in open ridicule and a wealth of counter productive publicity from the scientific/pro community. If you read Bob Stuart's paper carefully, he criticises the original ABX protocol of the 1950's, a protocol whose flaws were documented and was therefore superseded with better ABX protocols in the early 1980s. Bob Stuart does not attempt to discredit the modern ABX protocols, only the already discredited 1950's protocols, a completely pointless exercise as far as science is concerned but a very valuable exercise as far as marketing his product is concerned because he doesn't make clear he's only criticising old, disused ABX protocols! The scientific community can't complain anywhere near as vociferously and the audiophiles just take the intended implication (that all ABX is flawed beyond redemption).
  
 And so it goes on with MQA, this is just one of almost countless similar examples. We cannot say Bob Stuart is lying because he isn't, his stated facts are true but the context of those stated facts are invalid and the intended implications are false and deliberately misleading!! And, he's perfectly happy to apply those facts to several different contexts, which if read carefully leads to @mswlogo observation that he's using science purely how/when it suits his marketing purposes. Compared to most audiophile marketing BS, MQA's marketing is far more sophisticated and therefore more difficult to show it for what it really is. It's obviously very successful to at least some though, who appear willing to argue to the death that MQA is not lossy even though that's not what Bob Stuart himself has stated.
  
 As a useless but pernicious product, hopefully MQA will die a quiet death and Bob Stuart will get what's coming to him (IE. A considerable investment of time, effort and money, all of which are unrewarded)!
  
 G


----------



## Arpiben

For those interested in a deep analysis of MQA: https://www.xivero.com/downloads/MQA-Technical_Analysis-Hypotheses-Paper.pdf
 Rgds.


----------



## saddleup

Nothing to add other than I've lost any respect that I may have once had for Bob Stuart.  He and his company Meridian can eff off.


----------



## haiku

More news from Highresaudio
  
 http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/03/highresaudio-com-calls-for-a-deeper-technical-analysis-of-mqa/


----------



## castleofargh

arpiben said:


> For those interested in a deep analysis of MQA: https://www.xivero.com/downloads/MQA-Technical_Analysis-Hypotheses-Paper.pdf
> Rgds.


 
  
  it touches most of the important points of digital filters and at least at my level of noobism, felt very clear and accessible. seems that we vastly agree on how to interpret the patent and marketing.
 of course my vision of how far we need to go in resolution is where my hearing stops, when his limit is set on how high in frequency an instrument can go. so I don't agree with all that is said from an audibility perspective, but if we take the human element out and only think about reproducing the music, then I do agree with pretty much all of it.
 and same for the bit depth, if we forget about human hearing and the noises in the listening environment, then the conclusions do make a lot of sense.
  
 the part about placing his own product kind of ruins my idea that he was the perfect human, but aside from that, good read with a lot of very good point IMO.
  
  
  
 I want to end with my 2 favorite parts of the PDF(I hope it's ok to quote as much?):
  


> So, why are marketing departments using a mathematical signal called Dirac impulse, that has an infinite bandwidth and does not exist in reality, to show the ringing effect of long linear phase filters instead of applying real world transients that really occur within a 48kHz bandwidth limited system?


 
 +1000000000000 \o/

  
 Quote:


> So, let’s conclude that there were a couple of smart mathematicians in the 18th & 19th century laying the foundation for our today’s digital signal processing algorithms.


----------



## NeoG

castleofargh said:


> > So, why are marketing departments using a mathematical signal called Dirac impulse, that has an infinite bandwidth and does not exist in reality, to show the ringing effect of long linear phase filters instead of applying real world transients that really occur within a 48kHz bandwidth limited system?
> 
> 
> 
> +1000000000000 \o/


 
  
 Yes this has always irked me... Typical anti-aliasing filters show significantly less ringing than impulses suggest when fed real world high frequency transient material.
  
 It's not non-existent but it's definitely overblown by a huge margin. And that's not even taking into account the audibility.
  
 --
  
 Also I want to move across a point I was debating in the Tidal vs Spotify thread because it was honestly not the right place for it. The paper brings up the following assertion;
  
_If we define “lossy” as changing the content of the audio file in a way that we throw data away on basis of the auditory system then MQA is by definition “lossy”._
  
 This asserts that the capture window was chosen on a psycho-acoustic basis, whereas nothing so far has suggested that is the case. All the material suggests that the capture window for the MQA process was based on an objective frequency/amplitude study of typical programme material.
  
 The fact that the system has lower dyanamic headroom at higher frequencies (what I would call a non-rectangular window as overlayed on a typical theoretical amplitude/frequency graph) does not really meet that criteria.
  
 Edit: OK according to the patent applications they are using a statistical reconstruction, therefore I concede it is indeed a lossy process.
  
 Excerpt:
_MQA needs to hide their high frequency bands in the LSB-Bits of the baseband by making them appear as random noise to avoid any audible artifacts. Just rendering those bits as simple noise would be a waste therefore they use them to apply plain nonadaptive noise-shaped dithered requantization to a constant bit depth (Patent Application: WO2013/186561; Paragraph 15), increasing the SNR to partly compensate the bits truncated. We are talking here about a statistical process that does not convey the original signal but the difference is allegedly not perceivable._


----------



## GRUMPYOLDGUY

neog said:


> Yes this has always irked me... Typical anti-aliasing filters show significantly less ringing than impulses suggest when fed real world high frequency transient material.
> 
> It's not non-existent but it's definitely overblown by a huge margin. And that's not even taking into account the audibility.
> 
> ...




Why do high school sophomores study limits in calculus when you can't divide by zero in the real world (for example)?


----------



## NeoG

grumpyoldguy said:


> Why do high school sophomores study limits in calculus when you can't divide by zero in the real world (for example)?


 
  
 Is that in relation to the impulse measurement? I didn't mean to say that it's not useful in any way - I meant to say it's not useful in the context used by those continually pushing boundaries on account of that result (if that was not apparent)


----------



## Brahmsian

The criticisms of MQA on this thread, at least the ones I read, seem to me to completely miss what MQA is all about (at least as far as I have been able to understand it, though I remain open to correction). The critics are focused on higher sampling rates and how nobody can tell the difference between hi-res and redbook. But from what I understand that's not MQA's main focus. According to its inventors, MQA is as much a philosophy as a technical innovation. Its focus is in its name: Master Quality Authentication. MQA is against the excessive processing of music that has resulted in the loudness wars. MQA works directly with the labels as well as with those who make audio hardware. Theoretically, its seeks to be part of every link in the chain from recording studio to home listening experience. It seeks to bring the master copy of the music to the listener regardless of the resolution of that master copy (which can very well be 24/44.1). The label makes the master copy available to the MQA team. Meanwhile, on the other end, the MQA enabled DAC can tell (therefore authenticate) when the master recording, regardless of its resolution, is being accurately reproduced to the consumer. A light will turn on on the DAC to indicate authentication. In my opinion, this focus on reproducing the master copy is why the difference between the MQA and the redbook standard is more noticeable (at least to me) on pop recordings than on classical music recordings. Pop music is generally subject to much more processing and degradation than classical music. Some of the comments made on threads by those who have listened to Tidal Masters say not just that the Master sounds better to them but that it sounds different. And that is because the Master, from the get-go, avoids all the subsequent processing. It retains the music's original dynamics, etc. It gives you, as nearly as possible, what the artist heard in the studio before the post-recording processing changed it. At least that is what I understand MQA's central tenet to be.


----------



## Brahmsian

castleofargh said:


>


 
 Castleofargh wrote: "of course my vision of how far we need to go in resolution is where my hearing stops, when his limit is set on how high in frequency an instrument can go. so I don't agree with all that is said from an audibility perspective, but if we take the human element out and only think about reproducing the music, then I do agree with pretty much all of it."
  
 That's why I don't care so much about the usual argument about blind tests and whether people can hear the superior quality or not. The point for me is the superior quality itself, the faithful reproduction. When I judge a recording, I want to make sure I have the reference-quality audio, the best I can possibly have, even if I can't necessarily tell the difference between it and something of lesser quality. Some of my justification for this emphasis on quality has to to do with what we pass on to posterity. I believe that people will have bionic hearing in the future & that what sounds fine to us will sound like garbage to them. Considering that individual copies can be lost or degrade, I believe the best way of ensuring that high-resolution recordings survive is for there to be many many copies of them extant all around the earth. High quality should be the mass market standard. Today we aren't as constrained in this area as we were one or two decades ago. I can easily store all my high-res files on my 500GB external hard drive. Meanwhile, 50 Mbps download speeds and virtually unlimited data are becoming the universal standard, more than enough to stream and handle high resolution music. Finally, I do leave open the possibility that higher quality music can affect enjoyment even if one cannot consciously tell the difference. But, in any case, people shouldn't have to justify themselves for wanting and choosing the objectively best sonics, particularly when, as in the case of Tidal Masters, it doesn't cost you any more to have it.


----------



## sonitus mirus

brahmsian said:


> Castleofargh wrote: "of course my vision of how far we need to go in resolution is where my hearing stops, when his limit is set on how high in frequency an instrument can go. so I don't agree with all that is said from an audibility perspective, but if we take the human element out and only think about reproducing the music, then I do agree with pretty much all of it."
> 
> That's why I don't care so much about the usual argument about blind tests and whether people can hear the superior quality or not. The point for me is the superior quality itself, the faithful reproduction. When I judge a recording, I want to make sure I have the reference-quality audio, the best I can possibly have, even if I can't necessarily tell the difference between it and something of lesser quality. Some of my justification for this emphasis on quality has to to do with what we pass on to posterity. I believe that people will have bionic hearing in the future & that what sounds fine to us will sound like garbage to them. Considering that individual copies can be lost or degrade, I believe the best way of ensuring that high-resolution recordings survive is for there to be many many copies of them extant all around the earth. High quality should be the mass market standard. Today we aren't as constrained in this area as we were one or two decades ago. I can easily store all my high-res files on my 500GB external hard drive. Meanwhile, 50 Mbps download speeds and virtually unlimited data are becoming the universal standard, more than enough to stream and handle high resolution music. Finally, I do leave open the possibility that higher quality music can affect enjoyment even if one cannot consciously tell the difference. But, in any case, people shouldn't have to justify themselves for wanting and choosing the objectively best sonics, particularly when, as in the case of Tidal Masters, it doesn't cost you any more to have it.


 
  
 Just about everyone that frequents this site would like to see better quality recordings produced, but MQA isn't the magic format to make this happen.  In fact, due to the proprietary technical aspects and general obfuscation surrounding it, MQA is the last thing I want to rely on for providing the highest quality music.  There is no way to verify their claims of superiority.  MQA isn't necessary to achieve better quality sound, and any "objectively best sonics" do not appear to be found in Tidal Masters or MQA.  Just read the latest links that provide some analysis of the format in the last few pages of this thread.  You are basically regurgitating the marketing material straight from the horse's donkey's mouth.


----------



## Brahmsian

sonitus mirus said:


> You are basically regurgitating the marketing material straight from the horse's donkey's mouth.


 
 Well, yes, I was basically trying to explain what they see as their mission. I have listened to several Tidal Masters, and all I will say is that they sounded great. Now notice I'm not claiming that they sounded any better than the HIFI option. To begin with, I haven't done any tests back and forth. What I listened to sounded great to me though.


----------



## sonitus mirus

brahmsian said:


> Well, yes, I was basically trying to explain what they see as their mission. I have listened to several Tidal Masters, and all I will say is that they sounded great. Now notice I'm not claiming that they sounded any better than the HIFI option. To begin with, I haven't done any tests back and forth. What I listened to sounded great to me though.


 
  
 There isn't any way to even know if testing back and forth is going to mean anything.  They could be different, but how and why is unknown.


----------



## VNandor

brahmsian said:


> That's why I don't care so much about the usual argument about blind tests and whether people can hear the superior quality or not. The point for me is the superior quality itself, the faithful reproduction. When I judge a recording, I want to make sure I have the reference-quality audio, the best I can possibly have, even if I can't necessarily tell the difference between it and something of lesser quality. Some of my justification for this emphasis on quality has to to do with what we pass on to posterity. I believe that people will have bionic hearing in the future & that what sounds fine to us will sound like garbage to them. Considering that individual copies can be lost or degrade, I believe the best way of ensuring that high-resolution recordings survive is for there to be many many copies of them extant all around the earth. High quality should be the mass market standard. Today we aren't as constrained in this area as we were one or two decades ago. I can easily store all my high-res files on my 500GB external hard drive. Meanwhile, 50 Mbps download speeds and virtually unlimited data are becoming the universal standard, more than enough to stream and handle high resolution music. Finally, I do leave open the possibility that higher quality music can affect enjoyment even if one cannot consciously tell the difference. But, in any case, people shouldn't have to justify themselves for wanting and choosing the objectively best sonics, particularly when, as in the case of Tidal Masters, it doesn't cost you any more to have it.


 

 What you've said doesn't make sense to me for two reasons. As far as I know MQA throws out some of the original information  during the encoding/decoding. So if you want to make sure you get "superior quality" MQA is not the right format.


brahmsian said:


> The criticisms of MQA on this thread, at least the ones I read, seem to me to completely miss what MQA is all about (at least as far as I have been able to understand it, though I remain open to correction). The critics are focused on higher sampling rates and how nobody can tell the difference between hi-res and redbook. But from what I understand that's not MQA's main focus. According to its inventors, MQA is as much a philosophy as a technical innovation. Its focus is in its name: Master Quality Authentication. MQA is against the excessive processing of music that has resulted in the loudness wars. MQA works directly with the labels as well as with those who make audio hardware. Theoretically, its seeks to be part of every link in the chain from recording studio to home listening experience. It seeks to bring the master copy of the music to the listener regardless of the resolution of that master copy (which can very well be 24/44.1). The label makes the master copy available to the MQA team. Meanwhile, on the other end, the MQA enabled DAC can tell (therefore authenticate) when the master recording, regardless of its resolution, is being accurately reproduced to the consumer. A light will turn on on the DAC to indicate authentication. In my opinion, this focus on reproducing the master copy is why the difference between the MQA and the redbook standard is more noticeable (at least to me) on pop recordings than on classical music recordings. Pop music is generally subject to much more processing and degradation than classical music. Some of the comments made on threads by those who have listened to Tidal Masters say not just that the Master sounds better to them but that it sounds different. And that is because the Master, from the get-go, avoids all the subsequent processing. It retains the music's original dynamics, etc. It gives you, as nearly as possible, what the artist heard in the studio before the post-recording processing changed it. At least that is what I understand MQA's central tenet to be.


 
 Being against bad masters is a great thing but it doesn't validate the creation of a new format that can be only played back by certain DACs. Noone wanted a new patented format, people want better recordings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but every DAC maker who wants its DAC to be MQA capable has to pay some money to MQA.


----------



## Brahmsian

haiku said:


> More news from Highresaudio
> 
> http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/03/highresaudio-com-calls-for-a-deeper-technical-analysis-of-mqa/


 
 The paper referenced in the link above assumes MQA uses apodizing filters, for instance here:
  
 "Our understanding, which can be wrong, is that the apodizing filter of the MQA encoder aims at reducing the pre-ringing caused by brick-wall linear phase filters in the audio chain.
  We do explain apodization *(pls. see chapter 5.4 Apodization) *in detail and show that it is just a process to reduce the bandwidth in a way to minimize ringing, with the side effect of impacting the temporal resolution."
  
 But MQA's Bob Stuart has flatly denied that MQA uses apodizing filters. In response to the question "Are you are addressing temporal de-blurring by using digital filters which address this (such
 as apodizing filters)?," Stuart responds:

  
"We have already described that the filters in a complete end-to-end chain define the overall blur. Some of these filters can be designed better; some can be compensated so long as the whole chain is accounted for. MQA does not use apodizing filters."
  
I also found the accusation that MQA is lossless as not adequately explained. From what I've read elsewhere, what MQA does preserve (all the information within the triangle) is lossless. This refers to the process MQA calls encapsulation, as explained here in these screenshots from The Absolute Sound:
  




 The whole article can be read here: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/beyond-high-resolution/


----------



## sonitus mirus

What about the other links that are more recent, such as this one?
  
 https://www.xivero.com/downloads/MQA-Technical_Analysis-Hypotheses-Paper.pdf


----------



## Brahmsian

sonitus mirus said:


> What about the other links that are more recent, such as this one?
> 
> https://www.xivero.com/downloads/MQA-Technical_Analysis-Hypotheses-Paper.pdf


 

 That's actually the paper I'm referring to. The earlier link links to an article that is based on - and that itself links - to this paper.


----------



## Brahmsian

vnandor said:


> What you've said doesn't make sense to me for two reasons. As far as I know MQA throws out some of the original information  during the encoding/decoding. So if you want to make sure you get "superior quality" MQA is not the right format.
> Being against bad masters is a great thing but it doesn't validate the creation of a new format that can be only played back by certain DACs. Noone wanted a new patented format, people want better recordings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but every DAC maker who wants its DAC to be MQA capable has to pay some money to MQA.


 

 Basically, you're saying MQA isn't lossless. See the three screenshots I provided above. As I understand it, everything in the triangle is lossless. The claim is that anything above 55kHz falls below the background noise and is therefore not worth preserving. So the question is whether a) that is true and b) there is any value in having what falls below the background noise preserved.


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## sonitus mirus

So all we have is consumer data and nothing concrete from the creators of MQA.  You can believe the marketing hype, I'll wait for real answers and maintain my disbelief.
  
 Hoping MQA follows Pono.
  
 http://www.noise11.com/news/r-i-p-pono-neil-young-kills-off-his-digital-player-20170423


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## sonitus mirus

brahmsian said:


> Basically, you're saying MQA isn't lossless. See the three screenshots I provided above. As I understand it, everything in the triangle is lossless. The claim is that anything above 55kHz falls below the background noise and is therefore not worth preserving. So the question is whether a) that is true and b) there is any value in having what falls below the background noise preserved.


 
  
 A well-encoded MP3 and AAC are lossless when it comes to what humans can hear.  MQA is not technically lossless, unless you fall prey to their marketing lingo.


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## sonitus mirus

brahmsian said:


> That's actually the paper I'm referring to. The earlier link links to an article that is based on - and that itself links - to this paper.


 
  
 The entire point of that analysis, as can best be found, indicate that Bob Stuart is not telling the truth about MQA.  The authors requested some answers, but I sincerely doubt they will be accommodated.


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## pinnahertz

sonitus mirus said:


> brahmsian said:
> 
> 
> > That's actually the paper I'm referring to. The earlier link links to an article that is based on - and that itself links - to this paper.
> ...



Why would anyone want to buy special hardware, pay licensing fees, etc., etc., if the Grand Pubah of MQA isn't forthcoming with the truth and verifiable facts about his product?

Oh...wait...it's high-end audio. They spend $500 on a 1 meter cable.

Oh...but wait again... he's targeting the main stream, not just high end! 

And that's that's why we have a problem.


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## castleofargh

vnandor said:


> Being against bad masters is a great thing but it doesn't validate the creation of a new format that can be only played back by certain DACs. Noone wanted a new patented format, people want better recordings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but every DAC maker who wants its DAC to be MQA capable has to pay some money to MQA.


 
  
 it's worst than that, money is only money and they could always make Mexico pay for it in the end. but the DAC manufacturer has to open his system to the MQA guys who are just a side track of Meridian, also a DAC manufacturer. that's why guys from Shiit, Benchmark and others are so pissed at MQA even before considering what it does to music. they tried to distance Meridian at least on paper, but confidence isn't high.
  
 also the recording studios aren't all in a hurry to have MQA tell them how to do their job. almost all of them believe for good reason that steep low pass is the optimal band limiting method because it keeps the most information while removing the most aliasing. and MQA comes kicking with an entire system justified with nothing more than the subjective opinion of some dudes. which professional wouldn't rejoice under such circumstances? ^_^
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 to summarize what I understand of MQA so far:
 - many professionals are pissed off.
 - an original 24/96 album has superior fidelity over the 24/48 MQA file that can uncompress up to 96khz. so the guy after best objective fidelity wouldn't pick MQA when given the choice. the 24bit MQA doesn't resolve 24bit and that should be a deal breaker for those who believe it matters. I don't get why that should matter, but I also don't get why MQA exists.
 - traceability is just as bad as any unreliable highres distribution. and the led is mainly a gimmick to tell people when they use bit perfect streaming on their computer. if my cellphone DAC sucks at full scale, and it does, well too bad, there is nothing I can do about it or I'll lose part or all of the coded part of the file.
 - if it's about file size, we have audibly transparent formats(in almost all situations) that surpass MQA.
 - if you use some DSPs or EQ to correct your headphone or speakers, it will always be at the cost of some or all of the MQA reconstruction.
 -  people who use wav instead of flac because they feel that the extra processing from the flac decompression is adding noise or jitter or whatever. are unlikely to adopt the all origami+dither of MQA.
 - if it's about making a good master, well it has nothing to do with MQA. a good record will sound good in pretty much any formats.
  
 so we're left with mainly people who got fooled by marketing, and people who made their opinion on MQA without proper testing so they can't tell when they prefer MQA because it's the format, the master, how Tidal replays different formats, or pure placebo. I have yet to see much controlled tests that are favorable to MQA (MQA's own propaganda excluded). so I can only assume that some people find MQA better the same way some people find vinyl better or some colored high distortion tube amp better. different reasons and different taste, but any argument about fidelity is bogus.
  
 am I mistaken on something?


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## Don Hills

brahmsian said:


> ...  MQA is against the excessive processing of music that has resulted in the loudness wars. ...


 
  
 This is incorrect. MQA processing is applied to the music after all of the "excessive processing" has been applied. In other words, it is applied to the final master that's been approved for release. All it prevents is, for example, a distributor or reseller upsampling a CD-resolution track and selling it as "high resolution".


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## Brahmsian

pinnahertz said:


> Why would anyone want to buy special hardware, pay licensing fees, etc., etc., if the Grand Pubah of MQA isn't forthcoming with the truth and verifiable facts about his product?
> 
> Oh...wait...it's high-end audio. They spend $500 on a 1 meter cable.
> 
> ...


 

 Meridian's Explorer2 MQA DAC is selling for $199-299 depending on where you buy it. At those prices, I'm willing to experiment. Anyway, MQA doesn't require special hardware. You can play the file up to standard CD quality (in fact the company claims slightly better than CD quality) on anything. It can also be unfolded up to 24/96 using nothing but software e.g. Tidal software. You only need the hardware to get the full benefits.


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## Brahmsian

sonitus mirus said:


> So all we have is consumer data and nothing concrete from the creators of MQA.  You can believe the marketing hype, I'll wait for real answers and maintain my disbelief.
> 
> Hoping MQA follows Pono.
> 
> http://www.noise11.com/news/r-i-p-pono-neil-young-kills-off-his-digital-player-20170423


 

 For me it isn't about belief or disbelief. I just happen to stream on Tidal and when Tidal Masters became available I listened to them and they sound great. Since Tidal doesn't charge me anything extra I choose the Master over the redbook. They're charging me the same $20/month either way.


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## Brahmsian

castleofargh said:


> and MQA comes kicking with an entire system justified with nothing more than the subjective opinion of some dudes.


 
 Wait a second, the people behind MQA aren't just some dudes going off nothing more than subjective opinion. Here are screenshots of paragraphs from three different articles describing who they are:


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## Brahmsian

don hills said:


> This is incorrect. MQA processing is applied to the music after all of the "excessive processing" has been applied. In other words, it is applied to the final master that's been approved for release. All it prevents is, for example, a distributor or reseller upsampling a CD-resolution track and selling it as "high resolution".


 
  
 I think the second generation can be more extensive than that. This is how Bob Stuart addresses the final mix/source topic:
  

  
  
 But the ideal plan is to incorporate MQA from the get-go:


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## castleofargh

sorry for not being clear. when I said dudes I meant whatever listening panel they used to come to the decision that people preferred a certain type of filter over another. and I don't dare ask about the testing method.
 indeed the meridian guys are well known, no question about that. not loved by everybody(and MQA marketing didn't help improve that part), but they're certainly well known.


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## pinnahertz

brahmsian said:


> Meridian's Explorer2 MQA DAC is selling for $199-299 depending on where you buy it. At those prices, I'm willing to experiment. Anyway, MQA doesn't require special hardware. You can play the file up to standard CD quality (in fact the company claims slightly better than CD quality) on anything. It can also be unfolded up to 24/96 using nothing but software e.g. Tidal software. You only need the hardware to get the full benefits.


 
_"...get the full benefits"_
  
 Yeah.  That one.  To "get the full benefits" you still have to buy something, even if you already have all the capability you need to play hi-res files.  And what exactly are those bennies? MQA has told you exactly what to expect, so that's exactly what you'll get.  
  
 Experiment?  Nah, you won't.  You'll listen and know you're hearing MQA and it'll sound great.  And that's all the experimenting anyone will do.  But is it really great?  Is it great because of MQA? Who knows? Who cares? Only MQA knows for sure, and only the guy who just dropped the cash to get it cares.


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## gregorio

brahmsian said:


> [1] Its focus is in its name: Master Quality Authentication. MQA is against the excessive processing of music that has resulted in the loudness wars.
> 
> [2] MQA works directly with the labels as well as with those who make audio hardware. Theoretically, its seeks to be part of every link in the chain from recording studio to home listening experience.
> 
> ...


 
  
 Some of your points have already been covered in this thread but maybe it's worth summarising them again (and dealing with the new ones):
  
 1. Very admirable sentiment but MQA does nothing reduce the loudness war. In fact, reports so far indicate that MQA is processing the tracks to be even louder!!
  
 2. This is marketing nonsense, for two reasons: Firstly, the audio hardware, ADCs/DACs, are the "links in the chain" which introduce the LEAST distortion/temporal blurring! Where the most distortion (changes) occurs, by orders of magnitude, is the transducers (mics and speakers) and even more so, the processing. Secondly, there is no way that MQA can address the processing and even if there were, that's the VERY LAST thing we would want anyway! (see #4 below)
  
 3. Again, a lovely sentiment, aimed squarely at ignorant/gullible audiophiles! The marketing lie here is a lie of omission. Namely, that the audio industry has already been doing that for 30+ years! So, the only actual difference is a blue light turning on! ...
 3b. What do you believe "the redbook" is, and where do you think it comes from? For a commercial music release, the redbook (CD) is a bit perfect duplicate of the Master supplied by the mastering engineer to the duplication plant. So what you're really saying is; you choose the MQA master over the bit perfect Master!? Only you don't seem to realise that's what you're saying because you appear to have been suckered by the marketing lie of omission.
  
 4. No one wants to hear the just twang of an electric guitar string, an un edited/processed vocal or drum kit, ESPECIALLY NOT the artists themselves! Why do you think post-recording processing is applied? What do you think is the purpose of mastering? ... The WHOLE point of post-recording processing is to change the raw recordings for the better. The very last thing the artist wants is for you to hear what it sounded like before the post-recording processing had been applied. So much so, that it's typically a contractual obligation that the engineers/studio must not allow the raw recordings out of the studio or even play them to anyone not authorised by the artist/producer! If that really is the central tenet of MQA, that's miles and away the best reason I've heard to avoid it!!
  
 There appears to be a very obvious contradiction in the MQA marketing. Either MQA is applying some adjustment to the master, in which case you are NOT getting the master heard by the engineers/artists in the studio or, MQA is giving you an exact duplicate of an approved/authenticated master, in which case it's giving you exactly what the recording industry has already been giving you for decades! The only exception I can think of is as Don Mills stated, potential protection against changes made by bootleg/unauthorised distributors.
  
 Note that all the above is true even if MQA is lossless, which it patently isn't!
  
 G


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> Some of your points have already been covered in this thread but maybe it's worth summarising them again (and dealing with the new ones):
> 
> 1. Very admirable sentiment but MQA does nothing reduce the loudness war. In fact, reports so far indicate that MQA is processing the tracks to be even louder!!


 
  
 I've been looking for evidence of this and I haven't found any either way.  Every MQA Master on Tidal so far has been the most dynamic version I've heard so far with only one exception, suggesting you statement is an incorrect assumption.  Do you have some numbers?
  


> 2. This is marketing nonsense, for two reasons: Firstly, the audio hardware, ADCs/DACs, are the "links in the chain" which introduce the LEAST distortion/temporal blurring! Where the most distortion (changes) occurs, by orders of magnitude, is the transducers (mics and speakers) and even more so, the processing. Secondly, there is no way that MQA can address the processing and even if there were, that's the VERY LAST thing we would want anyway! (see #4 below)


 
  
 Temporal blurring is a term MQA for something different to transducer distortion.  Yes transducers have a lot of distortion compared to other items, with the exception of the musical instruments which are meant to be that way.  It is controversial, but your argument isn't effective.


----------



## Brahmsian

gregorio said:


> Some of your points have already been covered in this thread but maybe it's worth summarising them again (and dealing with the new ones):
> 
> 1. Very admirable sentiment but MQA does nothing reduce the loudness war. In fact, reports so far indicate that MQA is processing the tracks to be even louder!!
> 
> ...


 

 1. Yes I have seen one or two comments on forums claiming that the Tidal Masters are louder, but what I hear (or think I hear) is greater dynamic contrast and a more natural sound.
  
 3.  As I understand it, the labels have given MQA access to the masters themselves where available. That's what they're working with.
  
 4. The purpose of the post-recording process can be commercial, like which track can sound the loudest and jump out at you on the radio. It's hard to argue that flattening the music and getting rid of the dynamic contrasts improves the sound. (Then again taste is subjective, and one can have bad taste.) So no I don't think the post-recording process always improves the sound. As for nobody wanting to hear the twang of a guitar string or an unprocessed vocal--I again have to disagree. I mostly listen to classical music where the more natural the sound is the better.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] Every MQA Master on Tidal so far has been the most dynamic version I've heard so far with only one exception, suggesting you statement is an incorrect assumption.
> [2] Do you have some numbers?
> [3] Temporal blurring is a term MQA for something different to transducer distortion.
> [3a] Yes transducers have a lot of distortion compared to other items, with the exception of the musical instruments which are meant to be that way.


 
  
 1. Then there's only two options; either they are picking the master versions with more dynamic range or they are applying some process to the same masters, some sort of expansion for example. If it's the former then of course you could encode that master version with FLAC for example and get the same result, IE. MQA is not itself doing anything to reduce the loudness war. If it's the second, there's no way software can judge if the amount of compression applied is artistically desirable, if it's too much and if so by how much, as it varies by genre and by song. Even if this were possible, there's no way to exactly undo the compression applied, expansion is a very blunt tool and I certainly wouldn't want it applied to any of my masters, even those ones which are over compressed. Lastly, if MQA is actually applying some sort of post processing to the master to increase dynamic range then it's making a lie of the claim to be providing an "authentic" master!
  
 2. No, as I stated, I have only seen "reports" (anecdotal evidence) in other threads/reviews. One report suggested +3dB louder but I wouldn't accept that as accurate/reliable.
  
 3. No, MQA have been vague about exactly what they mean by temporal blurring, which is a term they themselves have invented. Their various statements, papers and interviews imply they're talking about various forms of transient distortion/smearing, due to filter ringing, phase or timing errors\inaccuracies. Transducers also introduce transient distortion/smearing, as do compression, EQ and some other processors and they introduce more of it and well within the audible band!
 3a. But that's one of my main points! How does MQA know if a musical instrument is "meant to be that way"? Maybe an instrument or sound is not "meant to be that way" but it's been processed to be that way for artistic reasons. Transient distortion/smearing is often deliberately applied as an artistic decision. And, even when it isn't deliberate, if for example I'm applying EQ, I make the decision of whether I apply linear phase, minimum or some other phase characteristic, I do not want MQA making the decisions or "correcting" the decisions I've already made!
  
 G


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## Brahmsian

gregorio said:


> 3b. What do you believe "the redbook" is, and where do you think it comes from? For a commercial music release, the redbook (CD) is a bit perfect duplicate of the Master supplied by the mastering engineer to the duplication plant.


 
 I'm not in the industry and don't pretend to know exactly how the process from recording studio to final product works. I just want to note that Bob Stuart's description of the process is a bit more complicated than you are describing it. Here is what he says:


----------



## gregorio

brahmsian said:


> 1. Yes I have seen one or two comments on forums claiming that the Tidal Masters are louder, but what I hear (or think I hear) is greater dynamic contrast and a more natural sound.
> 
> 3.  As I understand it, the labels have given MQA access to the masters themselves where available. That's what they're working with.
> 
> ...


 
  
 1. They can't be both louder and have more dynamic range.
 3. And you have access to the "masters themselves" when you buy a CD! You do realise that a bit perfect duplicate of the master is identical in every respect to the original?
 4. With commercial music recordings of course the post-recording process is commercial. Who doesn't want their music to be liked, who would distribute music no one likes? In the case of radio edits, the reason they were made "louder and jump out at you" is because that's what consumers preferred, that's what made them go out and buy it!
 4a. No it's not, it's easy!
 4b. I didn't say that it always improves the sound, there is no way to always improve the sound. In virtually all circumstances though, not post-recording processing (I assume you mean "mastering" in this instance?) is the worst option, which is why it's standard practice.
 4c. Really? Have you ever heard what an electric guitar sounds like without processing (amp/valve/distortion/EQ/feedback/etc.)? It's just a twang, similar to plucking a tight elastic band! There also probably some bootlegged vids on youtube of famous singers before processing, unless you're just after a good laugh, no one would want to hear that!! In the vast majority of cases the music simply does not exist until after the mixing/processing!
 4d. That's a different case. For starters, classical music isn't subject to the loudness wars and post-recording processing is typically very minimally employed and applied to counteract any deficiencies in the recording process which caused it to sound less natural!
  
 Quote:


brahmsian said:


>


 
  
 1. Another lie of omission! It's a lie of omission because it's obviously not possible to distribute that "truth". We obviously can't distribute the final mix along with the studio. That's why mastering exists, that what it's for! To process that final mix so that the "truth" heard in the studio can be as closely as possible reproduced by consumer equipment/circumstances.
  
 2. That's just a blatant lie! That cannot be done for tracks or for mixes and, the contribution to that studio/system "fingerprint" of the converters is virtually zero! And, "deblurring the source is invariably right" is another complete lie! It's not at all uncommon to pick mics and/or apply processing to "blur" the source! The last thing I or any recording creator wants is for some software to come along and "deblur" something I've spent time and effort deliberately blurring in the first place!
  
 3. How can you "drill back" to the sound that was heard and approved in the original master better than distributing a bit perfect duplicate of that original master? As already happens when you buy a CD!
  
 I get it, it's effective marketing. It's effective because it succeeds in making perfect sense to audiophiles and other consumers who have no/little idea of how music recordings are made or why they're made that way!
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. Then there's only two options; either they are picking the master versions with more dynamic range or they are applying some process to the same masters, some sort of expansion for example. If it's the former then of course you could encode that master version with FLAC for example and get the same result, IE. MQA is not itself doing anything to reduce the loudness war. If it's the second, there's no way software can judge if the amount of compression applied is artistically desirable, if it's too much and if so by how much, as it varies by genre and by song. Even if this were possible, there's no way to exactly undo the compression applied, expansion is a very blunt tool and I certainly wouldn't want it applied to any of my masters, even those ones which are over compressed. Lastly, if MQA is actually applying some sort of post processing to the master to increase dynamic range then it's making a lie of the claim to be providing an "authentic" master!
> 
> 2. No, as I stated, I have only seen "reports" (anecdotal evidence) in other threads/reviews. One report suggested +3dB louder but I wouldn't accept that as accurate/reliable.


 
 1. Very unlikely after all this trouble they are messing with the actual dynamic or frequency mix of the master they are using.  Not only is it the opposite of everything these guys stand for, it would be commercial suicide if they got caught.  It is not a sensible assumption, unless you arre very biased.
  
  
 2. "Very admirable sentiment but MQA does nothing reduce the loudness war. In fact, reports so far indicate that MQA is processing the tracks to be even louder!!"  This is not proof.  You cannot state as fact MQA dose nothing based on anecdotal reports in this forum.  You know the sound science police will have you de-bagged and radished (C Blackadder).  We don't know which masters they use.  I am as cynical as the next guy when it come to the ruining of music by the music industry itself, but we don't know yet.  Until someone buys the MQA files and puts them through FOOBAR DNR meter and compares them to others out there on the loudness database...
  
 This likely is having a larger effect on the hearts (who am I kidding) and minds of the industry: http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/end-loudness-war
  
 But it may help them reverse the direction in time for these re-releases to be back to the original dynamic range.


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. Another lie of omission! It's a lie of omission because it's obviously not possible to distribute that "truth". We obviously can't distribute the final mix along with the studio. That's why mastering exists, that what it's for! To process that final mix so that the "truth" heard in the studio can be as closely as possible reproduced by consumer equipment/circumstances.
> 
> 2. That's just a blatant lie! That cannot be done for tracks or for mixes and, the contribution to that studio/system "fingerprint" of the converters is virtually zero! And, "deblurring the source is invariably right" is another complete lie! It's not at all uncommon to pick mics and/or apply processing to "blur" the source! The last thing I or any recording creator wants is for some software to come along and "deblur" something I've spent time and effort deliberately blurring in the first place!
> 
> ...


 

 2. It is not a blatant lie, when they honestly believe it.  It may or not be true, but it doesn't make it a lie if they believe it to be true.  Early ADCs were not as good as later ones, in general, agreed?  They believe they can compensate for some of their failings if only the digital master is available and the ADC is known.  Commendable if possible.  Sure there is the problem as stated that the signal goes back and forth through many ADCs in various kit in the process which it would be nigh on impossible to track and correct.  However the majority of masters this would help are the early digital masters, which were done in the early days of CD, when it was a predominantly analogue process.  So if the only ADC is the mastering one, because it is a 1950's track, then it is not impossible.  This applies to a huge percentage of the music back catalogue.
  
 You are being too "black and white", or bolean in your arguments (digital if you like).  This is inappropriate in the sound science forum.


----------



## Brahmsian

gregorio said:


>


 
  
 Gregorio wrote: "Really? Have you ever heard what an electric guitar sounds like without processing?"
  
 That's why I dropped the "electric." Sure, a lot of processing exists to improve the track. I'm not going to argue with that.
  
 I went back and compared a few tracks with the Tidal Masters and I have to insist that the MQA versions sound better to me. But man they also sound different! I think just about everybody would agree on this--that is, not on whether they're better but on the fact that there is quite a noticeable difference. Take "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" off the Remain in Light album by Talking Heads. I switched back and forth between the MQA and non-MQA versions, making sure to adjust the Audio MIDI Setup format between 44.1/16 and 96/24, depending on which track I was listening to. (Audio MIDI Setup controls the headphone output signal on a MacBook). 
  
 The non-MQA version of Born Under Punches sounds louder to me. The MQA version sounds much smoother, more subdued, with more layering and complexity. The best way I can describe it is that the MQA sound is more analog. After listening to the MQA version I could barely stand to listen to the regular version. There are pronounced differences in the background vocals. The mix sounds different. And there is more of a sonar pulse in the MQA version. What accounts for these differences I will leave open for now. All I know is that I prefer the MQA version. Listen for yourselves, folks.


----------



## Brahmsian

jagwap said:


> 2. "In fact, reports so far indicate that MQA is processing the tracks to be even louder!!"  This is not proof.  You cannot state as fact MQA dose nothing based on anecdotal reports in this forum.


 
 My good headphones broke so for now I'm listening on the two mediocre ones I have left, both Sennheisers: HD 280 and PX 100-II. One weird thing I noticed was that on one MQA track when I listened to it on the PX it sounded louder than the regular version, but when I switched headphones to the 280 the MQA track no longer sounded louder. Make of that what you will.


----------



## pinnahertz

brahmsian said:


> I went back and compared a few tracks with the Tidal Masters and I have to insist that the MQA versions sound better to me. But man they also sound different! I think just about everybody would agree on this--that is, not on whether they're better but on the fact that there is quite a noticeable difference. Take "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" off the Remain in Light album by Talking Heads. I switched back and forth between the MQA and non-MQA versions, making sure to adjust the Audio MIDI Setup format between 44.1/16 and 96/24, depending on which track I was listening to. (Audio MIDI Setup controls the headphone output signal on a MacBook).


 
 The comparison technique is not scientific. It can be shown that a clear preference results when a listener is told A is better than B, even though they are actually identical. The time between comparisons in your setup is also far to lengthy to permit a real comparison due to the shortness of auditory memory.  A trip through Audio Midi Setup takes FAR too long.  To do that comparison you'd need two identical MacBooks, one running the MQA version, the other the standard version, match levels, synch playback, and instantly switch between them.  And that's not scientific either, but at least you'd have a fighting chance of a valid if biased comparison. 


brahmsian said:


> The non-MQA version of Born Under Punches sounds louder to me. The MQA version sounds much smoother, more subdued, with more layering and complexity. The best way I can describe it is that the MQA sound is more analog. After listening to the MQA version I could barely stand to listen to the regular version. There are pronounced differences in the background vocals. The mix sounds different. And there is more of a sonar pulse in the MQA version. What accounts for these differences I will leave open for now. All I know is that I prefer the MQA version. Listen for yourselves, folks.


 
 So, the critical listening and comparison is done using a ca 1980 analog recording?  Ok...welll.... Everything described above could be more readily attributed to re-capturing a lower-generation master, perhaps one that wasn't equalized for the vinyl release, or a safety, etc.  In essence, a better capture is a remaster. 
  
 Are you aware that for some of us describing something as sounding "more analog" carries a strong negative connotation? Those of us who lived and worked in the time of transition from analog to digital recording, and the transition from vinyl to CD often have a very different view of "analog". It was fussy, touchy, required constant re-alignment every time a new tape batch was put up, had mechanical time-base issues, distortion, noise, oh, and if you want to talk about "time blurring", you just need to force-feed an impulse through any analog recorder. Talk about a mess. Nobody ever mistook analog playback for "live off the console", but a life return from the digital recorder fooled us many times.
  
 If it really sounds "more analog", I'd assume it sounds worse.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> 2. It is not a blatant lie, when they honestly believe it.  It may or not be true, but it doesn't make it a lie if they believe it to be true.


 
 What kind of nonsense logic is that? Either it's true, or it's not. If someone's been told a lie then repeats it, it's still a lie though the one repeating it may not be the original lyar. Under your logic, any delusional manufacturer could claim absolutely anything about his product, like "this amplifier cures warts" and he wouldn't be lying because he's delusional? That won't wash with certain government organizations like F.T.C. because either the amp cures warts or it doesn't.  If it doesn't, the claims are false, and to advertise them is false advertising, of which the FTC says, _"When consumers see or hear an advertisement, whether it’s on the Internet, radio or television, or anywhere else, federal law says that ad must be *truthful, not misleading,* and, when appropriate, *backed by scientific evidence.*"   _That precludes the statement/lie originator's belief system entirely._ _
  
And that's the problem with MQA.  It's to be taken on faith with no scientific evidence whatsoever. 


jagwap said:


> Early ADCs were not as good as later ones, in general, agreed?  They believe they can compensate for some of their failings if only the digital master is available and the ADC is known.  Commendable if possible.  Sure there is the problem as stated that the signal goes back and forth through many ADCs in various kit in the process which it would be nigh on impossible to track and correct.  However the majority of masters this would help are the early digital masters, which were done in the early days of CD, when it was a predominantly analogue process.  So if the only ADC is the mastering one,


 
 No, it is not possible to apply a correction to any but a very few, very well documented cases. The correction would have to be essentially the precise inverse of the original problem. To do that you have to know the original impulse response you're trying to correct for.
  
 Early digital recordings done on a multitrack DASH machines were often mixed on analog consoles until digital desks appeared. Assuming no round-trips to layer tracks, that's 4 conversions, minimum, but possibly many more. And possibly through different DACs, ADCs and filters, even possibly at different sampling frequencies. The composite would be a jumble of different DACs, ADCs, and their filters. No, you can't compensate for that.
  
 No, their technique can't help the "vast majority of masters", of which most are undocumented as to the specific gear used and in what way. This is one of the biggest fallacies of MQA. Even in the simplest productions there is a filter, DAC, ADC and filter...that's two conversions with two filters that may or may not be the same.   Some early digital recordings were made at 50kHz and then released later at 44.1 on CD.  What do you do with that one?
  
 If the MQA-invented term, "time blurring", is to be believed as an actual audible problem, it will not only occur in an ADC with reconstruction filter, it will be in avery DAC as well.  That means every single recording plays through a minimum of two conversions and filters.  If MQA knew what DAC and filter was used, they sure have no idea what ADC will be used at the player (unless it's theirs), much less anything happening in between including any signal modification by either analog or digital means, which also changes the impulse response, and in a far more radical way.  
  
 The permutations of composite impulse responses boggles the mind.  To think MQA can determine the thumb-print of the back-catalog of recorded music for any but a few percent is simply ridiculous. 
  
 And the specific audibility of their invented "problem" has not been scientifically tested.  All we have is anecdotal and marketing hype.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> What kind of nonsense logic is that? Either it's true, or it's not. If someone's been told a lie then repeats it, it's still a lie though the one repeating it may not be the original lyar. Under your logic, any delusional manufacturer could claim absolutely anything about his product, like "this amplifier cures warts" and he wouldn't be lying because he's delusional? That won't wash with certain government organizations like F.T.C. because either the amp cures warts or it doesn't.  If it doesn't, the claims are false, and to advertise them is false advertising, of which the FTC says, _"[COLOR=323232]When consumers see or hear an advertisement, whether it’s on the Internet, radio or television, or anywhere else, federal law says that ad must be *truthful, not misleading,* and, when appropriate, *backed by scientific evidence.*"   [/COLOR]_[COLOR=323232]That precludes the statement/lie originator's belief system entirely.[/COLOR]_[COLOR=323232] [/COLOR]_
> 
> [COLOR=323232]And that's the problem with MQA.  It's to be taken on faith with no scientific evidence whatsoever. [/COLOR]
> No, it is not possible to apply a correction to any but a very few, very well documented cases. The correction would have to be essentially the precise inverse of the original problem. To do that you have to know the original impulse response you're trying to correct for.
> ...




We have heard here that while the members of MQA may not advocate blind listening tests publically they do privately. Just because you don't have the evidence it doesn't mean they don't and that they have satisfied themselves scientifically that time smear is an issue and they can improve it. Then they would feel it is not a lie just because a man on the internet who has less information says so.

I'm not saying they are correct, just that saying it is a lie without proof is slander.

In the case of an analogue master, mastered with a 2 channel ADC which is known, there is the possibility to post correct for non random (eg jitter) behaviour. The DAC is known by them if it is MQA approved. (Or did you just get DAC & ADC the wrong way around?)


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> We have heard here that while the members of MQA may not advocate blind listening tests publically they do privately. Just because you don't have the evidence it doesn't mean they don't and that they have satisfied themselves scientifically that time smear is an issue and they can improve it. Then they would feel it is not a lie just because a man on the internet who has less information says so.
> 
> I'm not saying they are correct, just that saying it is a lie without proof is slander.


 
 Perhaps, but their claims fly in the face of science. The burden of proof is on them, and has been for a long time. Still no proof.  Why not?  If it's that dramatic,  and anyone can hear the difference, then it should be easy.  Statistics should abound.  Tests should show overwhelmingly positive results.  DBTs would make MQA jump out as obvious.
  
 We have no proof, stats, tests, DBT or otherwise.  We have marketing, we have anecdote, and we have people blinding supporting the concept without understanding it.
  
 Why is it so hard to show how amazing it is?  It's not like MQA wouldn't benefit from that sort of proof.   Just a bit of an independent study under full controlled conditions, and it could flip the market totally in favor of MQA.  But they aren't even providing a thing except claims.  Why?  Not even a statement like, "In an independent study, 4 out of 5 dentists preferred MQA".  
  
 See, we have no science, no evidence, and wild claims.  So what is it?  Is the difference so small that it might be missed in a DBT?  Is it so subtle that without full disclosure and knowledge a listener can't "hear" it?  If it's the kind of difference between mono and stereo, AM and FM, color and monochrome, it should be easy, like demonstrating active noise cancelling headphones...you know, dramatic and all.  Nobody could miss it.  Clearly, it's not like that, not even close, so where does it actually fall? 


jagwap said:


> In the case of an analogue master, mastered with a 2 channel ADC which is known, there is the possibility to post correct for non random (eg jitter) behaviour. The DAC is known by them if it is MQA approved.


 
 If you were to start with an analog master the first step is filtering then ADC. Even if the ADC is known, discussing jitter and "time smearing" with an analog master is the very height of ridiculousness. Analog tape has "jitter", and way more than any digital system. It's actually called "scrape flutter", it's easily measured, not so easy to control. Any length of tape passing over a stationary guide or head causes the tape to rapidly change it's linear speed creating frequency modulation of the signal. It looks exactly like jitter in spectrum analysis. The modulating frequency is usually random, but falls in the 5kHz area, and the amount depends on tape, speed, and machine design. There's no talking about digital jitter when the source was analog, that's like saying "Aside from that, Mrs. Kennedy, how did you enjoy the motorcade?"
  
 But scrape flutter is just the start.  The phase response of a tape recorder is frankly wild, depending on bias, eq, and related tape speed.  Since tape formulation will dictate bias and EQ, it also figures in.  It's variable, and knowing the tape type and brand of recorder really doesn't help.  Like I said, any digital system would be far easier to characterize because if you know the ADC and filter, and the DAC and filter, it will be fairly consistent.  Not so with analog tape!  Why anyone would worry about the impulse response in a digital system working with an analog tape that is SO much worse is beyond me.  And that's not considering what went on in the analog world before the signal hit tape, the EQ, dynamics processing, mic choices, etc.  The whole "time smearing" argument has very little merit, but when you put an analog recorder and analog signal chain in front, you can just toss the whole thing out the window. 
  
 And it's stuff like that that discredits the entire MQA concept.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Perhaps, but their claims fly in the face of science. The burden of proof is on them, and has been for a long time. Still no proof.  Why not?  If it's that dramatic,  and anyone can hear the difference, then it should be easy.  Statistics should abound.  Tests should show overwhelmingly positive results.  DBTs would make MQA jump out as obvious.
> 
> We have no proof, stats, tests, DBT or otherwise.  We have marketing, we have anecdote, and we have people blinding supporting the concept without understanding it.
> 
> ...




Fine. You say in a well argued opinion it is fine, but when you say they are lying that is slander.



> If you were to start with an analog master the first step is filtering then ADC. Even if the ADC is known, discussing jitter and "time smearing" with an analog master is the very height of ridiculousness. Analog tape has "jitter", and way more than any digital system. It's actually called "scrape flutter", it's easily measured, not so easy to control. Any length of tape passing over a stationary guide or head causes the tape to rapidly change it's linear speed creating frequency modulation of the signal. It looks exactly like jitter in spectrum analysis. The modulating frequency is usually random, but falls in the 5kHz area, and the amount depends on tape, speed, and machine design. There's no talking about digital jitter when the source was analog, that's like saying "Aside from that, Mrs. Kennedy, how did you enjoy the motorcade?"
> 
> But scrape flutter is just the start.  The phase response of a tape recorder is frankly wild, depending on bias, eq, and related tape speed.  Since tape formulation will dictate bias and EQ, it also figures in.  It's variable, and knowing the tape type and brand of recorder really doesn't help.  Like I said, any digital system would be far easier to characterize because if you know the ADC and filter, and the DAC and filter, it will be fairly consistent.  Not so with analog tape!  Why anyone would worry about the impulse response in a digital system working with an analog tape that is SO much worse is beyond me.  And that's not considering what went on in the analog world before the signal hit tape, the EQ, dynamics processing, mic choices, etc.  The whole "time smearing" argument has very little merit, but when you put an analog recorder and analog signal chain in front, you can just toss the whole thing out the window.
> 
> And it's stuff like that that discredits the entire MQA concept.




You mis-read my point. I was pointing out that jitter could not be corrected along with other difficult to correlate artefacts. 

The whole statement on apodizing was that while you can do it in the DAC, it is better if you do it inthe entire chain, from the source. I suspect this is what they are getting at. Treat the digital chain as a whole, and "apodize" it from the beginning all the way through and you get the best results. Now as you cannot replace the ADC in digital master, if you know its characteristics you could post-compensate them to align with your goals. Just guessing...


----------



## castleofargh

brahmsian said:


> jagwap said:
> 
> 
> > 2. "In fact, reports so far indicate that MQA is processing the tracks to be even louder!!"  This is not proof.  You cannot state as fact MQA dose nothing based on anecdotal reports in this forum.
> ...


 

 your feedback is based on typical uncontrolled sighted listening, which in this section at least means really close to nothing. the report we have read about loudness change comes from another MQA topic. the member gives a value but we don't know if that value was pulled out of a hat or measured for 1 anecdotal song. it also means close to nothing at this point.
 it's obvious that different masters will sometimes feel obviously different because they are, loudness included.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> 1. Very unlikely after all this trouble they are messing with the actual dynamic or frequency mix of the master they are using.  Not only is it the opposite of everything these guys stand for, it would be commercial suicide if they got caught.  It is not a sensible assumption, unless you arre very biased.
> 2. "Very admirable sentiment but MQA does nothing reduce the loudness war. In fact, reports so far indicate that MQA is processing the tracks to be even louder!!"  This is not proof.
> 
> 3. This likely is having a larger effect on the hearts (who am I kidding) and minds of the industry: http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/end-loudness-war. But it may help them reverse the direction in time for these re-releases to be back to the original dynamic range.


 
  
 1&2. You can't have it both ways, either they are not "messing with the actual dynamic" of the master, in which case they're doing nothing about the loudness war or if they have found some way of combating it then they are messing with the master. Again, it's rather unclear what MQA is doing or is capable of doing. However, I can't even imagine a reliable method to even identify recordings suffering from over compression, let alone a practical technique to remove/reduce it and if MQA really has found such revolutionary techniques of doing both it would be a significant breakthrough in it's own right, yet I've seen no mention of such techniques in either their publicity or patent filing or in the pro audio press. Maybe one day something like this will be possible, some form of AI might be a good candidate, but not today and not with MQA. So, no, although I do not have absolute proof that MQA is not doing anything about the loudness war it's a pretty safe assumption which is based on more than just forum posts!
  
 3. This is quite a big subject area which I'm very familiar with but it doesn't affect the situation under discussion. It affects the whole music creation process, the structure/composition/arrangement, the mixing and the mastering, not just the use (or overuse) of compression/limiting. As far as I'm aware, the current Tidal MQA offerings are just batch processed masters, not remixes or even re-masters. It's possible that the MQA team is choosing the most dynamic masters to encode but then that's nothing to do with MQA itself, one could just as easily pick the same most dynamic masters and encode them with say FLAC and get the same, if not better, end result with no MQA involvement.


jagwap said:


> 2. It is not a blatant lie, when they honestly believe it.  It may or not be true, but it doesn't make it a lie if they believe it to be true.


 
  
 While it's conceivable (though difficult or impossible in practice) that an ADC could be fingerprinted and compensated for, provided the ADCs are known, there's no practical way to fingerprint and automatically compensate for the perception of studio acoustics and all the other factors/components which comprise a studio's "system". It's inconceivable MQA do not know these basics and therefore inconceivable that they're not just lying. However, I'm sure Bob Stuart is smart enough to "spin" what's been quoted if pushed on the point!
  


brahmsian said:


> [1] Gregorio wrote: "Really? Have you ever heard what an electric guitar sounds like without processing?" That's why I dropped the "electric."
> [2] Sure, a lot of processing exists to improve the track.
> [3] What accounts for these differences I will leave open for now. All I know is that I prefer the MQA version.


 
  
 1. So what are you saying, any music with an electric guitar should be "dropped" or is unacceptable? What about the drum kit, no modern rock or electronic drum kits either, only acoustic jazz kits, no vocal processing? Effectively you've just eliminated almost all popular music of the last 50 years or so! Even if you just drop "electric", so we're talking about acoustic guitars, still post-recording processing is commonly employed! The reduction of finger/fret noise for example, to make the recording sound more natural.
  
 2. No, ALL processing exists to improve the track! Even that processing which deliberately (or inadvertently) adds distortion, "blurring" or reduces fidelity. Of course, you may not personally consider all processing to improve the track but commercial music isn't produced and mastered for your sole personal listening circumstances, system and preferences.
  
 3. Unfortunately, that sort of logical fallacy absolutely plagues the audiophile world, both the audiophiles themselves and those who market products to them. There are few industries so badly plagued. For example, let's say I've got two cars, one fitted with Michelin tyres and the other with Pirelli's. I prefer the Michelin one, so I post on a car forum that Michelin tyred cars are better. Of course, that's an illogical conclusion and I'd soon be inundated with replies saying; hang on a minute, are they the same spec tyres you're comparing and/or, are they the same model of car? Maybe your car with the Michelin's is a Porche and your other car is a Ford Fiesta, who wouldn't prefer a Porche to a Fiesta, your preference probably doesn't have anything to do with the make of tyres. If I were to reply; "I don't know what accounts for the difference, all I know is I've tried them and prefer Michelin tyred cars", I'd be treated as a Michelin shill or an idiot and, it wouldn't even need to be a car science forum!
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1&2. You can't have it both ways, either they are not "messing with the actual dynamic" of the master, in which case they're doing nothing about the loudness war or if they have found some way of combating it then they are messing with the master. Again, it's rather unclear what MQA is doing or is capable of doing. However, I can't even imagine a reliable method to even identify recordings suffering from over compression, let alone a practical technique to remove/reduce it and if MQA really has found such revolutionary techniques of doing both it would be a significant breakthrough in it's own right, yet I've seen no mention of such techniques in either their publicity or patent filing or in the pro audio press. Maybe one day something like this will be possible, some form of AI might be a good candidate, but not today and not with MQA. So, no, although I do not have absolute proof that MQA is not doing anything about the loudness war it's a pretty safe assumption which is based on more than just forum posts!




I can have it both ways if I'm talking about popular music recorded before the mid 1990s, as the orignal master or a close copy will often still exist, and if that is used it will have far less compresion. A broad assumption but generally true? All I'm suggesting and hoping for is the less compressed version is used when available. Perhaps the one used as a source that goes for the vinyl version in the modern recordings as this usually is less compressed, and means that somewhere there is a copy before the ham fisted morons turned it up to 11 on the digital release.


> 3. This is quite a big subject area which I'm very familiar with but it doesn't affect the situation under discussion. It affects the whole music creation process, the structure/composition/arrangement, the mixing and the mastering, not just the use (or overuse) of compression/limiting. As far as I'm aware, the current Tidal MQA offerings are just batch processed masters, not remixes or even re-masters. It's possible that the MQA team is choosing the most dynamic masters to encode but then that's nothing to do with MQA itself, one could just as easily pick the same most dynamic masters and encode them with say FLAC and get the same, if not better, end result with no MQA involvement.




But that is my point: if the whole music process is heading that way then the big music companies may be more interested in releasing the better versions they have locked away, instead of cranking up the compression year on year. I am happy to have a FLAC, ALAC or MQA version of good music, as this makes a bigger difference to the enjoyment than the modest if any other things we are discussing here. If MQA regularly gets me the better version I will learn to trust it and use it. Unlike HDTRACKS who have too often sent out some shockingly compressed hires albums including so called audiophile stuff.


> While it's conceivable (though difficult or impossible in practice) that an ADC could be fingerprinted and compensated for, provided the ADCs are known, there's no practical way to fingerprint and automatically compensate for the perception of studio acoustics and all the other factors/components which comprise a studio's "system". It's inconceivable MQA do not know these basics and therefore inconceivable that they're not just lying. However, I'm sure Bob Stuart is smart enough to "spin" what's been quoted if pushed on the point!




Agreed. I never thought they could do that. I assumed they would give you the media as it was put down, and it's up to you to play it back. I not stupid enough to think that they can recreate the studio monitors in my home. Marketing often relies on people gullibility and that's why I hate it.

Edit: E.G. CD - Perfect sound forever. Bollox


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Fine. You say in a well argued opinion it is fine, but when you say they are lying that is slander.


 
 If anything, posting a statement in a public forum might be libel (slander is verbal, libel is printed), but this is a public forum where opinion is regularly stated enough to be assumed to be opinion. A libel suit would never stick. If it pleases you, I could say, "In my opinion, they are lying.", but the "In my opinion" portion is assumed in a public forum. Since all it takes to post here is a free login, there's really no authority conveyed to any of us other than by what may accumulate through our posts.
  
 Hence, it's not libel, and since I not posting an audio recording, it's not slander either. 


jagwap said:


> You mis-read my point. I was pointing out that jitter could not be corrected along with other difficult to correlate artefacts.


 
  You wrote, "In the case of an analogue master, mastered with a 2 channel ADC which is known,* there is the possibility to post correct for non random (eg jitter) behaviour.* The DAC is known by them if it is MQA approved."
  
 You might see why I missed your point.  Jitter is not always non-random, it's usually very random.  It's also a non-issue.  Mentioning a post-correction to jitter in a case involving an analog master is patently absurd.
  
 However, post-correcting the impulse response of a known ADC and DAC in that chain is also absurd, and presumes way too much to be an accurate correction, the results of which are as yet vague and unproven.  
  
 Quote:


jagwap said:


> The whole statement on apodizing was that while you can do it in the DAC, it is better if you do it inthe entire chain, from the source. I suspect this is what they are getting at. Treat the digital chain as a whole, and "apodize" it from the beginning all the way through and you get the best results. Now as you cannot replace the ADC in digital master, if you know its characteristics you could post-compensate them to align with your goals. Just guessing...


 
 I believe Bob-o has gone on record as denying that he's using an apodizing filter.  He hasn't said what he's using, so for all we know, it could be a digital MPD filter*. 
  
 Now, having actually experienced first hand the process of compensating for the phase response of a multi-pole anti-aliasing filter, I can tell you, it's NOT trivial, it's not easy, and it is very, very specific to the response you are trying to compensate for.  The specific exercise was to reduce filter overshoot resulting from transients so that the overshoots were more easily controlled from a maximum peak standpoint.  The application was broadcast, FM stereo, where there is such a filter preventing audio from mixing with the 19kHz stereo pilot.  The filter requirements are exactly the same as an antialiasing filter in an ADC, but with a lower cutoff frequency.  There were several attempts, with varying success.  But intimate knowledge of the original filter was required to even improve the result at all, and the best results entailed modification of the original filter topology so that its phase response could be more easily corrected.  MQA doesn't have that option.  
  
 Treating the chain as a whole is essential, but having an accurate impulse response measurement of the whole chain is impossible, as it cannot include what happens pre ADC and post DAC (even if the DAC is MQA approved).  The chain includes more electronics with filters, transducers, and several acoustic paths, all of which remains unaddressed, and unknowable. 
  
 My skepticism is not based just in opinion from reading their marketing fluff, I do have at least a bit of hands-on with this sort of thing.  The experience has served to amplify my skepticism just a few dB. So I'm not exactly "just guessing". 
  
(* MPD= Magic Pixie Dust)


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] I can have it both ways if I'm talking about popular music recorded before the mid 1990s, as the orignal master or a close copy will often still exist, and if that is used it will have far less compresion. A broad assumption but generally true? All I'm suggesting and hoping for is the less compressed version is used when available.





> [2] Perhaps the one used as a source that goes for the vinyl version in the modern recordings as this usually is less compressed, and means that somewhere there is a copy before the ham fisted morons turned it up to 11 on the digital release.
> [3] But that is my point: if the whole music process is heading that way then the big music companies may be more interested in releasing the better versions they have locked away, instead of cranking up the compression year on year.





> [4] If MQA regularly gets me the better version I will learn to trust it and use it.





> [5] Agreed. I never thought they could do that. I assumed they would give you the media as it was put down, and it's up to you to play it back. I not stupid enough to think that they can recreate the studio monitors in my home.
> 
> [6] Edit: E.G. CD - Perfect sound forever. Bollox


 
  
 1. Yes, in that sense you can have your cake and eat it. However, it's not an MQA cake!
 2. That wouldn't necessarily be a good idea. Yes a vinyl master will typically have less compression but also it's likely to have been mastered to compensate for the deficiencies of vinyl.
 3. Hopefully the industry will go that way but it's not clear when or even if this will happen. That article was published over 3 years ago and nothing noticable has changed yet but assuming that it does, what does any of it have to do with MQA?
 4. No, you're missing the point! You are falling into a typical audiophile fallacy, you're confusing the container with what that container is containing! I can put a stale old burger on plate A and a cordon bleu meal on plate B but just because the cordon bleu meal tastes nicer doesn't mean plate B is better, plate B might actually be worse! All the marketing BS is annoying enough but the real issue is far worse, how they plan on making money from MQA. They're going to charge everyone involved in making MQA format content, the artists, engineers and distributors, who are either going to have to pass that charge on to you (the consumer), reduce the amount they spend making their music products or both. Neither of these is good for the consumer because either you have to pay more, the quality of music products decreases or both and of course it also dissuades new talent.
 5. Yet this is what they appear to be claiming "_For new recordings or special re-issues, where possible we fingerprint *the system* and converters used." _ They've said "where possible" which provides a bit of a get-out clause but then stated _"This can be done for tracks or mixes._" I can't see how they can get out of this though because it simply cannot be done.
 6. Again, that's confusing the container with what the container contains! Using the above analogy again, 16/44.1 (CD) is indeed in effect the perfect plate forever but the actual food that anyone chooses put on that plate could be anything from 3 Star Michelin quality to pig swill!
  
 G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. Yes, in that sense you can have your cake and eat it. However, it's not an MQA cake!
> 2. That wouldn't necessarily be a good idea. Yes a vinyl master will typically have less compression but also it's likely to have been mastered to compensate for the deficiencies of vinyl.
> 3. Hopefully the industry will go that way but it's not clear when or even if this will happen. That article was published over 3 years ago and nothing noticable has changed yet but assuming that it does, what does any of it have to do with MQA?
> 4. No, you're missing the point! You are falling into a typical audiophile fallacy, you're confusing the container with what that container is containing! I can put a stale old burger on plate A and a cordon bleu meal on plate B but just because the cordon bleu meal tastes nicer doesn't mean plate B is better, plate B might actually be worse! All the marketing BS is annoying enough but the real issue is far worse, how they plan on making money from MQA. They're going to charge everyone involved in making MQA format content, the artists, engineers and distributors, who are either going to have to pass that charge on to you (the consumer), reduce the amount they spend making their music products or both. Neither of these is good for the consumer because either you have to pay more, the quality of music products decreases or both and of course it also dissuades new talent.
> ...


 

 2: The source master, from which the vinyl master comes from.  If vinyl often has less compressed versions of the album (see loudness database, they mostly do), it must come from a master that has less compression than the digital release.  Therefore this should still be available, as it has been stated many times here, you cannot uncompress music successfully (I've heard the XL recordings and similar. Commendable effort, but no)
  
 3. MQA is a huge industry backed rerelease.  IF this trend starts, and it fits with the MQA ethos I hope (and it may be in vain I admit) that this may end up the vehicle where this can occur.  So far the anecdotal evidence is sketchy, but I'm hearing a promising start from Warner.
  
 4. No I'm not.  I know the difference. I've been doing this a while too.  I have spent years collecting non-crappy versions of music.  It has become a hobby.  I don't care if they make money if I can have a decent version of the music I love.  If they screw it up again I shall be as bitter and biased as you.  But until then I keep an open mind.  It helps I met these guys, and I don't think they are as cynical as you sound.
  
 5. It is a get out clause or an accurate statement that it is not always possible to do as much as they would like. (although on the mixes thing, I'd like to see some info). It is a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of thing.  I'm an engineer so usually I am a "the glass is twice as large as it needs to be.  However spending any time here tends to make it "a glass that needs topping up"
  
 6. No I'm not: 44.1kHz 16bit is not perfect and CD does not last as long as 78 shellack (although CD is stunningly elegant given the technology available at commercial costs at the time.  My goodness: ETF, Reed-soloman, the radial tracking arm, servo systems, constant linear velocity...).  It is still marketing, but you have accepted it?


----------



## Brahmsian

pinnahertz said:


> 1. The comparison technique is not scientific. It can be shown that a clear preference results when a listener is told A is better than B, even though they are actually identical.
> 
> 2. So, the critical listening and comparison is done using a ca 1980 analog recording?  Ok...welll.... Everything described above could be more readily attributed to re-capturing a lower-generation master, perhaps one that wasn't equalized for the vinyl release, or a safety, etc.  In essence, a better capture is a remaster.
> 
> 3. Are you aware that for some of us describing something as sounding "more analog" carries a strong negative connotation?...If it really sounds "more analog", I'd assume it sounds worse.



1. I didn't claim it was scientific. Moreover, I know our sonic memory is very short but not when the differences are as clear between the two versions as it is in this case. We're not talking about subtle differences. I'm also fairly certain I don't prefer the MQA version just because I was told I should; there's simply too much I prefer about it. But of course I'm also sure there's no way I could prove it to you since it's an assessment at least partly based on taste.

2. Yes, and that's why I didn't make any assumptions about why it sounded different.

3. By analog I simply meant more natural sounding, smoother. The non-MQA version of the track was grating in comparison.

It would sure be interesting if you and/or others listened to the two tracks and gave your impressions. Impressions aren't scientific but then they also aren't nothing either. Our senses can deceive us but if they deceived us all the time we wouldn't have survived. Just note that to play the Masters versions you have to download the Tidal player. When the Master's playing it'll say MASTER instead of HIFI bottom right.


----------



## Brahmsian

pinnahertz said:


> No, it is not possible to apply a correction to any but a very few, very well documented cases...No, their technique can't help the "vast majority of masters", of which most are undocumented as to the specific gear used and in what way.



The MQA guys definitely disagree with your assessment. Here's what Bob Stuart says about that:

"*Q19*. What approx fraction of the music catalog has provenance information?

*A19*. That’s hard to express in numbers but here’s a guess – 70%. The three majors account for ~65% of the music market worldwide and, in general they have records varying from good to excellent. They all have problems that they acquired, divested, swapped or traded sub-labels and each small startup had different work practises. A small fraction of the independent labels have superb records of their work (e.g. ECM, 2L, UnaMas). Many don’t. Many archives are plagued by missing items or hardware problems to play back important recordings. For most labels, they tend to know about the location of the true archive for top-selling or important works. E.g. no-one is confused, (partly through the excellent work of Steve Berkowitz), which is the correct Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Brubeck, Beatles etc. We would imagine that 70% of titles ever released can be vouched for to a reasonable degree of confidence. However there is mayhem in distribution: one aggregator reported having 23 different versions of an Otis Reading song. In some cases, the label had lost track of the fact that WMA or even MP3 had been used en route. You don’t want to buy that unless it’s definitive."

One of the problems I'm having with your criticism is that it assumes that the people behind MQA are either audio idiots, charlatans, or both, but their personal and professional histories would seem to demonstrate otherwise.


----------



## Brahmsian

pinnahertz said:


> that's 4 conversions, minimum, but possibly many more. And possibly through different DACs, ADCs and filters, even possibly at different sampling frequencies. The composite would be a jumble of different DACs, ADCs, and their filters. No, you can't compensate for that.
> 
> No, their technique can't help the "vast majority of masters", of which most are undocumented as to the specific gear used and in what way. This is one of the biggest fallacies of MQA. Even in the simplest productions there is a filter, DAC, ADC and filter...that's two conversions with two filters that may or may not be the same.   Some early digital recordings were made at 50kHz and then released later at 44.1 on CD.  What do you do with that one?
> 
> ...



It looks to me like they're claiming to have invented technology that is capable of this. The following question was posed to Bob Stuart: 

The MQA process is said to be able to improve upon the original recording by de-blurring. How can this function with the common recording that has had many levels of processing between the recorded data and the end result?

His answer:

"There are a number of routes. First the individual tracks can be corrected prior to mixing. That is not necessarily a total solution depending on other processing going on and what works best depends on some specifics. Alternatively the tracks can be post-analysed individually.

"However in some cases mixed ADCs are used and the optimum solution depends on their similarity or otherwise. In any case our encoder can perform analysis of the composite mix and this is the best approach when there is not enough information and it tends to get extremely good answers. We have several practical examples of recovering resolution with mixed ADCs."

He also says:

"Our encoder is sophisticated at scanning source for the ADC and signal fingerprints. It’s also on the lookout for oddities. By the way, we might find an up-sampled file, or a file where some of the stems or tracks were up-sampled, but fundamentally that’s not our business to argue. In today’s production systems, some studios routinely bounce out of digital into analogue and back, just to access favourite signal processors. That’s their prerogative. If the label asserts that there is one best version, technical issues like that aren’t to be judged. We only query the provenance."


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> 44.1kHz 16bit is not perfect and CD does not last as long as 78 shellack (although CD is stunningly elegant given the technology available at commercial costs at the time.



Seriously?  You think a 78 shellac record lasts longer than a CD? 

What percentage of 78 shellac records were instantly destroyed when they were dropped..once?  Scratched by a fumbled tone arm? Warped by improper storage?  And how many do we have today relative to how many were made?

What percentage of CDs were even slightly damaged by dropping?

How many times can you play a 78 without degradation?  (none).  CD? (no practical limit).

We don't know how long a CD will last because they've only been around for 35 years, but it won't matter because everything on CD will have been long since transferred to something else before they hit 100 years.  The "CD Rot" thing affected a few early discs, and "bronzing" affected a batch made by a couple of manufacturers in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  But those are defects, not a flaw of concept, and there are many first gen CDs that play just fine after 35 years. Let's just lay the longevity thing to rest for another 50 years or so, ok?

Perfect sound?  This is a tough one because relatively few of us have had the opportunity to hear live music from the stereo bus of a console, then the same thing looped through a PCM recorder (essentially record and play a few milliseconds apart).  It's pretty eye opening.  16/44 does a more than adequate job of replicating the live mix to the point where it fools experts.  Try that with a 78, or any analog format.

Sony goofed with "perfect sound forever" because nothing is perfect, and we won't know about forever for a bit yet.  But can't you tell marketing when you read it? 

Nobody makes either claim about a 78.  It's so far from perfect as to be it's own entity entirely, and longevity depends entirely on handling and storage.  But that's the same for all means of storing audio.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> 2: The source master, from which the vinyl master comes from.  If vinyl often has less compressed versions of the album (see loudness database, they mostly do), it must come from a master that has less compression than the digital release.  Therefore this should still be available, as it has been stated many times here, you cannot uncompress music successfully ...
> 
> 3. MQA is a huge industry backed rerelease.  IF this trend starts, and it fits with the MQA ethos I hope (and it may be in vain I admit) that this may end up the vehicle where this can occur.  So far the anecdotal evidence is sketchy, but I'm hearing a promising start from Warner.
> 
> ...



2. OK, I see your misunderstanding. Yes, actually you can easily uncompress music, you can't uncompress a master. To uncompress music all you have to do is bypass or reduce the compressor! Let me explain: I setup a DAW mastering session, import the final mix, apply EQ, compression and whatever other processing I deem appropriate for a CD. Once completed I print the results to disk (at 44.1/16), I now have an original master (for CD). I then duplicate this DAW master session, reduce the compressor settings, apply the RIAA EQ curve, maybe tweak some other settings and once completed, I print the results to disk and I now have another master (for vinyl). You want the original master? No problem, buy the CD and you'll get a bit perfect duplicate of my original master! BTW, it's entirely possible for me to do it the other way around; to make the vinyl master first and then increase the compression (if desired/requested), remove the RIAA curve and then print the CD master.

3. What "MQA ethos"? An anti-loudness war ethos is is an anti-loudness war ethos not an MQA ethos, it's an ethos which can be applied with just about any audio container format. And, we have no way of knowing if this really is a tenet of the company or just marketing BS. Pretty much all audio format developments in the last 20 years or so have stated they are anti-loudness wars but in every case we've eventually seen dodgy practices, SACD and other Hires formats for example.

4. That's a contradiction! The way MQA makes it's money is to take it from those creating the music. Do you think that taking money from the studios and artists is going to increase recording quality or reduce it? If your priority really is quality recordings then MQA should be the very last format you support!!!

5. Hang on a minute, regardless of what I or pinnahertz have said regarding why it must be a lie, you have already agreed! You even said "I not stupid enough to think that they can recreate the studio monitors in my home."

6. How is it not perfect?


Brahmsian said:


> Our senses can deceive us but if they deceived us all the time we wouldn't have survived.



How on earth did you manage to get this so absolutely backwards? If the world suddenly disappeared for 200-400ms every couple seconds how would that have aided survival? Our brain fills in the blanks and deceives us into experiencing continuity when we blink, so that we're not confused by what our senses are actually sensing. Our perception of hearing is also heavily processed/changed by our brain in numerous ways. For example, it tends to remove or reduce continuous background audio patterns and focus on changes to the pattern. If it didn't, we'd be far less aware of subtle changes/sounds which could indicate imminent danger (a preditor stalking us for example). How would that aid survival? Another example; under certain conditions (stress/anxiety for example), our brain may cease to apply one of it's usual "deceptions" and we suddenly hear the massive thumping our ears are actually hearing all the time. What's the logical alternative to our brain not "deceiving us all the time"? That the vast majority of the time our heart is motionless and only starts beating under certain stressful conditions?

In practise, virtually all the commercial audio you hear absolutely depends on the fact you are continuously being deceived, that there is a significant difference between perception and reality and music is predicated on it!


Brahmsian said:


> The MQA process is said to be able to improve upon the original recording by de-blurring. How can this function with the common recording that has had many levels of processing between the recorded data and the end result?
> 
> His answer:
> "[1] First the individual tracks can be corrected prior to mixing.
> ...



1. Firstly, corrected for what? Pro ADCs are linear to a small fraction of a dB throughout the audible band and are by far the most transparent bit of kit in a studio system.
2. "not necessarily a total solution" is nonsense! They're talking about solving ADC blurring (which is effectively inaudible) but none of the blurring which is easily (and often deliberately) audible. They stated they can fingerprint the studio's "system" but mentioned nothing about the system in their response, they only talked about insignificant ADC/s blurring. It's like: Your car has been in a head on collision with a truck and after towing it and leaving it in the shop for a few days the mechanic says; we found and fixed a virtually invisible paintwork blemish on the trunk but this is "not necessarily a total solution". 
3. Even if we were to accept this statement is true, it makes a lie of another of their marketing claims! A central claim of MQA is providing the consumer with the mix/master heard by the artists in the studio BUT the mix/master heard by the artists in the studio contained this so called ADC "blurring"! Therefore, if MQA really is changing/correcting this "blurring" (or anything else) then their claim of providing the mix/master heard by the artists in the studio MUST be a lie.
4. OK, so in fact MQA does not provide any protection against one of the main scams which can afflict hires releases!

5. We assume they are audio idiots or charlatans in the case of MQA because there is no logical alternative. I agree that their histories tend to indicated that they are not audio idiots, in which case the logical conclusion is that they must be charlatans. Although, some of their answers indicate that while they may have an excellent understanding of some aspects of audio, they appear ignorant of some of the actual practicalities/methodologies of the recording, production and mastering processes. 

G


----------



## pinnahertz

Brahmsian said:


> The MQA guys definitely disagree with your assessment.


Yes, I know!


Brahmsian said:


> One of the problems I'm having with your criticism is that it assumes that the people behind MQA are either audio idiots, charlatans, or both, but their personal and professional histories would seem to demonstrate otherwise.


I don't assume anything.  All I ask for is actual scientific proof that what they say is true.  Shouldn't be hard to do, but it's not being done.


----------



## castleofargh

the problem is that having a MQA file means everything and nothing at all.  MQA tries to pass as the 7in1 shampoo of audio format. but each time you buy a bottle you play the lottery and get between 1 and 7 effects. you can't even confirm how many of those stuff are in the bottle but it's always called MQA anyway. if the sound is different, different to what? different why? who knows. not the consumer that's for sure. 

even if I agreed with all the processes claimed to make the sound better(and I don't), the commercial decision to put everything in the same bottle and run with it is making the format untrustworthy. and IMO, just adds to the giant crap of high res audio and how price tags are clipped onto a format or a container resolution instead of trying to make clean quality products.


as for the time blurring BS. increase sample rate, boom deblurring, gentler low pass even though it messes up the phase, boom still called deblurring because it reduces ringing. they could actually do the exact opposite and still come calling it deblurring. it's impossible to say that they do or don't improve time smearing, because for the most part, these terms are bogus and we can make them mean anything we like. as soon as objective evidence becomes a problem, you just have to say that some people feel something-something and now it's subjective so there is nothing to prove or disprove.


----------



## old tech

Brahmsian said:


> 1. I didn't claim it was scientific. Moreover, I know our sonic memory is very short but not when the differences are as clear between the two versions as it is in this case. We're not talking about subtle differences. I'm also fairly certain I don't prefer the MQA version just because I was told I should; there's simply too much I prefer about it. But of course I'm also sure there's no way I could prove it to you since it's an assessment at least partly based on taste.
> 
> 2. Yes, and that's why I didn't make any assumptions about why it sounded different.
> 
> ...



1 & 2.  No doubt you do hear differences.  The issue is why, is it a different master or expectation bias or something else unrelated to MQA?  The only way to be sure is to construct a proper double blind test with the same source material, level matched etc etc.

3. Not sure what you mean. There are smooth, natural sounding recordings, clear, crisp and detailed recordings, veiled recordings etc.  This relates to the actual recording and mastering of the end product and very little to do whether it was an analog or digital recording.  In fact, a well implemented digital recording can be more natural than an analog recording because less information is lost between the microphone and loudspeaker transducers.

Yes we are humans.  As someone once said, our senses are limited but our ability to fool our senses is unlimited.  While I can sympathise with the point that if we are always fooled then so what, it would be fatal in some endevours such as medicine where a placebo does not cure the underlying disease. But for more mundane pursuits such as high fidelity, it is a bit like living in a matrix, once you break out you can get a greater appreciation of reality.


----------



## Brahmsian (Apr 28, 2017)

gregorio said:


> How on earth did you manage to get this so absolutely backwards? If the world suddenly disappeared for 200-400ms every couple seconds how would that have aided survival? Our brain fills in the blanks and deceives us into experiencing continuity when we blink, so that we're not confused by what our senses are actually sensing. Our perception of hearing is also heavily processed/changed by our brain in numerous ways. For example, it tends to remove or reduce continuous background audio patterns and focus on changes to the pattern. If it didn't, we'd be far less aware of subtle changes/sounds which could indicate imminent danger (a preditor stalking us for example). How would that aid survival? Another example; under certain conditions (stress/anxiety for example), our brain may cease to apply one of it's usual "deceptions" and we suddenly hear the massive thumping our ears are actually hearing all the time. What's the logical alternative to our brain not "deceiving us all the time"? That the vast majority of the time our heart is motionless and only starts beating under certain stressful conditions?
> 
> In practise, virtually all the commercial audio you hear absolutely depends on the fact you are continuously being deceived, that there is a significant difference between perception and reality and music is predicated on it!
> 
> G



Nothing you say here refutes what I said; on the contrary, it begins to make my point. I see that the traffic light has turned green, so I cross the intersection. My senses didn't deceive me. It _had_ turned green. Now let's say for a moment that traffic lights really aren't green, that the green tint is merely produced through some effect that tricks my brain into seeing it as green. So what? The fact is that I perceived it as green, and I rightly interpreted the green-effect to mean Go, and I went.

Now the MQA version of Born Under Punches sounds better to me. You seem to be arguing that because it sounds better to me it must actually be worse! On the other hand, it might sound better to me because it really is better. Also, what objective standard would we be using here to determine whether the MQA version is really better? Part of the MQA argument is that the usual standards of sampling rate, lossy vs lossless don't hold here, at least not in the usual way.

But for the sake of argument let's say that my hearing is deceiving me, as in the case of the traffic light that really isn't green but is only perceived as green. Let's say that the smoothness or dynamic range was merely an effect intentionally produced through some technical wizardry so that it only SOUNDED better than the non-MQA version. Well, if the music sounds better, it sounds better, regardless of what objective measurements might say--measurements that, moreover, might be using the wrong standard by which to judge this new technology. If the MQA merely improved the effect, I'd still be fine with it. But of course MQA's claim is more than that.

Here's the problem with this discussion: you apparently haven't listened to and compared the two versions for yourself, so you have no first-hand knowledge of what I'm talking about (though I'd be interested to hear your assessment). You almost seem to be saying, "It doesn't matter what I would hear. What we hear is irrelevant."


----------



## LajostheHun

It is irrelevant for the simple reason, that you actually comparing 2 different masters, therefore you don't know if any of the perceivable differences you hear is coming from the different masters or if it indeed a contribution of MQA. I suspect you don't care of that and that's OK, but then you're on the wrong forum, since nobody here wana debate what you actually hear or prefer, which very much a personal thing.


----------



## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> [1] On the other hand, it might sound better to me because it really is better.
> [1a] Also, what objective standard would we be using here to determine whether the MQA version is really better?
> 
> [2] Part of the MQA argument is that the usual standards of sampling rate, lossy vs lossless don't hold here, at least not in the usual way.
> ...



1. It might sound better to you under certain circumstances and worse under others. Depending on your preferences, it might sound better to you because it's worse (less accurate). There are all kinds of variables and reasons why your (or any individual's) subjective opinion is worthless. That's why science exists.
1a. First is to actually compare like for like, otherwise your conclusion is pretty much guaranteed to be utter nonsense! Second is to try and eliminate the various biases/perceptions which are likely to deceive you. Hence why blind and double blind testing was invented.

2. I must have missed that "part of the MQA argument" which apparently argues that it is not digital audio. Obviously, if the rules which define digital audio don't apply to MQA then MQA can't be digital audio.

3. Not sure I understand, are you saying that "for the sake of argument let's say" that you are a human being? Are you saying that in real life you are not a human being?

4. Are you really being serious? MQA is not a new technology, it's new mathematical algorithms applied to an old technology (digital audio)! If we can't make objective measurements and input those measurements (data) into MQA then there can be no MQA audio files!  ...
4a. If you are hearing something contrary to the measurements/data then your hearing must be deceiving you and is totally irrelevant!

Your arguments are getting ever more desperate and ridiculous. If you really want to talk about unmeasurable, magical properties of a digital audio format, you're in the wrong place. This is the Science forum and there are no unmeasurable, magical properties only unmeasurable, provably flawed, variable perceptions! 

G


----------



## pinnahertz

Brahmsian said:


> Nothing you say here refutes what I said; on the contrary, it begins to make my point. I see that the traffic light has turned green, so I cross the intersection. My senses didn't deceive me. It _had_ turned green. Now let's say for a moment that traffic lights really aren't green, that the green tint is merely produced through some effect that tricks my brain into seeing it as green. So what? The fact is that I perceived it as green, and I rightly interpreted the green-effect to mean Go, and I went.


This is not a good analogy at all.  Traffic light colors were chosen specifically to be unambiguous to the great majority of drivers, for obvious reasons.  So far MQA has not proven to be nearly so unambiguous.


Brahmsian said:


> Now the MQA version of Born Under Punches sounds better to me.


Perhaps, but only under one set of circumstances which include bias.


Brahmsian said:


> You seem to be arguing that because it sounds better to me it must actually be worse!


No, that's not it at all.


Brahmsian said:


> On the other hand, it might sound better to me because it really is better.


On the other, other hand, it might sound better because you expect it to and know without doubt that you are listening to MQA.  Heck, a deaf person could tell he's being exposed to MQA.  There's a light, right?


Brahmsian said:


> Also, what objective standard would we be using here to determine whether the MQA version is really better? Part of the MQA argument is that the usual standards of sampling rate, lossy vs lossless don't hold here, at least not in the usual way.


The first thing to research is _not_ to find out if it's better, but to determine if there is a clearly and reliable difference.  To do that you need a lot of controls in place.  First, you need a master with which to make an MQA version and a non-MQA version.  You can't use any commercially done releases because there's no control in place that confirms the master used is the same as the master used for the MQA version.  That control does not exist at this time, it will have to be done for testing.  Then, you need to do a controlled DBT/ABX test with sufficient trials and listeners to collect statistically significant data.  You have to use identical equipment to play both versions in perfect synchronization, and level matched. That data will clearly present if there's a repeatable and audible difference.  Nobody's done that either.  There are several reasons, the biggest being the problem with the controlled and known master.  Until that kind of testing is done, there's no point in auditioning and judging anything about MQA itself, though qualitative opinions can be formed about an MQA release, the results cannot be related to the MQA process with any certainty.

Once you've established there is a difference, you can chase after researching if it's universally percieved as better.  However, until there's a provable difference, the better/worse decision is impossible to make.


Brahmsian said:


> But for the sake of argument let's say that my hearing is deceiving me, as in the case of the traffic light that really isn't green but is only perceived as green. Let's say that the smoothness or dynamic range was merely an effect intentionally produced through some technical wizardry so that it only SOUNDED better than the non-MQA version. Well, if the music sounds better, it sounds better, regardless of what objective measurements might say--measurements that, moreover, might be using the wrong standard by which to judge this new technology. If the MQA merely improved the effect, I'd still be fine with it. But of course MQA's claim is more than that.


Your analogy is still faulty, and so are a lot of the assumptions.  Nobody has made any measurements, or any actual valid comparisons. And that's a big part of the problem.  If we had actual measurements we could correlate them to what is heard.  


Brahmsian said:


> Here's the problem with this discussion: you apparently haven't listened to and compared the two versions for yourself, so you have no first-hand knowledge of what I'm talking about (though I'd be interested to hear your assessment).


Nobody has!  The process of creating the MQA version and the non-MQA version has not been verified!  Everyone is listening to two version that are potentially different from the beginning, and the differences may not be related to MQA at all.  Essentially, every MQA release is a re-master.  If a re-master sounded identical to the original, what would be the point?  All re-masters must, by definition, sound different from the original.


Brahmsian said:


> You almost seem to be saying, "It doesn't matter what I would hear. What we hear is irrelevant."


That is correct when it comes to determining the value and benefits of MQA.


----------



## Brahmsian

LajostheHun said:


> It is irrelevant for the simple reason, that you actually comparing 2 different masters, therefore you don't know if any of the perceivable differences you hear is coming from the different masters or if it indeed a contribution of MQA. I suspect you don't care of that and that's OK, but then you're on the wrong forum, since nobody here wana debate what you actually hear or prefer, which very much a personal thing.



I already acknowledged that. But I completely disagree with your assertion that what you actually hear or prefer is irrelevant, here or elsewhere. What you actually hear is the whole point! In fact, it is absurd to separate the objective from the subjective. They work together. What is only objective is something that nobody ever hears. The subjective component HAS TO BE and IS a part of audio.


----------



## pinnahertz

Brahmsian said:


> I already acknowledged that. But I completely disagree with your assertion that what you actually hear or prefer is irrelevant, here or elsewhere. What you actually hear is the whole point! In fact, it is absurd to separate the objective from the subjective. They work together. What is only objective is something that nobody ever hears. The subjective component HAS TO BE and IS a part of audio.



Yes what you hear is the point, but what you perceive can be strongly affected by your expectations. The problem becomes drawing conclusions based on what you perceive without actually knowing if what you perceive is in fact different from an original at all, and if it is, then why/how is it different. You are assuming it is different and better without knowing for sure if it is or how it got to be that way, then attributing the improvement to MQA.


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## pinnahertz (Apr 29, 2017)

New Forum system let me double-post within a few seconds.  Hmmm!


----------



## LajostheHun

Brahmsian said:


> I already acknowledged that. But I completely disagree with your assertion that what you actually hear or prefer is irrelevant, here or elsewhere. What you actually hear is the whole point! In fact, it is absurd to separate the objective from the subjective. They work together. What is only objective is something that nobody ever hears. The subjective component HAS TO BE and IS a part of audio.


Well good luck with turning that windmill!


----------



## Brahmsian (Apr 30, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> Yes what you hear is the point, but what you perceive can be strongly affected by your expectations. The problem becomes drawing conclusions based on what you perceive without actually knowing if what you perceive is in fact different from an original at all, and if it is, then why/how is it different. You are assuming it is different and better without knowing for sure if it is or how it got to be that way, then attributing the improvement to MQA.


I actually agree with you. In fact, I left open whether the improvements I perceive, assuming they are even improvements, can actually be attributed to MQA. As you can see by the careful way I worded it, I left it all open to question. But I also leave open the possibility that people are perceiving improvement because something has actually been improved. I don't deny that expectation bias exits, by the way; I'm simply leaving open whether that's all MQA is, as some on this thread seem to be contending.

The reason I started reading this thread is because I wanted help understanding how MQA works. Simply criticizing it without first understanding how it works doesn't get us very far IMO. And what is frustrating is discussing MQA with people who are convinced it's a sham but haven't even listened to it! I'm not saying this thread hasn't been informative, because it has. Some of you seem to have actual knowledge of how the recording process works. Still, I think you're approaching MQA with a whole heap of preconceptions. What's kind of odd about this MQA thread is that so many people on it haven't even listened to MQA.

If you want to get very good sound out of no other hardware than your MacBook and a good pair of headphones, I recommend you download Audirvana and join Tidal through it (I did it the other way around so missed out on the three month free Tidal trial). The only problem is that, at least as far as I have been able to tell, Audirvana doesn't let you know which are the MQA versions until you actually start playing them (at which point it gives you the sampling frequency and bit rate). So what I did is place the MQA masters I wanted to listen to on my favorites page using Tidal player. You can then access your favorites page on Audirvana. Simply plug in some good headphones and start listening. For those just starting out, I'd say do this before getting an external DAC.


----------



## headfry

...expectation bias happens both ways, many decide that they hate what they perceive or fear
that MQA stands for, its intentions, and therefore criticize it without a fair audition or without
listening at all. Same thing happens online in other forums on many other topics, very frequently.


----------



## sonitus mirus

Brahmsian said:


> And what is frustrating is discussing MQA with people who are convinced it's a sham but haven't even listened to it! .



I have listened to several Tidal Masters as I reactivated my account for a month just for this purpose.  I thought they sounded the same or worse.

What is equally frustrating is that you seem to believe that listening to it will  somehow bring about a "Eureka!" moment, despite knowledgeable folks posting several intelligently written paragraphs outlining why this is a non sequitur.


----------



## headfry (Apr 30, 2017)

your experience...if it was universal MQA would have been dead in the water.

Despite what you and some others read into the MQA format  and its intent-
I  really like what I hear so far!

...as I said, expectation bias swings both ways. Months of listening
and I'm still enthusiastic!


----------



## sonitus mirus

headfry said:


> your experience...if it was universal MQA would have been dead in the water.
> 
> Despite what you and some others read into the MQA format  and its intent-
> I  really like what I hear so far!
> ...


Right, and after months of listening, neither of us can truly say that what we are hearing is better, worse, or even how it might be different, if it is different at all.  There has been nothing from the creators that would provide any proof, and only independent research has shown reliable evidence of what might be going on.  What has been shown makes it nearly impossible to believe some of the claims about MQA.


----------



## castleofargh

Brahmsian said:


> I actually agree with you. In fact, I left open whether the improvements I perceive, assuming they are even improvements, can actually be attributed to MQA. As you can see by the careful way I worded it, I left it all open to question. But I also leave open the possibility that people are perceiving improvement because something has actually been improved. I don't deny that expectation bias exits, by the way; I'm simply leaving open whether that's all MQA is, as some on this thread seem to be contending.
> 
> The reason I started reading this thread is because I wanted help understanding how MQA works. Simply criticizing it without first understanding how it works doesn't get us very far IMO. *And what is frustrating is discussing MQA with people who are convinced it's a sham but haven't even listened to it!* I'm not saying this thread hasn't been informative, because it has. Some of you seem to have actual knowledge of how the recording process works. Still, I think you're approaching MQA with a whole heap of preconceptions. What's kind of odd about this MQA thread is that so many people on it haven't even listened to MQA.
> 
> If you want to get very good sound out of no other hardware than your MacBook and a good pair of headphones, I recommend you download Audirvana and join Tidal through it (I did it the other way around so missed out on the three month free Tidal trial). The only problem is that, at least as far as I have been able to tell, Audirvana doesn't let you know which are the MQA versions until you actually start playing them (at which point it gives you the sampling frequency and bit rate). So what I did is place the MQA masters I wanted to listen to on my favorites page using Tidal player. You can then access your favorites page on Audirvana. Simply plug in some good headphones and start listening. For those just starting out, I'd say do this before getting an external DAC.


if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

we're here discussing the reality of something. data, patents, and digital audio theory are absolutely enough to criticize MQA's marketing and entertain very serious doubts about any idea of an improvement over other formats.
on the other hand, "listening to it", that's a sighted test and something highly inconclusive that we certainly don't value as much as you seem to do. maybe you're just too concerned about subjective stuff while reading a topic in a more objective sub section.


----------



## pinnahertz

headfry said:


> ...expectation bias happens both ways, many decide that they hate what they perceive or fear that MQA stands for, its intentions, and therefore criticize it without a fair audition or without listening at all.


Not exactly.  In fact, this is very height of presumption: that just because someone demands scientific proof of something that they couldn't possibly have even listened at all!  Arrogant presumption will get you know where fast.  How on earth could you know if I've heard MQA or not?  What if I told you I had, and my test results were inconclusive?  If my test results differed from yours, would I still be labeled an MQA hater?  

Let me clarify at least my position: I would love it if such a process as MQA could actually in and of itself improve the sound of existing recordings.  If there were such a process, and its results were obvious, wonderful, and always positive, who wouldn't love it?  If it were that good I personally wouldn't care if Merridian made a bucket of money on licensing, so long as all my favorite recordings suddenly sounded more wonderful than I could ever have hoped.  In fact, I'd want the process in stand-alone box that I could run all my old CDs and recordings through and get audio nirvana on the fly, and not wait for re-masters from MQA!  It's just an algorithm, right? Why not?  (I'll continue to breath normally while I wait, though). I'd probably want two of those boxes.  If one pass through MQA is good, just imagine what two would do! (And, I'm fairly sure that I'll have to say "I'm Kidding" or someone here will take this all very literally.)

However, this very premise of MQA flies in the face of several very sound scientific principles.  The creators and promotors of the product have done nothing to explain their process, nor have provided any scientific proof that it does anything but compress a file into a smaller size.  What sketchy explanations we have include terminology created specifically to define a problem that the solution addresses.  We have nothing to say that the problem MQA "solves" even exists in the audible world!

At the risk of repeating myself by saying something that should be obvious: if the "improvement" is so huge and clearly audible it should be easy to demonstrate beyond doubt that the process does what they claim.  It should be as apparent as switching from mono to stereo.  Yet, nothing of the kind is being done.  And all those suspicious vagaries do is cast doubt on the entire subject of MQA. Why would the developer not want a dramatic public demonstration and lay all of this to rest once and for all? 

And the only positive listener reports we have are confined to comparisons of two recordings of undocumented heritage via a fully sighted and biased audition.  No, sorry, that won't fly, you have absolutely no idea what youre listening to, but attributing all the positive aspects to MQA.  That is, essentially, propagating falsehood.  

And again, I really would love it if the darn thing actually did work!

A "fair audition"?  How would you define that? I'm fairly sure we will differ greatly.

Here's how I define a fair audition: comparing two versions with proof-positive they came from the same master, with no other changes made other than the MQA process, in a controlled double-blind test.  This is the only scenario that will clearly prove there is a difference.  Determining preference if there is one can come later.   A few non-musical test signals would also be worth while comparing. 

Now I'm serious when I ask that  you try to get your mind around this: the above test I have outlined, to date, has not been done, and is in fact not possible if for no other reason than the lack of confirmation of the masters used in the recordings.   No other audition can be valid because of the unknown variables and strong expectation bias.


headfry said:


> Same thing happens online in other forums on many other topics, very frequently.


All I (and others) am asking for is proof...confirmation in scientific form...that MQA does what they say.  It shouldn't be this hard!  If we had that proof, no doubt most if not all of us would change our tune.  But proof isn't even being attempted.  Until it is, we don't have much more to discuss.


----------



## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> [1] But I completely disagree with your assertion that what you actually hear or prefer is irrelevant, here or elsewhere. What you actually hear is the whole point!
> [1a] In fact, it is absurd to separate the objective from the subjective. They work together.



1. That's complete nonsense because MQA is NOT audio, it's an audio container! Let's take another kind of container, a bucket for example. What we want from a bucket is that we get the same out of it as we put in. If we put 5 pints of water in our bucket, what we want when we empty the bucket is exactly the same 5 pints of water, nothing lost (as would be the case if the bucket leaked) and nothing gained (such as a contaminant/flavour). It doesn't matter what liquid we put in the bucket and whether you have a subjective judgement of the taste of that liquid is completely irrelevant to the bucket. The bucket is purely objective! However, we could fill our bucket with wine and wine is all about subjective taste but of course, that subjective judgement is only relevant to that specific liquid, not to the bucket itself!

1a. What's really absurd is not separating the objective from the subjective, not separating the bucket from what it contains. If you don't separate them, the best bucket will always be the one which contains the best tasting liquid: A poor bucket containing good wine will always be better than a good bucket containing paint?! This is of course absurd, they DO NOT "work together", the container and what it contains are two different, independent things.

The above is simple logic which even a child could understand, I don't have to drink whatever is put in the bucket to determine if it's a good bucket or not. Now admittedly there's a whole bunch of marketing out there deliberately designed to confuse the issues but even so, how can audiophiles not get this simple logic? 



Brahmsian said:


> [2] The reason I started reading this thread is because I wanted help understanding how MQA works.
> [3] Simply criticizing it without first understanding how it works doesn't get us very far IMO.
> [4] And what is frustrating is discussing MQA with people who are convinced it's a sham but haven't even listened to it!
> [5] Some of you seem to have actual knowledge of how the recording process works. Still, I think you're approaching MQA with a whole heap of preconceptions.
> [6] What's kind of odd about this MQA thread is that so many people on it haven't even listened to MQA.



2. It would appear that so far you've failed then! A starting point for understanding any particular bucket is first of all realising that what you're trying to understand is in fact a bucket! Understanding the basic facts of what a bucket is to start with, will avoid any silly misunderstandings about what buckets are for!

3. We do understand how it works! We understand the principles on which all buckets must work and we understand many of the finer details of how this particular bucket works. What most of this thread is about is some/many of the claims made about this bucket which are either impossible, contradictory, irrelevant or all the above!

4&6. What's really frustrating/odd is knowing how buckets work and discussing with people who seem bizarrely convinced that buckets must be judged by the subjective taste/sound of what they might contain.

5. Yes, a "whole heap of preconceptions" about what buckets are and how they work!

G


----------



## pinnahertz

headfry said:


> your experience...if it was universal MQA would have been dead in the water.


How do you know what the universal experience is?


headfry said:


> Despite what you and some others read into the MQA format  and its intent-
> I  really like what I hear so far!
> 
> ...as I said, expectation bias swings both ways. Months of listening
> and I'm still enthusiastic!


Yes, that is the expectation bias we're talking about. 

What's a bit irritating is that if anyone raises questions about MQA's merits, we are accused of never having listened to it.  Talk about a self-righteous position.  If it is so great,  and the experience is so universal, why is _anyone_ objecting?


----------



## castleofargh

because you didn't listen! ^_^
or don't know how. it's not like you're a trained professional or anything.  <= beating dead ant.


----------



## Brahmsian

headfry said:


> ...expectation bias happens both ways, many decide that they hate what they perceive or fear
> that MQA stands for, its intentions, and therefore criticize it without a fair audition or without
> listening at all. Same thing happens online in other forums on many other topics, very frequently.


Great point!


----------



## Brahmsian

castleofargh said:


> if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
> 
> we're here discussing the reality of something. data, patents, and digital audio theory are absolutely enough to criticize MQA's marketing and entertain very serious doubts about any idea of an improvement over other formats.
> on the other hand, "listening to it", that's a sighted test and something highly inconclusive that we certainly don't value as much as you seem to do. maybe you're just too concerned about subjective stuff while reading a topic in a more objective sub section.


I'm interested in both the objective and subjective sides. At the end of the day all the objective stuff means nothing and in fact becomes a joke if nobody listens to the music. "We're here discussing the reality of something." Well, the reality is that people listen to and enjoy music. In fact, the whole endeavor of recording music is geared toward that end.


----------



## Brahmsian

sonitus mirus said:


> I have listened to several Tidal Masters as I reactivated my account for a month just for this purpose.  I thought they sounded the same or worse.
> 
> What is equally frustrating is that you seem to believe that listening to it will  somehow bring about a "Eureka!" moment, despite knowledgeable folks posting several intelligently written paragraphs outlining why this is a non sequitur.


First of all we're still not on the same page here. I have no idea what Tidal Masters you listened to or whether or not I would actually agree with your assessment of them. I threw out a specific track (Talking Heads' Born Under Punches) so that we could actually have something to refer to, to at least get on the same page. 

Now that there's a difference between the two versions of Born Under Punches is something that I think we would both agree on without making any assumptions as to whether the difference is due to MQA. But even were we to disagree on which version we prefer we still could not settle it with a strictly objective account since our disagreement might very well have to do with matters of taste.  

What you are interpreting as a Eureka moment is actually the fact that I've been enjoying the hell out of my headphones listening to music.


----------



## Brahmsian

pinnahertz said:


> Not exactly.  In fact, this is very height of presumption: that just because someone demands scientific proof of something that they couldn't possibly have even listened at all!



Nice try but that isn't what is going on here. It's not like these people are remaining neutral, objective, or skeptical and simply waiting for more data to come out (which the MQA guys have already promised they'll release). What has happened here is that some people have already drawn a conclusion, right from the get-go, that MQA is BS, which makes me highly suspicious of their motives. It's like they have some kind of ax to grind or trying to preserve the status quo for self-interested reasons. At least, that is how it is coming across to me.


----------



## castleofargh

Brahmsian said:


> I'm interested in both the objective and subjective sides. At the end of the day all the objective stuff means nothing and in fact becomes a joke if nobody listens to the music. "We're here discussing the reality of something." Well, the reality is that people listen to and enjoy music. In fact, the whole endeavor of recording music is geared toward that end.


do you assume that because we find more relevant to discuss information that stays accurate when shared(objective information), it means that we live and breath that way? it's a forum, communication is at play and some of us make extra efforts so that what we write can sometimes come with some level of confidence. all so that the dialog is more than faith and trusting people based on rhetorical skills and social fame.
there are topics to share how we feel about stuff, they give the opportunity for others not to care or to misinterpret what we tried to express about our subjective impressions from sighted tests. I participate in a few of those topics and my posts are really not rich in objective significance. but this section is not one such place and shouldn't be.

 headfry tried time and time again to tell how he felt, with examples and commendable efforts to describe his experience. but it's all from sighted tests without any known reference or control. no reliable data whatsoever comes out of those posts aside from knowing that he likes listening to MQA albums. why does he really like MQA albums? who knows. would he still prefer MQA albums if he didn't know beforehand that they are MQA albums? who knows? nothing in his posts provides anything conclusive about MQA. the only message goes along the lines of "I like vanilla ice cream". good for you but why should we care and what does it mean about vanilla?
for people like myself trying to learn something factual about MQA, feedback posts from sighted tests are in the top 10 most useless posts just after the ones with pictures of cute cats. they may do something subjectively to some people(like making me mad sometimes), but they carry no fact about the topic.



Brahmsian said:


> Nice try but that isn't what is going on here. It's not like these people are remaining neutral, objective, or skeptical and simply waiting for more data to come out (which the MQA guys have already promised they'll release). What has happened here is that some people have already drawn a conclusion, right from the get-go, that MQA is BS, which makes me highly suspicious of their motives. It's like they have some kind of ax to grind or trying to preserve the status quo for self-interested reasons. At least, that is how it is coming across to me.


obviously if someone has an agenda it couldn't possibly be the people promoting MQA and saying unbelievable stuff without evidence. what could they possibly have to gain? ^_^


----------



## old tech

I posted on another thread that I critically listened to two Joni Mitchell albums, Hejira and Court and Spark.  The first was a MQA release and the second was a DCC CD.  Listened to both on the same system through my MQA enabled streamer.

The DCC Court and Spark CD sounded a lot better than the MQA Hejira.  It sounded more natural, more dynamic, more smooth.  The HQA album sounded great but by comparison, it was more "pumped up" and tiring after a while.

Now, using the logic of some others that post here, I could bang on that CDs are superior in sound quality to MQA delivered albums.  The reality is they are different albums, mastered by different mastering engineers.  What I am really comparing is content, not the bucket.

Why is that so difficult to grasp?


----------



## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> At the end of the day all the objective stuff means nothing and in fact becomes a joke if nobody listens to the music. "We're here discussing the reality of something." Well, the reality is that people listen to and enjoy music. In fact, the whole endeavor of recording music is geared toward that end.



We're here discussing the reality of a digital audio container format, NOT the subjective opinions of listening to music, which is completely off topic! Yes, most people do listen to and enjoy music, most people also like eating the occasional ice-cream in summer but would you care to answer what either of these have to do with a digital audio container format?

Did you read my last response to you? Did you not understand it or have you just chosen to ignore it because it questions your flawed beliefs?

G


----------



## Brahmsian

gregorio said:


> 1. That's complete nonsense because MQA is NOT audio, it's an audio container! Let's take another kind of container, a bucket for example. What we want from a bucket is that we get the same out of it as we put in. If we put 5 pints of water in our bucket, what we want when we empty the bucket is exactly the same 5 pints of water, nothing lost (as would be the case if the bucket leaked) and nothing gained (such as a contaminant/flavour). It doesn't matter what liquid we put in the bucket and whether you have a subjective judgement of the taste of that liquid is completely irrelevant to the bucket. The bucket is purely objective! However, we could fill our bucket with wine and wine is all about subjective taste but of course, that subjective judgement is only relevant to that specific liquid, not to the bucket itself!
> 
> 1a. What's really absurd is not separating the objective from the subjective, not separating the bucket from what it contains. If you don't separate them, the best bucket will always be the one which contains the best tasting liquid: A poor bucket containing good wine will always be better than a good bucket containing paint?! This is of course absurd, they DO NOT "work together", the container and what it contains are two different, independent things.
> 
> ...




1. You're simply wrong. MQA is a whole system that begins with the microphones and ends at the consumer's DAC. Bob Stuart: "MQA is a hierarchical _method_ and set of _specifications_ for recording, archiving, archive recovery and efficient distribution of high quality audio."

He goes on (and I would say his comment applies to you): "We see from the questions that some people have been confused but this is generally because they are approaching, trying to understand, or forcing the discussion on MQA, from a different conceptual frame of reference. In brief, MQA is a philosophy more than it is ‘just a codec’."

2. Yes, when actually engaged in science you have to separate the objective from the subjective as much as you can, but the separation is only theoretical since an object is only available for study once it has been disclosed by and processed by the subject. When we're talking about technologies meant for actual hearing and enjoyment, there's nothing wrong with, from time to time, bringing the discussion back to the subjective aspect. This is a discussion forum not a clinical study.

3-5. As for the MQA bucket, that's exactly what I started off discussing. It looks like you missed my post of the famous triangle graphs that are so important to understanding how the MQA "bucket" works. Not only can a container affect the taste of the water stored in it, but there might be more water than can fit. MQA is not a bucket (or not just a bucket) so much as a method of enfolding. So both your bucket example _and_ the assumption that MQA is only a bucket when it is in fact a whole hierarchical method and novel way of approaching things do, in my opinion, contain presuppositions. Anyhow, on the surface, the enfolding method looks pretty ingenious. The following screenshots are from The Absolute Sound.


----------



## bigshot

Brahmsian said:


> 1. You're simply wrong. MQA is a whole system that begins with the microphones and ends at the consumer's DAC. Bob Stuart: "MQA is a hierarchical _method_ and set of _specifications_ for recording, archiving, archive recovery and efficient distribution of high quality audio."



So we shouldn't expect any legacy recordings or albums not specifically recorded using the MQA process?


----------



## gregorio (May 2, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> 1. You're simply wrong.
> [1a] MQA is a whole system that begins with the microphones and ends at the consumer's DAC.
> [1b] "In brief, MQA is a philosophy more than it is ‘just a codec’."
> 
> ...



1. So, you ARE saying the best bucket is always the one which contains the best tasting liquid!
1a. Can you post a link to any MQA microphones?
1b. Now that I would agree with! Although there appears to be a word missing, it should read: In brief, MQA is a *marketing* philosophy more than just a codec". As bigshot alluded; What?, did Bob Stuart travel back in time and impart his philosophy on those who recorded the albums available on Tidal? I mean honestly, there's one born every minute! Simply saying I'm wrong and using gullibility as your supporting evidence really doesn't cut it in a science forum!

2. MQA is not designed for hearing and enjoyment, it's designed to contain digital audio data!! Until you can separate marketing from facts, then obviously no factual discussion is possible. It makes you an absolutely perfect target for marketing though, just put some nice plonk in the cheapest, crappiest bucket possible and you'll believe it's a great bucket! And yes, this is a discussion forum, a "sound science" discussion forum, not a "suckered by marketing and proud of it" discussion forum!

3. A good container should absolutely NOT affect the taste! Wav and flac for example certainly do not AND they are cost free! A 16/44.1 bucket can already contain more than you can ever hear, how much bigger bucket do you think is useful? If you do want a bucket that is many times too big though, is flac 192/24 still not big enough? And, why do you think MQA is a bigger bucket, when it's actually a smaller bucket? Before you answer this question, please realise this isn't the "suckered by marketing" forum!
3b. Of course it's a bucket! How it contains what's put in it may be a little different but it's still a bucket! Or are you saying it's not a digital audio container, maybe it doesn't contain data but feelings like happiness and joy, maybe it will get up and make me a cup of tea when I'm listening to recordings? Come on please, this regurgitating of marketing as fact is getting ludicrous!

G


----------



## bigshot

I learned one really good lesson from the RCA Living Stereo SACDs. I had a Franklin Mint vinyl pressing of Fiedler's Gaete Parisienne that I thought was the best sounding LP I had ever heard. When it was released on SACD, I went out and bought a $900 SACD player just for that one album. It sounded FANTASTIC! It's still one of the best sounding albums I ever heard.

A while after the Living Stereo SACDs came out, they put out a Living Stereo CD box set. I bought it primarily for the albums I didn't already have on SACD. But in reading the liner notes, I discovered that the CDs used the exact same mastering as the SACDs. So I did an A/B comparison. The "high resolution" SACD sounded exactly the same as the bargain priced CD.

We're like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz... We've had a format capable of audio perfection for years now. All we need is to believe it ourselves. Until we figure it out, they'll keep coming up with new bottles for old wine and try to convince us that it's "new and improved".

I started this thread years ago asking what makes MQA an improvement in sound quality. All these years, and the question still hasn't been answered, and the format is sitting by the side of the road ignored. That should tell you something!


----------



## castleofargh

in favor of @Brahmsian, MQA marketing does suggest a lot of subjective "improvements". they do claim to be more than a container and the fidelity loss is high enough to justify that claim IMO. 


the part about correcting for the ADC and stuff, it was mentioned at some point but I've never seen any confirmation that it had been or would be used(or how). from what I understand to apply any sort of compensation for the ADC the very rare times when it might make sense, you'd have to do it on the original tracks, not on anything mixed. and they would need to know precisely the ADC. does that feel like anything anybody would actually do? of course if all that talk about the complete chain is only BS to justify DRM and getting the mastering rights of everything, then the "anti ringing low pass" crap would be enough to pretend like they "corrected the time defects of the DAC" or some other trololo marketing catch phrase.


----------



## jagwap

Brahmsian said:


> 1. You're simply wrong. MQA is a whole system that begins with the microphones and ends at the consumer's DAC. Bob Stuart: "MQA is a hierarchical _method_ and set of _specifications_ for recording, archiving, archive recovery and efficient distribution of high quality audio."



MQA doesn't work "from the microphones", unless it's a 2-channel recording and the microphones have an ADC in them.

You are not going to convince these guys this way.  They have an established view, and you are trying to overturn a tiny corner of it, with an opinion.  It could be like Galileo:  You are clamouring "Hey look at this great new idea, I believe him because I think I've seen the seen us circling the sun!".  I'm more: "Hey this Galileo chap is incredibly smart.  I've met him and I believe he believes it". Castleofargh is "This is my domain and I don't see it. The evidence is not conclusive so I think this Bob Stuart is up to no good and a troublemaker." The rest are the mob with pitchforks and flaming torches chanting "Burn him. Burn him."

Of course MQA may be all nonsense.  MQA may be "It's all turtles all the way down", but I'm keeping an open mind.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> Of course MQA may be all nonsense.  MQA may be "It's all turtles all the way down", but I'm keeping an open mind.


Isn't that what most of us are suggesting?  Listening isn't going to prove anything without any type of controls in place.  MQA creators are not providing solid evidence to show how it might make any improvements.  They can't prove they aren't just out to make a buck and control the market, but they certainly could show that their product makes a noticeable difference to satisfy the skeptics.  Why not provide it?


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> Isn't that what most of us are suggesting?  Listening isn't going to prove anything without any type of controls in place.  MQA creators are not providing solid evidence to show how it might make any improvements.  They can't prove they aren't just out to make a buck and control the market, but they certainly could show that their product makes a noticeable difference to satisfy the skeptics.  Why not provide it?



Because they don't care about you individually, or this thread.  Perhaps more likely is they've seen what people have been saying here about their character and intentions, have seen the insults, and have decided quite sensibly not to engage with people who are not prepared to listen to them.

I think they can prove that "they aren't *just* out to make a buck". Sure they should get paid. I don't design audio for free either.  But they found a method of high quality audio delivery and put all the qualities they found important in it.

There was the stereophile explanation to some of the early questions, and that ticked that box for them, but not you.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> Because they don't care about you individually, or this thread.  Perhaps more likely is they've seen what people have been saying here about their character and intentions, have seen the insults, and have decided quite sensibly not to engage with people who are not prepared to listen to them.
> 
> I think they can prove that "they aren't *just* out to make a buck". Sure they should get paid. I don't design audio for free either.  But they found a method of high quality audio delivery and put all the qualities they found important in it.
> 
> There was the stereophile explanation to some of the early questions, and that ticked that box for them, but not you.


This has nothing to do with me or this tiny little forum.  But if you consider Stereophile to be the authority in objective, unbiased support of MQA, I can't take much else of what you say too seriously.  To me, it seemed more like a marketing promotion than any legitimate attempt to offer an honest interpretation of what MQA is actually accomplishing.  The comments section was definitely not in agreement, and there were some very rational comments made that were not fully addressed. 

If this MQA stuff works as advertised, why all the technical obfuscation and how come there isn't overwhelming praise and support.  From what I have seen, if it makes someone money, they love it, if it hurts their bottom line, they hate it.  I just want to know what it is doing to the music that would impact what a person is hearing, if anything.   It requires an independent, honest analysis and review.  I didn't get that with the Stereophile endorsement in the guise of a Q&A.


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> This has nothing to do with me or this tiny little forum.  But if you consider Stereophile to be the authority in objective, unbiased support of MQA, I can't take much else of what you say too seriously. .



Of course I don't.  It is a source of overly uncritical reviews of equipment, and reasonably well taken measurements compared to other English speaking publications.  It used to be better, but I think the high end market they support is diminishing as more and more people buy Bluetooth speakers marketed as Hi-Fi, so they are trying to hang on in there.

.





> To me, it seemed more like a marketing promotion than any legitimate attempt to offer an honest interpretation of what MQA is actually accomplishing.  The comments section was definitely not in agreement, and there were some very rational comments made that were not fully addressed. .



But there were too many comments like here: naysays slagging off what hadn't actually been proved to be what they claimed it was: a rip off

.





> If this MQA stuff works as advertised, why all the technical obfuscation and how come there isn't overwhelming praise and support.  From what I have seen, if it makes someone money, they love it, if it hurts their bottom line, they hate it.  I just want to know what it is doing to the music that would impact what a person is hearing, if anything.   It requires an independent, honest analysis and review.  I didn't get that with the Stereophile endorsement in the guise of a Q&A.



I don't think it answered everything, but then it is up to them what they want to explain or not.  It does not make them con men as has stated here many times. It proves neither way.  Like this forum requires proof for audio aspects, should you also require proof before accusations are leveled like con, snake oil, and money grab.  Should the rigor not work in both directions. Otherwise it is just hearsay and opinion.


----------



## AudioBear

I've read a good deal of what's been written about MQA including this forum.  I'm one that has actually listened to it--at least via Audirvana playing Tidal. I've compared MQA 24/96 to 16/44.1 and can't hear a difference.  This is both good and bad, it means MQA neither degrades or alters the sound for me as I listen to it.  That's a good start.  This is not, however, a scientific test although I did have my wife run samples without me seeing the changes.  I couldn't hear a difference either way, that's all that counts for this post.  This is my subjective observation.  After all I had read I was heartened by the result because I like Tidal's quality for normal listening. [system = MacBook Pro, Audirvana 3 Plus, Liquid Carbon, Gumby, --also use Mojo--HD800s]

I can't say what my expectation bias might have been.  I didn't know what difference I would hear or whether I would hear one. I am a research scientist with years of experience and lots of papers etc so I'd like to think I am at least semi-objective.  One thing for certain, I wasn't caught up in all the anti- or pro-MQA hype.  That said, I am glad to se @Brahmsian reposted the Absolute Sound graphs so that we could remind ourselves that science is about collecting, validating, and interpreting reproducible data with which we can make predictions and applications.

What those graphs remind us is that MQA is more than a container.  It is a lossy compression codec.  It may or may not be a lossy compression that can be heard, for better or for worse, but that remains to be proven both scientifically and subjectively.  I for one don't think it degrades the quality of the sound, nor did I notice any improvement (I know I did uncontrolled test, etc).  The real reason I am not surprised is that I can't hear a difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96 files or the same recording even though I have a fair collection of 24/96 material (PCM, AIFF, FLAC).  As has been discussed a zillion times here in Sound Science, 16/44.1 is all that is needed for the human auditory system.  I don't believe the rest of the unsubstantiated stuff about why MQA will sound better.  They need to come up with some data that proves there is a difference.  And I sure don't buy that it is a system and a philosophy of delivering sound from the instrument and studio to your ears.  Pardon me but that's just BS.  They are selling remastered old recordings, period.

There was one other great purpose for MQA, and it's a very good one. That was to give 24/192 quality music at 16/44.1 bandwidth (compression anyone?) It appears to do that.  The reason I think that works so well is that there was nothing to hear in those extra bits that it throws away (oh, pardon me I forget the areas hidden under the noise baseline).  Sorry but the whole thing is slight of hand since the larger files weren't needed in the first place.  Basically Bob Stuart is proving that the Redbook standard was the right choice.

I find the MQA sleight of hand offensive and unscientific.  That's a comment about their very misleading marketing.  If it ends up that it actually sounds better, I  will eat my words and buy it.  I was once a big fan of Meridian.  Not any more.

That's my 2 cents.


----------



## pinnahertz

Another aspect of this thread is that many of those who take a skeptical view are industry professionals with a combined experience of possibly over a century in recording, mixing, equipment design, etc.  The MQA supporters are audiophiles, hobbyists, aficionados, enthusiasts and amateurs.  And all it would take to win over the skeptics is good scientific proof.


----------



## jagwap

I'm an industry professional with over a quarter of a century of experience all by myself.

A lack of scientific proof does not convince me to insult and criticise other well regarded professionals calling them liers and cheats.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I'm an industry professional with over a quarter of a century of experience all by myself.
> 
> A lack of scientific proof does not convince me to insult and criticise other well regarded professionals calling them liers and cheats.


Doesn't it trouble you, though?  Shouldn't proof of concept come first?  If it's a big deal sonically, shouldn't it be easy to provide proof?  Every other major breakthrough in audio has started with solving an obvious and audible problem with a clearly audible and easily demonstrable solution, followed by practical application and marketing.  At this time we don't even have an obvious problem!  Lets just start with that.  And I'm not talking about their lossy compression, I'm thinking of the MQA time-smear "correction" which they claim audibly improves existing recordings.  Is it a problem really?  Or did they create a problem to "solve" with a "solution"? 

That one should be really easy.  You don't need a single objective measurement to prove the existence of a problem and the solution, but you do need proper testing.  

If MQA were my product I'd have started with a paper that defines the problem and shows it's audibility in controlled subjective tests.  Then  I'd have followed with another paper that applied the solution with support from controlled subjective tests. As a matter of fact, I don't actually know how, much less why, I'd have developed the solution without those tests.  Then, armed with all that data, I could present my solution to the public with hard backup and nip the nay-sayers in the bud.  Wouldn't that be smart? 

Given the above, and the conspicuous absence of any research data, I think we have either a deliberate attempt at obfuscation, or a group of people who actually want controversy, and are a bit clueless in basic marketing principles. 

Oh yeah, and likely liars too.   I'll put my own 45 years in  pro audio on that one, if it matters (which it probably doesn't).  And I'll take it all back with, with apologies, with just the right amount of scientifically proper proof.


----------



## jagwap

They did produce papers, and evidense that people can hear surprisingly small timing differences. There were AES lectures, including pre-ringing and apodising filters.

You lot have decided they are not valid. But they did it.

I know this won't wash with you, but they did what you asked.


----------



## jagwap (May 3, 2017)

Here's a thought:

Traditional filters cause a phase shift, inband and out of band. This causes a group delay. This is well understood.

For say, a 4th order linkwitz riley crossover, 24dB/octave 80Hz (I've simulated this) subwoofer that delay is 10's of mS. The frequency response is near perfect, not quite, but good.  But the delay is more than a wavelength around the crossover, and varies either side, with significant distortion to its shape. That is not ideal. I'm sure many will come forward to claim that is inaudible, but it would be nice if you can fix it.

Well you can. If you do half the crossover normally, and the other half in reverse, the phase cancels and therefore group delay dissappers. By reverse I mean pass the audio data backwards through a half of the digital filter.  This is the FILTFILT function in mathcad.

I imagine this can also be applied to all kinds of processes. Maybe pre and post ringing...

Now this is impractical in real time. However, if you have the entire piece of music, contained in a proprietry container, you can now add processing however you like.

So all the DAC filter issues like pre and post ringing, phase shifts, can be eliminated. If you know the ADC too that is the icing on the cake.

Just a thought, you miserable old cummugions


----------



## headfry

gregorio said:


> 1. So, you ARE saying the best bucket is always the one which contains the best tasting liquid!
> 
> 3. A good container should absolutely NOT affect the taste! Wav and flac for example certainly do not AND they are cost free! *A 16/44.1 bucket can already contain more than you can ever hear, how much bigger bucket do you think is useful? *If you do want a bucket that is many times too big though, is flac 192/24 still not big enough? And, why do you think MQA is a bigger bucket, when it's actually a smaller bucket? Before you answer this question, please realise this isn't the "suckered by marketing" forum!
> 
> G




I suppose then that 24 bit, hires audio is superfluous, unneeded and can't possibly improve on Redbook?


----------



## castleofargh

*castleofargh uses wall of words. it's not very effective. *
















hehe, I guess they might have created their own problems a few times.
Meridian did test and publish stuff about ringing audibility and subjective preferences of their apodizing filter. suggesting that there is indeed something to improve even if only subjectively.
but here is the thing, MQA has tried to detach itself from Meridian so we end up with MQA not demonstrating anything ^_^.

but aside from that little joke, my personal issue is that most of the reasons to do what MQA wants to do to a signal disagree with what I have come to believe over the years about digital audio. even the published stuff from meridian on ringing feels like the conclusions are wrong compared to other work on the audibility of ringing. so is the apodizing stuff not transparent? did they spice up the test or just pick the data that said what they wanted it to say? did they mess up with the weird dither choice? I honestly don't know, but it's intriguing. 
and I'm not a golden ear or anything, I'm not 8year old with amazing hearing at 20khz, and maybe that's the issue. but my own tests never ever resulted in me being able to identify a type or a magnitude of ringing unless the filter created a significant change in FR I can still hear.
I've tried different filters, I've tried to notice pre ringing vs no pre ringing, simulated with digital EQ but also with using different DACs to make sure I didn't test something different from what I thought I tested. I even measured the DACs to verify what the impulse looked like(because you know, sometimes marketing use words they shouldn't and I get the wrong idea ^_^).
I think I can notice ringing and even the different types when they occur in the audible range under specific situation and with fairly high magnitudes (like using some pretty crazy EQ). but I have no reason to believe I can notice ringing where it typically occurs in the most common 16/44 conversions. and obviously pretending that it still matters on 48 96 or even 192khz and justifies to be filtered again, now that's totally ludicrous. I don't even consider it worth of a debate.
and the idea of extending their concepts to any sample rate, to the point of using an impulse with infinite range to show the ringing and make it look worst than it would ever be in real life, that's a big part of why I don't trust them. they put in the mind of the consumer false information or at the very least false magnitudes.

now I've said it a few times, I would be in favor of 48khz as a standard instead of 44. it would make most things easier, would pretty much solve the issue of filter ringing even for the youngest ears. it would make it easier to get good sound from crappy cheap devices with crappy filters, it would solve situations where chips aren't really made to run at 44.1(clock stuff blablablah). so I'm not totally locked on the idea that 44khz and strong low pass is all we need. I believe it's all I need with my devices and my ears, but maybe not the most convenient thing for everybody on every devices. and for the file size difference, I at least wouldn't mind making that effort so that everybody would be fine.
but above that I just never found anything suggesting that it made an audible difference unless the DAC was made to result in an audible difference(like NOS DACs or other crappy DACs). and that's the problem, if I can't come around to believe high res can sound different, how would I believe that MQA as a format can? unless the filter rolls off the trebles I can still hear, it's irrational to expect a change based on what I know at this point in time.
and as a direct consequence, any difference I do notice would be attributed to something outside of MQA conversion (remaster, playback software doing something different...). so the logical train of thoughts leads me to think that no feedback about MQA is actually describing MQA. 

else getting a file with 18bit dithered or even 13bit dithered, TBH that's fine. I'm good with that.  so I'm not annoyed by the 24bit container and how they decided to do things. but I'm certainly annoyed by how most communication with the MQA guys gently goes around the loss of bits while cleverly mentioning the 24/something resolution it's supposed to achieve so that people keep associating 24bit with MQA. it's marketing, it's in the game, but it annoys me.

and last but not least, the 5µs time delay humans detect. we discussed that in PM with @jagwap a while back. it's been mentioned over and over again to justify the need for high sample rate and self validate MQA's approach or any high res approach for that matter. the paper giving 5µs is real, it's a good paper with good experimentation as far as I could tell. but of course it uses a specific test and taken out of context it doesn't really mean what the MQA guys suggest when they use it. 
misusing information like that to imply whatever it is we like to imply can go both ways. I can take the 16/44 format and explain how the resolution of such a file is in picoseconds. and just like MQA mentioning the 5µs to scare people, I'm not lying. I pick up the true fact that serve my message and offer it out of context without bothering to tell what it measures. pseudo science 101.  
so now I take both values, and I've kind of proved that 16/44 goes magnitude beyond what a human can notice. QED, I'm a great PR person and you can trust me because I picked real values.


all in all I agree that calling MQA a fraud is too much. after all it's a real format, and it does stuff it's supposed to do. the inner workings are in fact fairly advanced and IMO clever. I just believe the format is useless.
but having strong opinion about dishonesty and marketing manipulation, just with what I've mentioned I feel that people are entitled to think that way. and if you bring a few of the subjective charts that have been passed around by MQA, the snake oil does starts to smell.
and it's like SACD, or pono propaganda. the products aren't really bad, they don't massacre the sound or anything. it's really the PR side of things that is systematically infected with BS because they all have the legitimate feeling that the product can't sell itself. so they make up nonsense around it, exaggerate good stuff, put the bad stuff under the rug, and often create a problem from scratch just to show how good their stuff is at solving it.






now let's say I'm all wrong and MQA does sound different and some people do prefer it for reasons beyond remaster and placebo. it wouldn't be my first time being wrong ^_^ so let's make that hypothesis and see where it goes:
axiom, the MQA file sounds different.
it cannot be called increased fidelity as a 24/48MQA contains clearly less data compared to the 24/192 or 24/96 file it came from. so what it is at best is a subjective preference. like me deciding that all my songs sound better with a +2db boost at 40hz. some will prefer it, others won't. basically MQA becomes a DSP for those who like using it. that's pretty far away from all the marketing of making everything better, fixing time better than Marty Mcfly, or offering high res in streaming and so on.take a standard 24/48 file and there you go, it's high res already as it's above redbook specs. having MQA in it or not doesn't change the nomenclature. 
and it's certainly not "the sound as the artist intended", as the sound the artist intended is the sound he validated at the studio with the ADC "defects" and the "bad" filter choices we have on the PCM master.


----------



## bigshot (May 3, 2017)

I'm curious, I looked through the answers, but I didn't see anyone answer my question. If MQA is a microphone to final consumer playback system, does that mean that only material recorded with MQA can take full advantage of the benefits of MQA? (In other words, catalog titles won't benefit since they were not recorded using MQA processing.)



headfry said:


> I suppose then that 24 bit, hires audio is superfluous, unneeded and can't possibly improve on Redbook?



The answer to that depends on your purpose for the recorded sound. If you intend to apply processing filters and alter levels in a mix, then that is incorrect. If you intend to listen to music on your stereo in your living room then it is correct.


----------



## castleofargh

the all of MQA is segmented into plenty of pieces, all more or less focused on time domain something something. FR change and aliasing are apparently cool as a consequence, at least they think so. 
I remember some place making mention of improving analog tape timing but nothing saying what or how of course. as for mics and ADCs, again I'm not sure this even exists right now. it seemed more like a project. also no idea what it is they would actually do. 

so to answer your question, they will absolutely take anything you give them. the amount of stuff they'll do to the signal might change at the recording and at the playback depending on circumstances, but in the end it's still called MQA and they will still tell you that they did something about the time domain to make it better.


----------



## headfry (May 3, 2017)

So do you also see no significant benefit in SACD/DSD or 24 bit files over RedBook?


----------



## bigshot

headfry said:


> So do you also see no significant benefit in SACD/DSD or 24 bit files over RedBook?



If I'm mixing, I want 24 bit files to allow me to pull up elements in the mix without pulling up the noise floor along with them. But for simple playback of music, it doesn't make any audible difference. See the link in my sig "CD Sound Is All You Need".


----------



## Brahmsian

gregorio said:


> 1a. Can you post a link to any MQA microphones?
> 
> 1b. What?, did Bob Stuart travel back in time and impart his philosophy on those who recorded the albums available on Tidal? I mean honestly, there's one born every minute!
> 
> ...


1a. Regarding the microphones, I was referring to the following from a Stereophile article:


 

1b. They're applying it to old recordings but plans for a complete MQA chain is in the works. It's a question of fully implementing it.

2. No comment.

3. I didn't say it was a bigger bucket. It's a way of packing more information into a smaller space, for streaming, storing, distributing. All the information that falls within the triangle in the graphs above is losslessly packed into the 16/44.1 format. MQA is very picky about what information it loses. Bob Stuart:


 


You wrote, "A 16/44.1 bucket can already contain more than you can ever hear, how much bigger bucket do you think is useful?" 

Glad you mentioned this because it's one of the main reasons people speak passed each other on this topic. People can't hear above about 20kHz but some research shows that those inaudible higher frequencies affect the frequencies that we do hear in terms of subtle timing discrimination. From Arstechnica:


----------



## LajostheHun

Furthermore DSD is the most "unfriendly"  format to do anything other than recording direct, if the work requires any type of post processing, it will be converted to PCM, so any of it's alleged benefits will go out the window, so virtually no one uses it to record. The vast majority of SACD and DSD files are sourced from analog or PCM.


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## castleofargh

@Brahmsian 
about timing discrimination, what you quote is exactly what makes me mad. 96khz has sample intervals of 10µs, but who said that value was the time resolution of the file? the actual timing resolution also depends on the bit depth, the signal being made of sine waves and all. this argument is garbage, they absolutely know it just like they know more about digital audio than I'll ever know in my lifetime, but they mention it repeatedly anyway.


----------



## headfry (May 3, 2017)

bigshot said:


> If I'm mixing, I want 24 bit files to allow me to pull up elements in the mix without pulling up the noise floor along with them. But for simple playback of music, it doesn't make any audible difference. See the link in my sig "CD Sound Is All You Need".




Of course, if you don't think that 24 bit /hires makes an audible difference, why would you want MQA?
There are only negatives.

I prefer many hires recordings to Redbook, not sure if it's simply due to a better master
or processing thereof; the same argument is made against MQA (e.g. a needless scheme
which would yield the same quality in Redbook if from the same treatment of the master).

Most MQA I've listened to definitely sounds better, whether this is due to simply a better
processing of the master, a better master or benefits of the MQA process itself doesn't matter to me. If it takes MQA to simply get better sounding recordings to the end user then I'm still all for it.

Expectation bias swings both ways - e.g. if I hate hires and (perceived) industry control of my files then
of course MQA won't sound any better.

If you're saying that you don't perceive _a significant_ and consistent improvement
with many of Tidal MQA's then it makes me wonder why....


----------



## sonitus mirus

headfry said:


> Expectation bias swings both ways - e.g. if I hate hires and (perceived) industry control of my files then
> of course MQA won't sound any better.
> 
> Are you suggesting that if you're saying that you don't perceive _a significant_ and consistent improvement
> with many of Tidal MQA's then it makes me wonder why....


Are you suggesting that if someone loves HiRes and believes they are hearing a significant improvement, they would most likely believe that MQA sounds better?  All of this, of course, without actually knowing with any certainty whether MQA or HiRes makes an audible improvement, unless you have some new data to share with all of us. 

If you are suggesting that you perceive a _significant_ and consistent improvement with many of the Tidal MQA tracks, I'd like to know why.  If the file is different, how is it different?  Is it just a little louder?  Is it all in your head?  It doesn't sound like you know or even care to know.  Though, I do get that you believe that you already know.  

Yes, bias swings both ways, though I don't know why some people feel that MQA has to be an absolutely polarizing subject.  It would be great if MQA accomplished all that the creators claim it will do.  Until test results can be provided that clearly show an improvement is achieved using this proprietary format and a qualified DAC, I'm going to remain skeptical.  I'm keeping up with the topic as best I can, here and elsewhere, in hopes that some truth will eventually be revealed.


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## bigshot (May 3, 2017)

I've worked in production sound and every time I finished a mix, I would bounce it down to 16/44.1 and check to make sure there was no audible difference between the bounce down and the mix. There never has been a problem, but if there was, I would have thrown up a red flag.

My interest in MQA is to find out exactly what it does to improve sound over 16/44.1. If it acts as a DSP and alters the file to improve it, I would be very interested to know what it's doing. I think DSPs are the future of high end audio. But if it is based on retaining super audible frequencies and pushing noise floors down even further below the threshold of audibility, I'm not as interested. I've sat through that sales pitch from Neil Young and SACDs and I know the score on that.

If they are charging extra for better mastering, just say that and put it on a well established format like a CD. There's no need for a new proprietary file format just to do a proper mastering job. I have plenty of CDs that sound fantastic. In fact, most CDs I buy sound great. If a CD label is putting out inferior sounding CDs, I would just return them and buy a different label's product.


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## old tech (May 3, 2017)

headfry said:


> So do you also see no significant benefit in SACD/DSD or 24 bit files over RedBook?





headfry said:


> I suppose then that 24 bit, hires audio is superfluous, unneeded and can't possibly improve on Redbook?


It rather depends on whether you mean production or playback.  For production, well yes as has been articulated many times,  For playback, most likely no as there is no technical or physiological reason why it should.  Bear also in mind that after some 30 years of debate and objective testing there is no compelling evidence that 24 bit or DSD does improve sound quality which can be noticed by humans when all variables apart from the bucket are controlled.  Why do you think hardware manufacturers see a need to have a "hi res" light or indicator to tell the listener it is hi res?  Shouldn't it be obvious?

From my personal experience, the hi res or DSD versions of a particular album usually, but not always, do sound better.  But if I bounce that file back to 16/44 and run it through foobar, as an example, it sounds the same.  What that indicates is that the hi res versions have different, often better, remastering targeted to a more audiophile audience.  I also have many CDs that sound better than the hi res version, in fact looking across my entire music collection, the best sounding album to my ears is a CD.

Another aspect which is conveniently ignored by many audiophiles is that most of what is called hi res is actually from a standard res source, ie old analog tapes.  Given the equivalent bit depth of even the best analog tapes is less than 16 bits, how is it possible it could sound better than a CD if it wasn't better remastering? More nuanced tape hiss maybe?


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> They did produce papers, and evidense that people can hear surprisingly small timing differences. There were AES lectures, including pre-ringing and apodising filters.


I've searched the AES library and found nothing like that.  You have to be very careful about what is termed "timing differences".  They've produced nothing showing subjective testing of their own product.


jagwap said:


> You lot have decided they are not valid. But they did it.
> 
> I know this won't wash with you, but they did what you asked.


No they did not.  There are several papers, none does the work specifically on their own MQA process.



jagwap said:


> Here's a thought:
> 
> Traditional filters cause a phase shift, inband and out of band. This causes a group delay. This is well understood.
> 
> ...


[/quote]While I don't disagree with most of what you've posted above, it doesn't apply to the specific "time smearing" issue that MQA purports to address.  And I agree, the case you're referencing may not be audible, but you've cited no proof of audibility, just a desire to "fix it".  You've taken a known and characterized filter and applied the inverse to compensate for phase response.  That's not a big deal, it's been done for decades, even in the analog realm.  But your example is nothing like the filter(s) MQA claims to deal with. They don't know what the total filter response is, and therefore cannot apply an inverse.

And we are *"curmudgeons"*, if you please, and darned proud of it!



Brahmsian said:


> 1b. They're applying it to old recordings but plans for a complete MQA chain is in the works. It's a question of fully implementing it.


Application to old recordings is what is at issue here.  To compensate for the total composite of all filters used in creating the recording full knowledge of those filters must be well in hand.  That's not possible in any but a very, very few cases.


Brahmsian said:


> You wrote, "A 16/44.1 bucket can already contain more than you can ever hear, how much bigger bucket do you think is useful?"
> 
> Glad you mentioned this because it's one of the main reasons people speak passed each other on this topic. People can't hear above about 20kHz but some research shows that those inaudible higher frequencies affect the frequencies that we do hear in terms of subtle timing discrimination. From Arstechnica:


The excerpt above references "Detectability of interaural delay in high-frequency complex waveforms," written by GB Henning in JASA, 1974, which deals with _interaural delay_, and the paper "Audibility of temporal smearing and time misalignment of acoustic signals" by Kuncher, 2007, which is about the audibility of a 7kHz square wave reproduced simultaneously on two ribbon tweeters that are variably misaligned physically such that harmonics of the square wave become cancelled at the listener.  Neither paper has anything to do with what MQA calls "time smear", and has nothing whatever to do with the ability of humans to detect MQA-type time smear.  It was, and is, an irrelevant reference.


----------



## jagwap (May 4, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> While I don't disagree with most of what you've posted above, it doesn't apply to the specific "time smearing" issue that MQA purports to address.  And I agree, the case you're referencing may not be audible, but you've cited no proof of audibility, just a desire to "fix it".  You've taken a known and characterized filter and applied the inverse to compensate for phase response.  That's not a big deal, it's been done for decades, even in the analog realm.  But your example is nothing like the filter(s) MQA claims to deal with. They don't know what the total filter response is, and therefore cannot apply an inverse.
> 
> And we are *"curmudgeons"*, if you please, and darned proud of it!



So Pendantic can added to that.

My point is that while they do not want to reveal what they are doing like most people with a proprietary technology, perhaps the thing they can do when they have the full file available is do corrections that are otherwise not possible without having full ownership of the chain.  As pre ringing, and I suspect post ringing, is something they care about, now they can fix it, when others cannot.  Not frequency response, but the errors caused by brick wall filters.  I expect there is more to it, but it may be the reason they are doing this.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> My point is that while they do not want to reveal what they are doing like most people with a proprietary technology, perhaps the thing they can do when they have the full file available is do corrections that are otherwise not possible without having full ownership of the chain.


That's what they claim.  But it's impossible to correct for something about which you have no information.


jagwap said:


> As pre ringing, and I suspect post ringing, is something they care about, now they can fix it, when others cannot.


But can they?  In principle and theory, sure, but this is reality where the filters are unknown.  For example, there are filters that don't pre-ring.  And cascaded dissimilar filters.  How do you know what you have?   

And then, of course, there is the claim of the resulting audible improvement without any evidence of it.


jagwap said:


> Not frequency response, but the errors caused by brick wall filters.


Yeah, I get it.  But those "errors" are very specific to the filter design, not at all universal.


jagwap said:


> I expect there is more to it, but it may be the reason they are doing this.


I'm sure owning a new distribution format that everyone pays licensing fees for has nothing whatever to do with it.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> That's what they claim.  But it's impossible to correct for something about which you have no information.


But they do.  That is why they insist on specifying the DAC


> But can they?  In principle and theory, sure, but this is reality where the filters are unknown.  For example, there are filters that don't pre-ring.  And cascaded dissimilar filters.  How do you know what you have?


But 44.1kHz and 48kHz brick wall filters do ring.  In the past they advocated apodizing filters to remove this, but they have the down side of rolling off the top end and allowing aliasing.  Peter Craven stated you could do a much better job if you had the whole chain.  Now they do they can have non ringing filters, and more.


> And then, of course, there is the claim of the resulting audible improvement without any evidence of it.
> Yeah, I get it.  But those "errors" are very specific to the filter design, not at all universal.


Now the filter design is controlled by them, so no problem.  They mention thet if they know the mastering ADC they can "improve it".  I'm just trying to piece together what they may be up to....


> I'm sure owning a new distribution format that everyone pays licensing fees for has nothing whatever to do with it.


While you try to tear it down.


----------



## bigshot (May 4, 2017)

What volume level and frequency range does ringing from brick wall filtering occur in?

I'm not an expert on DAC design, but it was my impression that the reason redbook is 44.1 instead of just 40 is to allow a little headroom so brick wall filters weren't necessary. A rolloff in upper frequencies beyond the range of even the most unforgiving set of human ears doesn't hurt anyone.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> But they do.  That is why they insist on specifying the DAC


So you work for MQA then?  I know they claim they do, but there is no proof of the degree of success or audibility of that claim.   And the DAC is a small part of the problem.


jagwap said:


> But 44.1kHz and 48kHz brick wall filters do ring.


Yes.  I have several here that I've tested.  They all ring, and each design rings differently!  Some filter types do not pre-ring, but post-ring like mad. 


jagwap said:


> In the past they advocated apodizing filters to remove this, but they have the down side of rolling off the top end and allowing aliasing.  Peter Craven stated you could do a much better job if you had the whole chain.


They don't have the whole chain, and in the case of legacy recordings (a BIG part of their claim) they can't have it!


jagwap said:


> Now they do they can have non ringing filters, and more.


Even if they could have a non-ringing filter, there is a chain of ringing filters already present. But a non-ringing filter would only be applicable in a very specific and limited system architecture.  Any filter that is working around .5 Nyquist will ring. 


jagwap said:


> Now the filter design is controlled by them, so no problem.


 They have control over the DAC filter design, but that's all, at least until they get their entire end-to-end system up.  However, that system will need to include mics, ADCs, a complete DAW, DACs, speakers and crossovers, rooms, etc. (transducers are nasty ringing filters, rooms are even worse).  An MQA mic would be nice, but anyone familiar with a studio mic locker knows that confining your choices to a new mic or two is like taking away most of the tools from your kit.  Studios (all of them?) would also have to characterize every single ADC and DAC in their system, the architecture of which changes with every new setup.  There are some serious practicality issues here.


jagwap said:


> They mention thet if they know the mastering ADC they can "improve it".  I'm just trying to piece together what they may be up to....


We are all well aware of their claims.  In fact, that's about all we are aware of!


jagwap said:


> While you try to tear it down.


Absent any actual proof, confirmation, data, etc., I'm expressing skepticism.  MQA has now been around quite a while, and being adopted in many ways.  MQA has had plenty of opportunity to justify their claims. 

To date, they have chosen to remain enshrouded in mystery.  Does it work? We don't know!  What does it do? We don't know!  There's never been the correct opportunity to test anything, and they haven't published anything either.

The surprise to me is that anyone would blindly swallow MQA at all.  But, as I've already said a few times, if it does work and does do what they say, and is so much better, I'll join their side.  

This is a case where I'd really like to be proven wrong in my skepticism.  For now, it sounds too good to be true.  And most things that sound that way, actually are.


----------



## Don Hills

jagwap said:


> ...  In the past they advocated apodizing filters to remove this, but they have the down side of rolling off the top end and allowing aliasing.  Peter Craven stated you could do a much better job if you had the whole chain.  Now they do they can have non ringing filters, and more. ...



The filters used by MQA allow a lot of aliasing. It's an integral part of their origami process.


----------



## spruce music

bigshot said:


> What volume level and frequency range does ringing from brick wall filtering occur in?
> 
> I'm not an expert on DAC design, but it was my impression that the reason redbook is 44.1 instead of just 40 is to allow a little headroom so brick wall filters weren't necessary. A rolloff in upper frequencies beyond the range of even the most unforgiving set of human ears doesn't hurt anyone.


 
It occurs in the transition zone.  From where the filter starts to cut-off.  So for conventional filters that is from 20khz to 22,050 hz.


----------



## gregorio

You say this:


jagwap said:


> I'm an industry professional with over a quarter of a century of experience all by myself.



But then you say this:



jagwap said:


> [1] Traditional filters cause a phase shift, inband and out of band. This causes a group delay. This is well understood.
> [2] So all the DAC filter issues like pre and post ringing, phase shifts, can be eliminated. If you know the ADC too that is the icing on the cake.



These two quotes are incompatible!

1. Not just filters but pretty much any application of EQ. How many filters and how many EQs are used in a mix? The decimation filter in an ADC and all the filters/EQ applied to each of the channels all combine to produce as mass of phase/timing shifts. Even if it were remotely possible to identify and undo all the masses of different timing shifts, why on earth would you want to? A mix has been built-up with those timing shifts in mind; either they've already been corrected by the engineers or left as they are because it's preferred (artistically). Either way, why would you want change the artists' decisions? And if you are changing them, how can you claim that you're giving the consumer exactly what the artists heard in the studio? How can you as a 25 year audio pro not know/realise all this?

2. All which DAC filter issues? The mix studio DAC, the output of which informed all the artistic decisions in the mix? Or, the mastering studio DAC? And, how are you going to even know, let alone correct for the possibly numerous round trips through each of these DACs? Again, how could you not know this as a 25 year industry pro?

These points demonstrate either the impossibility, futility or undesirability of much of what MQA are claiming and, both of them have been mentioned previously, in some detail. How can you logically continue to try and justify/validate MQA's claims while ignoring these points?  



Brahmsian said:


> 1a. Regarding the microphones, I was referring to the following from a Stereophile article ...
> 
> 1b. They're applying it to old recordings but plans for a complete MQA chain is in the works. It's a question of fully implementing it.
> 
> ...



1a. Quoting marketing BS as supporting evidence for other marketing claims, is not accepted as "evidence" here in the science forum. It's the basis of so many of the problems in other forums and what makes the science forum different (and necessary)! Firstly, there isn't "a transfer function" of a mic, it varies on according to angle of incidence of the sound waves on the mic's capsule. It also varies, sometimes deliberately and very substantially, on the mic pre-amp. Secondly, even if it were possible to identify, compute and correct for the transfer function, why on earth would you want to? A particular mic has been chosen in the first place and then it's output has been EQ'ed, processed and mixed based on it's transfer function! So, you remove that transfer function and most/all of those artistic mix decisions would be partially or entirely invalid/wrong and the mix damaged or destroyed. This is all just marketing BS which relies on the ignorance and gullibility of audiophiles!

1b. Just so I'm clear on what you're saying: You've argued incessantly for MQA based on listening and "_What you actually hear is the whole point!_" and now you're arguing for it based on what you think it will sound like once it's fully implemented and not on what it actually sounds like now? You don't see any contradiction or logical flaw in your arguments?

2. Why? Is it because either you realise your assertions were incorrect or you can't think of a response which doesn't sound ridiculous even to you?

3. You're quoting a lie! Lossy compression is any compression scheme which outputs less data than is input. IE. Something is lost, hence "lossy"! Everything in the input signal which is outside MQA's triangle is lost, therefore by definition it must be a lossy compression scheme! By comparison, FLAC and ALAC loose nothing and are therefore NOT lossy compression formats. What appears to be the difference between MQA and other lossy audio compression formats is in how it achieves it's loss, NOT that MQA is lossless!
3a. Oh dear, it just gets worse, now you're mis-quoting a mis-quote (or misleading/irrelevant quote)! "some research shows ...", is NOT the quote! Bob Stuarts said "various studies point to ...". Do you not understand the difference between "shows" and "points to"? And, Bob Stuart's "points to" is itself a mis-quote, the study he referenced "points to" potential areas of further research, NOT to "timing discrimination actually being closer" to anything! Again, quoting (or mis-quoting) marketing BS as evidence to support marketing claims is not accepted as evidence in this forum!

G


----------



## bigshot

Re: Ringing Artifacts



spruce music said:


> It occurs in the transition zone.  From where the filter starts to cut-off.  So for conventional filters that is from 20khz to 22,050 hz.



That is beyond the range of human hearing, so I'll cheerfully ignore this "feature" of MQA. Does it have any features that actually improve perceived sound quality?


----------



## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> Does it have any features that actually improve perceived sound quality?


That, my friend, would be THE question.


----------



## VNandor

There must be _something _that improves the perceived sound quality. Otherwise, there wouldn't be people around saying that MQA releases are better. The question is what causes it? Different masters? The compression scheme? Or the little light that glows on the DAC while it's playing? Noone can possibly know it it seems.


----------



## Brahmsian (May 5, 2017)

For what it's worth, Consumer Reports, not exactly a publication that promotes snake oil, says their listening lab notes a difference between high resolution and CD, and between the latter and other formats, it's just that they say the improvements are hard to spot and also that you need good enough equipment.


----------



## pinnahertz

VNandor said:


> There must be _something _that improves the perceived sound quality. Otherwise, there wouldn't be people around saying that MQA releases are better. The question is what causes it? Different masters? The compression scheme? Or the little light that glows on the DAC while it's playing? Noone can possibly know it it seems.


As has been mentioned many times in this thread, since getting something to MQA requires remastering, there's a strong possibility that mastering would be the reason MQA sound better.  There has been not test that isolates the MQA process from remastering.


----------



## pinnahertz

Brahmsian said:


> For what it's worth, Consumer Reports, not exactly a publication that promotes snake oil, says their listening lab notes a difference between high resolution and CD, and between the latter and other formats, it's just that they say the improvements are hard to spot and also that you need good enough equipment.


Without careful study of the path their test material took to get to "high-res", and then get "high-res" to the listening ear,  it's sort of a moot point to cite just their test results.


----------



## sonitus mirus

Here is the link to the rest of the article.

https://hoholok.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-hi-res-audio/

And some tidbits:

_The truth is that many of the audio information in hi-res files is outside of the range of human hearing. That is one reason why Mark Waldrep, a former music recording and mastering engineer and founder of AIX Media Group, is very critical about the way the music industry has been defined, characterized, and promoted hi-res audio.

He is opposed to the industry practice of making hi-res files of analog recordings, for example. If you look at a spectrograph—a visual representation of the spectrum of audio frequencies—in hi-res files with bands like Led Zeppelin or the Beatles, Waldrep explains, “the frequency range and dynamic range above a certain point, everything is black or zeros.”

“In other words,” he says, “you get a large digital file that you are nothing more than the analog tape. And why pay all that?”

For most of the songs that are currently sold as hi-res, the industry is selling consumers a bill of goods, Waldrep claims. “It’s nonsense,” he says. “It is the snake-oil thing that comes around so much in the audio industry.”_


----------



## pinnahertz

sonitus mirus said:


> Here is the link to the rest of the article.
> 
> https://hoholok.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-hi-res-audio/
> 
> ...



Just read the whole ridiculous piece.  Seriously, I don't know if I should laugh or cry.  The only guy worth quoting is Waldrep, who actually knows his stuff.  Yet he is one of the very few producers or actual hi-res content. 

As long as we're cherry-picking, here's one, straight out of the "article":_ "But the support for hi-res audio is not universal. Some experts, i*ncluding Consumer Reports’ testers*—the question of whether it is really worth the extra cost of new equipment and new music files."
_
And what the heck happened to CU anyway?  Did they fire all their proof readers?  Hire high-school grammar drop-outs to do the writing?  That "article" is a technical and grammatical mess.


----------



## pinnahertz

Oh, and BTW, not word one about how CU did their testing.


----------



## bigshot

Common knowledge says that better equipment will reveal audio artifacts better and that the difference exists in fine detail, but I haven't found that to be the case at all. Artifacting from inadequate bitrate sounds completely unlike acoustic music- like outer space gurgles and warbles and pops. And it generally exists *behind* the details as a sort of echo, not replacing them. I've found that there either are artifacts or there aren't. At some point the bitrate achieves audible transparency and it doesn't get any better. Adding ultrasonic frequencies or lowering noise floors even further beyond inaudible doesn't make music sound any different at all.


----------



## Brahmsian (May 7, 2017)

Here's a headline from physics.org:


bigshot said:


> I've sat through that sales pitch from Neil Young and SACDs and I know the score on that.



Here's a headline from phys.org:




The article says, "Audio purists and industry should welcome these findings—our study finds high resolution audio has a small but important advantage in its quality of reproduction over standard audio content."

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2016-06-people-difference-high-resolution-audio.html

SACD was not a technological failure; it was a commercial one. Its failure had a lot to do with timing, as it tried to pick up steam when people were already transitioning from physical media to downloads.

SACD is better than rebook CD in almost every way I can think of. Most of my SACDs are dual layer. As such, they can pack way more information than a standard CD. SACD are multi-channel. On top of that, a lot of the music on them was engineered for the very best audiophile sound. Even the SACD case is better (I always hated CD cases).

What is there not to love about SACD? You will say the price, but in many cases the price difference is not huge. I don't regret buying my SACDs even for a single moment. I continue to love SACD.


----------



## bigshot (May 7, 2017)

Has anyone seen that study? Based on the description, I bet they didn't remove the possibility of different mastering from the mix. The only way to know for sure that mastering is identical is to manufacture your own SACD. I've found lots of SACDs where the mastering on the CD layer is different than on the SACD layer.

If it isn't mastering, it's either frequency extension or noise floor, both of which have been extensively studied and determined to not be audible.


----------



## sonitus mirus

bigshot said:


> Has anyone seen that study? Based on the description, I bet they didn't remove the possibility of different mastering from the mix. The only way to know for sure that mastering is identical is to manufacture your own SACD. I've found lots of SACDs where the mastering on the CD layer is different than on the SACD layer.
> 
> If it isn't mastering, it's either frequency extension or noise floor, both of which have been extensively studied and determined to not be audible.


It's that same 2016 meta-analysis from Dr. Joshua Reiss that uses a bunch of studies that by themselves did nothing to prove that "high resolution" audio could be heard over standard Red Book.

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18296

Again, there is much controversy over the results, except from the usual sources where one might expect to find glowing support.

A meta-analysis using the available studies in an effort to come to the conclusion they did seemed like a stretch.  I could probably show a statistical probability that people see ghosts using a similar style of analysis.  Some people saw something some of the time, so it most likely means that something ghost-like can interact with us.

Ghosts are real!  Who you going to call?

Why doesn't anyone try and conduct the most obvious type of test to find out whether HiRes can be identified over CD, a double-blind listening test?  I think I know the answer after all this time.  There probably isn't any difference to be heard.


----------



## bigshot (May 7, 2017)

sonitus mirus said:


> Why doesn't anyone try and conduct the most obvious type of test to find out whether HiRes can be identified over CD, a double-blind listening test?  I think I know the answer after all this time.  There probably isn't any difference to be heard.



Bingo.

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14195
http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/explanation.htm

The only way to tell the difference is if your amp produces harmonic distortion because it isn't designed to deal with ultrasonic frequencies. In other words, "hires" audio can only sound *worse*, it can't sound better.


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## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> Has anyone seen that study? Based on the description, I bet they didn't remove the possibility of different mastering from the mix.


It's worse than that.  It's a "meta-analysis", attempting to correlate the un-correlatable.  For example, the first "test" included, Plenge (1980) was published 2 years in advance of the CD and used test tones into speakers that produced IMD when stimulated with ultrasonic content.  The "audibility" was actually a test of the inability of the reproduction system to handle out of band signals.  Of course, it was included in the meta-analysis, and did bias the results.

This paper has been widely discredited, and at very least, challenged for it's validity.  Of course, it's all old news, and to bring it up at this point is more than a little bit silly.


----------



## castleofargh

Brahmsian said:


> Here's a headline from physics.org:
> 
> 
> Here's a headline from phys.org:
> ...


 this is the MQA topic, if you believe what makes MQA good is how hig hres it is, you need to read all your links again.
and if you're just arguing for SACD, then please do it in the proper topic.

Reiss meta collection of horrors has many flaws and IMO, just reading his own warnings in the study give reason enough not to draw the conclusions he decides to draw anyway. but for that too there are more appropriate topics to discuss it.


----------



## icebear

Another link in the MQA chain which doesn't make any sense to me ...
They claim to correct any errors of the original ADC and the final DA conversion is following the MQA algorithms and the blue light comes on yeah! now it sounds good!
All the processing of the original recording, the mixing and mastering has been done based on the original recording and now the original recording is getting the MQA improvement... does this automatically require a complete remastering process or can this improvement just be topped over the existing work and it will sound masterly? ).
This seems like the canvas beneath the painting gets a different treatment and now the colors are supposedly coming out brighter and prettier. .

You've guessed right, I didn't figure out how to insert smilies.


----------



## gregorio

icebear said:


> All the processing of the original recording, the mixing and mastering has been done based on the original recording and now the original recording is getting the MQA improvement... does this automatically require a complete remastering process or can this improvement just be topped over the existing work and it will sound masterly?



I've mentioned this exact same point several times already in this thread. There are only two possible answers to your question, either:

1. Any particular ADC causes audible artefacts, say filter pre/post ringing or whatever "blurring" is supposed to mean. In which case, as you and I have said, the mixing and mastering has been done based on that and in most cases at least a remaster would be required, if not an entire remix. An exception might be direct to disk recordings (IE. No mixing or mastering) but these are very/extremely rare. Or ...

2. The ADC artefacts ("blurring" or whatever) are not audible and therefore have had no influence on the mixing or mastering processes. In which case, correcting these artefacts would not require a remix or remaster. However, if this is the case, then MQA are making a big deal out of correcting/fixing a problem which is inaudible!

The three fanbois contributing to this thread refuse to acknowledge the actual facts and logic, choosing to either completely ignore these inconvenient facts/logic or responding by quoting (or misquoting) more irrelevant marketing BS. It's this "choosing" which defines them as fanbois!



headfry said:


> I prefer many hires recordings to Redbook, not sure if it's simply due to a better master
> or processing thereof ...
> Most MQA I've listened to definitely sounds better, whether this is due to simply a better processing of the master, a better master or benefits of the MQA process itself doesn't matter to me.



Despite it being explained to you numerous times, in various different threads, you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the ridiculous logical contradiction in your statements. If you do not know and do not care about unrelated factors which affect the determination of what is better or preferable just think of the consequences: Unleaded gas can be demonstrated to be better than premium unleaded, alternative or no medicine is preferable to established medical advice/treatment, not wearing a seatbelt is safer than wearing one, etc. Your logic is "ridiculous" because it's hard to imagine how you've managed to survive in the world if you truly believe what you're saying and apply that logic in the rest of your life. You'd either be dead, bankrupt or both! There is NO correlation between the quality of a master and the quality of a distribution format, if there were then I could put a high quality master into a 16/44.1 container and a low quality version into a hires container and applying your logic could ONLY result in the conclusion that redbook is superior to hires! Using your logic, I could in fact prove the superiority of just about any format over any other: For example it would be easy to prove that 192kbps AAC "definitely sounds better" than SACD, MQA, 32/384 or whatever else exists which is marketed as superior. 

You've now backed yourself into such a horrendous logical cul de sac that you've no choice other than to either A. Just completely avoid/ignore this post and effectively admit you're being foolish/fooled and irrational or B. Make yourself look even more foolish or easily fooled by using misdirection or some other ridiculous rationale as an excuse for not applying your stated logic! Which is it going to be?

G


----------



## sonitus mirus

My chips are on choice B.


----------



## bigshot

On a blu-ray forum I frequent, there has been an ongoing argument about which release of Dario Argento's Suspira is the best and most accurate transfer. The ironic thing about it is that many people are arguing that a version that hasn't even been released yet is the best, based solely on the tweets and Facebook posts from the people doing the restoration. They haven't even seen the release, yet they are willing to go to the mat proclaiming that it's the best!

Internet forums tend to breed Brobnigagian arguments about which side of an egg to break it on. I personally can't see why someone would even attempt to defend MQA on technical merits when so little about the technical merits of MQA have been divulged, but clearly some people feel invested in it enough to try. I have no doubt that MQA sounds very good, particularly when they have the ability to remaster to improve the sound quality. But MP3 and AAC can sound very good with a proper remaster too. Remastering quality is what people should be focusing on, not irrelevant technical minutia.


----------



## headfry

bigshot said:


> On a blu-ray forum I frequent, there has been an ongoing argument about which release of Dario Argento's Suspira is the best and most accurate transfer. The ironic thing about it is that many people are arguing that a version that hasn't even been released yet is the best, based solely on the tweets and Facebook posts from the people doing the restoration. They haven't even seen the release, yet they are willing to go to the mat proclaiming that it's the best!
> 
> Internet forums tend to breed Brobnigagian arguments about which side of an egg to break it on. I personally can't see why someone would even attempt to defend MQA on technical merits when so little about the technical merits of MQA have been divulged, but clearly some people feel invested in it enough to try. I have no doubt that MQA sounds very good, particularly when they have the ability to remaster to improve the sound quality. But MP3 and AAC can sound very good with a proper remaster too. Remastering quality is what people should be focusing on, not irrelevant technical minutia.




I have yet to hear an MP3, AAC or FLAC that sounds as good - particularly in naturalness and imaging/soundstage -  as many of the Tidal software-decoded Masters I've heard. If it can be done,
let's have it!


----------



## castleofargh

my mum has yet to meet a more amazing, talented, and clever boy than me. does it convince you that I'm the best dude ever? perhaps you're a tiny bit skeptical, to say the least.
welcome to the club.


----------



## gregorio

headfry said:


> I have yet to hear an MP3, AAC or FLAC that sounds as good - particularly in naturalness and imaging/soundstage -  as many of the Tidal software-decoded Masters I've heard. If it can be done,
> let's have it!



I have yet to taste a paper, cardboard or plastic wrapper that tastes as good - particularly in naturalness and flavor/texture - as many of the McDonalds burgers I've eaten. If other burger makers can use the same wrapping, let's have it!

I have yet to see an XviD, H264 or RAW that looks as good - particularly in naturalness and framing/widescreen - as many of the Paramount films in MPEG-2 I've seen. If other films can be encoded in MPEG-2, let's have it!

See, I can play that game too! 

G


----------



## VNandor

headfry said:


> I have yet to hear an MP3, AAC or FLAC that sounds as good - particularly in naturalness and imaging/soundstage -  as many of the Tidal software-decoded Masters I've heard. If it can be done,
> let's have it!



It can be easily done. First you have to convert any format you want to test to either AAC or FLAC. Then you have to organize a proper blind test, which can be easily done with foobar's ABX Comparator plugin for example. All that is left now is to try to pass the blind test and fail at it, which would be a very likely case. Blind test is the trick that can make both FLAC and AAC sound just as good as any "hi-res" format.


----------



## pinnahertz

No, it's not easily done at all.  The problem is he needs to compare an ACC and FLAC version _and_ an MQA version made from the _exact same master._  Not going to happen, there's no way to access a master, and no way to play with MQA encoding.  You can't trust the MQA versions out there to not have some form of remastering done, so no comparison of the codec alone is possible at this time.  

However, comparing an AAC and FLAC to a bit-perfect CD rip is easy.  And also silly, as FLAC is lossless and bit-perfect to being with.  AAC comparisons are valid so long as there's a brain in use during the process of selecting the encoding bit rates and parameters.  Same thing with mp3.  Both can sound exactly like lossless, or dreadful, or anywhere inbetween. They are not fixed, generic codecs. 

Besides, would it surprise anyone if the ABX process were rejected out of hand?  I wouldn't surprise me.  I've been defending DBT/ABX for years, some people just won't ever accept the methodology.


----------



## old tech (May 11, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> No, it's not easily done at all.  The problem is he needs to compare an ACC and FLAC version _and_ an MQA version made from the _exact same master._  Not going to happen, there's no way to access a master, and no way to play with MQA encoding.  You can't trust the MQA versions out there to not have some form of remastering done, so no comparison of the codec alone is possible at this time.
> 
> However, comparing an AAC and FLAC to a bit-perfect CD rip is easy.  And also silly, as FLAC is lossless and bit-perfect to being with.  AAC comparisons are valid so long as there's a brain in use during the process of selecting the encoding bit rates and parameters.  Same thing with mp3.  Both can sound exactly like lossless, or dreadful, or anywhere inbetween. They are not fixed, generic codecs.
> 
> Besides, would it surprise anyone if the ABX process were rejected out of hand?  I wouldn't surprise me.  I've been defending DBT/ABX for years, some people just won't ever accept the methodology.


We are not alone in the audio world, the rejection of DBX testing is common among the psuedosciences and with those who hold unshakable beliefs.

When presented with evidence that contradicts prior beliefs people tend to break into either of the two camps - those that revisit their beliefs and those that reject the evidence, preferring to cling on to their beliefs.  The stronger the belief, and the more it is tied up with an emotional attachment, the more likely they will fall in the latter camp.  Psychology 101.


----------



## VNandor (May 11, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> No, it's not easily done at all.  The problem is he needs to compare an ACC and FLAC version _and_ an MQA version made from the _exact same master._  Not going to happen, there's no way to access a master, and no way to play with MQA encoding.  You can't trust the MQA versions out there to not have some form of remastering done, so no comparison of the codec alone is possible at this time.
> 
> However, comparing an AAC and FLAC to a bit-perfect CD rip is easy.  And also silly, as FLAC is lossless and bit-perfect to being with.  AAC comparisons are valid so long as there's a brain in use during the process of selecting the encoding bit rates and parameters.  Same thing with mp3.  Both can sound exactly like lossless, or dreadful, or anywhere inbetween. They are not fixed, generic codecs.
> 
> Besides, would it surprise anyone if the ABX process were rejected out of hand?  I wouldn't surprise me.  I've been defending DBT/ABX for years, some people just won't ever accept the methodology.



How is it impossible to download a 24bit/192kHz or an MQA file and then convert that version directly to whatever format you want and then comparing them?


----------



## pinnahertz

VNandor said:


> How is it impossible to download a 24bit/192kHz or an MQA file and then convert that version directly to whatever format you want and then comparing them?



It's not impossible to do that, it's just an invalid comparison.  Ask yourself this: Do I know how those files originated? 
And the answer is: You don't.  And if You Don't, you don't have a valid comparison.


----------



## pinnahertz

Just got this in my inbox:

*Questions and Answers (by Mark Waldrep, AIX Records)*
*Q.* _What do you think of MQA?_


----------



## bigshot (May 11, 2017)

headfry said:


> I have yet to hear an MP3, AAC or FLAC that sounds as good - particularly in naturalness and imaging/soundstage -  as many of the Tidal software-decoded Masters I've heard.




Do you listen to those other formats often and have a large collection of them to refer to? I only know AAC and the various disc formats, because those are the formats in my library. (I don't do Tidal.) I have yet to find anything on SACD, CD, Blu-ray audio or DVD-A that can't be exactly reproduced with AAC 256 VBR. I've done careful A/B testing on a lot of different types of recordings to make sure of that.

Do you consider MQA to be better than 24/96 or above? Because I have compared that to AAC VBR 256 and it sounds exactly the same. So I'm assuming that if MQA sounds better than AAC, it must also sound better than high bitrate audio. Is that correct?

I do know of a format that greatly exceeds the perceived sound quality of Redbook audio though. That is multichannel audio. If you want significant improvements in soundstage imaging and naturalness, that will likely make much more of a difference than MQA. Do you have a multichannel system?


----------



## bigshot

pinnahertz said:


> It's not impossible to do that, it's just an invalid comparison.  Ask yourself this: Do I know how those files originated?
> And the answer is: You don't.  And if You Don't, you don't have a valid comparison.



You could capture the output of Tidal to 16/44.1 and convert it to various formats and compare back to the original stream, couldn't you? It would be clunky but possible. I doubt it would reveal any difference in sound quality though.


----------



## castleofargh

bigshot said:


> You could capture the output of Tidal to 16/44.1 and convert it to various formats and compare back to the original stream, couldn't you? It would be clunky but possible. I doubt it would reveal any difference in sound quality though.


but that would inform us about the other formats, not about MQA. right now the best some have tried is to get a MQA and a PCM version of an album, and try to guess if they were the same master with whatever they can use to measure the signals despite the bit depth cut, dither, and wide low pass filter. but even that is limited as we need a MQA DAC to get the entire goodness and lossless reconstruction. meaning we can't just go and record at a digital level after MQA is decompressed into PCM. and if we record the analog out, somebody is going to cry that we're time smearing the signal with the ADC... ^_^


----------



## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> I do know of a format that greatly exceeds the perceived sound quality of Redbook audio though. That is multichannel audio. If you want significant improvements in soundstage imaging and naturalness, that will likely make much more of a difference than MQA. Do you have a multichannel system?


It's very funny.  Multichannel music has, for the most part, failed as a format, though is still available.  And yet the difference between it and any 2 channel format is so significant that nobody could miss it.  Even someone deaf in one  ear could tell the difference.  Yes, it takes an investment in hardware and software to appreciate it to the full.  But then, the basic system is what we already need for good movie sound playback, so millions already have the capability. 

And yet, here we sit debating a codec that may or may not even have an audible difference over the existing 2 channel codecs.  It, too, takes an investment in hardware and software to be able to even use. 

I would suggest than the MQA fanbois go buy some multichannel music and listen to it on a good 5.1 system, then compare that immersive experience to their paltry 2-channel MQA stuff.  The come back and discuss the etherial quality of "soundstage".


----------



## bigshot

I've come to consider the use of the word "soundstage" in reviews as being an indicator of placebo. Soundstage is created in the mix with primary and secondary distance clues and it's dependent on the shape and layout of the listening room to sound convincing. As long as channel separation and phase is decent between the channels, every step between mix and room is easy. Soundstage in headphones is even more absurd, because headphones make sound go in a straight line through the center of your head. Without motion tracking and processing, there is no way that headphones can possibly create the aural illusion of the music existing in three dimensional space in front of you.

Multichannel audio *can* create larger and more imaged soundstage. It does this by adding a middle channel to bridge the "phantom center" in stereo, and adding rear channels to provide the ability to pull the sound out into the middle of the room. Multichannel isn't about sound coming at you from all directions. It's about creating a coherent sound field that doesn't just extend left to right in front of you, but also forward to back. The new surround mix of Sgt Pepper is rumored to be in Atmos, which would add the ability for sound to be placed in a vertical dimension as well. That's true three dimensional sound and this would make it possible to not only place sound in three dimensional space with pin point accuracy, it also means you could synthesize just about any acoustic ambience you could possibly imagine.

Multichannel is as big of an improvement over stereo as stereo was over mono.


----------



## bigshot

castleofargh said:


> but that would inform us about the other formats, not about MQA.



You could directly compare MQA to PCM if you played back the MQA file and captured the analogue output to 16/44.1 PCM using a good sound capture device. Then route the analogue output of the MQA into a switcher along with the PCM capture and line level match and compare the two. If MQA sounds better, it still could be degradation caused by the capture device, but with a good capture device, that would be very unlikely. My bet would be that both MQA and PCM would sound identical. You would have eliminated the possibility of mastering making a difference.


----------



## LajostheHun

Yes MCH is definitely  a way to go, it's ironic how Bob Stuart was also  heavily involved with MLP [the foundation of Dolby True HD] which was "necessary" for  DVD-A MCH delivery of LPCM.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I've come to consider the use of the word "soundstage" in reviews as being an indicator of placebo. Soundstage is created in the mix with primary and secondary distance clues and it's dependent on the shape and layout of the listening room to sound convincing. As long as channel separation and phase is decent between the channels, every step between mix and room is easy. Soundstage in headphones is even more absurd, because headphones make sound go in a straight line through the center of your head. Without motion tracking and processing, there is no way that headphones can possibly create the aural illusion of the music existing in three dimensional space in front of you.
> 
> Multichannel audio *can* create larger and more imaged soundstage. It does this by adding a middle channel to bridge the "phantom center" in stereo, and adding rear channels to provide the ability to pull the sound out into the middle of the room. Multichannel isn't about sound coming at you from all directions. It's about creating a coherent sound field that doesn't just extend left to right in front of you, but also forward to back. The new surround mix of Sgt Pepper is rumored to be in Atmos, which would add the ability for sound to be placed in a vertical dimension as well. That's true three dimensional sound and this would make it possible to not only place sound in three dimensional space with pin point accuracy, it also means you could synthesize just about any acoustic ambience you could possibly imagine.
> 
> Multichannel is as big of an improvement over stereo as stereo was over mono.



I agree with pretty much all of that.  With the exception of Calrec Ambisonic microphone recordings and similar, soundstaging is an illusion. I particularly agree with the headphone point. There is a lot of emphasis on the reviews on this forum rattling on about soundstaging which seems overly important for something which is so minor. I think people are criditing good phase and frequency extension with soundstage.

However there is some subtly to stereo speaker soundtages. Good systems can give the illusion of not only lateral left and right, but depth (mono can do this too) and height.  You can also have a sense of size to the source. These are all illusions as I keep repeating, but satisfying.

My experience of multichannel audio was the early DVDAs and it was poorly done. I will try them again, but all too often the producers or band cannot resist over doing it, like early '70s stereo ping ponging sounds left and right. I hope they can limit themselves to using the rear channels for adding atmosphere to the performance. The other problem is a huge percentage of the population are not capable of setting up a subwoofer in a matched way. Also a minimum number of subwoofers should really be 2, preferably 1 per channel, and each with sepaerate level and delay if all the speakers are equal, and additionally a seperate crosssover if not. Bass management is a cludge.


----------



## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> [1] "our study finds high resolution audio has a small but important advantage in its quality of reproduction over standard audio content."
> 
> [2] SACD is better than rebook CD in almost every way I can think of.



1. Can you provide any evidence from that study which supports the claim of an "important advantage in it's quality of reproduction"?

2. You don't seem to realise that instead of demonstrating that SACD is better than CD, what you're actually demonstrating is the severe limits of what you "can think of". That's why science exists and why this forum exists; we're looking for and discussing the facts about sound, not the limits of what you personally "can think of"!!

G


----------



## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> Multichannel is as big of an improvement over stereo as stereo was over mono.


The same perceived magnitude of improvement happens every time you double the channel count, until you get to 20, then the improvements start to level. 
1>2
2>5.1
5.1>10.2
10.2>20.4 
Above that it's dependant on room size and channel plan.  Plans like Atmos 5.1.4 are pretty badly hobbled, though, and sort of break the "rule".


----------



## bigshot (May 12, 2017)

jagwap said:


> My experience of multichannel audio was the early DVDAs and it was poorly done. I will try them again, but all too often the producers or band cannot resist over doing it, like early '70s stereo ping ponging sounds left and right.



If you ever get to Los Angeles, I'd be happy to demo my system for you. It isn't perfect, but it has a really large front soundstage and it's very good at creating a realistic sound field.

Multichannel music on DVD-A and SACD tends to be pot smoking music from the 70s, which lends itself to ping pong. But there are a lot of blu-ray videos of other kinds of music that do a really good job of creating a coherent sound space.


----------



## gregorio

bigshot said:


> [1] Multichannel audio *can* create larger and more imaged soundstage. It does this by adding a middle channel to bridge the "phantom center" in stereo, and adding rear channels to provide the ability to pull the sound out into the middle of the room. Multichannel isn't about sound coming at you from all directions.
> [2] The new surround mix of Sgt Pepper is rumored to be in Atmos, which would add the ability for sound to be placed in a vertical dimension as well. That's true three dimensional sound and this would make it possible to not only place sound in three dimensional space with pin point accuracy, it also means you could synthesize just about any acoustic ambience you could possibly imagine.



1. Adding a centre channel doesn't make the soundstage larger, it just makes the centre more focused. In a home listening environment it's arguable that having an actual centre channel (as opposed to a phantom centre) is pointless, it's only essential for large spaces (such as cinemas). Typically, using a surround system's "ability to pull the sound into the middle of the room" is avoided. To achieve the illusion of a sound being in the middle of the room you have to route that sound to equally to all 5 outputs or at least 4 outputs; L, R, Ls, Rs (the same as creating a phantom centre in 2 channel stereo where the signal is routed equally to both left and right speakers). The reason outputting a correlated signal to front and surround speakers is usually (though not always) avoided is because you are multiplying the likelihood of phase issues by a factor of 4 (compared to stereo). I don't understand your comment about sound not coming at you from all directions? It would have to come at you from all directions to create the illusion of being in the middle of the room!

2. What sound from Sgt Pepper would be placed in a vertical dimension? Also, I don't think you've understood the design/purpose of Atmos or the state of technology to generate a 3D space (synthesize an acoustic ambience) "with pin point accuracy" or the ability to reproduce that in a home environment. In significant respects, technology can't even do this with 5.1 yet, let alone with Dolby Atmos!



jagwap said:


> [1] Good systems can give the illusion of not only lateral left and right, but depth (mono can do this too) and height.  You can also have a sense of size to the source.
> [2]  ... I hope they can limit themselves to using the rear channels for adding atmosphere to the performance.
> [3] The other problem is a huge percentage of the population are not capable of setting up a subwoofer in a matched way. Also a minimum number of subwoofers should really be 2, preferably 1 per channel, and each with sepaerate level and delay if all the speakers are equal, and additionally a seperate crosssover if not. Bass management is a cludge.



1. Left, right and depth depends entirely on the mix, NOT the playback system. The "sense of size" is a function OF the source (of how it's been recorded/mixed/processed), NOT a sense of size "TO" the source! One does not need a "good system" to reproduce the illusion, one needs an adequate system because if the system is incapable of the mediocre levels of accuracy required to reproduce the sense of size in the mix, then it is inadequate! A good system merely increases the accuracy further. And with stereo, the system should NOT be creating an illusion of height, as there is none in the recording/mix. A system which does create the illusion of height is therefore inadequate, with speakers it would generally be a phase/reflection problem of the listening environment. The problem with many audiophiles is that they often view/treat "soundstage" in the same way as bassheads view/treat the bass frequency band (IE. It's a function of their equipment and their preference) but a true audiophile loves the audio itself and wants to reproduce the intended bass freqs and "soundstage".

2. What performance? With acoustic performance genres, such as classical, I agree with you but all popular music genres do not have "a performance" or "an atmosphere". The "soundstage" (width and depth) of virtually all popular music recordings is almost entirely manufactured during mixing, it NEVER existed in reality! I agree that many early stereo mixes (of popular genres) overused the stereo image but as time went on, producers learned to use it artistically rather than just as a cheap/inappropriate gimmick and the genres themselves evolved to take advantage of it. Just adding "atmosphere to the performance" in popular music genres therefore makes no sense and wouldn't work, what it needs is for the popular music genres to evolve to take advantage of surround sound and producers learning how to use it artistically. However, in the 20 or so years that surround has been available for music products, neither has really happened and surround (popular) music is still effectively at the same stage as early "gimmicky" stereo. Given the current state/direction of the industry this is unlikely to change and rather ironically, considering your position, MQA makes it even less likely to change!

3. That makes no sense! The population is not capable of setting up a well matched subwoofer so your suggestion is for them to have to setup 2-5 matched subwoofers? Yes, bass management is somewhat of a cludge but what practical alternative is there that would actually be better?

G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. Adding a centre channel doesn't make the soundstage larger, it just makes the centre more focused. In a home listening environment it's arguable that having an actual centre channel (as opposed to a phantom centre) is pointless, it's only essential for large spaces (such as cinemas). Typically, using a surround system's "ability to pull the sound into the middle of the room" is avoided. To achieve the illusion of a sound being in the middle of the room you have to route that sound to equally to all 5 outputs or at least 4 outputs; L, R, Ls, Rs (the same as creating a phantom centre in 2 channel stereo where the signal is routed equally to both left and right speakers). The reason outputting a correlated signal to front and surround speakers is usually (though not always) avoided is because you are multiplying the likelihood of phase issues by a factor of 4 (compared to stereo). I don't understand your comment about sound not coming at you from all directions? It would have to come at you from all directions to create the illusion of being in the middle of the room!



I disagree: The centre channel helps pin down the central channels in a domestic environment if there is more then one listener or they are not on a central axis.  But I prefer not to bother.  Also for sound to come in all directions would not result in practice it coming from the middle of the room due to a multitude of factors: head transfer function, varying room acoustics and reflections, and phase shifts.  





> 2. What sound from Sgt Pepper would be placed in a vertical dimension? Also, I don't think you've understood the design/purpose of Atmos or the state of technology to generate a 3D space (synthesize an acoustic ambience) "with pin point accuracy" or the ability to reproduce that in a home environment. In significant respects, technology can't even do this with 5.1 yet, let alone with Dolby Atmos!
> 
> 
> 
> 1. Left, right and depth depends entirely on the mix, NOT the playback system. The "sense of size" is a function OF the source (of how it's been recorded/mixed/processed), NOT a sense of size "TO" the source! One does not need a "good system" to reproduce the illusion, one needs an adequate system because if the system is incapable of the mediocre levels of accuracy required to reproduce the sense of size in the mix, then it is inadequate! A good system merely increases the accuracy further. And with stereo, the system should NOT be creating an illusion of height, as there is none in the recording/mix. A system which does create the illusion of height is therefore inadequate, with speakers it would generally be a phase/reflection problem of the listening environment. The problem with many audiophiles is that they often view/treat "soundstage" in the same way as bassheads view/treat the bass frequency band (IE. It's a function of their equipment and their preference) but a true audiophile loves the audio itself and wants to reproduce the intended bass freqs and "soundstage".



Definitions: Your idea of an adequate system is very likely a loot more high end than the general public. The great unwashed think a bluetooth speaker is great, and that is not reference class in imaging and soundstage.  Modest hi-fi's are therefore also "not adequate" in your terms.  Height illusion is possible, and desirable commercially, and comes from head transfer function cues.  Maybe just none in your mix. 





> 2. What performance? With acoustic performance genres, such as classical, I agree with you but all popular music genres do not have "a performance" or "an atmosphere". The "soundstage" (width and depth) of virtually all popular music recordings is almost entirely manufactured during mixing, it NEVER existed in reality! I agree that many early stereo mixes (of popular genres) overused the stereo image but as time went on, producers learned to use it artistically rather than just as a cheap/inappropriate gimmick and the genres themselves evolved to take advantage of it. Just adding "atmosphere to the performance" in popular music genres therefore makes no sense and wouldn't work, what it needs is for the popular music genres to evolve to take advantage of surround sound and producers learning how to use it artistically. However, in the 20 or so years that surround has been available for music products, neither has really happened and surround (popular) music is still effectively at the same stage as early "gimmicky" stereo. Given the current state/direction of the industry this is unlikely to change and rather ironically, considering your position, MQA makes it even less likely to change!



Agreed, a live performance in a venue is going to give a good possibility of atmosphere from the surround and/or height channels, but good productions of 2 channel can give this illusion in the studio, so hopefully more channels can improve on this, and resist the temptation to put the horn section behind you. See, I agree.  I don't just pick things I disagree with and argue with people who "are wrong on the internet". Relax, take a breath, and listen to the height of the soundstage.





> 3. That makes no sense! The population is not capable of setting up a well matched subwoofer so your suggestion is for them to have to setup 2-5 matched subwoofers? Yes, bass management is somewhat of a cludge but what practical alternative is there that would actually be better?/QUOTE]
> 
> Good FULL range speakers are the best idea. But as you say, a practical solution is needed as not many will pay or accept that.  The best I've experienced for reliable set up is the TACT audio room EQ: 2 corner fitted subs, and up to 7.2 channels.  The correction is in the time domain so that everything gets aligned in phase and therefore group delay, rather than just an EQ, which usually does more harm then good.  This still needs a dealer to set it up.
> 
> On topic: I see MQA are doing multi channel demos now...  Netflix here we go...


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> However there is some subtly to stereo speaker soundtages. Good systems can give the illusion of not only lateral left and right, but depth (mono can do this too) and height.  You can also have a sense of size to the source. These are all illusions as I keep repeating, but satisfying.


It does happen, but it's random.  You cannot have a good palpable center image in perspective with two channel speaker stereo because both ears hear both speakers.  When it does happen, it's accidental. 


jagwap said:


> My experience of multichannel audio was the early DVDAs and it was poorly done. I will try them again, but all too often the producers or band cannot resist over doing it, like early '70s stereo ping ponging sounds left and right. I hope they can limit themselves to using the rear channels for adding atmosphere to the performance.


What you are doing here is contrasting badly mixed multichannel with well mixed 2-channel.  That's not really fair, is it?  There are many excellent multichannel mixes.  Yes, agreed, some of the "in the band" perspective mixes are nonsense, but some of the older ones come from early "quad" mixes(that whole idea was nonsense), and today's 5.1 versions are arguably better than the originals.

Today, there are two general mix perspectives, "in the band" and "stage/audience". The latter generally works quite well, particularly since the basic 5.1 plan is geared to front with surround support.  Some producers even provide both (AIX Records). 


jagwap said:


> The other problem is a huge percentage of the population are not capable of setting up a subwoofer in a matched way. Also a minimum number of subwoofers should really be 2, preferably 1 per channel, and each with separate level and delay if all the speakers are equal, and additionally a separate crossover if not.


Most decent AVRs come with some form of auto-cal, and most of those systems accomplish setup quite well, and quite easily.  It is possible for someone to completely misplace speakers, but with the on-screen diagrams and prompts, they'd have to be pretty pig-headed to ignore all the instructions, or just really locked into some strange furniture arrangement to get it really wrong.  The sub splice is generally handled adequately by auto-cal.   However, when it comes to adding more subs, it's tricky.  Auto cal, until you get to higher-end AVRs, makes no provision for individual sub cal, it just treats them all as one huge sub.  So now you've complicated the setup significantly.  I do agree that two is the minimum sub count, though.  I'd expect that anyone spending money on two subs has already looked into how to set them up.


jagwap said:


> Bass management is a cludge.


Really?  So how would you handle bass in all channels with little satellite speakers that won't reproduce any significant SPL below 80Hz?  Bass management solves several problems.  I don't know of any better ways to solve them.  You do realize that just to get 5 speakers in some rooms dictates that they be smaller satellite speakers, right?


----------



## pinnahertz

gregorio said:


> In a home listening environment it's arguable that having an actual centre channel (as opposed to a phantom centre) is pointless, it's only essential for large spaces (such as cinemas).


We agree on most things, but I'm going to have to disagree on that one.  There is no case were a center is pointless, unless you are the only listener in the room and plan to lock your head in a vice at a point along a line perpendicular to a line between the speakers at the midway point.  And nobody does that vice part.   Moving out of that sweet spot skews the position of any phantom center image and begins to collapse any dimensional characteristics as well.  And this assumes a perfect acoustic symmetry, something that almost never happens in the home.  This is even more true of smaller near field systems.  

In the original stereo experiments conducted in the 1930s at Bell Labs, they determined experimentally that the minimum channel count for adequate reproduction was three, not two.  We got stuck with two because it was practical, not optimal.  A real, palpable center is very difficult to pull off with only two speakers because of interaural crosstalk and asymmetrical acoustic reflections.  A center is the fix for all of that because it presents a real positioned source that hits both ears with equal signal.

The use a center in a cinema is driven by a different need, the locking of dialog to the center of a huge screen  with many seats, 90% of them not on the center line.  But it's the same mechanism, you can't do it with two speakers in more than one seat (or a line of seats) with 2-channel, though many will accept that as a tolerable compromise, and some even argue it's better than multichannel.  I am not one of them.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Definitions: Your idea of an adequate system is very likely a lot more high end than the general public. The great unwashed think a bluetooth speaker is great, and that is not reference class in imaging and soundstage.  Modest hi-fi's are therefore also "not adequate" in your terms.


How would you know what his "adequate" is?  I agree with gregorio in his statements and definitions here.  A great number of home stereos hit "adequate" for illusion.


jagwap said:


> Height illusion is possible, and desirable commercially, and comes from head transfer function cues.  Maybe just none in your mix.


Height in almost all stereo recordings is accidental.  It comes from a happy accident that fakes a bit of transfer function.  It's not intentional, and technically should not even be there at all.  It's also not universally percieved - even on "adequate" or "good" systems.


jagwap said:


> Agreed, a live performance in a venue is going to give a good possibility of atmosphere from the surround and/or height channels, but good productions of 2 channel can give this illusion in the studio,


Perhaps you may not realize that no mixing desk intended for stereo has any "height" position controls on it.  It has a pan pot for L-R position, we can do reverb programs for depth position.   There's no intentional height processing.  No desk mixing multichannel has height controls either.  You don't get into that until you work in something like Atmos, and all of those height objects get folded down to a flat plane in the 5.1 version. 


jagwap said:


> so hopefully more channels can improve on this, and resist the temptation to put the horn section behind you.


Like I said before, the "in the band" perspective does have some issues, and is not for everyone on every mix.  But the stage/audience perspective is commonly available, and very acceptable. 

More channels...well, they might improve height, and certainly Atmos has chipped away at this, but there are some rather monstrous compromises in their speaker plan (no height center!!!!) that hobble it, and keep it from accomplishing the goal with a respectable speaker count.  What Dolby did was take a massive configuration for large venues and make it "scalable" to crack into the home market.  IMO the blew it in their scaling.  And frankly, it doesn't matter.  Getting people to put up 5.1 is tough enough, putting speakers on the ceiling?  Not going to happen with any but the serious hobbyist.  And the reflecting speakers are just OK.  I wouldn't stop breathing while waiting for good Atmos music to be release.


jagwap said:


> Relax, take a breath, and listen to the height of the soundstage.


No, not me.  It's accidental, irreproducible, vague, and largely a work of the imagination and consequence of acoustics.  To actually place a sound above the speaker line in an intentional and predictable position takes some rather sophisticated processing, and a really good reproduction acoustic environment.  It's just not done.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] I disagree: The centre channel helps pin down the central channels in a domestic environment if there is more then one listener or they are not on a central axis.  But I prefer not to bother.
> [2] Also for sound to come in all directions would not result in practice it coming from the middle of the room due to a multitude of factors: head transfer function, varying room acoustics and reflections, and phase shifts.
> [3] Definitions: Your idea of an adequate system is very likely a loot more high end than the general public. The great unwashed think a bluetooth speaker is great, and that is not reference class in imaging and soundstage.  Modest hi-fi's are therefore also "not adequate" in your terms.
> [4] Height illusion is possible, and desirable commercially, and comes from head transfer function cues.  Maybe just none in your mix.
> ...



1. That's a contradiction! If you prefer not to bother, then that is an argument that a center channel is not required, which is agreeing with me, NOT disagreeing!
2. Again, you don't seem to realise that your arguing with me is in fact agreeing. What you've said (with the exception of HRTF) is precisely why trying to mix a sound as being in the middle of the room is generally avoided!
3. Even a cheap consumer stereo system should easily be able to reproduce a stereo soundstage, if it can't, then it's not a stereo system! Obviously though, a cheap system is not going to reproduce it as accurately as a better system. I use the comparison of cheap and better rather than cheap or expensive/high-end because most audiophile/high-end systems are also very inaccurate, inaccurate in terms of over-widening/detailing the soundstage rather than under. Headphones (cheap or expensive) obviously fall into this category, they all produce a stereo soundstage but none of them do so with any accuracy (except potentially when playing back actual binaural content).
4. I certainly hope there's none in my stereo mixes because, as Pinnahertz explained, there's no way to put height information into a stereo mix! Unfortunately though, there's no way to guarantee this due to factors outside my control, such as: Individual HRTF, inaccurate imaging caused by acoustic issues in listening environments or headphone presentation. In other words, if you are getting height information from stereo it's because of a fluke combination of personal HRTF and inaccurate reproduction.
5. But now you're talking about a small niche within what is already a small niche!
6. I personally cannot both relax and listen to the height of the soundstage, because I know it shouldn't be there and find that troubling rather than relaxing!


pinnahertz said:


> We agree on most things, but I'm going to have to disagree on that one.  There is no case were a center is pointless, unless you are the only listener in the room and plan to lock your head in a vice at a point along a line perpendicular to a line between the speakers at the midway point.



I was talking more in the sense of "an argument could be made" rather than in the sense of it is definitely better not to have a centre. In practice, many consumer 5.1 systems employ a different centre speaker to the left and right speakers. This will give a more focused/anchored centre position but not necessarily a better overall stereo image. As you say, in a home environment you're not going to get a perfectly positioned stereo image from two speakers unless you're exactly along the stereo centre line but you are usually still going to get stereo (albeit a skewed stereo). This is not the case in a large space like a cinema, where the far greater distances and timing differences between the speakers and listener results in the complete loss of the stereo image. Along the centre line the stereo image would be correct, a few meters either side of the centre line would give a skewed stereo image but for probably half the seats (or more) in a cinema, all you would perceive is mono (coming from whichever of the left or right speakers you're sitting nearer to). So for a cinema a dedicated centre speaker is essential.

G


----------



## castleofargh

may I point out that multi channel speakers and the resulting position cues have nothing to do with MQA?


----------



## bigshot

castleofargh said:


> may I point out that multi channel speakers and the resulting position cues have nothing to do with MQA?



If it did, MQA might actually sound better!

I just created a new thread for multichannel discussion.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> may I point out that multi channel speakers and the resulting position cues have nothing to do with MQA?



That is not strictly true: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&s...ggtMAE&usg=AFQjCNGBBMbPVC-aUEx8edNJqtrdOrL6_Q


----------



## Brahmsian (May 14, 2017)

gregorio said:


> 1. Can you provide any evidence from that study which supports the claim of an "important advantage in it's quality of reproduction"?
> 
> 2. You don't seem to realise that instead of demonstrating that SACD is better than CD, what you're actually demonstrating is the severe limits of what you "can think of". That's why science exists and why this forum exists; we're looking for and discussing the facts about sound, not the limits of what you personally "can think of"!!
> 
> G


If you're arguing that all personal opinions are forbidden on this thread, then you should take a better look at your own posts. Simply omitting the "I think" or "in my opinion" doesn't make every statement you have made objective. Again, nice try, but in the end you shoot yourself down with your own argument.

But in fact what's ironic about your argument is this: SACD really is objectively and demonstrably superior to CD in most if not in all ways. The SACD even includes the redbook version within it. Now the argument that people can't actually hear how good SACD really is is a different argument (although another false one according to some research).


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> That is not strictly true: https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&s...ggtMAE&usg=AFQjCNGBBMbPVC-aUEx8edNJqtrdOrL6_Q


"When I asked Jurewicz if I could hook up three Mytek Brooklyns to get 5.1-channel MQA playback,... he said that it _should_ be possible, but that as yet there were no multichannel MQA recordings."

So, nobody has done it, and there are no recordings available to play even if they had.  That makes it only a possibility, but not a true reality. 

Multichannel/5.1 mp3 is also a possibility, but it doesn't exist, so not reality either.  Multichannel Edison wax cylinders are also a possibility, but don't exist in reality either.  

And now, back to reality....


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## bigshot

Brahmsian said:


> Now the argument that people can't actually hear how good SACD really is is a different argument (although another false one according to some research).




Link to research please!


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## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> [1] If you're arguing that all personal opinions are forbidden on this thread, then you should take a better look at your own posts. Simply omitting the "I think" or "in my opinion" doesn't make every statement you have made objective. Again, nice try, but in the end you shoot yourself down with your own argument.
> [2] SACD really is objectively and demonstrably superior to CD in most if not in all ways.
> [2a] Now the argument that people can't actually hear how good SACD really is is a different argument.



1. No, I am saying that if you make or repeat a claim, then here in the Sound Science forum if you can't support that claim with any reliable evidence, the claim can/will be treated as utter audiophile marketing nonsense and the poster of that nonsense viewed as ignorant, a sap, a troll or a shill. I asked a simple question, completely in line with science and the whole point of this sub-forum; can you quote any evidence from the cited study which supports the claim? Your response was not even to try and support your repeated claim but instead you attempted to divert from this requirement by attacking the questioner (me). What's the most obvious conclusion?

2. If point #1 wasn't damning enough, off you go with another, different unsupported claim?! If you'd said "in your opinion" SACD is superior, we could have ignored it or explained why your opinion was misguided but instead, you chose to present your false information as fact ... Why? Again, what's the most obvious conclusion?
2a. It is a different argument but it's the same as; can people actually hear how *bad* SACD really is?

If you want to continue your SACD thing, no problem but, support your claims with reliable evidence and do it in a new/different thread as it's off topic for this thread.

G


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## Brahmsian (May 21, 2017)

gregorio said:


> 1. No, I am saying that if you make or repeat a claim, then here in the Sound Science forum if you can't support that claim with any reliable evidence, the claim can/will be treated as utter audiophile marketing nonsense and the poster of that nonsense viewed as ignorant, a sap, a troll or a shill. I asked a simple question, completely in line with science and the whole point of this sub-forum; can you quote any evidence from the cited study which supports the claim? Your response was not even to try and support your repeated claim but instead you attempted to divert from this requirement by attacking the questioner (me). What's the most obvious conclusion?
> 
> 2. If point #1 wasn't damning enough, off you go with another, different unsupported claim?! If you'd said "in your opinion" SACD is superior, we could have ignored it or explained why your opinion was misguided but instead, you chose to present your false information as fact ... Why? Again, what's the most obvious conclusion?
> 2a. It is a different argument but it's the same as; can people actually hear how *bad* SACD really is?
> ...


I see that you made no counter argument for why SACD isn't better than CD or why it might be worse. Contrary to what you may think, I don't consider myself an audio expert, so have nothing to be putting on airs about on this topic. I am very much interested in learning. In that spirit, I am honestly interested in your argument for why SACD is not an advance on CD. This argument is not really off topic since with MQA we're partly talking about hi-res audio. I would like to point out that I linked to an article in phys.org on a scientific study indicating that people can indeed hear the difference high resolution makes. But you're right that this SACD discussion is off topic in so far as hi-res is not what MQA is primarily about, so if you offer a counter argument I promise to read it and let it stand so we can get back to MQA.


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## Brahmsian (May 21, 2017)

bigshot said:


> Link to research please!



This Science Daily page provides information on where you can locate the study in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160627214255.htm

It doesn't mention SACD specifically; it's about high resolution in general: "People can hear the difference in high resolution audio, study finds." Let me know if you think SACD doesn't qualify as high resolution audio.

By the way, to a certain extent, hi-res is incidental to MQA, which only claims to be a superb technology for distributing it. As I understand it, one can access high resolution audio from just about any device since the higher resolution information is folded into a standard resolution. The MQA-enabled DAC is in charge of unfolding it. I already ordered my MQA Meridian Explorer 2, so I'll probably have more to say later.

As to why I say that hi-res is incidental to MQA, note the following from the MQA website:


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## bigshot

Has anyone read this study? Just from the summary, it raises a few questions. With training subjects could determine the difference 60% of the time. That isn't much beyond random. And how many of the test subjects were trainable to recognize it 60% of the time? Did they just find one person whose ears happened to ring with ultrasonic frequencies? I know there are people who are more sensitive to the squeal of fluorescent lights, but that isn't an advantage. The real question is if the upper frequencies make the music sound better., not if certain people can perceive high frequency sound pressure.


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## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> [1] I am honestly interested in your argument for why SACD is not an advance on CD.
> [2] I would like to point out that I linked to an article in phys.org on a scientific study indicating that people can indeed hear the difference high resolution makes.



1. _*Why 1-Bit Sigma-Delta Conversion is Unsuitable for High-Quality Applications* _- Vanderkooy and Lipshitz (2001, AES)_._
2. It wasn't a study, it was a cherry picked meta-analysis. A study would have been convincing but they avoided an actual study because I'm sure they're aware it wouldn't have given the result the sponsors of the paper wanted, guess who they were!



bigshot said:


> Has anyone read this study? Just from the summary, it raises a few questions.



Yes, it's a mess, not least because parts of the conclusion seem to be from a different paper,  as they are not related to the evidence presented in the rest of the paper! I'm not sure how it even got through peer review, although the AES can be a bit dodgy that way sometimes and I'm sure the paper's author also being the Vice-Chair of the AES' Publications Policy Committee is just purely coincidental!  I think it's been discussed here before, I seem to remember a thread dedicated to it sometime last year.  
_
G_


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## castleofargh

@Brahmsian
the argument that MQA can be assimilated to anything vaguely highres related is a terrible logical shortcut. discussing SACD still has nothing to do with this, I stand by my previous post. the sample rate is magnitudes above MQA, the encoding and decoding process are mighty different and SACD at least with real SACD DACs doesn't turn back into PCM before going to analog. they're entirely different formats. and if you start looking at special audible properties of PCM in resolutions like 24/96 to validate MQA, you would first need to demonstrate that MQA manipulation of the signal isn't losing whatever may or may not make highres better subjectively. 
I don't see how you can defend that constant fishing and display of confirmation bias.  MQA is MQA and the uncompressed MQA is PCM pure and simple, so if you wish to argue about variables, at least stick to PCM as it's the only relevant format for MQA.

I'm tempted to invent a new format pushing MQA principles one step further: dynamic resolution not important if not audible, encoding high frequencies for time blablah, saving so much bandwidth for streaming. it would have them all. I would call it AAC encoding and it would go up to 96khz(any similarity with an existing AAC format is purely accidental...).


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## bigshot

If they say that their process improves the sound of acoustic cylinder and shellac recordings, then it can't be better because of the higher bitrate. Acoustic recordings have limited frequency response and a very low signal to noise level. High bitrate audio would only improve the noise, not the music. If what they claim is true and it does restore pre-electrical recordings, MQA must be doing some sort of signal processing. It's a filter, not a format.


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## castleofargh

but that's the thing, MQA wishes to be everything at every step from recording to the inside of the DAC in your house. at some point if they had it their way, we'd have the artist eat at MQA restaurants and then play on MQA instruments with MQA approved mics and rooms. 
and from the all show(some stuff they only talked about doing), to simply taking random PCM masters and only applying the encoding process without anything else, in any case you still have a MQA file and no idea what was really done to it.


----------



## gregorio

castleofargh said:


> but that's the thing, MQA wishes to be everything at every step from recording to the inside of the DAC in your house.



IMO, this is the most confusing area of MQA's marketing strategy. Firstly, it's the area they've elaborated on the least and Secondly, the implication of MQA involvement in the whole recording chain is both nonsensical and unworkable. For example, the idea of an MQA approved/branded ADC and what such an ADC would actually do? The answer, is absolutely nothing that it didn't do before it was MQA certified. It cannot actually convert from analogue to MQA because there is no way to process an MQA stream. No DAWs support it, no processors/plugins support it and getting all the different DAW and plugin manufacturers to support it is a practical impossibility purely on logistical/contractual grounds, let alone:  The insurmountable practical problems of the accumulation of noise-shaped dither on every recorded channel, the massive hit on computer resources required to process numerous channels of encoded audio data and, the eventual generational loss of quality incurred by repeated lossy decoding and re-encoding. If any DAWs do ever support MQA files, it will only be support in the sense of being able to decode and convert them into an uncompressed, lossless format such as wav (although there'd still be the insurmountable problem of noise-shaped dither accumulation). In practise, the MQA ADC would have to output standard PCM, as they do currently, and the mixing/processing would also have to be done in PCM as it is now, so where's the MQA involvement? The only difference with an MQA ADC from any other ADC could be the reporting of it's jitter spectrum or more likely, it's decimation filter characteristics but it's unclear how these could be "corrected" and, what audible benefit there could possibly be from doing so anyway. The only clue given in this regard is a paper published by Stuart (et al) on "_The Audibility of Typical Digital Audio Filters in a High-Fidelity Playback System_" - which is yet another nonsense paper because he's used a completely ATYPICAL filter (and atypical dither) for the audibility tests! 

In any event, the only practical/acceptable point in the entire recording, editing, mixing and mastering chain to encode into MQA is at the very end of it, after the mastering is essentially already complete. So if  MQA is applying any sort of "corrections" or any other processing, then the questions become:1.  How is MQA part of "every step"  if it's not doing or influencing anything until after all the steps have already been completed? 2. How do you process the completed master and more importantly, 3. Why on earth would you want to? There is no conceivable, rational response to these questions, so the only option I can see is either: No response or an irrational response, which going on existing MQA marketing tactics, would take the form of obfuscation by redefining already well established terms and/or some deliberate confusing of scale/context!

G


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## castleofargh

as we don't know what they would actually do at each step of the recording/mixing/mastering job, it's hard to be categorical about objective fidelity the way we can be about the codec itself. but my guess is that they could introduce something random and arguably worst for fidelity because somebody felt it sounded better(so very MQA philosophy). or some BS standard like require tracks to always be recorded at more than 192khz so that they can then convert to 192khz with the filter they love so much. or maybe just a little like "mastered for itune", a list of tasks that anybody with half a brain would probably have done anyway, and a nice label to gain money from. because actually converting to MQA files from the start would only serve the DRM overlord. not that it couldn't be reason enough for them. 

but I'm getting bored of the guessing game. they claim to be a revolution, but all I see is a complicated codec to end up with PCM at bit depths other than 16 or 24 bit. and some ringing paranoia, but even if I agreed on the audibility(I do not), I would just use anything above 44.1khz and voila I have saved time. in the end the only positive thing I can see coming out of it is that more files will have 48khz multiples which could be nice for standard purposes with video stuff and many default rate for cellphones(and TBH might be half the reason Headfry likes it so much). but do we need all that crap to pick a different sample rate? I vote no.


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## Brahmsian (May 23, 2017)

castleofargh said:


> @Brahmsian
> the argument that MQA can be assimilated to anything vaguely highres related is a terrible logical shortcut.



I disagree, and here's why: at the bottom of so much of the disagreement is a basic lack of consensus about whether people can hear the difference hi-res makes or not, whether it be PCM or DSD. Let's be clear about what happened. It was bigshot who brought up SACDs. He claimed there is no audible improvement over CD.


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## Brahmsian (May 23, 2017)

bigshot said:


> Has anyone read this study? Just from the summary, it raises a few questions. With training subjects could determine the difference 60% of the time. That isn't much beyond random. And how many of the test subjects were trainable to recognize it 60% of the time? Did they just find one person whose ears happened to ring with ultrasonic frequencies? I know there are people who are more sensitive to the squeal of fluorescent lights, but that isn't an advantage. The real question is if the upper frequencies make the music sound better., not if certain people can perceive high frequency sound pressure.



Well, you asked for a scientific paper and now you don't like the result, so it looks like you will simply discount it. 60% is statistically significant. Now you _should_ question their methodology to see whether it holds up. And I'm not asking you to accept their conclusion. But I've seen so many people on the _other_ side of the argument do what you are doing now - that is, rip to shreds the methods employed by whatever study concluded against their view of the matter. Each camp rejects the studies that don't fit their notion! As for me, I leave the question open. Meanwhile, I simply enjoy my hi-res music and don't bother too much about whether I can hear a difference. I think all our good music should be high resolution for posterity.


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## Brahmsian

gregorio said:


> In any event, the only practical/acceptable point in the entire recording, editing, mixing and mastering chain to encode into MQA is at the very end of it, after the mastering is essentially already complete. So if  MQA is applying any sort of "corrections" or any other processing, then the questions become:1.  How is MQA part of "every step"  if it's not doing or influencing anything until after all the steps have already been completed? 2. How do you process the completed master and more importantly, 3. Why on earth would you want to? There is no conceivable, rational response to these questions, so the only option I can see is either: No response or an irrational response, which going on existing MQA marketing tactics, would take the form of obfuscation by redefining already well established terms and/or some deliberate confusing of scale/context!
> 
> G



Here's Bob's description of one MQA project (from their website):


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## pinnahertz

Brahmsian said:


> Here's Bob's description of one MQA project (from their website):


Yeah, we read all of that a long time ago.  What's your point?


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## pinnahertz

Brahmsian said:


> Well, you asked for a scientific paper and now you don't like the result, so it looks like you will simply discount it.


It's not a "scientific paper" if it doesn't hold up to peer review. 


Brahmsian said:


> Now you _should_ question their methodology to see whether it holds up. And I'm not asking you to accept their conclusion.
> But I've seen so many people on the _other_ side of the argument do what you are doing now - that is, rip to shreds the methods employed by whatever study concluded against their view of the matter. Each camp rejects the studies that don't fit their notion!


The notion is scientific proof of a concept, proven with targeted, controlled testing, with repeatable results. Not too much to ask as far as "scientific" goes. 


Brahmsian said:


> As for me, I leave the question open. Meanwhile, I simply enjoy my hi-res music and don't bother too much about whether I can hear a difference.


This is a real gem.  If you can't tell a difference, why support it at all?  "I can't see ultraviolet light, but I want to make darn sure all my light bulbs emit it anyway!"


Brahmsian said:


> I think all our good music should be high resolution for posterity.


...just in case human hearing evolves to be able to hear two more octaves?  Ok...but....


----------



## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> Well, you asked for a scientific paper and now you don't like the result, so it looks like you will simply discount it. 60% is statistically significant.



Yes, 60% would be significant and although that figure has been publish in the press, the actual figure in the paper was about 53%, which is not significant! Secondly, you keep calling it a study, when it was a meta-analysis. And lastly, the conclusion and the press release are not supported by the evidence actually presented in the paper. For example, one of the studies included in the meta-analysis, which added significantly to the result, was published in 1980, about a decade before hires was even invented!!



Brahmsian said:


> Here's Bob's description of one MQA project (from their website):



Thanks for that, it's a great example of one of their marketing tricks, one they've used before. In the paper you quoted, there's a big section criticising DBX tests, presumably in an attempt to discredit the numerous studies which which demonstrate the opposite of  the meta-analysis' conclusions. However, the criticism is levelled at an early form of DBX from the 1950's which was discontinued and superseded in the early 1980's and new protocols completely invalidate all his criticism which do not apply to the hires studies! Same with your quote: The PCM 2700 is a DAT machine released in the early 90's (and therefore is not an early ADC!) and while DAT machines were used extensively for a while to store/transfer masters, often/typically the DAT would have been fed a digital signal, thereby bypassing the PCM 2700's ADC anyway! There's probably very few masters which ever passed through a PCM2700's ADC and many/most of those which did, would likely have passed through one or more other ADCs at some point in the recording/mixing/mastering process.  Again, they are taking a single case, from probably only a few dozen applicable commercial recordings and making out that's applicable to all the millions of digital recordings made before and since. And, this is assuming that correcting the "time domain inaccuracies" of the PCM2700 is even audible in the first place! 

"_Using conventional digital converters and processing, audio has been blurred more than we realise and in a way that makes it unnatural, remote and lacking immediacy_" - This statement is maybe true in some cases but what has it got to do with MQA? There is no way MQA could correct these "time domain inaccuracies" as has been explained in some detail already in this thread, so why are you just posting marketing material on this point again, what do you expect to gain from it?

G


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## castleofargh

Brahmsian said:


> I disagree, and here's why: at the bottom of so much of the disagreement is a basic lack of consensus about whether people can hear the difference hi-res makes or not, whether it be PCM or DSD. Let's be clear about what happened. It was bigshot who brought up SACDs. He claimed there is no audible improvement over CD.


MQA is focused in only one direction, the time domain(oh sound waves use 2 axis, that's too bad MQA has a favorite son). they make it look like everything is there in the time domain and as a consequence of course argue that more samples is always better. but at the same time, they agree with people who deny audibility of more bits than CD and MQA is based on that assumption.  so just making a big box "highres against CD" and throwing every formats in it, that doesn't prove or disprove anything about MQA. that was my main point.

 that's not the only ambivalent approach for MQA. they spammed us for years about fidelity and high res, but ultimately they pick a band limiting method that is not the one allowing for the most fidelity to be kept within the selected band(only the one that makes little ringing at the end of the band). and then they justify it with subjective preference. how is that a fidelity approach?  how do you defend that with other highres formats? 

then the encoding of ultrasonic content in MQA works under the assumption that the amplitude of those signals is really low which will be true for pretty much all musical content (and the reason why I tend to think it doesn't make any difference to cut it off). but then where is the relevant limit? they don't care about removing bit resolution in the audible range, objectively reducing the accuracy of the signal in that range. but they wish to keep ultrasonic signal at levels close to the noise floor of their 0-20khz because they say, it matters for time domain.  of course they only look at time domain again and piss all over the amplitude domain so that's what they would say. but it is IMO another paradox in the "MQA is highres" logic.

the last problem being that as I've said too many times, the original PCM will always have higher resolution than the MQA file made from it(if that is false I need someone to explain it to me), so even for those who believe that highres sounds better, MQA is a half full glass trying to do better than CD in a file that is bigger than CD... if the plan was only to do better than CD, a real 24/48 PCM file does that already. 

all in all, we need a pretty strong tunnel vision to think that generic high res arguments apply to MQA. and of course your point about no consensus on high res is important. how could above CD resolution be audibly so important and yet be so hard to demonstrate reliably and consistently? the obvious answer is that even if sometimes it makes an audible difference due to various conditions, it's such a small difference that it hardly registers for humans. in short, audiophiles make a mountain out of a speck of sand. and MQA is but one arguable view about how to polish that speck.


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## bigshot

Brahmsian said:


> Well, you asked for a scientific paper and now you don't like the result, so it looks like you will simply discount it. 60% is statistically significant.



But it isn't 60% with all the people tested... It's 60% accuracy with a small subset of that group that was capable of being "trained". That raises the question, how were they trained? Did they know they were trained only because they were able to do 10% better than the rest of the test subjects? If so, they simply cherry picked the statistical anomalies and focused on them. That doesn't prove anything except that there are always statistical anomalies.

In any case, even if only a handful of people can hear it only slightly better than the rest of the world, it doesn't matter to your home stereo system. There are MUCH more important things to deal with than that when it comes to audio fidelity.


----------



## Brahmsian

pinnahertz said:


> Yeah, we read all of that a long time ago.  What's your point?


Who's "we"? Anybody in the world can chance upon this page and read that for the first time. Get real.


----------



## sonitus mirus

Brahmsian said:


> Who's "we"? Anybody in the world can chance upon this page and read that for the first time. Get real.


People that have read this thread from the beginning should have seen this link already.

https://www.head-fi.org/f/threads/m...aming-technology.745608/page-64#post-13267877

We are just repeating stuff that has already been stated numerous times and getting nowhere.  Honestly, the only thing we need now is a properly controlled, double-blind listening test proctored by a neutral party with results that can be reproduced.  Anything else is just not going to cut it.

I don't believe anyone would sponsor such a test, as I am confident the results would not support the claims being made by the developers of MQA.  "Indistinct, brittle, and grainy sounding" CDs sound really nice.


----------



## gregorio

castleofargh said:


> that's not the only ambivalent approach for MQA. they spammed us for years about fidelity and high res, but ultimately they pick a band limiting method that is not the one allowing for the most fidelity to be kept within the selected band(only the one that makes little ringing at the end of the band). and then they justify it with subjective preference. how is that a fidelity approach?  how do you defend that with other highres formats?



The most troubling/impressive aspect of MQA is it's marketing strategy. The marketing strategy for many audiophile products looks like it was cooked up in an afternoon, others are somewhat more sophisticated but I've never seen anything like MQA! In my experience their marketing strategy is sophisticated beyond compare in the audiophile world; it was obviously very carefully designed years ago, knowing it would take years to execute. How many audiophile products are supported by custom targeted, peer reviewed/published scientific papers? The "typical filters" paper was published in 2014 and work on it must have started a couple of years or more prior to the publication date. It's obvious that they haven't spent so much time, effort and money on such a sophisticated marketing strategy just to hoodwink the tiny niche of extreme audiophiles. They are looking at far greater penetration, the major labels, global distributors and a much wider public demographic. Just as the HiRes/High Definition term was originally borrowed from the video world, maybe the market penetration of HiRes/HD in video/TV/film can also be approached in the music world. In which case, MQA would be perfectly placed in the music distribution world, as h264/h265 is in the HD video world but even better (for MQA) because they're going to be charging for it's use!



sonitus mirus said:


> Honestly, the only thing we need now is a properly controlled, double-blind listening test proctored by a neutral party with results that can be reproduced.  Anything else is just not going to cut it.



I'm not sure how practical that would be. As I understand it, MQA doesn't just encode audio into it's own format, it actually audio processes it. IE. Effectively, adding some mastering processes (like audio compression and/or EQ, etc.). MQA have been unclear what mastering processes it applies and how automatic or configurable those processes are. If there is ANY automatic audio processing (which can't be bypassed) then an ABX differentiation should be fairly straight forward and a subjective preference also relatively easy to manipulate. And, MQA have already covered the possibility of ABX tests not going their way, with the extensive criticism of ABX tests in the "typical filters" paper. 

G


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## bigshot

To quote Mary Poppins, "A spoonful of snake oil helps the DRM go down."


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## Brahmsian

Looks like there's a whole lot of MQA still coming our way:


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## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> Looks like there's a whole lot of MQA still coming our way ..



Yep, that was always the danger. I'm sure you'll be very pleased with having "the sound of the studio" delivered to you and simply not care that it's a lie or what the consequences are.

G


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## Sterling2 (May 25, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> I disagree, and here's why: at the bottom of so much of the disagreement is a basic lack of consensus about whether people can hear the difference hi-res makes or not, whether it be PCM or DSD. Let's be clear about what happened. It was bigshot who brought up SACDs. He claimed there is no audible improvement over CD.


I'm an SACD fan; but, it's not because I think stereo SACD sounds better than CD. I enjoy SACD because it gets me multi-channel which I do think occasionally  sounds better than stereo. Regarding streaming technology, if I  now perceive I am not getting all there is to get from the groove, I suppose, the new streaming technology would reveal what I am not hearing and/or it would get all there is to hear using less space. It's that simple for me; yet, it appears I may not have a choice about it.

BTW, Since so many folks today have a home theatre which delivers multi-channel, seems to me we might be interested as consumers in  easy and inexpensive technology to deliver multi-channel music downloads. That would be something we really could hear and enjoy in some instants more than stereo.


----------



## castleofargh

> ...MQA enables the listener to step into the artists' original performance


  the good old fantasy that signals to run away. it's Pono all over again.
sorry Greg we don't need you anymore, MQA is going to put mixing and mastering engineers out of work. we have been enabled by MQA! now we just need very transparent gear, the ideal DSP to make a great headphone sound like we're the artist, including our very own HRTF compensation. and some magical tool to find out where the microphones were placed and which type of microphone were used on those old albums we like, so that we can recreate the perfect stage from a point of view perspective.  and here we are in the artist's shoes! so yeah MQA has enabled us, the rest is ... trivial?
reading about space enabled me to become an astronaut. only a few more "details" to deal with and I'll be in space.  

sorry for the sarcasm, I'm the unwilling victim of a unicorn overdose.


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## bigshot (May 25, 2017)

I'm curious what kind of deal that a label would have with a streaming format. Is MQA paying the labels to license music to release in their format, or is the label paying MQA to release their music in the MQA format? I'm betting it's the former, because the labels don't have streaming services (yet).



Sterling2 said:


> I'm an SACD fan; but, it's not because I think stereo SACD sounds better than CD. I enjoy SACD because it gets me multi-channel which I do think occasionally  sounds better than stereo.
> 
> Since so many folks today have a home theatre which delivers multi-channel, seems to me we might be interested as consumers in  easy and inexpensive technology to deliver multi-channel music downloads.




Multi-channel done right is a significant improvement in sound quality. There are downloadable/streaming formats for multichannel audio... FLAC is one... M4V and MKV are video formats, but they can carry multichannel in any audio format, including AAC.


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## old tech

bigshot said:


> I'm curious what kind of deal that a label would have with a streaming format. Is MQA paying the labels to license music to release in their format, or is the label paying MQA to release their music in the MQA format? I'm betting it's the former, because the labels don't have streaming services (yet).
> 
> 
> 
> Multi-channel done right is a significant improvement in sound quality. There are downloadable/streaming formats for multichannel audio... FLAC is one... M4V and MKV are video formats, but they can carry multichannel in any audio format, including AAC.


Redbook specs allow for four channel sound, though I'd be curious to know if it was ever used.


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## pinnahertz

old tech said:


> Redbook specs allow for four channel sound, though I'd be curious to know if it was ever used.


Every see a CD player with 4 audio outputs?

Me neither.


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## old tech

pinnahertz said:


> Every see a CD player with 4 audio outputs?
> 
> Me neither.


Fair point


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## old tech

Brahmsian said:


> I disagree, and here's why: at the bottom of so much of the disagreement is a basic lack of consensus about whether people can hear the difference hi-res makes or not, whether it be PCM or DSD. Let's be clear about what happened. It was bigshot who brought up SACDs. He claimed there is no audible improvement over CD.


Well his claim is based on real world evidence rather than placebo and expectation bias.

Here's some light reading for you.

http://archimago.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/24-bit-vs-16-bit-audio-test-part-ii.html

http://drewdaniels.com/audible.pdf


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## bigshot

I have an RCA classical CD that is supposedly encoded in 4 channel sound. When I play it on my Oppo it is in sort-surround. The separation seems to fall in and out.


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## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> I have an RCA classical CD that is supposedly encoded in 4 channel sound. When I play it on my Oppo it is in sort-surround. The separation seems to fall in and out.


Is is QS or SQ?  It won't decode quite right in any 5.1 matrix.


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## bigshot

Not sure... SQ? I figured the Oppo would recognize it, but perhaps it put it out with Neo6 instead. It didn't sound very good.


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## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> Not sure... SQ? I figured the Oppo would recognize it, but perhaps it put it out with Neo6 instead. It didn't sound very good.


Neither SQ (Columbia/Sony) nor QS (Sansui) would be decoded well by anything we have today.  No, nothing today will recognize a quad matrix (or even a LtRt for that matter), since it's all just two channels of phasy audio.  To make things slightly worse, both SQ and QS ended up using dynamic steering logic after the decode matrix to hype separation.  You'll get some "magic" surround via Neo6, Dolby PL II Music, etc., but it won't be "right".  

However, the original discrete quad master could be processed easily into 5.1, if the project had any interest behind it.


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## Brahmsian (May 29, 2017)

gregorio said:


> so why are you just posting marketing material on this point again, what do you expect to gain from it?
> 
> G


The marketing material makes claims, and therefore all but states propositions, about what MQA does and is, and that's relevant to an MQA discussion, even in a thread supposedly devoted to the science of it.

MQA is a project, an endeavor, as much as a technology. For instance, there are differences in the MQA versions that reflect artistic choices on the part of the band and/or audio engineers - who, furthermore, are authorizing it as _a_ _Master_. It looks like in some cases at least we're getting versions of recordings at a different_ stage_ in the mastering process than previously released versions. This is distinct from the whole business of whether you can perceive sonic improvement.

If we're getting distinct versions along with the MQA releases, interest in the project begins to extend beyond the question of whether we can hear a difference.

A lesson about headphones (those I've tried) is, in my opinion, that they don't come close to what good monitors do. Headphones are for when you want - or have - to listen and good speakers aren't, for whatever reason, an option. Now so far I've almost exclusively listened to MQA on headphones. Right there I'd say I don't have a solid enough basis to judge whether MQA really is superior or not. I just don't see why we are adopting a _keep going, folks, there's nothing in this MQA thing_ type of approach.

I think I came here for general information about MQA, not to be indoctrinated one way or the other. I'd say I was a little taken aback by what I still perceive as hostility to MQA on this thread, by the intensity of it from some people.


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## bigshot

Brahmsian said:


> The marketing material makes claims, and therefore all but states propositions, about what MQA does and is, and that's relevant to an MQA discussion, even in a thread supposedly devoted to the science of it.




The problem is that the sales pitch is the only place where you can get those claims. Controlled scientific tests don't back any of it up.


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## gregorio (May 31, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> [1] For instance, there are differences in the MQA versions that reflect artistic choices on the part of the band and/or audio engineers - who, furthermore, are authorizing it as _a_ _Master_. [1a] It looks like in some cases at least we're getting versions of recordings at a different_ stage_ in the mastering process than previously released versions.
> [1b] If we're getting distinct versions along with the MQA releases, interest in the project begins to extend beyond the question of whether we can hear a difference.
> [2] I think I came here for general information about MQA, not to be indoctrinated one way or the other. I'd say I was a little taken aback by what I still perceive as hostility to MQA on this thread, by the intensity of it from some people.



1. That is not correct! As I understand it, the MQA tracks available on Tidal so far are just already completed masters, back catalogue stuff owned by Warner, batch encoded into MQA. If the MQA encoding process is changing the masters, I very seriously doubt the artists and audio engineers who created the mix have even been informed, let alone consulted. The engineers/producer would have absolutely no say in the matter anyway and in the vast majority of cases, neither would the artists, the label owns the copyright of the recording. And if the MQA encoding process is not changing these back catalogue masters, then your point is moot because those masters already reflect the authorised artistic choices and had nothing to do with MQA.
1a. Either it's a completed master or it's not. There is no "different stage in the mastering process", only different completed masters.
1b. We're not getting distinct versions, we're getting back catalogue masters (unless MQA is changing the masters). It may be that the masters MQA is choosing have not been released before but that's not particularly likely, as why would the record company have paid for a particular master and then not released it? It is possible though but more likely those masters were limited release previously. In either case, your argument on this point is purely about choice of existing masters to release/re-release, which Warner themselves (or any sub-contracted label/distributor) could, or may already, have done without any MQA involvement whatsoever (or it's associated costs).

2. It appears fairly obvious that you came here already largely influenced/indoctrinated by all the MQA marketing and therefore that you're "a little taken aback" by having your existing beliefs challenged. I don't claim to speak for everyone here on the sound science forum but in my case, I have particular hostility towards MQA for two reasons: Firstly, while it's standard practise in the audiophile world to pervert science or employ pseudo-science for marketing purposes, it somehow feels more traitorous when it's not just some marketing guy/s but an actual scientist/s doing the perverting and Secondly, unlike most audiophile snake-oil products, which only affect those audiophiles gullible enough to fall for the marketing, MQA has far wider ramifications, not just affecting gullible audiophiles but the entire industry, including those who actually create music!

G


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## L8MDL

Until such time as provenance of the masters, combined with scientific controlled a-b-x comparison tests are conducted, any discussion of MQA's superiority is moot.


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## gregorio

L8MDL said:


> Until such time as provenance of the masters, combined with scientific controlled a-b-x comparison tests are conducted, any discussion of MQA's superiority is moot.



No, it's not. As a lossy compression codec, MQA *must be* inferior to lossless codecs/formats! When deciding how much that inferiority audibly affects the sound, if at all, then your conditions would be entirely appropriate.

G


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## bigshot

If MQA is also applying some sort of euphonic sound processing, it wouldn't be accurate fidelity to the master, but it could conceivably sound better. It could also be audibly transparent (perfect perceived fidelity), but that isn't any great trick. With a sufficient bitrate most common lossy codecs can achieve transparency.


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## Brahmsian (Jun 1, 2017)

gregorio said:


> 1. That is not correct! As I understand it, the MQA tracks available on Tidal so far are just already completed masters, back catalogue stuff owned by Warner, batch encoded into MQA. If the MQA encoding process is changing the masters, I very seriously doubt the artists and audio engineers who created the mix have even been informed, let alone consulted. The engineers/producer would have absolutely no say in the matter anyway and in the vast majority of cases, neither would the artists, the label owns the copyright of the recording. And if the MQA encoding process is not changing these back catalogue masters, then your point is moot because those masters already reflect the authorised artistic choices and had nothing to do with MQA.
> 1a. Either it's a completed master or it's not. There is no "different stage in the mastering process", only different completed masters.
> 1b. We're not getting distinct versions, we're getting back catalogue masters (unless MQA is changing the masters). It may be that the masters MQA is choosing have not been released before but that's not particularly likely, as why would the record company have paid for a particular master and then not released it? It is possible though but more likely those masters were limited release previously. In either case, your argument on this point is purely about choice of existing masters to release/re-release, which Warner themselves (or any sub-contracted label/distributor) could, or may already, have done without any MQA involvement whatsoever (or it's associated costs).
> 
> ...



Gregorio wrote: 1. "That is not correct! As I understand it, the MQA tracks available on Tidal so far are just already completed masters, back catalogue stuff owned by Warner, batch encoded into MQA.

It looks like there are new releases being issued as MQA on Tidal. Two examples:

- Bach Trios with Yo-Yo Ma
- Eternal Stories by Quatuor Ébène. (Also check out Quatuor Ébène's _Brazil_, a very enjoyable and well recorded album.)

2. "I very seriously doubt the artists and audio engineers who created the mix have even been informed, let alone consulted. The engineers/producer would have absolutely no say in the matter anyway and in the vast majority of cases, neither would the artists, the label owns the copyright of the recording."

Well, that's MQA's claim, as can be seen here:





And this is why the "marketing material," as you call it, is relevant. It makes a claim. Now is the claim true or not? I'd like to see some audio or music journalist report on how this process actually works. How involved is the studio/artist/producer? Is it only some executive making the decisions? From the literature, I'd say MQA is working very closely with both artists and engineers in the studio. In any case, what they're doing with 2L might be more telling than the Warner example.

3. "We're not getting distinct versions, we're getting back catalogue masters (unless MQA is changing the masters). It may be that the masters MQA is choosing have not been released before but that's not particularly likely, as why would the record company have paid for a particular master and then not released it? It is possible though but more likely those masters were limited release previously."

This is why, as an attempt to clear this question up (or rather as a mere starting point to clearing it up), I brought up "Born under Punches." This track has subtle but significant differences from the Red Book version. It also sounds like less compression has been applied relative to the previously released version. My questions was, what accounts for these differences? If it can't be a stage in the mastering process -- by which I meant some ur-version that existed before it was mastered for a specific format such as LP or CD -- then what is it, and why is _this_ version in particular the master? Notice these are questions, not some attempt to argue a position or display my knowledge about things I have already said I know very little about.

4. "It appears fairly obvious that you came here already largely influenced/indoctrinated by all the MQA marketing and therefore that you're 'a little taken aback' by having your existing beliefs challenged."

I was taken aback because I was almost immediately attacked. I did not come here indoctrinated by MQA marketing. I did come here having read some very well argued and thought out interviews by Bob Stuart, for example this one in The Absolute Sound: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/meridians-master-quality-authenticated-the-interview/.

Bob Stuart can be wrong about what he's saying. You are perfectly free to argue against it. However, I reject the notion that what he says in that interview (and others like it) is nothing but marketing mumbo-jumbo. He's discussing audio topics he has clearly thought long and hard about. He comes off as someone genuinely concerned about the issues he brings up. Is there some marketing mixed in there? Possibly. But I would just ask anyone to read the interview and decide for themselves whether it's nothing but marketing mumbo-jumbo. I just reject that characterization. So I came here having been influenced by Stuart, but by no means indoctrinated. I'm more curious about MQA than anything else.

By the way, if you decide to read the interview I linked to above, just give him the courtesy of reading it to the end. There's nothing easier than to immediately take offense to something you disagree with and begin arguing against it without having listened to the end.

5. "I don't claim to speak for everyone here on the sound science forum but in my case, I have particular hostility towards MQA"

Ah, so the hostility I perceived was real. Thanks for that admission.


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## bigshot

I don't have a dog in the race. I was the first one to post in this thread, and my purpose was to find out exactly what makes MQA better than "HD" audio, lossless PCM, or even high bitrate lossy. It's been a couple of years now, and I'm still wondering. All I've heard is talk about timing errors that are too infinitesimal to matter and frequencies that only bats can hear. I have yet to hear anything encoded in MQA myself, but if the best they can come up with is sales pitch filled with glittering generalities and without any scientific basis, I'm not going to be rushing out to plunk down my hard earned cash anytime soon. I'm open to hearing how it improves on existing technology, but I'm not holding my breath. If the folks behind this technology actually had something worthwhile here, it would have gone a lot farther than it has in the past couple of years.


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## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> Bob Stuart can be wrong about what he's saying. You are perfectly free to argue against it. However, I reject the notion that what he says in that interview (and others like it) is nothing but marketing mumbo-jumbo. He's discussing audio topics he has clearly thought long and hard about. He comes off as someone genuinely concerned about the issues he brings up. Is there some marketing mixed in there? Possibly. But I would just ask anyone to read the interview and decide for themselves whether it's nothing but marketing mumbo-jumbo. I just reject that characterization. So I came here having been influenced by Stuart, but by no means indoctrinated.



How can you possibly reject the notion that it's marketing mumbo-jumbo, are you saying you agree with it???

It's pretty difficult to find many true/accurate sentences in the whole article and those which are true exist merely to provide a segue to another lie! Admittedly, some of the lies would be difficult for the average audiophile to spot. His statements about the views of recording engineers and producers for example is a lie. Maybe he's paid a few to endorse MQA but I've been a recording engineer for 25 years, I've met countless other recording engineers, I've been directly involved in educating over 1,500 student engineers and none have those views. Indeed, the students would have been failed for believing those "views" and not just my students but any students! Despite these lies, there are others which even an ordinary high schools student would be expected to spot. For example, the very first paragraph, completely contrary to Stuart's assertions; Sound is not analog, it is not created analog, it is not analog in the air and when we listen to it, it is not analog! Unless you happen to know of anyone who plugs RCA connectors directly into their brain? Even a junior high school student should know that sound is acoustic, not analog! Sound does not become analog until transduced from acoustic energy into (analogous) electrical energy and that's what a microphone does. To listen to that analogous electrical energy, it must be transduced back into acoustic energy, which is what speakers/headphones are for. Does Bob Stuart really not know these absolute basics of sound or is it just marketing BS aimed at those who don't remember or never achieved a junior high level education? Do you still want to reject the notion that it's marketing mumbo-jumbo?? If so, then how would you characterize Stuart, less knowledgeable about sound than a junior high schooler?

While there aren't too many of those really obvious corkers, the article is almost wall to wall packed with the other type. Try it, pick pretty much any sentence at random from that article and I'll explain to you why it's a lie (or at least deliberately misleading) or why it's been put there in order to lead to a lie. I'm not saying Stuart hasn't thought about the topics or that he doesn't come-off as someone genuinely concerned about the issues he brings up. He obviously has but then so do politicians and we all know that they are all genuinely concerned and well educated on all the issues and that they never lie or mislead!

The last lie (for now) I'll pick on, is in the last paragraph: "_I have walked on the beach and thought, “Now I know how Copernicus felt.” [laughs]_" - He obviously didn't mean Copernicus, he meant Clark Stanley!  Copernicus, honestly? Delusions of grandeur or what?

G


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> How can you possibly reject the notion that it's marketing mumbo-jumbo, are you saying you agree with it???



He's not rejecting it as marketing, just suggesting that it may not be. 



> It's pretty difficult to find many true/accurate sentences in the whole article and those which are true exist merely to provide a segue to another lie! Admittedly, some of the lies would be difficult for the average audiophile to spot.


Your opinion that it is all lies, not everyones. Some people have an open mind



> His statements about the views of recording engineers and producers for example is a lie. Maybe he's paid a few to endorse MQA but I've been a recording engineer for 25 years, I've met countless other recording engineers, I've been directly involved in educating over 1,500 student engineers and none have those views. Indeed, the students would have been failed for believing those "views" and not just my students but any students! Despite these lies, there are others which even an ordinary high schools student would be expected to spot. For example, the very first paragraph, completely contrary to Stuart's assertions; Sound is not analog, it is not created analog, it is not analog in the air and when we listen to it, it is not analog! Unless you happen to know of anyone who plugs RCA connectors directly into their brain? Even a junior high school student should know that sound is acoustic, not analog! Sound does not become analog until transduced from acoustic energy into (analogous) electrical energy and that's what a microphone does.



Analogue is not just electrical.  Analogue can mean not quantized as in digital.  Magnetic tape can be analogue, and so is vinyl. They are not electrical. However if your argument is that all energy levels are quantised due to quantum theory, I think you are really stretching a point.



> To listen to that analogous electrical energy, it must be transduced back into acoustic energy, which is what speakers/headphones are for. Does Bob Stuart really not know these absolute basics of sound or is it just marketing BS aimed at those who don't remember or never achieved a junior high level education? Do you still want to reject the notion that it's marketing mumbo-jumbo?? If so, then how would you characterize Stuart, less knowledgeable about sound than a junior high schooler?
> 
> While there aren't too many of those really obvious corkers, the article is almost wall to wall packed with the other type. Try it, pick pretty much any sentence at random from that article and I'll explain to you why it's a lie (or at least deliberately misleading) or why it's been put there in order to lead to a lie. I'm not saying Stuart hasn't thought about the topics or that he doesn't come-off as someone genuinely concerned about the issues he brings up. He obviously has but then so do politicians and we all know that they are all genuinely concerned and well educated on all the issues and that they never lie or mislead!
> 
> ...



Your bias is showing.  A good scientist keeps an open mind.


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## Don Hills

jagwap said:


> ... Magnetic tape can be analogue, and so is vinyl. They are not electrical. ...



Magnetic tape is quantised, at the macro level. Each individual grain (domain) of magnetic material is polarised either one way or the other. The sum of the domains in the head gap at a given moment generate a given flux. The smallest possible change in flux corresponds to a single domain flip. Make the tape so narrow that a single line of domains passes over the tape head, you have the equivalent of DSD.


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## gregorio (Jun 4, 2017)

jagwap said:


> [1]He's not rejecting it as marketing, just suggesting that it may not be. .. Your opinion that it is all lies, not everyones. Some people have an open mind. ....
> [1a] Your bias is showing.  A good scientist keeps an open mind.
> 
> [2] Analogue is not just electrical.  Analogue can mean not quantized as in digital.  Magnetic tape can be analogue, and so is vinyl. They are not electrical. However if your argument is that all energy levels are quantised due to quantum theory, I think you are really stretching a point.



1. NO, it is NOT my opinion, it is basic scientific fact! If someone has a different opinion, it's because they don't know/understand the basic science!
1a. It's got nothing to do with bias, what's showing is your ignorance! A good scientist ONLY keeps an open mind on those areas which are not proven/certain. A good scientist, by definition (!), knows and understands the basic science. Do you know any good scientists who have an open mind about the earth being flat? Do you know any good scientists who believe that sound is not an acoustic wave travelling through the air or who have an open mind about what a mic is? Do you have an open mind about the earth being flat? Is it crazy to even ask this question? If so, why? The only difference between having an open mind about the earth being flat and an open mind about what sound is, is that you know, understand and accept the basic science which demonstrates that the earth is not flat but apparently don't know, understand or accept the basic science of what sound is. That's pretty shocking because both these facts are simple basic science which every high schooler is expected to know but which audiophiles apparently don't?!

2. Quantum theory, you're joking? What's the point of bringing up some of the most complex, partially known cutting edge science, when apparently you don't yet understand even basic science? It would be just like bringing up dark matter with a flat earther! I really shouldn't have explain the following at this point in the thread but: The recording process starts out with an acoustic sound wave and is then converted into an analogue electrical signal by a mic. BTW, mics only output electical signals, not magnetic tape or vinyl! To store that electrical signal we need to convert it into something else, an analogous magnetic signal (tape), an analogous physical/mechanical (vinyl) form or digital. To reproduce that stored signal we have to convert it back into electrical energy, pass it to speakers or headphones which recreate an acoustic signal, only then can human beings listen to it! So, what exactly is your argument? That natural sound is created and travels through the air as some sort of invisible flying analogue magnetic tapes or vinyl disks and our ears interpret those invisible analogue storage technologies as sound and that science's explanation of sound being acoustic sound waves is wrong or at least that you're open to it being wrong because Bob Stuart says sound is analog? Maybe all we really need is an invisible audiophile box to capture and store all those invisible magnetic tapes and vinyl disks? Maybe the need for mics, speakers and headphones is just a scientific myth? Maybe the earth really is flat, maybe the moon really is made of cheese and maybe we should all keep a really open mind about it?

G


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## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Your opinion that it is all lies, not everyones. Some people have an open mind


In fact you have to have an open mind just to see that it is in fact all lies when compared to actual fact. 


jagwap said:


> Analogue is not just electrical.  Analogue can mean not quantized as in digital.  Magnetic tape can be analogue, and so is vinyl. They are not electrical. However if your argument is that all energy levels are quantised due to quantum theory, I think you are really stretching a point.


He's not stretching any point at all. "Analog" means something that represents something else with a continuously variable property. Sound is not an analog of anything, it is the original. It is NOT analog.  The analog of sound would be the result after a transducer.


jagwap said:


> Your bias is showing.  A good scientist keeps an open mind.


Comparing assertions to facts is what a good scientist with an open mind does. That's all any of us are doing.


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## pinnahertz

Don Hills said:


> Magnetic tape is quantised, at the macro level. Each individual grain (domain) of magnetic material is polarised either one way or the other. The sum of the domains in the head gap at a given moment generate a given flux. The smallest possible change in flux corresponds to a single domain flip. Make the tape so narrow that a single line of domains passes over the tape head, you have the equivalent of DSD.


Perhaps this is discretization and not quantization?  Doesn't matter, the result is a magnetic flux analog of the electrical input signal which is an analog of an acoustic signal.


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## Brahmsian (Jun 4, 2017)

gregorio said:


> Despite these lies, there are others which even an ordinary high schools student would be expected to spot. For example, the very first paragraph, completely contrary to Stuart's assertions; Sound is not analog, it is not created analog, it is not analog in the air and when we listen to it, it is not analog! Unless you happen to know of anyone who plugs RCA connectors directly into their brain? Even a junior high school student should know that sound is acoustic, not analog! Sound does not become analog until transduced from acoustic energy into (analogous) electrical energy and that's what a microphone does. To listen to that analogous electrical energy, it must be transduced back into acoustic energy, which is what speakers/headphones are for. Does Bob Stuart really not know these absolute basics of sound or is it just marketing BS aimed at those who don't remember or never achieved a junior high level education? Do you still want to reject the notion that it's marketing mumbo-jumbo?? If so, then how would you characterize Stuart, less knowledgeable about sound than a junior high schooler?
> G



I think your hostility is clouding your judgment or you would never have launched such a ridiculous attack. It's clear from other things he says that Stuart understands that sound is acoustic, and that he's using the word "analog" as a shorthand. You're giving his statement the most uncharitable interpretation possible.

Notice that he brings it back to the experience. We certainly don't experience sound as made up of quantized bits any more than we experience a desk or a tree as a conglomeration of atoms. Similarly, we don't hear sound waves. That would be akin to saying that we taste molecules. What we taste is the lettuce, the garlic, the steak, the wine.

"Sound wave" is a theoretical scientific concept. Now theoretical here doesn't mean that sound waves aren't real or that they can't be measured. It just means that a very particular way of viewing reality is being taken, one that abstracts from experience. What we in fact hear are birds singing, cars zooming down the street, the smooth and continuous note from the sax. To say that we hear sound waves pure and simple is ridiculous outside a scientific context, although within a strictly objective context it makes total sense.

As someone who mostly listens to classical music, I find Stuart's focus on the pure acoustical event to be spot on:





When I go hear symphonies, concertos, chamber music, or operas, there's only air and the acoustics of the hall between the performers and me. Opera singers aren't miked up. There are no speakers. There's no amp. What happens when we lose sight of this purity? I'll give you an example.

They play music at the church right by my house. Keep in mind that this is not an auditorium. Nevertheless, for some reason, this particular church has decided to mike up the musicians and play the music through some godawful speakers. Now the musicians are right there maybe forty feet away. Not only is there absolutely no need for them to be miked but in my opinion they would sound much better if they weren't, if we just heard them directly.

So why does the church do this? I think it's partly because the default experience of music that people have today is not of a classical music concert but of a pop concert, of watching people perform on TV. It just goes without saying that when you sing you mike up, you blare the music through loudspeakers. (And the sound of these speakers is honestly cringeworthy to me.)

There is a focus on loudness in music, such that the first time I went to a classical music concert it sounded terrible to me. It just wan't loud enough. So I think the concern is that if the performers (singers, guitarist, drummer) at this church weren't miked up that they just wouldn't be loud enough. Maybe the congregation itself even complained that the music wasn't loud enough, so the church installed speakers.

I know the above example is an extreme case but it somehow sums up why I think there is a need to get back to the kind of reference situation Stuart describes, which is the kind of purity classical music offers. Of course, if what you mostly listen to or work with is pop music, then this focus on purity will not sound right to you since you actually want the artificial; you want it to be processed. I'm not saying that all pop music should be pure and acoustical. When it comes to a specific type of music, I love what you sound engineers do. But it can also become pollution.


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## gregorio (Jun 4, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> [1] I think your hostility is clouding your judgment or you would never have launched such a ridiculous attack.
> 
> [2] "Sound wave" is a theoretical scientific concept. Now theoretical here doesn't mean that sound waves aren't real or that they can't be measured. It just means that a very particular way of viewing reality is being taken, one that abstracts from experience. What we in fact hear are birds singing, cars zooming down the street, the smooth and continuous note from the sax. To say that we hear sound waves pure and simple is ridiculous outside a scientific context, although within a strictly objective context it makes total sense.
> 
> [3] I think there is a need to get back to the kind of reference situation Stuart describes ...



1. It's not in the least bit ridiculous, although it might seem so to you! Why are you surprised that someone in the sound science forum is hostile to someone deliberately perverting sound science for money?

2. I'm going to have to let someone else respond to this because I can't think of a way without breaking this site's TOS and insulting your level of education.

3. You've proved my point, only you apparently will never realise it. Stuart's BS marketing is obviously well targeted in your case and therefore you will never be able recognise it as BS marketing. This is the sound science forum though, not the marketing BS forum and if you're unwilling to learn or accept any of sound science, even the fundamental basics, then why are you here? What do you hope to gain? You think maybe some of us are willing to be converted to from believing in basic science to believing in marketing BS?

G


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## Brahmsian

gregorio said:


> 1. It's not in the least bit ridiculous, although it might seem so to you! Why are you surprised that someone in the sound science forum is hostile to someone deliberately perverting sound science for money?
> 
> 2. I'm going to have to let someone else respond to this because I can't think of a way without breaking this site's TOS and insulting your level of education.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry to have to say this but you're telling yourself that you're "only being objective and scientific" when really it's clear that a lot of what is motivating you is emotional. It's anger. And an irrational animosity toward MQA and toward anybody who mentions it in even just a marginally positive way or who is at all curious about it. You sound like you're at your wit's end over something, though who knows what. If I had rejected MQA out of hand, I wouldn't have listened to it at all and therefore wouldn't have discovered a better version (read: one that I prefer for both sonic _and_ artistic reasons) of one of my favorite albums. I'm already richer for having given it a chance. And Tidal didn't charge me a cent extra for it.


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## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> I'm sorry to have to say this ...



No you're not! You could have said "I'll learn some junior high school level science" or you could have asked about it here but instead you chose to ignore mine and others' responses and go off on a completely tangential and ridiculous personal attack. I ask you AGAIN, if you don't like science and don't want to know even the very basics of it, WHY ARE YOU HERE?

g


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## Brahmsian

gregorio said:


> No you're not! You could have said "I'll learn some junior high school level science" or you could have asked about it here but instead you chose to ignore mine and others' responses and go off on a completely tangential and ridiculous personal attack. I ask you AGAIN, if you don't like science and don't want to know even the very basics of it, WHY ARE YOU HERE?
> 
> g



Who said I don't like science? You're making things up out of whole cloth. The problem is that you're equating making any positive statement whatsoever about MQA with being unscientific.

Go ahead. Be condescending. It doesn't bother me, and I mean it. I'm no scientist or engineer, and never pretended to be. However, this idea you have that I don't have an inkling of what sound is or how our ears work is preposterous. I took science classes in high school and college, including a class specifically on sensation and perception. That was an elective course, and I elected it precisely because I'm interested in the science of how we perceive the things around us, including the nature of sound.

I'm glad you mentioned that you've been a recording engineer for 25 years. On the one hand, it lends you a definite level of expertise. You actually have professional knowledge about this subject, and that's invaluable. Downright indispensable, I would say. On the other hand, it also means that you have a dog in this fight and a very concrete reason to be upset. You're invested in one way of doing things and might very well be hostile to a new way of doing them. To the old order, a new one often seems threatening.

I wasn't objecting to the science or technology. What I was objecting to was an attitude some people on this thread seem to have that MQA is nothing but snake oil and therefore one shouldn't even bother to listen to it for oneself. To me, that is just stupidly closed-minded. I see nothing wrong with exploring the new MQA releases as they come out. Some of these releases sound better to me, some don't sound any different, and some don't sound very good at all. Others I prefer for reasons that have nothing to do with the sonics. I'm just leaving my mind open about MQA, and for some reason that makes some people on this thread angry.


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## bigshot (Jun 5, 2017)

I think a big part of high end audio marketing is coming up with concepts that have no practical application beyond giving people things to argue about in internet forums. I'm sure MQA sounds great. Probably just as great as AAC at comparable bitrates. It may be fun for armchair experts to go on and on about minuscule timing errors and frequencies only bats can hear and noise floors far below the earth's crust. But none of that makes a lick of difference when I play music in my living room. If the marketing geniuses can link meaningless trivia with the egos of armchair experts, they can tap into a motherlode of free advertising. But it's like stamping "NEW AND IMPROVED!" on the front of the box of laundry detergent. It doesn't really get your underwear any whiter, but if they can make you believe there MAY be some sort of improvement over "OLD AND DISPROVED!" then they've made a sale.

When I go to buy stereo equipment or use a digital audio format, I want to know that it sounds good. I use my ears to determine that. I don't need complex scientific testing to prove it absolutely to the last percentile or complicated physics lessons in frequencies I can't even hear. All I need is to have a basic understanding of how audio reproduction works and what my ears tell me. If a new technology tells me it's a big breakthrough and a significant improvement, I'll believe it if the improvement is big enough that no one needs to argue about it. MQA clearly doesn't fit in that category. I have bigger fish to fry in my system than to worry about that level of detail. I can use a couple of better speakers. I can tweak my response curve a bit. Maybe some room treatment. Odds are, everyone else does too. Achieving great sound is an exercise in balancing compromises well. People who think a different sort of computer file or magic black box will help engage in Brobnigagian discussions of which side of the egg to break. I admire that kind of untapped energy. If it was harnessed and used for a practical purpose there might be more generated than just sales pitch and hot air.

If you can't hear it, don't worry about it.


----------



## Brahmsian

bigshot said:


> I think a big part of high end audio marketing is coming up with concepts that have no practical application beyond giving people things to argue about in internet forums. I'm sure MQA sounds great. Probably just as great as AAC at comparable bitrates. It may be fun for armchair experts to go on and on about minuscule timing errors and frequencies only bats can hear and noise floors far below the earth's crust. But none of that makes a lick of difference when I play music in my living room. If the marketing geniuses can link meaningless trivia with the egos of armchair experts, they can tap into a motherlode of free advertising. But it's like stamping "NEW AND IMPROVED!" on the front of the box of laundry detergent. It doesn't really get your underwear any whiter, but if they can make you believe there MAY be some sort of improvement over "OLD AND DISPROVED!" then they've made a sale.
> 
> When I go to buy stereo equipment or use a digital audio format, I want to know that it sounds good. I use my ears to determine that. I don't need complex scientific testing to prove it absolutely to the last percentile or complicated physics lessons in frequencies I can't even hear. All I need is to have a basic understanding of how audio reproduction works and what my ears tell me. If a new technology tells me it's a big breakthrough and a significant improvement, I'll believe it if the improvement is big enough that no one needs to argue about it. MQA clearly doesn't fit in that category. I have bigger fish to fry in my system than to worry about that level of detail. I can use a couple of better speakers. I can tweak my response curve a bit. Maybe some room treatment. Odds are, everyone else does too. Achieving great sound is an exercise in balancing compromises well. People who think a different sort of computer file or magic black box will help just like Brobnigagian discussions of which side of the egg to break. I admire that kind of untapped energy. If it was harnessed and used for a practical purpose there might be more generated than just sales pitch and hot air.
> 
> If you can't hear it, don't worry about it.



I respect the opinion you express above, and I respect it very much. In fact, you strike me as someone who might appreciate some good music. I only listened to the MQA Master version, but for all I know the Red Book version might be just as good. It was recorded in 24/44.1. MQA presents it as such. The sonics are excellent. Just a reminder that MQA is not primarily about "hi-res" audio. It's about authenticity. I'm listening to it on my Monoprice Monolith1060 headphones, and all I can say is that the sound is amazing. I hope you enjoy it.


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## pinnahertz

Brahmsian said:


> I'm no scientist or engineer, and never pretended to be. However, this idea you have that I don't have an inkling of what sound is or how our ears work is preposterous. I took science classes in high school and college, including a class specifically on sensation and perception. That was an elective course, and I elected it precisely because I'm interested in the science of how we perceive the things around us, including the nature of sound.


I don't mean to sound condescending here, but the "qualification" above hardly puts you on par with an audio professional with 25 years experience.  You've hardly scratched the surface.


Brahmsian said:


> I'm glad you mentioned that you've been a recording engineer for 25 years. On the one hand, it lends you a definite level of expertise. You actually have professional knowledge about this subject, and that's invaluable. Downright indispensable, I would say. On the other hand, it also means that you have a dog in this fight and a very concrete reason to be upset. You're invested in one way of doing things and might very well be hostile to a new way of doing them. To the old order, a new one often seems threatening.


Hardly fair.  How would you know if he's invested in any particular way of doing things?

I, too, am an audio professional.  My years are a few shy of twice his.  That's day in, day out, living, breathing audio.  Researching, experimenting, designing, recording, blah blah...too much to talk about.  It frosts me just a tad that someone with the background above would knock heads with someone who makes his living in audio...about anything relating to audio, including "our" scientific evaluation of MQA.


Brahmsian said:


> I wasn't objecting to the science or technology. What I was objecting to was an attitude some people on this thread seem to have that MQA is nothing but snake oil and therefore one shouldn't even bother to listen to it for oneself. To me, that is just stupidly closed-minded.


OK, noted...but keep going....


Brahmsian said:


> I see nothing wrong with exploring the new MQA releases as they come out. *Some of these releases sound better to me, some don't sound any different, and some don't sound very good at all. *


And there it is.  By your own admission.  If MQA actually lived up to the claims of it's propagandists, you'd have said every MQA release sounds fantastic, better than Red Book.  And even so, you're auditioning MQA _and_ a remaster job.  Frankly, if I were marketing a new release I'd demand it sound better, or at least different, than the "original" or former version, or what would be the point?  So what is it, then?  MQA or a remastering job?  Well, according to you, not all MQA releases sound better, yet all are officially MQA, so we now know without question that MQA cannot be responsible for their sound quality! 


Brahmsian said:


> Others I prefer for reasons that have nothing to do with the sonics. I'm just leaving my mind open about MQA, and for some reason that makes some people on this thread angry.


It's simple.  There's a big difference between having an open mind to the possibility of something and claiming to have an open mind because of lack of knowledge and understanding, where others are "closed minded" because they have actual knowledge and understanding.  You're labeling those with decades of experience in the field as closed minded, but you lack any equivalent knowledge or experience.  It is, frankly, a bit insulting.  Do you expect that to _reduce_ the hostility here?

As to any of us "closed minded ones" (your label) being actually so, I was working professionally in audio before and during the analog to digital transition.  I worked with the best of the best analog equipment, and the best and (supposedly) worst digital equipment.  In an effort to discern the real comparative quality of digital audio, I proved beyond question that even early semi-pro digital recording gear outperformed the best analog gear to the point where trained professionals could not discern a digital recording from the live stereo bus.  Those who were the real "closed minded" ones at the time had already labeled digital audio as harsh, edgy, etc., because it chopped up a nice smooth analog signal into slices and produced a stair-stepped output waveform (none of which is true, BTW).  Who were the real open-minded ones?  And why did the others have that opinion?  Turns out, there were a few good reasons early CDs didn't sound as good as they could, but that's another subject.  The point is, some just blamed digital audio, others of us dug deeper to find the answer. 

It would be lovely if MQA did what they say it did.  But it doesn't, it can't, and they know it.  If it did, there would already be simple and obvious ABX comparison results.  There aren't because there can't be.  There's no proof it does anything other than compress data.  Remastering, on the other hand, can be clearly audible to anyone.

Yes, it's hostile here.  Some of us simply will not tolerate non-science or pseudo-science in the sound-science forum.


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> No you're not! You could have said "I'll learn some junior high school level science" or you could have asked about it here but instead you chose to ignore mine and others' responses and go off on a completely tangential and ridiculous personal attack. I ask you AGAIN, if you don't like science and don't want to know even the very basics of it, WHY ARE YOU HERE?
> 
> g



I DO have the education and 26+ years experience designing the equipment, while you twiddle the knobs. I agree with some of Brahmsian's points, and certainly his open mind.

Audio is not finished yet, and I welcome anyone who tries to further the art. Your abrasiveness will not win over the hair-shirt snake-oil believers. By the way Malcolm Stuart is the least "snake-oil" audio design engineers in domestic audio.


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## gregorio (Jun 5, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> [1] Who said I don't like science?
> [2] The problem is that you're equating making any positive statement whatsoever about MQA with being unscientific.
> [3] However, this idea you have that I don't have an inkling of what sound is or how our ears work is preposterous. I took science classes in high school and college, including a class specifically on sensation and perception. That was an elective course, and I elected it precisely because I'm interested in the science of how we perceive the things around us, including the nature of sound.
> [4] On the other hand, it also means that you have a dog in this fight and a very concrete reason to be upset. You're invested in one way of doing things and might very well be hostile to a new way of doing them.
> ...



1. You said it, you just don't appear to realise you said it. How can you like science and simultaneously be so willing to pervert it and/or quote and support those who do?
2. That's a lie, presumably just to attack me and support your argument. I myself have made positive statements about MQA. It's a sophisticated codec, no question. What I'm attacking as unscientific is the pseudo-science, misrepresentations, falsehoods and outright lies in the marketing, which include the interviews by Stuart himself.
3. What's "preposterous" is you not seeing the preposterous contradiction of your statements? On the one hand you state that you've officially studied the nature of sound at high school and college level and on the other hand you describe as "very well argued and thought out" an article which emphatically defines the nature of sound as analog, which even a junior high schooler should recognise as false, let alone as "well argued and thought out"!! And, when it's pointed out to you that it's patently false, your response is to attack those who pointed it out and reject the notion that it is false. It's either one OR the other, either you have a college level education on the nature of sound OR you agree that sound is analog, you can't have both!
4. As pinnahertz stated, you have absolutely no idea what my "way" is. This is just another personal attack based on "facts" you've completely made-up! To put the record straight, I am "not invested in" and do not have "one way of doing things". I have many ways, dependent on a number of variables such as: What/Who I'm recording and/or producing, where I'm recording it and for whom and what. Your statement is ridiculous not just for this reason though! It's also ridiculous because even if I were completely pro MQA and adopted it, it would make absolutely no difference to ANY of the ways I work! If you're going to make this statement, please explain how MQA is going to change any aspect of any of the ways I work.
4a. What new order? What change does MQA introduce which makes even the slightest difference at all to the "old order" ways of doing things, let alone such a sea change of differences that it represents a "new order"? Answer this question or admit this is just more made-up nonsense!

5. Again, you are contradicting yourself! Either you know and accept the science which clearly demonstrates claims about the nature of sound and MQA are snake-oil OR you object to/reject the science. Again. one OR the other, not both! What's really "stupidly close-minded" is not to even attempt to learn, understand or apply any science to the issue. It's even more "stupid" still, to take this approach and argue it in a sound science forum?!!

Unfortunately, your response is not atypical for many audiophiles. When challenged on irrational, illogical and/or unscientific claims or statements, the response is often statements which are even more irrational and illogical. This spirals downwards until we get to the stage of personal attacks and/or statements of "fact" which are completely made-up and/or so irrational/illogical/unscientific that we've gone beyond ludicrous and into apparent insanity. ESPECIALLY in a forum dedicated to science, when challenged on irrational, illogical and/or unscientific claims or statements, the response should be the application of MORE rationality and logic, NOT LESS! Unfortunately, many of these audiophiles are so "stupidly close-minded"/indoctrinated by audiophile myths/marketing that they're simply incapable of recognising their preposterous contradictions and how ignorant, irrational and "stupidly close-minded" they are being. Rather than face or admit this, the easy/obvious response as they see it, is simply to call everyone else "stupidly close-minded", preposterous, ignorant, etc!!

G


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I DO have the education and 26+ years experience designing the equipment, while you twiddle the knobs.


26+ years experience "designing the equipment"?  That could mean you design intercoms and PA horns.  Just like you assume all gregorio does is twiddle knobs.  How shallow.  Have you not read anything posted here?  Have you actually _met_ the knob-twiddlers?  I have, I've worked with them, they're idiots, barely able to understand the difference between a dollar and a dB.  You are attacking what you do not know.  Do you expect to win that way?


jagwap said:


> I agree with some of Brahmsian's points, and certainly his open mind.


It's interesting that some find his mind open, others find it closed....closed to the possibility that some of the MQA claims are lies...and he actually post proof of it, while still championing the etherial MQA party line.


jagwap said:


> Audio is not finished yet, and I welcome anyone who tries to further the art.


I agree with that.  I do not welcome someone who furthers audio mythology and won't supply proof of concept.


jagwap said:


> By the way Malcolm Stuart is the least "snake-oil" audio design engineers in domestic audio.


"Of all the liars in audio, he lies the least."  That's absolutely fantastic, makes me feel a whole lot better about MQA..._not!_

How about a bit of truth instead?  How about, "Here's the test that proves MQA improves audio so obviously that anyone can hear the difference".  That would be so simple, and if done properly, unassailable.  I won't hold my breath.  It's already been years.


----------



## bigshot

Brahmsian said:


> I respect the opinion you express above, and I respect it very much. In fact, you strike me as someone who might appreciate some good music. I only listened to the MQA Master version, but for all I know the Red Book version might be just as good. It was recorded in 24/44.1. MQA presents it as such. The sonics are excellent. Just a reminder that MQA is not primarily about "hi-res" audio. It's about authenticity. I'm listening to it on my Monoprice Monolith1060 headphones, and all I can say is that the sound is amazing. I hope you enjoy it.



I'm not a huge fan of Simon Rattle. But I do love La Mer. I have over a dozen different versions. I'll see if I can check this one out. Thanks for the suggestion.


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## jagwap (Jun 5, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> 26+ years experience "designing the equipment"?  That could mean you design intercoms and PA horns.  Just like you assume all gregorio does is twiddle knobs.  How shallow.  Have you not read anything posted here?  Have you actually _met_ the knob-twiddlers?  I have, I've worked with them, they're idiots, barely able to understand the difference between a dollar and a dB.  You are attacking what you do not know.  Do you expect to win that way?



No, but he attacked someone with a genuine interest and called them inexperienced, uneducated and stupid. There are different levels of knowledge in any subject, and I think in a forum like this he should not assume the top level when there are people here who have a deeper understanding of the inner working of audio. I don't like bullies.



> It's interesting that some find his mind open, others find it closed....closed to the possibility that some of the MQA claims are lies...and he actually post proof of it, while still championing the etherial MQA party line.



Some of the MQA claims may be lies, or inaccurate, or exagerations. However that doesn't make them all lies



> I agree with that.  I do not welcome someone who furthers audio mythology and won't supply proof of concept.



They have supplied some proof of concept.  I think you mean some proof of improvement.



> "Of all the liars in audio, he lies the least."  That's absolutely fantastic, makes me feel a whole lot better about MQA..._not!_



Now you're just twisting my words. Hardly a reasoned argument.  Malcolm Stuart is an Engineer, with more experience than anyone I have engaged with on here so far, and he knows enough to engage more experienced people to do the high level specialist stuff.  Also Meridian is a solid engineering company that does not mess about with the snake oil end of audiophilia.



> How about a bit of truth instead?  How about, "Here's the test that proves MQA improves audio so obviously that anyone can hear the difference".  That would be so simple, and if done properly, unassailable.  I won't hold my breath.  It's already been years.



I do not belive that MQA is a "night and day" improvement if it is one,.  There are many advances in audio that on their own are a subtle advance in the art: triangular dither, noise shaping, etc.  These on their own are often subtle.  But when you take them along with others there is.


----------



## castleofargh

the small problem with MQA is that they "could" do so many things to one album somewhere along the recording and/or playback chain( at least in their ideal conditions where they rule over the industry), that there will always be some cases where it sounds different/better. even by accident that would happen when you fool around with so many variables. now will it be because Stuart saved time with a filter and high sample rate? most tests on those specific subjects say probably not. 

 from a feedback point of view, which is worst? 
-1/ Gregorio saying MQA marketing is fooling people.
-2/ Brahmsian quoting everything that went through the MQA marketing machine as his "open minded" way to look at things. 
-3/ Headfry who spent about a third of his post count telling everybody how much better MQA is and how they should feel when listening to a song. that when he didn't control anything, didn't even use a MQA compatible device, and probably has a headphone that would filter most "time stuff" anyway. 
-4/ me hating everything, always. 

well I do know that a dirac impulse is a BS way to argue that we need more samples or a special filter. I do know that quoting the minimum delay ever noticed by a human and putting it side by side with the delay between 2 samples in a PCM file is a BS argument. and those are some of the most objective points the marketing has been trying to make about the need for more time accuracy and as a consequence, allegedly the need for MQA. so I can't help but to agree with Gregorio. 

I can't see eye to eye with Brahmsian because so much of the marketing is wrong, out of context, or unproved. and given how little he likes to quote the stuff against MQA, I think the open mind argument is misplaced. 

as for Headfry, because he doesn't control anything yet still wishes to force the world to look through his eyes, nothing he says will convince me of anything. I have experienced the effect of bias and preconception too many times to rely on that sort of feedback. but I still prefer him to Stuart because at least when he does wrong, he doesn't necessarily do it knowingly. his main fault is being overly enthusiast. 

and I'll let you guys decide about me. ^_^




now all that rant is indeed against and about marketing, and of course you saw me complain just as much about SACD and some of the wild nonsense that came along with it, or devices making claims about 32bit goodness when the output was crap starting at -70db. it's in the nature of marketing to make up stuff. and the less there really is to say about something, the more BS they will make up to compensate. when dealing with audio formats, as 320kbps mp3 is already almost always transparent, of course they need to lie if they're going to say that the new stuff is both audibly different and yet superior. in a place like digital files were transparency is already so high, it is IMO a paradox to argue about both being clearly different and better at the same time. but marketing will be marketing and I will whine about it. 
the Stuart case is a little special, because he's not marketing but he has become marketing. he's part of the communication now. perhaps because he enjoys it? perhaps because he's the most famous thing there is to show(as he is definitely famous). I can't say, but somehow it happened, and when it's about explaining something technical, we end up with "here is Bob and all the rewards he won over the years, he will tell you stuff".  and marketing being marketing, some of the stuff he has to explain doesn't really make sense. then when marketing BS is exposed, we naturally rub it on his face. because he helped spread it, but most of all because he's the one who should have known better. so over the years, he has gathered a second sort of reputation, a less lovable one.
it doesn't mean that he's a fool or that he doesn't know engineering. not that it means anything, but I've personally had a pretty good opinion of Meridian devices for as long as I've known them(not all of them of course, I wouldn't support any brand to that extent, not even Pringles).


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> No, but he attacked someone with a genuine interest and called them inexperienced, uneducated and stupid. There are different levels of knowledge in any subject, and I think in a forum like this he should not assume the top level when there are people here who have a deeper understanding of the inner working of audio. I don't like bullies.


 I don't like bullies either, but I also cannot abide fanatics without scientific basis for their fanaticism.  I believe them to be far more damaging than someone's efforts to control them.



jagwap said:


> Some of the MQA claims may be lies, or inaccurate, or exagerations. However that doesn't make them all lies


A forceful marketing statement that is inaccurate is a lie.  A forceful marketing statement that is an exaggeration is also a lie, and both are attempts to mislead, or sway. Those attempts are disingenuous, and clearly intended to influence decision.  If it's that good, they wouldn't need to lie to get their marketing done. 


jagwap said:


> They have supplied some proof of concept.  I think you mean some proof of improvement.


There has been no solid proof of either concept nor actual improvement.  Again, proof should be easy to supply, if in fact there is improvement.  In fact, the only thing anyone can accurately state about MQA is that it is a fairly transparent lossy codec. 


jagwap said:


> Now you're just twisting my words. Hardly a reasoned argument.  Malcolm Stuart is an Engineer, with more experience than anyone I have engaged with on here so far, and he knows enough to engage more experienced people to do the high level specialist stuff.  Also Meridian is a solid engineering company that does not mess about with the snake oil end of audiophilia.


No word twisting going on.  Someone either lies or he doesn't.  There isn't much grayscale in there.

I believe you refer to _Robert_ (Bob) Stuart, who is with Meridian.  _Malcom_ Stuart, so far as I can tell, is an artist, and may well be very experienced at art (though definitely not my thing), but not audio engineering.  

_Bob_ Stuart may well be an engineer with experience.  But he is making a lot of claims regarding MQA that do not befit an engineer at all.  Meridian may also be a company that employs good engineering in their products.  But in the case of MQA, the "engineering" remains enshrouded in mystery.  I'm less apt to think of Meridian, and certainly not Bob Stuart, as shining examples of excellence in engineering these days. 



jagwap said:


> I do not belive that MQA is a "night and day" improvement if it is one,.


Ok, now stop right there.  What you just said there is in complete opposition to the following, found on the home page of the MQA site:,"You’ve never heard – or felt – anything like MQA. Music so true, it’s like you’re there."  The implication is that that has never been possible before (there are more quotes on their site that actually say that).  Yet, we've had bit-perfect copies of studio masters for decades.  The also claim to actually improve pre-recorded audio.  There's no proof of that one at all.  So, exactly, why are you defending MQA? 


jagwap said:


> There are many advances in audio that on their own are a subtle advance in the art: triangular dither, noise shaping, etc.  These on their own are often subtle.  But when you take them along with others there is.


That's nearly a direct quote from the MQA site.  Thanks, just what we need...more marketing BS.   The theory that little improvements add up is not based in science or engineering.  Each small improvement, if it really is that, improves it's own specific aspect.  They don't add with each  other. 

But this is all academic.  It still remains that MQA is pushing a technology that provides a good lossy coded, but the other claims are completely unsubstantiated, and their underlying technology remains largely secret.  The MQA samples we have to audition have no provenance, so there's no telling what made the difference, if any.  And apparently, some of the differences in Tidal masters are not improvements!  Now that wasn't supposed to happen with MQA.  So, apparently, "Music so true, it’s like you’re there." isn't a claim that's holding up either.  Instead, what is becoming more and more clear is that MQA is exploiting the power of suggestion, quite powerfully.  They're telling everyone what they will hear... and therefore, people will hear it.  That's disingenuous, and dishonest.  Those are lies.


----------



## jagwap

Castleofargh as usual the synical grumpy side of reasonable...

On the time domain aspect: take a look at what happens to a signal in the time domain when it passes through a filter.  High pass filters are the most disruptive but even low pass filters including linear phase cause in band non linear group delay. 

Now while we have probably evolved to not notice this much, otherwise we would be much more confused by changing acoustic environments, this temporal distortion is unwelcome. Some is audible (yes I did blind testing)

By controlling the entire encoding/decoding chain there is the opportunity to minimise this, but doing something loke mathcad FILTFILT function. I mentioned this earlier in this thread, and it seems this could be the most significant advantage availble to this format. 

As I stated before, my personal speculation. I am sure they are not EQing, or euphoric encoding in any way. But this processing is available in many fields, but has not been used in audio as far as I know.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> That's nearly a direct quote from the MQA site.  Thanks, just what we need...more marketing BS.   The theory that little improvements add up is not based in science or engineering.  Each small improvement, if it really is that, improves it's own specific aspect.  They don't add with each  other.



Interesting. That statement comes from my own experience. It has been a while since I read the MQA site, so I think it could be I have had some similar experiences to the team at Meridian. This isn't a surprise given we work in a similar field and are engineering based.

Your last statement doesn't hold for me. Each section cumulative improvements add to transparency.  Also advances in speaker design allow extra transparency, which allows differences in amplifier design to be more audible, which leads to more decerning attributes of the desk/pre-amp etc.

I guess working in recording means your ear is tuned to separating out each sound and thread of the performance. However when evaluating a piece of equipment or system it is necessary to evaluate the whole. You must agree with that.

My biggest surprise in the industry was that the pro design industry often do not listen to the product critically. Power amps and desks are usually not evaluated by ear, only by Audio Precision. This is a shame as there are many things to learn in audio.

An ex of mine was a sound engineer, and she was mortified when she compared the sound through the beloved SSL desk compared to direct.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] No, but he attacked someone with a genuine interest and called them inexperienced, uneducated and stupid.
> [2] There are different levels of knowledge in any subject, and I think in a forum like this *he should not assume the top level* when there are people here who have a deeper understanding of the inner working of audio. [2a] I don't like bullies.
> [3] Some of the MQA claims may be lies, or inaccurate, or exagerations. However that doesn't make them all lies
> [4] There are many advances in audio that on their own are a subtle advance in the art: triangular dither, noise shaping, etc.



1. You accuse pinnahertz of twisting words, when that's exactly what you are doing! It was Brahmsian who called us stupid ("stupidly close minded"), I simply quoted his use of the word. I never called him "inexperienced", he called himself that and as for "uneducated" ...

2. I hope you're joking because if not, that's a pretty shocking indictment! In England (I assume most other countries are broadly equivalent), the national school curriculum includes the mandatory teaching of the basic nature of sound as a requirement of Key Stage 2 (7-11 year olds). Key Stage 3 (11-14 year olds) goes into far greater detail on the properties of sound waves and includes the basic construction of mics and speakers and how they work, oscilloscope traces, reflections, structures of the ear and hearing responses, etc. ... You are correct though, I am guilty of assumption! I did indeed assume an education level at least equivalent to that expected of an average (English) 7-11 year old. The particularly shocking implication of your statement is that if the mandatory level of education expected by the age of 11 or 14 is "top level", what is "normal level"? Are you saying that the "normal" education level for an audiophile is roughly first grade or kindergarten or maybe literally "born yesterday"?
2a. Neither do I and I like it even less when it is bullying people into superstition/ignorance and against even school child level science!

3. I am NOT saying that as there are some obvious lies, therefore that all MQA claims are lies. I'm saying that the main MQA claims are lies entirely on their own individual merits (or lack thereof), not just as an extrapolation from other lies.

4. True but MQA did not invent dither (triangular or noise-shaped). What has MQA invented which represents an advance, even a subtle one?

G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. You accuse pinnahertz of twisting words, when that's exactly what you are doing! It was Brahmsian who called us stupid ("stupidly close minded"),
> 2. I hope you're joking because if not, that's a pretty shocking indictment! In England (I assume most other countries are broadly equivalent), the national school curriculum includes the mandatory teaching of the basic nature of sound as a requirement of Key Stage 2 (7-11 year olds). Key Stage 3 (11-14 year olds) goes into far greater detail on the properties of sound waves and includes the basic construction of mics and speakers and how they work, oscilloscope traces, reflections, structures of the ear and hearing responses, etc. ... You are correct though, I am guilty of assumption! I did indeed assume an education level at least equivalent to that expected of an average (English) 7-11 year old. The particularly shocking implication of your statement is that if the mandatory level of education expected by the age of 11 or 14 is "top level", what is "normal level"? Are you saying that the "normal" education level for an audiophile is roughly first grade or kindergarten or maybe literally "born yesterday"?G



I was educated in the UK, but I think it was before this system was in place, so I think you make a few assumptions. That the people here are young, British, and the things above allow them to extrapolate full understanding of digital information theory from the basics you mention above.  My education in the best electronics degree course in the country at the time doesn't alone give me the knowledge to criticise MQA.  Further professional specialised knowledge is needed.  I welcome inquisitive minds. If you are an educator (it sounds like you overlap that area) you should too.


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## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] I was educated in the UK, but I think it was before this system was in place, so I think you make a few assumptions. That the people here are young, British, [2] and the things above allow them to extrapolate full understanding of digital information theory from the basics you mention above. My education in the best electronics degree course in the country at the time doesn't alone give me the knowledge to criticise MQA.  Further professional specialised knowledge is needed.
> [3] I welcome inquisitive minds. If you are an educator (it sounds like you overlap that area) you should too.



1. So you're saying that I should NOT assume that Brahmsian and other audiophiles have an education level as high as an average English 7-11 year old and that having an education level lower than that should not be considered "uneducated"?

2. I made it abundantly clear in my post that there are a few obvious lies that a school child should be capable of recognising and that there were others which require far more specialist knowledge, which I wouldn't expect an audiophile to recognise. I even gave specific examples of both types. I would expect neither an English school child nor an audiophile to extrapolate a full understanding of digital information theory from KS3 studies but to spot, for example, that the Stuart statement that sound is created, travels through air and is heard as analog sound does not require any understanding of digital information theory, let alone a full understanding, it just requires a KS2 (7-11 year old) level understanding of the basics of sound science (with no extrapolation required).

3. I do welcome inquisitive minds. I just don't see how an adult mind only interested in marketing claims (and dismissive/closed to the facts and science pertaining to those claims) can be described as an "inquisitive mind".

G


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## bigshot (Jun 6, 2017)

jagwap said:


> On the time domain aspect: take a look at what happens to a signal in the time domain when it passes through a filter.  High pass filters are the most disruptive but even low pass filters including linear phase cause in band non linear group delay. Now while we have probably evolved to not notice this much, otherwise we would be much more confused by changing acoustic environments, this temporal distortion is unwelcome. Some is audible (yes I did blind testing).



What kind of filtering did you use that was audible in blind testing? Every studio on earth has high pass/low pass and EQ built right into the mixing boards. Pro quality EQ does its job with no audible effect on timing error. Most digital consumer EQ is capable of that too. That sort of thing hasn't been a problem since those funky little ten band graphic equalizers they sold in stereo stores back in the 70s. I don't think it's correct to say that timing error on such a minute scale is audible. In general the threshold of audibility for group delay is 1 to 3 ms (500Hz to 8kHz). That's at least an order of magnitude above what MQA is talking about, isn't it?



jagwap said:


> Each section cumulative improvements add to transparency.  Also advances in speaker design allow extra transparency, which allows differences in amplifier design to be more audible, which leads to more decerning attributes of the desk/pre-amp etc.



Transparent is transparent. Cumulative improvements below the threshold of audibility are still below the threshold of audibility. When you're talking about speakers, you're talking about an entirely different animal. Even the best speakers are a long ways from being audibly transparent. Put them in a normal living room and they'll perform even worse. Of course incremental improvements to speakers will be audible and can be a good thing. But if a digital codec achieves audible transparency, like high bitrate AAC and LAME MP3 do, the only ones appreciating any cumulative improvements are bats and dogs.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> What kind of filtering did you use that was audible in blind testing? Every studio on earth has high pass/low pass and EQ built right into the mixing boards. Pro quality EQ does its job with no audible effect on timing error. Most digital consumer EQ is capable of that too. That sort of thing hasn't been a problem since those funky little ten band graphic equalizers they sold in stereo stores back in the 70s. I don't think it's correct to say that timing error on such a minute scale is audible. In general the threshold of audibility for group delay is 1 to 3 ms (500Hz to 8kHz). That's at least an order of magnitude above what MQA is talking about, isn't it?



An example I have is a 80Hz Linkwitz-Riley 4th order 80Hz subwoofer crossover, fairly standard. It causes over 30mS of group delay around the crossover region and considerable visible distortion to the wave form.  LPF of the type for this discussion is far less.  The distortion in the times domain of a 4th order 24kHz LPF filter is around -50dB during transients, and -25dB at 10kHz.  I have only studied the high pass filters audibility.  By the way I find it interesting that ALL Meridian kit is DC coupled (in the past, I haven't seen schematics for recent stuff). It sounds like maybe Meridian moved on and looked hard at the low pass too.


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Transparent is transparent. Cumulative improvements below the threshold of audibility are still below the threshold of audibility. When you're talking about speakers, you're talking about an entirely different animal. Even the best speakers are a long ways from being audibly transparent. Put them in a normal living room and they'll perform even worse. Of course incremental improvements to speakers will be audible and can be a good thing. But if a digital codec achieves audible transparency, like high bitrate AAC and LAME MP3 do, the only ones appreciating any cumulative improvements are bats and dogs.



Noise and distortion are cumulative.  They cannot be cancelled except for closed systems.  So as the audio chain is long and non-correlated error will add at up to 3dB per source. Not including speakers and microphones, compressors and then power amplifiers are usually the worst offenders in the "electronic" chain.

OK CODECs are way down the list, but real life has huge peaks.  I drum kit dynamic range cannot be captured with current equipment. You can tell when it is live v reproduced, even in the next room.  We have to limit the peaks.  Current state of the art ADC IC is 124dB unwtd (OK I know an organisation that has 144dB ADC, but it is not common place yet).

I know people will say that it is not what music should sound like or need: 150dB peaks.  But maybe our music has developed to fit the format a little, as the format has developed to fit the music.


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## bigshot (Jun 6, 2017)

jagwap said:


> Noise and distortion are cumulative.  They cannot be cancelled except for closed systems.  So as the audio chain is long and non-correlated error will add at up to 3dB per source. Not including speakers and microphones, compressors and then power amplifiers are usually the worst offenders in the "electronic" chain.
> 
> OK CODECs are way down the list, but real life has huge peaks.  I drum kit dynamic range cannot be captured with current equipment. You can tell when it is live v reproduced, even in the next room.  We have to limit the peaks.  Current state of the art ADC IC is 124dB unwtd (OK I know an organisation that has 144dB ADC, but it is not common place yet). I know people will say that it is not what music should sound like or need: 150dB peaks.  But maybe our music has developed to fit the format a little, as the format has developed to fit the music.




Noise may be cumulative, but any overall noise *below the threshold of transparency* is by definition inaudible. We measure TOTAL harmonic distortion and SIGNAL to noise. It's an overall measurement. It's not like more noise gets heaped on top of it later. Why worry about noise you can't hear? Even cheap digital audio components are many times below the threshold in both distortion and signal to noise. How many amps and players do you plan to hook together to have cumulative distortion and noise make any difference at all?

150dB is an intolerable volume for sound. It's well above the threshold of pain and into the area where you could incur permanent hearing damage even with brief exposure. OK. Let's ask what kind of dynamic range do we need in the real world. The quietest living room has a noise floor of 30dB. The loudest you would possibly want to play music is 120 dB (the threshold of pain). Subtract 30 from 120 and you get 90. With dithering, that is exactly what a CD gives you. The fact is, no one listens to music at the threshold of pain. They probably only need 55dB at the most for listening to even dynamic classical music. More dynamics would just be uncomfortable to listen to because quiet passages would be too quiet to be able to hear over the noise floor of the room and loud ones would be uncomfortably loud.

If I am allowed to repeat myself, *understanding what the numbers actually mean in the real world* is the only way to know what is important when you play music in your living room. It isn't hard to google what a decibel is or what the threshold of audible noise to signal is. These things have been studied, tested and established. There's a limit to the "more is better" theory. That limit is the threshold of perception. Good sound is not sound that's so loud you go deaf listening to it, and noise that matters isn't outside the range of your ears' ability to hear.



jagwap said:


> An example I have is a 80Hz Linkwitz-Riley 4th order 80Hz subwoofer crossover, fairly standard. It causes over 30mS of group delay around the crossover region and considerable visible distortion to the wave form



There are a dozen different reasons that transducers have audible noise and distortion and timing error. But MQA isn't a transducer. Neither is an amp or a blu-ray player. If you're talking about transducers, we are talking about two different things.


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Noise may be cumulative, but any overall noise *below the threshold of transparency* is by definition inaudible. We measure TOTAL harmonic distortion and SIGNAL to noise. It's an overall measurement. It's not like more noise gets heaped on top of it later. Why worry about noise you can't hear? Even cheap digital audio components are somewhere between 10 and 100 times below the threshold in both distortion and signal to noise. How many amps and players do you plan to hook together to have cumulative distortion and noise make any difference at all?
> 
> 150dB is an intolerable volume for sound. It's well above the threshold of pain and into the area where you could incur permanent hearing damage even with brief exposure.
> 
> If I am allowed to repeat myself, *understanding what the numbers actually mean in the real world* is the only way to know what is important when you play music in your living room. It isn't hard to google what a decibel is or what the threshold of audible noise to signal is. These things have been studied, tested and established. There's a limit to the "more is better" theory. That limit is the threshold of perception. Good sound is not sound that's so loud you go deaf listening to it, and noise that matters isn't outside the range of your ears' ability to hear.



I'm talking about peaks for mS, not anything an SPL meter would catch. SPL could be 10s of dB lower. There isn't a system in the world that can both reproduce the peaks of a drum kit AND make the hiss inaudable (info from a high up engineer from JBL if you want to disagree with more than just me)

This doesn't matter in today's music recordings, as we are used to audio compression and limiting, even in classical. But live IS different and this is one of many reasons why.

However I'd like to think audio reproduction will advance in the future. Hopefully to allow the 24bit dynamic range and be able to reproduce multiple point sources of variable directivity in acoustic space at will, compensating for the room, with low transient distortion.


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## bigshot (Jun 6, 2017)

The advancements in dynamic range, frequency response and distortion (excluding transducers) probably won't make a bit of difference to music listeners. Tiny bursts of loud spikes would only result in ear fatigue. Uncomfortable sound isn't better sound.

If you want something that actually DOES make a difference, it would be multichannel audio and digital signal processing. I'm not sure if MQA involves DSPs. They seem to say it does in one sentence and it says it doesn't in another.


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> The advancements in dynamic range, frequency response and distortion (excluding transducers) probably won't make a bit of difference to music listeners. Tiny bursts of loud spikes would only result in ear fatigue. Uncomfortable sound isn't better sound.
> 
> If you want something that actually DOES make a difference, it would be multichannel audio and digital signal processing. I'm not sure if MQA involves DSPs. They seem to say it does in one sentence and it says it doesn't in another.



You say fatigue, I say increased possible transparency. 

A DSP is definately involved, but I suspect you are saying some sort of EQ done by DSP,  which I believe is not involved. Sound quality is not only affected by EQ. Other things make a difference too.


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## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I'm talking about peaks for mS, not anything an SPL meter would catch. SPL could be 10s of dB lower. There isn't a system in the world that can both reproduce the peaks of a drum kit AND make the hiss inaudable


I very much disagree with that statement in general, though you can create a specific situation where that is true.  The question is: where are you listening to the drum kit, and how far away are you?  Your head in a drum head?  No, probably can't do that.  But at any reasonable distance, yes there are plenty of systems that can replicate that DR with inaudible noise.


ProtegeManiac said:


> (info from a high up engineer from JBL if you want to disagree with more than just me)


Specific reference please.  Hearsay isn't going to cut it with that one.


ProtegeManiac said:


> This doesn't matter in today's music recordings, as we are used to audio compression and limiting, even in classical. But live IS different and this is one of many reasons why.


The goal of recorded music is typically not to replicate a live event.  It's always a representation, scaled for a listening situation.  And the greater number of today's recordings are not, and have never been live events.

From "Sound Reproduction", by Toole, section 1.1 "A Philosophical Perspective":
 "_The point here is that “reproduction does not really separate copies from originals but instead results in the creation of a distinctive form of originality: the possibility of reproduction transforms the practice of production” (Sterne, 2003, p. 220). Knowing that the production process will lead to a reproduction liberates a new level of artistic creativity. C*apturing the total essence of a “live” event is no longer the only, or even the best, objective."*_



ProtegeManiac said:


> However I'd like to think audio reproduction will advance in the future. Hopefully to allow the 24bit dynamic range and be able to reproduce multiple point sources of variable directivity in acoustic space at will, compensating for the room, with low transient distortion.


All of that would be nice, but 24 bit DR is impractical for any but the most highly engineered (means expensive) rooms.  It's simply wasted DR.  The rest of it would be on the list of "nice to have", but impractical.  Just taking the multiple point source issue, it's darn difficult to get people to properly lay out and calibrate a flat 5.1 system, and the tiny market penetration that Atmos has gained in the home just underscores the point that adding more sources for better spacial presentation is not likely to happen, ever.   And for the enjoyment of music, not required.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Noise and distortion are cumulative.  They cannot be cancelled except for closed systems.  So as the audio chain is long and non-correlated error will add at up to 3dB per source. Not including speakers and microphones, compressors and then power amplifiers are usually the worst offenders in the "electronic" chain.


Noise signals of similar spectral distribution add at 3dB per source, but noise signals that do not share similar spectral distribution do not add that way if the results are considered within critical bands.  Distortion is not always cumulative at all.  The specific distortion mechanisms must be similarly nonlinear and result in similar distortion content to add.  And the specific phase of the harmonics produced need to be within 90 degrees of each other to add.  Power amplifiers are far from the worst offenders in the electronic chain.  The worst are speakers.  Compressors distortion generation is part of the creative process, and at least partially if not completely intentional. 


jagwap said:


> OK CODECs are way down the list, but real life has huge peaks.  I drum kit dynamic range cannot be captured with current equipment.


That depends entirely on the perspective of the drum kit you are trying to capture.  To state that the DR of a drum kit cannot be captured with current equipment is incorrect.


jagwap said:


> You can tell when it is live v reproduced, even in the next room.  We have to limit the peaks.


Live vs reproduced has little to do with capturing the DR.  And no, we don't have to limit the peaks!  We do because of practical and artistic reasons, but there have been  non-peak-limited drum recordings for 60 years.


jagwap said:


> Current state of the art ADC IC is 124dB unwtd (OK I know an organisation that has 144dB ADC, but it is not common place yet).
> 
> I know people will say that it is not what music should sound like or need: 150dB peaks.  But maybe our music has developed to fit the format a little, as the format has developed to fit the music.


A dynamic range of 124dB is unlistenable in any common listening environment.  There are no consumer rooms quiet enough to support even 100dB, more typically 90dB.   150dB is a DR from the threshold of hear to beyond the threshold of pain.  Trying to reproduce that would be confined to very specialized environments, but would not be listenable due to potential hearing damage. 

Music, live or recorded, does not need to damage hearing to be enjoyed fully. 

But if you're going to capture the full DR, you'd better include the clipping point of air, or more precisely, the point at which you can no longer produce an undistorted waveform in air as the transmission medium.  That's 194dB SPL, if anyone cares, just over 32 bits.  Of course, that's also past the point where your speaker grille cloth ignites, and you've long since become permanently deaf. 

Accuracy in music reproduction does not depend on increased DR.  We passed the practical maximum for that long ago.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> I very much disagree with that statement in general, though you can create a specific situation where that is true.  The question is: where are you listening to the drum kit, and how far away are you?  Your head in a drum head?  No, probably can't do that.  But at any reasonable distance, yes there are plenty of systems that can replicate that DR with inaudible noise.



What would you say the rms and crest factor is for a rock drum kit at say a few meters?



> Specific reference please.  Hearsay isn't going to cut it with that one.



OK, me among other audio design professionals, some of which are well known in the industry, some for good work, some as BS artists,  sitting around a dinner table discussing the state of the art of audio, 2015. OK?



> The goal of recorded music is typically not to replicate a live event.



Currently yes, but wouldn't be good if it was able to when required



> It's always a representation, scaled for a listening situation.  And the greater number of today's recordings are not, and have never been live events.
> 
> From "Sound Reproduction", by Toole, section 1.1 "A Philosophical Perspective":
> "_The point here is that “reproduction does not really separate copies from originals but instead results in the creation of a distinctive form of originality: the possibility of reproduction transforms the practice of production” (Sterne, 2003, p. 220). Knowing that the production process will lead to a reproduction liberates a new level of artistic creativity. C*apturing the total essence of a “live” event is no longer the only, or even the best, objective."*_




Good book. 



> All of that would be nice, but 24 bit DR is impractical for any but the most highly engineered (means expensive) rooms.  It's simply wasted DR.  The rest of it would be on the list of "nice to have", but impractical.  Just taking the multiple point source issue, it's darn difficult to get people to properly lay out and calibrate a flat 5.1 system, and the tiny market penetration that Atmos has gained in the home just underscores the point that adding more sources for better spacial presentation is not likely to happen, ever.   And for the enjoyment of music, not required.



But I am talking about a future, when us grumpy curmudgeonly argumentative old scrotes have retired and gone mostly deaf. Are you saying we can put a realistic portral of a piano in a domestic room? Not yet. A full orcestra? Not a chance (although MBL has impressed me as the closest so far).  Room correction is getting better, but slowly. TACT/Lyngdorf and Dirac are heading in the right direction as they work in the time domain.  This was originally pioneered by Peter Craven of MQA fame for B&W loudspeakers in the early 1990s (back on topic!)


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> An example I have is a 80Hz Linkwitz-Riley 4th order 80Hz subwoofer crossover, fairly standard. It causes over 30mS of group delay around the crossover region and considerable visible distortion to the wave form.


Distortion of what waveform?  Certainly not a sine wave.  And in the crossover region, that's about all we could expect would pass.  The function of the LPF would dictate significant waveform distortion of anything else.  That would mean the filter is working.


jagwap said:


> LPF of the type for this discussion is far less.  The distortion in the times domain of a 4th order 24kHz LPF filter is around -50dB during transients, and -25dB at 10kHz.  I have only studied the high pass filters audibility.


This is confusing.  The example you cite is an LPF, right?  The filter that feeds a sub? Then you're switching off to an HPF?  What do you mean "distortion in the time domain"?


jagwap said:


> By the way I find it interesting that ALL Meridian kit is DC coupled (in the past, I haven't seen schematics for recent stuff). It sounds like maybe Meridian moved on and looked hard at the low pass too.


DC coupling is a cheap and somewhat dangerous work-around from having big, expensive, low distortion coupling caps.  A good quality cap won't add any distortion to the signal, and will present just a smooth first-order response at the break point.  But that cap gets large and expensive and sometimes has to be made up of several units, so DC coupling is the cheap way out, unless you figure in some means of bias servo and offset protection, all of which can also be a source of distortion.


----------



## ProtegeManiac

pinnahertz said:


> I very much disagree with that statement in general, though you can create a specific situation where that is true.  The question is: where are you listening to the drum kit, and how far away are you?  Your head in a drum head?  No, probably can't do that.  But at any reasonable distance, yes there are plenty of systems that can replicate that DR with inaudible noise.
> Specific reference please.  Hearsay isn't going to cut it with that one.
> 
> The goal of recorded music is typically not to replicate a live event.  It's always a representation, scaled for a listening situation.  And the greater number of today's recordings are not, and have never been live events.
> ...



You might want to check how you edit quoted lines because not only doe the link to these take me to a different thread, I can't even remember posting what you quoted (which is again why I clicked on the link to trace it, but got nowhere).


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> What would you say the rms and crest factor is for a rock drum kit at say a few meters?


I would say it's well within the ability of mics and preamps to capture. 



jagwap said:


> OK, me among other audio design professionals, some of which are well known in the industry, some for good work, some as BS artists,  sitting around a dinner table discussing the state of the art of audio, 2015. OK?


No, that's not ok.  It's a comment out of context, and therefore meaningless.


jagwap said:


> Currently yes, but wouldn't be good if it was able to when required


It will always be impractical to reproduce.


jagwap said:


> But I am talking about a future, when us grumpy curmudgeonly argumentative old scrotes have retired and gone mostly deaf. Are you saying we can put a realistic portral of a piano in a domestic room? Not yet. A full orcestra? Not a chance (although MBL has impressed me as the closest so far).  Room correction is getting better, but slowly. TACT/Lyngdorf and Dirac are heading in the right direction as they work in the time domain.  This was originally pioneered by Peter Craven of MQA fame for B&W loudspeakers in the early 1990s (back on topic!)


I'm saying we can and do place an acceptable rendition of a piano in a room, and a pleasing representation of an orchestra in there too.  But the very nature of sound recording and reproduction, and more importantly, the practical application of sound reproduction, inhibits the ability and in fact the need to exactly replicate a live event. 

Room correction is all well and good, but the results are so much better if you actually engineer a good room to begin with.  And, as a practical matter, hardly anyone but professionals will do that.  So, who do we make recordings for?  That one guy with a great room, great speakers, and just enough room correction to achieve nirvana?  Nope.  We can't sell that product!  And it would sound lousy on the typical system anyway.

It does little good to be able to do something that does not have practical application.  We can make a jet powered car that goes over Mach 1, but to go and sell it to people is ridiculous.  You can't drive it on the street, it couldn't even round a corner.


----------



## pinnahertz

ProtegeManiac said:


> You might want to check how you edit quoted lines because not only doe the link to these take me to a different thread, I can't even remember posting what you quoted (which is again why I clicked on the link to trace it, but got nowhere).


Sorry, I don't know what happened.  Probably screwed up a copy/paste.  But if we are now down to picking nits, please check your spelling.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Noise signals of similar spectral distribution add at 3dB per source
> 
> 
> 
> ...



But a distortion harmonic of a fundamental will be at the same frequency of another fundamental.  It wouldn't be unlikely if it is music related to add.  Even if they are unrelated they do not cancel so the DNR is reduced as they build up.



> Power amplifiers are far from the worst offenders in the electronic chain.



Yes, usually. Designed a few...



> The worst are speakers.  Compressors distortion generation is part of the creative process, and at least partially if not completely intentional.
> That depends entirely on the perspective of the drum kit you are trying to capture.  To state that the DR of a drum kit cannot be captured with current equipment is incorrect.
> Live vs reproduced has little to do with capturing the DR.  And no, we don't have to limit the peaks!  We do because of practical and artistic reasons, but there have been  non-peak-limited drum recordings for 60 years.



Yes the peak may not be limited on specialised recordings, but if reproduced at a realistic playback level, what is the background noise from a 60 year old recording?  Norw on a modern system with 110dB DNR?



> A dynamic range of 124dB is unlistenable in any common listening environment.  There are no consumer rooms quiet enough to support even 100dB, more typically 90dB.   150dB is a DR from the threshold of hear to beyond the threshold of pain.  Trying to reproduce that would be confined to very specialized environments, but would not be listenable due to potential hearing damage.
> 
> Music, live or recorded, does not need to damage hearing to be enjoyed fully.



Again you seem to be talking about rms SPL, perhaps 'A' wtd.  I mean the unclipped peaks.



> But if you're going to capture the full DR, you'd better include the clipping point of air, or more precisely, the point at which you can no longer produce an undistorted waveform in air as the transmission medium.  That's 194dB SPL, if anyone cares, just over 32 bits.  Of course, that's also past the point where your speaker grille cloth ignites, and you've long since become permanently deaf.
> 
> Accuracy in music reproduction does not depend on increased DR.  We passed the practical maximum for that long ago.



Music reproduction DNR is around 110dB in domestic systems, and these are good ones.  A high power pro rig can manage more, but not always with more fidelity.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> I would say it's well within the ability of mics and preamps to capture.



I genuinely would like to know what you think the numbers may be.  You appear to work in this area.



> No, that's not ok.  It's a comment out of context, and therefore meaningless.



Not to me. I am not to bothered about changing your mind, as it appears to be difficult to influence



> It will always be impractical to reproduce.







> I'm saying we can and do place an acceptable


 But could improve 





> rendition of a piano in a room, and a pleasing representation


 But could improve 





> of an orchestra in there too.  But the very nature of sound recording and reproduction, and more importantly, the practical application of sound reproduction, inhibits the ability and in fact the need to exactly replicate a live event.



Currently



> Room correction is all well and good, but the results are so much better if you actually engineer a good room to begin with.  And, as a practical matter, hardly anyone but professionals will do that.  So, who do we make recordings for?  That one guy with a great room, great speakers, and just enough room correction to achieve nirvana?  Nope.  We can't sell that product!  And it would sound lousy on the typical system anyway.



Agreed, currently.



> It does little good to be able to do something that does not have practical application.  We can make a jet powered car that goes over Mach 1, but to go and sell it to people is ridiculous.  You can't drive it on the street, it couldn't even round a corner.



But take that same illustration and take it back a handful of decades to pre-war cars, and see what has happened.  Is car technology going to sand still because you say it is good enough. Audio moves more slowly because there is less money in it, and people are listening to worse mixes on cheaper equipment.  

Saying 48kHz 16bit audio is perfect for reproduction and there will never be a need for more is I suspect not going to be valid forever.  Almost all our current issues are acoustic, but as these get solved I think this will change.  

Do you think cone loudspeaker drivers are good enough? There are the cheapest and most well honed transducer out there, but there are better less cost effective solutions.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> But a distortion harmonic of a fundamental will be at the same frequency of another fundamental.


But the important aspect, for them to add, would be "when?" and "at what level?"  In actuality a distortion product that lands on or near to another fundamental will be masked, not added, unless that harmonic is spot-on frequency and at very nearly the same amplitude.


jagwap said:


> It wouldn't be unlikely if it is music related to add.  Even if they are unrelated they do not cancel so the DNR is reduced as they build up.


Music is a time-variant signal.  The DR is not time variant.  You're tilting windmills here. 


jagwap said:


> Yes, usually. Designed a few...


Sorry you've had trouble.


jagwap said:


> Yes the peak may not be limited on specialised recordings, but if reproduced at a realistic playback level, what is the background noise from a 60 year old recording?  Norw on a modern system with 110dB DNR?


If you're trying to make the point that unlimited peaks on older recordings reproduced at realistic play levels result in higher noise...yeah, sure, but you said we must limit peaks, and that's NOT true.  Not today, not yesterday, other than in music where loudness processing is abused.


jagwap said:


> Again you seem to be talking about rms SPL, perhaps 'A' wtd.  I mean the unclipped peaks.


Yes, I am talking about SPL, but not A weighted, and not RMS.  Take a 124dB unweighted DR system, put the noise floor at 0dB SPL, your max peak falls at 124dB SPL, peak.  If your recording has peaks that loud, you'll be playing the recording at a volume too loud to be comfortably listened too.



jagwap said:


> Music reproduction DNR is around 110dB in domestic systems, and these are good ones.  A high power pro rig can manage more, but not always with more fidelity.



Beg to differ. That would require a room with a noise floor around 0dB SPL.  Those do not exist in domestic systems.  The 2010 AES paper, "First Results from a Large-Scale Measurement Program for Home Theaters" by Holman and Green presented data from detailed measurements of 275 home listening rooms.  The background noise data compiled noise measurements from 27 "good" rooms, and compared it to a typical "good" control room noise floor.  These "good" rooms had residual noise floors averaging 10-15dB above the threshold of hearing.   That means you have to take that 10-15dB off your DR because that's your noise floor in the room.  The typical good room will calibrate such that peaks land at 115dB SPL (peak), subtracting 15dB lands you a 100dB DR...in the good rooms, not average ones.  The practical DR is more like 90dB, typical.  And that's not used, again, typically, because that requires the system to be turned up very, very loud.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I genuinely would like to know what you think the numbers may be.  You appear to work in this area.


What drum type, how far away is the mic, and who's playing? 


jagwap said:


> Not to me. I am not to bothered about changing your mind, as it appears to be difficult to influence


You took a statement out of context, a context that is undocumented.  Something you heard in conversation. How, exactly, am I supposed to understand what the real meaning was?  If you want to influence me, back up your statements with at least something concrete.  For all anyone knows it could be a total fabrication.  I'm not saying it is, but there's no proof either way, so hardly worth using such a statement to make a point. 



jagwap said:


> But take that same illustration and take it back a handful of decades to pre-war cars, and see what has happened.  Is car technology going to sand still because you say it is good enough.


When it comes to top speed, yes.  It's good enough when the car goes the speed limit plus a margin to make it exciting (as much as can be afforded).  Because there's no need to go 200mph, it's expensive to make a car faster, and it's dangerous.  Need equates to market, market means money.  Nothing is ever made for free, so cars will never go faster than the top speed limit of the roads they were designed for, plus some percentage to let us break the law a bit.  Yes, there are 200mph production cars, but that's not what I'm talking about, those are static in the data.


jagwap said:


> Audio moves more slowly because there is less money in it, and people are listening to worse mixes on cheaper equipment.


The worse mixes aren't a progress limiter in audio, and the cheap gear of today beats the doors of of what we had 30 years ago.  Audio moves slowly because the market is satiated. 


jagwap said:


> Saying 48kHz 16bit audio is perfect for reproduction and there will never be a need for more is I suspect not going to be valid forever.


Perhaps not, but cracking the 16/44.1 barrier will be quite a task.  More possible now than ever, but it will also have to be cost-free because there's no perceivable audible benefit.


jagwap said:


> Almost all our current issues are acoustic, but as these get solved I think this will change.


Yes, acoustic issues are big, but doubtful they will change much.  This is a cost-driven industry, just like most others.  Most want it cheap first, quality second. If you can change that, you'll advance the typical acoustic issues.  Nobody wants to pay for ugly acoustic treatment, and never will.  The physics of sound reproduction doesn't support active anti-acoustics in the typical economic profile.


jagwap said:


> Do you think cone loudspeaker drivers are good enough?


No.


jagwap said:


> There are the cheapest and most well honed transducer out there, but there are better less cost effective solutions.


And the problem is, "less cost effective".


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> But the important aspect, for them to add, would be "when?" and "at what level?"  In actuality a distortion product that lands on or near to another fundamental will be masked, not added, unless that harmonic is spot-on frequency and at very nearly the same amplitude.



But harmonic distortion is exactly that: Harmonic, an exact one.  A harmonic of 1kHz is 2kHz or 3kHz, not near 2kHz or 3kHz.  So the Microphone harmonics will exactly hit the mic amp harmonics, the ADC, DAC, compressor and amplifier harmonics.  They may not be exactly the same phase as you pointed out, or the same level, but they will be the same frequency.



> Music is a time-variant signal.  The DR is not time variant.  You're tilting windmills here.
> 
> Sorry you've had trouble.



I like a challenge, and it seems they worked out well.



> If you're trying to make the point that unlimited peaks on older recordings reproduced at realistic play levels result in higher noise...yeah, sure, but you said we must limit peaks, and that's NOT true.  Not today, not yesterday, other than in music where loudness processing is abused.
> 
> Yes, I am talking about SPL, but not A weighted, and not RMS.  Take a 124dB unweighted DR system, put the noise floor at 0dB SPL, your max peak falls at 124dB SPL, peak.  If your recording has peaks that loud, you'll be playing the recording at a volume too loud to be comfortably listened too.



There isn't a 124dB unwtd. DNR system yet.  Also 124dB peaks do not mean it's too loud if the crest factor is >30dB as that is 94dB SPL unwtd, or 91dB A'wtd' ish.  It depends on the material.  Not modern recording of popular music obviously.



> Beg to differ. That would require a room with a noise floor around 0dB SPL.  Those do not exist in domestic systems.  The 2010 AES paper, "First Results from a Large-Scale Measurement Program for Home Theaters" by Holman and Green presented data from detailed measurements of 275 home listening rooms.  The background noise data compiled noise measurements from 27 "good" rooms, and compared it to a typical "good" control room noise floor.  These "good" rooms had residual noise floors averaging 10-15dB above the threshold of hearing.   That means you have to take that 10-15dB off your DR because that's your noise floor in the room.  The typical good room will calibrate such that peaks land at 115dB SPL (peak), subtracting 15dB lands you a 100dB DR...in the good rooms, not average ones.  The practical DR is more like 90dB, typical.  And that's not used, again, typically, because that requires the system to be turned up very, very loud.



This is a good point.  But again you are assuming compressed mixes.  Also 16bit is 96dB "A" wtd, or 93dB unwtd, which is less than 100dB. That and in order for the 100dB not to be compromised by the rest of the chain, the rest must not add up to more than 115 "A" wtd, including the recording chain. That is not achieve by many systems yet.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> What drum type, how far away is the mic, and who's playing?



OK feel free to take the worst case from your experience.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> But harmonic distortion is exactly that: Harmonic, an exact one.  A harmonic of 1kHz is 2kHz or 3kHz, not near 2kHz or 3kHz.  So the Microphone harmonics will exactly hit the mic amp harmonics, the ADC, DAC, compressor and amplifier harmonics.


Only sometimes in frequency.  The distortion mechanisms that produce even-order vs odd-order are quite different, but usually co-exist in systems.  


jagwap said:


> They may not be exactly the same phase as you pointed out, or the same level, but they will be the same frequency.


You just confirmed what I'm saying: they won't necessarily just "add".  To add, signals must be within +/- 90 degrees in phase, and locked in frequency, AND at a similar level.   For that to happen with harmonic distortion the two distortion-producing mechanisms must be nearly identical.  That's not the case with all the devices in the chain.  Each is different, some quite radically.  


jagwap said:


> There isn't a 124dB unwtd. DNR system yet.


You'll find those figures in the gear here:
http://www.stagetec.com/de/
...there are others.



jagwap said:


> Also 124dB peaks do not mean it's too loud if the crest factor is >30dB as that is 94dB SPL unwtd, or 91dB A'wtd' ish.


You're quoting two different SPL readings, A-weighted and unweighted.  The weighted figures you're quoting only hold true if the residual noise has a certain spectrum, and that cannot necessarily be assumed.  But that has nothing to do with actual peak SPL.  What you really mean to quote here is response time, true peak vs RMS, etc.  



jagwap said:


> It depends on the material.  Not modern recording of popular music obviously.


There is no actual music with a >30dB crest factor. 


jagwap said:


> This is a good point.  But again you are assuming compressed mixes.


No, I'm not assuming anything about the mixes at all.  In fact, that entire paragraph has nothing whatever to do with mixes, compressed or otherwise.


jagwap said:


> Also 16bit is 96dB "A" wtd, or 93dB unwtd, which is less than 100dB.


There is no recording chain that includes an acoustic space that can achieve even 96dB. 

You really have to get away from the weighting figures, they will only confuse you.  There are 16 bit systems that can measure 96dB unweighted, just as there are CD players that can measure better than 16 bits, even though that's what they are. 



jagwap said:


> That and in order for the 100dB not to be compromised by the rest of the chain, the rest must not add up to more than 115 "A" wtd, including the recording chain. That is not achieve by many systems yet.


The practical reality is that no acoustic recording chain hits even 96dB DR.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Only sometimes in frequency.  The distortion mechanisms that produce even-order vs odd-order are quite different, but usually co-exist in systems.
> You just confirmed what I'm saying: they won't necessarily just "add".  To add, signals must be within +/- 90 degrees in phase, and locked in frequency, AND at a similar level.   For that to happen with harmonic distortion the two distortion-producing mechanisms must be nearly identical.  That's not the case with all the devices in the chain.  Each is different, some quite radically.
> 
> You'll find those figures in the gear here:
> ...



That isn't an entire system. As you say below there aren't any.  Good noise figure on the mic amp. Rare these days. 



> You're quoting two different SPL readings, A-weighted and unweighted.  The weighted figures you're quoting only hold true if the residual noise has a certain spectrum, and that cannot necessarily be assumed.  But that has nothing to do with actual peak SPL.  What you really mean to quote here is response time, true peak vs RMS, etc.
> 
> There is no actual music with a >30dB crest factor.



Over an entire piece of classical music? Really? 



> No, I'm not assuming anything about the mixes at all.  In fact, that entire paragraph has nothing whatever to do with mixes, compressed or otherwise.
> 
> *There is no recording chain that includes an acoustic space that can achieve even 96dB*.
> 
> You really have to get away from the weighting figures, they will only confuse you.  There are 16 bit systems that can measure 96dB unweighted, just as there are CD players that can measure better than 16 bits, even though that's what they are.



Yes but any figure better than 96dB on 16 bit system is only headroom that staying out of the way.

[/QUOTE]The practical reality is that no acoustic recording chain hits even 96dB DR.[/QUOTE]

So how do you record a drum kit with that with no limiter?


----------



## gregorio

pinnahertz said:


> The 2010 AES paper, "First Results from a Large-Scale Measurement Program for Home Theaters" by Holman and Green presented data from detailed measurements of 275 home listening rooms.  The background noise data compiled noise measurements from 27 "good" rooms, and compared it to a typical "good" control room noise floor.  These "good" rooms had residual noise floors averaging 10-15dB above the threshold of hearing.



I no longer have access to AES pubs but those figures don't look right to me, maybe it's some weighted measurement? A top class broadcast studio would typically have a noise floor somewhat below 30dB and I can't imagine many home listening rooms with a double-shell construction. The figure quoted for a typical sitting room is usually somewhere around 45dB or so.



jagwap said:


> [1] OK CODECs are way down the list [1a] but real life has huge peaks.
> [2] I drum kit dynamic range cannot be captured with current equipment.
> [3] You can tell when it is live v reproduced, even in the next room.
> [4] We have to limit the peaks.



1. So far down the list it's ridiculous!
1a. What real life? Is it real life to sit with your ear an inch from a crash cymbal?
2. Of course it can.
3. I would certainly hope so! Have you never heard what a live, unprocessed rock kit sounds like? Why do you think we do process them? Hint: It's got nothing to do with not having the technology to kill consumers!
4. No we don't. We limit the peaks because we want to, because it sounds better, not because we have to.



jagwap said:


> However I'd like to think audio reproduction will advance in the future. Hopefully to allow the 24bit dynamic range and be able to reproduce multiple point sources of variable directivity in acoustic space at will, compensating for the room, with low transient distortion.



You'd like to think that audio reproduction will advance to the point of severely injuring or killing consumers? Why would you hope that, are you a terrorist? Why would anyone produce such a consumer system and risk getting sued out of existence? Your posts are nonsense, for two reasons:

1. Listen to pinnahertz, he's correct. No live music produces the dynamic ranges you are talking about and even if it did, mic technology doesn't exist to get anywhere near being able to capture it. And, the system output levels required reproduce 24bits of audible dynamic range would in some cases cause instant deafness and in many cases probably cause instant death! In practice, hardly any commercial recordings exceed a dynamic range of about 60dB (about 10bits), even though the technology (CD) has existed for several decades to implement a dynamic range about 30 times greater than that! So, the reason has nothing to do with technology but simply because consumers do not want more than 60dB DR, they often find even 60dB DR unlistenable or uncomfortable and therefore most recordings have significantly less than 60dB DR. This consumer trend is backup by scientific data indicating that the short term dynamic range capabilities of the human ear is also about 60dB (in young healthy ears).

2. You are arguing for a ridiculously massive increase in bits (dynamic range) compared to CD, in a thread where you've argued for MQA, which typically has fewer bits than CD. So, what are you arguing for; 8 bits more than CD or 3 bits less?

G


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Over an entire piece of classical music? Really?


Yes.  You said "crest factor" not "dynamic range" of the music.  Even so, a 30dB variance in dynamics in classical music is actually fairly rare.


jagwap said:


> Yes but any figure better than 96dB on 16 bit system is only headroom that staying out of the way.


It's hardly headroom.  It's a noise measurement based on noise shaping in the DAC.  Doesn't buy you a lick of headroom.


jagwap said:


> So how do you record a drum kit with that with no limiter?


I'd put up the mics, run the cables to the mic preamps, ADCs, desk, and out to the recorder.  See? No limiter.  TaDAA!  I even once did it like this: Mics > Preamps > desk > ADC > recorder.  Worked fine back then too. 

The limiter is optional.  Always.  And desirable...mostly, but not always.  Certainly not "required".


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> OK feel free to take the worst case from your experience.


Sorry, that experience didn't include a peak-responding SPL meter.  I gave up recording with those things.  The mics are omnis, so kind of nice, but the whole darn meters are hard to mount over a drum kit.  The mics I use are capable of high SPL without going nonlinear, the preamps are appropriately padded or gain-adjusted.


----------



## ProtegeManiac

pinnahertz said:


> Sorry, I don't know what happened.  Probably screwed up a copy/paste.  But if we are now down to picking nits, please check your spelling.



Apparently pointing out that whoever was meant to be quoted and therefore alerted to being quoted, ie, that there is a response, is "down to picking nits." What is it with this guy. I can har the axe grinding from over here.


----------



## bigshot (Jun 7, 2017)

jagwap said:


> You say fatigue, I say increased possible transparency..



I think you're misunderstanding what I'm talking about. I'm referring to transient peaks that are far above the level of the rest of the music. When a recording is mixed, the dynamics are balanced to make them comfortable to listen to. The goal isn't to have as much dynamic range as possible. "More" isn't better... "Balanced" is better. Human ears can't adjust to hear quick changes in dynamics bigger than about 40dB. A huge short spike like a close miked drum hit in the middle of music mixed with normal dynamics would make you flinch and if they are far enough apart, your ears would start to adjust to the sound making quieter things harder to hear. Put one of those big hits on every beat and backbeat and you're going to be mighty uncomfortable listening to it at any kind of volume level. It's the same with narrow frequency response spikes, especially in the higher range. Turn up the volume and you'll flinch and get a headache fast, even if the Q of the spike is so narrow you don't really hear it that much. It's important to protect your hearing. Giant short spikes can sound like a little thing, but after a few minutes of that, your ears will be ringing and your head will hurt. Prolonged exposure can damage your hearing.

Goldilocks didn't want the recording with a whole lot of dynamics or the one with lots of compression... she wanted the one that was "just right". It's the job of the engineers to deliver that, and it doesn't require 150dB spikes to do it. Even the most dynamic music fits well in a dynamic range of under 55dB or so. Follow my math here... A recording of music with 110dB peaks would require a boost of at least 30dB to overcome the ambient noise floor of the quietest listening room in the quietest parts of the music. That's putting the peaks at 140dB. I guarantee you that no music will sound good to human ears at that kind of level. Average loud listening level is more in the 85 dB range, so subtracting the ambient room noise, it's a functional 55dB dynamic range. (Pinnahertz: I bet that 10 to 15dB noise floor study is speaking about recording studios, not living rooms. It would be VERY difficult to achieve a noise floor that low in a living room. 30dB is more likely for a "good" living room.)

By the way, any sound engineer will tell you that compression is not a bad thing necessarily. It's a tool which can be used well, or used poorly. Compressing vocals so the consonants are all clear is a good thing. You'd be straining to understand the words otherwise. Brick wall compression in hot mastering is not a good thing. It all depends on how it's used.



jagwap said:


> Are you saying we can put a realistic portral of a piano in a domestic room? Not yet. A full orcestra? Not a chance



The problem with reproducing both of those things lies more in the envelope of sound around the instruments than it does the recording of the instrument itself. You can take a really good dry, flat, mono recording of a piano and play it back through a really good loudspeaker system on the stage of a concert hall and it will sound ultra realistic from the tenth row. But if you want to simulate that in your living room, your best bet is multichannel sound. Realistic sound doesn't depend on splitting the atom by extending past the range of human hearing or creating massive file sizes. It requires addressing the space around the sound through directionality and coherent sound fields. Multichannel is MUCH better at achieving a realistic presentation than stereo or mono ever was.


----------



## Don Hills

pinnahertz said:


> ... But if you're going to capture the full DR, you'd better include the clipping point of air, or more precisely, the point at which you can no longer produce an undistorted waveform in air as the transmission medium.  That's 194dB SPL, if anyone cares, just over 32 bits.  Of course, that's also past the point where your speaker grille cloth ignites, and you've long since become permanently deaf dead. ...



Fixed it for you... 

Back in the 80s, at an audio show in the UK, Court Acoustics demonstrated their range of PA speakers by generating a "lifelike" 140 dB SPL with a recording of a field howitzer being fired. And a demo by KEF of their flagship speakers of the time, where a live drum kit was recorded and played back at "lifelike" levels, with a meter showing the peak power required (over 800 watts). Not sure whose case that supports, yours or Jagwap's...


----------



## pinnahertz

Don Hills said:


> Fixed it for you...


Thanks.


Don Hills said:


> Back in the 80s, at an audio show in the UK, Court Acoustics demonstrated their range of PA speakers by generating a "lifelike" 140 dB SPL with a recording of a field howitzer being fired. And a demo by KEF of their flagship speakers of the time, where a live drum kit was recorded and played back at "lifelike" levels, with a meter showing the peak power required (over 800 watts).


Depends on where the meter was in the system, how efficient the speakers are, etc., etc... There's a reference somewhere that shows the actual SPL of one real watt of acoustic energy...pretty darn loud, IIR.  


Don Hills said:


> Not sure whose case that supports, yours or Jagwap's...


Not caring much.


----------



## pinnahertz (Jun 7, 2017)

bigshot said:


> (Pinnahertz: I bet that 10 to 15dB noise floor study is speaking about recording studios, not living rooms. It would be VERY difficult to achieve a noise floor that low in a living room. 30dB is more likely for a "good" living room.)


It was actually supposedly an average of 27 home rooms, but after I quoted those figures I too thought there's something amiss.  I'm getting clarification from the author(s).

We think of room noise figures in terms of NC, which is a single figure based on the octave band that intersects with a standardized NC curve, which in itself is based on hearing sensitivity vs frequency.  It's not a great way to do it, but it (over)simplifies the noise specs of rooms.  So when we toss out a statement saying a room is a 30dB room, that's really NC30, an there are octave bands much higher than 30dB SPL...like 70dB, for example, and the top two bands are lower than 30dB SPL.   But the whole mess is NC30...a 30dB room.  I've measured NC20 in homes without HVAC running, but with it running...not so much.  NC15 studios are expensive to do in a city, and NC10, though 5dB better are about 30dB more expensive. 

The figures in the paper are not NC figures, they are raw SPL, unweighted.  But they still seem way too good.


bigshot said:


> Realistic sound doesn't depend on splitting the atom by extending past the range of human hearing or creating massive file sizes. It requires addressing the space around the sound through directionality and coherent sound fields. Multichannel is MUCH better at achieving a realistic presentation than stereo or mono ever was.


There was also a paper on this that essentially compared the bandwidth budget with audible impact.  For a given bitrate, more channels always won, and not by just a bit.  If I get time, I'll find the specific reference. 

 Yes, it's a better investment in the usage of bits, no question.  The problem is, we're stuck with 2 channels for a couple of really dumb reasons (2 ears is NOT one of them!). But stuck we are, and multichannle-music has largely been a failure in the market.  I'm just glad it isn't totally dead yet!


----------



## bigshot (Jun 8, 2017)

I just google and look at a bunch of sources to establish a good range for a best case scenario. It isn't complicated. At my house, I have a rail line a mile away, a freeway about six blocks away and air conditioning. 30dB is generous for me. Even if someone lived in the wilderness, they would still have a heating/cooling system and people living with them making noise in the next room. 30dB is a quiet library. I think that is about the best you could hope for in the real world.

Multichannel has become a standard... just not in recorded music. I think that is because of the CD standard holding things back, and SACD trying to peddle sound people can't hear. Video without 5.1 is rare nowadays.


----------



## rkw

bigshot said:


> I bet that 10 to 15dB noise floor study is speaking about recording studios, not living rooms. It would be VERY difficult to achieve a noise floor that low in a living room.


Not even a recording studio. According to Wikipedia: "_In general, the interior of an anechoic chamber is very quiet, with typical noise levels in the 10–20 dBA range._"


----------



## jagwap (Jun 8, 2017)

Don Hills said:


> Fixed it for you...
> 
> Back in the 80s, at an audio show in the UK, Court Acoustics demonstrated their range of PA speakers by generating a "lifelike" 140 dB SPL with a recording of a field howitzer being fired. And a demo by KEF of their flagship speakers of the time, where a live drum kit was recorded and played back at "lifelike" levels, with a meter showing the peak power required (over 800 watts). Not sure whose case that supports, yours or Jagwap's...



PARDON?



rkw said:


> Not even a recording studio. According to Wikipedia: "_In general, the interior of an anechoic chamber is very quiet, with typical noise levels in the 10–20 dBA range._"



Microsoft got the record at -20.1dBA:

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com...w-record-for-the-worlds-quietest-place-399444

24bit is needed measuring stuff in there...
Edit: more than 16bit, before someone replies with, I don't know, 21.75 bits


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> PARDON?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


[/quote]
24 bit is needed for measuring...what in there? Did you notice how that noise floor was actually measured?


----------



## pinnahertz

rkw said:


> Not even a recording studio. According to Wikipedia: "_In general, the interior of an anechoic chamber is very quiet, with typical noise levels in the 10–20 dBA range._"


"Anechoic" doesn't mean "noise free" it means "echo free".  An anechoic chamber doesn't have to be super quite to accomplish its goal.


----------



## gregorio

rkw said:


> Not even a recording studio. According to Wikipedia: "_In general, the interior of an anechoic chamber is very quiet, with typical noise levels in the 10–20 dBA range._"



No, indeed. Recording studios don't get anywhere near anechoic chamber noise floors because anechoic is almost the last thing a recording studio wants to be! Acoustic instruments depend on reflections, concert halls and recording studios spend a lot of money getting those reflections right (FR, diffusion, decay time, etc.), not on getting rid of them! A very good studio will generally be in the 25dB-30dB range. The dBA scale can be misleading, as it rolls-off below 1kHz. For example, by 500Hz it's about -3dB, at 100Hz it's about -20dB and at 30Hz it's about -40dB. So you could for example have 50dBSPL of mains hum or traffic rumble (at 50Hz) and get a dBA reading of just 20dBA.

The average sitting room is probably around 45dBSPL or more, living anywhere near a city or public road and you'd struggle to get much below about 35dB. The top studios get around this by using a double-shell construction but that's well beyond practical for the consumer.

G


----------



## jagwap

24 bit is needed for measuring...what in there? Did you notice how that noise floor was actually measured?[/QUOTE]

Yes it was measured by Google it yourself you lazy...

https://www.bksv.com/en/about/waves/WavesArticles/2016/the-quitest-place-in-the-world

B&K Blackhawk. Good enough for you?

It is used for finding noisy capacitors and inductors, along with characterising all the accoustic parts of the products they validate.

You should see the voice recognition labs...


----------



## jagwap

It is good to know typical figures for different scenarios, but when it comes to noise we should aim to not contribute to the quietest, not the typical.  In order to not contribute to overal noise, the system should be significantly below the quietest expected ambient. 

Ideally.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> 24 bit is needed for measuring...what in there? Did you notice how that noise floor was actually measured?
> 
> Yes it was measured by Google it yourself you lazy...


..um...careful, now...
You must surmise that I'd already done that, long ago, and was leading you to make a point.


jagwap said:


> https://www.bksv.com/en/about/waves/WavesArticles/2016/the-quitest-place-in-the-world
> 
> B&K Blackhawk. Good enough for you?


No, actually, not on their own.  They used two B&K Type 4955 low-noise microphones (residual 6dBA) and processed with Blackhawk Technology systems in a coherent power method.  Neither would have been good enough on its own.

Noise measurement is not dynamic range measurement. 


jagwap said:


> It is used for finding noisy capacitors and inductors, along with characterising all the accoustic parts of the products they validate.
> 
> You should see the voice recognition labs...


[/quote]Sure, but you don't seem to understand how low noise measurements are done.  You don't need 24 bits just to measure a low noise floor, which was my point.  You need quiet mics (theres were 6dBA mics, two of them), quiet electronics, careful positioning, _the right amount of calibrated gain, and post-processing. _ The post processing was to look for correlated noise in two mics and isolate differential noise (at least, that was a big part of it). But you don't need 24 bits, though I'm sure they had them, but the DR of 24 bits wasn't the limiting factor, nor was it necessary to do the measurement.  All the limitations in the measurement system were before the ADC.

Just a few years ago you could do simple 6dBA noise measurements with no bits at all, and with a system with DR equivalent of less than 16 bits.


----------



## sonitus mirus

gregorio said:


> No, indeed. Recording studios don't get anywhere near anechoic chamber noise floors because anechoic is almost the last thing a recording studio wants to be! Acoustic instruments depend on reflections, concert halls and recording studios spend a lot of money getting those reflections right (FR, diffusion, decay time, etc.), not on getting rid of them! A very good studio will generally be in the 25dB-30dB range. The dBA scale can be misleading, as it rolls-off below 1kHz. For example, by 500Hz it's about -3dB, at 100Hz it's about -20dB and at 30Hz it's about -40dB. So you could for example have 50dBSPL of mains hum or traffic rumble (at 50Hz) and get a dBA reading of just 20dBA.
> 
> The average sitting room is probably around 45dBSPL or more, living anywhere near a city or public road and you'd struggle to get much below about 35dB. The top studios get around this by using a double-shell construction but that's well beyond practical for the consumer.
> 
> G


I'm been attempting to measure my listening room, and I've always suspected the values I'm reading are much lower than what I expect to be a more accurate/professional measurement.

I've had similar results using handheld SPL meters and from what is supposedly a reliable sound level app.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/splnfft-noise-meter/id355396114?mt=8
http://www.safetyawakenings.com/safety-app-of-the-week-42/

Here is the room measurement of about a minute with only a couple of laptops running:







And with music playing at the level I normally listen to as background noise while working (a live ZZ Top song was playing):





This room is located on the 2nd floor, with a 12-foot high ceiling and some room treatment but with no practical way to make anything too rigorously clean sounding.





Not sure if there are better options with the current tools I own that I could be using to get a more precise reading.  It is great for measuring locally and comparing results in a similar setting, but I doubt the results could be compared globally with any reliability.


----------



## bigshot (Jun 8, 2017)

jagwap said:


> It is good to know typical figures for different scenarios, but when it comes to noise we should aim to not contribute to the quietest, not the typical.  In order to not contribute to overal noise, the system should be significantly below the quietest expected ambient.




You're in luck then, because redbook has enough dynamic range to be able to reach from the quietest noise floor possible to the threshold of pain. Amps and players better than by 15 or 20dB. So if you listen with speakers, the weak link in the chain is probably your living room. What are the specs on your living room jagwap?

30dB noise floor is very quiet sonitus. You must not have air conditioning. My noise floor is well above that, but I have central air and a closet full of disk arrays running my media server. It's fine with me. I just turn up the volume a notch to compensate.


----------



## sonitus mirus

bigshot said:


> 30dB noise floor is very quiet sonitus. You must not have air conditioning. My noise floor is well above that, but I have central air and a closet full of disk arrays running my media server. It's fine with me. I just turn up the volume a notch to compensate.




Ha!  The high temperature today is 72° F, so no AC running today and I have the windows closed.  This room is furthest away from the central air heat pump, though I do use a room AC upstairs when it gets really hot for a stretch.  With the room AC on, I see about 57 dB(A).  This is a brand new Honeywell 10K BTU unit that I picked up precisely because it had a relatively low noise rating.  Specifications claim a minimum noise level of 50 dBA.


----------



## castleofargh (Jun 9, 2017)

I do think a quiet room without any special treatment will be close to 30dB or higher, but I have no idea about the minimum something like a cellphone mic can record that won't be its own noise?

as for the need of more bits, maybe MQA isn't the most relevant thread to argue about that as MQA encoded files circle around the 16bit line depending on the music content and how high a sample rate it contains.


----------



## bigshot

30dB is about the bottom limit of accurate measurement for most consumer SPL meters. I don't think you'll find many rooms that'll measure below that anyway... perhaps in a cave.


----------



## pinnahertz

castleofargh said:


> I do think a quiet room without any special treatment will be close to 30dB or higher, but I have no idea about the minimum something like a cellphone mic can record that won't be it's own noise?


The biggest noise limitation for cell phones and consumer SPL meters is the mic's self noise.  The little 1/4" capsules just can't cut it.  All of the really low-noise mic capsules are 1/2" or larger.  A quite mic preamp is also important but not a big trick.  20dBA is about all you can ever expect from a 1/4" or smaller mic.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> The biggest noise limitation for cell phones and consumer SPL meters is the mic's self noise.  The little 1/4" capsules just can't cut it.  All of the really low-noise mic capsules are 1/2" or larger.  A quite mic preamp is also important but not a big trick.  20dBA is about all you can ever expect from a 1/4" or smaller mic.



Phones now exclusively use MEMS microphones which only go down to 29dBA SPL A wtd. at best, usually less. DNR is usually less that 97dB A wtd.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> It is good to know typical figures for different scenarios, but when it comes to noise we should aim to not contribute to the quietest, not the typical.  In order to not contribute to overal noise, the system should be significantly below the quietest expected ambient.



You just don't seem to be getting it! Assuming a quite loud peak level during playback of say 96dBSPL, the noise floor of 16bit (CD) would be approximately 100 times lower than the noise floor of the typical consumer listening environment, about 30 times lower than the even the very quietest expected consumer environment and 10 or so times lower than even a top class commercial recording studio! That's going to contribute nothing at all to the overall noise! How much more "significantly below" the environmental noise floor do you want and what possible audible benefit do you think you're going to get from lowering the theoretical digital noise even further (with 24bit)? Everything, from studio mics, mic pre-amps, noise floor of the recording environment, consumer speakers and of course the noise floor of the consumer listening environments each contribute more to the overall noise floor than the 16bit distribution format. Increasing the distribution format to 24bit is therefore literally the very last place we should be looking for any potential improvement, and by some considerable margin!



sonitus mirus said:


> [1] I'm been attempting to measure my listening room, and I've always suspected the values I'm reading are much lower than what I expect to be a more accurate/professional measurement.



There's two problems here:

1. As pinnahertz stated, you're not going to get accurate noise floor measurements from consumer equipment. While some of the available apps with say an iPhone are surprisingly accurate considering they're not designed for the task, this relatively good accuracy is limited to higher SPL readings, not noise floor readings. Also, a more accurate/professional measurement mic is not going to help much either. The typical measurement mics used by studios measure freq response very accurately but the price for this freq response accuracy is very poor signal to noise ratios. This isn't a problem, provided test signals are played at a reasonable level (typically somewhere between 74dBSPL - 85dBSPL) but it makes them particularly unsuitable for noise floor measurements. For noise floor measurements you need even more specialist measurement mics.

2. I have to again mention the dBA scale, which is designed to vaguely mimic human hearing response at low levels. *HOWEVER*, this is not what we record and certainly not what we mix/produce. If anything, we mix and produce very roughly the opposite to the dBA weighting curve, to compensate for the human hearing response! Relating dBA to music playback is therefore not useful. For example, the fundamental frequency of Middle C is 261Hz, measuring this using the dBA scale would result in a measurement 8.3dB lower than it's actual dBSPL measurement! If we're going to use a perceptually weighted scale to measure the noise floor (NC or dBA) then we should relate this to the industry standard practice of the last 20 years or so, of using a perceptually shaped digital noise floor of 16bit (CD). In other words, if we're going to say the noise floor of your listening environment is 30dBA, then we have to relate that to the perceptual dynamic range of the CD with noise-shaped dither, which is approximately 120dB. So, with a listening room noise floor of 30dBA you're going to need a peak playback level of roughly 150dBSPL to ensure hearing all the perceivably audible musical content on a CD. Obviously, no sane person would listen at that level, it's way beyond the pain threshold and likely to cause instant ear drum rupture. Not satisfied with ruptured ear drums, @jagwap wants 15 times more level than that!

G


----------



## old tech

gregorio said:


> You just don't seem to be getting it! Assuming a quite loud peak level during playback of say 96dBSPL, the noise floor of 16bit (CD) would be approximately 100 times lower than the noise floor of the typical consumer listening environment, about 30 times lower than the even the very quietest expected consumer environment and 10 or so times lower than even a top class commercial recording studio! That's going to contribute nothing at all to the overall noise! How much more "significantly below" the environmental noise floor do you want and what possible audible benefit do you think you're going to get from lowering the theoretical digital noise even further (with 24bit)? Everything, from studio mics, mic pre-amps, noise floor of the recording environment, consumer speakers and of course the noise floor of the consumer listening environments each contribute more to the overall noise floor than the 16bit distribution format. Increasing the distribution format to 24bit is therefore literally the very last place we should be looking for any potential improvement



While I don't disagree that the noise floor of 16bits is practically inaudible, it can be heard on silent passages if turned up a little and the room is reasonably quiet. I know I can and so could most of the subjects in the Meyer and Moran study.


----------



## jagwap (Jun 9, 2017)

bigshot said:


> You're in luck then, because redbook has enough dynamic range to be able to reach from the quietest noise floor possible to the threshold of pain. Amps and players better than by 15 or 20dB. So if you listen with speakers, the weak link in the chain is probably your living room. What are the specs on your living room jagwap?
> 
> 30dB noise floor is very quiet sonitus. You must not have air conditioning. My noise floor is well above that, but I have central air and a closet full of disk arrays running my media server. It's fine with me. I just turn up the volume a notch to compensate.





gregorio said:


> You just don't seem to be getting it! Assuming a quite loud peak level during playback of say 96dBSPL, the noise floor of 16bit (CD) would be approximately 100 times lower than the noise floor of the typical consumer listening environment, about 30 times lower than the even the very quietest expected consumer environment and 10 or so times lower than even a top class commercial recording studio! That's going to contribute nothing at all to the overall noise! How much more "significantly below" the environmental noise floor do you want and what possible audible benefit do you think you're going to get from lowering the theoretical digital noise even further (with 24bit)? Everything, from studio mics, mic pre-amps, noise floor of the recording environment, consumer speakers and of course the noise floor of the consumer listening environments each contribute more to the overall noise floor than the 16bit distribution format. Increasing the distribution format to 24bit is therefore literally the very last place we should be looking for any potential improvement, and by some considerable margin!



A loud SPL is 96dBA, yes, but that is an average not the peaks of the waveform.  A good rock recording has a DNR of say 16dB, so the peaks are 112dB if you don't clip  (this is from the loudness database.  I am not convinced of the workings of the DNR meter they use from FOOBAR).  That leaves the noise floor of CD at 16dBA  (OK 13dBA as there are 2 channels to make the 96dB). Fine, thats more than 14dB below the 30dBA people are talking about here.  Remember the 30dBA talked about isn't white or pink noise in the background.  It is general domestic interference.  It is entirely possible that the 16dBA background is audible, especially if near field monitoring.  However more dynamic music exists, and people listen at higher levels for the short peaks.  Also the noise floor of the CD player is going to have other noise added by the system.  So CD just about cuts it most of the time noise wise.  But not always, so therefore not quite good enough...



> There's two problems here:
> 
> 1. As pinnahertz stated, you're not going to get accurate noise floor measurements from consumer equipment. While some of the available apps with say an iPhone are surprisingly accurate considering they're not designed for the task, this relatively good accuracy is limited to higher SPL readings, not noise floor readings. Also, a more accurate/professional measurement mic is not going to help much either. The typical measurement mics used by studios measure freq response very accurately but the price for this freq response accuracy is very poor signal to noise ratios. This isn't a problem, provided test signals are played at a reasonable level (typically somewhere between 74dBSPL - 85dBSPL) but it makes them particularly unsuitable for noise floor measurements. For noise floor measurements you need even more specialist measurement mics.
> 
> ...



I didn't ask for MORE than 150dB! I'm not crazy! It was the JBL colleague that stated we can't yet.

By the same token, low frequencies need more power to be perceived the same, so as most music has all the energy at low frequencies (as MQA papers show all the way into ultrasonic - see: back on topic), more dynamic range is needed to reproduce it.  The bottom end at say 40Hz needs 34.5dB extra, so that loses you 34dB - 8.5dB dynamic range for unclipped middle C (ish).  Presence band is where we are so sensitive so we will hear the hiss.  Unfortunately PCM does not compensate for this, apart from a token amount at the top end if someone bothers to noise shape the dither.

EDIT:  Before you start jumping up and down on your already trampled soap box, I know 'A' weighting and the ear's sensitivity are not the same at louder volume.  Just pointing out that your argument is not complete.


----------



## Niouke

Hello there, amateur here,

Excellent thread, it goes off the topic but I learned a lot of things along the way and I always enjoy a little controversy!

Back to MQA from a computing viewpoint, I can't bend my head around the concept of a lossy codec that would beat a non lossy one...as I understand the creators of the codec want to control the whole chain from the microphone to the speaker does that mean the ADC they use have a computing power of a small computer to produce the MQA signal directly for mastering? Is everything mastered using digital MQA tracks, with encoding/decoding every time it goes in and out of a track? That would need quite the computing power, has Intel money in this venture (sarcasm)? Sorry for the noobish questions 

I'm interested in what MQA can produce for streaming, can they beat AAC/Vorbis/mp3 for low bitrate stereo applications? And also what kind of computing power do you need to decode it? This could have implications with the current DAPs which tend to be power hungry when it comes to decode "HiRes" files....


----------



## jagwap (Jun 9, 2017)

Niouke said:


> Hello there, amateur here,
> 
> Excellent thread, it goes off the topic but I learned a lot of things along the way and I always enjoy a little controversy!
> 
> ...



That is what is causing considerable "debate", or "slagging of the MQA org".

My assumption is that they, when they can, compensate from the last ADC if the master is analogue, to the playback DAC, and this may enable them to do some interesting non causal filtering.  The microphone to end user stuff is from the ideal that the MQA mastering gets a thumbs up from the band/producer as the best copy available, and they call that the provenience of the recording.

Other opinions here vary from the inquisitive to the "MQA are a lying sacks of 'inset expletive here' and should be the first against the wall come the audio revolution, which is not necessary anyway, everything is perfect as it is, it all sounds great with my fingers in my ears...", or summat.

It is already in a couple of DAPs: Onkyo and Pioneer (same group these days).  As these DAPs are generally built around a medium power SoC for mobile phones, there isn't any real lack of processing power.  It can fit in USB stick DACs so it is not likely to be too intensive (Meridian Explorer 2 and yet to be released {if ever} Audioquest Dragonfly Red and Black), unless the PC drive does the heavy lifting, but there is no indication of that yet.


----------



## Niouke

jagwap said:


> That is what is causing considerable "debate", or "slagging of the MQA org".
> 
> 1) My assumption is that they, when they can, compensate from the last ADC if the master is analogue, to the playback DAC, and this may enable them to do some interesting non causal filtering.  The microphone to end user stuff is from the ideal that the MQA mastering gets a thumbs up from the band/producer as the best copy available, and they call that the provenience of the recording.
> 
> ...



1) Ok then that means what they are looking for is not fidelity but musicality, "best" is a subjective term. I don't understand why that magical filter couldn't be applied to a HiRes PCM signal, which already beats the human listening capacity.
2) Well the literature provided doesn't help, I'm no specialist but still could smell the marketing BS when I saw it, it reminds me the "quad dac" of the LG V10 smartphone.
3) Consumer DAPs cpu's have a lot of processing power, a quick comparison puts them near a year 2000 desktop cpu, but if you use that power fully the battery drains FAST, that is partly why I'm interested in the CPU usage efficiency of this new codec, because that and bandwidth usage are things that I would like to see improved in audio technology.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> A loud SPL is 96dBA, yes, but that is an average not the peaks of the waveform.  A good rock recording has a DNR of say 16dB, so the peaks are 112dB if you don't clip  (this is from the loudness database.  I am not convinced of the workings of the DNR meter they use from FOOBAR).  That leaves the noise floor of CD at 16dBA  (OK 13dBA as there are 2 channels to make the 96dB).


So, you're matching the RMS value for that rock recording with an arbitrary SPL/dBA value, using that to find the peak value of the recording, then backing into a theoretical CD noise level...again, back to dBA?  Apples...oranges...bananas...big assumptions.  All to make the point that 16 bits is not quite enough for a tiny handful of listeners?

Isn't the real point that system noise, including the room, be below the recorded noise and real DR?  That's genre specific, but if you take classical recordings, you can almost always hear the room/hall noise above system noise in a quiet room, except for the digital-silence lead-ins.  Nearly every acoustic recording will have room noise tickling quite a few of the LSBs in 16 bit PCM.  And nearly every all, or partially electronic recording has so little actual DR that trying to be quieter than 16 bits will peaks at hearing damage level is a "bit" pointless.  And all but the most well-engineered rooms, except for those who land in a happy accident of low ambient noise with the HVAC off, will be the noise limiting factor.  

If you consider the current noise shaping DAC technology, the actual audible noise in a 16 bit system has been taken well below what you would expect.  *Here's a review of a CD player *(you might recognize the manufacturer), notice not only the noise figure, but the noise spectrum, taken with 16 bit digital "silence".  Seems good enough.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Other opinions here vary from the inquisitive to the "MQA are a lying sacks of 'inset expletive here' and should be the first against the wall come the audio revolution, which is not necessary anyway, everything is perfect as it is, it all sounds great with my fingers in my ears...", or summat.


That is uncalled for. Your summation of others opinions is exaggerated, insulting, and inaccurate.


----------



## jagwap

Niouke said:


> 1) Ok then that means what they are looking for is not fidelity but musicality, "best" is a subjective term. I don't understand why that magical filter couldn't be applied to a HiRes PCM signal, which already beats the human listening capacity.
> 2) Well the literature provided doesn't help, I'm no specialist but still could smell the marketing BS when I saw it, it reminds me the "quad dac" of the LG V10 smartphone.
> 3) Consumer DAPs cpu's have a lot of processing power, a quick comparison puts them near a year 2000 desktop cpu, but if you use that power fully the battery drains FAST, that is partly why I'm interested in the CPU usage efficiency of this new codec, because that and bandwidth usage are things that I would like to see improved in audio technology.



If you don't have to process in real time because you have the file, you can filter things with zero phase and group delay, amongst other things.  This is at its most useful if you have the transfer functions and other behaviour of the ADC and DAC under your control.  But this is my speculation, based on a hint from a comment of one of the inventors years ago.

No the literature is often deliberately obscure, which is annoying.  Also as you say along with many others here, it whiffs a bit of cow excrement.  Many saleable features in products are obscured like this once the marketing guys get hold of it.  I have worked with good and competent marketing teams, but how should I put this, from previous experience, it came as a complete surprise.  Many times if we came up with an improved design, we said don't tell them what we've done or they'll all be doing it (not enough money for patents and lawyers to enforce them in small companies).  But they cannot keep their mouths shut.  However the Quad DAC is real in the V10.  But perhaps you mean how it is described? Yes that is unclear and open to speculation.

I don't this the filtering is going to be more than around a factor of 2 more processing than a conventional oversampling filter, but that is a guess at a limit.  The headphone amplifier ( and QUAD DAC?) will take far more power, so it shouldn't be a large issue.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> That is uncalled for. Your summation of others opinions is exaggerated, insulting, and inaccurate.



True, I should have said "ranging between mine and...".  

However it has been pretty insulting around here, saying inquisitive minds are lower educated than kindergarten, and Bob Stuart is a lier etc...


----------



## jagwap (Jun 9, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> So, you're matching the RMS value for that rock recording with an arbitrary SPL/dBA value, using that to find the peak value of the recording, then backing into a theoretical CD noise level...again, back to dBA?  Apples...oranges...bananas...big assumptions.  All to make the point that 16 bits is not quite enough for a tiny handful of listeners?



A handful is still some, and the argument is was that 16b is enough.  MQA when decoded offers more, and the points around here were that this was unnecessary.



> Isn't the real point that system noise, including the room, be below the recorded noise and real DR?  That's genre specific, but if you take classical recordings, you can almost always hear the room/hall noise above system noise in a quiet room, except for the digital-silence lead-ins.  Nearly every acoustic recording will have room noise tickling quite a few of the LSBs in 16 bit PCM.  And nearly every all, or partially electronic recording has so little actual DR that trying to be quieter than 16 bits will peaks at hearing damage level is a "bit" pointless.  And all but the most well-engineered rooms, except for those who land in a happy accident of low ambient noise with the HVAC off, will be the noise limiting factor.



All good points but again "nearly every all".  We are talking about formats that should cover all requirements.  It is not hard to offer 20 bit or more performance, so why not do it.  Streaming has some limitations in low bandwidth situations, so MQA offers a scalable solution to that. (I live in a limited bandwidth internet environment a lot of the time).



> If you consider the current noise shaping DAC technology, the actual audible noise in a 16 bit system has been taken well below what you would expect.  *Here's a review of a CD player *(you might recognize the manufacturer), notice not only the noise figure, but the noise spectrum, taken with 16 bit digital "silence".  Seems good enough.



Well they seem to know what they are doing, and put the effort in the right places... Who are they again?


----------



## bigshot (Jun 9, 2017)

Human hearing can be very sensitive to low level sound, but only when the ears are acclimated to a quiet environment, which takes a few minutes. With music at a moderate volume level, everything -40dB below peak is going to fade into nothing. Music isn't generally recorded or mixed with the intent of creating a dynamic range of over 30dB, not even classical. The only exception I can think of would be the Mercury CD of 1812 overture with cannon (Paray? can't remember). That has a very large low frequency peak when the cannon fires. But I doubt even that goes much over 55dB.

I know I sound like a broken record, but having a basic grasp of what a decibel is and what various decibel levels actually sound like with music will go a long way to making "spit in the wind" guesses a lot more accurate. It really isn't hard to ballpark stuff, but you have to know what 30dB sounds like compared to 100dB... It's a logarithmic scale so the answer isn't "just a little over three times louder"- if my math is correct, it's something like 130 times louder. I see the same mistake made with frequencies too... people will think that the 20Hz difference between 20Hz and 40Hz is a lot less than the 10,000Hz difference between 10,000Hz and 20,000Hz, but they are both about one octave.


----------



## bigshot (Jun 9, 2017)

old tech said:


> While I don't disagree that the noise floor of 16bits is practically inaudible, it can be heard on silent passages if turned up a little and the room is reasonably quiet. I know I can and so could most of the subjects in the Meyer and Moran study.



I doubt that turning the volume up a little made the noise floor of redbook audible. It probably brought up the noise floor of the room the recording was made in. Most recording studios don't have a 96dB dynamic range.



jagwap said:


> We are talking about formats that should cover all requirements.  It is not hard to offer 20 bit or more performance, so why not do it.



That one is an easy question to answer. When you talk about covering all requirements, you should be looking at the specs of human hearing. Anything beyond the thresholds of sound that human ears can hear is overkill. It's really easy to express that... 20Hz to 20kHz frequency response, 1% total harmonic distortion, timing error of 3ms, peak volume of 130dB, noise floor of 30dB, about 40dB dynamic range without ears having to readjust- and these are all very generous best case estimates. Odds are your own hearing doesn't measure up to these figures. Everyone googles specs on electronics and never bother to look into the specs of their ears. If you really want to hear 20 bit or more, you need a serious ear upgrade first.

Feel free to pack your sandwich and apple in a 40 gallon lawn and leaf bag if you want. But it will fit just as well in a regular lunch sack. Redbook is already well into the range of overkill on most aspects of sound quality.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> A handful is still some, and the argument is was that 16b is enough.  MQA when decoded offers more, and the points around here were that this was unnecessary.


It is unnecessary, but other codecs offer more than 16 bits as well, without the license and marketing nonsense.   Unnecessary because the instances where 16 bits is less than the playback environment are ridiculously, impossibly rare.  Recording and mastering studios don't even meet that challenge.  


jagwap said:


> All good points but again "nearly every all".  We are talking about formats that should cover all requirements.  It is not hard to offer 20 bit or more performance, so why not do it.  Streaming has some limitations in low bandwidth situations, so MQA offers a scalable solution to that. (I live in a limited bandwidth internet environment a lot of the time).


There are, and have been other alternatives to MQA that are scalable, and offer high quality in lower bandwidth.  BTW, it's not the lossy codec aspect of MQA that I have a problem with, other than it's proprietary and licensed. 


jagwap said:


> Well they seem to know what they are doing, and put the effort in the right places... Who are they again?


...and why did they turn to the dark side?


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> True, I should have said "ranging between mine and...".


Lost me.


jagwap said:


> However it has been pretty insulting around here, saying inquisitive minds are lower educated than kindergarten,


That was never said, you're still exaggerating.


jagwap said:


> and Bob Stuart is a lier etc...


----------



## castleofargh

Niouke said:


> Hello there, amateur here,
> 
> Excellent thread, it goes off the topic but I learned a lot of things along the way and I always enjoy a little controversy!
> 
> ...


there is little straight answer to give you because some of MQA decisions are made based on assumptions that aren't exactly reaching a consensus. so if you agree with some assumptions you may find that MQA is a good idea and does what it says, if not... 
the other difficulty is that they claim to be able to do so many different things(while telling us very little about how they would go at it). so looking only at the codec part is missing a good deal of what MQA might be able to do. but on the other hand, many MQA files might not have more done to the album than the basic codec conversion. so it's one of those "it might do stuff" that placebo lovers crave. 

about lossy doing better than non lossy, well it depends on many factors. the marketing likes to make comparisons between 24/48 PCM and 24/48 MQA, so we're really looking at 24/48 vs at best18/192(that to is hard to tell as it can change depending on the amplitude of the ultrasounds to encode in MQA). so it feels like one weird comparison. then they go on to say that more bits aren't audible to tell us to look only at the sample rate. if you follow that argument the way they want it to go, then MQA has higher sample rate so it's "superior"... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
they also claim that subjectively the way they low pass the file sound better. it's a "take it or leave it" claim that costs them nothing to make and isn't legally binding to anything so of course they make it. but of course from then on, IMO the notion of fidelity should go down the drain.

about the stuff done at the recording, we have so little information (I don't even know if it's been done on any album so far), that I would suggest to simply forget all of that potential aspect of MQA until we have evidence that it's done and some knowledge about what is done. but of course whatever it is, the recording studio absolutely doesn't need MQA to decide to change the profile of their filters, or to apply any sort of processing to compensate for ... whatever. 
the decoding processing for the listener of MQA and consequences for battery life are unknown right now. and as usual with MQA it becomes even more of a mess when you account for the fact that the decoding could be forfeited, or done partially by the CPU, or done by the DAC. and that the extracted PCM signal doesn't have a fixed value for all MQA files.  so ??????? 
and compared to AAC or vorbis in term of making a small file that still sounds ok, MQA is super bad. they insist on carrying data for high sample rate so of course that comes at a weight cost. think of it as more of a weird FLAC. what is streamed should be typical uncompressed 24/48 PCM files that contain the MQA data. even putting that file into FLAC will never come close to the usual lossy formats in term of kbits per second.


----------



## Brahmsian (Jun 11, 2017)

bigshot said:


> That one is an easy question to answer. When you talk about covering all requirements, you should be looking at the specs of human hearing. Anything beyond the thresholds of sound that human ears can hear is overkill. It's really easy to express that... 20Hz to 20kHz frequency response, 1% total harmonic distortion, timing error of 3ms, peak volume of 130dB, noise floor of 30dB, about 40dB dynamic range without ears having to readjust- and these are all very generous best case estimates. Odds are your own hearing doesn't measure up to these figures. Everyone googles specs on electronics and never bother to look into the specs of their ears. If you really want to hear 20 bit or more, you need a serious ear upgrade first.
> 
> Feel free to pack your sandwich and apple in a 40 gallon lawn and leaf bag if you want. But it will fit just as well in a regular lunch sack. Redbook is already well into the range of overkill on most aspects of sound quality.


Sony now makes headphones that go up to 100 kHz.



Leaving aside the question of whether anything below 20Hz or above 20kHz affects how we experience music, I was reading the following article by a former Cal Tech professor (who is also a musician and engineer).

He measured instruments and found that there's life to the sound they make above 20kHz.

He also leaves open the possibility that bone conduction can affect our enjoyment of music. He points to a study on that as well as to one showing electrical activity in the brain produced by frequencies above 26kHz.


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## VNandor (Jun 11, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> Sony now makes headphones that go up to 100 kHz.



Do you happen to have a link for the headphone's frequency response? Or maybe a more advanced spec sheet? Those numbers are worthless without mentioning tolerance. My phone's speaker could go from "3Hz to 100kHz" if I forgot to mention how much it rolls off on both ends.

I personally don't see why anyone should ignore the fact we don't hear much if anything above 20kHz but I'll just let that slip away.


----------



## jagwap

Whether or not frequencies above 20kHz are audible, one advantage to a transducer that can go above those frequencies can be that there should be less tolerance in the phase response in the upper frequencies.  That can help imaging as there is less variation in group delay.  

This doesn't applier to higher sampling rates themselves as digital filters do not have variation between channels, but it does help push group delay differences up in the analogue filter.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> Whether or not frequencies above 20kHz are audible, one advantage to a transducer that can go above those frequencies can be that there should be less tolerance in the phase response in the upper frequencies.  That can help imaging as there is less variation in group delay.
> 
> This doesn't applier to higher sampling rates themselves as digital filters do not have variation between channels, but it does help push group delay differences up in the analogue filter.


I think the better option would be to simply make sure your media format does not contain any frequencies above 20kHz.  Problem solved.


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## bigshot (Jun 11, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> Sony now makes headphones that go up to 100 kHz.




Here comes a home audio 101 lesson... Frequency extension is meaningless without a spec on frequency response. It may go to 100kHz at -60dB, in which case even if you could hear it you couldn't hear it. Ultra high frequencies can only degrade perceived sound quality, they can't improve it, because they often create harmonic distortion in the audible range in home audio components not designed to deal with super audible frequencies. If your equipment *is* designed to deal with them without distortion, you can't hear them anyway, and those frequencies don't exist in any acoustic musical instrument at any kind of volume level. Frequencies above 20kHz are like teats on a bull hog. They don't serve any practical purpose.



jagwap said:


> Whether or not frequencies above 20kHz are audible, one advantage to a transducer that can go above those frequencies can be that there should be less tolerance in the phase response in the upper frequencies.  That can help imaging as there is less variation in group delay.




Human sensitivity to that is going to be well below the amount of improvement you're talking about there. In the real world with halfway decent transducers, that is an entirely theoretical kind of improvement. Group delay is likely the least of your priorities when it comes to improving imaging. Speakers in a typical living room are apt to have clearly audible levels of frequency response error which can cause masking, and audible levels of distortion as well. Any timing errors due to phase response is going to be dwarfed by the timing errors created by the room itself. Even with headphones, the frequency response curve at the top end is going to be bumpy enough to completely negate the improvement you're talking about. Mr Mountain, please introduce yourself to Mr Molehill.

It's important to have a sense of relative importance. Misunderstanding what is a big thing and what is a gnat hair is what high end audio hucksters prey upon. They try to make you worry about theoretical sound quality, which is counter productive because it makes you address problems that don't exist, while ignoring the ones that do.


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> I think the better option would be to simply make sure your media format does not contain any frequencies above 20kHz.  Problem solved.





bigshot said:


> Human sensitivity to that is going to be well below the amount of improvement you're talking about there. In the real world with halfway decent transducers, that is an entirely theoretical kind of improvement. Group delay is likely the least of your priorities when it comes to improving imaging. Speakers in a typical living room are apt to have clearly audible levels of frequency response error which can cause masking, and audible levels of distortion as well. Any timing errors due to phase response is going to be dwarfed by the timing errors created by the room itself. Even with headphones, the frequency response curve at the top end is going to be bumpy enough to completely negate the improvement you're talking about. Mr Mountain, please introduce yourself to Mr Molehill.
> 
> It's important to have a sense of relative importance. Misunderstanding what is a big thing and what is a gnat hair is what high end audio hucksters prey upon. They try to make you worry about theoretical sound quality, which is counter productive because it makes you address problems that don't exist, while ignoring the ones that do.




You are both misunderstanding my point.  The variation between channels should be improved.  Throughout this thread when talking about timing error in the uS size, the ear's sensitivity is highest between arrival between the ears.  This is below 20kHz.  Also note the first arrival of the sound it the one that give those queues.  The reflections of the room tend to be masked out when it comes to spacial awareness.


----------



## bigshot

Timing error in the microsecond scale is well below the threshold of perception. As long as you listen to music and not square waves, the audible limit of timing errors of all kinds would be in the millisecond range. (It depends on the frequency and type of timing error.)


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> You are both misunderstanding my point.  The variation between channels should be improved.  Throughout this thread when talking about timing error in the uS size, the ear's sensitivity is highest between arrival between the ears.  This is below 20kHz.  Also note the first arrival of the sound it the one that give those queues.  The reflections of the room tend to be masked out when it comes to spacial awareness.


Does this mean that nobody can truly appreciate music unless they wear exact-fitting headphones or put their head in a vise?  Otherwise, the timing differences would ruin the experience.  If I recall, sound travels about a foot in a millisecond, which would mean roughly a sixteenth of an inch in a microsecond.  That is not much more distance than is usually caused from the result of swallowing.  It seems like overkill to me.  Can we really notice a difference with such a small difference in timing?


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## castleofargh (Jun 11, 2017)

also for most albums, we're really talking about getting the best interaural delay born from a guy panning mono tracks to stereo manually. what other ITD cues are we getting from the typical album? so let's not pretend that we're killing the true nature of music here. 
and when using headphones, that's really the least of our stereo problems IMO.

I'm silly.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> also for most albums, we're really talking about getting the best interaural delay born from a guy panning mono tracks to stereo manually. what other ITD cues are we getting from the typical album? so let's not pretend that we're killing the true nature of music here.
> and when using headphones, that's really the least of our stereo problems IMO.



Does the pan pot affect the group delay? I thought it only affected level.


----------



## castleofargh

^_^ . you're right of course, I got lost in my own thoughts with the 3D VSTs to allocate sounds and posted nonsense. basic panning is loudness, sorry about that.


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> Does this mean that nobody can truly appreciate music unless they wear exact-fitting headphones or put their head in a vise?  Otherwise, the timing differences would ruin the experience.  If I recall, sound travels about a foot in a millisecond, which would mean roughly a sixteenth of an inch in a microsecond.  That is not much more distance than is usually caused from the result of swallowing.  It seems like overkill to me.  Can we really notice a difference with such a small difference in timing?



If we were talking about a flat group delay across the frequencies I would agree. But it is frequency variant, so it would be better to keep the interchannel variation to a minimum.

Tweeters that only go to 20kHz can have very severe ringing at a resonence a few kHz above that.  It used to be thought it was unimportant (and still is by many) but the large Q causes a bunch of problems including the one I'm talking about. More decerning transducer engineers have found removing this peak makes things better.  Having a transducer that goes up to 100kHz pushes this out of harms way.


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## pinnahertz (Jun 12, 2017)

jagwap said:


> You are both misunderstanding my point.  The variation between channels should be improved.  Throughout this thread when talking about timing error in the uS size, the ear's sensitivity is highest between arrival between the ears.  This is below 20kHz.  Also note the first arrival of the sound it the one that give those queues.  The reflections of the room tend to be masked out when it comes to spacial awareness.


I'm sorry, I haven't actually seen a poor channel timing match in a digital system.  No idea what you think the issue is.  Channel timing is pretty much always spot-on.  L&R is within a degree of phase all the way up to 20kHz.

 Are you actually claiming that there's enough channel timing error to skew localization?  Can you cite a specific case?

If memory serves, ITD discrimination is maximum in mid frequencies, and diminishes as frequency goes up.  Localization is strongly influenced by ITD up to several kHz, but higher than that localization depends progressively more on intensity differential.  This would make sense based on the wavelengths involved.


----------



## jagwap

I am talking about the analogue bits of reproduction.

Then you can get 10s of uS difference between channels with modest tolerance out of band.  Do the maths and you may be surprised.

Digital will not have this.


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## pinnahertz

Brahmsian said:


> Sony now makes headphones that go up to 100 kHz.


MDR-Z1.  "Specifications" (yes, in quotes) says 4Hz - 120kHz.  While I couldn't find actual measurements that go higher than 25kHz. 

This review sums it up:

_*"Sound Quality*
At first blush the MDR-Z1R sounds like a warm warm headphone with some treble emphasis—a bit smilie face, but not bad. May brain never did get around to accommodating though.

The bass is a bit too strong and remains emphasized too far into the midrange giving it a thick character. A moderately withdrawn presence region adds some veil to the thick bass. A lack of energy 4-6kHz leaves cymbals lacking body, and a big peak at 10kHz add too much zing to everything and, while not piercing as would a 5kHz be, becomes significantly fatiguing over time.

....I was regularly struck with how the others provided a much better sense of an integrated whole; the Sony in comparison was disjointed and incoherent. Not once did it make me tap my feet.

I really don't know what more to say. When I'd rather listen to the Audio Technica ATH-M50x we've got problems. I don't want to misslead here, it's an okay sounding headphone, but 'okay' just doesn't cut it at $2299."
_
So you can have "response" (actual level or deviation unstated for anywhere in the total FR... wow, thanks Sony) up to 120kHz, and still have rather unimpressive sounding headphones.  Sounds like they threw the baby out with the bathwater.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I am talking about the analogue bits of reproduction.


Please define "analog bits".


jagwap said:


> Then you can get 10s of uS difference between channels with modest tolerance out of band.  Do the maths and you may be surprised.


Maximum possible ITD is about 600uS, that's a source facing one ear, and on the opposite side of the head from the other.  Considering 0 degrees azimuth (directly in front of you) has 0uS ITD, and 90 degrees has 600uS...now show me where 10uS at 20kHz (and not mid-band...this is non-flat group delay, right?) where humans use exclusively intensity cues to localize, makes any difference.


jagwap said:


> Digital will not have this.


I'm sorry I didn't track the jump away from "digital" to "analog bits" (whatever that is).


----------



## bigshot

jagwap said:


> Tweeters that only go to 20kHz can have very severe ringing at a resonence a few kHz above that.




Super audible frequencies can certainly be problematic especially for young ears, and headroom is always a good thing. But you shouldn't get carried away with doubling down on more headroom expecting it to make more of an improvement. If you push ultrasonic ringing up a full octave beyond the range of hearing, that's probably more than enough to make it not problematic.


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Super audible frequencies can certainly be problematic especially for young ears, and headroom is always a good thing. But you shouldn't get carried away with doubling down on more headroom expecting it to make more of an improvement. If you push ultrasonic ringing up a full octave beyond the range of hearing, that's probably more than enough to make it not problematic.



I am not saying the ringing frequency is audible (Although at an audio demonstration a very young girl once heard 26kHz, but again that would be seen as irrelevant here).  The high Q of the filter itself is problematic in the audio-band. If it were a perfectly linear system maybe it wouldn't be, but transducers are not very linear. The in-band phase distortion, and intermodulation is not benign.


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## bigshot (Jun 12, 2017)

26kHz is only two notes higher than 20kHz on the musical scale. It's not very much. The number sounds bigger than it is. I'm sure she wasn't hearing 26kHz in music because anything that high would be completely masked and besides, I can't think of more than a handful of recordings that might actually contain signal in that range. Also, she might not have been actually hearing it- it's possible to feel sound pressure from frequencies you can't actually hear. What you say is true though. If you can push the problem safely above 20kHz at a volume level that isn't excessively loud, it's nothing to worry about any more. Problems in the audible range are much more important.


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## jagwap

Generally I agree that there is not absolute evidence that we can hear or perceive audio above 20kHz, but I am illustrating why there are reasons for widening the bandwidth beyond 20kHz in order to improve the in-band performance.  We may not need "DC to light" frequency response, but -3dB at 20Hz and 20kHz is nowhere near good enough.  Most of these reasons are in the analogue domain, as this is where things are less defined.


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## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I am not saying the ringing frequency is audible (Although at an audio demonstration a very young girl once heard 26kHz, but again that would be seen as irrelevant here).  The high Q of the filter itself is problematic in the audio-band. If it were a perfectly linear system maybe it wouldn't be, but transducers are not very linear. The in-band phase distortion, and intermodulation is not benign.


Ultrasonic IMD is, I believe, one area in which more attention should be given and research should be done.  There are several means of evaluating the resulting intermodulation products created by ultrasonic frequency components that fall done into the very audible range.  While I cannot prove this, I think this is what people are hearing (or not hearing) when they listen to high bandwidth systems and recordings. 



jagwap said:


> Generally I agree that there is not absolute evidence that we can hear or perceive audio above 20kHz, but I am illustrating why there are reasons for widening the bandwidth beyond 20kHz in order to improve the in-band performance.  We may not need "DC to light" frequency response, but -3dB at 20Hz and 20kHz is nowhere near good enough.


-3dB @ 20kHz is a very analog specification, you won't find that in any current high quality digital audio system, nor any back many decades.  However, analog recorders and older analog equipment could easily be -3dB @20khz.  Also, -3dB @ 50Hz. 



jagwap said:


> Most of these reasons are in the analogue domain, as this is where things are less defined.


I'm curious as to what you think these reasons are, and what their audible threshold might be. (I know this might sound like a bait, it's not meant to be, I'm actually curious).


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## jagwap (Jun 13, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> Ultrasonic IMD is, I believe, one area in which more attention should be given and research should be done.  There are several means of evaluating the resulting intermodulation products created by ultrasonic frequency components that fall done into the very audible range.  While I cannot prove this, I think this is what people are hearing (or not hearing) when they listen to high bandwidth systems and recordings.



I agree. It may not be the only issue, but it seems a likely one, and people have found this to be the issue before.



> -3dB @ 20kHz is a very analog specification, you won't find that in any current high quality digital audio system, nor any back many decades.  However, analog recorders and older analog equipment could easily be -3dB @20khz.  Also, -3dB @ 50Hz.



Not ideal.  All this talk of group delay, at low frequencies it is very real and cumulative. Ironically: mathematically you can show that -3dB at 20Hz is worse for group delay than 50Hz.



> I'm curious as to what you think these reasons are, and what their audible threshold might be. (I know this might sound like a bait, it's not meant to be, I'm actually curious).



Sure.  I am still curious what you think an absolute peak SPL of a drum kit would be... But I have answered this above: IMD and ringing are 2 issues.  A high Q system doesn't need exciting at its resonant frequency to start ringing.  Near is good enough.  So 26kHz 12dB peaks on transducers are not a good thing.


----------



## jagwap

jagwap said:


> So 26kHz 12dB peaks on transducers are not a good thing.



Oh, and you should see what happens when an open loop class D amplifier meets a tweeter! Huge potential high Q peaks.


----------



## gregorio

old tech said:


> While I don't disagree that the noise floor of 16bits is practically inaudible, it can be heard on silent passages if turned up a little and the room is reasonably quiet. I know I can and so could most of the subjects in the Meyer and Moran study.



Sure you can hear noise, it's the noise floor of the recording, not the digital noise floor though! The Meyer and Moran study just truncated to 16bit, not even triangular dither was applied, let alone noise-shaped dither!



jagwap said:


> (1) A loud SPL is 96dBA, yes, but that is an average not the peaks of the waveform.  A good rock recording has a DNR of say 16dB, so the peaks are 112dB if you don't clip  (this is from the loudness database.  I am not convinced of the workings of the DNR meter they use from FOOBAR).  That leaves the noise floor of CD at 16dBA  (OK 13dBA as there are 2 channels to make the 96dB). Fine, thats more than 14dB below the 30dBA people are talking about here.
> (2) Remember the 30dBA talked about isn't white or pink noise in the background.  It is general domestic interference.
> (2a) It is entirely possible that the 16dBA background is audible, especially if near field monitoring.
> (2b) However more dynamic music exists, and people listen at higher levels for the short peaks.
> ...



1. Complete nonsense! You are comparing the DR database (which is similar to a crest factor measurement), with dBSPL peaks and dBA of the noise floor of CD. All of this is nonsense, you are comparing apples with oranges and from that comparison, coming up with the conclusion that aircarft shouldn't be made of concrete??!

2. Huh? "General domestic interference" in a quiet environment is random noise, not mathematically identical to pink or white noise but audibly extremely similar.
2a. Nonsense! In a very quiet room, how are you going to hear "A" weighted random noise that's 14dB below "A" weighted random noise? But your 14dBA figure is nonsense anyway: Read the responses given to you and if there's something you don't understand ask, DON'T just keep making up more nonsense!

3. And that's going to be the same amount of noise whether it's 16bit or 300bits!

4. Either you are asking for more than 150dB, in which case you're crazy, or you're making up nonsense facts and conclusions to argue for more than 150dB without even realising it, in which case you're crazy!!!

5. Again, more nonsense! How many recordings can you name with more than 96dB of dynamic range? There's only a handful or so with more than 60dB!

5a. Congrats, a complete full house of nonsense! 1, ~20dB is not a "token amount"! 2, Noise-shaping has been industry standard practice for nearly 20 years.  



Niouke said:


> (1) Back to MQA from a computing viewpoint, I can't bend my head around the concept of a lossy codec that would beat a non lossy one...
> (2) as I understand the creators of the codec want to control the whole chain from the microphone to the speaker does that mean the ADC ...



1. There is no getting one's head around that!
2. That's what they want you to understand but it's a marketing lie. It's a lie because it misses out by far the most significant part of the chain, the mixing/processing! The ADC and DAC are completely insignificant compared to the mixing.



jagwap said:


> (1) A handful is still some, and the argument is was that 16b is enough.  MQA when decoded offers more ...
> (2) It is not hard to offer 20 bit or more performance ...



1. No it doesn't, where did you get that from? According to the patent application, MQA offers 13-17bit.
2. Correct it's not hard, it's impossible!



Brahmsian said:


> (1) He measured instruments and found that there's life to the sound they make above 20kHz.
> (2) He also leaves open the possibility that bone conduction can affect our enjoyment of music. He points to a study on that as well as to one showing electrical activity in the brain produced by frequencies above 26kHz.



1. Did you actually look at what you posted? Fractions of a percent at freqs which only young people can hear and even then, only if you blast them with pure tones! So, if you're young, have a collection of recordings of nothing but pure >20kHz sine waves and play them back at >100dB, then yes, >44.1kHz sample rates would be worth it for you!
2. He does leave it open, as a marketing ploy, because there is ZERO evidence to support it! Brain activity was measured BUT none of the study participants were actually aware of it. So, if you mechanically bolt your speakers to your skull, you're "enjoyment of music" will be unaffected UNLESS you enjoy watching a real time EEG while you're listening to your music! 



jagwap said:


> (1) Throughout this thread when talking about timing error in the uS size, the ear's sensitivity is highest between arrival between the ears.  This is below 20kHz.  Also note the first arrival of the sound it the one that give those queues.
> (2) The reflections of the room tend to be masked out when it comes to spacial awareness.



1. Only the marketing BS and those repeating it talk about uS size! Positional cues are in the ranges of milli-seconds, not micro-seconds, as has been explained in this thread on several occasions and to you personally! It's trivial to run a test and see for yourself, so instead of keep repeating the marketing lies, why don't you find out for yourself if you don't want to believe what we're telling you?
2. That's completely backwards! It's the reflections of the room/environment which gives spatial awareness.

G


----------



## jagwap (Jun 13, 2017)

gregorio said:


> 1. Complete nonsense! You are comparing the DR database (which is similar to a crest factor measurement), with dBSPL peaks and dBA of the noise floor of CD. All of this is nonsense, you are comparing apples with oranges and from that comparison, coming up with the conclusion that aircarft shouldn't be made of concrete??!



Then please, put in your numbers: Maximum average SPL to peak ratio ever encountered please, so we can have a discussion rather than mud slinging.



> 2. Huh? "General domestic interference" in a quiet environment is random noise, not mathematically identical to pink or white noise but audibly extremely similar.
> 2a. Nonsense! In a very quiet room, how are you going to hear "A" weighted random noise that's 14dB below "A" weighted random noise? But your 14dBA figure is nonsense anyway: Read the responses given to you and if there's something you don't understand ask, DON'T just keep making up more nonsense!



Not necessarily. Hum from electrical and air conditioning is not broadband noise. Many other sources are tones and their harmonics.



> 3. And that's going to be the same amount of noise whether it's 16bit or 300bits!



Yes.  But if it is anything more than say around -12dB from the next largest it is going to add to it.  http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-leveladding.htm



> 4. Either you are asking for more than 150dB, in which case you're crazy, or you're making up nonsense facts and conclusions to argue for more than 150dB without even realising it, in which case you're crazy!!!



I am NOT asking for more than 150dB.  I was citing another professional and how much headroom he wanted for the audio chain to be blameless.



> 5. Again, more nonsense! How many recordings can you name with more than 96dB of dynamic range? There's only a handful or so with more than 60dB!



I didn't say that.  I think you like the word nonsense when you can apply it to others and not yourself.  I was showing that middle C generally needs EDIT: less  dynamic range than lower notes in typical program material, so perhaps middle C is not the ideal example.



> 5a. Congrats, a complete full house of nonsense! 1, ~20dB is not a "token amount"! 2, Noise-shaping has been industry standard practice for nearly 20 years.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It depend on the source material but 24bit source has 23bit decoded by MQA.  Enough?  Unless you mean undecoded then yes it can be less than 16bit.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers-bit-depth-mqa



> 2. Correct it's not hard, it's impossible!



I meant in the digital domain.



> 1. Did you actually look at what you posted? Fractions of a percent at freqs which only young people can hear and even then, only if you blast them with pure tones! So, if you're young, have a collection of recordings of nothing but pure >20kHz sine waves and play them back at >100dB, then yes, >44.1kHz sample rates would be worth it for you!
> 2. He does leave it open, as a marketing ploy, because there is ZERO evidence to support it! Brain activity was measured BUT none of the study participants were actually aware of it. So, if you mechanically bolt your speakers to your skull, you're "enjoyment of music" will be unaffected UNLESS you enjoy watching a real time EEG while you're listening to your music!
> 
> 
> ...



No, there are papers showing studies that 15uS are detectable between the ears in arrival time. It has to less than 1mS as our ears are too close together for that to be the difference for spacial cues as sound travels 340 mm per mS.  Dare I say it.... NONSENSE!!!  Oh you're right... feels quite good!

That is not the same as the temporal stuff MQA is talking about, and you guys torn a new one on those other papers.



> 2. That's completely backwards! It's the reflections of the room/environment which gives spatial awareness.
> 
> G



See above: NONSENSE...OK,  the room contributes, but for arrival time the early arrival wavefront is the spatial cue.  It has to be or we wouldn't figure out where anything came from. Edit: Spacial cues come from relative arrival time, relative level and head transfer function effects, no?

Nonsense?


----------



## jagwap

Let me clarify my position as the mob is getting tetchy:

I have at no point said I believe all the special sauce in MQA.  But I know a little about the people behind it and they are experts in their field, and care passionately about audio reproduction, so I do not think it should be written off or the people involved insulted before it is proved to be nonsense. By all means say it isn't proven true, but that does not mean they are liars  or cheats, just not forthcoming with the information.

I think that 96dB MAY not be enough for all cases, and more is a good idea if it is available, and it is.  It is an interesting discussion.

I am not convinced that more than 20kHz is useful, but I remain open minded.  However I strongly believe that many parts of the reproduction chain should be considerably wider bandwidth than 20Hz to 20kHz at both ends when it is at all practicable, as it gets in-band audible errors reduced when you push the limits away.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I am still curious what you think an absolute peak SPL of a drum kit would be...


I don't know, but I would guess between 90dB SPL and 140dB SPL.  Depends on what drums, who's playing, and most importantly, where the mic is.  When recording drums we use mics that can handle high SPL and pad the preamp.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I think that 96dB MAY not be enough for all cases, and more is a good idea if it is available, and it is.  It is an interesting discussion.


Perhaps not every single case, but the cases where 96dB isn't enough are ridiculously rare.  24 bit data is available but the 4-6 LSBs are all just noise, we  don't have any real 24 bit DR recordings at all.  Most so-called hi-res is resampled standard res or worse, analog originals.  So what would those with the "need" for more than 96dB actually be playing?


jagwap said:


> I am not convinced that more than 20kHz is useful, but I remain open minded.  However I strongly believe that many parts of the reproduction chain should be considerably wider bandwidth than 20Hz to 20kHz at both ends when it is at all practicable, as it gets in-band audible errors reduced when you push the limits away.


I would agree that any distortion mechanism that results in in-band products should be carefully examined.  However, specifying reproduction systems as having FR "up to XkHz" is highly misleading, but will be a by-product of increased bandwidth systems.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> I don't know, but I would guess between 90dB SPL and 140dB SPL.  Depends on what drums, who's playing, and most importantly, where the mic is.  When recording drums we use mics that can handle high SPL and pad the preamp.





pinnahertz said:


> Perhaps not every single case, but the cases where 96dB isn't enough are ridiculously rare.  24 bit data is available but the 4-6 LSBs are all just noise, we  don't have any real 24 bit DR recordings at all.  Most so-called hi-res is resampled standard res or worse, analog originals.  So what would those with the "need" for more than 96dB actually be playing?
> 
> I would agree that any distortion mechanism that results in in-band products should be carefully examined.  However, specifying reproduction systems as having FR "up to XkHz" is highly misleading, but will be a by-product of increased bandwidth systems.



So using the informed speculative numbers: Then as 20 bit digital gives a spectral noise floor of -140dBFS (120dB DNR), maybe it would be a better future proof starting point (or more?).  I know people are not used to the the dynamics of real instruments, but the ability to record and store them should be an aim if need be.  Maybe current recording and production is partially guided by what was possible before and sets what people are used to and expect.  But why not find the way to let the great unwashed have it if the artist wants to now and then? Why do studios have tiny monitors to make sure the final result sounds OK on a small system? Because most of the public cannot experience the good stuff. But I like the idea that future recordings can be scaleable to the system, like when DAB had selectable compressors for small and large systems (pity it was never used, as even the BBC compressed the cr@p out of the signal at source on all but radio 3).  But failing that, why limit it?  If you want the added noise from the dither to be 12dB lower than ideal system noise, which is at the 20bit level (ish. I know, difficult in current analogue tech) then 22 bits are needed.

MQA is 23 bit (back on topic!)


----------



## bigshot

jagwap said:


> All this talk of group delay, at low frequencies it is very real and cumulative. Ironically: mathematically you can show that -3dB at 20Hz is worse for group delay than 50Hz.




Except with human ears, since most of us talking here probably can't even hear 20kHz, but we certainly can hear 50Hz. If you want to make your stereo system sound better, it's a good idea to focus on frequencies you can actually hear. Prioritizing problems and addressing them in order of importance is a lot better than wasting time and energy calculating pi out to 100 decimal points.



jagwap said:


> I think that 96dB MAY not be enough for all cases, and more is a good idea if it is available, and it is.  It is an interesting discussion.
> 
> I am not convinced that more than 20kHz is useful, but I remain open minded.  However I strongly believe that many parts of the reproduction chain should be considerably wider bandwidth than 20Hz to 20kHz at both ends when it is at all practicable, as it gets in-band audible errors reduced when you push the limits away.



The only thing I can think of that might need more than 16 bit dynamic range is a war movie with bombs going off. I can't think of any music that would benefit from it. No one mixes drums to sound like your head is inside the drum. You want the drums to mesh with the rest of the band and create a comfortable soundstage a little distance from the listener.

As for headroom above 20kHz being useful, that's why redbook is 44.1 and not just 40. It's really easy to determine if higher sampling rate and higher bit rate is necessary. Just take a recording with ultrasonic information in it and a noise floor that reaches the earth's core and transcode it to plain vanilla 16/44.1 and do a blind level matched direct A/B switched test for yourself. While you're at it, throw in some high bitrate lossy as well. That's what I did many years ago. You find out what counts and what is purely theoretical fast.

I'm not waiting for the cutting edge of science to discover new theories. I'm improving my system using a basic understanding of how sound reproduction works and my own ears. It's gotten me a long way, but I would imagine my dog still isn't satisfied. She can buy her own stereo system.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> So using the informed speculative numbers: Then as 20 bit digital gives a spectral noise floor of -140dBFS (120dB DNR), maybe it would be a better future proof starting point (or more?).  I know people are not used to the the dynamics of real instruments, but the ability to record and store them should be an aim if need be.  Maybe current recording and production is partially guided by what was possible before and sets what people are used to and expect.  But why not find the way to let the great unwashed have it if the artist wants to now and then? Why do studios have tiny monitors to make sure the final result sounds OK on a small system? Because most of the public cannot experience the good stuff. But I like the idea that future recordings can be scaleable to the system, like when DAB had selectable compressors for small and large systems (pity it was never used, as even the BBC compressed the cr@p out of the signal at source on all but radio 3).  But failing that, why limit it?  If you want the added noise from the dither to be 12dB lower than ideal system noise, which is at the 20bit level (ish. I know, difficult in current analogue tech) then 22 bits are needed.
> 
> MQA is 23 bit (back on topic!)


when did MQA become 23bit? I remember no such thing from the patents. even going for the noise shaped "perceived" bit depth, they only mentioned such high values up to 5 or 7khz. and if we're going to play the noise shaping card, then let's do it for PCM too. 
I've seen nothing suggesting that a 24/48 MQA file would contain more than 17bits at best over the entire frequency range.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> when did MQA become 23bit? I remember no such thing from the patents. even going for the noise shaped "perceived" bit depth, they only mentioned such high values up to 5 or 7khz. and if we're going to play the noise shaping card, then let's do it for PCM too.
> I've seen nothing suggesting that a 24/48 MQA file would contain more than 17bits at best over the entire frequency range.



Good point.  However my understand was that the truncation of bits happened in the most significant bits in the decoded MQA as frequency rose, so it is not entirely a like with like comparison.  The premise is that full level is only required in the lower octaves.  I imagine this is combined with noise shaping as that is a sensible thing to do.


----------



## jagwap (Jun 13, 2017)

bigshot said:


> Except with human ears, since most of us talking here probably can't even hear 20kHz, but we certainly can hear 50Hz. If you want to make your stereo system sound better, it's a good idea to focus on frequencies you can actually hear. Prioritizing problems and addressing them in order of importance is a lot better than wasting time and energy calculating pi out to 100 decimal points.



You are misunderstanding my point.  Sure 20Hz is more of a feeling rather than heard.  However, filters that happen at xHz has phase and group delay effects at > 2x Hz.  Basic maths.  At low frequencies these are significant.



> The only thing I can think of that might need more than 16 bit dynamic range is a war movie with bombs going off. I can't think of any music that would benefit from it. No one mixes drums to sound like your head is inside the drum. You want the drums to mesh with the rest of the band and create a comfortable soundstage a little distance from the listener.



I want a defined system that can cope with anything we want to do, not just conventional rock mixing that evolved from having to cope with limited kit.  Say it is good enough, if you are using it.  But if you are defining the future formats for the world, strive for better.



> As for headroom above 20kHz being useful, that's why redbook is 44.1 and not just 40. It's really easy to determine if higher sampling rate and higher bit rate is necessary. Just take a recording with ultrasonic information in it and a noise floor that reaches the earth's core and transcode it to plain vanilla 16/44.1 and do a blind level matched direct A/B switched test for yourself. While you're at it, throw in some high bitrate lossy as well. That's what I did many years ago. You find out what counts and what is purely theoretical fast.



44.1Khz came from the data rate on video tape at the time.  Being >40kHz came from trying to get as high as possible with limited tech so there was a fighting chance of designing an anaolgue brick wall filter that could anti-alias the signal before oversampling (the BBC had 32 pole brick wall filters for NICAM 32kHz radio distribution, and AP couldn't measure the ripple or slope on the early system 1!)



> I'm not waiting for the cutting edge of science to discover new theories. I'm improving my system using a basic understanding of how sound reproduction works and my own ears. It's gotten me a long way, but I would imagine my dog still isn't satisfied. She can buy her own stereo system.



But I am waiting and looking forward to the next cutting edge step.  This is the sound science forum.  Juno is spinning around Jupiter to discover new stuff. Science, it's often about new discoveries.  Not sitting in front of a computer slagging off people pushing the envelope.


----------



## bigshot

jagwap said:


> You are misunderstanding my point.  Sure 20Hz is more of a feeling rather than heard.  However, filters that happen at xHz has phase and group delay effects at > 2x Hz.  Basic maths.  At low frequencies these are significant.



Those are in the audible range. The audible range is what matters, not the super audible frequencies.



jagwap said:


> I want a defined system that can cope with anything we want to do, not just conventional rock mixing that evolved from having to cope with limited kit.  Say it is good enough, if you are using it.  But if you are defining the future formats for the world, strive for better.



You're striving for a theoretical better. There isn't a type of music on Earth that requires over 55dB of dynamic range. At some point, it's a lot smarter to say, "good enough" and move on to things that will make a difference you can hear- like frequency response. Striving after sound quality you can't hear is a good way to waste a whole lot of money without making any noticeable improvement.



jagwap said:


> But I am waiting and looking forward to the next cutting edge step.  This is the sound science forum.  Juno is spinning around Jupiter to discover new stuff. Science, it's often about new discoveries.  Not sitting in front of a computer slagging off people pushing the envelope.



The future is now... it's multichannel. Do you have a good multichannel speaker system that has been tweaked to suit music? If so, you already know that's a gazillion times better than worrying about frequencies you can't hear with human ears and noise floors buried under the room tone of your living room.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> Good point.  However my understand was that the truncation of bits happened in the most significant bits in the decoded MQA as frequency rose, so it is not entirely a like with like comparison.  The premise is that full level is only required in the lower octaves.  I imagine this is combined with noise shaping as that is a sensible thing to do.


well they don't treat the audible range the same as the ultrasonic range. in the range of the file container(usually 48khz apparently) it's good old PCM signal and they just replace the X LSB they need as storage space to code the ultrasonic signal. and that's the reason why unconverted MQA still sounds like music. the change is louder noise floor. in the patent they mention that it would be better to at least have something to do some kind of dither again to mask some more noticeable noise patterns that could result from the code itself, but I don't imagine that to be audible outside of maybe 16bit MQA. 
I can't be sure but it seems that X(for the X LSB used to code ultrasounds) can adapt for what's needed. like if the ultrasonic signal only goes to 96khz instead of 192 they don't need as many bits to code, or if the ultrasonic signal happens to have some "high"(for ultrasounds) amplitude content, then they could use more bits. or maybe they settled for some fixed value to make the system less complicated? IDK were they went since the patents. 
then it seems relatively intuitive that they wouldn't encode the ultrasonic content in basic PCM, that wouldn't work simply because of how many bits would be required. I won't go and guess the math involved, but I would imagine they code only for the small ultrasonic variations between the 48khz sample closest to the one they want to "remove"(to get half sample rate container). and to encode that if I was them I would make up some reverse PCM amplitude count, where the LSB is the first bit and the MSB the n bit. that way for small amplitudes it takes very few bits to code. but all that is my hypothesis trying to think about how it may work, I honestly don't know the specifics of what they do. ^_^


----------



## jagwap (Jun 14, 2017)

bigshot said:


> Those are in the audible range. The audible range is what matters, not the super audible frequencies.



That's what I am saying.  Out of band parameters can have in-band effects.  IMD at the top end can also do this.



> You're striving for a theoretical better. There isn't a type of music on Earth that requires over 55dB of dynamic range. At some point, it's a lot smarter to say, "good enough" and move on to things that will make a difference you can hear- like frequency response. Striving after sound quality you can't hear is a good way to waste a whole lot of money without making any noticeable improvement.



Sure.  But equally everyone is concentrating on frequency response as the main thing that affects sound quality.  There are other aspects that are important such as the time domain, as I mentioned above.  I am less expert in the high frequency timing aspect MQA wants to address, but because I have found unexpected things going on in the LF I am open to new ideas.



> The future is now... it's multichannel. Do you have a good multichannel speaker system that has been tweaked to suit music? If so, you already know that's a gazillion times better than worrying about frequencies you can't hear with human ears and noise floors buried under the room tone of your living room.



Yes I do: 6 identical floorstander and one centre bookshelf (a compromise I know) powered by reasonable amps and fed from an Oppo BDP-105 with 4 12" sealed subs.  Currently I have downsized to 4 floorstanders and 2 subs as I moved.  I have worked on and designed many multi-channel decoders.  Dolby including ATMOS, DTS and others.  One of the most convincing systems can be Ambisonics.  Google who came up with the microphone for that.  Smart people...


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> So using the informed speculative numbers: Then as 20 bit digital gives a spectral noise floor of -140dBFS


No it doesn't. Run those numbers again.


jagwap said:


> (120dB DNR),


Oh boy....


jagwap said:


> maybe it would be a better future proof starting point (or more?).


 It doesn't matter.  20bit files are not a common distribution standard.


jagwap said:


> I know people are not used to the the dynamics of real instruments, but the ability to record and store them should be an aim if need be.  Maybe current recording and production is partially guided by what was possible before and sets what people are used to and expect.  But why not find the way to let the great unwashed have it if the artist wants to now and then?


The "great unwashed" aren't demanding high quality.  Never have, never will.  Wouldn't know it if they had it. They would think all that DR is wrong, and hard to listen to.


jagwap said:


> Why do studios have tiny monitors to make sure the final result sounds OK on a small system? Because most of the public cannot experience the good stuff. But I like the idea that future recordings can be scaleable to the system, like when DAB had selectable compressors for small and large systems (pity it was never used, as even the BBC compressed the cr@p out of the signal at source on all but radio 3).  But failing that, why limit it?


DR is limited because that's what producers want.  It's a competitive thing.  Loudness war...read up.  On the other hand, wide dynamic range cannot be listened to in anything by a very quite, very good, very expensive room.  You can't create a product for general distribution that way and expect it to appeal to the masses.  Besides, music itself doesn't have 20bits of DR.  Thankfully!


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> No it doesn't. Run those numbers again.



My appologies: If you mean per root Hz:

16bit
-141.51dBFS per-root Hz for 44.1kHz

Or with some dither:
–136.76dBFS per-root Hz for 44.1kHz or
–137.12dBFS per-root Hz for 48kHz.
–140.13dBFS per-root Hz is 96kHz

Then 20 bit:

-160.82dBFS per-root Hz for 44.1kHz dithered.

But then I was looking at an Audio Precision where it depends on your binning as to how it looks on an FFT. Usually around -132dB for 16bit on a AP, and -148dB for 24bit.  20bit is around the 140dB mark.  Sorry if I over simplified.

20bit is 120.4dB DNR without dither, and 115.63dB with (depending on your dither).  Did you need the 0.4dB?



> Oh boy....
> It doesn't matter.  20bit files are not a common distribution standard.



Which is why I said "or more"



> The "great unwashed" aren't demanding high quality.  Never have, never will.  Wouldn't know it if they had it. They would think all that DR is wrong, and hard to listen to.
> DR is limited because that's what producers want.  It's a competitive thing.  Loudness war...read up.  On the other hand, wide dynamic range cannot be listened to in anything by a very quite, very good, very expensive room.  You can't create a product for general distribution that way and expect it to appeal to the masses.  Besides, music itself doesn't have 20bits of DR.  Thankfully!



I am familiar with the loudness war, and I am concerned that it is what producers want.  I would prefer those who want it to be taken out of the artistic process until it settle down to a sensible level.


----------



## jagwap (Jun 14, 2017)

castleofargh said:


> well they don't treat the audible range the same as the ultrasonic range. in the range of the file container(usually 48khz apparently) it's good old PCM signal and they just replace the X LSB they need as storage space to code the ultrasonic signal. and that's the reason why unconverted MQA still sounds like music. the change is louder noise floor.


Agreed, I think that is clear, and well documented by others.


> in the patent they mention that it would be better to at least have something to do some kind of dither again to mask some more noticeable noise patterns that could result from the code itself, but I don't imagine that to be audible outside of maybe 16bit MQA.
> I can't be sure but it seems that X(for the X LSB used to code ultrasounds) can adapt for what's needed. like if the ultrasonic signal only goes to 96khz instead of 192 they don't need as many bits to code, or if the ultrasonic signal happens to have some "high"(for ultrasounds) amplitude content, then they could use more bits. or maybe they settled for some fixed value to make the system less complicated? IDK were they went since the patents.
> then it seems relatively intuitive that they wouldn't encode the ultrasonic content in basic PCM, that wouldn't work simply because of how many bits would be required. I won't go and guess the math involved, but I would imagine they code only for the small ultrasonic variations between the 48khz sample closest to the one they want to "remove"(to get half sample rate container). and to encode that if I was them I would make up some reverse PCM amplitude count, where the LSB is the first bit and the MSB the n bit. that way for small amplitudes it takes very few bits to code. but all that is my hypothesis trying to think about how it may work, I honestly don't know the specifics of what they do. ^_^



Maybe.  My understanding was that as frequency increased, effectively the MSBs were discarded as the levels decreased, as shown by the origami plots.  However I don't remember that only starting above 24kHz.  However it would make the decoding of the <24kHz easier if that is the case I suspect, and how do you use the redundant MSB in < 24kHz to add resolution else where?  So what you say makes sense.

On the of the encode/decode, my understanding (guess?) is that above 24kHz the MSB and LSB truncation lowers the resolution significantly, but stops at 48kHz, where it transitions to temporal preservation only.  However some of the explantions state the 24kHz - 48kHz is only needed for that, so, as you say, who knows, except Bob and Peter

Edit: I found the bit that made me think the baseband can be "decoded".  From the Stereophile answers:

"The structure of MQA is somewhat flexible and doesn't really conform to the model that may be implied by the phrase "16-bits of audio data in the baseband". A 24-bit MQA file may be auditioned in at least three ways:

• Truncated to 16 bits and auditioned without a decoder
• Truncated to 16 bits and decoded
• Fully decoded from 24 bits.

We need to be aware that the recovered 0–20kHz 'baseband' signal is not the same between these three presentations. In the very broadest terms the top 16 bits convey most or all of what will end up in the 0–20kHz range, and the remaining bits can improve the resolution of the baseband and/or extend the frequency range. However it is not a case of "these bits provide resolution enhancement and those bits provide range extension": MQA is more sophisticated than that."

Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content...gami-or-folding-questions#TtRktep54jGxb5kb.99

Still clear as mud, but still.


----------



## gregorio (Jun 14, 2017)

jagwap said:


> (1) Then please, put in your numbers: Maximum average SPL to peak ratio ever encountered please, so we can have a discussion rather than mud slinging.
> (2) Not necessarily. Hum from electrical and air conditioning is not broadband noise. Many other sources are tones and their harmonics.
> (3) But if it is anything more than say around -12dB from the next largest it is going to add to it.
> (4) I am NOT asking for more than 150dB.  (4a) I was citing another professional and how much headroom he wanted for the audio chain to be blameless.
> ...



1. At a guess, that would be about 190dB seventy two years ago. Question though: Do audiophiles really want to experience the same sound pressure levels as people standing in the street closest to the detonation in Hiroshima? You keep saying that you have 25 years experience in the audio industry but you don't seem to understand the basics of how sound works. A SPL decibel measurement of the sound produced is meaningless without distance. We can get huge dB's inside say a kick drum, even the SPL of normal speech can reach very high/damaging levels an inch from the speaker mouth. This is nonsense though, an audience does not sit inside a kick drum or with their ear an inch from the mouth of someone speaking normally. You would know this if you had ANY pro experience, let alone 25 years!!

2. I said a "quiet room". In a quiet room all the individual sounds blend together to create the noise floor, which is typically pink'ish. So again, the source of the sound is largely irrelevant and again, you would know this if you actually had pro experience!

3. The digital noise floor of CD is -96dB, the noise floor of the recording is at least 30dB higher. Are you saying you can hear the increase from summing these noise floors together, which is an increase of few thousandths of a dB? If this isn't nonsense, what is?

4. So, it must be the second option then ("_or you're making up nonsense facts and conclusions to argue for more than 150dB without even realising it, in which case you're crazy!!!_"). A perceptual listening room noise floor of say 30dBA and the perceptual dynamic range of 16bit is typically about 120dB, so you would therefore require a peak level of 150dBSPL, if the noise floor of the CD is to be at the same level as the noise floor of your listening environment. This isn't rocket science!
4a. You've either misunderstood or have taken what you were told out of context. There are certain parts of the production chain where we often need massive dynamic range (to avoid cumulative processing errors/noise) but this is irrelevant for the consumer and irrelevant for a distribution format!

5. Yes, more than *enough* marketing BS! Why do you insist on trying to support your arguments with marketing BS despite being told several times it's unacceptable here in the science forum? And, did you not even read or understand what you quoted? Stuart gets around the question by using the perceptual equivalent bits "_In excess of either 23-bit dynamic range capability ..._", which is fine PROVIDED you compare it like for like, with the perceptual equivalent bits of CD, which, depending on the noise-shaping algorithm used can be up to 25 bits! He also states "I_n any case 3–6 bits below the content noise in the audio band_": The 60dB max dynamic range of commercial content is 10bits, 3 bits more than that is 13bits and most commercial music recordings actually use 2 or 3 bits less dynamic range than that. So his statement confirms what I'm saying and what his patent application states, 13-17bits!!

6. Yes, you dare say that, PROVIDING you are applying it to yourself! Please cite any paper which provides supporting evidence for your assertion. While you're at it, why don't you look up "The Haas Effect", although with 25 years pro experience you shouldn't need to! Again, try it for yourself and see how low you can get!

7. Great, you're citing the law of first wavefront (The Precedence Effect) but how exactly does that support your argument? "_The precedence effect appears if the subsequent wave fronts arrive between 2 ms and about 50 ms later than the first wave front._" - Note that it's 2-50 milli-secs, NOT micro secs!!

AGAIN, stop with all the NONSENSE! Even if your dynamic range statements were true (which they're not!) it's irrelevant as MQA provides less dynamic range than CD anyway! And, stop avoiding and answer the question, list the commercial music recordings with more than 60dB dynamic range!!

G


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I am familiar with the loudness war, and I am concerned that it is what producers want.  I would prefer those who want it to be taken out of the artistic process until it settle down to a sensible level.


You cannot quantify "art", nor can you regulate it, no matter how much we wish we could.


----------



## bigshot

jagwap said:


> But equally everyone is concentrating on frequency response as the main thing that affects sound quality.  There are other aspects that are important such as the time domain
> 
> Yes I do: 6 identical floorstander and one centre bookshelf.



Frequency response is the main thing that affects sound quality. And in just about any system, particularly with loudspeakers, it's also the aspect that is the furthest from being perfect. Time error is minuscule in comparison, and if you understand what the numbers that MQA is talking about actually represent in audible sound, you'd know that they are talking about theoretical improvements, not audible ones. It's the same as how high end audio was all up in arms over jitter a few years back. Every manufacturer was touting their low jitter ratings. But then the studies started coming in establishing the audible threshold for jitter, and everyone realized that even the cheapest DAP had jitter ratings 100 times below the threshold of audibility. MQA is doing the exact same thing, except they're smart enough to be vague about the timing error they're supposedly correcting. That way those pesky peer reviewed journals won't poke holes in the smoke and mirrors.

Since you have a multichannel system, I'm sure you're aware that when it comes to improvement in sound quality, multichannel is the biggest advancement since the introduction of stereo. Digital audio, high bitrate audio, the latest and greatest codecs all pale in comparison.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> My appologies: If you mean per root Hz:
> 
> 16bit
> -141.51dBFS per-root Hz for 44.1kHz
> ...


It would be useful in a forum such as this to refer to noise figures in terms more people understand.  I can see you wanted to prove something by using the method you did, but it doesn't relate well to the audibility of noise or DR.  Unweighted noise referenced to 0dBFS is well understood, as is A-weighted noise referenced to 0dBFS.  When you use per-root-hertz you depend on someone to fill in the bandwidth, which most here won't do  or understand that they have to to make meaningful sense out of the figures.  I would hardly call that oversimplification.


jagwap said:


> I am familiar with the loudness war, and I am concerned that it is what producers want.  I would prefer those who want it to be taken out of the artistic process until it settle down to a sensible level.


You can't take the artist out of the artistic process.  You can't even educate them as to what aspects might improve the quality and expression of their art, apparently.  Typically, the artist doesn't even understand what's going on, he has a producer for that.  The producer has his own idea of what's important to be competitive (or have his ego stroked), or could be under pressor from his record company to produce competitive product.  Yes, it makes no actual sense, but it is what it is, we're stuck with it, the war is not going well.  The only solution is to vote with your wallet and not buy that stuff, but nobody is going to do that, largely because the music-buying populace doesn't even realize there is a loudness war, and therefore doesn't care.

And the reality is, make it as loud or not as loud as you like, the listener will un-do most of what you do with his volume control anyway.  Or it will be leveled out on the radio.  Or replay-gain or soundcheck will take care of it.


----------



## Brahmsian

VNandor said:


> Do you happen to have a link for the headphone's frequency response? Or maybe a more advanced spec sheet? Those numbers are worthless without mentioning tolerance. My phone's speaker could go from "3Hz to 100kHz" if I forgot to mention how much it rolls off on both ends.



I posted that mostly as a humorous aside considering we're debating anything above 20kHz.



gregorio said:


> 1. Did you actually look at what you posted? Fractions of a percent at freqs which only young people can hear and even then, only if you blast them with pure tones! So, if you're young, have a collection of recordings of nothing but pure >20kHz sine waves and play them back at >100dB, then yes, >44.1kHz sample rates would be worth it for you!
> 2. He does leave it open, as a marketing ploy, because there is ZERO evidence to support it! Brain activity was measured BUT none of the study participants were actually aware of it. So, if you mechanically bolt your speakers to your skull, you're "enjoyment of music" will be unaffected UNLESS you enjoy watching a real time EEG while you're listening to your music!
> 
> G


 I know what the problem is: you don't suffer fools like me gladly. But as there will probably always be a lot of stupid people in the world you're just going to have to deal with it.

1. I did indeed look before posting, and I see more than just fractions of a percent there: human sibilant 1.7%, trumpet 2, claves 3.8, rimshot 6, crash cymbal 40, jangling keys 68. And the issue isn't so much whether you can hear these frequencies as feel them or whether they somehow affect the frequencies that you do hear.

2. Sorry, what is he marketing again? I missed it.

This thread has gotten too abstract. It doesn't focus on the concrete.

For example, why does this _particular_ MQA release sound so different from (and in my opinion better than) the non-MQA release? All this talk about subtle differences which you can barely hear or can't hear at all doesn't apply. I'm perfectly willing to accept that it's nothing more than remastering. In fact, I'm even willing to accept that the record label intentionally made the non-MQA version sound like crap in order to make the MQA version sound better. But we're not talking subtle differences here.

MQA: https://listen.tidal.com/album/68731546

non-MQA: https://listen.tidal.com/album/51005915

The links take you to Tidal's website. They are merely so you can see what recording I'm referring to. For the MQA content you have to have downloaded the Tidal desktop app. Of course, I'm assuming that on a thread dedicated to MQA somebody can actually play MQA, that people actually have access to it.

What accounts for the vast difference? Granting there's a difference, which nobody with even average hearing would deny, it comes down to which sound you prefer. If you prefer the MQA, then clearly exploring MQA is well worth it and people who do explore it shouldn't be spoken of as though they were stupid (often the case on this thread). 

To call it snake oil isn't correct. When I think of snake oil I think of things that claim to improve something but actually don't. MQA does something and whether it degrades the sound in at least some cases is open to debate and subject to personal taste. Again I prefer the MQA version of _this_ particular release because it sounds smoother, more natural, and less compressed to me.


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## bigshot (Jun 27, 2017)

Wow! And I thought we'd solved this problem and here it comes back from the dead!

As for the Tidal comparison... You're assuming the difference is because MQA is improving the sound quality. I think it's much more likely that the normal track is hobbled to make the MQA seem better. Why would you want to support a format that has to skew its advantages by hobbling the normal track? I found a Stones SACD that had the nice new mix on the SACD layer and a very old CD mix on the CD layer. Not even the same mix. Did that endear SACDs to my heart? Nope.


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## headfry

Brahmsian said:


> I posted that mostly as a humorous aside considering we're debating anything above 20kHz.
> 
> 
> I know what the problem is: you don't suffer fools like me gladly. But as there will probably always be a lot of stupid people in the world you're just going to have to deal with it.
> ...




- the need to denigrate comes easy to know-it-all armchair critics who don't need to fairly audition something they are against in
principle, but that doesn't stop them from criticizing it as snake oil and putting down those who like it as idiots.

Thanks for your post, it was needed here at head-fi.


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## bigshot (Jun 27, 2017)

By the way, that particular album is available at Amazon for $1.33 right now. It might be worth picking up the CD and finding out whether it more resembles the regular Tidal or the MQA Tidal. That would be a good bet. I'd put a quarter on the CD sounding identical to the Tidal.

2002 Reissue http://amzn.to/2tivOXj
1990 Original Release http://amzn.to/2tivOXj


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## old tech (Jun 27, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> I posted that mostly as a humorous aside considering we're debating anything above 20kHz.
> 
> 
> I know what the problem is: you don't suffer fools like me gladly. But as there will probably always be a lot of stupid people in the world you're just going to have to deal with it.
> ...



That's a bit like saying "the issue is not whether we can see an exploding star in a distant galaxy but whether we can feel it or it somehow effects how we see the moon"'.

1. It is a logical fallacy and without any substance or real world experimental data.
2. With regard to these supersonic audio frequencies, it simply does not stack up with logic.  Here is a thought experiment, lets say these supersonic frequencies do somehow affect the frequencies we do hear, regardless of nil evidence for it.  Why is that relevant to a recording being played back?  If those ultrasonics are affecting  frequencies within the human hearing domain then by definition that is the sound that would be captured in the recording and heard on playback.  Why would the ultrasonics need to be played back when the effects are already in the recorded sound?
3. Lastly, IMO it is irrational to focus on things that have no grounds in logic and no evidence for it rather than the things that do matter - ie the linearity of the frequency response within the human hearing range and, more importantly, the quality of the actual recording/mastering, the loudspeakers and room acoustics.
4. Even if one has a fetish for out of range content, why focus on weak, directional, easily masked high frequencies rather than powerful, omni-directional >20hz frequencies which we can perceive as vibrations of things within and around us?


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## bigshot

Ultra sonic frequencies add nothing to the perceived sound quality of music. There was a test with music comparing the same track with ultrasonic content and run through a bandpass filter chopping it off below 20Hz and above 20kHz. They were asked to rate the sample tracks for sound quality. No one tested expressed any preference for one over the other. Then they took the same track and removed all of the high frequencies above 10kHz. A few people could discern a difference, but no one said it make any real difference to the sound quality.


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## castleofargh

headfry said:


> - the need to denigrate comes easy to know-it-all armchair critics who don't need to fairly audition something they are against in
> principle, but that doesn't stop them from criticizing it as snake oil and putting down those who like it as idiots.
> 
> Thanks for your post, it was needed here at head-fi.


lucky for us, you are here to offer an impartial vision in a constructive comment. 
you really think if you post "I like listening to MQA", or "I dislike listening to MQA" without any extra nonsense, objectivists will give a crap? you might not have noticed but this section isn't too big on impression threads. 

more likely, we bite when we read made up self justifications involving unverified claims and dubious hypotheses.


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## Strangelove424 (Jun 28, 2017)

bigshot said:


> As for the Tidal comparison... You're assuming the difference is because MQA is improving the sound quality. I think it's much more likely that the normal track is hobbled to make the MQA seem better. Why would you want to support a format that has to skew its advantages by hobbling the normal track? I found a Stones SACD that had the nice new mix on the SACD layer and a very old CD mix on the CD layer. Not even the same mix. Did that endear SACDs to my heart? Nope.



This is the issue that irks me the most. What they're doing is trashing the quality of the CD remasters (and setting fire to the world's cannon of music in the process) to up-sell the HD stuff. It's a scam, and it's culturally destructive. I get the most breathless and exasperated about this issue because it is robbery for the labels to be doing this. It should be illegal quite frankly, Each master, once it leaves the studio, should be cataloged and serial numbered, and somewhere on every CD, MP3, DVD, SACD, etc. there should be a number that indicates what master is on that media. If it's found that the media contains a different master than indicated, there should be heavy fines.



bigshot said:


> By the way, that particular album is available at Amazon for $1.33 right now. It might be worth picking up the CD and finding out whether it more resembles the regular Tidal or the MQA Tidal. That would be a good bet. I'd put a quarter on the CD sounding identical to the Tidal.
> 
> 2002 Reissue http://amzn.to/2tivOXj
> 1990 Original Release http://amzn.to/2tivOXj



In fact, I wager to bet the used CD (if it was mastered in the early to mid 90s) would sound better than the modern day high res track. High res is no savior from brick walling, but if you get an old CD from before the compression days really hit, it will sound wonderful. Better than vinyl I think. I wish I could blind test a bunch of audiophiles on a popular 90's CD vs. a modern HD remaster, I am very confident the semi-vintage CD would be preferred. And they're a few bucks on Amazon, as you noted. $3 vs $30. All of this blows my mind. I don't feel bad for cable or magic rock people, they're silly and obsessive enough to create their own market, but the music studios are going out of their way to artificially create this market, and dupe well-meaning music lovers by playing shell games with the new masters.


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## Brahmsian (Jun 28, 2017)

bigshot said:


> By the way, that particular album is available at Amazon for $1.33 right now. It might be worth picking up the CD and finding out whether it more resembles the regular Tidal or the MQA Tidal. That would be a good bet. I'd put a quarter on the CD sounding identical to the Tidal.
> 
> 2002 Reissue http://amzn.to/2tivOXj
> 1990 Original Release http://amzn.to/2tivOXj


I listened again to the first few minutes of the two Tidal albums I linked to above (Bach/Perlman MQA and non-MQA). Aside from the fact that the non-MQA version sounds louder, they have the left/right channels inverted. The harpsichord comes in on the left in one version and on the right in the other version. Ditto the violins. It's the same with the two _Perlman plays Fritz Kreisler _releases. Any guesses as to why this should be the case? How would something like this come to happen? Anyhow, that one is louder than the other and furthermore the fact that the left/right channels are inverted, these two things alone can account for significant (if trivial) differences.


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## bigshot

Strangelove424 said:


> Each master, once it leaves the studio, should be cataloged and serial numbered, and somewhere on every CD, MP3, DVD, SACD, etc. there should be a number that indicates what master is on that media. If it's found that the media contains a different master than indicated, there should be heavy fines.
> 
> In fact, I wager to bet the used CD (if it was mastered in the early to mid 90s) would sound better than the modern day high res track.



That album was mastered in 1986.

In the era of the 78, the master number and take number was etched into the runout groove. You would have been happy back then!

It sounds to me like MQA is just doing stupid stuff to sound different. Inverted L/R is very dumb.


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## gregorio (Jun 28, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> I know what the problem is: you don't suffer fools like me gladly. But as there will probably always be a lot of stupid people in the world you're just going to have to deal with it.



There's ignorant, stupid, ignorant + stupid and then willfully ignorant + stupid. The latter is what I don't suffer gladly, the others I certainly can "deal with", as for some years I was a university lecturer in audio!



Brahmsian said:


> [1] I did indeed look before posting, and I see more than just fractions of a percent there: human sibilant 1.7%, trumpet 2, claves 3.8, rimshot 6, crash cymbal 40, jangling keys 68. [2] And the issue isn't so much whether you can hear these frequencies as feel them or whether they somehow affect the frequencies that you do hear.



1. Mainly it's factions of a percent, some are a few fractions more. Take the human sibilant (1.7%), A. You think you can hear that 1.7% in the presence of the other 98.3%? If so, how loud would that 98.3% have to be in order to cross the threshold of audibility for that 1.7%? B. With the human sibilant and with most of the instruments which have more than a fraction of a percent above 20kHz, it only exists within in a few inches of the source. Move a few feet away from someone speaking or say 20 feet from a trumpet and that >20kHz content reduces to a fraction of a percent or nothing at all. With a trumpet then, when you go to a symphony concert do you sit in the auditorium/audience or at the back of the viola section just a few feet away from the trumpet? A few instruments do produce significant content above 20kHz, typically the metallic, untuned instruments such as cymbals. However, because they are untuned what they are producing in the high and ultrasonic range is indistinguishable from random noise.



Brahmsian said:


> [1] For example, why does this _particular_ MQA release sound so different from (and in my opinion better than) the non-MQA release? ... I'm perfectly willing to accept that it's nothing more than remastering. In fact, I'm even willing to accept that the record label intentionally made the non-MQA version sound like crap in order to make the MQA version sound better.



1. Different masters is the most likely explanation, however, remastering isn't! Unless something has changed very recently, none of the MQA tracks on Tidal were remastered for MQA, the MQA personnel were simply given access to pre-existing master versions.
2. The record label didn't intentionally make the non-MQA version sound like crap, they didn't have any new masters made. While it's entirely possible that MQA deliberately doctored the non-MQA masters for tidal, I think that's rather unlikely, for various reasons.



Brahmsian said:


> When I think of snake oil I think of things that claim to improve something but actually don't.



The Meridian/MQA team have simply chosen a different pre-existing master. They could have distributed that different master in WAV or FLAC and achieved the exact same result (technically, a slightly superior result). So what is the benefit of the MQA codec and of having to pay for the equipment to encode and decode it, what is the MQA codec itself improving? ... That's why it's snake oil!!!



headfry said:


> -[1] the need to denigrate comes easy to know-it-all armchair critics who don't need to fairly audition something they are against in
> principle, but that doesn't stop them from criticizing it as snake oil and putting down those who like it as idiots.
> [2] Thanks for your post, it was needed here at head-fi.



1. The need to defend being suckered by marketing comes easy to know-it-all armchair audiophiles who don't need or even want the actual science/facts which (in order to defend themselves) they are against in principle, but it doesn't stop them coming on to a science sub-forum and criticizing the science/facts and those who put the facts above the marketing!
2. I'm sure to a troll or shill it was "needed" but why would the average serious music listener "need" to be suckered by the marketing and even worse, how on earth could it be needed in science sub-forum? ..... If you don't want to be treated like an idiot, then don't act like one!!!



Strangelove424 said:


> [1] This is the issue that irks me the most. What they're doing is trashing the quality of the CD remasters (and setting fire to the world's cannon of music in the process) to up-sell the HD stuff. It's a scam, and it's culturally destructive. I get the most breathless and exasperated about this issue because it is robbery for the labels to be doing this.
> [2] ...but the music studios are going out of their way to artificially create this market, and dupe well-meaning music lovers by playing shell games with the new masters.



1. To be honest, while it's entirely possible and may well have occurred, I think it's very rare that a CD master or remaster has been deliberately trashed in order to up-sell the HD version. What's going on instead is that the CD master is being more highly compressed for ostensibly honest reasons. In a critical listening environment a less compressed master will typically sound superior but in virtually all of the more common listening scenarios, the more compressed version will sound better. When I'm driving or listening to music on a plane or bus, the compressed version is eminently preferable, even to the point that I virtually never listen to classical music while driving because it's too dynamic to the point of un-listenable, I simply can't hear any of the quieter sections above the car/traffic noise. So, it's not a scam to have different masters and some more highly compressed than others and it's certainly not culturally destructive, if anything the opposite! However, do the peddlers of HD take advantage of and misrepresent this fact? Absolutely they do, if they didn't there wouldn't be a HD market! If they wanted to be honest about it, they would distribute both the more highly compressed master and the less compressed ("HD") version in 16/44.1 but of course they don't want to be honest about it, you can't charge as much for a "HD" version if it's in the same format and of course the audio hardware/equipment manufacturers have nowhere to go if there are no new formats to support.

2. Again, that might be true in a few rare cases but it's generally not true. The music studios (recording and mastering studios) are just doing what their clients, the record labels, demand. For example, the outcry against the loudness war was not initiated by consumers, audiophiles or the audio magazines/reviewers, it was initiated by the studios and engineers themselves. It was already raging within the industry when I entered it, 25 years ago! The entire ethos of studios and engineers for the whole history of music recording, mixing and mastering had always been to achieve the best subjective quality that the time, money and technology would allow but that gradually stopped being the case as engineers, particularly mastering engineers, were being asked to apply levels of compression which they felt were subjectively damaging. A few mastering engineers spoke openly against it but the vast majority, fearful of loosing major clients, only complained privately or anonymously. Many years later, audiophiles and the audiophile press latched on to the issue. The studios and engineers do not object to a more highly compressed master and a less compressed master because as mentioned above, there are many, if not the majority of consumer listening scenarios where the more compressed master is subjectively superior but we do object to the ridiculous loudness war levels of compression and we do object to the whole thing being misrepresented to scam consumers for so called HD versions. Again though, there aren't many in a position to speak openly/on the record about it. In private and between ourselves though, we just shake our heads in disbelief at the ridiculousness of it all!

G


----------



## bigshot

There are plenty of examples of hobbled CD tracks on SACDs. The CD layer of the Dark Side of the Moon is slightly compressed and at a lower level compared to the SACD layer. They sound similar, but there's a difference. I found a Rolling Stones SACD that had the new 24 bit remastering on the SACD track and the old 1980s CD mastering on the CD track. I can't see how that wasn't deliberate. When I was doing comparison tests of SACD vs CD, I had a hard time finding any SACD that was the same on both layers. Only classical music released by labels that only distributed their music on hybrid SACD had both tracks the same. I think that hobbling is a tool that the industry uses to push the format.


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## Strangelove424 (Jun 28, 2017)

bigshot said:


> That album was mastered in 1986.
> 
> In the era of the 78, the master number and take number was etched into the runout groove. You would have been happy back then!
> 
> It sounds to me like MQA is just doing stupid stuff to sound different. Inverted L/R is very dumb.



I probably would have been thrilled! That sounds like a perfectly rational way to run a commercial media distribution system. I'm not sure if vinyl sounded better because it was analogue, or if it sounded better because they actually respected basic quality standards and didn't push those standards. Maybe it was the physical limitations of vinyl that imposed a limit too, but either way the outcome was a better sounding master. To me, 90s CDs sound like clean vinyl.



gregorio said:


> 1. To be honest, while it's entirely possible and may well have occurred, I think it's very rare that a CD master or remaster has been deliberately trashed in order to up-sell the HD version. What's going on instead is that the CD master is being more highly compressed for ostensibly honest reasons. In a critical listening environment a less compressed master will typically sound superior but in virtually all of the more common listening scenarios, the more compressed version will sound better. When I'm driving or listening to music on a plane or bus, the compressed version is eminently preferable, even to the point that I virtually never listen to classical music while driving because it's too dynamic to the point of un-listenable, I simply can't hear any of the quieter sections above the car/traffic noise. So, it's not a scam to have different masters and some more highly compressed than others and it's certainly not culturally destructive, if anything the opposite! However, do the peddlers of HD take advantage of and misrepresent this fact? Absolutely they do, if they didn't there wouldn't be a HD market! If they wanted to be honest about it, they would distribute both the more highly compressed master and the less compressed ("HD") version in 16/44.1 but of course they don't want to be honest about it, you can't charge as much for a "HD" version if it's in the same format and of course the audio hardware/equipment manufacturers have nowhere to go if there are no new formats to support.
> 
> 2. Again, that might be true in a few rare cases but it's generally not true. The music studios (recording and mastering studios) are just doing what their clients, the record labels, demand. For example, the outcry against the loudness war was not initiated by consumers, audiophiles or the audio magazines/reviewers, it was initiated by the studios and engineers themselves. It was already raging within the industry when I entered it, 25 years ago! The entire ethos of studios and engineers for the whole history of music recording, mixing and mastering had always been to achieve the best subjective quality that the time, money and technology would allow but that gradually stopped being the case as engineers, particularly mastering engineers, were being asked to apply levels of compression which they felt were subjectively damaging. A few mastering engineers spoke openly against it but the vast majority, fearful of loosing major clients, only complained privately or anonymously. Many years later, audiophiles and the audiophile press latched on to the issue. The studios and engineers do not object to a more highly compressed master and a less compressed master because as mentioned above, there are many, if not the majority of consumer listening scenarios where the more compressed master is subjectively superior but we do object to the ridiculous loudness war levels of compression and we do object to the whole thing being misrepresented to scam consumers for so called HD versions. Again though, there aren't many in a position to speak openly/on the record about it. In private and between ourselves though, we just shake our heads in disbelief at the ridiculousness of it all!
> 
> G



Fair points, I perhaps portrayed it a bit too much like a conspiracy or conscious decision, when the reality is far more nuanced. Bob Katz has attributed 90% of the phenomenon to loudness envy, especially among rock bands, and 10% to artistic tastes.  In competition with other acts, musicians and producers started to fall down a slippery slope. Factor in the changing environments of audio appreciation, the abandonment of focused listening sessions in favor of our mobile life styles, and the slope got even more slippery. So perhaps it's not as much a conscious scam, at least for the engineers, as a tragic compounding of commercially-driven goals.

It's ironic, but I have the very opposite complaint about sound design in movies, there's way too much dynamic range! They'll mix a dialogue scene in very low, to the point that I am leaning forward to hear, and then BAM! the action scenes start and guns are blazing, my subwoofer is tossing me around, and it almost feels like the sound designer was trying to trick me into setting an inappropriate volume, or spook me somehow. It's intolerable in modern movies. Classics never sound like that. I've grown weary of it, and began using my receiver's "Evening" and "Midnight" settings even during the day to reduce the dynamic range.  

I can understand someone listening in a car, and finding that the quiet passages are too quiet, which causes them to play with the volume knob too much. In these cases, perhaps the best solution would be a hardware DR limiter inside the car, which could be implemented for a few dollars (if not pennies) per car by the automotive manufacturers. It could function just like my receiver's night mode, or perhaps be even smarter than that, and run the compression algorithm correlated to speed. However implemented, the benefit of this would be that the DR can be customized for each and every taste and situation, and by retaining the original DR we are not losing data that can never be salvaged again. It seems to me a bad idea to try to master multiple versions for different listening situations and environments. Better to make one ideal copy in the the eyes of the artist, created with neutral systems for neutral systems, and let the audience tailor that version to their own specific system, in whatever deviations from neutrality they must achieve to make it sounds good to them. I certainly won't buy 2 versions of all my music to match different situations. The cost of that is mind reeling.

If "HD tracks" actually means "mastered for home listening" and "CD quality" means "mastered for mobile" that's where I believe the purposeful ambiguity, and thus the scam is at play. They cannot charge more for a different master, a CD is a CD, but if they add more dots and digits, people with no idea of Nyquist will assume the quality comes from that, and not a mastering decision, an artisitc choice. And that's why listeners like bigshot aren't getting a CD/SACD together in a package with the same master. The studios are afraid that if he nulled the tracks he would have heard silence. That's why I beleive so strongly in identifying each and every master through a catalogue system. We're not paying for the digits, we're paying for the craftsmanship.

Despite my rageful bitterness, I am actually quite hopeful. We hardly know how good things can sound yet - we haven't taken full advantage of digital's processing benefits because we've been using all of it in a singular quest for loudness instead of balance. The early 90's CDs, though I am fond of them, are essentially a cleaned up vinyl. If the enhancements of these 1+0s can be used to our advantage rather than our detriment (and I don't mean resolution, I mean mixing/mastering) the best versions of all the albums we love are yet to be made. It's not HD that will bring it to us, it's just good 'ole decision making in combination with better software tools. Nostalgia is myopic. I truly believe the best days of audio are yet to come. Thank you for your thoughtful and candid post.


----------



## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> That album was mastered in 1986.
> 
> In the era of the 78, the master number and take number was etched into the runout groove. You would have been happy back then!


No, the number in the runout area is the matrix number, essentially the stamper.  The purpose was to tie the pressing to the correct label, and to indicate how many pressings came from a given stamper, which were only good for a limited number of pressings before they had to be replaced.  It's not a reference to a recording take or master.


----------



## pinnahertz

Strangelove424 said:


> I probably would have been thrilled! That sounds like a perfectly rational way to run a commercial media distribution system. I'm not sure if vinyl sounded better because it was analogue, or if it sounded better because they actually respected basic quality standards and didn't push those standards. Maybe it was the physical limitations of vinyl that imposed a limit too, but either way the outcome was a better sounding master. To me, 90s CDs sound like clean vinyl.


There is no aspect of the vinyl process that results in better sound.  If a particular vinyl version sounds subjectively "better" than the CD version, there are a number of reasons, but vinyl itself isn't one of them.  It's important to remember than when comparing vinyl to a CD of the same material you are not comparing the release medium alone.  In fact, that's not a valid comparison of anything other than the entire process and creative decision chain to each. 


Strangelove424 said:


> I can understand someone listening in a car, and finding that the quiet passages are too quiet, which causes them to play with the volume knob too much. In these cases, perhaps the best solution would be a hardware DR limiter inside the car, which could be implemented for a few dollars (if not pennies) per car by the automotive manufacturers.


Until the days of cheap DSP, this would not have been simple or cheap to do.  Adequate execution of DR compression in the analog world is difficult and expensive, and would require several different settings for different genres.  It hasn't been done because it's hard to do well.


Strangelove424 said:


> It could function just like my receiver's night mode, or perhaps be even smarter than that, and run the compression algorithm correlated to speed.


Speed influenced volume has been done for quite some time, and on some very common vehicles.  GM products, late 90s, possibly earlier, had it.  Probably many others too, I just owned some of the GM product and used the feature.  It' works well, so long as the amount of volume adjustment is selected by the user, there are usually at least 3 levels to pick from.  But it doesn't deal with DR, just a volume offset. 


Strangelove424 said:


> However implemented, the benefit of this would be that the DR can be customized for each and every taste and situation, and by retaining the original DR we are not losing data that can never be salvaged again.


Yes, that would be the benefit, but the market won't support it.  The bulk of modern music is already low DR, no point in making it less.  The exceptions of genres like Jazz and Classical don't drive enough sales to support the concept.  Probably won't ever happen except for the high-end cars and systems.  I have a friend who, in the 1980s, installed a power inverter and a pair professional recording compressors (Aphex Compellors) to accomplish this.  Worked well, cost a bloody mint.


Strangelove424 said:


> It seems to me a bad idea to try to master multiple versions for different listening situations and environments. Better to make one ideal copy in the the eyes of the artist, created with neutral systems for neutral systems, and let the audience tailor that version to their own specific system, in whatever deviations from neutrality they must achieve to make it sounds good to them. I certainly won't buy 2 versions of all my music to match different situations. The cost of that is mind reeling.


Never going to happen.


Strangelove424 said:


> If "HD tracks" actually means "mastered for home listening" and "CD quality" means "mastered for mobile" that's where I believe the purposeful ambiguity, and thus the scam is at play. They cannot charge more for a different master, a CD is a CD, but if they add more dots and digits, people with no idea of Nyquist will assume the quality comes from that, and not a mastering decision, an artisitc choice. And that's why listeners like bigshot aren't getting a CD/SACD together in a package with the same master. The studios are afraid that if he nulled the tracks he would have heard silence. That's why I beleive so strongly in identifying each and every master through a catalogue system. We're not paying for the digits, we're paying for the craftsmanship.


You're over-thinking the industry quite a bit here.  HD Tracks sells HD "versions" that lack any sort of provenance, so it's a money grab with few exceptions.  192/24 versions of analog tape recordings?  Come on.  The idea of someone nulling tracks of two different releases of the same material isn't even on studios radar.


Strangelove424 said:


> Despite my rageful bitterness, I am actually quite hopeful. We hardly know how good things can sound yet - we haven't taken full advantage of digital's processing benefits because we've been using all of it in a singular quest for loudness instead of balance. The early 90's CDs, though I am fond of them, are essentially a cleaned up vinyl. If the enhancements of these 1+0s can be used to our advantage rather than our detriment (and I don't mean resolution, I mean mixing/mastering) the best versions of all the albums we love are yet to be made. It's not HD that will bring it to us, it's just good 'ole decision making in combination with better software tools. Nostalgia is myopic. I truly believe the best days of audio are yet to come. Thank you for your thoughtful and candid post.


Well, that's an awful lot of generalities.  "We" do know how good things can sound, and there are many commercial examples to be had.  The popular genre has gotten into the competitive loudness war, that's a different issue.  90's CDs are cleaned up vinyl?  That's crazy.  You don't have any idea what goes on in either production chain.  90's CDs have no relation to anything vinyl at all. 

The best version of your favorite recordings are the bit-perfect copies of the masters you already have.  You can't improve on a bit-perfect copy.  Your issues are with what's on the masters, and that's an issue of creative and marketing choices.  You can have that argument, and it's valid, but has nothing to do with the technology.  Don't fall into the "vinyl is better" trap, or the "older stuff is better" trap either.  There are plenty of instances where the vinyl/oder versions may indeed sound better, but it has nothing to do with the medium.  It's all about the choices made in the releases, and their production chains.  Place the blame for poor contemporary audio where it belongs: music industry marketing.  The technology has been way beyond capable for many decades.  You can use or abuse anything.


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## Strangelove424 (Jun 28, 2017)

I have to admit, It's really distracting for me when you break your comments up like that.



pinnahertz said:


> Until the days of cheap DSP, this would not have been simple or cheap to do. Adequate execution of DR compression in the analog world is difficult and expensive, and would require several different settings for different genres. It hasn't been done because it's hard to do well.



But the loudness war was a response to change in consumption due to shift to digital. The increased need for DR compression arose simultaneous to the DSP that could have achieved it.



pinnahertz said:


> Speed influenced volume has been done for quite some time, and on some very common vehicles. GM products, late 90s, possibly earlier, had it. Probably many others too, I just owned some of the GM product and used the feature. It' works well, so long as the amount of volume adjustment is selected by the user, there are usually at least 3 levels to pick from. But it doesn't deal with DR, just a volume offset.



I think I read about that in a car magazine once. But DR compression would be more effective by increasing the lowest levels that have to compete with ambient noises like tire roar and aerodynamic drag, without effecting the highest levels that could cause tinnitus.



pinnahertz said:


> You're over-thinking the industry quite a bit here.


No, I'm not. Have you ever sat in a meeting with a marketing VP of a large media corporation?



pinnahertz said:


> Your issues are with what's on the masters, and that's an issue of creative and marketing choices. You can have that argument, and it's valid, but has nothing to do with the technology. Don't fall into the "vinyl is better" trap, or the "older stuff is better" trap either. There are plenty of instances where the vinyl/oder versions may indeed sound better, but it has nothing to do with the medium. It's all about the choices made in the releases, and their production chains. Place the blame for poor contemporary audio where it belongs: music industry marketing. The technology has been way beyond capable for many decades. You can use or abuse anything.



Did you read my post? That's exactly what I was trying to say. "Nostalgia is myopic." What part of that sentence did you misinterpret? I don't see your opposition, or even a synthesis really. You wag your finger yet agree.


----------



## upstateguy

I'm sure someone brought this up already, but isn't this the old "wire" scam all over again?  Instead of copper vs. silver, it's the various flavors of  hi-rez vs. 16/44.


----------



## Strangelove424

Believing that bit or sample rates on their own change the sound signature is, in the ballpark of insanity, playing 1st base, and silver (or any other exotic wire) is playing right field. This thread will explain the digital stuff pretty well, and as far as the wire debate is concerned, there's a few threads in sound science on it, but some people believe a higher capacitance of silver will reduce impedance to the driver. If there is any justification to wire theories at all, that would be it, but if you achieve .05 ohms less resistance in your chain, what does that matter to your 8ohm speakers or 300ohm headphones? The difference it makes in the total chain is infinitesimal, and impossible to parse in blind testing. I watched an interview with a speaker engineer that questioned the benefits of silver wire even in a $40,000 speaker. He said there were other optimizations he would prioritize for cost/benefit reasons before spending the budget on silver wire. In a $40,000 speaker!


----------



## bigshot (Jun 28, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> No, the number in the runout area is the matrix number, essentially the stamper.  The purpose was to tie the pressing to the correct label, and to indicate how many pressings came from a given stamper, which were only good for a limited number of pressings before they had to be replaced.  It's not a reference to a recording take or master.



You're talking about LPs. I'm talking about 78s. They were cut live on beeswax, The process was destructive to the wax master and they didn't have tape so they recorded extra approved takes at every session. Each master was assigned a matrix that corresponded to the record catalog number and a take number. When the mothers and stampers wore out, they'd release a different take of the same song as the same record. Songs like Whistler & His Dog that remained in print for over a decade went through dozens of different takes. The only way to tell them apart is to refer to the take number in the runout groove.



pinnahertz said:


> There is no aspect of the vinyl process that results in better sound.
> The best version of your favorite recordings are the bit-perfect copies of the masters you already have.



When we talk about a 50 year old album, the condition of the master tape may have degraded from use and abuse over the years. It's conceivable that a commercial LP might sound better than the bit perfect copy of the damaged master.

By the way, RCA was employing dynamic compression in their recordings in the mid-1930s. I would think that it wouldn't be that complicated to incorporate compression circuitry into car stereos. They also incorporated it into 78 rpm records around the same time to make them play louder on electrical crystal pickups. That would be ground zero for the loudness wars,


----------



## pinnahertz

Strangelove424 said:


> 1. I have to admit, It's really distracting for me when you break your comments up like that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



1. <heavy sigh> Ok, ok.  I hope this is easier for you...

2. Your concept of the loudness war far too limited in scope.  The Loudness War began in the 1950s with 45rpm records, and each company trying to get their records to play the loudest, which was a benefit both in personal record players and notably in juke boxes.  So bad did it get that juke boxes of that era and forward very often include an Automatic Volume Control circuit, a form of compressor, to even out volumes between records.  The War existed on radio since the inception of the Contemporary/Top 40 format with large stations in major markets becoming highly competitive.  The War existed in movie trailers since the 1960s, and got so bad there was in industry initiative to control it, which it has to a limited degree.  None of that had anything to do with a response to the change in consumption, and certainly nothing to do with digital anything.  DSPs only make it easier to adjust and customize, the analog processors available just prior to DSP worked just as well at ruining DR.  Very little of what can be done in DSP regarding loudness processing couldn't be done before that in the analog world, but without presets it was a matter of control tweaking, and often that involved adjusting trim pots with a screwdriver. 

The Loudness War is and has always been driven by the misapplication of priority on loudness as a key driving factor in listenership.  Misapplied because the reality is, which louder might be better in some cases, every user has a volume control and will not hesitate to use it.  The exception is in public venues where there is no volume control, but where loudness variation has already been dealt with.  That would be radio, restaurant and store background music, theaters, etc.  Things have already been leveled there.  The only venue where the war ever had any validity was on radio where a station could capture listeners by "standing out on the dial", but once again, the user has a volume control.

3. No argument that DR compression would be more effective.  But it would not be understood by users, and would have to be a highly adaptive algorithm with just an on/off control.  Otherwise it's adding complicated and not understood features to a product, which doesn't drive sales or customer satisfaction (unless you're Apple). 

4. Yes, absolutely, many, many times!  And none of those meeting involved concern over what one or two odd individuals might do, it was always about the bell curve, and the center of that.  How to bump up the returns by doing things that influenced significant numbers, and excluding the static in the statistics.

5. My, but aren't we snippy?  I ready your comments as an expression of your opinion, not as an exposition of the myopic nature of nostalgia.  I apologize if that was wrong.


----------



## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> You're talking about LPs. I'm talking about 78s. They were cut live on beeswax, The process was destructive to the wax master and they didn't have tape so they recorded extra approved takes at every session. Each master was assigned a matrix that corresponded to the record catalog number and a take number. When the mothers and stampers wore out, they'd release a different take of the same song as the same record. Songs like Whistler & His Dog that remained in print for over a decade went through dozens of different takes. The only way to tell them apart is to refer to the take number in the runout groove.
> OK, sorry, I didn't realize you were talking about acoustic 78s.
> 
> When we talk about a 50 year old album, the condition of the master tape may have degraded from use and abuse over the years. It's conceivable that a commercial LP might sound better than the bit perfect copy of the damaged master.
> ...


OK, sorry, I didn't realize you were talking about acoustic 78s. 

50 year old tapes are likely to be just fine if stored in a recording company's vault.  Not in every case, but most cases.  There are always more than one copy of the final master, so chances are good one of them is ok. And if they have the actual master it could likely beat the vinyl version because those were typically cut from an "equalized master", that contained final EQ and level adjustments needed to re-cut a master if needed.  The actual master was played as little as possible, but wouldn't have that EQ, and would be one generation earlier.  Make the CD from that, you win.

Yes, there were compressors in the 30s, developed first by Western Electric for film sound, and yes, RCA used them regularly.  So did London, and most others, even on classical records.  None of that has much to do with a good implementation of a DR compressor in a car stereo.  Those things are barely related to analog processors of today being a big rack of tubes etc.  DR compression is not a simple thing to do if it's to be elegant and not make the situation worse.  Consider that most of the radio is a chip or chip set now.  Adding a compressor, if digital, would be an ADC, DSP (with programming) and DAC, which would likely also dictate a complete change in the signal flow and negate the existing chipsets.  So, a complete redesign, not an add-on circuit.  That would be true if an analog solution were employed too, which would be even more complex and expensive.   The comparison doesn't make sense.  Then, come up with a way to detect in advance which material needs compression and automate that because a user/driver will never figure that out.  Besides, the big push in auto sound is smart device connectivity.  Nothing to do with bettering audio quality.


----------



## Strangelove424

pinnahertz said:


> 1. <heavy sigh> Ok, ok.  I hope this is easier for you...
> 
> 2. Your concept of the loudness war far too limited in scope.  The Loudness War began in the 1950s with 45rpm records, and each company trying to get their records to play the loudest, which was a benefit both in personal record players and notably in juke boxes.  So bad did it get that juke boxes of that era and forward very often include an Automatic Volume Control circuit, a form of compressor, to even out volumes between records.  The War existed on radio since the inception of the Contemporary/Top 40 format with large stations in major markets becoming highly competitive.  The War existed in movie trailers since the 1960s, and got so bad there was in industry initiative to control it, which it has to a limited degree.  None of that had anything to do with a response to the change in consumption, and certainly nothing to do with digital anything.  DSPs only make it easier to adjust and customize, the analog processors available just prior to DSP worked just as well at ruining DR.  Very little of what can be done in DSP regarding loudness processing couldn't be done before that in the analog world, but without presets it was a matter of control tweaking, and often that involved adjusting trim pots with a screwdriver.
> 
> ...



1. It is, thank you.

2. That may be true, but digital is the problem now, hence the thread subject. The iPod players, the increased mobility factor, and the ability to sample songs and purchase them individually set the stage for a loudness competition that still dominates our music. MQA, Pono, HDtracks, and the dizzy struggle for quality mastering, is an effect of that.   

3. Cost effective sensors make adaptive implementation far easier today. You can make almost any device sensitive to its environment for relatively low cost.  

4. I did not mean concern about who would null their track, and discover their tactics, I know they are shameless about their negligence, I mean basic lack of concern over people's tastes and values. They'll violate standards of broadcast because something is not technically considered a broadcast, and use technology in the most vicious and manipulative ways to lob for more sales. They'll present ideas which are personally repulsive to them, but are willing to inflict those ideas onto consumers for money. I would not be the least bit surprised if this shell game was intentional, or if CDs were intentionally "geared toward a more approachable audience".   

5. You created a false representation of my ideas on matters that I feel very strongly about. Snippy is a deflection, but I appreciate your apology nonetheless.


----------



## bigshot (Jun 28, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> Yes, there were compressors in the 30s, developed first by Western Electric for film sound, and yes, RCA used them regularly.



Compression isn't rocket science. Back in the late 70s I had a dynamic expander/compander in my system. I still have it around here somewhere. It didn't cost a lot and it did



pinnahertz said:


> So did London, and most others, even on classical records.  None of that has much to do with a good implementation of a DR compressor in a car stereo.



its job well. I'm sure if someone wanted to make a car compressor back then, technology or cost wouldn't have been much of an issue. But it really



pinnahertz said:


> Those things are barely related to analog processors of today being a big rack of tubes etc.  DR compression is not a simple thing to do if it's to be elegant and not make the situation worse.



doesn't matter. The thread of this conversation has been chopped up into bits and spread so far I don't recognize it any more. It's the argumentative equivalent of finding bits of a dead body in the desert after the coyotes, the sun and time have had their way with it.


----------



## pinnahertz

Strangelove424 said:


> 1. It is, thank you.
> 
> 2. That may be true, but digital is the problem now, hence the thread subject. The iPod players, the increased mobility factor, and the ability to sample songs and purchase them individually set the stage for a loudness competition that still dominates our music. MQA, Pono, HDtracks, and the dizzy struggle for quality mastering, is an effect of that.
> 
> ...



2. No, digital is NOT the problem now.  In fact, it has very little to do with it other than to provide more cheap tools to the hands of the unqualified.  The principle of the Loudness War go back 60 years or more, and have not changed at all just because the tools and delivery path is different.  

 iPod players are not the problem either, in fact, they're part of the solution as SoundCheck is on by default (that's a track volume adjuster like Replay Gain..almost identical..eliminates the ultimate goal of the war).  Purchase method has absolutely nothing to do with it either.  MQA, Pono, HD Tracks and the rest accomplish nothing to remediate the loudness war.  You'd think they would absolutely demand a verifiable remaster, but they don't do that uniformly and consistently, barely at all.  Mostly, not at all.  I'd go as far as to say that if in fact MQA _demands_ a verifiable remaster, that may be the on upside to it.  But "demands" is a big word for a small company swimming with the sharks.  The others don't require anything, because they know they couldn't demand anything.

3. Again, you've missed my point completely.  The cost of sensors has nothing to do with it.  It's the cost of development of an entirely new car stereo architecture with improvements to compelling that the buying public supports the increased cost.  However, the general car buying public doesn't even recognize there is a problem.  They've demonstrated their apathy by their uniform lack of support of HD Radio, something with the potential to actually improve in car reception and program variety.  It's a market failure.  Why would a manufacturer build a much more expensive product if nobody cares about the improvements they already have access to?

4.  That's not what you said.  You clearly implied media companies have great concern for the individual tweak-head null-master.  Yes, they have a big concern over peoples tastes.  That's about as obvious as it gets!

Media companies do not violate standards of broadcast, of that I can assure you 100%!  I have no idea where you get that idea, but it's wrong.  But when has using technology to manipulate sales been a new idea?  Are you old enough to know what Muzak is/was?  Do you know how they collapsed from being the largest background music company on earth to almost nothing?  It was because they were percieved as using technology to manipulate!  It was partially true, but it nuked them as a company. 

I don't think media companies are deliberately engaged in a shell game.  I've worked for media companies my entire adult life.  They aren't that smart.  They're very self-serving, but overall more reactive than predictive and manipulative. 

I was in the biz with both feet when the CD was developed.  It wasn't geared towards a "more approachable audience" at all, it was geared toward THE audience, everyone, every genre.  It met the marketing requirements of a 5 to 10 fold improvement in several aspects: easy of handling, longer life, better quality sound, smaller, track-based control, etc.  That's why it penetrated the market faster than expected, not because the media companies were engaged in deliberate market confusion.  BTW, that never results in a win.  Think Quad/4-channel.  A supreme example of market confusion killing the concept.

5. I'm reading your stuff and getting certain messages, they you come back with retorts that indicate I got the wrong idea.  I don't usually have this problem with anyone else.  Where do you think the variable is?  But I'm also first to admit I do screw up.  So if I'm not getting you, it could be me.  Somehow I find many of your statements wild and unfounded.  Perhaps misunderstanding your context is the issue.


----------



## bigshot (Jun 29, 2017)

Adios!


----------



## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> Compression isn't rocket science. Back in the late 70s I had a dynamic expander/compander in my system. I still have it around here somewhere. It didn't cost a lot and it did its job well. I'm sure if someone wanted to make a car compressor back then, technology or cost wouldn't have been much of an issue. But it really doesn't matter. The thread of this conversation has been chopped up into bits and spread so far I don't recognize it any more. It's the argumentative equivalent of finding bits of a dead body in the desert after the coyotes, the sun and time have had their way with it.


So...you're saying compression is simple.  I think every single audio processor hardware or plugin designer would take exception with you.

The late 70's consumer compressor/expander...that's the device you want in your car?  Dynamic compression has matured just a tiny since your last brush with it.  I'm not taking the space here to explain the complexities of audio processing here, but IF we're to have DR compression, I so no point in using the equivalent of a Western Electric RA-1593, even if it's a DSP emulation.

So then the questions become, what kind of detector do we use?  RMS, average, peak?  What kind of gain control element do we use/model?  FET?  VCA? Electro-optical?  Multiplier?  Bipolar transistor array?  What kind of control response...linear?  Log?  What kind of attack/recovery?  Single time constant, multiple time constant, variable time constant?  What about recovery...fast, slow, variable, release gated?  Single band, multiband?  Single stage, or cascaded?  Every aspect affects how the thing sounds.  And if I recall, the music of biggest concern is classical...which hides processor artifacts the least.  No, it's not rocket science, but I wouldn't turn a rocket scientist loose on it either.


bigshot said:


> Adios!


That's one way to solve the problem.


----------



## bigshot

You are funny1 I like you!


----------



## Strangelove424

pinnahertz said:


> I don't usually have this problem with anyone else.



Oh, your talents for logical, cordial and productive conversation are evidenced up and down this page. Your posts are littered with mischaracterizing statements, strawmen, irrelevant and out of context points, and it appears to me to be for the sake of stirring up conflict. Argument would be an inaccurate euphemism for your logically strewn and personally motivated statements, which don't represent any clear principle at all. Should masters be identified on media that contains them? Is MQA's business model a fair one? Would intelligent DR be a bad idea for any other reason than the inability of marketing to sell it? I have no idea what you even believe. It's all just a random smattering of irrelevant, out of context, and manufactured condescension.    

I have a feeling you could do this all day, and the next day, and the next, and I feel like I am feeding the pigeons. I'm simply not in a position to keep going back and forth with you anymore. I don't believe in talking without meaning or principle. I think I've given you enough of my time, and cannot comprehend this conversation going anywhere productive.



pinnahertz said:


> That's one way to solve the problem.



It sure is. 

"Whereof one cannot speak, one must remain silent."

Adios!


----------



## bigshot

...well it is an internet forum after all. It isn't fair to expect it to be anything other than that.


----------



## pinnahertz

Strangelove424 said:


> Should masters be identified on media that contains them?


No necessarily, but if you're paying for a remaster of purported higher quality that should be declared and be clearly stated how they got there.  Ex: a 192/24 copy of an analog tape master is not HiRes, but if the master is even one generation better than what was used for other releases, or has been somehow reprocessed or restored, that would possibly add value where 192/24 of itself would not (yet the implication is that it does).   Otherwise, what are you paying for?


Strangelove424 said:


> Is MQA's business model a fair one?


No.


Strangelove424 said:


> Would intelligent DR be a bad idea for any other reason than the inability of marketing to sell it?


No, _optional_ _intelligent_ DR _control_ would not be a bad idea.  It's a great idea that is difficult and expensive to implement, and difficult for the end user to understand.


Strangelove424 said:


> I have no idea what you even believe. It's all just a random smattering of irrelevant, out of context, and manufactured condescension.


Hope that helped.  Sorry for the chopped up response.


Strangelove424 said:


> I have a feeling you could do this all day, and the next day, and the next, and I feel like I am feeding the pigeons. I'm simply not in a position to keep going back and forth with you anymore. I don't believe in talking without meaning or principle. I think I've given you enough of my time, and cannot comprehend this conversation going anywhere productive.


My feelings exactly.


Strangelove424 said:


> "Whereof one cannot speak, one must remain silent."
> 
> Adios!


Your choice.  I've responded with accurate and pertinent information to every one of your wild and uninformed premises.  If you keep the nonsense coming, I'll keep responding.  If you stop, I don't have much to respond to, do I?


----------



## jagwap (Jun 29, 2017)

It would be trivial to add the compression at the user end. The tuner chip sets mentioned above are going obsolete as they are being replaced by system on chip solutions which incorporate a DSP, as RF front end is EQed and stereo decoded in the digital domain (and it is nowhere as good as an analogue front end). The rest of the audio chain is always digital now except vinyl (which doesn't need it almost all of the time as it gets a less compressed master most of the time, and is rarely played in a noisy environment domestically). DAB radio has this built in from the start, but nobody used ut sadly.

The tricky part is getting the industry to agree to it.

Interestingly the people reporting on their MQA experience say the MQA version seem less compressed than others they have most of the time. I found the same except a Cars album. So MQA may not guarantee a better master is used, but it looks like they are trying to, *nearly* as advertised.

Edited in bold for the pedantic.


----------



## bigshot

It would be great if all portable audio units with an amp had bass boost, compression and expansion, and basic EQ. Then I could work with any sort of mastering problem, colored transducers, and listening environment on the fly. Not apt to happen though because audiophiles are more dogmatic about these sorts of things than they are practical.


----------



## Strangelove424

I'm in a quandary right now because I want an all-in-one headphone amp/dac, but have been spoiled by the DSP features on my soundcard and receiver. The idea of a device that can't adjust the sound is startling to me. If DAC makers are developing drivers for PC/MAC, I don't see why they can't add software EQ at the very least. I guess I can use the music player's EQ, but that still leaves out Spotify which has none.


----------



## bigshot

I guess it's the iPod and apps then, or would that not work with Spotify?


----------



## wnmnkh

Before even we talk about technical aspects, it is now perfectly clear that this particular 'format' is going nowhere economically. 

Meridian wanted to use format to sell their DACs more. It seems this is not going to sell more DACs nor be successful as a format.


----------



## Strangelove424 (Jun 29, 2017)

bigshot said:


> I guess it's the iPod and apps then, or would that not work with Spotify?



I'm a bit unclear myself, which is why I'm hesitant to start spending money, but I think whatever device it was plugged into (for me it's either an Android phone, PC, or Mac computer) the DAC would take whatever data was given to it by music player software, including EQ, but would override system-wide EQ from the operating system. Since Spotify has no embedded EQ in their mobile app or desktop app, that leaves no way to change the sound before it hits the DAC. The part I'm fuzzy on is how easy it would be to use system-wide EQ on Android or PC/Mac, and whether or not that would effect the DAC. I've seen system-wide EQ for PC, but it wasn't compatible with my soundcard because of some WASAPI or ASIO incompatibility. It all brings to mind a great poem= http://plagiarist.com/poetry/123/


----------



## bigshot

I would think that everything in an iPod would use the iPod's DAC. If there was an app providing system wide EQ, it should work with anything.


----------



## castleofargh

Spoiler: off topic about system wide EQ.



it's a matter of app and os.  with android some apps like viper4android can be system wide as long as the device is rooted. I have a BT headphone (Divine) that only offers the DSP in it's own player on android, but works on a wider level with Iphones I believe(not an apple guy myself).
on PC equalizer APO offers EQ and even convolution system wide. viper4windows isn't amazing when it comes to EQ alone and IDK if it supports Win10, but it can also work system wide and adds some other sound effects. or you can just use some virtual cable and a VST host to add absolutely anything you want. it's then only a matter of setting the default output to the virtual cable. that's the way I roll right now and the only real limitation I meet is that I have to mind the delays for when I want to play a video, but some rather simple IIR EQ won't be a problem at all. 

an alternative is what I've done for several years for portable stuff, convert albums including the DSPs you like(I do it in foobar), and put those altered songs into your DAPs and cellphones.



please make or find a fitting topic if you want to discuss this for specific situations.


----------



## bigshot

I started this thread a couple of years ago and even I don't know what it's about any more!


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> It would be great if all portable audio units with an amp had bass boost, compression and expansion, and basic EQ. Then I could work with any sort of mastering problem, colored transducers, and listening environment on the fly. Not apt to happen though because audiophiles are more dogmatic about these sorts of things than they are practical.



I hope you don't mean portable units like bluetooth and wifi speakers. Audiophile should stear clear of most of them. You can buy a budget separates amplifier and speakers with a wireless adaptor for less and it should trounce them.

Also I note you dont just want EQ, but why does everyone think EQ can fix everything? Colouration in drive units can be from THD, intermod or transient distortion. Don't get me started on bass boost. I think some music is begining to be mastered to compensate for the over boosted bass in modern equipment. Or perhaps the engineers have lost their top end of their hearing. Bass boost screws up the music. It does not make it "more fun", it damages it and cannot be recovered.



bigshot said:


> I started this thread a couple of years ago and even I don't know what it's about any more!



There's a lot of it about in this corner of the forum.

Keep extra EQ, bass boost, compression off my music. Give me a Master that has it's Quality Assured, and let me play it on a system I like. (See, back on topic, just)


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> Keep extra EQ, bass boost, compression off my music. Give me a Master that has it's Quality Assured, and let me play it on a system I like. (See, back on topic, just)



What about the room/environment you like?


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> What about the room/environment you like?



Sure, but EQ won't fix that. Good room EQ works in the time domain not the frequency domain. Otherwise you are EQing the first arrival sound before reflections and re-enforcement, which will sound awful.

You know what the earliest room EQ team discovered? If you walked into an EQed room, and turned off the effect, it was dramatic. If you did it the other way around, it was not very noticeable. Because your brain does a time domain EQ every time you walk in a room and does a good job for you.


----------



## bigshot (Jun 29, 2017)

I've found that proper equalization makes more of an impact on sound quality than anything else. If speakers or headphones can produce a wide enough response at a decent volume level, I can EQ them to ideal. No need for EQ to correct amps and players, just transducers and rooms. Of course response and time are related, but problems with reflections are best dealt with by room treatment. Typically time error is a less important problem than response imbalances. Distortion is even further down the list.

If I'm walking, I don't want big honking cans on my head, and I don't want expensive in ear monitors. I just want some cheap portable headphones that I can make sound reasonably decent with bass boost.

On trains or in the car, compression is handy to raise the lowest level to an audible range so I don't have to blast the volume.

I want a basic EQ so I can correct for lousy recordings. All engineering is not created equal, especially with historical recordings. EQ is a must to make some things listenable on headphones.

I suppose you could add cross feed and stereo synthesizers to my want list too. I could find use for them.

These things are tools. They're not satan.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> Sure, but EQ won't fix that. Good room EQ works in the time domain not the frequency domain. Otherwise you are EQing the first arrival sound before reflections and re-enforcement, which will sound awful.
> 
> You know what the earliest room EQ team discovered? If you walked into an EQed room, and turned off the effect, it was dramatic. If you did it the other way around, it was not very noticeable. Because your brain does a time domain EQ every time you walk in a room and does a good job for you.



I agree and have read similar findings.  Though, back on topic, I believe MQA has some damage control to contend with now.  The renderer has essentially been completely dissected, and there is nothing special about it at all.  Still have the decoder to contend with, but from the patents and what has been demonstrated from third party analysis, it seems unlikely that MQA offers any improvement in audio quality as format.


----------



## bigshot

Where was that reported? Sounds interesting.


----------



## sonitus mirus

bigshot said:


> Where was that reported? Sounds interesting.



http://archimago.blogspot.com/

The entire MQA analysis thread is here:

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30572-mqa-technical-analysis/


----------



## Strangelove424

bigshot said:


> These things are tools. They're not satan.



I'm only cutting -3db at most where each of my headphones spike in the treble. It might be my ears partially, but I need that to feel comfortable. It's not causing distortion at a -3db adjustment. I'll shut up about EQ now.



sonitus mirus said:


> http://archimago.blogspot.com/
> 
> The entire MQA analysis thread is here:
> 
> https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30572-mqa-technical-analysis/



Interesting. I'm struggling to imagine what the "renderer" could possibly do for sound quality, unless one is a strong believer in shaped dither at 20k+, but the patents it would create for the company would be lucrative if marketed aggressively. Maybe bigshot should update the first page of this thread with more information as it comes out.


----------



## bigshot

I'm still waiting for information!


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I've found that proper equalization makes more of an impact on sound quality than anything else. If speakers or headphones can produce a wide enough response at a decent volume level, I can EQ them to ideal. No need for EQ to correct amps and players, just transducers and rooms. Of course response and time are related, but problems with reflections are best dealt with by room treatment. Typically time error is a less important problem than response imbalances. Distortion is even further down the list.
> 
> If I'm walking, I don't want big honking cans on my head, and I don't want expensive in ear monitors. I just want some cheap portable headphones that I can make sound reasonably decent with bass boost.
> 
> ...



I cannot disagree with any of that, particularly for you.

However most people haven't a clue what to do with EQ. Most of the time you will find they will boost the bass (numptys) and athe treble to match. Which partly why beats did so well.

Audiophile kit leave it flat because it wants to leave it to the experts.


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## bigshot (Jun 30, 2017)

jagwap said:


> I cannot disagree with any of that, particularly for you. However most people haven't a clue what to do with EQ.



Oh that is undeniable! Never hand your car keys to a chimpanzee! That can only lead to trouble. Even if they have a driver's license! I've known audiophiles who can't even be trusted with a volume knob.

Sonitus Mirus, can you let me know if someone does a summary article on those test results? In the threaded form, I'm not sure many people will be able to follow it.


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## jagwap

https://www.musicweek.com/digital/read/mqa-signs-global-deal-with-deezer/069660


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## Brahmsian

jagwap said:


> https://www.musicweek.com/digital/read/mqa-signs-global-deal-with-deezer/069660



I'm also noticing more big labels issuing classical music MQA. Before, it was mostly Warner, Erato, and a few others. Now I'm seeing Deutsche Grammophon and Decca releases. To me, the whole debate about whether you can hear the difference is misguided. The point is that these are the authenticated masters, and that's why I turn to them. For the most part, they also sound superb. That's not to say that the redbook version does't also sound superb. But the way Tidal works is that it costs me nothing to choose the master, so, as long as that's the case, I will continue to choose the authenticated master copy.


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## bigshot

Who authenticates it as the master copy? I'm sure if you ask Amazon or iTunes they will tell you that they are using the authenticated master copy in their streaming too. This is a textbook "appeal to authority" logical fallacy. The debate about whether you can hear the difference is the real issue, not whether one is more "official" than the other.


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## Brahmsian

According to the MQA website, the label, artist and/or recording engineer authenticate it. Personally, I would like to see some reporting on how the decision is actually made, but audio journalists can't seem to tear themselves away from evaluating gear to do some investigative journalism.

Of course, I disagree with you. I do think that it _is_ official when the artist, recording engineer and label authenticate it as the master copy. MQA supposedly gives you an exact replica of the musical content of the authenticated master, though of course what you end up hearing depends a lot on your gear.

As for the differences, they are real and extend way beyond the quality of the sonics. I've already discussed that. Sometimes the mix is different, sometimes the channels are inverted, etc.


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## bigshot (Sep 4, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> According to the MQA website, the label, artist and/or recording engineer authenticate it.
> 
> Sometimes the mix is different, sometimes the channels are inverted, etc.



Well that could mean anyone from Paul McCartney to some secretary at the vault at a record company can authenticate. And how is it authentic if it's a different mix or the channels are inverted? That sounds like either the original authentic master has been modified or it's just a mistake with their wires patched backwards.

Just because they throw around words like authentic and approved, it doesn't mean it is. Do you believe "New and Improved!" on detergent boxes?


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## rkw

bigshot said:


> Just because they throw around words like authentic and approved, it doesn't mean it is.


It was a brilliant marketing idea to use the word "authenticated", which can vaguely suggest so many things. It even implies that everything else is an imitation or fake.


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## Brahmsian (Sep 4, 2017)

bigshot said:


> Well that could mean anyone from Paul McCartney to some secretary at the vault at a record company can authenticate. And how is it authentic if it's a different mix or the channels are inverted? That sounds like either the original authentic master has been modified or it's just a mistake with their wires patched backwards.
> 
> Just because they throw around words like authentic and approved, it doesn't mean it is. Do you believe "New and Improved!" on detergent boxes?



That's why I said I wanted to see some reporting on it so that I get a better sense of how the process actually works (though I doubt that a receptionist is making that decision). I've read a couple of vague accounts. For instance, for some recordings it isn't clear which copy is the master, so the process can become painstaking. I also read that the studios have not wanted to put these masters out on the Internet since there was no way to protect them but they feel comfortable doing so with master quality authentication since the end product can be verified. That is one reason the studios are finally releasing them. Now that is nothing but information I read on the Internet, so it must be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe just marketing. In any case, MQA is free to me since I have a Tidal HIFI account. I have two MQA compatible DACs: a DragonFly Red and a Meridian Explorer2. The MQA was added via a free firmware update. In short, at worst MQA has been a great way to discover music, and it has cost me nothing, so I'm very happy with it.


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## jagwap

https://www.whathifi.com/news/lg-v30-first-phone-mqa-audio-and-oled-fullvision-display


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## gregorio

Brahmsian said:


> [1] (though I doubt that a receptionist is making that decision).
> [2] For instance, for some recordings it isn't clear which copy is the master, so the process can become painstaking.
> [3] I also read that the studios have not wanted to put these masters out on the Internet since there was no way to protect them but they feel comfortable doing so with master quality authentication since the end product can be verified.
> [4] In short, at worst MQA has been a great way to discover music, and it has cost me nothing, so I'm very happy with it.



1. I do too. It would be up to the copyright holder of the recording, which in the vast majority of cases would be the record label. The person making the decision would therefore be an executive/s of the record company, it would have nothing to do with the artists/engineers as they rarely if ever own the rights to commercial recordings.
2. No, that is incorrect. If there are different versions then each of those versions requires an original master created by a mastering engineer/studio and authenticated by the recording's copyright holder (record label). Therefore, the process is not painstaking at all, because all of those different versions are from an authenticated master! Great marketing ploy though because it's absolutely no different to how it's always been done but the consumer thinks they are getting something more/better!
3. Nope, not sure where you read that? Studios don't release the masters on the internet because it would be illegal for them to do so, it's up to the copyright holder (record label) what is released, how and when. The end product of course is already authenticated/verified as far as the record label is concerned, as they've paid for the studio/s, engineers and manufacture of the product!
4. No, at worst MQA is nothing but a marketing ploy which if successful could impact the quality and diversity of the whole recording industry. Why do you think MQA was invented in the first place (and some record labels are supporting it ) if not to make money from it, either from consumers directly or indirectly? I understand that you're a fanboy and MQA doesn't appear to be costing you anything yet but that's still no excuse to lie about what is "the worst MQA" is/can be/has been!!!

G


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. I do too. It would be up to the copyright holder of the recording, which in the vast majority of cases would be the record label. The person making the decision would therefore be an executive/s of the record company, it would have nothing to do with the artists/engineers as they rarely if ever own the rights to commercial recordings.
> 2. No, that is incorrect. If there are different versions then each of those versions requires an original master created by a mastering engineer/studio and authenticated by the recording's copyright holder (record label). Therefore, the process is not painstaking at all, because all of those different versions are from an authenticated master! Great marketing ploy though because it's absolutely no different to how it's always been done but the consumer thinks they are getting something more/better!
> 3. Nope, not sure where you read that? Studios don't release the masters on the internet because it would be illegal for them to do so, it's up to the copyright holder (record label) what is released, how and when. The end product of course is already authenticated/verified as far as the record label is concerned, as they've paid for the studio/s, engineers and manufacture of the product!
> 4. No, at worst MQA is nothing but a marketing ploy which if successful could impact the quality and diversity of the whole recording industry. Why do you think MQA was invented in the first place (and some record labels are supporting it ) if not to make money from it, either from consumers directly or indirectly? I understand that you're a fanboy and MQA doesn't appear to be costing you anything yet but that's still no excuse to lie about what is "the worst MQA" is/can be/has been!!!
> ...



1: That would be unfortunate. Then the commercial pressures that lead to the loudness war and other unfortunate re-masters still exist, and the artist will not get a say. 

2: That is usually true, but going back in the mists of time, it isn't 100% the case.  "A Kind of Blue"?

3: I'm not sure that was his point, and I'll leave him to reply.

4: At worst maybe, but at best? You never consider that side.  If he is a fanboy (and the bias that implies) you appear to be an anti-fanboy.  I am not a fanboy, and am usually very cynical.  However you are so cynical, I find myself cynical of your cynicism.


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## gregorio

jagwap said:


> 1: That would be unfortunate. Then the commercial pressures that lead to the loudness war and other unfortunate re-masters still exist, and the artist will not get a say.
> 2: That is usually true, but going back in the mists of time, it isn't 100% the case.  "A Kind of Blue"?
> 3: I'm not sure that was his point, and I'll leave him to reply.
> 4: At worst maybe, but at best? You never consider that side.  If he is a fanboy (and the bias that implies) you appear to be an anti-fanboy.  I am not a fanboy, and am usually very cynical.  However you are so cynical, I find myself cynical of your cynicism.



1. The artist/s may get some say in the final master of the initial release. This has little to do with the loudness wars though as that is often perpetuated by the artists themselves!
2. Why is "A kind of Blue" an exception? There have been quite a few remastered versions of it and some of them obviously without consulting Miles Davis as they were made after his death. They are still authenticated masters though, they were made by mastering engineers at the behest of the copyright holder (Columbia Records I believe).
4. At best: MQA makes tons of money and reinvests it all in new artists, higher quality recordings, etc. Why would they though? MQA is not a charity, they have nothing to gain, there's no financial incentive and no precedent for that ever having occurred! And, why would any record label go along with it if that were MQA's plan and if it were their plan then why haven't they mentioned it? It is not cynical to believe that a for profit company is driven by making a profit, I would call that realistic rather than cynical!

G


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. The artist/s may get some say in the final master of the initial release. This has little to do with the loudness wars though as that is often perpetuated by the artists themselves!
> 2. Why is "A kind of Blue" an exception? There have been quite a few remastered versions of it and some of them obviously without consulting Miles Davis as they were made after his death. They are still authenticated masters though, they were made by mastering engineers at the behest of the copyright holder (Columbia Records I believe).
> 4. At best: MQA makes tons of money and reinvests it all in new artists, higher quality recordings, etc. Why would they though? MQA is not a charity, they have nothing to gain, there's no financial incentive and no precedent for that ever having occurred! And, why would any record label go along with it if that were MQA's plan and if it were their plan then why haven't they mentioned it? It is not cynical to believe that a for profit company is driven by making a profit, I would call that realistic rather than cynical!
> 
> G



1: Indeed, that is my point. We seem to agree. It must be a sign of the oncoming apocalypse, or maybe an accident on your part.  I'm saying that's a bad thing.  Perhaps you weren't.
2: The story goes: On a Kind of Blue when the recording was made it was not unusual to run two decks simultaneously (funds allowing) as they were not all that reliable in those "golden times of analogue".  Fans were speculating for years why the weird and wonder Mr. Davis played one side speeded up.  There are various versions of the story, but it seems this is the one I'd heard the most often: https://www.analogplanet.com/content/mo-fis-kob-kind-blah
4: MQA can make more money for the artists is it encourages people to listen to their tracks more often on Tidal and Deezer. I know that isn't much in the current structure, but they pay more than Apple, Spotify and Youtube. However no one says they should not get paid for their work if it is used, and they need it to get used more too.  Dolby gets paid for their HD encodes on Bluray, but they offer nothing technical above lossless 7.1 192/24b that is native to Bluray (and encoded by MLP: Meridian Lossless Packing, sold to Dolby).  That could be a bigger rip off? But Dolby give a lot of free studio support to the movie business (along with donating their theatre to the oscars etc.) so shall we start a thread against Dolby? No, I don't think so.  I've worked with them and they are on the whole trying to increase the state of the industry, while getting paid huge wedges of cash.  Do you work for free?


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> 1: Indeed, that is my point. We seem to agree. It must be a sign of the oncoming apocalypse, or maybe an accident on your part.  I'm saying that's a bad thing.  Perhaps you weren't.
> 2: The story goes: On a Kind of Blue when the recording was made it was not unusual to run two decks simultaneously (funds allowing) as they were not all that reliable in those "golden times of analogue".  Fans were speculating for years why the weird and wonder Mr. Davis played one side speeded up.  There are various versions of the story, but it seems this is the one I'd heard the most often: https://www.analogplanet.com/content/mo-fis-kob-kind-blah
> 4: MQA can make more money for the artists is it encourages people to listen to their tracks more often on Tidal and Deezer.
> [4a] Dolby gets paid for their HD encodes on Bluray, but they offer nothing technical above lossless 7.1 192/24b that is native to Bluray.
> ...



1. Huh? How is the artist "having a say" going to combat the loudness war?
2. I don't see how any of that supports your argument. The speeded-up version and the slower version would BOTH qualify as master authenticated as far as MQA is concerned!
4. Why would MQA encourage more people to listen than if say FLAC was used instead, which is after all higher quality than MQA? AND, flac would not cost the artist anything whereas MQA requires purchase of a license to encode, the studios have to purchase MQA equipment and distributors have to pay to distribute MQA, the licensing and additional studio fees will be passed on to the artists. So how exactly does MQA make money for the artists rather than costing them money?
4a. Of course they do, they offer compressed audio and therefore more space for the video and btw, film sound tracks are not made in 192/24b! Dolby audio is a consumer standard and that's because they led the technology to fit multichannel audio on to various formats, there were initially no other options for surround on film, then 5.1 on film and then consumer distribution of digital video. This is completely different to MQA, where there are already better, free options which have been available for years.
4b. I know of no examples of Dolby giving anything for free, except when it's in their best interests. For example, I guarantee that in the contract they have with the Oscars, it is required that Dolby gets it's logo displayed prominently, considering the number of people worldwide who watch the Oscars, that's some pretty hefty advertising they're getting in return! 
4c. Sure and we certainly wouldn't be the first!! They ran a virtual monopoly in the days of 35mm film, a position they were not adverse to abusing and yes, I've worked with Dolby too, starting in the mid 1990's and continuing today.

G


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## jagwap (Sep 5, 2017)

gregorio said:


> 1. Huh? How is the artist "having a say" going to combat the loudness war?
> 2. I don't see how any of that supports your argument. The speeded-up version and the slower version would BOTH qualify as master authenticated as far as MQA is concerned!
> 4. Why would MQA encourage more people to listen than if say FLAC was used instead, which is after all higher quality than MQA? AND, flac would not cost the artist anything whereas MQA requires purchase of a license to encode, the studios have to purchase MQA equipment and distributors have to pay to distribute MQA, the licensing and additional studio fees will be passed on to the artists. So how exactly does MQA make money for the artists rather than costing them money?
> 4a. Of course they do, they offer compressed audio and therefore more space for the video and btw, film sound tracks are not made in 192/24b! Dolby audio is a consumer standard and that's because they led the technology to fit multichannel audio on to various formats, there were initially no other options for surround on film, then 5.1 on film and then consumer distribution of digital video. This is completely different to MQA, where there are already better, free options which have been available for years.
> ...



1: Because an artist who knows his own work, then hears the nasty compressed version on the re-released version is unlikely to approve it if they have the influence to do so. Of course not everyone is equal when it comes to musical and recording skill. Some people think the compressed one is usually better. Please keep them away from the controls. They are usually wrong.

2: They could be, but something like this is more likely to be caught if someone with skill and knowledge re-checks it. Again, an ideal world, but the wrong one was out there for around 25 years.

To the above two points, many artists really care how their work sounds and do not have the power to stop the muppets ruining it. IF MQA can help this, even a little, that I commend. Judging by the listening I've done, most of the MQA releases are better versions of the other remasters that exist. Now that makes sense. If you are a record label re-releasing your back catalogue on an audiophile geared format, it makes sense you release something decent to spur on the masses.

4: Dolby true HD can be lossless. Bluray can output up to 192kHz/24b 7.1 ch. I've decoded my fair share of that stuff: AC3, ES (edit: I meant EX), Atmos...
Dolby have kitted out the big players with Atmos encoding and a support engineer for free.


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## bigshot (Sep 5, 2017)

Brahmsian said:


> That's why I said I wanted to see some reporting on it so that I get a better sense of how the process actually works (though I doubt that a receptionist is making that decision).



Not a receptionist. A secretary at the print and tape vault. When you order up a master, it gets pulled from a vault by a person who is basically the one who keeps a database of the elements and knows where each one is on the shelf. There are companies whose job it is to run copyright clearances and distribute masters for large record labels. They're the ones who would "authenticate" a master for distribution. But that doesn't mean anything. Every master that gets pulled goes through their hands. And every master that they are distributing has been approved for distribution by the rights owner.

What is the "authentic master"? Is it the original master tape from the session? Is it the best sounding master? Those might be two entirely different things. Which mix is it? Which mastering? First release? Most recent remastering? Best sounding remastering? Authentic according to who? The print and tape vault? The musician who performed the music? Some executive with a big fat cigar sitting behind a desk? "Authentic" is a very imprecise way of describing the best sounding master. Imprecise to the point of being meaningless.

I produced a rock video once. The artist's publishing sent me an ADAT of the song. It was authentic because the publishing company sent it to us to make the video. When we finished the video, the publishing company told us they had another master they wanted us to use because they were releasing the song again as a special single. When we got the new ADAT it was in a quite different tempo. It didn't line up with our video. So we told them the problem and they said to go ahead and use the first version they sent us. Was that the authentic version and the one with the different tempo was the fake one? Or was it the other way around? The one we used was released first. But it wasn't the one released on the special single.



jagwap said:


> 1: Because an artist who knows his own work, then hears the nasty compressed version on the re-released version is unlikely to approve it if they have the influence to do so.



Tell that to Jimmy Page! Every time he remasters the Led Zeppelin catalog it sounds worse!


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## gregorio (Sep 5, 2017)

jagwap said:


> 1: Because an artist who knows his own work, then hears the nasty compressed version on the re-released version is unlikely to approve it if they have the influence to do so.
> 
> 2: They could be, but something like this is more likely to be caught if someone with skill and knowledge re-checks it. Again, an ideal world, but the wrong one was out there for around 25 years.
> 
> ...



1. You are just completely making that up! What typically happens is that the artist says that they don't want their track/s to be over-compressed but the priority is that the tracks can't be quieter than everyone else's. Result, over-compression!! The artists are generally at least as responsible for the loudness wars as the record companies and for the last 15 years or so most of the over compression has been done in the mix well before a mastering engineer gets anywhere near it!

2. Both versions were made (authenticated) by mastering engineers employed by the copyright holder (the record label) and then authorized for release by the record company. How would MQA have made any difference, both are authenticated masters!

1a. Yes, artists do care how their work sounds and they do not want it to sound quieter than everyone elses!!! 1b. And how exactly do you think can MQA help with this?
1c. MQA do not make any masters or remasters, they make audio encoding software! All the versions they have put out are existing masters. 1d. Exactly, they are re-releasing their back catalogue, not making a new catalogue with new masters!

4. So can FLAC, and it's free!!! BTW, AC3 (Dolby digital) is free to encode and distribute, the end user pays a license fee to Dolby to decode it. MQA charges a license fee to encode, a fee to distribute and another one to decode.

G


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## gregorio (Sep 5, 2017)

Double post


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Not a receptionist. A secretary at the print and tape vault. When you order up a master, it gets pulled from a vault by a person who is basically the one who keeps a database of the elements and knows where each one is on the shelf. There are companies whose job it is to run copyright clearances and distribute masters for large record labels. They're the ones who would "authenticate" a master for distribution. But that doesn't mean anything. Every master that gets pulled goes through their hands. And every master that they are distributing has been approved for distribution by the rights owner.
> 
> What is the "authentic master"? Is it the original master tape from the session? Is it the best sounding master? Those might be two entirely different things. Which mix is it? Which mastering? First release? Most recent remastering? Best sounding remastering? Authentic according to who? The print and tape vault? The musician who performed the music? Some executive with a big fat cigar sitting behind a desk? "Authentic" is a very imprecise way of describing the best sounding master. Imprecise to the point of being meaningless.



Very true.  Too vague for me too.  But also how does the secretary at the tape vault add all that compression?  She doesn't.  It is some other talentless twit who does that.  For MQA we only have the the results so far, and they are still anecdotal and subjective.  They are promising though so I am going to wait and see, rather than write it off before it was released like most here.  It MQA is getting the one from the secretary who gets the earliest released version (at the right speed) before the deaf ejits got their fat fingers on it, then usually the older albums will be better.



> Tell that to Jimmy Page! Every time he remasters the Led Zeppelin catalog it sounds worse!



Also when Fripp (brilliant, but no top end to his hearing any more) when he did Gabriel's remasters, and that was before the loudness wars really set in.

We all have examples.  But when it goes the other way, isn't it a delight?  When you hear it like you remember it, but better (because it's a better master, or the same but it's better equipment), it is like coming home.  I have had a few moments like that recently, with MQA on Tidal. It's a small percentage compared to the last few years as I track down the best version of each piece, but it is promising.

Also people keep saying that bandwidth isn't an issue so what is the purpose of all the folding.  I get drop-outs at work on Tidal, and that is with a reasonable bandwidth for my part of the world (China, on a good VPN).  

So what do we have: better masters (potentially, and I think likely) on a decent format (how decent is being debated, but good enough right?)


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. You are just completely making that up! What typically happens is that the artist says that they don't want their track/s to be over-compressed but the priority is that the tracks can't be quieter than everyone else's. Result, over-compression!! The artists are generally at least as responsible for the loudness wars as the record companies and for the last 15 years or so most of the over compression has been done in the mix well before a mastering engineer gets anywhere near it!
> 
> 2. Both versions were made (authenticated) by mastering engineers employed by the copyright holder (the record label) and then authorized for release by the record company. How would MQA have made any difference, both are authenticated masters!
> 
> ...



I'm seeing plenty of examples in the other direction. E.G.: Rage Against the Machine, done well originally by Bob Ludwiq, re-mastered by Rick Rubin into trash.  It was so badly received that when Steve Hoffman did it properly the band is allowing him to re-master the back catalogue it seems. There are others. Sure Metallica supported the original album that started all this publicly, but others seem to have had enough. Many of the worst culprits have better versions on Tidal.  Not so much Apple and Spotify.

The re-release of albums on a new format is a financial windfall for the labels.  So now that auto levelling is making the compressed albums sound the same level but worse, previous re-releases have not been well received, and MQA is making a big deal of the master quality, maybe they have (sensibly) decided to stop treating like half deaf undiscriminating idiots and give us better material.



> 4. So can FLAC, and it's free!!! BTW, AC3 (Dolby digital) is free to encode and distribute, the end user pays a license fee to Dolby to decode it. MQA charges a license fee to encode, a fee to distribute and another one to decode.
> 
> G


I doubt they charge much to Warner and the others per album, other they wouldn't bite. Tidal will be giving a tiny amount per track played, but more plays and everyone is happy. 

Do you know their charges and the structure of it?


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] I'm seeing plenty of examples in the other direction. E.G.: Rage Against the Machine, done well originally by Bob Ludwiq, re-mastered by Rick Rubin into trash.
> [2] The re-release of albums on a new format is a financial windfall for the labels.
> [3] So now that auto levelling is making the compressed albums sound the same level but worse, previous re-releases have not been well received,
> [4] and MQA is making a big deal of the master quality, maybe they have (sensibly) decided to stop treating like half deaf undiscriminating idiots and give us better material.
> [5] I doubt they charge much to Warner and the others per album, other they wouldn't bite. Tidal will be giving a tiny amount per track played, but more plays and everyone is happy. Do you know their charges and the structure of it?



1. If there were enough examples in the other direction then there wouldn't be a loudness war, would there?
2. Almost certainly, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
3. Yes, but that has nothing to do with MQA.
4. No, it's not! MQA does not make masters, it only makes software to encode masters which already exist. Exactly the same could be accomplished with flac and for free!
5. I do not know what they are charging or plan to charge, except that the encoding equipment will have to be purchased by the recording studios and mastering studios and a license fee paid for encoding, those charges will ultimately fall on the artist to pay. So no, everyone will NOT be happy, particularly the artists. 



jagwap said:


> But also how does the secretary at the tape vault add all that compression?  She doesn't.  It is some other talentless twit who does that.



In most modern genres of music, that talent-less twit you're referring to is probably the artist! Don't forget, it was those who apply the final compression (the mastering engineers) who raised the whole issue of the loudness wars well over 25 years ago and have been trying to combat it ever since. It's the artists and record labels who are to blame!

G


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## bigshot (Sep 5, 2017)

jagwap said:


> So what do we have: better masters (potentially, and I think likely) on a decent format (how decent is being debated, but good enough right?)



I don't see any evidence that MQA is any different than the iTunes store. AAC 256 VBR is audibly transparent. Apple uses authentic masters provided to them by record labels. The only difference is that Apple was smart enough to abandon DRM and proprietary file formats. If they hadn't, the iTunes store would never have become as widely used as it is now. MQA is pointless. The proprietary nature of MQA is the deal breaker. That's what people should be focusing on, not unsubstantiated claims about sound quality.


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. If there were enough examples in the other direction then there wouldn't be a loudness war, would there?
> 2. Almost certainly, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
> 3. Yes, but that has nothing to do with MQA.
> 4. No, it's not! MQA does not make masters, it only makes software to encode masters which already exist. Exactly the same could be accomplished with flac and for free!
> ...



1: This is a recent thing, although I am looking for it, so not necessarily a balanced view.  I hope it is coming. But the cynic in me suspects we'll get screwed again.
2: Yes. We are starting to agree.  Doesn't this worry you? It doesn't seem to be your favourite position.
3: I didn't say it did. See point 4.  MQA is the opportunity.
4: That's not my point. The "they" in my point is the music labels.
5: If you don't know the structure, then that is your speculation, and you shouldn't state it as fact.  Isn't likely that is Warner, as an example, as an early adopter, get a great deal on the encoding equipment and the licence fee.  Sure in the end the artist and public pay.  But you know that CD licensing paid for Philips entire Eindhoven R&D for 20 years?  Everything: shavers, toothbrushes, TVs.  It wasn't free.

I deliberately discussed the re-master releases for this reason.  Modern genres are likely influenced by what they grew up with, which is the compress garbage they were influenced by, made by the muppets re-mastering it.  Break the loop and then it can be a creative decision instead of radio-play


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I don't see any evidence that MQA is any different than the iTunes store. AAC 256 VBR is audibly transparent. Apple uses authentic masters provided to them by record labels. The only difference is that Apple was smart enough to abandon DRM and proprietary file formats. If they hadn't, the iTunes store would never have become as widely used as it is now. MQA is pointless. The proprietary nature of MQA is the deal breaker. That's what people should be focusing on, not unsubstantiated claims about sound quality.



No, Apple uses "mastered for iTunes", which is new versions of the masters to work better with their lossy format... It allowed the loudness wars in again, but not so extreme.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...unes-matter-to-music-ars-puts-it-to-the-test/
https://9to5mac.com/2012/02/28/mast...red-for-itunes-doesnt-sound-closer-to-the-cd/
These were not favourable. 

AAC belongs to Via corp, and you have to pay them for it if you make a device that decodes it: http://www.via-corp.com/us/en/licensing/aac/licensefees.html


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## Strangelove424 (Sep 5, 2017)

jagwap said:


> 4: At worst maybe, but at best? You never consider that side.  If he is a fanboy (and the bias that implies) you appear to be an anti-fanboy.  I am not a fanboy, and am usually very cynical.  However you are so cynical, I find myself cynical of your cynicism.



Oh, Gregorio can be a cynical grouch, with a fuzzy sense of manners, but his alarm is well founded in this situation.



bigshot said:


> MQA is pointless. The proprietary nature of MQA is the deal breaker. That's what people should be focusing on, not unsubstantiated claims about sound quality.



Precisely, this is not a typical "we can't hear a difference" argument. It's far more dangerous than that. It's a format that is economically and technologically destructive for music makers. If no one here can convince you of that, allow Linn of UK the opportunity to do it: https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/mqa-is-bad-for-music



jagwap said:


> AAC belongs to Via corp, and you have to pay them for it if you make a device that decodes it: http://www.via-corp.com/us/en/licensing/aac/licensefees.html



Well, it's handy to mention AAC (an apple-only distribution standard, a company notorious for "walled gardens") while forgetting that all other streaming networks and online stores use open standards like ogg vorbis, mp3, WAV, or FLAC. CD rose to prominence being a PCM format, it would not have succeeded otherwise. And all of the storage and archival formats for music production have hitherto been PCM (wav/aiff) too, for equally as logical and pragmatic reasons. Proprietary codecs in the pockets of media conglomerates are the exception, not the rule.


----------



## bigshot (Sep 5, 2017)

jagwap said:


> No, Apple uses "mastered for iTunes", which is new versions of the masters to work better with their lossy format.



That is exactly the same as saying "Authenticated by MQA". It's just a way of saying "new and improved". AAC used to be proprietary. It's open source now, as is ALAC. Most streaming is AAC.


----------



## castleofargh

well you all know how I'm against MQA on principle at least. we've all played that song before. but the all destructive format is maybe a litle strong. it's not like a 16/44 version doesn't also discard some stuff and apply a filter. it's not like we don't get on a regular basis, absolute garbage re-edition of albums for legal purpose only. and in the grand scheme of playback audio, what is the format compared to all the analog parts of the chain with at the top, the headphone playing a very freely inspired version of the original signal? 
I hope MQA doesn't become a success, but if it does, I think both me and the music will survive.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> That is exactly the same as saying "Authenticated by MQA". It's just a way of saying "new and improved". AAC used to be proprietary. It's open source now, as is ALAC. Most streaming is AAC.



Spotify - oog vorbis and a bit of lossless
Deezer - mp3  flac and MQA (keeping on topic)
Tidal - mp3 flac and MQA
Youtube - mpeg layer II, AC3, AAC
Apple Music - AAC
Amazon - mp3
Grove Music - wma
Google music - mp3
Pandora - aac 

So most is measured how.  By subscribers maybe.  It is not free.  I have seen the cost in the bill of materials on the audio gear I'm designing.  Bluetooth it is optional, but most decide to pay.

AAC became popular because of a large company (Apple) and it's influence forcing many hardware providers to pay up if they wanted in.  Tidal and Deezer are not in that league, but if one of the big ones signs up, then MQA will begin to have the same persuasion power. The first mainstream product has been announce (LG V30) and there will be a few more to come.


----------



## bigshot

XM Radio is AAC too I think. 

All of the file formats you listed there are open source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_codecs

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but the big difference between all of these and MQA is that anyone can produce programming and equipment using open source codecs. You have to license MQA and use special their licensed hardware. I can't believe in this day and age anyone would try to do that when there are so many open source options, but there ya go. There's one born every minute I guess.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> XM Radio is AAC too I think.
> 
> All of the file formats you listed there are open source:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_codecs
> ...



What I'm trying to say is AAC is not free to equipment manufactures. There is a license and you have to pay. This is passed on to the user.

Just like the codec discussed here.

Also AAC is more lossey, so I don't think it is a good candidate to hold up as a beacon of fairness and quality.


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## Brahmsian (Sep 5, 2017)

gregorio said:


> 1. I do too. It would be up to the copyright holder of the recording, which in the vast majority of cases would be the record label. The person making the decision would therefore be an executive/s of the record company, it would have nothing to do with the artists/engineers as they rarely if ever own the rights to commercial recordings.
> 2. No, that is incorrect. If there are different versions then each of those versions requires an original master created by a mastering engineer/studio and authenticated by the recording's copyright holder (record label). Therefore, the process is not painstaking at all, because all of those different versions are from an authenticated master! Great marketing ploy though because it's absolutely no different to how it's always been done but the consumer thinks they are getting something more/better!
> 3. Nope, not sure where you read that? Studios don't release the masters on the internet because it would be illegal for them to do so, it's up to the copyright holder (record label) what is released, how and when. The end product of course is already authenticated/verified as far as the record label is concerned, as they've paid for the studio/s, engineers and manufacture of the product!
> 4. No, at worst MQA is nothing but a marketing ploy which if successful could impact the quality and diversity of the whole recording industry. Why do you think MQA was invented in the first place (and some record labels are supporting it ) if not to make money from it, either from consumers directly or indirectly? I understand that you're a fanboy and MQA doesn't appear to be costing you anything yet but that's still no excuse to lie about what is "the worst MQA" is/can be/has been!!!
> ...



What a tedious thread. Everything turns into an argument. I also think that it has a very misleading title. This is basically the "MQA Sucks" thread. Anyhow,

1. I tend to agree with you but would still like more details about whether artists and engineers are ever involved since they're mentioned in the MQA literature.
2. When I wrote "painstaking," I had the following in mind. I already posted it, but here it is again since you're making me defend every little thing I say.



 


Reading the above, the process doesn't always sound as straightforward as you make it seem. But not being involved in the music industry myself other than as a consumer and listener of music I can only go by what I hear and read. As I already told you, I don't dismiss what you're telling me. I'm just trying to reconcile it with other things I've read.
3. I meant the content providers i.e. record labels, not the studios.
4. For me, MQA has, at worst, merely been an opportunity to discover new music. I'm clearly just speaking for myself there. Also, calling me a fanboy, let's not start hurling f words at each other.


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## bigshot (Sep 6, 2017)

jagwap said:


> Also AAC is more lossey, so I don't think it is a good candidate to hold up as a beacon of fairness and quality.



At 256 VBR you aren't going to hear any difference between lossless and compressed at all. AAC is capable of being transparent.

All of those codecs are open for use by anyone. MQA isn't. You have to obtain a contract to use the codec, and you have to have special hardware to decode it. That is entirely different than MP3 and AAC.

I dont understand what relevance that quote about "provenance" has. All streaming services get their music from the major labels, and all of them are probably using the same masters. A streaming service may say that the music is "mastered for whatever", but all that really means is that it's been run through an encoder and turned into a digital file format that can be streamed. Anyone who buys CDs of legacy titles knows that mastering can vary a lot. Sometimes an older remastering is good, sometimes a newer one is better. There's no way to predict what sounds the best based on what's written on the label. Someone at the streaming service would have to sit down and listen to each mastering to figure out which was the best. With the number of titles in a streaming library, you can bet no one has time for that. They take what the label hands them and they call that "authentic". Perhaps someone at the record label is sitting down and listening and figuring it out. But I wouldn't bank on that.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> At 256 VBR you aren't going to hear any difference between lossless and compressed at all. AAC is capable of being transparent.



If you say so.  I've only done double blind on 192 vbr mp3 v lossless, and it was different and statistically provable.

But: the point being made here is MQA costs money and isn't as good a lossless as a format.  256 AAC is worse and also costs money.  It is a bad example for your argument,.


----------



## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> At 256 VBR you aren't going to hear any difference between lossless and compressed at all. AAC is capable of being transparent.
> 
> I dont understand what relevance that quote about "provenance" has. All streaming services get their music from the major labels, and all of them are probably using the same masters. A streaming service may say that the music is "mastered for whatever", but all that really means is that it's been run through an encoder and turned into a digital file format that can be streamed. Anyone who buys CDs of legacy titles knows that mastering can vary a lot. Sometimes an older remastering is good, sometimes a newer one is better. There's no way to predict what sounds the best based on what's written on the label. Someone at the streaming service would have to sit down and listen to each mastering to figure out which was the best. With the number of titles in a streaming library, you can bet no one has time for that. They take what the label hands them and they call that "authentic".


"Provenance" has relevance when dealing with hi-res, because if it wasn't originally recorded and mixed at, say, 24/96 or analog, but then got released as hi-res, then it's just up-sampled and there's zero benefit.  "Provenance" also has relevance with standard res if information as to the mastering process were available, such as if it were the original master, or somebody's idea of a re-master.  

Mastered for iTunes:
*Apple's Explanation, and a third-party explanation.  *


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> If you say so.  I've only done double blind on 192 vbr mp3 v lossless, and it was different and statistically provable.
> 
> But: the point being made here is MQA costs money and isn't as good a lossless as a format.  256 AAC is worse and also costs money.  It is a bad example for your argument,.


I say so too, 256 AAC VBR is transparent.


----------



## bigshot

jagwap said:


> If you say so.  I've only done double blind on 192 vbr mp3 v lossless, and it was different and statistically provable.
> 
> But: the point being made here is MQA costs money and isn't as good a lossless as a format.  256 AAC is worse and also costs money.  It is a bad example for your argument,.



Would you like to prove you can hear a difference? I have a test file I'd be happy to send you with ten samples of difficult to encode music in lossless, MP3. MP3 LAME and AAC in 192, 256 and 320. Ten samples in all. I'll send you the file and you tell me simply by listening which one is the best and which ones you can hear are worse. Rank them from top to bottom. Let me know if you're interested and I will set you up and you can report back with your rankings and I'll let you know how you did.


----------



## bigshot

pinnahertz said:


> Mastered for iTunes:
> *Apple's Explanation, and a third-party explanation.  *



I don't see anything there that guarantees that the source is going to be the best master available. It just says it has to be submitted in 24/96 with no clipping. Maybe I'm missing something. How does iTunes authenticate that the proper master is being used?


----------



## pinnahertz

I don't think Apple has an actual authentication process.  The document linked to is about a procedure intended to maximize audio quality provided through iTunes.


----------



## Strangelove424

In this context, which is very little context at all, "authorized master" means no more than "not pirated". The copies of every song on every streaming service are "authorized masters" and the CDs you bought all contain "authorized masters". The mix CD your cheapskate cousin gives everybody for birthday gifts are "not authorized", though your cousin might have good taste and pick all the best masters. 

When the HiFi light in Tidal comes on, that really is more of a Pavlovian response training and marketing than any historical significance of the version of the master you are listening to. The way MQA format works the content above 22khz are packaged in a different stream and then recombined (or rendered according to MQA double speak) at the decoder, whether in DAC or software. That's where the patent comes in, and the proprietary nature of the codec, in the decoding. From a technical standpoint it's needlessly complex for no apparent reason than copyright. It also seems to impart a high frequency filtering some people believes changes the original data too much (though all of this is happening in frequencies for bats to hear, not humans, so I don't think it even matters). My point, however, is that you may as well be hearing the same exact master when listening to the non-MQA version, just missing the "HiFi" stream containing all inaudible frequencies.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Would you like to prove you can hear a difference? I have a test file I'd be happy to send you with ten samples of difficult to encode music in lossless, MP3. MP3 LAME and AAC in 192, 256 and 320. Ten samples in all. I'll send you the file and you tell me simply by listening which one is the best and which ones you can hear are worse. Rank them from top to bottom. Let me know if you're interested and I will set you up and you can report back with your rankings and I'll let you know how you did.




I'll have a go, but I find lossy files easier to identify on speakers than headphones, and I don't get a lot of personal time on the living room rig since the kids turned up in my life.  It may take a while to set aside ANY time. I assume you have encoded then turned them back to lossless so you can't see the content?  I do hope you have chosen some content that at least needs some quality... That Neil Young stuff used to prove the need for only 8 bits was chosen to prove the point not verify it.


----------



## jagwap (Sep 6, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> I say so too, 256 AAC VBR is transparent.





bigshot said:


> Would you like to prove you can hear a difference? I have a test file I'd be happy to send you with ten samples of difficult to encode music in lossless, MP3. MP3 LAME and AAC in 192, 256 and 320. Ten samples in all. I'll send you the file and you tell me simply by listening which one is the best and which ones you can hear are worse. Rank them from top to bottom. Let me know if you're interested and I will set you up and you can report back with your rankings and I'll let you know how you did.



But neither of you answered my point.  Neither of you would let this go if it were from the other side of the fence. How is AAC a good example of being better than MQA when it is more lossy and not free?

You guys are making me as pendantic as you!


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> But neither of you answered my point.  Neither of you would let this go if it were from the other side of the fence. How is AAC a good example of being better than MQA when it is more lossy and not free?
> 
> You guys are making me as pendantic as you!


While I did see the link to the AAC licensing site, it confused me just a bit, as AAC has not had a license fee visible to users of software like iTunes, ever.  I've compressed original material in AAC at various bit rates using third-party software too, no license was ever involved.  The FAQ cleared it up. "An AAC patent license is needed by manufacturers or developers of end-user encoder and/or decoder products."  So, if you get software that encodes or decodes AAC, the manufacturer has already paid the license fee, which is good for five years.  In the volume of software "units" like Apple would distribute, the fee is $.10/unit.  

So, as far as the private user is concerned, there is no visible charge, either to encode or decode.  As far as buying music from iTunes, the single "unit" used to encode any number of tracks has had the fee paid on a per unit basis ($.10).  So yes, there is a license fee, but by the time we see the tools or files, its microscopic, invisible. 

Try as I might, I was not able to find anything specific about MQA licensing fees.  But I didn't give it a lot of time.

AAC requires no special hardware, lower cost there.  

As to "more lossy", once the codec is transparent, it no longer matters how lossy it is.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> While I did see the link to the AAC licensing site, it confused me just a bit, as AAC has not had a license fee visible to users of software like iTunes, ever.  I've compressed original material in AAC at various bit rates using third-party software too, no license was ever involved.  The FAQ cleared it up. "An AAC patent license is needed by manufacturers or developers of end-user encoder and/or decoder products."  So, if you get software that encodes or decodes AAC, the manufacturer has already paid the license fee, which is good for five years.  In the volume of software "units" like Apple would distribute, the fee is $.10/unit.
> 
> So, as far as the private user is concerned, there is no visible charge, either to encode or decode.  As far as buying music from iTunes, the single "unit" used to encode any number of tracks has had the fee paid on a per unit basis ($.10).  So yes, there is a license fee, but by the time we see the tools or files, its microscopic, invisible.
> 
> ...



So let's make it a like for like comparison:

A computer decoding either format costs near to nothing in both cases, as Tidal are not charging extra for MQA, and neither is I assume your software.

But if you buy a streaming device, be it a speaker or DAC, you have to pay a license fee to either MQA or AAC to use their format. You do.


----------



## bigshot (Sep 6, 2017)

jagwap said:


> I'll have a go, but I find lossy files easier to identify on speakers than headphones, and I don't get a lot of personal time on the living room rig since the kids turned up in my life.  It may take a while to set aside ANY time. I assume you have encoded then turned them back to lossless so you can't see the content?  I do hope you have chosen some content that at least needs some quality... That Neil Young stuff used to prove the need for only 8 bits was chosen to prove the point not verify it.



Yes, it's a FLAC or ALAC file with ten identical samples in a row each with different encoding. Feel free to use speakers. Let me know when you're ready and I'll give you a download link. The samples were chosen by an audiophile who swore he could tell the difference. The sample consists of two excerpts, one choral the other orchestral. I've shared this test with dozens of audiophiles.

How is AAC any more lossy than MQA? Transparent to human ears is transparent. As soon as you reach that point more bitrate is just packing peanuts. Losses only matter when you can hear something missing in the music. Odds are the "authentic masters" provided by the record labels from their vault of CD masters don't contain much above 22kHz. In fact, they probably don't contain anything up there at all. How can you lose what was never there? And why does it matter if you can't hear it anyway?

And as for cost... Every technology has a patent that you have to license for a period of time. But AAC and MP3 are open source, so it's just a mechanical royalty applied to equipment manufacturers only, not end users or distributors. MQA can refuse a license, charge whatever they want for it, and charge users and distributors if they want. It's a toll road, not a freeway.

The technology behind AAC and MP3 is public. Anyone can incorporate it in their equipment themselves. It can be software based decoding or hardware based decoding. And the hardware can be made by any manufacturer. MQA is locked to a specific DAC authorized by MQA working in a way that only MQA knows about.

But that isn't the worst part... the worst part is MQA is hobbled with DRM. MQA has to "authenticate" a file to be able to play it. That isn't true of MP3 or AAC. Any piece of equipment capable of playing those formats will play any file given to it. What happens when MQA goes belly up and you've bought a bunch of content that you can no longer play because the validation server no longer exists and MQA isn't making DACs capable of decoding it any more? Sure it's fine for streaming, but what benefit is there to it for the consumer? It sounds the same. It's locked in with fees. And it's proprietary technology. That only benefits the owners of MQA.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> But neither of you answered my point.  Neither of you would let this go if it were from the other side of the fence. How is AAC a good example of being better than MQA when it is more lossy and not free?
> 
> You guys are making me as pendantic as you!


well it has 2 A. Standard and Poors say that it's much better to be double or triple A if you expect to get your investment back. I'm guessing it works for investments into audio too?



it's ok I'll escort myself to the exit.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> So let's make it a like for like comparison:
> 
> A computer decoding either format costs near to nothing in both cases, as Tidal are not charging extra for MQA, and neither is I assume your software.
> 
> But if you buy a streaming device, be it a speaker or DAC, you have to pay a license fee to either MQA or AAC to use their format. You do.


 Well, I can't confirm it just now, but I believe and MQA license fees are paid for each encoded item, not a single extremely low cost fee for the encoder with unlimited use. That would take the cost of MQA encoding far, far beyond anything else. And,  perhaps you've heard that the free MQ a decoder isn't the same as having an actual MQA enabled  DAC which, I believe you will pay for.


----------



## bigshot

Someone has to pay for the "authentication"!


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> it's ok I'll escort myself to the exit.



Agreed.  Pedants corner is getting a bit tedious.  A good discussion is stimulating, but when we're arguing about what we assume is the case with little evidence and only bias in favour of winning the discussion, it's just boring. 

MQA is pointless money grab

It may not be 

Yes it is

It may not

Yes it is...

Repeat until everyone thinks they've had the last word.

http://www.montypython.net/scripts/argument.php


----------



## bigshot (Sep 6, 2017)

Well the easiest way to solve the problem is to show in a direct A/B comparison that MQA sounds better than CD and high bitrate MP3 LAME or AAC. But I doubt that will ever happen because the proprietary nature of it is designed to shield it from proving its worth. It would require capturing an MQA stream at 24/96, then converting it to 16/44.1 with the proper dither, then encoding at AAC 256 VBR, and doing a line level balanced ABX with AAC vs the stream. I had a similar problem when I tried to do a direct comparison between SACD and CD. Many SACDs had Redbook layers with different mastering than the SACD layer. And there's no way to quickly switch back and forth between layers, because the player inserts a big pause. Finally, I had to get two players, patch them into a switch box, level match and compare the layers on two copies of a Pentatone SACD with the exact same mix and mastering on both layers. I had to jump through a million hoops just to find out that there wasn't a bit of audible difference. Both layers sounded great. Someone else can do it with this one. I'm not investing into equipment capable of decoding MQA until I get a good reason to do that. (The reason I bought into SACD was for multichannel.) I have plenty of music in AAC that I can stream myself and I've already verified that it sounds exactly the same as the CD. That's good enough for me.

If SACD = CD = AAC 256 VBR, then the following needs to be true for MQA to be a viable format. MQA  > SACD / CD / AAC. Ain't gonna happen.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Well the easiest way to solve the problem is to show in a direct A/B comparison that MQA sounds better than CD and high bitrate MP3 LAME or AAC. But I doubt that will ever happen because the proprietary nature of it is designed to shield it from proving its worth. It would require capturing an MQA stream at 24/96, then converting it to 16/44.1 with the proper dither, then encoding at AAC 256 VBR, and doing a line level balanced ABX with AAC vs the stream. I had a similar problem when I tried to do a direct comparison between SACD and CD. Many SACDs had Redbook layers with different mastering than the SACD layer. And there's no way to quickly switch back and forth between layers, because the player inserts a big pause. Finally, I had to get two players, patch them into a switch box, level match and compare the layers on two copies of a Pentatone SACD with the exact same mix and mastering on both layers. I had to jump through a million hoops just to find out that there wasn't a bit of audible difference. Both layers sounded great. Someone else can do it with this one. I'm not investing into equipment capable of decoding MQA until I get a good reason to do that. (The reason I bought into SACD was for multichannel.) I have plenty of music in AAC that I can stream myself and I've already verified that it sounds exactly the same as the CD. That's good enough for me.



Well, what about this (I can visualise the answer but...): as MQA puts forward it's advantage in timing and end to end filtering, converting it to to another format and not playing it back on MQA full decoding is not a complete test of its claims. Do the above (and there is a blind test along those lines being done now, results tomorrow) but should you not also take the same source material at 256kb/s vbr AAC and encode it to full rate MQA, and test it against the same tracks at full MQA? 



> If SACD = CD = AAC 256 VBR, then the following needs to be true for MQA to be a viable format. MQA  > SACD / CD / AAC. Ain't gonna happen.



Now now, don't assume the results before the test is done. That's how bias creeps in.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Well, what about this (I can visualise the answer but...): as MQA puts forward it's advantage in timing and end to end filtering, converting it to to another format and not playing it back on MQA full decoding is not a complete test of its claims. Do the above (and there is a blind test along those lines being done now, results tomorrow) but should you not also take the same source material at 256kb/s vbr AAC and encode it to full rate MQA, and test it against the same tracks at full MQA?
> 
> 
> 
> Now now, don't assume the results before the test is done. That's how bias creeps in.


I would personally love to test the timing/blurring thing, or see someone else do it well.  Unfortunately, it's not currently available for testing.  You can't easily get mits on the encoder, you have to buy an MQA enabled DAC, and then there's the whole question of profiling ADCs, etc.  It's just not testable, at least not in any way that wouldn't require a fairly expensive undertaking.  That means we just have to take MQA's blurring/timing "fix" on blind faith.

And I'm not doing that. My faith requires proof.


----------



## bigshot (Sep 6, 2017)

jagwap said:


> Well, what about this (I can visualise the answer but...): as MQA puts forward it's advantage in timing and end to end filtering, converting it to to another format and not playing it back on MQA full decoding is not a complete test of its claims.



simple logic:

The "authentic master" provided by the label is likely 24/96. Why should an MQA stream contain some sort of magic beans that are incapable of being captured by 24/96? If it does have some mojo that is better than 24/96, then it is *modifying* the master and adding that timing or filtering advantage, in which case it's no longer the "authentic master". It's sweetening, not faithful reproduction of a recording.

MQA isn't advertised as being better than 24/96. It's advertised as being better than MP3. If you capture a decoded MQA stream at master quality, then you should be able to compare that capture to an MP3 copy of the MQA stream capture to see if it really is better.

And I don't need to worry about bias, because I'm suggesting bumping the AAC or MP3 sample up to 24/96, so they are indistinguishable by sight and doing the comparison with level matching and ABX. If you do that, bias won't be an issue... Even if I say, "Don't hold your breath for MQA to prove itself."


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> I would personally love to test the timing/blurring thing, or see someone else do it well.  Unfortunately, it's not currently available for testing.  You can't easily get mits on the encoder, you have to buy an MQA enabled DAC, and then there's the whole question of profiling ADCs, etc.  It's just not testable, at least not in any way that wouldn't require a fairly expensive undertaking.  That means we just have to take MQA's blurring/timing "fix" on blind faith.
> 
> And I'm not doing that. My faith requires proof.



I though you dismissed the timing thing several time (sorry if that was someone else, but I don't have time to trawl though 1500+ posts). Are you open to the idea that there could be something in thisb or would you like to see this tested for it to fail and be proved right?

I haven't seen much open mindedness here that there are still improvements to digital audio.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> simple logic:
> 
> The "authentic master" provided by the label is likely 24/96. Why should an MQA stream contain some sort of magic beans that are incapable of being captured by 24/96? If it does have some mojo that is better than 24/96, then it is *modifying* the master and adding that timing or filtering advantage, in which case it's no longer the "authentic master". It's sweetening, not faithful reproduction of a recording.
> 
> ...



The MQA stance is that the original is before the final ADC, not the PCM. So it is not in their eyes modifying the master, just replicating it more closely.

I don't recall MQA claiming to only be better than MP3, and there have been many demos recently comparing against lossless hi-res. So they dont seem to be afraid of the subjective comparison, even if they keep the definative statements to a minimum.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I though you dismissed the timing thing several time (sorry if that was someone else, but I don't have time to trawl though 1500+ posts). Are you open to the idea that there could be something in thisb or would you like to see this tested for it to fail and be proved right?


I don't care about being right or wrong, I care about the truth.  I think it's poppycock for many reasons, but I would like to actually know.  And, if it turns out to be valid, amazing, fantastic, I'll be the first one to jump on board.  But, I do need unassailable proof.


jagwap said:


> I haven't seen much open mindedness here that there are still improvements to digital audio.


There are many reasons for that.  No point an analyzing the psychology.  I have my own opinions and suspicions about many aspects of audio, but that's not the topic of the thread.  There is a lot of work to be done, but it is now getting eclipsed or at least overshadowed by mythological tripe, which won't advance anything either.  

I will tell you that there's a lot of work to be done in several areas. But this whole MQA thing is getting hung up solely because the claims of audible improvement are unprovable and unverifiable in any scientific or scholarly manner because the manufacturer/creator won't let that happen.  They won't release the bits and pieces that would be required, so an independant test can't be performed.  Even a crowd-sourced comparison is impossible because there are too many uncontrolled variables.   The magician won't reveal the trick, but really wants the audience to buy into it.  

Now that kind of thing I do have a big, big problem with.


----------



## pinnahertz (Sep 7, 2017)

jagwap said:


> The MQA stance is that the original is before the final ADC, not the PCM. So it is not in their eyes modifying the master, just replicating it more closely.


That's a great idea, but unless everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING in between the very first ADC (not the final ADC) is absolutely known and accounted for the correction is bollox.  Some of that in some cases may be known, like what the first ADC was, but beyond that it's pretty hopeless.  Then there's another issue.  Assuming you could apply correction and re-construction the original pre-first-ADC signal, was that what was heard during the mix, final mix, and mastering?  No, it wasn't.  In fact, what was heard was way downstream with lots of (unknown) stuff going on that somebody based their judgements on.  Why would you even want to present the pre-first-ADC signal then?  That's not what they were working with when they created the recording.  There are precious few recordings where that would be the correct thing to do.  It's a big philosophical glitch that has never been addressed.

And that's assuming all the de-blurring stuff does anything good at all, which has not been established either.

Then they go apply this process to recordings made on analog tape...and the credibility just completely crumbles.  There is no characterizing an analog recorder without measuring it.  Talk about variables!   They were very organic beasts, there were performance changes by just lacing up a different batch of the same tape formula.  And yet the process is applied, and claimed to improve things.  Credibility?  Gone.  Sorry.  Now it reeks of flim-flam.  And yet, no attempt is being made to dispel any of that.


----------



## bigshot (Sep 7, 2017)

jagwap said:


> The MQA stance is that the original is before the final ADC, not the PCM.



So they're sourcing everything directly from analogue tape?! I flat out don't believe that... especially with modern recordings that were recorded DDD that have been digitized from the very first step of recording!

I think they take the 24/96 file the record label hands them. THAT'S as "authentic" a master as you can get, and it's no different than iTunes.


----------



## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> So they're sourcing everything directly from analogue tape?! I flat out don't believe that... especially with modern recordings that were recorded DDD that have been digitized from the very first step of recording!


No, c'mon now, that's just crazy talk.  Some stuff is analog, some/most is digits.  How could they source everything from analog tape unless they made an analog tape copy of the digital master first?  And that would just be dumb.


----------



## bigshot

How do you go back to the source before you convert it to digital without the master being analogue? Or perhaps a time machine. Unless I'm missing something, this makes no sense.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> No, c'mon now, that's just crazy talk.  Some stuff is analog, some/most is digits.  How could they source everything from analog tape unless they made an analog tape copy of the digital master first?  And that would just be dumb.



I didn't say that and neither did they. I think some of you nay-sayers are deliberately choosing which bits of the information to remember to suit your arguments. They say they will try to use the best master, digital, analogue, shellac, what ever...

They claim they can model an post correct some of the issues of the last ADC used to go form analogue to digital.  I assume this is for analogue master tape.

There is a technique that when you run a signal through DSP backwards, you can filter a signal the same as forwards, but if you match the forwards filtering (maybe the analogue bit), you can do it without altering the phase or the original.  I guess they are trying something like this as I've said before.


----------



## bigshot (Sep 7, 2017)

I guess I don't understand what they are claiming. They're saying that they're filtering the master quality digital file to correct for errors created the last time it went through analogue to digital conversion? It's kind of like pressing the "undo" button and removing the error and turning it back into the original pristine analogue signal again?

What if the signal had been processed in the digital domain several times since it went through that conversion? Wouldn't that processing muddy the waters and make it impossible to simply undo whatever problem the theoretical error caused? I can't imagine any master delivered by a record company to be a raw transfer directly off an analogue tape master. Every distribution master would have undergone some sort of mastering or restoration or perhaps sweetening since it was digitized.

The only way I can imagine that they would be able to know for sure that a master is a direct transfer with no modification is to do all of the digitizing and mastering themselves. Then they would have control of the process instead of trying to guess what had been done with the signal between the original analogue to digital conversion and the delivery of the master quality file to MQA. Re-digitizing and remastering everything would be reinventing the wheel on a massive scale with the size of the library they are working with. That just wouldn't be practical.

Also, if there really is some sort of "smearing" that they are able to correct by means of a backwards filter, that means that every single digital copy that exists- from CDs to SACDs to blu-ray audio to the digital masters themselves- all have this smearing. No one in the history of digital audio has ever heard music that has been recorded digitally without smearing. And logically, that means that the MQA file isn't just a faithful reproduction of the master, like Redbook, high bitrate lossy and HD audio. If their smear correction is audible, that means a streamed MQA file sounds *better* than the 24/96 digital master itself.

Why aren't recording studios taking advantage of this great technology? All they would have to do is apply the filter along with the analogue to digital conversion and it would improve the sound of the digitization! Why is MQA selling this to consumers listening to streamed audio instead of selling it to Digidesign and all the other companies that manufacture digital audio production hardware and software?

But of course, if you sell technology to sound engineers, you're going to have to prove with controlled testing that it's actually beneficial and explain how it works. I doubt they are willing to do that.

This is why I'm skeptical of the whole format. They make general statements about "smearing" and "authenticating" masters, but anyone who has any kind of experience in this stuff at all can see the outlines of the mirrors amid all the smoke. All of this stuff is in the hands of the label. By the time MQA gets handed the master, they can only work with what they're given... the same way Amazon and the iTunes store and Spotify and every other streaming service does. If there really is a technological breakthrough here, they should be selling it to audio production, not streaming.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I guess I don't understand what they are claiming. They're saying that they're filtering the master quality digital file to correct for errors created the last time it went through analogue to digital conversion? It's kind of like pressing the "undo" button and removing the error and turning it back into the original pristine analogue signal again?
> 
> What if the signal had been processed in the digital domain several times since it went through that conversion? Wouldn't that processing muddy the waters and make it impossible to simply undo whatever problem the theoretical error caused? I can't imagine any master delivered by a record company to be a raw transfer directly off an analogue tape master. Every distribution master would have undergone some sort of mastering or restoration or perhaps sweetening since it was digitized.
> 
> ...



This is Why they are offering streaming and other end to end playback, as I think they need to have the filtering compensation with as much known phase and timing behaiour in the ADC and DAC as possible to minimise the timing error. (Please note I am not stating this effect exists, this is just my interpretation of what I think they may be trying to achieve). You cannot pass the whole audio signal backwards through DSP while you are working in it. (I am still looking for a windowing techique rhat allows this, but my DSP colleagues haven't found one yet. I need to widen the search).  Perhaps if this all takes off each CODEC in the recording chain could add a stamp of its behaviour in the AES EBU user bits to be used later by the MQA encode, but until then they are doing what they can.

As to sweeting masters, I think this is what the Authenticated bit intends to avoid. They want the master before the sweeeting, or the one after the speed correction if it it is more accurate, etc... They have said they can only do their best, and of course it needs the cooperation of the lables and artist to work well.

At least we are now discussing itb rather than the previous "it cannot do anything good" from others here.


----------



## bigshot

How do they plan to achieve end to end? Are they going to be pulling original tape masters and mastering them themselves? What if all that is available is a 24/96 distribution master of something that was recorded analogue? Is that going to not be authenticated for MQA because it's been processed? Who is going to pay for all this work? The labels themselves? Does MQA's technology have nothing to offer to albums like Donald Fagen's The Nightfly which was recorded digitally from end to end at 16/44.1?


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> How do they plan to achieve end to end? Are they going to be pulling original tape masters and mastering them themselves? What if all that is available is a 24/96 distribution master of something that was recorded analogue? Is that going to not be authenticated for MQA because it's been processed? Who is going to pay for all this work? The labels themselves? Does MQA's technology have nothing to offer to albums like Donald Fagen's The Nightfly which was recorded digitally from end to end at 16/44.1?



One case: digital master where the ADC is known - add ADC correction to the digital file and tell the MQA DAC which filter to use.

Next case: Digital master is not good, analogue master is available - remaster with an MQA ADC.

They have said multiple times they have many approaches, some better than others. They plan to do as much as they can to minimise the effect of recording chain on these "temporal effects".  They also say the music comes first, which is commendable, but relient on the labels. 

The Nightfly MQA version has just been released. Sounds good, and better than the non MQA version on Tidal.  Not scientific, but it is either a better master, less compressed or MQA special sauce, or a combination of the above. But yes, if there is no ADC at this stage there is nothing to correct. As others have said, it will be hard to correct ADCs further up the chain, particularly retrospectively.


----------



## bigshot (Sep 7, 2017)

I don't believe that there is any way to know what ADC was used and how many times the signal has been processed since it passed through the ADC. In a recording session every single track goes through an ADC separately. If smearing is going on there are layers and layers of smearing stacked on top of each other in the final mix. The only way what you're saying is possible is if they are sourcing a tape master that was recorded and mixed analogue. I don't believe MQA has access to those. I think they're working from digital distribution masters that have undergone all kinds of digital filtering. If you are describing it properly, I think it is a fabrication for the purposes of sales pitch.

If The Nightfly sounds better than other releases, it isn't because of anything MQA did. It can't contain information above 22kHz because it was recorded and mixed at 16/44.1. Their magic mojo unsmear filter can't be credited because it only passed throug an ADC once as it was being recorded and it was subsequently mixed and mastered. It cant be a better generation master because digital isn't subject to generation loss. The only reason it could sound better is because...

Wait for it...

They sweetened it and it isn't the original mix and mastering that Fagen approved. Do you think it might actually sound exactly the same as every other format? (Giving you a chance to think about it and back out from this line of thought.)


----------



## jagwap

Your opinion and you are entitled to it. But there is no eveidence either way yet.

I'm just stating what I understand to be their position and what I think that may mean as a counter point

Material before digital will go through one ADC when first mastered to digital for example when being released for CD. Then it may be clearer what happened, particularly as there were limited choices back then what could be used. I imagine it is not hard to work out the ADC then, and it would not be "state of the art" compared to now.

By the way, I just checked The Nighfly. When played back with MQA it is 44.1kHz as it should be. Not upsampled or falsely represented as 192kHz. I can't see the bit depth yet.


----------



## bigshot

It isn't my opinion. Donald Fagan's The Nightly would be impossible to improve given your description of what MQA is doing. Tell me why it could sound better on MQA.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> It isn't my opinion. Donald Fagan's The Nightly would be impossible to improve given your description of what MQA is doing. Tell me why it could sound better on MQA.


Because the DAC also apparently has time smearingb and pre-compensating in the digital file before playback allows phase free correction as I described above.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> One case: digital master where the ADC is known - add ADC correction to the digital file and tell the MQA DAC which filter to use.


There's an ADC on every input of a multitrack/multi input system.  They aren't always identical, sometimes not even the same manufacturer.  And sometimes they are.  Then there's multiple trips through ADC/DAC/ADC/DAC for processing. The instances where it was one, known ADC only are miniscule. 


jagwap said:


> Next case: Digital master is not good, analogue master is available - remaster with an MQA ADC.


Which fixes nothing.  Anyone who's ever run a square wave through a tape recorder knows...yep, it has it's own version and degree of "temporal blurring".  Also uncorrectable. 


jagwap said:


> They have said multiple times they have many approaches, some better than others. They plan to do as much as they can to minimise the effect of recording chain on these "temporal effects".  They also say the music comes first, which is commendable, but relient on the labels.


From the MQA web site, their #1 tenant and major definite purpose: "MQA captures 100% of the original studio performance." Direct quote, and also direct lie.


jagwap said:


> The Nightfly MQA version has just been released. Sounds good, and better than the non MQA version on Tidal.  Not scientific, but it is either a better master, less compressed or MQA special sauce, or a combination of the above. But yes, if there is no ADC at this stage there is nothing to correct.


Well sure there was! It's a digital recording now, isn't it?  How'd that happen?  My money is on an ADC.


jagwap said:


> As others have said, it will be hard to correct ADCs further up the chain, particularly retrospectively.


No, it's hard to correct for a single ADC, it's impossible to correct for an unknown ADC or unknown multiple ADCs.  And all of this is retrospective at this point, no new material of any consequence.

Look, this has all be done and argued to death.  In know I've typed all of this or equiv. multiple times.  There's only one way to end it: unassailable proof.  And that would take MQA's co-operation, financial resources, and time.  It's the infernal triangle, take away any one, you don't have it.


----------



## Strangelove424 (Sep 7, 2017)

bigshot said:


> If The Nightfly sounds better than other releases, it isn't because of anything MQA did. It can't contain information above 22kHz because it was recorded and mixed at 16/44.1. Their magic mojo unsmear filter can't be credited because it only passed through an ADC once as it was being recorded and it was subsequently mixed and mastered. It cant be a better generation master because digital isn't subject to generation loss. The only reason it could sound better is because...
> 
> Wait for it...
> 
> They sweetened it and it isn't the original mix and mastering that Fagen approved. Do you think it might actually sound exactly the same as every other format? (Giving you a chance to think about it and back out from this line of thought.)



Mastering their own version from some renegade studio, without artist supervision! I can't imagine anything less authorized than that! The simpler, far more believable option is that MQA is nothing but an inaudible 22khz+ stream parallel to the actual music. But what a logical sword to fall on! Either the music sounds pure and MQA can't add or take away anything, or it sounds better with MQA but it isn't pure! How can MQA satisfy audiophile demand for something to be improved and yet original and pure at the same time? It's a logical contradiction, but logical contradictions never get in the way of marketing. (or audiophiles... a pair made in heaven)


----------



## jagwap

It's like being under a Danish bridge: full of trolls.

But then you probably see me the same way...



pinnahertz said:


> There's an ADC on every input of a multitrack/multi input system.  They aren't always identical, sometimes not even the same manufacturer.  And sometimes they are.  Then there's multiple trips through ADC/DAC/ADC/DAC for processing. The instances where it was one, known ADC only are miniscule.
> Which fixes nothing.  Anyone who's ever run a square wave through a tape recorder knows...yep, it has it's own version and degree of "temporal blurring".  Also uncorrectable.



Not on ALL recordings. Music was recorded before digital. But it does raise issues. 

Also your square wave point is not adding to the discussion. If all we have is the analogue master before digital the PCM and the MQA will have the same problems.



> From the MQA web site, their #1 tenant and major definite purpose: "MQA captures 100% of the original studio performance." Direct quote, and also direct lie.



Marketing has always lied. Get over it. "Perfect sound forever". We discussed that before. Forever is BS. Here we want the science, so lets delve into that. 



> Well sure there was! It's a digital recording now, isn't it?  How'd that happen?  My money is on an ADC.
> 
> No, it's hard to correct for a single ADC, it's impossible to correct for an unknown ADC or unknown multiple ADCs.  And all of this is retrospective at this point, no new material of any consequence.
> 
> Look, this has all be done and argued to death.  In know I've typed all of this or equiv. multiple times.  There's only one way to end it: unassailable proof.  And that would take MQA's co-operation, financial resources, and time.  It's the infernal triangle, take away any one, you don't have it.



True. Argued to death and neither of us are proved right. But you are still arguing, like me. So what's your point?



Strangelove424 said:


> Mastering their own version from some renegade studio, without artist supervision! I can't imagine anything less authorized than that!



No one is saying that. Not sure why you are. Can you enlighen us?



> The simpler, far more believable option is that MQA is nothing but an inaudible 22khz+ stream parallel to the actual music. But what a logical sword to fall on! Either the music sounds pure and MQA can't add or take away anything, or it sounds better with MQA but it isn't pure!



Not according to MQA. They are stating that the ADC and DAC is not as good at representing the analogue as it could be, so this "true" you are defining as the digital master is not their definition. There are many other processes they cannot improve but they are trying for this one.



> How can MQA satisfy audiophile demand for something to be improved and yet original and pure at the same time? It's a logical contradiction, but logical contradictions never get in the way of marketing. (or audiophiles... a pair made in heaven)



Not their view I think.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> It's like being under a Danish bridge: full of trolls.
> 
> But then you probably see me the same way...


Actually, no.  But we do disagree on some very fundamental points.



jagwap said:


> Not on ALL recordings. Music was recorded before digital. But it does raise issues.
> 
> Also your square wave point is not adding to the discussion. If all we have is the analogue master before digital the PCM and the MQA will have the same problems.


My point is that their claim "MQA captures 100% of the original studio performance." is a bold-faced lie.  Can't be done if the original recording was on analog tape because it has temporal blurring too, and a whole list of other issues that cannot be corrected.  And temporal blurring, if it actually is audible (and there's no proof of that) cannot be corrected without intimate knowledge of the entire chain, not just the first ADC.  And that information, with very few exceptions, does not exist.


jagwap said:


> Marketing has always lied. Get over it. "Perfect sound forever". We discussed that before. Forever is BS. Here we want the science, so lets delve into that.


Yes, marketing BS is thick, and we need science.  I'd love to delve into that.  I don't think that's possible because the actual testing that needs to be done can't be done.  If you eliminate all the MQA marketing BS and stick to the remaining MQA "science", we don't have anything to talk about.


jagwap said:


> True. Argued to death and neither of us are proved right. But you are still arguing, like me. So what's your point?


Back at ya.  The pro-MQA viewpoint comes up, the anti-MQA viewpoint is likely to follow.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Actually, no.  But we do disagree on some very fundamental points.
> 
> My point is that their claim "MQA captures 100% of the original studio performance." is a bold-faced lie.  Can't be done if the original recording was on analog tape because it has temporal blurring too, and a whole list of other issues that cannot be corrected.  And temporal blurring, if it actually is audible (and there's no proof of that) cannot be corrected without intimate knowledge of the entire chain, not just the first ADC.  And that information, with very few exceptions, does not exist.
> 
> ...



Yes, but when I arrived on this thread the pro MQA side was less represented, and those that tried were beaten senseless and insulted.


----------



## Strangelove424 (Sep 7, 2017)

jagwap said:


> 1. No one is saying that. Not sure why you are. Can you enlighen us?
> 
> 2.Not according to MQA. They are stating that the ADC and DAC is not as good at representing the analogue as it could be, so this "true" you are defining as the digital master is not their definition. There are many other processes they cannot improve but they are trying for this one.
> 
> Not their view I think.



1. MQA is not saying that because MQA is not really saying anything because it's all proprietary shell games. Bigshot's deductive logic for Fagan's digitally captured album is tight. Either the MQA version sounds the same as any other, or if it sounds different it was somehow molested by MQA. If MQA is molesting masters, then they are doing so at their own studio, and without artist supervision. Your response to bigshot's deductive logic:

"Your opinion and you are entitled to it. But there is no eveidence either way yet.
I'm just stating what I understand to be their position and what I think that may mean as a counter point"

No contest.

2. MQA can claim anything. Those aren't falsifiable claims. MQA is using fear mongering of digital to market their format. The Fagan CD points out all the flaws in logic because of the digital format it was originally recorded in. You can't escape the logic on that one. If the Fagan MQA version sounds better to you something must have been tampered with, or else its placebo effect.

3. Nobody knows exactly what their view is because it's a media conglomerate whose intentions are in the shadows. But here's some tidbits of their marketing, straight from their site:

- "MP3 files deliver just 10% of the original studio recording. MQA captures 100% of the performance." *Digital fear mongering  *

- "MQA authentically reproduces the sound of the studio master, allowing you to step into the magic of the original performance." *Shouldn't the studio master sound like the studio master? The original performance is the original performance, why do I need MQA to unveil it to me?*

- "I HAVE SPENT MANY HOURS WITH BOB, LISTENING TO ORIGINAL RECORDINGS AND BEING CONSTANTLY AMAZED BY THE INCREDIBLE SENSE OF SPACE AND CLARITY BROUGHT BY MQA." *Again, why do they market MQA as revealing something that wasn't there originally?
*
- "MQA WILL BE THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY, IN THE HISTORY OF RECORDED MUSIC, TO DIRECTLY LINK THE MUSIC LISTENER TO THE MASTERING STUDIO; REVOLUTIONIZING MY JOB AND ITS IMPORTANCE"  *C'mon really?*

Have you guys ever seen their site? Just being there for 5 minutes made me lose a few brain cells.

Check out this beauty:

"MQA vs AIR"

The vision behind MQA is to do no more damage to sound than travelling a short distance through air. By being able to resolve two sounds 8us apart – 15 times better than 192kHz – that vision has been realised. See how it compares below






*Say what? What do 5, 10, and 20 even represent? They don't even label their graph. My head is spinning from the nonsense.  


*


----------



## jagwap (Sep 8, 2017)

Strangelove424 said:


> 1. MQA is not saying that because MQA is not really saying anything because it's all proprietary shell games. Bigshot's deductive logic for Fagan's digitally captured album is tight. Either the MQA version sounds the same as any other, or if it sounds different it was somehow molested by MQA. If MQA is molesting masters, then they are doing so at their own studio, and without artist supervision. Your response to bigshot's deductive logic:
> 
> "Your opinion and you are entitled to it. But there is no eveidence either way yet.
> I'm just stating what I understand to be their position and what I think that may mean as a counter point"
> ...



I agree, you are not arguing this well



> 2. MQA can claim anything. Those aren't falsifiable claims. MQA is using fear mongering of digital to market their format. The Fagan CD points out all the flaws in logic because of the digital format it was originally recorded in. You can't escape the logic on that one. If the Fagan MQA version sounds better to you something must have been tampered with, or else its placebo effect.



I stated that my be the case that something else is at work.



> 3. Nobody knows exactly what their view is because it's a media conglomerate whose intentions are in the shadows. But here's some tidbits of their marketing, straight from their site:
> 
> - "MP3 files deliver just 10% of the original studio recording. MQA captures 100% of the performance." *Digital fear mongering*


* 
*
Agreed. Nonsense based on the amount of data not the amount of audio information thrown away. A bad statement which they should have learnt from listing to the reactions to Neil Young's attempts to pursuad people mp3 is bad. I have a feeling Neil Young got this from his meetings with Meridian before launching Pono. I suspect he was hoping Pono would include MQA but it didn't happen.



> - "MQA authentically reproduces the sound of the studio master, allowing you to step into the magic of the original performance." *Shouldn't the studio master sound like the studio master? The original performance is the original performance, why do I need MQA to unveil it to me?*



The studio master should sound like the original performance. Of course is doesn't completely even if it is just a microphone into an ADC, as nothing is perfect. MQA thinks it has found one area they can improve if they can control part of the decoding to allow pre encoding to correct it.



> - "I HAVE SPENT MANY HOURS WITH BOB, LISTENING TO ORIGINAL RECORDINGS AND BEING CONSTANTLY AMAZED BY THE INCREDIBLE SENSE OF SPACE AND CLARITY BROUGHT BY MQA." *Again, why do they market MQA as revealing something that wasn't there originally?*




Your assumption. The earth turned out not to be flat after all.



> - "MQA WILL BE THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY, IN THE HISTORY OF RECORDED MUSIC, TO DIRECTLY LINK THE MUSIC LISTENER TO THE MASTERING STUDIO; REVOLUTIONIZING MY JOB AND ITS IMPORTANCE"  *C'mon really?*



Yeh, OK, that's over the top.



> Have you guys ever seen their site? Just being there for 5 minutes made me lose a few brain cells.
> 
> Check out this beauty:
> 
> ...



Now look at the curves showing 48, 96, 192kHz on that effect. They show more of this blurring than 5m of air. If it matters, then MQA has a point. If it doesn't then it's BS. But just because you don't understand it doesn't make it wrong.

Sorry. People hear are so dismissive here I think it's rubbing off on me. I've got luddite juice in me.


----------



## Strangelove424

jagwap said:


> I agree, you are not arguing this well



Huh, agree with what? I think I'm arguing just fine. You're giving me the Pee Wee Herman rebuttal. "I know you are, but what am I" That's sophomoric.



jagwap said:


> I stated that my be the case that something else is at work.



Ah, the mystery meat. So it might be the case that bass and treble are boosted by 1db on all MQA tracks? It might be the case that each has added reverb? Tons of filtering? When things are proprietary and secretive, neutrality cannot be guaranteed. No thanks, I'll stick with kosher.



jagwap said:


> Agreed. Nonsense based on the amount of data not the amount of audio information thrown away. A bad statement which they should have learnt from listing to the reactions to Neil Young's attempts to pursuad people mp3 is bad. I have a feeling Neil Young got this from his meetings with Meridian before launching Pono. I suspect he was hoping Pono would include MQA but it didn't happen.



Well, I wish you could step back to see the fear mongering they have cast upon digital as a whole, not just mp3. If you asked me to pick between a analogue tape master stored in a vault for 30 years, or a digitally encoded copy sitting on a server for 30 years, I'd pick the digital copy each and every time. Unlike tape, there are no digital "preservationists", no sticky shed or soft binder syndrome, no need for temperature and humidity controlled vaults, and no generation loss from transfer. Why on earth anyone would trust an aged tape copy over a digital copy is completely beyond me. Whatever minor errors there would be in digital are nothing compared to the disastrous effect time has on tape (or most analogue formats for that matter). The vilification of digital is unfair, and is always followed up by a sales pitch.    



jagwap said:


> The studio master should sound like the original performance. Of course is doesn't completely even if it is just a microphone into an ADC, as nothing is perfect. MQA thinks it has found one area they can improve if they can control part of the decoding to allow pre encoding to correct it.



Lots of empty claims that somehow MQA has revolutionized digital storage. Yet no proof, or falsifiability either. What does pre encoding even mean? When it's all said and done, the burden to provide is on MQA, they are the ones making the claims. This burden of proof thing is an aspect totally lost on MQA or its defenders. Why should I accept anything without verification? Why does MQA deserve people's money without showing it?



jagwap said:


> Your assumption. The earth turned out not to be flat after all.



I have no idea what you mean by that precisely. However, I do find irony in the comparison of yourself to the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, or Ptolemy, because the people who argued that the earth is round at least showed up with some proof. "Cause it is" never silenced the flat earthers and "cause it is" won't satisfy audio rationalists either. 



jagwap said:


> Now look at the curves showing 48, 96, 192kHz on that effect. They show more of this blurring than 5m of air. If it matters, then MQA has a point. If it doesn't then it's BS. But just because you don't understand it doesn't make it wrong.



Those curves have nothing to do with frequency rate. Nothing on that graph is labelled as such. Looks like you don't understand it either. But it's still wrong. The 5, 10, and 20, as far as I can tell are "air with distances". And right next to the those distances are plots for "MQA". So I guess MQA is a distance of air? I am 'MQA' tall. My speakers are 'MQA' apart. That senseless graph is just as befuddling to you as it is to me, and you know it. 

If anyone can make rational sense out of that graph and explain it to me scientifically, I will chop off my ear Van Gogh style and send it to you as a trophy.



jagwap said:


> Sorry. People hear are so dismissive here I think it's rubbing off on me. I've got luddite juice in me.



We're not being dismissive for sport. I have spent a lot of my life devoting myself to music, and trying to understand it, and when a company like MQA comes along, I get upset because for the purpose of profiteering it is undermining music itself, and undermining years of devotion and study millions of people have poured into it. They come along, make empty claims, and then try to cajole the entire market to capture, edit, and distribute using their proprietary codec. For someone emotionally invested in this artform, it is infuriating. It's downright dastardly.


----------



## jagwap

Strangelove424 said:


> Huh, agree with what? I think I'm arguing just fine. You're giving me the Pee Wee Herman rebuttal. "I know you are, but what am I" That's sophomoric.



Well your "No contest" set the tone.



> Ah, the mystery meat. So it might be the case that bass and treble are boosted by 1db on all MQA tracks? It might be the case that each has added reverb? Tons of filtering? When things are proprietary and secretive, neutrality cannot be guaranteed. No thanks, I'll stick with kosher.



It may be, but I feel confident MQA is not an EQ trick.  It's not their style.  It's not BBE or any of that stuff. It is trying to get the best version of the music, encode it better with the knowledge of how the decoder works too. Again, I am not saying it works or it doesn't, but trying to explain what you appear to want to ignore.



> Well, I wish you could step back to see the fear mongering they have cast upon digital as a whole, not just mp3. If you asked me to pick between a analogue tape master stored in a vault for 30 years, or a digitally encoded copy sitting on a server for 30 years, I'd pick the digital copy each and every time. Unlike tape, there are no digital "preservationists", no sticky shed or soft binder syndrome, no need for temperature and humidity controlled vaults, and no generation loss from transfer. Why on earth anyone would trust an aged tape copy over a digital copy is completely beyond me. Whatever minor errors there would be in digital are nothing compared to the disastrous effect time has on tape (or most analogue formats for that matter). The vilification of digital is unfair, and is always followed up by a sales pitch.



I agreed the marketing is over the top.  I've been in meetings with incompetent marketing people and it makes my blood boil.  I have now finally worked with competent marketing people but it has been the minority unfortunately.  The problem usually is they end up believing their own BS.



> Lots of empty claims that somehow MQA has revolutionized digital storage. Yet no proof, or falsifiability either. What does pre encoding even mean? When it's all said and done, the burden to provide is on MQA, they are the ones making the claims. This burden of proof thing is an aspect totally lost on MQA or its defenders. Why should I accept anything without verification? Why does MQA deserve people's money without showing it?



They have replied several times to all this, but it was never enough (see all the pages in the link below).  Probably as they were answering to the public and we want more detail.  Also there is plenty of secrecy in this industry when it comes the ultimate details of how you do something you feel is better than the others.  As to patents, while they are supposed to reveal the tech in an idea to promote the sharing of ideas, while protecting the intellectual property for 20 years, these days it is more about the protection, while obscuring the real idea by burying it in the description that protects it.



> I have no idea what you mean by that precisely. However, I do find irony in the comparison of yourself to the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, or Ptolemy, because the people who argued that the earth is round at least showed up with some proof. "Cause it is" never silenced the flat earthers and "cause it is" won't satisfy audio rationalists either.



I meant you are assuming there is nothing to reveal.  That everything is already perfect with no chance of improvement.  I am open to the idea we don't know everything yet. MQA have explained what they are trying to set out to do, and here there is a lot of "Can't be done", Doesn't make a difference", "They are lairs", "Made up".  I see that as having your head in the sand, fingers in the ears "La-la-la not listening"



> Those curves have nothing to do with frequency rate. Nothing on that graph is labelled as such. Looks like you don't understand it either. But it's still wrong. The 5, 10, and 20, as far as I can tell are "air with distances". And right next to the those distances are plots for "MQA". So I guess MQA is a distance of air? I am 'MQA' tall. My speakers are 'MQA' apart. That senseless graph is just as befuddling to you as it is to me, and you know it.
> 
> If anyone can make rational sense out of that graph and explain it to me scientifically, I will chop off my ear Van Gogh style and send it to you as a trophy.



Try the graph I was talking about.  I had difficulty linking it as I was on my phone: 
https://www.stereophile.com/images/816mqafeature.MQAfig10.jpg
https://www.stereophile.com/images/816mqafeature.MQAfig11.jpg
From https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers-some-real-world-comparisons

They are trying to show that 48kHz and 192kHz is not as good as MQA in this respect, or 5m of air. Is this necessary? I can't say.  They think so. You are entitled to believe not. I will wait and see.  Until the proof comes, either way, fine.

I won't hold my breath for an ear.



> We're not being dismissive for sport. I have spent a lot of my life devoting myself to music, and trying to understand it, and when a company like MQA comes along, I get upset because for the purpose of profiteering it is undermining music itself, and undermining years of devotion and study millions of people have poured into it. They come along, make empty claims, and then try to cajole the entire market to capture, edit, and distribute using their proprietary codec. For someone emotionally invested in this art form, it is infuriating. It's downright dastardly.



It feels like some here are being dismissive for sport.  I came here with good intentions of putting the other side, but then I met this lot and it rubbed off.  Hence my comment about Luddite juice.  I have also spent my career and spare time working in audio.  But so have the guys behind MQA.  I don't work for, with or near them, but I have watch these guys at Meridian and I've never seen them produce anything that wasn't genuinely intended to advance the art of audio.  Also Peter Craven the same, from his work at B&W with Micheal Gerzon (sad loss) and since. Look those guys up.  They are audio heavyweights.


----------



## Niouke

this graph is hilarious, the way I read it MQA soundwaves beat the speed of sound


----------



## jagwap

Niouke said:


> this graph is hilarious, the way I read it MQA soundwaves beat the speed of sound



Electricity is faster than sound.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> The studio master should sound like the original performance..



That of course is nonsense!  You'd have a studio master with a typical duration of a week (or several). You listen to say the drums, then wait a day to hear the lead vocals, then wait another day or so for the guitars to be performed, then another day for the backing vocals, another day for say keyboards, a day or two for some overdubs, perc, etc. Is that really what you think a studio master should sound like, because THAT IS as much of an "original performance" as ever existed? The "de-blurring" claims require a fair bit of knowledge/understanding to realise they're nonsense but going on about the "original performance" is also nonsense, because there was NO original performance! What's shocking is not that MQA think that audiophiles are so ignorant of the basics of recording workflows that they won't realise it's nonsense, what's shocking is that they're right, many audiophiles apparently really are that ignorant! 

BTW, I'm not just talking about modern digital recording workflows, the workflow I generalised above is pretty much what the Beatles were doing in the mid 1960's and Phil Spector was doing something similar with his "wall of sound" technique from the late 1950's. By the time we get to the 1970's, we have 8 and then 24 track recorders making this type of recording workflow completely standard for just about ALL rock/popular music genres..This isn't rocket science, just very simple history which is well documented on the net, for those who can be bothered to look. Spending numerous hours thinking of responses to counter the "nay-sayers" appears to be a valid use of time but spending a few minutes researching some actual facts, not so much!

G


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Yes, but when I arrived on this thread the pro MQA side was less represented, and those that tried were beaten senseless and insulted.


Huh. Imagine that.  Wonder why that would be,


jagwap said:


> The studio master should sound like the original performance. Of course is doesn't completely even if it is just a microphone into an ADC, as nothing is perfect.


But this is actually the problem: no master sounds anything like the original performance because it isn't possible, or even intended.  That's not what recording/reproducing audio does.  The recording/reproduction process strives to achieve a representation of the original that enables the listener to suspend disbelief well enough for the recording to be entertaining, because the reproducing system lacks any ability to reconstruct the original event (or even one similar).  Often that representation is of something that never existed as a performance event at all.  So it's not possible for any master to sound like the original performance, and that's not what is being attempted.  Stating that a post-process can recreate something that goes beyond the abilities of any sound reproducing system is clearly bollox.  


jagwap said:


> MQA thinks it has found one area they can improve if they can control part of the decoding to allow pre encoding to correct it.


Well, I don't know what MQA "thinks", but that's what they are selling.  Perhaps they can do that to a small extent under certain very specific conditions.  We still are asking if what they are doing is audible...at all...beyond just the claims...and then it would be nice to know the limitations.


jagwap said:


> Now look at the curves showing 48, 96, 192kHz on that effect. They show more of this blurring than 5m of air. If it matters, then MQA has a point. If it doesn't then it's BS.


Too bad they didn't include analog recording in the graph.  Or speakers...any speakers.  Or rooms (with air in them).  All of which show far more of this "blurring" than any digital system, yet aren't being considered.   Sort of like saying how much better your vision is when you clean your glasses, but you're looking through a dirty window out into dense fog.  


jagwap said:


> But just because you don't understand it doesn't make it wrong.


That one made me smile.  Agreed!


----------



## L8MDL




----------



## jagwap

L8MDL said:


>



Good point well made...


----------



## bigshot (Sep 8, 2017)

jagwap said:


> Because the DAC also apparently has time smearingb and pre-compensating in the digital file before playback allows phase free correction as I described above.



Where in the process did the time smearing occur? The only analogue to digital conversion that took place on The Nightfly was at the input stage of the microphones when it was being recorded. Every mike and every patch in from instruments would have its own individual time smear. They would stack up. After that analogue to digital conversion, the signal went through innumerable alterations in the process of mixing and mastering. I don't see how smearing could possibly be undone that far downstream. It would be baked in by then.

I'm also interested in what release of Donald Fagan's The Nightfly you were comparing it to and noticing an improvement? The CD? The SACD? They both sound exactly the same (with the exception of the multichannel mix which definitely sounds better.) I don't think this particular album has ever been remastered. It's always sounded fantastic. The Nightfly is one of the best sounding albums of all time. It is proof that you don't need high bitrates and high sampling rates to sound good. Format doesn't matter. It sounds good on SACD, it sounds good on CD, if you record it to a good quality cassette tape, it still sounds good. Recording and engineering are what make good sound, not big numbers and magic mojo filters.

The Nightfly has no super audible frequency content, no possibility of correction of time smearing, no need to authenticate because the master has always been the master on this album. What is MQA doing here? Zilch, zip, nada. If you're hearing a difference, you should go back and do a careful comparison, because it seems like you have expectation bias coloring your judgement.

Honestly, I don't see you as a troll. I see you as someone who has made up his mind about an issue and you'll stick to your guns even if it's clear that the facts aren't on your side. That isn't uncommon in this day and age. All I ask is that you listen to my arguments and understand them. Think for yourself and figure it out and answer without leaning on sales pitch.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Where in the process did the time smearing occur? The only analogue to digital conversion that took place on The Nightfly was at the input stage of the microphones when it was being recorded. Every mike and every patch in from instruments would have its own individual time smear. They would stack up. After that analogue to digital conversion, the signal went through innumerable alterations in the process of mixing and mastering. I don't see how smearing could possibly be undone that far downstream. It would be baked in by then.



DACs do it too according to Meridian (and others).  They have been correcting that stuff for years.  They were the first to do apodizing filters I believe, and Peter Craven wrote the paper on it.  One of the problems is that apodizing needs a slow roll off filter and this causes a droop in the HF which has always concerned me about the technique.  I think the later paper by Peter Craven explaining that to fix that you need to pre-correct the filtering then apodizing does not need the roll off in the pass band.  This is what I suspect they are up to here.



> I'm also interested in what release of Donald Fagan's The Nightfly you were comparing it to and noticing an improvement? The CD? The SACD? They both sound exactly the same (with the exception of the multichannel mix which definitely sounds better.) I don't think this particular album has ever been remastered.



Sorry, it has: The "Cheap Xmas" collection on HDTracks is obviously a compressed hot mix.  I actually bought it.  Really annoying.



> It's always sounded fantastic. The Nightfly is one of the best sounding albums of all time. It is proof that you don't need high bitrates and high sampling rates to sound good. Format doesn't matter. It sounds good on SACD, it sounds good on CD, if you record it to a good quality cassette tape, it still sounds good. Recording and engineering are what make good sound, not big numbers and magic mojo filters.



Agreed.  It is one of the audiophile favourites I still enjoy and don't want to play to death as a test track.



> The Nightfly has no super audible frequency content, no possibility of correction of time smearing, no need to authenticate because the master has always been the master on this album. What is MQA doing here? Zilch, zip, nada. If you're hearing a difference, you should go back and do a careful comparison, because it seems like you have expectation bias coloring your judgement.



Hmmm. I will, because I am interested to nail this down, but as you can see, there are other masters, and the claim of time smear is in the DAC and the ADC. So you seem to have made some assumptions too, to fit your bias...



> Honestly, I don't see you as a troll. I see you as someone who has made up his mind about an issue and you'll stick to your guns even if it's clear that the facts aren't on your side. That isn't uncommon in this day and age. All I ask is that you listen to my arguments and understand them. Think for yourself and figure it out and answer without leaning on sales pitch.


 
Cheers.  I haven't made my mind up about MQA.  But I have made my mind up not to assume it is *just* marketing hype.


----------



## TheTrace

Only the majority of it.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Huh. Imagine that.  Wonder why that would be,
> But this is actually the problem: no master sounds anything like the original performance because it isn't possible, or even intended.  That's not what recording/reproducing audio does.  The recording/reproduction process strives to achieve a representation of the original that enables the listener to suspend disbelief well enough for the recording to be entertaining, because the reproducing system lacks any ability to reconstruct the original event (or even one similar).  Often that representation is of something that never existed as a performance event at all.  So it's not possible for any master to sound like the original performance, and that's not what is being attempted.  Stating that a post-process can recreate something that goes beyond the abilities of any sound reproducing system is clearly bollox.



Sure, but that wasn't my point.  The statement was the master should sound like the master.  That does not say anything about quality.



> Well, I don't know what MQA "thinks", but that's what they are selling.  Perhaps they can do that to a small extent under certain very specific conditions.  We still are asking if what they are doing is audible...at all...beyond just the claims...and then it would be nice to know the limitations.



Me too.  I'm asking.  Some here have already decided.



> Too bad they didn't include analog recording in the graph.  Or speakers...any speakers.  Or rooms (with air in them).  All of which show far more of this "blurring" than any digital system, yet aren't being considered.   Sort of like saying how much better your vision is when you clean your glasses, but you're looking through a dirty window out into dense fog.



So it is not worth improving a mastering process because analogue tape form 35 years ago wasn't as good as the previous system? Or because speakers have imperfect crossovers, and the sound  passes through air? Never mind that headphones exist, shouldn't the mastering process be as innocuous as possible compared to all the other effects?  This stuff is usually cumulative.



> That one made me smile.  Agreed!


----------



## bigshot (Sep 8, 2017)

bigshot said:


> I haven't made my mind up about MQA.  But I have made my mind up not to assume it is *just* marketing hype.



Do you have any reason for that beyond subjective impressions?

If a regular DAC can perform this un-smearing function, why do we need a new file format? Why do we need a new file format to "authenticate" masters? Now we're back to the super audible frequencies that The Nightfly doesn't contain. Why do we need MQA for The Nightfly?


----------



## bigshot (Sep 8, 2017)

One more quick question. Since the specs of a typical 24 track studio recorder don't go beyond 25kHz, what is the advantage to preserving super audible frequencies in an analogue recording?

Now it's been whittled down to the advantage (assuming it's audible) and justification for the MQA format only applies to digital recordings with sampling rates above 96.


----------



## Strangelove424

jagwap said:


> I agreed the marketing is over the top.  I've been in meetings with incompetent marketing people and it makes my blood boil.  I have now finally worked with competent marketing people but it has been the minority unfortunately.  The problem usually is they end up believing their own BS.



Me too. I wasn’t one of them, but had to work with them. There’s a detachment from reality there, or from the effect of their ideas. My biggest criticism of advertising is the fear aspect. Making people question and fear their audio systems, mp3 files, face wrinkles, thigh thickness, wealth, health, etc. It’s a diseased seed to plant for the sake of profit, and usually afflicts the one who planted it first. 



jagwap said:


> Try the graph I was talking about.  I had difficulty linking it as I was on my phone:
> https://www.stereophile.com/images/816mqafeature.MQAfig10.jpg
> https://www.stereophile.com/images/816mqafeature.MQAfig11.jpg
> From https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers-some-real-world-comparisons
> ...



No, no, you cannot wave some Escherian links in my face and sit back and expect my ear. It’s a fine ear, and it won’t be won so half handily. 

Let’s make them visible on the thread so that more people can offer their insight, and give everyone a better chance of winning my ear. Let's also make clear that the Stereophile article and all containing words, graphics,  and data were contributed by Bob Stuart, owner of MQA. 












Graphs compare measurements of like things. The axis show correlations between measurements, and the plotted points indicate precise comparisons of those measurements. A length of one thing can be compared to the length of another thing, one format can be compared against another format. But you cannot compare a codec or frequency rate to a length of space. I’m not trying to be sarcastic or mean, but I can’t believe I even have to write this. You cannot compare a codec or frequency rate to a form of matter, or a length of that form of matter, they are two completely unlike things. And what does MQA or 192kHz sound like separate of air? Can I hear MQA in space? MQA makes sound that travels through air. This is becoming Pythonesque.

Also, another very important thing for graphs… units! Y-Axis is missing them. Neural response in what? How was is measured? Neural response is a biological aspect, was this conducted with an EKG or EEG?

I’m feeling very secure about my ear right now.



jagwap said:


> It feels like some here are being dismissive for sport.  I came here with good intentions of putting the other side, but then I met this lot and it rubbed off.  Hence my comment about Luddite juice.  I have also spent my career and spare time working in audio.  But so have the guys behind MQA.  I don't work for, with or near them, but I have watch these guys at Meridian and I've never seen them produce anything that wasn't genuinely intended to advance the art of audio.  Also Peter Craven the same, from his work at B&W with Micheal Gerzon (sad loss) and since. Look those guys up.  They are audio heavyweights.



I just ask that you have an open and rational mind. I know we can get a little uncouth in here, some more than others, but take note: You were the first to use the word “troll” and not a single person fired it back at you. And I don’t see you as a troll either, so let’s talk about ideas, not people. (Except for the guys, you mentioned, I’ll look them up.)


----------



## bigshot

How does "neural response" relate to me sitting my couch in my living room listening to music?


----------



## Strangelove424

Another important question. Beyond all the faultiness in the data, what is the context of it? What is its meaning and relevance to me as a person? The wildest theories in science, like aspects of relativity theory, made sense long before they were even proven because they had context, and gave things meaning. They explained data, even if the explanation wasn't yet proven. They made sense. None of this MQA stuff has context or makes sense.


----------



## castleofargh

ok I want to play too!!!!!!! 

let's do 10 different stuff in 3 different places without telling the consumer what or when for a third of it. including complete remaster but not always to keep the people on edge. because nothing says clear technological superiority and care for fidelity, like deliberate confusion, and making fair side by side comparisons almost impossible. 
let's trade everything for time stuff and then talk as if audio was unidimensional. then show how time really is improved. confused as they are, expect people to miss those trades and assume actual fidelity increase.
let's use Dirac pulses in graphs to show an impact that is completely disproportionate compared to actual music or human hearing, so that people will imagine a problem that doesn't exist.  
let's offer to improve ADCs with a method DOA that is just as impractical as full DSD recording/mixing/mastering, but before PCM came to the rescue with DXD. and if you like games, look how DSD did it first for pretty much all of this post and how MQA is really just diet DSD.


----------



## Strangelove424

Just noticed the x-axis of the graph has negative units of time. Very psychedelic. I am aware of no measurement that can be made in the past. This is some seriously theoretical territory. Flux capacitor territory. And if you assume "neural response" is in time domain, then both x and y axis represent time, and it gets even more psychedelic. Like a scientific equivalent of an Escher drawing, I am unable to yank my gaze. 

Far out.


----------



## bigshot

Hooray for Stereophile and their editorial board!


----------



## Sterling2

Someone posted this earlier on this thread, "But this is actually the problem: no master sounds anything like the original performance because it isn't possible, or even intended. That's not what recording/reproducing audio does."   

This statement is opinion, not fact. I have been a producer of Radio Advertising Commercials since 1981. I have indeed produced commercials which could not be distinguished from the live performance, with or without sound reinforcement. With digital recording being perfected in the mid to late 1990's, a recording engineer would need to really screw up  to make a master which  did not sound like the live performance.


----------



## bigshot

When I'm working sound, I'm always trying to create something that sounds *better* than the live performance. Most rock and pop music is tracked with overdubbing. Recording live is primarily for classical and jazz.


----------



## pinnahertz (Sep 9, 2017)

Sterling2 said:


> Someone posted this earlier on this thread, "But this is actually the problem: no master sounds anything like the original performance because it isn't possible, or even intended. That's not what recording/reproducing audio does."
> 
> This statement is opinion, not fact. I have been a producer of Radio Advertising Commercials since 1981. I have indeed produced commercials which could not be distinguished from the live performance, with or without sound reinforcement. With digital recording being perfected in the mid to late 1990's, a recording engineer would need to really screw up  to make a master which  did not sound like the live performance.


The first 3 chapters of "Sound Reproduction" by Floyd Toole deal with this.

As a producer of radio commercials, are you seriously asking me to believe that your spots comprised of a voiceover with music under and possibly FX sound like the original orchestra, FX and voice over artist in person?  Lets just take the VO guy.  So, your record him with a mic with non-flat response, possibly proximity effect, and...um... just a tiny bit of compression, right? Sure you do! l Every squash a voice track with compression and boost the LF so he sounds like a movie trailer?  Sure you have!   Never EQ these tracks either?  You have, if they're going to please your client.  What about the music bed.  Every dip the frequency range of the VO to help it float on top of the music?  Never compress the music to keep it stable in the mix?  And,  the FX...synthetic?  Real?  If real, were the the actual sound or something that sounds more like it that the actual sound?  Like soft wind the the forest sounds nearly identical to distant city traffic if it were held back in the mix. 

You're working in a created media world that does not exist in reality.  None of it.  So, your master doesn't sound like the original acoustic event.  Probably even less than a good orchestral recording.

edit: the Toole book deals with the impossibilities in precisely replicating the original acoustic event because of flaws in the entire process, and the rather radical differences between human hearing and the recording process.  The best you can do is to create something that is an acceptable illusionary version of the original, adequate to convey the original idea.  Recording a voice over artist in a booth with a single microphone, the reproducing that recording in the control room with that same voice panned center between two monitor speakers should pretty much illustrate a very basic version of the problem.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Do you have any reason for that beyond subjective impressions?



Yes. I've stated all of this before earlier in this thread:

The people behind this technology are known for their work in striving to improve audio: Bob Stuart and Peter Craven. I've been to their AES lectures, met them both. I have several colleagues who have worked with then at Meridian and elsewhere, and even disgruntled ex employees cannot say anything against Bob Stuart's technical and practical knowledge. They are both highly thought of in the industry, and as far as I can see only this subject has brought out people without this connection to assume they are charlatans. Sure, there are two camps on apodizing filters, but never with this vitriol. 



> If a regular DAC can perform this un-smearing function, why do we need a new file format? Why do we need a new file format to "authenticate" masters? Now we're back to the super audible frequencies that The Nightfly doesn't contain. Why do we need MQA for The Nightfly?



Why dilo you think a regular DAC can do this "unsmearing"

My guess is the DAC needs to be an MQA DAC and the file need to be MQA encoded.


----------



## bigshot

I had dinner tonight with a fellow who has been involved with audio for many years working for one of the biggest audio technology companies in the world. He knows the main guys at Meridian personally, so I asked him about MQA. He spoke very highly of Bob Stuart. He said that he's a genius and a straight shooter, but apparently he was burned when his theories about apodizing filters were "appropriated" by other DAC manufacturers. Since then, he has played his cards very close to the vest and won't say exactly what he's selling. He also knows the marketing guy behind MQA too. He described him as a real "character" and said he is probably the source of the more dubious MQA claims, not Stuart.This fella hasn't heard MQA himself, but he believes it probably sounds good just on the basis of Stuart's reputation. I got the impression from him that the main mojo behind MQA is a refinement on the apodizing filter that Stuart has wrapped in secrecy and marketing to prevent other manufacturers from competing with him. He said that Stuart doesn't have any particular interest in streaming. That is just the current thing. He has plans for developing MQA for lossless, and in particular multichannel movie soundtracks. But apparently not necessarily for physical media marketed to consumers. Interesting conversation.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I had dinner tonight with a fellow who has been involved with audio for many years working for one of the biggest audio technology companies in the world. He knows the main guys at Meridian personally, so I asked him about MQA. He spoke very highly of Bob Stuart. He said that he's a genius and a straight shooter, but apparently he was burned when his theories about apodizing filters were "appropriated" by other DAC manufacturers. Since then, he has played his cards very close to the vest and won't say exactly what he's selling. He also knows the marketing guy behind MQA too. He described him as a real "character" and said he is probably the source of the more dubious MQA claims, not Stuart.This fella hasn't heard MQA himself, but he believes it probably sounds good just on the basis of Stuart's reputation. I got the impression from him that the main mojo behind MQA is a refinement on the apodizing filter that Stuart has wrapped in secrecy and marketing to prevent other manufacturers from competing with him. He said that Stuart doesn't have any particular interest in streaming. That is just the current thing. He has plans for developing MQA for lossless, and in particular multichannel movie soundtracks. But apparently not necessarily for physical media marketed to consumers. Interesting conversation.



Sounds about right from my experience and was my original point when I joined this thread: to counter all the comments that Bob Stuart, and by inference Peter Craven were con men.

Peter Craven has said, for the full and best expression of apodizing, the audio should be pre encoded. So this is why I suspect this is what is going on. If you are doing this and you know the previous ADC, you can include its behaviour too. Being secretive should not be entirely surprising.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> So it is not worth improving a mastering process because analogue tape form 35 years ago wasn't as good as the previous system?


That's an odd way to say it.  My point was that the analog recording process has lots of big problems that radically affect the final sound quality.  Correcting the time response of the filters in the first ADC is really pointless in that scenario because of the basic questionable results of time correcting any ADC filter vs the huge and sweeping issues in the analog process.  My optical analogy apparently flew overhead.  You have a pair of glasses with a bit of dirt on them, but you're looking through filthy windows into a landscape obscured by fog.  Cleaning your glasses might give you a warm feeling, but you won't see the landscape any better because you haven't begun to address the big limiting issues.


jagwap said:


> Or because speakers have imperfect crossovers, and the sound  passes through air?


If you examine the impulse response of any speaker in a room you will quickly see that relative to the impulse response of an ADC filter, the speaker/room is the fog obscuring the landscape, not the bit of dirt on your glasses. 


jagwap said:


> Never mind that headphones exist,


Yes, headphones eliminate the room, but they don't have perfect impulse response either, and also much worse than any ADC filter.


jagwap said:


> shouldn't the mastering process be as innocuous as possible compared to all the other effects?  This stuff is usually cumulative.


Yes, the mastering and replay process should be innocuous as possible compared to all other effects.  It already is.  MQA doesn't change that.  No, it's not cumulative.  Different problems don't add and make a worse sum, they each have their own contribution.  Take an analog tape, playback with a slight azimuth misalignment destroys the top octave FR, but the rest of the spectrum is left untouched.  But then the machine has poor scrape-flutter performance, which essentially results in the analog version of jitter (only 1000X worse).  Two problems, unrelated.  You can fix either one, or both, or leave both alone.  But they aren't cumulative relative to each other, they are with respect to their own kind.  Weak HF response in several devices adds up to poor HF response, and copying a tape with scrape-flutter on another machine with scrape-flutter makes things worse, but doesn't add linearly. 

The tiny change in time response that may (or may not) be corrected by MQA is insignificant when compared to the other problems in the analog world.  Correcting one known filter's time response in a digital chain, but ignoring everything else in the chain with far worse time response, is frankly ineffectual in the end result.  That's assuming the time correction is 100% spot-on, and there are problems with that too.  

Please understand, I'm not saying that if you had one or two ADC filters, and could perfectly correct their impulse response that there wouldn't be an audible difference.  That's not it at all.  The problem lies in actually pulling off that correction based on incomplete information, or none at all, relating to how many actual anti-aliasing and reconstruction filters there were in the chain at any time, an problem exacerbated to the point of impossibility within a multi-track scenario.


----------



## Sterling2 (Sep 9, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> The first 3 chapters of "Sound Reproduction" by Floyd Toole deal with this.
> 
> As a producer of radio commercials, are you seriously asking me to believe that your spots comprised of a voiceover with music under and possibly FX sound like the original orchestra, FX and voice over artist in person?  Lets just take the VO guy.  So, your record him with a mic with non-flat response, possibly proximity effect, and...um... just a tiny bit of compression, right? Sure you do! l Every squash a voice track with compression and boost the LF so he sounds like a movie trailer?  Sure you have!   Never EQ these tracks either?  You have, if they're going to please your client.  What about the music bed.  Every dip the frequency range of the VO to help it float on top of the music?  Never compress the music to keep it stable in the mix?  And,  the FX...synthetic?  Real?  If real, were the the actual sound or something that sounds more like it that the actual sound?  Like soft wind the the forest sounds nearly identical to distant city traffic if it were held back in the mix.
> 
> ...


You're expressing an opinion of what you believe is possible from what you have experienced and what you have read. My experience is a recording  which can not be discerned as being different from original performance on pretty much everything I've produced. It's not worth my time to debate it, that's to say, this stuff does not entertain me, nor to I have much interest in it. And, therefore this is my last word on it. And, BTW, I am not asking you to believe anything. I don't care what you believe and I am not trying to persuade you. Believe what you want, but, remember this stuff is just a hobby for most, so, you might not want to over think it.


----------



## jagwap (Sep 9, 2017)

Sterling2 said:


> You're expressing an opinion of what you believe is possible from what you have experienced and what you have read. My experience is a recording  which can not be discerned as being different from original performance on pretty much everything I've produced. It's not worth my time to debate it, that's to say, this stuff does not entertain me, nor to I have much interest in it. And, therefore this is my last word on it. And, BTW, I am not asking you to believe anything. I don't care what you believe and I am not trying to persuade you. Believe what you want, but, remember this stuff is just a hobby for most, so, you might not want to over think it.



I have a feeling it won't be his 

Edit: I know, that appies to me too.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> Sounds about right from my experience and was my original point when I joined this thread: to counter all the comments that Bob Stuart, and by inference Peter Craven were con men.
> 
> Peter Craven has said, for the full and best expression of apodizing, the audio should be pre encoded. So this is why I suspect this is what is going on. If you are doing this and you know the previous ADC, you can include its behaviour too. Being secretive should not be entirely surprising.


 you can't hope to wash away the impression of dishonesty after years of marketing prepped like skilled politicians to make people assume stuff that are of different magnitudes in practice, or warn us against what isn't even defined as an issue in the first place. we could argue that no matter how much nonsense the marketing is throwing at us, some of the tech used is complicated and shows skill. we could argue that all guys coming up with a new format indulge in that BS, but that doesn't make it right. and then it's in human nature to take it personally when someone tries to manipulate us. one will not realize it, one will just not mind, another will become more skeptical, and a few for sure will get very mad and say stuff that aren't nice(poor impulse control). it's not like people have objective opinions of other people anyway. if the attacks came for no reason at all some people could be offended, but can you say we have no reason to criticize them?



Sterling2 said:


> You're expressing an opinion of what you believe is possible from what you have experienced and what you have read. My experience is a recording  which can not be discerned as being different from original performance on pretty much everything I've produced. It's not worth my time to debate it, that's to say, this stuff does not entertain me, nor to I have any interest in it. And this is my last word on it.


so you're making a point against MQA by saying we could achieve audible transparency long before it came around? 
I don't have the experience to weight in on this. but just for clarity:
are you talking about hearing the performance live in the same room, and then on speakers in another room and it was the same(in your opinion)?
or are you talking about getting the same audible sound from another room on speakers(or headphones) when the feed is live and then when you replay it?


----------



## Sterling2 (Sep 9, 2017)

castleofargh said:


> you can't hope to wash away the impression of dishonesty after years of marketing prepped like skilled politicians to make people assume stuff that are of different magnitudes in practice, or warn us against what isn't even defined as an issue in the first place. we could argue that no matter how much nonsense the marketing is throwing at us, some of the tech used is complicated and shows skill. we could argue that all guys coming up with a new format indulge in that BS, but that doesn't make it right. and then it's in human nature to take it personally when someone tries to manipulate us. one will not realize it, one will just not mind, another will become more skeptical, and a few for sure will get very mad and say stuff that aren't nice(poor impulse control). it's not like people have objective opinions of other people anyway. if the attacks came for no reason at all some people could be offended, but can you say we have no reason to criticize them?
> 
> 
> so you're making a point against MQA by saying we could achieve audible transparency long before it came around?
> ...


I'm not making any point for or against MQA. My experience is what I hear at producers station listening to  performers (music and voice) on mic inside sound booth compared to recording of same on same monitors. Without a big window to actually see performers, I would not know if I was giving instructions to a recording or to performers. One more thing, regarding MQA, it only needs to be perceived as being better for the recorded music market to embrace it. SACD is only mildly popular because most folks can't discern it sounding better than CD, except for its multi-channel capability.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> you can't hope to wash away the impression of dishonesty after years of marketing prepped like skilled politicians to make people assume stuff that are of different magnitudes in practice, or warn us against what isn't even defined as an issue in the first place. we could argue that no matter how much nonsense the marketing is throwing at us, some of the tech used is complicated and shows skill. we could argue that all guys coming up with a new format indulge in that BS, but that doesn't make it right. and then it's in human nature to take it personally when someone tries to manipulate us. one will not realize it, one will just not mind, another will become more skeptical, and a few for sure will get very mad and say stuff that aren't nice(poor impulse control). it's not like people have objective opinions of other people anyway. if the attacks came for no reason at all some people could be offended, but can you say we have no reason to criticize them?



I suppose I hoped the members of sound science would be more interested in the potential science once the marketing BS was delt with. Oh well.


----------



## Sterling2

jagwap said:


> I suppose I hoped the members of sound science would be more interested in the potential science once the marketing BS was delt with. Oh well.


This whole thread is minutia on a very mature stereo technology, which seems to be as good as it can get, that's to say, it has been about 35 years since meaningful technology breakthroughs which we all could appreciate.   My belief is improvement to listening pleasure will come from multi-channel or surround effects technology which can better define detail in orchestra works.  MQA seems more of an assurance program than a technology.


----------



## Strangelove424

bigshot said:


> I had dinner tonight with a fellow who has been involved with audio for many years working for one of the biggest audio technology companies in the world. He knows the main guys at Meridian personally, so I asked him about MQA. He spoke very highly of Bob Stuart. He said that he's a genius and a straight shooter, but apparently he was burned when his theories about apodizing filters were "appropriated" by other DAC manufacturers. Since then, he has played his cards very close to the vest and won't say exactly what he's selling. He also knows the marketing guy behind MQA too. He described him as a real "character" and said he is probably the source of the more dubious MQA claims, not Stuart.This fella hasn't heard MQA himself, but he believes it probably sounds good just on the basis of Stuart's reputation. I got the impression from him that the main mojo behind MQA is a refinement on the apodizing filter that Stuart has wrapped in secrecy and marketing to prevent other manufacturers from competing with him. He said that Stuart doesn't have any particular interest in streaming. That is just the current thing. He has plans for developing MQA for lossless, and in particular multichannel movie soundtracks. But apparently not necessarily for physical media marketed to consumers. Interesting conversation.



Interesting perspective. I looked Bob Stuart up just to see some interviews or clips. I don't believe in basing judgment of MQA on individual persons, but in this case since Bob Stuart is at the heart of this, I thought it could be eye opening. 

He seems like an intelligent person. In one interview, he flat out says that we cannot perceive the maximum dynamic range of 16 bit, so 24 is unnecessary and 32 ridiculous. Ok, "he's a rational person" I'm thinking. But he also says some other questionable stuff in the same interview without backing it up, like the noise level of air itself (I assume he means molecular energy? Anyway...). In another promo video he goes on talking about how the "folded up" bits of the music from 22khz-96khz are necessary for "low level detail" and 96khz-192khz, though inaudible, are necessary in order to make the DAC "run at a higher speed". There's a mix of the perfectly reasonable and vaporous ethereal bursting forth simultaneously when he talks. It can capture the imagination, but it also leads to factual holes, a lack of published study, and a glancing over of details, such as at the end of this video when he runs out of ways to BS the concept of time blurring and then just says "it sounds natural and it makes you smile". I also noticed he is a talented salesman. In that "musical origami" promo video, the calming nature of his voice relaxed me, his hand moving about like Obi Wan Kenobi performing a Jedi mind trick, yet signifying nothing. Whatever you think of his technical abilities, he is a powerful salesman with a practiced style and that should not be ignored. Especially since the lack of data means the salesmanship is all we have. Maybe I'm just expecting an engineer to get down to brass tacks a little more. Are my evaluations accurate or even relevant? Do mentions of Jedi mind tricks mean a damn thing? Not at all, but that is the danger of using subjective impression to judge a person, and then conflating the person with their product, mistaking trust in one for the other. Spotlighting the engineer opens the door for a cult like devotion. Or a cult like fall. Did mp3 need a spokesperson, or FLAC? To even see the presence of such a single personality driving a format is peculiar on its own.

I also notice that Bob has a penchant for creating proprietary soundtrack formats with copyright protection. He developed DVD-A and sits on the board deciding BD specs. That gave me some pause. Those formats are not known for extensive music releases, but they drive enormous revenue through the film industry's home entertainment sector and are tightly controlled. It's a strange space to occupy for someone who claims they are all about music. And now he plans to sell MQA as a format for multichannel movie soundtracks, perhaps for the coming wave of streaming? The deep pockets of the film industry (who don't mind paying for closed proprietary formats since they come with copyright protection) are jingling aplenty. 

I have no idea of the content of Bob Stuart's heart. Maybe he sees MQA as a technological revolution, a shift in frequency/amplitude capture that will rock media forever. But it could also be that Bob spent the last 10 years working on MQA (according to his own words in an interview) and eventually it came time to show revenue for his costly research. Perhaps he either sells MQA or is pushed out of Meridian. I have no idea. That's why I don't think the validity of MQA should be based on any person.


----------



## Strangelove424

jagwap said:


> I suppose I hoped the members of sound science would be more interested in the potential science once the marketing BS was delt with. Oh well.



The two are inseparable. You proclaim you want to talk about science, but when I pointed out gaping problems in the graphs depicting 'time blurring' you went on to other activities, like sniping at people. You'll probably excuse those graphs away as marketing, but then what's left? Does every failed theory from the engineering team get downgraded to marketing? Or is the other way around, and successful ideas from marketing get upgraded to the engineering team? Those graphs are as close to quantifiable science as MQA gets, and they're malarkey. But go ahead, ignore idea-based discourse, and keep taking your personal shots and one liners. It's just a sign that the substance of your point has reached a dead end. 



Sterling2 said:


> I'm not making any point for or against MQA. My experience is what I hear at producers station listening to  performers (music and voice) _on mic inside sound booth compared to recording of same on same monitors_. Without a big window to actually see performers, I would not know if I was giving instructions to a recording or to performers.



Then you're still hearing a reproduction of the music, not live. If it goes through a transducer, you can't really call it a live performance anymore. This disagreement comes down to simple ambiguity in the phrasing. I think ultimately you'd all agree. Bigshot's point that mics should sound better than reality is kind of true in my experience. A well set up mic always made me go "holy crap, that sounds better than real life!". The way a good photo allows you to see detail you didn't see in person. And in the few instances I've had to use my own voice in production, after some touch up and EQ people who know me inevitably say "hey you're voice sounded good" indicating something must have been improved over reality.


----------



## jagwap

Strangelove424 said:


> The two are inseparable. You proclaim you want to talk about science, but when I pointed out gaping problems in the graphs depicting 'time blurring' you went on to other activities, like sniping at people. You'll probably excuse those graphs away as marketing, but then what's left? Does every failed theory from the engineering team get downgraded to marketing? Or is the other way around, and successful ideas from marketing get upgraded to the engineering team? Those graphs are as close to quantifiable science as MQA gets, and they're malarkey. But go ahead, ignore idea-based discourse, and keep taking your personal shots and one liners. It's just a sign that the substance of your point has reached a dead end.



It's more that I've had a busy day, and living where I do I may be on a different time zone to you, so I chose which comments to reply to more selectively. I have been trying to talk about science for a while here but I mostly get stuff like this. As you haven't added much to the discussion that hasn't been done many times before on this thread I will leave it to later. 

You asked for a graph showing sample rates. I'd seen one so shared it. That is all.


----------



## bigshot (Sep 9, 2017)

jagwap said:


> Sounds about right from my experience and was my original point when I joined this thread: to counter all the comments that Bob Stuart, and by inference Peter Craven were con men. Peter Craven has said, for the full and best expression of apodizing, the audio should be pre encoded. So this is why I suspect this is what is going on. If you are doing this and you know the previous ADC, you can include its behaviour too. Being secretive should not be entirely surprising.



You might be right there. I have a feeling though that MQA is pretty meaningless in its present application. Perhaps they're using audiophiles to provide the seed money to develop the technology for an application where it might actually be useful. I don't know much about the economics of the audio business, but I know enough to have figured out that the money isn't in developing proprietary audio codecs for consumer use, And it REALLY isn't in developing streamable 2 channel audio. That's been done. The money is in developing audio codecs that become industry standards in the film business. He might be throwing up a lot of smoke to draw attention to MQA in the hopes of getting bought out by one of the biggies. That's my guess. Once that happens, MQA 2 channel streaming will go away and all those specialized DACs will become collector's items.


----------



## jagwap (Sep 9, 2017)

bigshot said:


> You might be right there. I have a feeling though that MQA is pretty meaningless in its present application. Perhaps they're using audiophiles to provide the seed money to develop the technology for an application where it might actually be useful. I don't know much about the economics of the audio business, but I know enough to have figured out that the money isn't in developing proprietary audio codecs for consumer use, And it REALLY isn't in developing streamable 2 channel audio. That's been done. The money is in developing audio codecs that become industry standards in the film business. He might be throwing up a lot of smoke to draw attention to MQA in the hopes of getting bought out by one of the biggies. That's my guess. Once that happens, MQA streaming will go away and all those specialized DACs will become collector's items.



Maybe, as there is talk of a multichannel development.

But remember he only got 0.5m GBP for MLP from Dolby (from memory) and that is used on a lot of formats now. Micheal Gerzon developed that for him just before he died, while he was doing the Gerzon filters (for you pro-tools fans). I met Mr Gerzon for the last time around then.

Edit: I think if it succeeds, it will spread in many areas, perhaps including the studio and broadcast. Then this thread can have a really good moan.


----------



## pinnahertz

Sterling2 said:


> You're expressing an opinion of what you believe is possible from what you have experienced and what you have read. My experience is a recording  which can not be discerned as being different from original performance on pretty much everything I've produced. It's not worth my time to debate it, that's to say, this stuff does not entertain me, nor to I have much interest in it. And, therefore this is my last word on it. And, BTW, I am not asking you to believe anything. I don't care what you believe and I am not trying to persuade you. Believe what you want, but, remember this stuff is just a hobby for most, so, you might not want to over think it.


Not just my opinion, but my experience (also in radio production, and recording), plus that of an industry-recognized authority, and tons of research.  I choose to believe that.


----------



## pinnahertz

Sterling2 said:


> My belief is improvement to listening pleasure will come from multi-channel or surround effects technology which can better define detail in orchestra works.


Agreed, because everyone can easily discern the difference between stereo and 5.1+ channels.


Sterling2 said:


> MQA seems more of an assurance program than a technology.


Yes, if it actually had the capability to assure anything, that might be true.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Maybe, as there is talk of a multichannel development.
> 
> But remember he only got 0.5m GBP for MLP from Dolby (from memory) and that is used on a lot of formats now. Micheal Gerzon developed that for him just before he died, while he was doing the Gerzon filters (for you pro-tools fans). I met Mr Gerzon for the last time around then.
> 
> Edit: I think if it succeeds, it will spread in many areas, perhaps including the studio and broadcast. Then this thread can have a really good moan.


That's a very big "if", given what it takes for anything to become an industry-accepted norm.

Tangential, but just sharing my own Gerzon story: at lunch I sat across from him as he described at great length to me, as he was prone to do, how Ambisonics had the capability to reproduce the sound of a Guillotine blade sliced downward through your own head.  I still remember his glee at this idea.  I sort of lost interest in eating lunch.


----------



## Strangelove424

bigshot said:


> You might be right there. I have a feeling though that MQA is pretty meaningless in its present application. Perhaps they're using audiophiles to provide the seed money to develop the technology for an application where it might actually be useful. I don't know much about the economics of the audio business, but I know enough to have figured out that the money isn't in developing proprietary audio codecs for consumer use, And it REALLY isn't in developing streamable 2 channel audio. That's been done. The money is in developing audio codecs that become industry standards in the film business. He might be throwing up a lot of smoke to draw attention to MQA in the hopes of getting bought out by one of the biggies. That's my guess. Once that happens, MQA 2 channel streaming will go away and all those specialized DACs will become collector's items.



Those words resonate true to me. It's the golden string that leads to the cash. And if that's their market, fine, so be it if the film studios who are all owned by conglomerates pay another conglomerate (or in the case of Warner, pays itself) for a codec that protects their intellectual property. Maybe Bob Stuart should call up Netflix or Amazon and license his tech to them. Formats typically sell themselves to their intended market based on need. But consumers don't need to pay for MQA development with their DACs, music files, players, software, etc. Especially when they're being sold a benefit that doesn't exist, or a mysterious filter that should really just be an optional DSP. This is not a "Hi-Fi revolution against mp3" as they proclaim, that's what FLAC was. If anything, MQA is just a revolution against FLAC. You're right, I can totally see those DACs being collectors items soon.


----------



## pinnahertz

Strangelove424 said:


> If anything, MQA is just a revolution against FLAC.


"Cheap" wins over expensive, and cheap/free wins over cost and quality.  If the quality differential is imperceptible, free always wins.


----------



## bigshot (Sep 9, 2017)

jagwap said:


> I think if it succeeds, it will spread in many areas, perhaps including the studio and broadcast. Then this thread can have a really good moan.



I think if it succeeds, I doubt it will even resemble the MQA we're talking about here. I think the present incarnation is just the bobber on the line. The real hook and worm is below the surface. I don't doubt that Meridian has the ability to create something important. I just don't think a proprietary, DRM locked, lossy, 2 channel, streaming format is particularly useful. AAC already does it better than MQA. It's audibly transparent at a remarkably low bitrate, it's not proprietary, it isn't tied down by DRM and it's not limited to just 2 channel audio. The only advantages MQA has over AAC to act as a justification for all that hobbling are charts and diagrams that don't say anything and vague technical explanations that aren't peer reviewed- they aren't even proven in basic controlled listening tests. None of that offers anything of value to the consumer.


----------



## gregorio

Sterling2 said:


> You're expressing an opinion of what you believe is possible from what you have experienced and what you have read. My experience is a recording  which can not be discerned as being different from original performance on pretty much everything I've produced.



The only way this statement could be true is if every commercial you've made since 1981 only contained a narrator/voice over and nothing else. Have you never made a commercial with say music behind the voice over? How did you record it, did you get a band in the studio, sit the voice actor in front of the band and record the performance or did you just source the music and then mix the VO over the top of it? If it's the latter then there was no original performance, you've manufactured a performance which never existed, from two completely different performances! What about if you had a VO with say the sound of a car driving past in the background, did you take the VO artist to a road to record, with a car driving past at the appropriate time or did you just record the VO artist in a booth, then mix the car passby from say a sound library or other source? Again, if it's the latter, then there was no "original performance" and the same could be said of any other sound FX you've ever used in a commercial in addition to the VO.

G


----------



## Don Hills

jagwap said:


> Electricity is faster than sound.



That would mean the only way to get the full advantage of MQA would be to clip the speaker leads directly to your ears...


----------



## jagwap

Don Hills said:


> That would mean the only way to get the full advantage of MQA would be to clip the speaker leads directly to your ears...



Turn it up enough and we can all "dance" to the music.

A bit of electro shock therapy may calm this thread down a bit...


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> That's a very big "if", given what it takes for anything to become an industry-accepted norm.
> 
> Tangential, but just sharing my own Gerzon story: at lunch I sat across from him as he described at great length to me, as he was prone to do, how Ambisonics had the capability to reproduce the sound of a Guillotine blade sliced downward through your own head.  I still remember his glee at this idea.  I sort of lost interest in eating lunch.




He was an interesting character. Did you know one of his hobbies was unified theory. After his death, better informed than me in the area said he was making inroads. A "Stephen Hawking" of audio. Why do the brightest get the debilitating illnesses?

Amisonics was smart. He and Craven came up with a great backwards compatable surround system.  Pity it didn't take off. I think Meridian were the only company offering decoding for domestic sysytems. Craven had a nice 4 Quad electrostatic system set up for playback I heard.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> "Cheap" wins over expensive, and cheap/free wins over cost and quality.  If the quality differential is imperceptible, free always wins.



While logical, that is often not true in the market place. If it was luxury goods wouldn't exist. Why do people rate B&O so highly (nothing wrong with it, and very reliable, but hardly good value). People can be suspicious of things that are free.

By the way, as far as the public is concerned, there is no cost-on for MQA so far. Tidal is the same price as lossless, and there isn't a visible cost increase on the playback equipment.


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## pinnahertz (Sep 10, 2017)

jagwap said:


> While logical, that is often not true in the market place. If it was luxury goods wouldn't exist. Why do people rate B&O so highly (nothing wrong with it, and very reliable, but hardly good value). People can be suspicious of things that are free.


That might apply to physical goods, but when it comes to the virtual, like music files, free has already won hands down.  Sales on download services are leveling as YouTube becomes the most played audio service.  And isn't that just the most marvelous quality?


jagwap said:


> By the way, as far as the public is concerned, there is no cost-on for MQA so far. Tidal is the same price as lossless, and there isn't a visible cost increase on the playback equipment.



I find that statement odd.  Every time I raise any objections to MQA I get accused of not owning MQA-enabled hardware.  Seems to me you have to buy that stuff, no?  So if I had a shiny new DAC that cost me 5K in gold, I'd be looking at an "upgrade" if it wasn't MQA-enabled.  Is Tidal free?  'Cuz the only free MQA I've seen is demo files, and I already own originals of my favorites.

Every time a new format is released there's a cost attached.  Throw out your VHS tapes and get DVDs.  Throw out your DVDs and get HD-DVDs, but then throw them out right away and get Blue-ray.  And the player to match each.  Thing is, the transition between any of those (except HD-DVD to BD) was clearly visible.  You could see what you paid for.

There's an old marketing principle that states that rapid market penetration of a product is only possible when it is a perceived 3-fold+ improvement over the existing product.  If you look at what has won in audio, you'll see that's pretty much true.  FM didn't win over AM for two decades until it matched it with programming, then the quality and stereo provided the percieved improvement and it took off.  CDs won with ease of use, durability and sound quality (plus a few others).  DVDs won with size, play time, discrete surround sound, handling, durability, navigation...and so on.

Things that haven't succeeded quite as fast, or well, like 5.1 surround, had negatives that offset the positives (more speakers, more expense, more complexity, etc.)

mp3 won because it was better than cassettes (mostly), and freely distributed (Napster, etc.), at least for a while, and easier to deal with (instant access, playlists, huge libraries in your pocket, no physical media, etc.).  Apple built its success by surmounting the negative issues of existing products, offering products with percieved 3 fold+ improvements, and they did it without improving price.  (Ok, they've recently collapsed on most of that, bit it worked for quite a while).

There are some product categories that have won the market by becoming the mandatory default in spite of their being terrible solutions, failing to offer 3-fold improvements, and not being cheap/free.  HDMI comes to mind first, horrible design, flakey, expensive, and unnecessary (there were already single cable solutions when HDMI arrived).  It became mandatory because of studios being touchy about high definition without copy protection.  But it wasn't/isn't better, or even particularly good.  HD Radio is another.  Bad concept, but adopted anyway (and it hasn't won any market).   HD-TV, forced change-over by the need for government funding by auctioning spectrum, so mandatory.  Better too, but not likely the best solution, and certainly not cheap. For something to become the mandatory default without consumer choice there must be a large industry pressure group or organization with a motive (HDMI Consortium of manufacturers and film companies, NAB for HD Radio, FCC for HD-TV).

So, what's the 3-fold+ improvement of MQA?  Sound quality so far is still under debate.  Is it easier?  No.  Is it faster? Less bandwidth than some codecs, more than others, and with bandwidth getting cheaper that's probably not a complete win.  Is it cheaper? Not if you need new hardware to get the full benefit.   For those reasons I don't think we will see MQA significantly penetrate the market, unless it becomes the mandatory default.  Since there's no large industry pressure group with sufficient motive, all we see is a sort of band-wagon approach, which cannot have any long-term impact, that won't likely happen either.

For MQA to succeed it needs to be a major, clearly audible improvement to every listener on devices of any form factor at very least.  If that were true, but it required the purchase of new hardware, it could achieve a slow market penetration as we all buy our favorite music for the third of fourth time, and the latest widget to play it on so we get that improvement.  But it would have to be unmistakable, not vague, and the difference indisputable (even if you didn't like it).

Frankly, FLAC has a better chance at winning a significant market share.  Already has.


----------



## Sterling2

gregorio said:


> The only way this statement could be true is if every commercial you've made since 1981 only contained a narrator/voice over and nothing else. Have you never made a commercial with say music behind the voice over? How did you record it, did you get a band in the studio, sit the voice actor in front of the band and record the performance or did you just source the music and then mix the VO over the top of it? If it's the latter then there was no original performance, you've manufactured a performance which never existed, from two completely different performances! What about if you had a VO with say the sound of a car driving past in the background, did you take the VO artist to a road to record, with a car driving past at the appropriate time or did you just record the VO artist in a booth, then mix the car passby from say a sound library or other source? Again, if it's the latter, then there was no "original performance" and the same could be said of any other sound FX you've ever used in a commercial in addition to the VO.
> 
> G


Gobbledygook!


----------



## castleofargh (Sep 10, 2017)

for those who believe in more samples, less ringing, and all the time smearing out of range "important" issues, we should just offer global compatibility for a few other PCM resolutions. like say 14/96 and 13/192. it improves the same kinds of timing stuff as MQA compared to 16/44. discards a few bits the same way, except this time you know how many and you chose. allows for gentle and/or higher band limiting the same way. weights a good deal less than 24/192. and doesn't require massive "unfolding+dither" processing on playback. but most of all, consumers would have means to do the encoding themselves.

to those who think MQA is a good thing, wouldn't that instead really be what you guys are looking _for_? if not, please explain why and what for you makes MQA better.


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## Sterling2 (Sep 10, 2017)

castleofargh said:


> for those who believe in more samples, less ringing, and all the time smearing out of range "important" issues, we should just offer global compatibility for a few other PCM resolutions. like say 14/96 and 13/192. it improves the same kinds of timing stuff as MQA compared to 16/44. discards a few bits the same way, except this time you know how many and you chose. allows for gentle and/or higher band limiting the same way. weights a good deal less than 24/192. and doesn't require massive "unfolding+dither" processing on playback. but most of all, consumers would have means to do the encoding themselves.
> 
> to those who think MQA is a good thing, wouldn't that instead really be what you guys are looking? if not, please explain why and what for you makes MQA better.


Are you familiar with Double Reed-Solomon Error Correction? This was an early means of PCM error correction. It was a feature on the Sony PCM-7000 Series Digital Audio Recorders. I still have a pair of PCM-7010F's and a digital edit controller, which I purchased for my radio advertising production business back in the mid 1990's. I still use these recorders as, alluded to in an earlier post of mine here on this thread, recordings made on these DAT recorders can not be distinguished from live reinforced sound emanating from the sound booth. What I am getting at here is it seems some folks, not you, but others here are discussing technology for a problem that is largely an imagined problem, one actually solved decades ago with technology like the kind used in the Sony PCM-7000 Series DAT Recorders.


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## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> for those who believe in more samples, less ringing, and all the time smearing out of range "important" issues, we should just offer global compatibility for a few other PCM resolutions. like say 14/96 and 13/192. it improves the same kinds of timing stuff as MQA compared to 16/44. discards a few bits the same way, except this time you know how many and you chose. allows for gentle and/or higher band limiting the same way. weights a good deal less than 24/192. and doesn't require massive "unfolding+dither" processing on playback. but most of all, consumers would have means to do the encoding themselves.
> 
> to those who think MQA is a good thing, wouldn't that instead really be what you guys are looking? if not, please explain why and what for you makes MQA better.



I like your style.  In that I like the way you argue.

However, the "13 bits" is the exagerated minimum for undecoded MQA when it is played as PCM where MQA state 15 bits typical and noise shaped.

Decoded it has far more on average, and my undersatnding is it is more like 23bits in the audable band. Above 24kHz, sure is is less and they are clear about that, as they believe there is lower level content there. Above 48kHz they chose to only be interested in the time domain content so it is not easy to quantify in dynamic rage terms.

Of course with noise shaping in the statements, it is not clear if these bit depths are the maximum, minimum, average or before noise shaping. However nobody is saying MQA is 13 bit AND 96kHz.


----------



## castleofargh

oh, I picked 13 or 14bits to be less than the existing 16(save some space), but enough to most of the time not result in audible noise floor. I wasn't thinking that it was MQA's bit depth at all.
for that specifically it seems to be a variable setting to accommodate the desired final resolution and maybe the ultrasonic signal content if there is a lot of it. to actually reach something like 13bit would occur when making a MQA file into a 16/48 container probably. but anything into a 24bit container should have more even in worst case scenarios, and probably be around 18bit in general if we trust the patent.


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## jagwap (Sep 10, 2017)

OK. The MQA claim is it has better timing resolving power than 192kHz between events, and we know that actual timing of an event, the resolution comes from bit depth. So while your new standard of losslees will give good results, MQA claim they can do better. At least in what they say matters.

So you were doing a kind of MQA "lite"?


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## castleofargh

I had it coming. 
better than 192khz is not exactly the norm, it assumes they have better than 192khz masters to work with. then it's obviously about how much we agree with their ringing paranoia. the math about resolution as I understand it(which is poorly because I forgot most of the math I learned, so correct me if I'm wrong), would still favor hard band limiting options they hate so much that they want to remove any trace of it at all steps of the production and playback. but that aside, there is nothing stopping us from applying any filter we like to PCM content or in a DAC if we happen to agree that ringing is bad. maybe they have a really good filter in their DAC(at least for what they think is best), but I would imagine half the DAC manufacturers also think they made the best compromises with their own filters. IMO the unique and proprietary parts of MQA are mostly what makes it annoying, not what makes it special.


----------



## gregorio

Sterling2 said:


> Gobbledygook!



Yep, that's what I thought when I read the post to which I was replying. The only difference is that I actually answered your post whereas you didn't answer any of the questions in mine because you obviously can't as your's was utter nonsense!

G


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> I had it coming.
> better than 192khz is not exactly the norm, it assumes they have better than 192khz masters to work with. then it's obviously about how much we agree with their ringing paranoia. the math about resolution as I understand it(which is poorly because I forgot most of the math I learned, so correct me if I'm wrong), would still favor hard band limiting options they hate so much that they want to remove any trace of it at all steps of the production and playback. but that aside, there is nothing stopping us from applying any filter we like to PCM content or in a DAC if we happen to agree that ringing is bad. maybe they have a really good filter in their DAC(at least for what they think is best), but I would imagine half the DAC manufacturers also think they made the best compromises with their own filters. IMO the unique and proprietary parts of MQA are mostly what makes it annoying, not what makes it special.



Look, I'm with you on this this in terms of what I KNOW. I think Robert Watts got it right (Chord electronics, more taps etc).

However I also know that the guys behind MQA know more than me, and more than most. So I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, until doubt is removed.


----------



## Strangelove424 (Sep 10, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> I find that statement odd.  Every time I raise any objections to MQA I get accused of not owning MQA-enabled hardware.  Seems to me you have to buy that stuff, no?  So if I had a shiny new DAC that cost me 5K in gold, I'd be looking at an "upgrade" if it wasn't MQA-enabled.  Is Tidal free?  'Cuz the only free MQA I've seen is demo files, and I already own originals of my favorites.



You sure do have to buy stuff. A whole bunch of stuff. I wasn't really clear on this myself, and when I looked it up I realized how convoluted it really gets. There's multiple levels of MQA depending on how much you want to spend.

https://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-decoding-explained

So you will not get the full MQA experience unless... A license fee is paid for the content provider who chose MQA as a format. A license fee for the software that decodes that file. And a license fee paid for the DAC hardware to do full on MQA "render". The license fees and costs stack up as you go up the MQA chain. Just an MQA file is not enough. A software player is not enough. Even a DAC is not enough on its own because you still need the software. 



jagwap said:


> OK. The MQA claim is it has better timing resolving power than 192kHz between events, and we know that actual timing of an event,* the resolution comes from bit depth*. So while your new standard of losslees will give good results, MQA claim they can do better. At least in what they say matters.



That is why MQA is essentially a lossy codec, and has no business being used as a capture or edit format. I originally thought the 22khz+ stream was separate, but now I realize they are using bits from the inaudible noise floor to store frequency information. Bit depth is essentially being sacrificed for sample rate. That might be a reasonable compromise to make in MQA's mind, but professionals need assurance about the actual bit depth they're working with before applying adjustments.


----------



## bigshot

jagwap said:


> However I also know that the guys behind MQA know more than me, and more than most. So I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority



jagwap said:


> until doubt is removed.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance


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## bigshot (Sep 10, 2017)

Strangelove424 said:


> That is why MQA is essentially a lossy codec, and has no business being used as a capture or edit format. I originally thought the 22khz+ stream was separate, but now I realize they are using bits from the inaudible noise floor to store frequency information. Bit depth is essentially being sacrificed for sample rate. That might be a reasonable compromise to make in MQA's mind, but professionals need assurance about the actual bit depth they're working with before applying adjustments.



I think that MQA isn't really focused on being a lossy codec or even a streaming codec. They probably just did that to cash in on the Pono crowd, and Pono is already on that with X-Stream. I think Meridian has its eyes on being a lossless beginning to end proprietary format designed to act as a security wrapper, controlling the end user's playback of audio files. The DRM is the main point of MQA. The talk about sound quality is just the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. Unfortunately, I think they're a day late and a dollar short on this. There are too many open formats that do an excellent job, are universally accepted and aren't hobbled... AAC, FLAC, M4V, MKV wrappers, etc. I don't see dubious claims about quality being enough to get traction on the ship that's already sailed. Consumers won't put up with having to buy a new player just to suit one proprietary format.

Here is an interesting article about X-Stream that theorizes that MQA might team up with Pono.

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/04/neil-youngs-xstream-everybody-ponos-this-is-nowhere/

That would certainly be good for both of them because it gets MQA into an environment that is already pre-sold on the importance of the unhearable. It's good for Pono because it gets them into streaming after the fiasco of their download store. The only people it isn't good for is consumers, because the current Pono player isn't able to stream over wifi. They'll have to plunk down another $500 for a new model candy stick. It sure doesn't pay to be an early adopter when the technology can't even come close to keeping up with market demands. It just gives you more respect for Apple and their music store. Apple is driving the market, not scrambling to keep up.


----------



## castleofargh

Strangelove424 said:


> That is why MQA is essentially a lossy codec, and has no business being used as a capture or edit format. I originally thought the 22khz+ stream was separate, but now I realize they are using bits from the inaudible noise floor to store frequency information. Bit depth is essentially being sacrificed for sample rate. That might be a reasonable compromise to make in MQA's mind, but professionals need assurance about the actual bit depth they're working with before applying adjustments.


 cutting into the bit depth isn't what defines lossy. not even essentially ^_^.  when we convert to 16bit wave it's a lossless format(in name) despite the discarded bits, dither, and filter if the sample rate also went down. what defines the lossless format is strictly the ability to decode what was encoded as is. MQA fails to do that in some extraction methods. I'm not clear about how, when, why, or if they can achieve lossless, but they present many scenarios in the patent, so maybe they use or could use one that is technically lossless if they also drop the dither phase? IDK. ironically, just reading the MQA file with a non MQA software, could probably comply with the idea of lossless. it's just lossless at a lower resolution than the lossy we get if the signal is fully extracted ^_^. lossy > lossless \o/


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## Sterling2 (Sep 10, 2017)

gregorio said:


> Yep, that's what I thought when I read the post to which I was replying. The only difference is that I actually answered your post whereas you didn't answer any of the questions in mine because you obviously can't as your's was utter nonsense!
> 
> G


No, I did not respond to your post because its premise was absurd, "there's only one way"; and, I just did not like your  adolescent tone.  I also have no interest in debating facts on the matter as if they were not. This site is a place where the exchange of ideas on a hobby of interest to me can be  fun, in between the stuff that matters more. But, since you are not fun, and you do not matter to me; I, therefore,  have no reason to have any correspondence with you. BTW, in Post Production all in coming recorded material, i.e. stock music, SX is identified as original as the Post begins (originates) with/from this material. The term, in context to Post Production is also described as "Source" material. These recordings sound as desired in the finished product, which may or may not be as they  sound upon auditioning. So, again in my experience, which appears is more than yours, the finished recording's sound can easily sound indistinguishable from the sources used to create the finished product.


----------



## Strangelove424

bigshot said:


> I think that MQA isn't really focused on being a lossy codec or even a streaming codec. They probably just did that to cash in on the Pono crowd, and Pono is already on that with X-Stream. I think Meridian has its eyes on being a lossless beginning to end proprietary format designed to act as a security wrapper, controlling the end user's playback of audio files. The DRM is the main point of MQA. The talk about sound quality is just the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. Unfortunately, I think they're a day late and a dollar short on this. There are too many open formats that do an excellent job, are universally accepted and aren't hobbled... AAC, FLAC, M4V, MKV wrappers, etc. I don't see dubious claims about quality being enough to get traction on the ship that's already sailed. Consumers won't put up with having to buy a new player just to suit one proprietary format.
> 
> Here is an interesting article about X-Stream that theorizes that MQA might team up with Pono.
> 
> ...



When it comes to the economics and business side, I totally agree. But I do think we need to keep exploring the tech benefits too, or lack thereof, so people can understand just how hollow the technical promises are. 

This thread gave me a whole new respect for FLAC. It's a format that showed up out of nowhere, and to be honest at first I didn't trust it. But through capability alone, I began to warm up to it. It can handle anything PCM throws at it, including multichannel, and not skip a beat. 



castleofargh said:


> cutting into the bit depth isn't what defines lossy. not even essentially ^_^.  when we convert to 16bit wave it's a lossless format(in name) despite the discarded bits, dither, and filter if the sample rate also went down. what defines the lossless format is strictly the ability to decode what was encoded as is. MQA fails to do that in some extraction methods. I'm not clear about how, when, why, or if they can achieve lossless, but they present many scenarios in the patent, so maybe they use or could use one that is technically lossless if they also drop the dither phase? IDK. ironically, just reading the MQA file with a non MQA software, could probably comply with the idea of lossless. it's just lossless at a lower resolution than the lossy we get if the signal is fully extracted ^_^. lossy > lossless \o/



Then lossy is not specific enough of a term. Let me be more precise and say it's a truncated bit depth. That means nothing for playback, or a delivery format, but it can mean a world of difference when an engineer might think the noise floor is way lower than it actually is, and over applies a DSP. It's not appropriate as production format, consumer playback aside.


----------



## Sterling2

Strangelove424 said:


> When it comes to the economics and business side, I totally agree. But I do think we need to keep exploring the tech benefits too, or lack thereof, so people can understand just how hollow the technical promises are.
> 
> This thread gave me a whole new respect for FLAC. It's a format that showed up out of nowhere, and to be honest at first I didn't trust it. But through capability alone, I began to warm up to it. It can handle anything PCM throws at it, including multichannel, and not skip a beat.
> 
> ...





Strangelove424 said:


> It can handle anything PCM throws at it, including multichannel, and not skip a beat.


 How are you listening to multi-channel with flac?


----------



## gregorio

Sterling2 said:


> No, I did not respond to your post because its premise was absurd, "there's only one way" ...



Huh, did you not read the post? There is more than one way, I asked you which way. Did you ever use music and a voice over in any of your commercials? Did you create them by having the band/orchestra/musicians performing that music live behind the voice over artist reading his/her lines and recording that performance? A couple of very simple questions which are very easy to answer, if indeed you really have been doing commercials since 1981.

G


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## Strangelove424

Sterling2 said:


> How are you listening to multi-channel with flac?



If you have an SACD, and a suitable decoder (there's one in Foobar) you can re-encode it to FLAC. I suppose there's other methods possible too, perhaps direct stream capture from a sound card into DAW and just create a new file rendered to FLAC.

FLAC supports all bit and sample rates, is open source, and thus available to encode in many programs... and supports multichannel. What's not to love about it?


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## Sterling2 (Sep 10, 2017)

gregorio said:


> Huh, did you not read the post? There is more than one way, I asked you which way. Did you ever use music and a voice over in any of your commercials? Did you create them by having the band/orchestra/musicians performing that music live behind the voice over artist reading his/her lines and recording that performance? A couple of very simple questions which are very easy to answer, if indeed you really have been doing commercials since 1981.
> 
> G


In all manner described, I have produced commercials indistinguishable from source material: Sterling Advertising (1981-2004), On-Point Marketing (2004-2007), and Sterling Images 2007-Present. Sterling Images creates slide shows with custom or stock music/sound effects bgs. sterlingimagesphotography.com


----------



## Sterling2

Strangelove424 said:


> If you have an SACD, and a suitable decoder (there's one in Foobar) you can re-encode it to FLAC. I suppose there's other methods possible too, perhaps direct stream capture from a sound card into DAW and just create a new file rendered to FLAC.
> 
> FLAC supports all bit and sample rates, is open source, and thus available to encode in many programs... and supports multichannel. What's not to love about it?


How do you do it with foobar? I've tried endlessly to get multi-channel into my computer and back out with no success. So far, I've given up to just playing my multi-channel SACD's though my Bluray Player.


----------



## pinnahertz

Don Hills said:


> That would mean the only way to get the full advantage of MQA would be to clip the speaker leads directly to your ears...


If we can eliminate a tranducer, I'm for it. Let me knoe when that direct neural auditory interface is up and running.


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## gregorio (Sep 10, 2017)

Sterling2 said:


> In all manner described, I have produced commercials indistinguishable from source material.



It's telling that you're apparently incapable of answering those simple questions. Let's try a couple more, which any actual commercials producer could answer: Ever used any sound effect, a car, bus, train, coffee maker, fireworks or anything else in your commercials? You know the next question right? .... Maybe you do make your commercials that way but if you do, you must be about the only commercials producer on the planet who does!
And, of course your commercials are distinguishable! Give me the name of any music you've ever used and one of your commercials and bet I can tell them apart ... for starters, the original source material won't have a dirty great voice over trying to sell me something all over it! Maybe I'll need to do a DBT to be sure though?

Honestly, some of the things that people come to the sound science forum spouting boggles the mind!

G


----------



## Strangelove424

Sterling2 said:


> How do you do it with foobar? I've tried endlessly to get multi-channel into my computer and back out with no success. So far, I've given up to just playing my multi-channel SACD's though my Bluray Player.



Yeah, firing up the player is not as convenient as keeping everything in a digital library. There's a lot of threads and articles on the internet for this. I don't want to get too far off topic, but I found a couple helpful links by googling "SACD to FLAC ISO multichannel". Some help tutorials involve Foobar, some don't.



pinnahertz said:


> If we can eliminate a tranducer, I'm for it. Let me knoe when that direct neural auditory interface is up and running.



Yes, I'm looking forward to the electro shock therapy jagwap prescribed for us. Because nothing says rational argument like suggesting psychotherapeutic methods of the 1940s. Perhaps he'd have us lobotomized too. We'd be far more easily rebutted.

(Sorry if I'm being a little prickly and tender about that line, I usually have a better taste for sarcasm having dished it out so often myself, but I've read of the insane asylums of the past, and methods used, and don't find that particular subject to merit much humor.)


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## gregorio (Sep 10, 2017)

Strangelove424 said:


> Then lossy is not specific enough of a term. Let me be more precise and say it's a truncated bit depth. That means nothing for playback, or a delivery format, but it can mean a world of difference when an engineer might think the noise floor is way lower than it actually is, and over applies a DSP. It's not appropriate as production format, consumer playback aside.



Lossy is quite a specific and well recognised term. Do you get out after decoding exactly the same data that existed before encoding, if yes it's lossless, if no it's lossy. Simple and applied to all sorts of data not just digital audio, video and picture/photo formats use the term extensively for example. Unfortunately, "truncated bit depth" is already used, has a specific meaning and is not what lossy codecs do anyway. You are correct that no lossy codec is suitable for production but not for the reason you've suggested. There are several reasons, probably the most obvious is the generational loss would quickly exceed even the limitations of analogue sound processing and for that reason there is no widely used pro audio software which directly supports any lossy codecs. All the pro studio software I'm aware of converts lossy formats into a lossless format for processing. MQA would be no different, it could only be be used after the mixing and mastering is complete.

G


----------



## bigshot

Sterling2, the forum has a block function that accordions up pointless chatter.



Strangelove424 said:


> FLAC supports all bit and sample rates, is open source, and thus available to encode in many programs... and supports multichannel. What's not to love about it?



AAC supports multichannel too if you put it in an MKV wrapper.


----------



## pinnahertz

Sterling2 said:


> Are you familiar with Double Reed-Solomon Error Correction? This was an early means of PCM error correction. It was a feature on the Sony PCM-7000 Series Digital Audio Recorders.


Reed-Solomon was and still is a means of data error correction, and was developed in the 1960s, used on many different data storage systems, including your PCM-7000, though hardly a "feature" as the thing wouldn't have worked without it.  That's nothing like what MQA claims to be doing, though, and is completely unrelated.


Sterling2 said:


> I still have a pair of PCM-7010F's and a digital edit controller, which I purchased for my radio advertising production business back in the mid 1990's. I still use these recorders as, alluded to in an earlier post of mine here on this thread, recordings made on these DAT recorders can not be distinguished from live reinforced sound emanating from the sound booth.


Yes, good ol' 16 bits ain't bad!  But the issue here is that the recordings absolutely can be distinguished from the original acoustic event, that heard by someone standing in the booth without the use of electronics of any kind.  That's the issue here.


Sterling2 said:


> What I am getting at here is it seems some folks, not you, but others here are discussing technology for a problem that is largely an imagined problem, one actually solved decades ago with technology like the kind used in the Sony PCM-7000 Series DAT Recorders.


Actually, no.  The problem Reed-Solomon solved is the rather astounding number of errors introduced by the storage medium.  The medium would be unusable without it.  The second layer of dealing with errors was "concealment" which took the uncorrectable errors and hid them by muting during the brief block of bad data.  All still in use in optical and magnetic storage media.


----------



## pinnahertz

Sterling2 said:


> In all manner described, I have produced commercials indistinguishable from source material: Sterling Advertising (1981-2004), On-Point Marketing (2004-2007), and Sterling Images 2007-Present. Sterling Images creates slide shows with custom or stock music/sound effects bgs. sterlingimagesphotography.com


Ok, I think I see where this went wrong.  You said:


Sterling2 said:


> Someone posted this earlier on this thread, "But this is actually the problem: no master sounds anything like the original performance because it isn't possible, or even intended. That's not what recording/reproducing audio does."
> 
> This statement is opinion, not fact. I have been a producer of Radio Advertising Commercials since 1981.* I have indeed produced commercials which could not be distinguished from the live performance, with or without sound reinforcement. With digital recording being perfected in the mid to late 1990's, a recording engineer would need to really screw up  to make a master which  did not sound like the live performance.*



If you meant your recordings were indistinguishable from the live sound monitored through the console I don't think anyone would disagree. 16/44.1 48 is certainly good enough for that and has been for a long time.  But that's not what you said, you implied you could replicate the original live event as heard without "reinforcement", and that is well understood to not be possible, nor is it the goal of recorded sound. 

Then you said:



Sterling2 said:


> In all manner described, I have produced commercials *indistinguishable from source material:* Sterling Advertising (1981-2004), On-Point Marketing (2004-2007), and Sterling Images 2007-Present. Sterling Images creates slide shows with custom or stock music/sound effects bgs. sterlingimagesphotography.com


Well, that's very different.  Certainly possible, but even so less than likely because it wouldn't serve your purpose to do so.  However, if I understand you, I think you were making the point that copies can be made of live audio signals or other recorded signals using conventional digital recording methods that are indistinguishable from the original signals.  If that's what you meant, I'll agee.  If you're trying to say your final commercial mixes are indistinguishable from the original signals, I might dispute that because lots of things should have taken place that deliberately altered those signals for the purpose. 

No sound recording and reproducing system to date has accurately reproduced complex original acoustic events with any degree of reliability.  There are huge issues with transducers, acoustic spaces, issues attempting to replicate human spacial hearing, and big, big issues with doing any of that with universality for all listeners.  But that's not what we are doing anyway.  Our mixes, music, film, even radio commercials, serve a different purpose: they create a new original event that may imply or strongly reference a real acoustic event, but only enough to be adequately convincing.  Mostly, the new event stands alone and doesn't represent any reality, nor does it try to. 

And none of that is related to MQA's claims relating to reproducing the "original" any more than their claims are related to error correction.  

You have to be very careful and precise about how you post things in the Sound Science forum.  Details and precision matter.


----------



## pinnahertz

Strangelove424 said:


> Yes, I'm looking forward to the electro shock therapy jagwap prescribed for us. Because nothing says rational argument like suggesting psychotherapeutic methods of the 1940s. Perhaps he'd have us lobotomized too. We'd be far more easily rebutted.
> 
> (Sorry if I'm being a little prickly and tender about that line, I usually have a better taste for sarcasm having dished it out so often myself, but I've read of the insane asylums of the past, and methods used, and don't find that particular subject to merit much humor.)


Sarcasm noted.  

But actually, I wasn't referring to shock therapy (which BTW is still in use with a...well...shocking degree of success with patients under total anesthesia these days, as a treatment for clinical depression among other things).  

But if there were some way to characterize the neurological signals emanating from the auditory neurons we might be able to both inject an external signal, bypassing the entire hearing mechanism, or intercept a neural signal for possible recording.   We might also inject an external signal somewhere in the brain stem.  It's all SciFi now, but count on it, it's being looked into at least for a solution to conductive or certain types of sensorineural deafness. 

So, yeah, the direct hearing interface. I hope they get it working by the time I need it.  Not sure about the entertainment uses yet.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> So, yeah, the direct hearing interface. I hope they get it working by the time I need it.  Not sure about the entertainment uses yet.



Sure, it could be great. But I see it as piggy backing a full VR direct interface. People will pay more for that. 

Of course if VHS teaches us anything, porn will be a major driving force in this area. So the audio may not be a priority over the visual and if possible " tactile" elements.

OK now we are completely off topic...

Archimago's blind test of MQA core has ended. Results soon...


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Sure, it could be great. But I see it as piggy backing a full VR direct interface. People will pay more for that.
> 
> Of course if VHS teaches us anything, porn will be a major driving force in this area. So the audio may not be a priority over the visual and if possible " tactile" elements.
> 
> ...


Ha!  I was going to mention porn and home video!  

If IMAX makes me sick, I think I'd hate VR.


----------



## Strangelove424

gregorio said:


> Lossy is quite a specific and well recognised term. Do you get out after decoding exactly the same data that existed before encoding, if yes it's lossless, if no it's lossy. Simple and applied to all sorts of data not just digital audio, video and picture/photo formats use the term extensively for example. Unfortunately, "truncated bit depth" is already used, has a specific meaning and is not what lossy codecs do anyway. You are correct that no lossy codec is suitable for production but not for the reason you've suggested. There are several reasons, probably the most obvious is the generational loss would quickly exceed even the limitations of analogue sound processing and for that reason there is no widely used pro audio software which directly supports any lossy codecs. All the pro studio software I'm aware of converts lossy formats into a lossless format for processing. MQA would be no different, it could only be be used after the mixing and mastering is complete.
> 
> G



The point is if frequency data is stored as noise you never know the true bit depth you're working with on MQA. And some people are saying the bit depth can vary depending on their algorithm. Sound engineers I have worked with were specific about using atleast 24bit for the flexibility it affords in edit, and similar is true in photo/video. The extra color depth comes in handy during color correction. I've never pushed a codec so far it broke, but I've always used high bit rates and lossless encoding, whether audio or video. Personally, I would not feel comfortable using MQA as a recording or mastering format. For many different reasons, questionable bit specs being only one of many. The mystery filter is a big question mark too. If MQA is not technically "lossless", or doesn't technically have "truncated bits", whatever the bit juggling act is called, it's not suitable for production.


----------



## jagwap

Strangelove424 said:


> The point is if frequency data is stored as noise you never know the true bit depth you're working with on MQA. And some people are saying the bit depth can vary depending on their algorithm. Sound engineers I have worked with were specific about using atleast 24bit for the flexibility it affords in edit, and similar is true in photo/video. The extra color depth comes in handy during color correction. I've never pushed a codec so far it broke, but I've always used high bit rates and lossless encoding, whether audio or video. Personally, I would not feel comfortable using MQA as a recording or mastering format. For many different reasons, questionable bit specs being only one of many. The mystery filter is a big question mark too. If MQA is not technically "lossless", or doesn't technically have "truncated bits", whatever the bit juggling act is called, it's not suitable for production.



Well just as many say here that 44.1kHz 16 bit is fine for the consumer, but 24 bit is needed for mixing, mastering and archiving, what if the MQA we see for streaming, has a higher bit depth version for mixing and mastering in the future.  Say a minimum of 24bit or more on the audio band?  Sure many here say it is not required, but could this remove your issue with this?


----------



## gregorio

Strangelove424 said:


> [1] The point is if frequency data is stored as noise you never know the true bit depth you're working with on MQA. And some people are saying the bit depth can vary depending on their algorithm. [2] Sound engineers I have worked with were specific about using atleast 24bit for the flexibility it affords in edit, [3] and similar is true in photo/video.



[1] No, that's not how pro audio DAWs work. What happens is the audio files are converted to PCM data and loaded into the DAW's (typically) 64bit mixing/processing environment, at which point their original bit depth and format does not exist and is irrelevant. So regardless of any other factor, MQA cannot physically be used for mixing or mastering.
[2] Again, no. 24bit affords no additional flexibility in editing/mixing/processing. Where 24bit is useful is in recording, where it provides greater headroom and for file exchange where significant further processing is likely.
[3] Actually, again, no, sorry. Video editing software does work natively using lossy formats, they do not convert to RAW and only process RAW and of course the final output is also always a lossy format.

G


----------



## pinnahertz

gregorio said:


> [1] No, that's not how pro audio DAWs work. What happens is the audio files are converted to PCM data and loaded into the DAW's (typically) 64bit mixing/processing environment, at which point their original bit depth and format does not exist and is irrelevant. So regardless of any other factor, MQA cannot physically be used for mixing or mastering.
> [2] Again, no. 24bit affords no additional flexibility in editing/mixing/processing. Where 24bit is useful is in recording, where it provides greater headroom and for file exchange where significant further processing is likely.
> [3] Actually, again, no, sorry. Video editing software does work natively using lossy formats, they do not convert to RAW and only process RAW and of course the final output is also always a lossy format.
> 
> G


Yes, confirmed all above.


----------



## Strangelove424

jagwap said:


> Well just as many say here that 44.1kHz 16 bit is fine for the consumer, but 24 bit is needed for mixing, mastering and archiving, what if the MQA we see for streaming, has a higher bit depth version for mixing and mastering in the future.  Say a minimum of 24bit or more on the audio band?  Sure many here say it is not required, but could this remove your issue with this?



It would need a radical makeover to become a worthwhile production format in my eyes, transparent and published specs on every process, and open source, which won't ever happen because it defeats the true purpose of MQA. But ignoring the economics and possible incompatibility conflicts of it being a closed format, on a technical level it needs to be simple. That means when someone sees 24 or 32 bits they're getting it in true audio range, not just data. When they record a frequency starting at a certain point, they're getting it. Not delayed or attenuated based on a mystery meat filter. And what does that perfectly already, transparent and simple in its operation, is PCM. 

What is the problem with PCM as a recording and mastering format? What does MQA solve? Lack of hard drive space? Data storage sizes now are ridiculous, it's not much of a concern anymore. This forceful push, wedging itself into the mastering studio, where it certainly doesn't belong, gives away the game plan. Here is a format clearly meant for delivery not production, yet it is being sold hard for production. If it is of no benefit to consumers, it's downright bad for professionals. From the first ADC all the way to the DAC in every living room, MQA wants total market penetration, and penetrated is what the market (from professional to consumer) will surely feel like afterward.


----------



## Strangelove424

gregorio said:


> [1] No, that's not how pro audio DAWs work. What happens is the audio files are converted to PCM data and loaded into the DAW's (typically) 64bit mixing/processing environment, at which point their original bit depth and format does not exist and is irrelevant. So regardless of any other factor, MQA cannot physically be used for mixing or mastering.
> [2] Again, no. 24bit affords no additional flexibility in editing/mixing/processing. Where 24bit is useful is in recording, where it provides greater headroom and for file exchange where significant further processing is likely.
> [3] Actually, again, no, sorry. Video editing software does work natively using lossy formats, they do not convert to RAW and only process RAW and of course the final output is also always a lossy format.



1. If it physically can't be used in a DAW, my point is even more valid. But it won't work as a recording format either, even before it gets to a DAW. 

2. "Greater headroom and for file exchange where significant further processing" is certainly a benefit of its own, and a likely consideration for a sound engineer.  

3. Editing files are databases that refer to source clips. NLEs don't process the footage directly until final render, or in the old days a render to preview. The newer gen NLEs work natively and use hardware acceleration for real time preview. The older stuff usually required an intermediate codec, the quality of which one chose depended on the workflow. But I'm not talking about cutting, I'm talking about color correction, and the difference between 4:4:4 and 4:1:1 original footage (not intermediate codecs, because it won't help to upsample) become evident when applying it.

btw, Gregorio, the "again, no" and "actually, no, sorry" bits you add to everything you say come off as purposefully obnoxious. It has a valley girl quality to it. It often seems your point in coming to the forum is to attempt to show off to people how much more you know of something, and often in a very rude and condescending way. I don't come here for measuring contests. And those who do tend to come off as compensating.


----------



## bigshot

I'm betting that MQA ends up being a format for multichannel movie soundtracks, not 2 channel music. For some reason, while SACDs and blu-ray audio have failed to take off, high bitrate multichannel audio for movies has become standard. You see DTS Master Audio and Dolby TruHD tracks on tons of movies, even old ones with mono soundtracks where it doesn't make a lick of difference. DVD Beaver, a big review site for movies on blu-ray, reviews audio by bitrates. They describe lossless 16/44.1 PCM soundtracks as "underwhelming" and 24/96kHz tracks "reveal further levels of detail on better systems". They review picture quality by bitrate too. Home theater folks have a jones on for big numbers I guess. Perhaps MQA wants to be the MP3 of movie streaming and downloading formats. Its sales pitch probably appeals more to home theater folks than audio folks. Personally, I think they're a bit late. M4V is pretty much a standard for commercial streaming, and MKV is the equivalent of MP3 for the "roll your own" crowd. But I'd never underestimate the power of DRM to get studios to try to impose their will on consumers.


----------



## Strangelove424

Through the Netflix app you can stream 5.1 already. My receiver indicates a Dolby Digital mix on most Netflix movies. Maybe MQA is aiming at home theater streaming eventually, and getting providers like Netflix to charge for a higher tier service, e.g. 4k + "mastering quality" 5.1. The problem is that streaming services are probably smart enough not to trust the tech, and don't want to pay constant licensing fees. And I don't think the crowd that would pay extra for it is that big anyway.


----------



## jagwap (Sep 11, 2017)

Strangelove424 said:


> Through the Netflix app you can stream 5.1 already. My receiver indicates a Dolby Digital mix on most Netflix movies. Maybe MQA is aiming at home theater streaming eventually, and getting providers like Netflix to charge for a higher tier service, e.g. 4k + "mastering quality" 5.1. The problem is that streaming services are probably smart enough not to trust the tech, and don't want to pay constant licensing fees. And I don't think the crowd that would pay extra for it is that big anyway.



You know that the Dolby Digital decode licence can be around $40 per reciever? (That's for Digital EX, ProLogic IIx, Dolby volume, etc. which all recievers decide they have to have all features)

Atmos is cheaper, as I think they have realised they are pricing themselves out of the market.


----------



## pinnahertz

bigshot said:


> I'm betting that MQA ends up being a format for multichannel movie soundtracks, not 2 channel music.


If I were betting, I'd be on MQA joining the ranks of *HD-DVD*, *Quadraphonic Sound*, *FMX (broadcasting)* and the *Elcaset*.


----------



## pinnahertz

Strangelove424 said:


> Through the Netflix app you can stream 5.1 already. My receiver indicates a Dolby Digital mix on most Netflix movies. Maybe MQA is aiming at home theater streaming eventually, and getting providers like Netflix to charge for a higher tier service, e.g. 4k + "mastering quality" 5.1. The problem is that streaming services are probably smart enough not to trust the tech, and don't want to pay constant licensing fees. And I don't think the crowd that would pay extra for it is that big anyway.


No, the problem is streaming services (all of them) work with a library of material provided to them.  It's not streaming services that would have to be convinced, it's the content providers.  No streaming service is going to encode, or re-encode their library into a format that has not even begun to penetrate the market, and no content provider will undertake that project either, especially with no visible ROI.


----------



## gregorio

There's pretty much no choice for the consumer, if they want a HD Television it must include a Dolby Digital decoder as the HDTV spec requires it. For streaming services you can theoretically have any audio format you want but the only one consumers are always guaranteed to have is Dolby. Consumers pay for the Dolby Decoder license in the cost of their TV but there's no encoding license fee. The workflow for TV is very different to that of the music business and I can't see how MQA would fit into that workflow.

G


----------



## bigshot (Sep 12, 2017)

Could you see it if a company like Dolby bought the technology and worked with studios to make it part of some proposed streaming standard?

Or say that a company like Pono bought into it for content streaming to be hard wired into their Pono player the same way the iTunes store is hard wired into the iPhone.

Or some sort of portable movie streaming tablet that docks with your home TV.


----------



## Strangelove424 (Sep 12, 2017)

jagwap said:


> You know that the Dolby Digital decode licence can be around $40 per reciever? (That's for Digital EX, ProLogic IIx, Dolby volume, etc. which all recievers decide they have to have all features)
> 
> Atmos is cheaper, as I think they have realised they are pricing themselves out of the market.



I did not know that. What are the license fees for MQA like? I'm not trying to go tit for tat, but just genuinely curious.

No excuses for Dolby, but they were early developers of a format that is a genuinely groundbreaking experience. You might not notice your first MQA song, but you sure as heck remember your first time experiencing surround sound. I also think the DSPs they've developed are valuable too, and have used the ones in my receiver and soundcard. And atleast when Dolby mentions neural response, they're actually testing for it. That said, I am not a Dolby loyalist, and I wouldn't mind at all if surround tracks went FLAC or MKV, though it will never happen. The only thing required for surround sound is multichannel support. The sound designer does all the magic. And for stereo->multi channel simulation, I found a channel mixer in Foobar recently that to me beats Dolby music too.



bigshot said:


> Could you see it if a company like Dolby bought the technology and worked with studios to make it part of some proposed streaming standard?
> 
> Or say that a company like Pono bought into it for content streaming to be hard wired into their Pono player the same way the iTunes store is hard wired into the iPhone.
> 
> Or some sort of portable movie streaming tablet that docks with your home TV.



Does MQA really have much of a streaming advantage from 16/44.1 and below? I'm trying to figure out what competitive copyrights they really have going for them, and all I can think of is their "origami" stuff. That's their compression novelty, and I don't think it's aggressive enough for streaming 6 channels of audio + HD video, or that 22khz+ really matters right now when most streaming services are struggling to offer lossless 16/44. I can't find a lick of information comparing an MQA encoded file to anything else. Have MQA software encoders even hit the market?


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> No, the problem is streaming services (all of them) work with a library of material provided to them.  It's not streaming services that would have to be convinced, it's the content providers.  No streaming service is going to encode, or re-encode their library into a format that has not even begun to penetrate the market, and no content provider will undertake that project either, especially with no visible ROI.



They did for Spotify and Apple.


----------



## jagwap (Sep 12, 2017)

Strangelove424 said:


> I did not know that. What are the license fees for MQA like? I'm not trying to go tit for tat, but just genuinely curious.



Me too. I don't think anybody here knows, but many are saying it is a license fee at encoding, streaming, decoding and hardware. I suspect they are assuming that worst case position only to support their negative views of the format.

It cannot be expensive if Audioquest give it out as a free software upgrade to the dragonfly DACs.



> No excuses for Dolby, but they were early developers of a format that is a genuinely groundbreaking experience. You might not notice your first MQA song, but you sure as heck remember your first time experiencing surround sound. I also think the DSPs they've developed are valuable too, and have used the ones in my receiver and soundcard. And atleast when Dolby mentions neural response, they're actually testing for it. That said, I am not a Dolby loyalist, and I wouldn't mind at all if surround tracks went FLAC or MKV, though it will never happen.



It already has, as blueray supports lossless 7.1 natively. However Dolby tighened its grip on the source providers to ensure pretty much all commertial disks are Dolby in some form. Their future is ATMOS and they are changing their liciense fee structure to encorage more takers. It's still $100000 to buy in though, just to get your foot in the door.



> The only thing required for surround sound is multichannel support. The sound designer does all the magic. And for stereo->multi channel simulation, I found a channel mixer in Foobar recently that to me beats Dolby music too.
> 
> 
> 
> Does MQA really have much of a streaming advantage from 16/44.1 and below? I'm trying to figure out what competitive copyrights they really have going for them, and all I can think of is their "origami" stuff. That's their compression novelty, and I don't think it's aggressive enough for streaming 6 channels of audio + HD video, or that 22khz+ really matters right now when most streaming services are struggling to offer lossless 16/44. I can't find a lick of information comparing an MQA encoded file to anything else. Have MQA software encoders even hit the market?



I heard somewhere about a 2 channel ADC coming, but nothing yet.

MQA would say that 44.1kHz 16b would still have a timing smear advantage, but that would be it. The Donald Fagen album we were talking about was MQA 44.1kHz on Tidal so that could be a test piece.

You know that Dolby TrueHD uses MQA's predecessor MLP? It's an early lossless CODEC that Dolby and DVDA licenced from Meridian designed by Michael Gerzon. Dolby bought it off Meridian and now you pay Dolby for it.

Edit: Let me clarify. I like Dolby, I've worked with them, and their tech is often great (except the original ProLogic. That was worse than Halfer). But if we are arguing about ripping off the public with lisence fees, things definately got out of hand with Dolby.

DTS similarly, although the license was more reasonable. The fact they charged you for each re-test in the thousands of dollars, and you never passed first time always bugged me.

Don't get me started on THX... Their amplifier spec was a rip off.... Oh nevermind. Water under the bridge.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> They did for Spotify and Apple.


No, "they" didn't.  Apple started a brand new business model with the iTunes store, something never done before.  The library didn't exist, so nothing had to be re-done.  With ROI from iTunes now a reality, and other download services handling .mp3, the vast majority of the music market is spoken for.  Nobody's going to re-encode for a splinter market with no visible ROI.

I'm sorry, I don't know the Spotify story.


----------



## jagwap (Sep 12, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> No, "they" didn't.  Apple started a brand new business model with the iTunes store, something never done before.  The library didn't exist, so nothing had to be re-done.  With ROI from iTunes now a reality, and other download services handling .mp3, the vast majority of the music market is spoken for.  Nobody's going to re-encode for a splinter market with no visible ROI.
> 
> I'm sorry, I don't know the Spotify story.



"They" re-encoded everything to MP3 then later AAC for Apple. For Spotify "They" encoded everything to OGG VORDIS. "They" thought it was worth it.

Also the lables thought it worthwhile to re-master to "mastered for itunes", worth the effort.

Where is the distinction in your mind?


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Me too. I don't think anybody here knows, but many are saying it is a license fee at encoding, streaming, decoding and hardware. I suspect they are assuming that worst case position only to support their negative views of the format.


If you add the license fee to the cost of remastering everything, it is not insignificant.  But where's the market to support all of that?


jagwap said:


> It cannot be expensive if Audioquest give it out as a free software upgrade to the dragonfly DACs.


What do you think it actually costs to make a Dragonfly DAC?  They sell for $100.  There's likely $10 in parts in there.  There's margin in there for license fees, especially if it's based on percent sales.


Strangelove424 said:


> I wouldn't mind at all if surround tracks went FLAC or MKV, though it will never happen.





jagwap said:


> It already has, as blueray supports lossless 7.1 natively.


...which means exactly nothing since no soundtracks are released in FLAC.  Did you know Quicktime audio files natively support multichannel too?  Who cares if you can't get any?


jagwap said:


> However Dolby tighened its grip on the source providers to ensure pretty much all commertial disks are Dolby in some form.


Dolby Digital survived the test of the theatrical sound market and multichannel DVD market, and DTV, and streaming...and so forth.  That's not a hold Dolby has on anyone, it's practicality.


jagwap said:


> Their future is ATMOS and they are changing their liciense fee structure to encorage more takers. It's still $100000 to buy in though, just to get your foot in the door.


Atmos has made some inroads in commercial cinema, but has solidly failed in homes.  It's again practicality.  It's hard enough to place 6 speakers around a non-dedicated room, 8 is worse, and now they want those ceiling speakers? Not going to happen.  The up-firing reflective ones?  Not practical either. It's a commercial fail in the home, and they know it's not the future in that market.  The Atmos police won't be knocking at your door any time soon.

$100K buy-in?  What are you talking about?


jagwap said:


> MQA would say that 44.1kHz 16b would still have a timing smear advantage, but that would be it.


No, even MQA wouldn't have gotten it that wrong.  16/44.1 isn't what creates what they call "blurring", it's the anti-aliasing filter require.  What you're still missing is those filters have taken many different forms with many different impulse response characteristics.  You cannot tie a particular temporal profile to a data format.  You can only characterize a specific filter or filters composite temporal response (regardless if it's audible or not). 


jagwap said:


> The Donald Fagen album we were talking about was MQA 44.1kHz on Tidal so that could be a test piece.


No, it can't, because we don't have the provenance!!!!


jagwap said:


> You know that Dolby TrueHD uses MQA's predecessor MLP? It's an early lossless CODEC that Dolby and DVDA licenced from Meridian designed by Michael Gerzon. Dolby bought it off Meridian and now you pay Dolby for it.


It doesn't matter, it does what it is supposed to do.


jagwap said:


> Edit: Let me clarify. I like Dolby, I've worked with them, and their tech is often great (except the original ProLogic. That was worse than Halfer). But if we are arguing about ripping off the public with lisence fees, things definately got out of hand with Dolby.
> 
> DTS similarly, although the license was more reasonable. The fact they charged you for each re-test in the thousands of dollars, and you never passed first time always bugged me.
> 
> Don't get me started on THX... Their amplifier spec was a rip off.... Oh nevermind. Water under the bridge.



Well, you certainly excel and giving me things to disagree with!  If I were to adequately respond to every issue in the above block of nonsense text, it would derail this thread beyond idiocy.   Suffice it to say I disagree with all but a point or two of it.  And don't get ME started on your cheap pot-shot at one of the best engineered set of specifications in the industry.  You clearly have no idea.


----------



## pinnahertz (Sep 12, 2017)

jagwap said:


> "They" re-encoded everything to MP3 then later AAC for Apple. For Spotify "They" encoded everything to OGG VORDIS. "They" thought it was worth it.


No, you've revised history.  The "they" that was encoding tracks to mp3 was private individuals sharing files on the likes of Napster.  That's what prompted Steve Jobs to think in terms of the iTunes store.  Apple chose AAC for obvious reasons of superiority over .mp3, a choice they could make because they were starting something new: a whole new world of music purchase by digital download.  There was no re-encoding.  They encoded stuff once when it entered the library.

As to the choices made by Spotify, their somewhere around 3% of total music distribution volume kinda makes me not care.


jagwap said:


> Also the lables thought it worthwhile to re-master to "mastered for itunes", worth the effort.


I strongly suggest you study up on what "Mastered for iTunes" actually means.  Download the PDF and read through it.  It IS NOT a re-mastring process!  It's a set of guidelines that much of what was already in the iTunes library would already meet. 


jagwap said:


> Where is the distinction in your mind?


Once you get the story right, the answer should be obvious.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> No, you've revised history.  The "they" that was encoding tracks to mp3 was private individuals sharing files on the likes of Napster.  That's what prompted Steve Jobs to think in terms of the iTunes store.  Apple chose AAC for obvious reasons of superiority over .mp3, a choice they could make because they were starting something new: a whole new world of music purchase by digital download.  There was no re-encoding.  They encoded stuff once when it entered the library.
> 
> As to the choices made by Spotify, their somewhere around 3% of total music distribution volume kinda makes me not care.
> I strongly suggest you study up on what "Mastered for iTunes" actually means.  Download the PDF and read through it.  It IS NOT a re-mastring process!  It's a set of guidelines that much of what was already in the iTunes library would already meet.
> ...



My understanding of your point was that no one is going to be interested in re-encodeing to another format.

My answer was that the content providers have done it many times already, to MP3, AAC, OGG Vorbis etc.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> No, the problem is streaming services (all of them) work with a library of material provided to them.  It's not streaming services that would have to be convinced, it's the content providers.  No streaming service is going to encode, or re-encode their library into a format that has not even begun to penetrate the market, and no content provider will undertake that project either, especially with no visible ROI.



Warner and Universal have already started. Thousands of albums

I think we are missing each other's point, as this is already happening.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> My understanding of your point was that no one is going to be interested in re-encodeing to another format.
> 
> My answer was that the content providers have done it many times already, to MP3, AAC, OGG Vorbis etc.


STILL not getting it!  

The original .mp3 coding was done be rogue individuals.  When mp3 files were finally available for sale/download, it was the download providers that coded it.

iTunes AAC was a massive coding project and had actual money returns behind it.  I can't verify this at the moment but I believe Apple did the original encoding, not the content rights owners. 

OGG Vorbis is something of an anomaly, loosing to an inferior but much more prominent codec (mp3), but being free.  I strongly suspect the coding was done by the distribution company like Spotify.  Their market share is just too small for studios to bother with, but they'll happily license their content for distribution.


----------



## jagwap (Sep 12, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> If you add the license fee to the cost of remastering everything, it is not insignificant.  But where's the market to support all of that?
> What do you think it actually costs to make a Dragonfly DAC?  They sell for $100.  There's likely $10 in parts in there.  There's margin in there for license fees, especially if it's based on percent sales.



A $100 DAC very unlikely to have any spare budget for that. The shop wants 50%. I suspect your area of expertise does not run to consumer electronics.



> ...which means exactly nothing since no soundtracks are released in FLAC.  Did you know Quicktime audio files natively support multichannel too?  Who cares if you can't get any?
> Dolby Digital survived the test of the theatrical sound market and multichannel DVD market, and DTV, and streaming...and so forth.  That's not a hold Dolby has on anyone, it's practicality.
> 
> Atmos has made some inroads in commercial cinema, but has solidly failed in homes.  It's again practicality.  It's hard enough to place 6 speakers around a non-dedicated room, 8 is worse, and now they want those ceiling speakers? Not going to happen.  The up-firing reflective ones?  Not practical either. It's a commercial fail in the home, and they know it's not the future in that market.  The Atmos police won't be knocking at your door any time soon.



There are a bunch of a soundbars with side and upwards firing drivers built in.  The ATMOS tech is pretty good in this area, even if it doesn't yet equal speakers around the room. Also with the new lisencing structure, manufacturers who want more than Dolby Digital will consider it.



> $100K buy-in?  What are you talking about?



The entry fee for a hardware decoder manufacturer before they can get access to the standard.  DTS and THX have this too.



> No, even MQA wouldn't have gotten it that wrong.  16/44.1 isn't what creates what they call "blurring", it's the anti-aliasing filter require.  What you're still missing is those filters have taken many different forms with many different impulse response characteristics.  You cannot tie a particular temporal profile to a data format.  You can only characterize a specific filter or filters composite temporal response (regardless if it's audible or not).



I know. I didn't say that.



> No, it can't, because we don't have the provenance!!!!
> It doesn't matter, it does what it is supposed to do.
> 
> 
> Well, you certainly excel and giving me things to disagree with!  If I were to adequately respond to every issue in the above block of nonsense text, it would derail this thread beyond idiocy.   Suffice it to say I disagree with all but a point or two of it.  And don't get ME started on your cheap pot-shot at one of the best engineered set of specifications in the industry.  You clearly have no idea.



I work at the other end, the decode, and the costs are all there to the user as you have stated.

My point was there have been some complete speculative accusations about the cost of MQA (sure it will not be free) and how that is unfair to the user. I'm showing that a format we all use, often daily, which is sometime technically unnecessary, very likely costs more.

I have said I like Dolby, but it isn't perfectb and is expensive to the user.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Warner and Universal have already started. Thousands of albums
> 
> I think we are missing each other's point, as this is already happening.


You're stating the term "happening" as if it's a binary function.  It's not, it's very much a relative term. 

Thousands of albums is a tiny scratch in the surface.  And there were Mini Disc albums too...that was also "happening" at one time.  Where are they now?  There were Video8 movies too...they were "happening"...find one now. 

Yes, it's "happening", but if it's to really become any sort of significant standard it has to be orders of magnitude bigger.  

That's a very different number.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> A $100 DAC very unlikely to have any spare budget for that. The shop wants 50%. I suspect your area of expertise does not run to consumer electronics.


You suspect very wrong...again.  No shop gets 50% on any hifi gear except for speakers.  And the new direct manufacturer sales has pretty much messed that up too.  You know what margins are on, say, an AVR?  If you get 20%, you're doing really well.  15% is more like it.  



jagwap said:


> There are a bunch of a soundbars with side and upwards firing drivers built in.  The ATMOS tech is pretty good in this area, even if it doesn't yet equal speakers around the room. Also with the new lisencing structure, manufacturers who want more than Dolby Digital will consider it.


The sales numbers just aren't there.  Sorry to burst the bubble.  


jagwap said:


> The entry fee for a hardware decoder manufacturer before they can get access to the standard.  DTS and THX have this too.


That's a nothing figure in the development cost of any consumer audio gear.  



jagwap said:


> I know. I didn't say that.


Here's your direct quote:

_"MQA would say that 44.1kHz 16b would still have a timing smear advantage, but that would be it."_



jagwap said:


> I work at the other end, the decode, and the costs are all there to the user as you have stated.
> 
> My point was there have been some complete speculative accusations about the cost of MQA (sure it will not be free) and how that is unfair to the user. I'm showing that a format we all use, often daily, which is sometime technically unnecessary, very likely costs more.


I have not seen you prove your point, though.


jagwap said:


> I have said I like Dolby, but it isn't perfectb and is expensive to the user.


It's only "expensive" if it's optional.  It's not, so whatever cost there is becomes part of the unit.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> You're stating the term "happening" as if it's a binary function.  It's not, it's very much a relative term.
> 
> Thousands of albums is a tiny scratch in the surface.  And there were Mini Disc albums too...that was also "happening" at one time.  Where are they now?  There were Video8 movies too...they were "happening"...find one now.
> 
> ...



OK, but you said this:


pinnahertz said:


> No, the problem is streaming services (all of them) work with a library of material provided to them.  It's not streaming services that would have to be convinced, it's the content providers.  No streaming service is going to encode, or re-encode their library into a format that has not even begun to penetrate the market, and no content provider will undertake that project either, especially with no visible ROI.



They have started.  There is some discussion as to how much is completed and the numbers vary.  I saw you latch on to the tiny number one individual has found on Tidal, but there are other reports from months ago stating over half of Warner's content has been encoded.  Again no concrete facts, which gives room to make contrary claims.  But your statement was bolean.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> OK, but you said this:
> 
> 
> They have started.  There is some discussion as to how much is completed and the numbers vary.  I saw you latch on to the tiny number one individual has found on Tidal, but there are other reports from months ago stating over half of Warner's content has been encoded.  Again no concrete facts, which gives room to make contrary claims.  But your statement was bolean.


Go ask the guy on the street if he has any .mp3, or has heard of iTunes, and what those things get him.  Mostly, you'll get an answer of some sort, even if it's a bit wrong.

Then as the same guy what MQA is and what that gets him. There will be no answer.  It's never going to penetrate to that level.  Ever.  Because .mp3 and iTunes gets the guy something tangible. 

And here's where we circle back around again: MQA offers no tangible proof of audible improvement.  None.  How hard could it be?  Oh...unless there is no obvious improvement, which seems to be the case.  So it saves bandwidth.  But bandwidth doesn't need saving.   So what does MQA get the buyer?  Except for a splinter group of audiophiles who drink the MQA cool-aid, nothing.   There's no 3+ fold improvement over what is already available.  

I think we're done.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> You suspect very wrong...again.  No shop gets 50% on any hifi gear except for speakers.  And the new direct manufacturer sales has pretty much messed that up too.  You know what margins are on, say, an AVR?  If you get 20%, you're doing really well.  15% is more like it.



OK, so we have to be pendantic: HiFi does get 50%, It changed from 40% in 1992. AVRs depend on their price and start low, but they are far from HiFi. High end AVR pre amps will get 50%.  TVs get very little until Samsung has finally bankrupted all the competion. There is very little space to add licencing something that didn't have it previously, so my point was that it is unlikely to be expensive.



> The sales numbers just aren't there.  Sorry to burst the bubble.
> That's a nothing figure in the development cost of any consumer audio gear.
> 
> 
> ...



Then if I added "format" after the 16b would that make it clearer? Probably not. Re-phrasing: "MQA would say that source material in 44.1kHz 16bit would still benefit from MQA end to end decoding as the timing smear could be reduced"

I'm a "swing voter" on MQA.  I remain to be convinced. You have convinced yourself even though the information is not available.



> I have not seen you prove your point, though.
> 
> It's only "expensive" if it's optional.  It's not, so whatever cost there is becomes part of the unit.



It is optional in 2 channel AV equipment like cheap soundbars.  They add it because they think the user does not have the competence to change his source output to PCM. So the user gets ripped of to the tune of $15 on a $100 product


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Go ask the guy on the street if he has any .mp3, or has heard of iTunes, and what those things get him.  Mostly, you'll get an answer of some sort, even if it's a bit wrong.
> 
> Then as the same guy what MQA is and what that gets him. There will be no answer.  It's never going to penetrate to that level.  Ever.  Because .mp3 and iTunes gets the guy something tangible.
> 
> And here's where we circle back around again: MQA offers no tangible proof of audible improvement.  None.  How hard could it be?  Oh...unless there is no obvious improvement, which seems to be the case.  So it saves bandwidth.  But bandwidth doesn't need saving.   So what does MQA get the buyer?  Except for a splinter group of audiophiles who drink the MQA cool-aid, nothing.   There's no 3+ fold improvement over what is already available.



So same as Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio on Blueray. No technical benefit, and costs you money.



> I think we're done.



Not your call unless you are a mod.


----------



## goodvibes (Sep 13, 2017)

Probably been addressed but all MQA encoding happens in house at Meridian. To get licensed you need to submit detailed schematics with coding etc to Meridian. It's a huge power grab with no tangible benefits other than file size with HiDef material. Trade off is that it's lossy instead of lossless and not needed in most instances because storage is cheap. It's only real benefit if you think it's good would be internet streaming and when you consider how usable bandwidth, both from servers and devices, has steadily increased over time, even that becomes questionable.


----------



## Brahmsian (Sep 13, 2017)

bigshot said:


> I think they take the 24/96 file the record label hands them. THAT'S as "authentic" a master as you can get, and it's no different than iTunes.



Except that now, if it's authenticated by the DAC, the listener can tell that it's precisely what the label, engineer, or artist approved. It hasn't been upsampled, downsampled, compressed, degraded or manipulated in any way on the web. There's a difference depending on whether I stream a particular bit of music on the Tidal desktop app or whether I stream it on the Tidal website via Safari or whether I play it on Youtube, just to mention three ways a particular bit of music can be listened to nowadays on the Internet. For whatever reason, you can't stream Redbook quality Tidal on Safari. You have to use Chrome. Meanwhile, music uploaded to Youtube can be degraded in any number of ways. And iTunes doesn't let you download the original sample rate. I think this variability is (partly) what the content providers are trying to address with MQA. When your DAC authenticates it, then you know you're getting a replica of the approved master (considering the Internet is such a wild west in terms of what you're getting).

As for which is the authentic master, if the holder says this is what we authenticate and put our stamp of approval on, then that's the one, officially speaking. You keep implying that, in every instance, it's exactly the same as the non-authenticated one, but I have already provided examples where that is not the case (where the mix is different, where the channels are inverted, and where volume isn't the same). By the way, I also found instances of artists having control of masters, so in at least some cases artists would be involved in authenticating them.



bigshot said:


> 1. I guess I don't understand what they are claiming. They're saying that they're filtering the master quality digital file to correct for errors created the last time it went through analogue to digital conversion? It's kind of like pressing the "undo" button and removing the error and turning it back into the original pristine analogue signal again?
> 
> What if the signal had been processed in the digital domain several times since it went through that conversion? Wouldn't that processing muddy the waters and make it impossible to simply undo whatever problem the theoretical error caused? I can't imagine any master delivered by a record company to be a raw transfer directly off an analogue tape master. Every distribution master would have undergone some sort of mastering or restoration or perhaps sweetening since it was digitized.
> 
> ...



1. As I understand it, that is pretty much the claim. They try to reconstruct the chain, to compensate for errors. You use the word "guess." According to them, however, it's not a guessing game but a process they developed that allows them to reconstruct the chain even in the absence of a documented trail.

2. I believe that's under way.



jagwap said:


> Not according to MQA. They are stating that the ADC and DAC is not as good at representing the analogue as it could be, so this "true" you are defining as the digital master is not their definition.



Yes, I think that's how MQA sees it.



bigshot said:


> I'm also interested in what release of Donald Fagan's The Nightfly you were comparing it to and noticing an improvement? The CD? The SACD? They both sound exactly the same (with the exception of the multichannel mix which definitely sounds better.)  What is MQA doing here? Zilch, zip, nada. If you're hearing a difference, you should go back and do a careful comparison, because it seems like you have expectation bias coloring your judgement.



1. Comparing the MQA and non-MQA versions on Tidal, one difference that I think I perceive and that immediately jumps out at me is that the non-MQA version sounds louder. If for that reason alone, I'd choose the MQA version. Maybe Tidal is intentionally making the non-MQA version louder? I don't know. But my personal preference is that I rather have to turn something up than need to turn it down for sounding harsh.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> OK, so we have to be pendantic: HiFi does get 50%, It changed from 40% in 1992. AVRs depend on their price and start low, but they are far from HiFi. High end AVR pre amps will get 50%.  TVs get very little until Samsung has finally bankrupted all the competion. There is very little space to add licencing something that didn't have it previously, so my point was that it is unlikely to be expensive.


Sorry, have to disagree.  You must be living in the world of cost vs list price.  Nobody sells at list.  Typical sales land at or below MAP.  There no 50% left there.


jagwap said:


> Then if I added "format" after the 16b would that make it clearer? Probably not. Re-phrasing: "MQA would say that source material in 44.1kHz 16bit would still benefit from MQA end to end decoding as the timing smear could be reduced"


They might say that, but doubtful, and wrong anyway.  Again, it's not the data format they think they are correcting for, its the filter.


jagwap said:


> I'm a "swing voter" on MQA.  I remain to be convinced. You have convinced yourself even though the information is not available.


You clearly have not been reading my posts.  I welcome proof.  It could convince me.  But the blatant lack of proof also says a lot.


jagwap said:


> It is optional in 2 channel AV equipment like cheap soundbars.  They add it because they think the user does not have the competence to change his source output to PCM. So the user gets ripped of to the tune of $15 on a $100 product


I assume we're still arguing Dolby Digital?  Anyway...wrong, it's pretty much required because there typically is no PCM track on a DVD, only AC3. And yes, the source output will not default to PCM, so it has to be there or there will be product returns.  It's not an official requirement, it is a practical one.  DD is going to be in there somewhere.


----------



## goodvibes

Why wouldn't you want better than real and have all that ugly mastering and altering done by the engineers 'corrected'? I've heard what it does to simple 2 mic unprocessed HiDef recordings and it sounds less like the analog master than the straight digital dub. There are a lot of variables here like the playback change original recording etc but files don't get 'better' by throwing 1/2 of them away unless you're the Emperor of Austria and think there's too many notes.


----------



## pinnahertz

goodvibes said:


> Why wouldn't you want better than real and have all that ugly mastering and altering done by the engineers 'corrected'? I've heard what it does to simple 2 mic unprocessed HiDef recordings and it sounds less like the analog master than the straight digital dub. There are a lot of variables here like the playback change original recording etc but files don't get 'better' by throwing 1/2 of them away unless you're the Emperor of Austria and think there's too many notes.


Total gap in understanding of what "Mastering" does!  Mastering is the final choice, it's intentional, purposeful, and useful. It can be a perfect copy of the original (I have done projects that way, it works!), or there can be artistic choices.  Mastering doesn't destroy the original, it IS the original.

MQA does not, cannot, and does not claim to undo mastering.  No audio codec throws away notes!  In fact, that IS the point: no lost notes, only reduced data.


----------



## goodvibes

Wow, Mr. literal. No implied actual lost notes. Watch Amadeus and you may get the obvious joke. Mastering often includes overlaying tracks. Meridian claims would be to correct errors in that digital processing. It's exactly what they are claiming. MQA takes liberties in averaging peaks and 'timing them up' to require less bits etc which is, IMO, not a good thing for this interpretive medium and it is lossy so by definition, it loses information. The higher the original bit rate, the more of them that go missing.


----------



## jagwap

goodvibes said:


> Wow, Mr. literal. No implied actual lost notes. Watch Amadeus and you may get the obvious joke. Mastering often includes overlaying tracks. Meridian claims would be to correct errors in that digital processing. It's exactly what they are claiming. MQA takes liberties in averaging peaks and 'timing them up' to require less bits etc which is, IMO, not a good thing for this interpretive medium and it is lossy so by definition, it loses information. The higher the original bit rate, the more of them that go missing.



No it doesn't...


----------



## goodvibes (Sep 13, 2017)

Really? Explain to me how it corrects timing while using less data. The idea is you are only capable of hearing up to what MQA gives you and the rest is superfluous. That it 'corrects' already tells you they are taking liberties with the data. There is also no correction to an original file without a marker. There is averaging, guessing and assumptions to eliminate those nasty useless bits. It's lossy and has to be. If you lossless compress a 24/192 file to where you've thrown away every extra zero, it will generally still be over twice as large as any MQA file which requires more processing and load on the playback device. What gets streamed on tidal is an even smaller version.


----------



## pinnahertz

goodvibes said:


> Mastering often includes overlaying tracks.


No, that's mixing, not mastering. Mastering never involves mixing tracks, it's adjusting levels, EQ and processing, but ranges from lots of all of that to none.


goodvibes said:


> Meridian claims would be to correct errors in that digital processing. It's exactly what they are claiming. MQA takes liberties in averaging peaks and 'timing them up' to require less bits etc which is, IMO, not a good thing for this interpretive medium and it is lossy so by definition, it loses information. The higher the original bit rate, the more of them that go missing.


Hold it. There's nothing right about the above. Nothing. Their claim re:correction includes only the "temporal blurring" aspects of the ADC and DAC filters. That's all, and that is of questionable efficacy.


----------



## bigshot (Sep 13, 2017)

jagwap said:


> There is very little space to add licencing something that didn't have it previously, so my point was that it is unlikely to be expensive.




I read the other day that the Dolby royalties for audio in DVDs were expiring. I'm no expert in this area, but I know they pushed to get their technology written into the standards so they would get a piece of every DVD sold. I can see a company like Dolby buying out Meridian and rolling it into some of their current standards just to start the patent clock ticking and extend their control. It might not look like it's expensive to the end user, because it would be way below the surface, but it would still amount to an awful lot of money.



Brahmsian said:


> Except that now, if it's authenticated by the DAC, the listener can tell that it's precisely what the label, engineer, or artist approved. It hasn't been upsampled, downsampled, compressed, degraded or manipulated in any way on the web.



Exactly like Apple's iTunes store.

By the way, "louder" and "harsh sounding" are two quite different things. Harsh implies frequency response imbalances or distortion, which I doubt that a streaming service would be responsible for causing. Have you tried balancing the line level before comparing? It may be the exact same sound, just at a different volume level.


----------



## goodvibes

pinnahertz said:


> No, that's mixing, not mastering. Mastering never involves mixing tracks, it's adjusting levels, EQ and processing, but ranges from lots of all of that to none.
> 
> Hold it. There's nothing right about the above. Nothing. Their claim re:correction includes only the "temporal blurring" aspects of the ADC and DAC filters. That's all, and that is of questionable efficacy.


You're picking nits as reverb can be added to separate tracks etc. It's much the same and engineers tend to not differentiate like that. What do you think they are implying here. Lining up multiple adc's etc in a mix and timing it up. What introduces 'temporal blurring' other than multiples falling out of line due latency etc.  I fully agree it of questionable efficacy and extremely vague. It's an artifact of the process they claim to be an advantage.


----------



## castleofargh

goodvibes said:


> Really? Explain to me how it corrects timing while using less data. The idea is you are only capable of hearing up to what MQA gives you and the rest is superfluous. That it 'corrects' already tells you they are taking liberties with the data. There is also no correction to an original file without a marker. There is averaging, guessing and assumptions to eliminate those nasty useless bits. It's lossy and has to be. If you lossless compress a 24/192 file to where you've thrown away every extra zero, it will generally still be over twice as large as any MQA file which requires more processing and load on the playback device. What gets streamed on tidal is an even smaller version.


first they make claims about timing, not about absolute resolution or fidelity. because that indeed wouldn't stand. now for timing, the basic simple trick is using higher sample rate. as they then compare the MQA 48khz container to a 48khz PCM, magic, they have better timing information as in the container they have 96khz sample rate. it's a trick and at the same time it isn't. 
another aspect they claim to improve and they do, is that they reduce ringing at the band limiting frequency nobody really cares about but them. they do that by keeping high sample rate and by going for what I imagine to be a mix of filters the same way many moderns DACs do. they then want to play that game at the ADC, while selecting the output format and filter type of albums to be released, and at the DAC. the end result is that, congrats the ringing is almost gone and they can show a Dirac pulse for everybody to misinterpret how it looks, for fidelity. :/   of course his comes at a price. for a general idea only, you can think of using only an analog EQ to low pass. when you mess with FR you also change phase, and vice versa. here the entire philosophy of MQA is "we go all in for the time domain!". bit depth, boom pay the price. frequency response, boom pay the price. but they aren't lying about that, they really take great care of one out of 2 variables to define the signal. 

as for file size, and lossy, yes the format is in some ways lossy as soon as they apply dither or go for some lossy compression of the ultrasonic data as they seem to have the choice to do. but the file size of a 24/192 isn't evidence of it. because no MQA content will ever be 24/192. once extracted it will be more like 18/192 maybe, maybe less. so right there you save a good deal of space. lower resolution does that ^_^.


----------



## goodvibes

Less would be a good assumption.


----------



## pinnahertz (Sep 13, 2017)

goodvibes said:


> You're picking nits as reverb can be added to separate tracks etc. It's much the same and engineers tend to not differentiate like that. What do you think they are implying here. Lining up multiple adc's etc in a mix and timing it up. What introduces 'temporal blurring' other than multiples falling out of line due latency etc.  I fully agree it of questionable efficacy and extremely vague. It's an artifact of the process they claim to be an advantage.


It might be worth your while to pay close attention to those of us with actual hands-on experience in the recording industry.  You know, the actual "sound engineers".

You have blended the mixing and mastering processes into one, but in the professional world they are separate.  Referring to processes such as reverb applied on a per-track basis has nothing to do with the claims about temporal blurring made by MQA. 

In any multitrack recording system all ADCs are clocked together via one of several master clock methods. They are lined up by default and of necessity, but if one ADC didn't follow the master clock it could never be corrected once in the mix, not by MQA or any other method.  And that's not what MQA claims to fix either.

MQAs reference to temporal blurring relates to the temporal response of a single ADC  channel caused primarily by the anti-aliasing input filter.  That response can be seen as phase response, group delay, or impulse response which are all different windows on the same data. The inputs of a multitrack recording system are mostly identical, but  even if they aren't, unless they're sharing at least part of the same signal with each other, and other channel timing differences are simply not an issue.  What MQ a claims is a problem is the time response of individual anti-aliasing and reconstruction filters, which they claim to correct, and they claim makes an audible difference. There is, of course, no real evidence,  and given the lack of information about the types of filters and how they were used in any complex recording system, this would seem to be an impossibility.

MQA makes no claim to be able to be able to undo mixing or mastering, they're only looking at impulse response of filters.


----------



## Strangelove424

jagwap said:


> Me too. I don't think anybody here knows, but many are saying it is a license fee at encoding, streaming, decoding and hardware. I suspect they are assuming that worst case position only to support their negative views of the format.



I am one of the people saying there will be a fee at encoding, streaming, decoding, and hardware... because that seems to be what's required for the full experience. Those assumptions are perfectly rational, and one of the fundamental problems they (me included) have with the format.



jagwap said:


> It cannot be expensive if Audioquest give it out as a free software upgrade to the dragonfly DACs.



That is faulty reasoning. They could have a deal with Dragonfly in order to have a cheap DAC on the market to help promote the format.



jagwap said:


> It already has, as blueray supports lossless 7.1 natively.



What they choose to distribute is a different matter altogether. 



jagwap said:


> I heard somewhere about a 2 channel ADC coming, but nothing yet.



Hold on a second, there's no software encoder from PCM? That's what they must mean by their direct "analogue to analogue" experience. ADC->DAC, no conversion. I imagine the excuse for this kind of lock down over the encoders is their "authenticated" experience, but that makes direct comparison to PCM impossible for anyone but big labels. It's not an acceptable recording format, it has no business being used as the sole ADC source. Yet PCM to MQA conversion is impossible without software encoders. We know they exist, the conversion of digital masters to Tidal has been discussed ad nauseam already, so how did Tidal get ahold of the MQA versions? An MQA software converter exists. It must exist. What they plan on doing with it, or if it will ever become publically available appears to be anyone's guess.

This is looking more and more like vaporware to me. Not even a bum format. Just vaporware.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> first they make claims about timing, not about absolute resolution or fidelity. because that indeed wouldn't stand. now for timing, the basic simple trick is using higher sample rate. as they then compare the MQA 48khz container to a 48khz PCM, magic, they have better timing information as in the container they have 96khz sample rate. it's a trick and at the same time it isn't.
> another aspect they claim to improve and they do, is that they reduce ringing at the band limiting frequency nobody really cares about but them. they do that by keeping high sample rate and by going for what I imagine to be a mix of filters the same way many moderns DACs do. they then want to play that game at the ADC, while selecting the output format and filter type of albums to be released, and at the DAC. the end result is that, congrats the ringing is almost gone and they can show a Dirac pulse for everybody to misinterpret how it looks, for fidelity. :/   of course his comes at a price. for a general idea only, you can think of using only an analog EQ to low pass. when you mess with FR you also change phase, and vice versa. here the entire philosophy of MQA is "we go all in for the time domain!". bit depth, boom pay the price. frequency response, boom pay the price. but they aren't lying about that, they really take great care of one out of 2 variables to define the signal.
> 
> as for file size, and lossy, yes the format is in some ways lossy as soon as they apply dither or go for some lossy compression of the ultrasonic data as they seem to have the choice to do. but the file size of a 24/192 isn't evidence of it. because no MQA content will ever be 24/192. once extracted it will be more like 18/192 maybe, maybe less. so right there you save a good deal of space. lower resolution does that ^_^.



Actually I think they can do this without altering the phase, and it is this that is new.  Say you want a low pass filter.  One pole with give you 90 degrees phase shift, and 45 at the 3dB point. You cannot fix that.  If you want 2 pole you get double that.  Unless you do one of the poles in the digital domain, and you do it effectively backwards in the time domain (which you can do if you have the file).  Then the phase in the forward playback direction is reversed.  Add this to the other filter and you get cancellation, zero phase shift, and a 2 pole 12dB per octave low pass.  Magic.  It is FILTFILT in Mathcad

Obviously MQA version is a bit more complex, as they are compensating for a bunch of different ADCs and DACs.

"we go all in for the time domain!" is inaccurate, because while they are trying to do better there than others have before, apodizing tended to damage the HF through slow extra roll-off in the pass band, so they can fix that too.  I think it is time the time domain got some attention.  Everyone seems obsessed with fixing the frequency response, which is fine, but all the f-ing about with EQ screws up the phase response as you say above, especially in the LF.


----------



## jagwap

Strangelove424 said:


> I am one of the people saying there will be a fee at encoding, streaming, decoding, and hardware... because that seems to be what's required for the full experience. Those assumptions are perfectly rational, and one of the fundamental problems they (me included) have with the format.



That doesn't require actual fees at each stage. See above for discussion on Dobly



> That is faulty reasoning. They could have a deal with Dragonfly in order to have a cheap DAC on the market to help promote the format.



Perhaps, but that would put it isn direct competion with their own Explorer II, which discounted is 129 GBP (apparently we can consider discounts to make our point, see above)



> What they choose to distribute is a different matter altogether.



Sure but that wasn't my point.  Dolby here is redundant, as people here are claiming MQA is redundant, even though Dolby does nothing here, and MQA makes the file "smaller and better"



> Hold on a second, there's no software encoder from PCM? That's what they must mean by their direct "analogue to analogue" experience. ADC->DAC, no conversion. I imagine the excuse for this kind of lock down over the encoders is their "authenticated" experience, but that makes direct comparison to PCM impossible for anyone but big labels. It's not an acceptable recording format, it has no business being used as the sole ADC source. Yet PCM to MQA conversion is impossible without software encoders. We know they exist, the conversion of digital masters to Tidal has been discussed ad nauseam already, so how did Tidal get ahold of the MQA versions? An MQA software converter exists. It must exist. What they plan on doing with it, or if it will ever become publically available appears to be anyone's guess.
> 
> This is looking more and more like vaporware to me. Not even a bum format. Just vaporware.



Now I or you are confused.  I was talking about a possible domestic ADC.  So the pubic can play.  What is the issue there?


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## goodvibes (Sep 13, 2017)

pinnahertz said:


> It might be worth your while to pay close attention to those of us with actual hands-on experience in the recording industry.  You know, the actual "sound engineers".
> 
> You have blended the mixing and mastering processes into one, but in the professional world they are separate.  Referring to processes such as reverb applied on a per-track basis has nothing to do with the claims about temporal blurring made by MQA.
> 
> ...


You know not to whom you speak so don't be so sure about what I do or know. What their process does to anti aliasing filters would have the effect I'm speaking of in the overall signal processing. They're likely lining up peaks which would save bits and allow them to claim better timing or correction. We're not really in disagreement here but like you, I don't think their claim can be accomplished and is just some 'optimizing'. My opinion is that it affects more than just their claim. Whether you're mixing or mastering, you are still dithering and rendering files.


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## jagwap

goodvibes said:


> You know not to whom you speak so don't be so sure about what I do or know. What their process does to anti aliasing filters would have the effect I'm speaking of in the overall signal processing. They're likely lining up peaks which would save bits and allow them to claim better timing or correction. We're not really in disagreement here but like you, I don't think their claim can be accomplished and is just some 'optimizing'. My opinion is that it affects more than just their claim. Whether you're mixing or mastering, you are still dithering and rendering files.



Look at the curves MQA supply showing how they are differentiating peak with more resolution than 192kHz 24b and you may see why some here feel you may not be well informed.

MQA throws away the MSB above 20kHz, not what you are saying


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## goodvibes (Sep 13, 2017)

It's arguable that time recognition extends beyond what is achievable by normal hearing bandwidth and losing bit depth can have a similar theoretical effect. They make assumptions and play by their rules which allows them to make the claims they do and lose what they feel are insignificant bits. I know I'm reading in but there's only so many ways you can do what they claim.


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## jagwap

goodvibes said:


> It's arguable that time recognition extends beyond what is achievable by normal hearing bandwidth



That may be MQAs argument, and why they are going to all this trouble. Many here do not believe it to be true.



> and losing bit depth can have a similar theoretical effect.



If it were the LSB. But MQA almost entirely loses the MSB in the ultrasonic frequencies.



> They make assumptions and play by their rules which allows them to make the claims they do and lose what they feel are insignificant bits.



Yes, as does everyone. 192kHz 24b PCM loses samples and bits compared to 384kHz 32b. At some point someone decides what is enough.


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## bigshot (Sep 13, 2017)

goodvibes said:


> It's arguable that time recognition extends beyond what is achievable by normal hearing bandwidth and losing bit depth can have a similar theoretical effect.



Are we talking about listening to music on home audio equipment here, or are we talking about brainwaves? If we're talking about listening to music, the normal perceptual thresholds are the best I can detect and I'm quite sure that's true of all other human beings too. Bats and dogs might feel differently, but they can buy their own stereos.


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## Strangelove424

jagwap said:


> Now I or you are confused.  I was talking about a possible domestic ADC.  So the pubic can play.  What is the issue there?



It's always good when the pubic can play.  Couldn't resist. Anyway...

I originally asked if there were software encoders on the market, not ADCs. Software encoders allow for digital conversion from PCM, not just analogue. The purpose of which would be to make comparisons of PCM files rendered to both MQA and FLAC. Not MQA's sample files, or people on the internet decoding and re-encoding using their own strange methods (including archimago's unfortunately). The structure of MQA has made this impossible. Or disregarding comparison, what if I was simply not in a position to record direct to MQA, but wanted to include MQA as one of many delivery codecs? And, again, don't tell me that MQA is an analogue to analogue only process that needs an ADC in order to be authorized, because the existence of MQA versions of digital-only masters on Tidal completely disproves that.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> Actually I think they can do this without altering the phase, and it is this that is new.


Wow, that _would_ be new!  Altering time response without altering phase.  Too bad the two are inseparable.  But if you have a link to where they make that claim, I'd be happy to read it.


jagwap said:


> Say you want a low pass filter.  One pole with give you 90 degrees phase shift, and 45 at the 3dB point. You cannot fix that.


Incorrect.  That phase response, and many others, can be compensated for with a properly designed all-pass filter.   An all-pass filter is a filter with flat amplitude response but non-flat phase response.  It can be constructed with multiple poles which, if properly aligned, can compensate for the phase response of another filter.  It's not a new idea, it's been done for many years.  And that all could be done in the analog domain, so even easier and more precise in the digital domain.

 An aside: all-pass filters have found many applications in audio. Two major ones would be the encoding process for quadraphonic 4-2-4 systems, and the encoding process for Dolby Stereo/ProLogic, also a 4-2-4 matrix, though neither of those applications involve correcting filter phase response. 


jagwap said:


> If you want 2 pole you get double that.


Also incorrect.  The specific phase response of a high-order filter depends on its alignment, and it changes radically from something like a Butterworth vs Elliptical, for example. Both topologies can have the same cutoff frequency and same number of poles, but entirely different amplitude and phase response. 


jagwap said:


> Unless you do one of the poles in the digital domain, and you do it effectively backwards in the time domain (which you can do if you have the file).
> Then the phase in the forward playback direction is reversed.  Add this to the other filter and you get cancellation, zero phase shift, and a 2 pole 12dB per octave low pass.  Magic.  It is FILTFILT in Mathcad
> 
> Obviously MQA version is a bit more complex, as they are compensating for a bunch of different ADCs and DACs.


Remember two things about that compensation.  First, it's compensating for an unknown group of cascaded filters (not the ADC or DAC, but the associated filters), and second, that compensation has no confirmed audible effect.


jagwap said:


> Everyone seems obsessed with fixing the frequency response, which is fine, but all the f-ing about with EQ screws up the phase response as you say above, especially in the LF.


No, if you "fix" HF frequency response properly you don't mess up phase response, especially if the "fix" is complimentary.  If not, the phase response changes in the HF band, not LF.  It's pretty hard to change phase response in LF without doing something pretty radical like a filter.


----------



## pinnahertz (Sep 14, 2017)

goodvibes said:


> You know not to whom you speak


It's a Forum.  We aren't using our real names or filling in details in our profiles.  It works both ways.


goodvibes said:


> so don't be so sure about what I do or know.


Apologies if I've judged you.  I only have what you post on which to base any assumptions.  You're not giving me much.  Perhaps if we actually knew each other we wouldn't be quite so argumentative.  Oh well, so goes the forum.


goodvibes said:


> What their process does to anti aliasing filters would have the effect I'm speaking of in the overall signal processing. They're likely lining up peaks which would save bits and allow them to claim better timing or correction. We're not really in disagreement here but like you, I don't think their claim can be accomplished and is just some 'optimizing'. My opinion is that it affects more than just their claim.


I get your point.  The way I see it is you can't correct for what you don't know, and each filter has a certain time characteristic.  Cascading them doesn't cause those characteristics to add linearly unless the filters are identical and there's no absolute guarantee of that in any recording.  So the correction needs to encompass everything, which they really don't have, don't know, and therefore can't do.  I think assuming you're correcting the first ADC filter does nothing because of all the processing and filtering that goes on down stream. 


goodvibes said:


> Whether you're mixing or mastering, you are still dithering and rendering files.


No, not necessarily dithering or rendering until the final mixdown.  There's no need to dither when the internal DAW processing is 64bit FP math.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Wow, that _would_ be new!  Altering time response without altering phase.  Too bad the two are inseparable.  But if you have a link to where they make that claim, I'd be happy to read it.



I didn't say that.  I was referring to "for a general idea only, you can think of using only an analog EQ to low pass. when you mess with FR you also change phase, and vice versa."



> Incorrect.  That phase response, and many others, can be compensated for with a properly designed all-pass filter.



Only up to a point.  At some point the correction higher out of band the correction has to end.



> An all-pass filter is a filter with flat amplitude response but non-flat phase response.  It can be constructed with multiple poles which, if properly aligned, can compensate for the phase response of another filter.  It's not a new idea, it's been done for many years.  And that all could be done in the analog domain, so even easier and more precise in the digital domain.
> 
> An aside: all-pass filters have found many applications in audio. Two major ones would be the encoding process for quadraphonic 4-2-4 systems, and the encoding process for Dolby Stereo/ProLogic, also a 4-2-4 matrix, though neither of those applications involve correcting filter phase response.
> Also incorrect.  The specific phase response of a high-order filter depends on its alignment, and it changes radically from something like a Butterworth vs Elliptical, for example. Both topologies can have the same cutoff frequency and same number of poles, but entirely different amplitude and phase response.



OK, but I was trying to keep it simple. More poles, more phase shift, unless this less conventional approach.  There are less experienced people here and if I say "2 cascaded butterworth filters to make part of a Linkwitz-Riley crossover" it would fit the pendantic, but lose many.



> Remember two things about that compensation.  First, it's compensating for an unknown group of cascaded filters (not the ADC or DAC, but the associated filters), and second, that compensation has no confirmed audible effect.



But you can correct the known items.  If those are within your closed system they add less errors over all.  If ADC and DAC are known (and their associated filters), then this much can be compensated, if there is anything to compensate.

No, if you "fix" HF frequency response properly you don't mess up phase response, especially if the "fix" is complimentary.  If not, the phase response changes in the HF band, not LF.  It's pretty hard to change phase response in LF without doing something pretty radical like a filter.[/QUOTE]

I didn't say an HF filter changes the LF.  I was saying EQing the LF screws up the phase and timing a lot more than the HF.  Look at a non steady state waveform through a sub crossover some time. Distortion doesn't cover the damage.  Corruption is a better description.

The technique I outlined is Very complementary as you can have zero phase shift DC to light.  All pass cannot do that.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I didn't say that.  I was referring to "for a general idea only, you can think of using only an analog EQ to low pass. when you mess with FR you also change phase, and vice versa."


Did I misunderstand this?


jagwap said:


> Actually I think they can do this without altering the phase, and it is this that is new.





jagwap said:


> Only up to a point.  At some point the correction higher out of band the correction has to end.


You said it was impossible before. Now the above sentence grammar is too ragged to decode.  One more try?


jagwap said:


> OK, but I was trying to keep it simple. More poles, more phase shift, unless this less conventional approach.  There are less experienced people here and if I say "2 cascaded butterworth filters to make part of a Linkwitz-Riley crossover" it would fit the pendantic, but lose many.


I'm ok with simple right up to the point where the statement is just plain wrong.  You can call it pedantic if you like, I'm fine with that.  But if it's wrong I'm going to object.


jagwap said:


> But you can correct the known items. If those are within your closed system they add less errors over all.  If ADC and DAC are known (and their associated filters), then this much can be compensated, if there is anything to compensate.


Sure.  As I said, they don't have that for the entire chain, and very very fortunate if they have even one filter known.  The whole thing is rediculous.


jagwap said:


> I didn't say an HF filter changes the LF.


Did I misunderstand this?


jagwap said:


> Everyone seems obsessed with fixing the frequency response, which is fine, but all the f-ing about with EQ screws up the phase response as you say above, especially in the LF.





jagwap said:


> I was saying EQing the LF screws up the phase and timing a lot more than the HF.  Look at a non steady state waveform through a sub crossover some time. Distortion doesn't cover the damage.  Corruption is a better description.


I agree EQing a sub has some phase issues, but the actual amount of phase shift in a anti-aliasing LPF is massive by comparison.  What does LF EQ have to do with MQA anyway?


jagwap said:


> The technique I outlined is Very complementary as you can have zero phase shift DC to light.  All pass cannot do that.


You're going in circles, and the vertigo is killing us.  First you say you can't correct a single pole filter's phase shift, then you outline a fully complimentary correction with zero phase shift DC to light (which is impossible of course).  Which is it?  Can we pin down some actual, real, practical things here?


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> Did I misunderstand this?
> 
> You said it was impossible before. Now the above sentence grammar is too ragged to decode.  One more try?
> I'm ok with simple right up to the point where the statement is just plain wrong.  You can call it pedantic if you like, I'm fine with that.  But if it's wrong I'm going to object.
> ...



I don't have time for the smaller points, but conventional filtering cannot compensate phase. Complementary filtering in the reverse time domain can pre compensate it exaclty if you want an even order filter. I have explained this a few times. It is my guess as to one of the things they are doing as they have this ability as they can work on the completed file. Sorry if you don't get it.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I don't have time for the smaller points, but conventional filtering cannot compensate phase. Complementary filtering in the reverse time domain can pre compensate it exaclty if you want an even order filter. I have explained this a few times. It is my guess as to one of the things they are doing as they have this ability as they can work on the completed file. Sorry if you don't get it.


If by "smaller points" you me "accuracy", I get that.  I'll just continue to put it right.  Or, you could take the time to get it right the first time, your call.   Yes, I do get it, as to what MQA is doing, or at least attempting.  Yes, you can pretty much perfectly correct for one or more well characterized filters.  If they know the filter, have the data, sure they can do that.  And I get that you can post process a file and pre compensate.  That isn't the problem I'm having here.

The problems are (in no particular order): 
1. Posts with blatantly wrong statements (which then get reversed in later posts).  I quote the post, then the poster says he never said that (though it was a direct quote). Then we end up agreeing, and I'm labeled "pedantic".  
2. MQA's claim of being able to reproduce the original performance
3. MQA's claim that they can correct for "blurring", when the causes are multiple and unknown
4. that any of this makes any audible difference.
5. Yes, all-pass filtering can correct for phase.  There have been examples for many, many years.  Here's one: FM Stereo requires the use of a filter nearly identical to an anti-aliasing filter in a digital system.  In FM Stereo that filter keeps audio out of the 19kHz pilot signal.  Those filters were analog.  FM modulation processing involves deliberate audio clipping, but the clipped waveform caused those filters to ring and overshooting the target 100% modulation limit, partially (largely) as a result of their poor phase response.  One manufacturer remedied the situation by phase compensating those filters with complimentary phase all-pass filters.  The resulting filter had far less phase distortion, and rang far less, and permitted higher modulation levels.  That technique became quite popular.  Early attempts at ADC anti-aliasing filters were also analog of course.  During the early days of digital audio many blamed those filters for the harsh sound of digital, so several companies developed phase-compensated filters as an after-market upgrade.  That compensation was also done with all-pass networks.  The results were mixed, mostly because the harshness being complained about wasn't related directly to the phase response of the filters.  

Just a few instances from history where analog filters were phase corrected using all-pass filters.  There are more, of course.  No, that kind of phase comp isn't perfect, and certainly if you were in the digital domain and had "time" you could produce a complimentary phase comp filter.  That's not the argument here.  Of course it can be done.  And of course MQA is probably doing that.  Of course, it doesn't matter because the results remain unproven as to their audibility.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> Actually I think they can do this without altering the phase, and it is this that is new.  Say you want a low pass filter.  One pole with give you 90 degrees phase shift, and 45 at the 3dB point. You cannot fix that.  If you want 2 pole you get double that.  Unless you do one of the poles in the digital domain, and you do it effectively backwards in the time domain (which you can do if you have the file).  Then the phase in the forward playback direction is reversed.  Add this to the other filter and you get cancellation, zero phase shift, and a 2 pole 12dB per octave low pass.  Magic.  It is FILTFILT in Mathcad
> 
> Obviously MQA version is a bit more complex, as they are compensating for a bunch of different ADCs and DACs.
> 
> "we go all in for the time domain!" is inaccurate, because while they are trying to do better there than others have before, apodizing tended to damage the HF through slow extra roll-off in the pass band, so they can fix that too.  I think it is time the time domain got some attention.  Everyone seems obsessed with fixing the frequency response, which is fine, but all the f-ing about with EQ screws up the phase response as you say above, especially in the LF.


of course I talked about analog EQ just to give the most basic example of what is really just the amplitude and phase relation of any sine and how we can ultimately, kind of transfer the data from one to the other to make time look better while keeping the same absolute resolution. I wasn't inferring in any way that MQA's modus operandi was that limited. it's just that I've argued about EQ with @goodvibes and knew he would get that example.
for the all situation, we'd have to consider aliasing/where to achieve practical band limiting/sample rate, FR/bit depth, ringing/phase, as related components of what gives the final resolution(am I missing something?). so there is a lot to play with, and indeed the digital+analog filters open a lot of doors. a chance to really control the entire chain could be ideal for that, but would really limit post processing to make the album. that's why I don't see that part happening as a standard of anything. 
everybody so far went with trying to stick as close as possible to Nyquist-Shannon's less than ten commandments ^_^. and by doing so, ringing outside the audible range was almost always the one to drink at least at low sample rates. MQA and a few other guys have other priorities and say that ringing no matter where is the worst thing that happened to music since Lil B. so which variable is going to pay instead? amplitude is a certainty with less bits. FR is highly probable, the real question being when does the roll off start and does it matter? aliasing? well that will depend on FR. it's nothing new, what changed is the anti-ringing obsession for a minority of people.

all that is splitting air about true fidelity of course. because it's all happening at high frequency and sample rate. on MQA the lowest is 96khz, I'll be the first one to say that I don't care and really don't find any of it really wrong. I'm very fine with gentle roll off in DACs when playing high sample rate music, or whatever more advanced filter they decided to implement. so I'm personally fine with pretty much anything including MQA in the sense that I do not believe it will change audio for me in any way. that's about the only support I can offer to MQA. "it will do nothing for me". every other aspects make me dislike MQA and wish it was already gone.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> of course I talked about analog EQ just to give the most basic example of what is really just the amplitude and phase relation of any sine and how we can ultimately, kind of transfer the data from one to the other to make time look better while keeping the same absolute resolution. I wasn't inferring in any way that MQA's modus operandi was that limited. it's just that I've argued about EQ with @goodvibes and knew he would get that example.
> for the all situation, we'd have to consider aliasing/where to achieve practical band limiting/sample rate, FR/bit depth, ringing/phase, as related components of what gives the final resolution(am I missing something?). so there is a lot to play with, and indeed the digital+analog filters open a lot of doors. a chance to really control the entire chain could be ideal for that, but would really limit post processing to make the album. that's why I don't see that part happening as a standard of anything.
> everybody so far went with trying to stick as close as possible to Nyquist-Shannon's less than ten commandments ^_^. and by doing so, ringing outside the audible range was almost always the one to drink at least at low sample rates. MQA and a few other guys have other priorities and say that ringing no matter where is the worst thing that happened to music since Lil B. so which variable is going to pay instead? amplitude is a certainty with less bits. FR is highly probable, the real question being when does the roll off start and does it matter? aliasing? well that will depend on FR. it's nothing new, what changed is the anti-ringing obsession for a minority of people.
> 
> all that is splitting air about true fidelity of course. because it's all happening at high frequency and sample rate. on MQA the lowest is 96khz, I'll be the first one to say that I don't care and really don't find any of it really wrong. I'm very fine with gentle roll off in DACs when playing high sample rate music, or whatever more advanced filter they decided to implement. so I'm personally fine with pretty much anything including MQA in the sense that I do not believe it will change audio for me in any way. that's about the only support I can offer to MQA. "it will do nothing for me". every other aspects make me dislike MQA and wish it was already gone.



Agreed.   I think as everyone has said there is a limit how far back in the recording chain this can go for recording after multichannel digital arrived.  However as these claimed effect are generally cumulative (I underline generally so the pedants notice the word and maybe for the first time don't latch on to any possible loop hole to get their teeth into) improving part of the chain is a probably positive thing. (It's like wading through treacle trying to make a simple point here). 

MQA is scalable to the original sampling rate, so if it was originally 48kHz it stays that way.  No upsampling as I understand it, and there are plenty of albums out there from before96kHz.  Then apodizing would take quite a bit of the top end (sure 96kHz would be far more innocuous).  I've seen 2-3dB at 20kHz, but these are usually the other companies doing apodizing, not so much Meridian.  Thats's quite a loss in HF energy, and a sizeable phase shift.  So if MQA can do apodizing without that, they will.  I was outlining a way they could be done (allpass wouldn't work).


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> If by "smaller points" you me "accuracy", I get that.  I'll just continue to put it right.  Or, you could take the time to get it right the first time, your call.   Yes, I do get it, as to what MQA is doing, or at least attempting.  Yes, you can pretty much perfectly correct for one or more well characterized filters.  If they know the filter, have the data, sure they can do that.  And I get that you can post process a file and pre compensate.  That isn't the problem I'm having here.
> 
> The problems are (in no particular order):
> 1. Posts with blatantly wrong statements (which then get reversed in later posts).  I quote the post, then the poster says he never said that (though it was a direct quote). Then we end up agreeing, and I'm labeled "pedantic".



You say reversed, I say clarified. However, are you trying to deny you can be pedantic?



> 2. MQA's claim of being able to reproduce the original performance



Agreed, that's nonsense, and that has been discussed infinitum.



> 3. MQA's claim that they can correct for "blurring", when the causes are multiple and unknown



They do not say ALL blurring. So what if they are correcting for some blurring?  The blurring they can correct.  Does that fit? 



> 4. that any of this makes any audible difference.



Of course, we will see, one day, when hell freezes over I expect.



> 5. Yes, all-pass filtering can correct for phase.  There have been examples for many, many years.  Here's one: FM Stereo requires the use of a filter nearly identical to an anti-aliasing filter in a digital system.  In FM Stereo that filter keeps audio out of the 19kHz pilot signal.  Those filters were analog.  FM modulation processing involves deliberate audio clipping, but the clipped waveform caused those filters to ring and overshooting the target 100% modulation limit, partially (largely) as a result of their poor phase response.  One manufacturer remedied the situation by phase compensating those filters with complimentary phase all-pass filters.  The resulting filter had far less phase distortion, and rang far less, and permitted higher modulation levels.  That technique became quite popular.  Early attempts at ADC anti-aliasing filters were also analog of course.  During the early days of digital audio many blamed those filters for the harsh sound of digital, so several companies developed phase-compensated filters as an after-market upgrade.  That compensation was also done with all-pass networks.  The results were mixed, mostly because the harshness being complained about wasn't related directly to the phase response of the filters.
> 
> Just a few instances from history where analog filters were phase corrected using all-pass filters.  There are more, of course.  No, that kind of phase comp isn't perfect, and certainly if you were in the digital domain and had "time" you could produce a complimentary phase comp filter.  That's not the argument here.  Of course it can be done.  And of course MQA is probably doing that.  Of course, it doesn't matter because the results remain unproven as to their audibility.



And we are back to the beginning. Me trying to discuss a novel technique, and you trying to talk about the one you understand.


----------



## bigshot

I can't see how any of the stuff this is supposedly correcting is audible. It seems to me like neatly arranging pebbles on Mount Everest then standing back a couple hundred miles away and admiring how nice it looks.


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> You say reversed, I say clarified. However, are you trying to deny you can be pedantic?


Tomato - tomahto. I've already embraced "pedantic", though I look at it as a demand for correctness and precision.  This is a Science forum.


jagwap said:


> They do not say ALL blurring. So what if they are correcting for some blurring?  The blurring they can correct.  Does that fit?


Their marketing implies all blurring, no distinction at all.  So they can correct some of the time response.  So what?  Marketing implies a day/night difference.  It's not there.  "Blurring" is a term MQA coined with strong negative connotation.  All comparisons now are sighted. Marketing is focused on these things and making them powerful.  Yet we lack an actual scientific and controlled test.  Nobody knows, but then, if it's "day/night", why don't we have the proof?  


jagwap said:


> Of course, we will see, one day, when hell freezes over I expect.


I doubt it would take that long, but the real questions everyone should ask is, "Why do we have the proof already?"  It should have been forefront in marketing, not totally absent.


jagwap said:


> And we are back to the beginning. Me trying to discuss a novel technique, and you trying to talk about the one you understand.


Yup, except I do understand the novel technique,  you don't seem to understand the one I've talked about, denying it works, yet it has already been used effectively.  
Look, jagwap, none of this really matters.  MQA isn't going to change audio as we know it until MQA is proven beyond question to be an audible improvement anyone can hear.  It's already been around long enough for that to have happened, but it hasn't.  It doesn't matter what technique they use, or how many filters they can correct for.  It's either clearly audible, vaguely audible, or not audible.  I've said before, several times, if it's a clearly audible improvement I'll get on board and support it.  All we have is overwhelming doubt, zero proof, and marketing hype.


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## bigshot (Sep 14, 2017)

Jagwap, asking certain types of people not to be pedantic is like asking water to be not so wet. Technically minded people revel in details and minutia, even if their focus on crossing every t and dotting every i ends up making their overall point as clear as mud. This isn't exclusive to sound science. The same sort of pedantry is just as common in audiophool circles. They're the ones talking about jitter and ultrasonic frequencies and levels of distortion so low it's hard to even measure it. But of course to them, that tiny fly speck is a huge deal. Pedantic people are useful at pointing out facts and quantifying details. But it's up to a different sort of person to translate their facts and figures into something practical and applicable.

The fact of the matter is that we're talking about listening to music in our homes with human ears. That sets limits to what degree of pedantry is realistically called for. I think it's pretty clear that the sorts of things MQA is pointing to as advantages fall into the category of irrelevant pedantic details. There's no reason to believe any of it is audible. In fact, I think the whole point of MQA is to raise vague, yet pedantic details that pedantic people can grab onto and argue about. Normal people hear this hue and cry and figure the truth lies halfway between two opposing arguments- they figure that maybe MQA actually does help a little. Maybe they'll buy a DAC that does MQA and convince themselves they've made the right choice. Ka-ching! Another sale!

That's the same strategy used by the jitter-bugs. They kept throwing up theories about brain scans detecting tiny fractions of time, but when the time came to actually test for audibility, the whole argument fell apart. There's a very good reason why MQA makes it hard to do simple A/B comparisons with plain vanilla redbook, or even high bitrate lossy. Keeping the pedants busy pointing at fly specks is good for business. It sells lots of fancy equipment to the puzzled people in the middle.

Maybe MQA does have some magic mojo that they aren't telling us about. It's perfectly possible. But until I can actually hear it with my own ears and test its effectiveness myself, I'm not going to invest a penny into it. That is how audiophools chase their wallet down rabbit holes, not the way a person applies principles of science to make their home stereo system sound better.


----------



## pinnahertz

This was just posted by Mark Waldrep of Real HD-Audio:
http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6046


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## bigshot

Almost years after the announcement of their launch and they're still stalling? Amazing.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> But you can correct the known items.  If those are within your closed system they add less errors over all.  If ADC and DAC are known (and their associated filters), then this much can be compensated, if there is anything to compensate. ...
> However as these claimed effect are generally cumulative (I underline generally so the pedants notice the word and maybe for the first time don't latch on to any possible loop hole to get their teeth into) improving part of the chain is a probably positive thing. (It's like wading through treacle trying to make a simple point here).



At the risk of providing more treacle, that depends on what you mean by cumulative but I don't agree that improving part of the chain is probably a good thing, it's just as likely to be a bad thing. Let's really simplify it and just use arbitrary numbers. Let's say perfect is zero and the anti-alias filter in a particular ADC equals +1, the reconstruction filter in a particular DAC equals +2, MQA knows that ADC and DAC and therefore applies -3 and we're back at zero/perfect. Massively simplified, this is essentially what MQA are claiming to do and on the face of it, it sounds like a great idea but it's missing what actually happens in practice. Typically numerous anti-alias filters have been applied in any given master. Not only in the recording ADC but in many of the audio processors used in mixing and mastering, some of which over-sample process and down-sample again or occasionally do the reverse. There may be dozens of anti-alias filters applied in a given mix and the interaction is not cumulative the way you are suggesting, using my simplified analogy, some/many of the filters may effectively be producing a negative cumulative effect. A particular oversampling compressor might cause say a -3 effect and be used say 5 times, so the total figure above of +3 could actually be -12 and then along comes MQA, corrects that by -3 and now the error is -15, even further from the perfect zero, it's made matter worse, not better. The effect of multiple anti-alias filters and other processors which affect timing being applied at the different stages of recording, mixing and mastering are unpredictable and therefore applying the correction stated by MQA is just as likely to be worse than better. That's not so much of a problem though because "on the face of it" is all that's required, audiophiles make a lot of fuss over reconstruction filters while apparently being completely ignorant of how insignificant that is compared to everything else which actually happens in the production of the music.

G


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## bigshot

The listening test is in. The good news is that MQA didn't degrade the sound quality at all. The bad news is that MQA didn't sound any different than the PCM.

https://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/09/mqa-core-vs-hi-res-blind-test-part-ii.html


----------



## old tech

The first tranche of Archimago's test results are now available.

https://archimago.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/mqa-core-vs-hi-res-blind-test-part-ii.html


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## bigshot

BREAD AND BUTTER! JINX YOU OWE ME A COKE!


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## jagwap

Well I have to say I am not surprised.

I welcome any advance in audio, but this does look like it is the significant jump we were promised.

I'll leave it to others to bang on that this is only MQA core and the full version is better.


----------



## bigshot

The final subgroup breakdown has been posted. It seems that it's pretty much a draw again. Looks to me like a random spread.
https://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/09/mqa-core-vs-hi-res-blind-test-part-iii.html#more


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## Strangelove424

I don’t see a statistically valid conclusion one way or another, the results appear more or less random. I thought it was kind of interesting that young people and people with high end systems, two groups I imagine would be able to hear the details best, both preferred PCM. But not to any statistically meaningful degree. 

The lack of MQA software encoders on the market right now makes me hesitant. If everybody is relying on MQA for test files it's not really a controlled test.


----------



## castleofargh

This test is only trying to show that the part of MQA he tried to copy doesn't offer much of an audible impact. Which if not conclusive or properly controlled, was at least expected.
Now would other manipulations in a typical MQA album, result in audible differences? And if yes, are they really consistently preferred like marketing wants us to believe? This test doesn't say. And probably no test will as MQA people are right now the only ones who could help to set up a proper test, and they have no interest in actually offering a fair opportunity for comparison. Because we know there would be none or at best critically small ones that might not be an improvement. MQA will benefit much more from people going crazy over what are simply different masters. You know, the "happy" misunderstanding encouraged by all formats.


----------



## bigshot

castleofargh said:


> MQA will benefit much more from people going crazy over what are simply different masters. You know, the "happy" misunderstanding encouraged by all formats.



That hasn't done much for SACDs and blu-ray audio.


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## DrSeven

You guys saved me do much money thanks a ton bigshot and Gregorio


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## Sterling2

My OPPO UDP-205's firmware just updated, adding MQA. What does that mean to me?


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## Glmoneydawg (Feb 10, 2018)

bigshot said:


> It doesn't matter whether it's redbook. I'd love to see someone discern AAC 256 VBR in a test with "HD" audio!


The problem with digital is it has sins of omission...analog has sins of distortion.Distortion is easy ish to hear,omission takes a while...i feel like you have already picked your poison  my friend.I am sure i will get flamed for this,but its all in good fun right?


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## bigshot (Feb 10, 2018)

I learned a valuable lesson when I was a teenager... What my mom didn't know couldn't get me in trouble. That realization helped me make the transition from being a kid to being a man and making decisions for myself. In audio the realization that it was a waste to spend money to preserve sound that I couldn't hear was another epiphany for me.

I focus on improving sound I can hear. I don't lay in bed worrying that I might be missing out on sound that I can't hear in a direct A/B line level matched comparison.


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## Strangelove424

I'd really appreciate it if someone could create a separate thread for all generic analog vs digital gaseous releasing so that every other thread won't be stinked up about by people launching completely unspecified ad hominem attacks questioning the prevailing rational movement since the Renaissance, and the very reason this sub forum exists. 

In order to elicit as much caricature and exaggerated rhetoric as possible, please name the thread "Dark Ages vs Tron" and move all general scientific nay saying, flat world hypothesizing, and blind attacks to this thread.


----------



## bigshot

Isn't that what the whole rest of Head-Fi is for?


----------



## Glmoneydawg

Strangelove424 said:


> I'd really appreciate it if someone could create a separate thread for all generic analog vs digital gaseous releasing so that every other thread won't be stinked up about by people launching completely unspecified ad hominem attacks questioning the prevailing rational movement since the Renaissance, and the very reason this sub forum exists.
> 
> In order to elicit as much caricature and exaggerated rhetoric as possible, please name the thread "Dark Ages vs Tron" and move all general scientific nay saying, flat world hypothesizing, and blind attacks to this thread.


Point taken.I wasn't trying to stir the pot lol.I like digital and analog if it lets me listen to music.I was hoping to read that mqa was the next great medium.I am starting to wonder if the resolution floor of recordings is the limiting factor now..i certainly hope thats not the case.


----------



## Strangelove424

Resolution or sample rate really aren't a limiting factor. People have trouble telling noise floors lower than 12bit, and two samples can reproduce any sound wave. That means We simply don't need any more data to reconstruct all the audible parts of music. You don't hear 1/0s, you hear the dac's reconstruction of it, which in analog terms in the same as analog, or perhaps better since digital does not need continuous data, i.e. the exact waveform to be reproduced. 

Regarding MQA being the savior of anything, please read previous pages in this thread where exploits of their huckstering ways have been documented and discussed fully. They provide no better of a product than high res FLAC, and have big stakes in the business side of things where controlling an industry with a proprietary codec means you are the cat's meow. The problems with MQA are deeper than the problems with regular high res audio. Much deeper. If people want to waste their money with high res FLAC that it's their problem, but MQA is a different and far more dangerous kind of evil that I will continue to warn audiophiles of any kind of ilk to stay away from.


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## Glmoneydawg (Feb 11, 2018)

Strangelove424 said:


> Resolution or sample rate really aren't a limiting factor. People have trouble telling noise floors lower than 12bit, and two samples can reproduce any sound wave. That means We simply don't need any more data to reconstruct all the audible parts of music. You don't hear 1/0s, you hear the dac's reconstruction of it, which in analog terms in the same as analog, or perhaps better since digital does not need continuous data, i.e. the exact waveform to be reproduced.
> 
> Regarding MQA being the savior of anything, please read previous pages in this thread where exploits of their huckstering ways have been documented and discussed fully. They provide no better of a product than high res FLAC, and have big stakes in the business side of things where controlling an industry with a proprietary codec means you are the cat's meow. The problems with MQA are deeper than the problems with regular high res audio. Much deeper. If people want to waste their money with high res FLAC that it's their problem, but MQA is a different and far more dangerous kind of evil that I will continue to warn audiophiles of any kind of ilk to stay away from.


Even magaznes that have previously heaped praise on meridians stuff appear to be back peddling on this one.What i was questioning was whether the resolution floor of the actual recording process itself is the next part of the chain that needs to be upped...is the playback system ahead of or equal to the recording  process ability to extract detail from the artists work?


----------



## Glmoneydawg

bigshot said:


> I learned a valuable lesson when I was a teenager... What my mom didn't know couldn't get me in trouble. That realization helped me make the transition from being a kid to being a man and making decisions for myself. In audio the realization that it was a waste to spend money to preserve sound that I couldn't hear was another epiphany for me.
> 
> I focus on improving sound I can hear. I don't lay in bed worrying that I might be missing out on sound that I can't hear in a direct A/B line level matched comparison.


C'mon now....not even a little worried?


----------



## Strangelove424 (Feb 11, 2018)

Glmoneydawg said:


> Even magaznes that have previously heaped praise on meridians stuff appear to be back peddling on this one.What i was questioning was whether the resolution floor of the actual recording process itself is the next part of the chain that needs to be upped...is the playback system ahead of or equal to the recording  process ability to extract detail from the artists work?



Playback is same as or better. You have the ability to buy the same reference class equipment they do. Which are typically quite competitive in price as well. But audiophiles rarely go that route for aesthetics and sound signature reasons, finding flat gear somewhat boring sounding (and I don't really blame them). In that case, even the very expensive audiophile gear has a pleasing coloration to it, and each manufacturer aims for their own signature to keep a client base and branding. EQ can bridge the gap, however.

Regarding analog vs digital recording techniques, you can do everything with digital that you can with analog, the question is knowing how. Mics are just transducers like reverse speakers, so the focus here becomes what medium you're recording to, and what benefits it brings. The only benefit tape ever brought to the table over digital was subjectively pleasing distortion, which many DSP emulate in millions of different ways. There's also soft clipping at peak I suppose, but if you're even a semi-decent recording engineer you won't be clipping, and need that safety net. On the other hand, digital's increased clarity, ease in EQing without adding distortion to the signal path, multiplicity of DSP, and cost effectiveness easily outweigh tape's benefits. And I won't even begin to touch the long term issues with storing tape, or any analog format.

Back to Meridian, however, I'm glad to hear the press is turning against them. Meridian is a sham operation, and when the dust settles people will want to be on the right side of things. Musicians and audio press ought to be thinking about long term implications before they put their name to something like that.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

Strangelove424 said:


> Playback is same as or better. You have the ability to buy the same reference class equipment they do. Which are typically quite competitive in price as well. But audiophiles rarely go that route for aesthetics and sound signature reasons, finding flat gear somewhat boring sounding (and I don't really blame them). In that case, even the very expensive audiophile gear has a pleasing coloration to it, and each manufacturer aims for their own signature to keep a client base and branding. EQ can bridge the gap, however.
> 
> Regarding analog vs digital recording techniques, you can do everything with digital that you can with analog, the question is knowing how. Mics are just transducers like reverse speakers, so the focus here becomes what medium you're recording to, and what benefits it brings. The only benefit tape ever brought to the table over digital was subjectively pleasing distortion, which many DSP emulate in millions of different ways. There's also soft clipping at peak I suppose, but if you're even a semi-decent recording engineer you won't be clipping, and need that safety net. On the other hand, digital's increased clarity, ease in EQing without adding distortion to the signal path, multiplicity of DSP, and cost effectiveness easily outweigh tape's benefits. And I won't even begin to touch the long term issues with storing tape, or any analog format.
> 
> Back to Meridian, however, I'm glad to hear the press is turning against them. Meridian is a sham operation, and when the dust settles people will want to be on the right side of things. Musicians and audio press ought to be thinking about long term implications before they put their name to something like that.


With Sony,Universal and warners listed as share holders it sounds like a recipe for world domination... not cool.


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## Strangelove424

Yep, if those kinds of media giants are working together on something it rarely is for the benefit of the consumer. There's plenty of ways for them to distribute high res music that would not involve the use of a proprietary decoder in both hardware and software. If MQA's dog is high res streaming, manufacturer/studio/developer licensing agreements is the tail that wags it.


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## Glmoneydawg (Feb 11, 2018)

Strangelove424 said:


> Yep, if those kinds of media giants are working together on something it rarely is for the benefit of the consumer. There's plenty of ways for them to distribute high res music that would not involve the use of a proprietary decoder in both hardware and software. If MQA's dog is high res streaming, manufacturer/studio/developer licensing agreements is the tail that wags it.


Sony messed up in the 70's not liscencing beta video...inferior vhs took over....I haven't seen them make the same mistake since.Not much goes on in consumer electronics  now that doesn't benefit the big guys.Its sad for the consumer...some of the little guys have a genuine interest in advancing our hobbies with monetary considerations being secondary ish.


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## bigshot

Glmoneydawg said:


> C'mon now....not even a little worried?



Nope. I have concrete ideas about improvements I’d like to tackle. I don’t have time to worry about smoke and mirrors. I think that’s for folks who really have no clue how stuff works


----------



## Glmoneydawg

bigshot said:


> Nope. I have concrete ideas about improvements I’d like to tackle. I don’t have time to worry about smoke and mirrors. I think that’s for folks who really have no clue how stuff works


Sounds like a pretty solid attitude to apply to a lot of things.


----------



## castleofargh

the limitations are in transducers, both recording and playback ones. and of course there are the transducers we were born with, which are way more limited than what most audiophiles chose to believe. transducers are inferior to digital media by a few orders of magnitude. seeking improved sound in new digital formats is such a waste of time and money. 
the big names clearly want special formats because then they own something more than just the artist, and they know they can make money from it, if only by trying to sell twice the same stuff in a different packaging. but if I had to bet the main reason why some big names look into MQA, I'd go the opportunity for them to bring back a small form of DRM while pretending that nothing is going on. 
there is everything to hate about MQA as a consumer IMO. and how inaudible ringing from fairly low amplitude signals at 24khz or above is being treated, that's really the least of our concerns.


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## Glmoneydawg

glad to hear you say transducers are the limiting factor....there is always room for improvement at some point in the chain.I have watched for 45 years as consumer electronics has evolved to the point where we no longer own physical copies of our media and mqa appears to be an even tighter squeeze on that trend.


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## bigshot

The room is a limiting factor as well with speakers.


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## Sterling2

Glmoneydawg said:


> glad to hear you say transducers are the limiting factor....there is always room for improvement at some point in the chain.I have watched for 45 years as consumer electronics has evolved to the point where we no longer own physical copies of our media and mqa appears to be an even tighter squeeze on that trend.


I kind of thought it was like Burger King where you can have it your way. My preference is music from recording artists and compositions that attract me while listening to new music on iTunes. When I hear something I like I usually have a few choices about how I might enjoy the piece again: AAC download, Hi-Res download, CD, Vinyl, SACD, or even multi-channel SACD. But, since AAC is hard to distinguish from "higher resolution" and I get the AACs for about $.99 to $1.29 per song, it's a no brainer to get AAC. These files do seem to sound better with the ESS DAC in my OPPO Player than from my 19 year old DAC in my pre/pro. Thing is, listening to AAC files of music recorded back in the 50's and early 60's on the OPPO's DAC sometimes reveal the not so expert engineering of those songs.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

bigshot said:


> The room is a limiting factor as well with speakers.





bigshot said:


> The room is a limiting factor as well with speakers.


Possibly the most underrated component?


----------



## jagwap

Glmoneydawg said:


> Possibly the most underrated component?



Sure.

However the human hearing system is quite good at adapting.

I worked alongside a team developing a time based room correction system. They found an interesting effect. If you walked in the room with the system on, listened for a bit, then bypassed the correction, the change was significant, to the worse.

However if you walked in, listened for a bit, then activated the correction, the improvement was small. They (not me, before the flaming starts) concluded that the brain is very effective at room correction on its own.


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## Glmoneydawg (Feb 12, 2018)

jagwap said:


> Sure.
> 
> However the human hearing system is quite good at adapting.
> 
> ...


Some of the brains here are definitely gonna flame you, good luck my friend!as a little support, i remember absolutely loving  music on the crappiest of radios 40 years ago...love my system but fidelity can easily be compensated for by the old brainbox!


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## jagwap

Of course, they know best.


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## Glmoneydawg

jagwap said:


> Of course, they know best.


Lol..."science" section is a dangerous place.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

Glmoneydawg said:


> Lol..."science" section is a dangerous place.


Lookin at your profile....and yes nothing better than a singer where you believe what they're sayin!That is beyond fidelity etc...thats why we are in this forum!


----------



## gregorio

Glmoneydawg said:


> [1] What i was questioning was whether the resolution floor of the actual recording process itself is the next part of the chain that needs to be upped...
> [2] is the playback system ahead of or equal to the recording process ability to extract detail from the artists work?



From my perspective, as a long time professional sound engineer, these are interesting questions, although for quite different reasons than those you intended. It's the questions themselves I find interesting, rather than any potential answer to them because there is no accurate/reasonable answer, due to the fact that the questions themselves are irrational. Please bare with me at this stage, despite putting considerable thought into this response, it could easily be interpreted as an intention to belittle or cause offence but that is absolutely NOT the case! Let me try a bit of role reversal to help understand the issue: Let's say that for many years you've made a living from giving mind reading performances to live audiences. Let's also say that for decades there has been a group of devout mind reading fans who've created a whole little world for themselves; magazines, discussion forums and an entire vocabulary to describe and discuss every tiny aspect of telepathy and even companies who make products to enable these fans to better appreciate public performances of telepathy in their own homes. As a professional mind reader wouldn't you be interested in some of those discussions? They do after all go to the heart of how audiences perceive your skill, even though your skill actually has nothing whatsoever to do with telepathy (because of course it doesn't exist). The majority of audiophile assertions, discussions, arguments and questions are effectively about some fine detail of telepathy but if you tried to explain that actually there was no such thing as telepathy, that their question/discussion was meaningless and/or really a different question about creating an illusion (of telepathy), you'd be met with hostility because you'd be questioning their fundamental, unquestionable belief (in telepathy), a belief without which much of the world they're so passionate about cannot exist. In this context let's have a look at your questions:

1. Your question is effectively meaningless; "resolution" is one of those terms invented as part of the "vocabulary to describe and discuss every tiny aspect of telepathy". The resolution of digital audio is infinite, it's always been infinite, even when it was nothing more than a proven theorem 30 years before consumer digital audio products even became available. Your question can be viewed in terms of how we perceive resolution but that question was answered for all but the most extreme/theoretical circumstances with the advent of the CD and even those extreme/theoretical circumstances were dealt with by about 25 years ago (with the advent of noise-shaped dither). The recording/production process of course isn't just digital, it's analogue and acoustic too. Castleofargh is correct that the transducers are the weak points as regards accuracy, mics are far less accurate at converting acoustic to analogue than ADCs are at converting analogue to digital. On the face of it then, the "resolution" of mics "need to be upped" but hang on, it's not quite so simple in reality. A better way to look at a mic is as a sort of paintbrush. A paintbrush does not give perfect results, look closely at a great painting and you can see the brush strokes, sometimes even the lines/hairs of the brush. So, would it be desirable to try and "up the resolution" of paintbrushes? Well possibly, in some cases and for some situations but in general, the answer would be "no". The choice of paintbrush and how it's used to apply the paint is a fundamental artistic tool for a painter. Take away the imperfections of paintbrushes and in some cases the results would have been better but in most cases you'd loose at least some of the art and in a significant number you'd loose most of the art. The same is broadly true of mics. I have some very accurate mics but I don't always use them, in fact in some/many music applications I deliberately avoid using them at all, preferring a dirtier, noisier more coloured sound of a far cheaper/less accurate mic. ...

2. Again, "detail" is another audiophile vocabulary term and the way it's used is usually rather meaningless. Carrying on from the point above about mics, I'm often looking for a mic with less detail. And, this doesn't just pertain to mics but much of the editing and mixing process is spent reducing the details which have been recorded. In editing reducing; lip smacks, breathing sounds, finger and fret sound, other mechanical instrument sounds, etc. In mixing adding; distortion, reverb, filters, compressing transients, de-essing and various other processes which deliberately reduce detail. And in film (and some types of TV), we typically spend almost as much time adding noise as we do reducing it! In other words, the concept here is about the right amount of detail, too little is undesirable BUT, SO IS TOO MUCH! ... How music recordings (and commercial audio in general) are made, the technical, artistic and perceptual factors are all quite complex and in general audiophiles just aren't interested, they're interested in consumer reproduction gear, formats, etc., but not in the audio itself. For this reason, most of what they think they're hearing is either misattributed or oversimplified to the point of being utter nonsense. For example: Distortion is bad, therefore less/no distortion is good and detail is good, therefore more detail is better. In practice this is utter nonsense. If we actually recorded everything with the most accurate/detailed mic and then edited, mixed and mastered for the most detail and least distortion the result would not only be garbage but the loss/destruction of pretty much all the popular music genres of the last 50 years!

G


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## Glmoneydawg (Feb 13, 2018)

gregorio said:


> From my perspective, as a long time professional sound engineer, these are interesting questions, although for quite different reasons than those you intended. It's the questions themselves I find interesting, rather than any potential answer to them because there is no accurate/reasonable answer, due to the fact that the questions themselves are irrational. Please bare with me at this stage, despite putting considerable thought into this response, it could easily be interpreted as an intention to belittle or cause offence but that is absolutely NOT the case! Let me try a bit of role reversal to help understand the issue: Let's say that for many years you've made a living from giving mind reading performances to live audiences. Let's also say that for decades there has been a group of devout mind reading fans who've created a whole little world for themselves; magazines, discussion forums and an entire vocabulary to describe and discuss every tiny aspect of telepathy and even companies who make products to enable these fans to better appreciate public performances of telepathy in their own homes. As a professional mind reader wouldn't you be interested in some of those discussions? They do after all go to the heart of how audiences perceive your skill, even though your skill actually has nothing whatsoever to do with telepathy (because of course it doesn't exist). The majority of audiophile assertions, discussions, arguments and questions are effectively about some fine detail of telepathy but if you tried to explain that actually there was no such thing as telepathy, that their question/discussion was meaningless and/or really a different question about creating an illusion (of telepathy), you'd be met with hostility because you'd be questioning their fundamental, unquestionable belief (in telepathy), a belief without which much of the world they're so passionate about cannot exist. In this context let's have a look at your questions:
> 
> 1. Your question is effectively meaningless; "resolution" is one of those terms invented as part of the "vocabulary to describe and discuss every tiny aspect of telepathy". The resolution of digital audio is infinite, it's always been infinite, even when it was nothing more than a proven theorem 30 years before consumer digital audio products even became available. Your question can be viewed in terms of how we perceive resolution but that question was answered for all but the most extreme/theoretical circumstances with the advent of the CD and even those extreme/theoretical circumstances were dealt with by about 25 years ago (with the advent of noise-shaped dither). The recording/production process of course isn't just digital, it's analogue and acoustic too. Castleofargh is correct that the transducers are the weak points as regards accuracy, mics are far less accurate at converting acoustic to analogue than ADCs are at converting analogue to digital. On the face of it then, the "resolution" of mics "need to be upped" but hang on, it's not quite so simple in reality. A better way to look at a mic is as a sort of paintbrush. A paintbrush does not give perfect results, look closely at a great painting and you can see the brush strokes, sometimes even the lines/hairs of the brush. So, would it be desirable to try and "up the resolution" of paintbrushes? Well possibly, in some cases and for some situations but in general, the answer would be "no". The choice of paintbrush and how it's used to apply the paint is a fundamental artistic tool for a painter. Take away the imperfections of paintbrushes and in some cases the results would have been better but in most cases you'd loose at least some of the art and in a significant number you'd loose most of the art. The same is broadly true of mics. I have some very accurate mics but I don't always use them, in fact in some/many music applications I deliberately avoid using them at all, preferring a dirtier, noisier more coloured sound of a far cheaper/less accurate mic. ...
> 
> ...


Interesting....when superman flys i would rather not see the strings.i probably shouldnt use the word detail(implies tipped up frequency to some people)information might be a better word.


----------



## slinkyjynx

OK, I have a massive risk of getting flamed here judging by the last few pages of this thread, but please bear with me 

I bought an MQA song - Take On Me by a-ha on Onkyo Music as a bit of a test. It's a classic song, and at little over £1 I thought I might as well give it a go.

To me, I was blown away by the clarity and spaciousness, and really impressed. Now, I haven't tested this against all the other file types to see if I can hear a difference, that would ruin the enjoyment of the music for me, but I can't help but think for my money it was worth it.

I also personally like the fact that MQA files can be played everywhere that supports FLAC, so it isn't as if you are locked in to a format and can't play it on most devices (Remember Sony ATRAC?)

I get the adversity towards corporate-bigwigs, but I had a far, far greater problem with how Apple handled DRM on their files than I do with MQA handles their version of it.

I'm not going to say MQA is the bees-knees, and it blows X/Y/Z out of the water, but I wonder if there are others like me who would try it, and initially be impressed by it.


----------



## danadam

slinkyjynx said:


> I haven't tested this against all the other file types ... but think for my money it was worth it.


So you can't really say what _exactly_ was it that was worth it, can you  Some people are ok with that, others are more inquisitive and want to know.


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## jagwap

danadam said:


> So you can't really say what _exactly_ was it that was worth it, can you  Some people are ok with that, others are more inquisitive and want to know.



That is absolutely the point.  If all MQA files sounded better then most people would be OK with that, but also I would like to know why.  If it was because they always took the best possible version available (often subjective) I would also be happy. If it was because they had actually fixed a previously unknown issue with the reproduction system we have now, I would also be happy. It is not yet clear.

I trust the people who invented it to know a lot about how all this works technically and have something to add.  I also want access to better masters than most of the re-releases in the last couple of decades.  Both of these things are promised.  However while most of the MQA versions I have heard appear to be less molested version of recent re-releases, not all of them are.  Perhaps human error, or maybe the A bit of MQA is not being followed (Authenticated).  More likely the music industry has started believing its own BS, and thinks "louder" is better, and so authenticated is the loudness war version.

However, back to the A-Ha fan: there is a reasonable chance you are hearing an encoded version of the original master, rather than a compressed version released before, and as such is more satisfying.  However it is hard to verify.  It could be something else, and those here will also suggest placebo, which is also a valid suggestion if you are looking in from afar on the internet.  But so far there is inconclusive evidence on whether MQA does what it says.  My anecdotal listening suggests it is a step in the right direction, but it is unsure which aspect is achieving it.


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## bigshot (Feb 13, 2018)

iTunes promises to use the best quality masters available and used an audio codec that is audibly transparent compared to CD quality that is easily streamable. It seems to me that the only difference between iTunes and MQA is that iTunes no longer has DRM and MQA does. Well, that and the fact that iTunes has a lot more music to choose from.


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## bigshot

jagwap said:


> I worked alongside a team developing a time based room correction system. They found an interesting effect. If you walked in the room with the system on, listened for a bit, then bypassed the correction, the change was significant, to the worse. However if you walked in, listened for a bit, then activated the correction, the improvement was small. They (not me, before the flaming starts) concluded that the brain is very effective at room correction on its own.



A lot of audiophiles believe that you have to remove every effect of the room on sound. That isn't true. You have to remove the *detrimental* effects. Lots of hard reflections, resonance and cancellation are obviously bad. But there are some things that enhance music and allow it to bloom and inhabit space. It's about finding a happy balance between the sound from the speakers and the envelope the room puts around that sound, not trying to get just the sound on the recording with no room effect at all. That would sound dead.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> iTunes promises to use the best quality masters available and used an audio codec that is audibly transparent compared to CD quality that is easily streamable. It seems to me that the only difference between iTunes and MQA is that iTunes no longer has DRM and MQA does. Well, that and the fact that iTunes has a lot more music to choose from.



But itunes charges per track, and a high price.  So far MQA is no cost on per track on Tidal.  Why defend Apple and attack MQA?


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## bigshot (Feb 13, 2018)

You can get an unlimited streaming account with iTunes too can't you? There's also Amazon Prime.

At least those services are honest. They don't say they have some magic technology that makes no sense. They also don't have DRM. I'd say those are both good reasons to slag on MQA.


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## castleofargh

slinkyjynx said:


> ...I also personally like the fact that MQA files can be played everywhere that supports FLAC, so it isn't as if you are locked in to a format and can't play it on most devices (Remember Sony ATRAC?) ...


as the top bits are basic PCM, you can of course read those with any typical DAC, and operate on the file like on any other wave file, including encoding it to flac. but you have to consider that used in such a way, all the lower bits of the file are read as non dithered noise. you end up with lower resolution in a bigger file. so what you say is true, but it's really a last resort choice to use MQA as if it's only PCM. 

also if playing the file that way does sound great, it suggests that the difference in sound, if any, doesn't come from several steps of MQA(extended sample rate, dither, special low pass). and lean more toward pure mastering differences which never required a special format in the first place.
so it would be pretty significant to be able to clearly tell what makes a file sound good or not in the MQA library. 



jagwap said:


> But itunes charges per track, and a high price.  So far MQA is no cost on per track on Tidal.  Why defend Apple and attack MQA?


agreed ^_^


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## Sterling2

bigshot said:


> You can get an unlimited streaming account with iTunes too can't you? There's also Amazon Prime.
> 
> At least those services are honest. They don't say they have some magic technology that makes no sense. They also don't have DRM. I'd say those are both good reasons to slag on MQA.


I just purchased an OPPO UDP-205. Its firmware incorporates MQA so it seems I'm set to enjoy MQA downloads, as well as Mastered for iTunes downloads. For sure, I'm excited about MQA and I'm looking forward to compare it with iTunes downloads. Now, I'm expecting that I will not hear anything sounding better or worse since it's my understanding that MQA is more of a certification than a process; but, who knows. Seems there have been many professing on the matter who have not actually heard any MQA recordings. These folks believe their recording studio credentials permit comment on MQA's moment in the history of civilization, as well as the permission to bully any who do not accept their beliefs on the matter.


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## castleofargh (Feb 14, 2018)

it's everything. the certification is but a tiny and honestly pretty vague piece of the MQA swiss army tools. the only concrete practical result is that we can't alter a file without losing part of the decoding. any other idea "à la" Pono doesn't have the means or the transparency toward consumers to guaranty actual tractability as to the origin of the masters or what is done to them. sooner or later we'll get low res stuff encoded as highres one, like we did for pretty much all highres formats and distributors in the past. at some point they have to trust the provider of the masters and some will not play by the rules to make a few more bucks. it's in the game.
but with MQA the blur goes beyond that. so far I don't even know the exact resolution of a song and I still haven't been able to find out if said resolution is in practice altered depending on how much ultrasonic content there is to encode. or if the ultrasonic content is just attenuated in amplitude until it fits the pre-allocated storage space? it's likely to be a little of both. the patent seems to offer all those possibilities. so all in all, listening to some MQA albums isn't any form of a test IMO. you can never be totally sure that what you hear isn't the DAC using a different way to process the signal, or just a different master. both of which could absolutely exist without the MQA format. if anybody knows how to setup a reasonable listening test for MQA, I'd be real interested. I've thought about it long and hard and haven't come up with anything. Archimago's stuff are partial aspects of MQA or even attempts at copying the filters using another device and non MQA files. those are nice ideas but they introduce their own issues IMO.

aside from that, I know this is a trigger to some, but a technology isn't fully analyzed by ear. a digital format and the various technical operations described in the patent don't necessarily need a subjective opinion about how it sounds, for some to decide that they'd rather see it fail. the good old "have you tried?", "just listen", argument is over simplistic under such circumstances. claiming the cannot be any audible difference without trying would be foolish, but being against MQA without trying seems perfectly reasonable to me so long as they have read a good deal about it. after all MQA has been a topic for many years now, long before it became available, the Meridian crew was already trying to sell it everywhere. I personally felt informed enough to totally hate it long before I could try a song. and that hatred didn't come from someone at Meridian eating my pudding when I was child. it's the stuff they said that got me mad on various occasions until I decided I was simply against MQA in general. it didn't happen in one day.
now MQA exists, that's very fine and my life didn't get ruined and most likely will never be no matter how long the format lasts. so whoever enjoys it, please by all means, have fun. but I really wouldn't want their ideal plans to become reality. I'm at least sure of that much.


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## bigshot (Feb 13, 2018)

Sterling2 said:


> Seems there have been many professing on the matter who have not actually heard any MQA recordings. These folks believe their recording studio credentials permit comment on MQA's moment in the history of civilization, as well as the permission to bully any who do not accept their beliefs on the matter.



It helps that the MQA folks have been pumping out reams of obvious hot air talking about improvements that are quite clearly inaudible to human ears- even on paper. (See the link CD Sound Is All You Need below in my sig.)


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## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> agreed ^_^



Can we have a new forum?

As from what I see, more than 50% of the objection here is to the marketing and closing of the DRM loop, we could separate the these <strike>rants</strike> discussion out to "Audio Marketing" forum and leave science here.

Then I could start a thread on how the new Apple Homepod Doesn't let you play your own music unless you have bought it on itunes, or have an Apple paid subscription and upload your own music to the Apple cloud!  The science of the Homepod is quite interesting, but this is outrageous.


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## Sterling2

jagwap said:


> Can we have a new forum?
> 
> As from what I see, more than 50% of the objection here is to the marketing and closing of the DRM loop, we could separate the these <strike>rants</strike> discussion out to "Audio Marketing" forum and leave science here.
> 
> Then I could start a thread on how the new Apple Homepod Doesn't let you play your own music unless you have bought it on itunes, or have an Apple paid subscription and upload your own music to the Apple cloud!  The science of the Homepod is quite interesting, but this is outrageous.


Closing the loop is an interesting topic. Seems HDMI consolidation will pretty much make home recording impossible as soon as legacy recorders just break down. I've got 2 Sony PCM-7010F's still recording the supposedly non-recordable but they're almost 20 years old and DAT cassettes are kind of hard to find today.


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## bigshot (Feb 13, 2018)

jagwap said:


> Can we have a new forum? As from what I see, more than 50% of the objection here is to the marketing and closing of the DRM loop, we could separate the these <strike>rants</strike> discussion out to "Audio Marketing" forum and leave science here.



Relating marketing claims of how a codec works in the real world to defined thresholds of audibility definitely falls within the range of science. If there is no scientific reason why MQA can sound better and a listening test has proven it doesn't sound better, do you want to buy it? I would love to discuss the science behind MQA, but if all they will say about it is smoke and mirrors, and the only controlled listening test fell smack dab into random territory, I don't see much to talk about. Perhaps we should leave MQA to the poets to compose odes describing "the crystalline purity of the languid liquid waves lapping on my eardrums like the gentle surf of the Mediterranean sea in mid-Summer". If we want to go that route, a different forum would probably be better. The sales pitch for MQA is just as vague. It just uses words that sound scientific.



Sterling2 said:


> Closing the loop is an interesting topic. Seems HDMI consolidation will pretty much make home recording impossible as soon as legacy recorders just break down.



I have a Mac Mini based media server. I can play my own files, or rip just about anything, or stream from the internet from thousands of different content providers. That loop isn't closed and it likely never will be. I think the loop gets closed on the end of the market that requires so much convenience that it borders on sloth. Alexa and that Mac equivalent seem like that to me.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> A lot of audiophiles believe that you have to remove every effect of the room on sound. That isn't true. You have to remove the *detrimental* effects. Lots of hard reflections, resonance and cancellation are obviously bad. But there are some things that enhance music and allow it to bloom and inhabit space. It's about finding a happy balance between the sound from the speakers and the envelope the room puts around that sound, not trying to get just the sound on the recording with no room effect at all. That would sound dead.



Agreed. We are used to hearing music and sound in enclosed spaces. If you put an orchestra in a desert it woud not sound as we expect.

Who mentioned audiophiles? This was an assembled team of audio reseachers in a highly thought of audio manufacturer. They were doing the testing in a professionally treated room and backed up by at the time state of the art measurement equipment.


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## bigshot

In theory audiophiles want the ultimate sound quality. That's the way I am using the term. I use audiophiles for people who want great sound and audiophools for people who believe in smoke and mirrors and refuse to accept facts.


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## Sterling2

bigshot said:


> Relating marketing claims of how a codec works in the real world to defined thresholds of audibility definitely falls within the range of science. If there is no scientific reason why MQA can sound better and a listening test has proven it doesn't sound better, do you want to buy it? I would love to discuss the science behind MQA, but if all they will say about it is smoke and mirrors, and the only controlled listening test fell smack dab into random territory, I don't see much to talk about. Perhaps we should leave MQA to the poets to compose odes describing "the crystalline purity of the languid liquid waves lapping on my eardrums like the gentle surf of the Mediterranean sea in mid-Summer". If we want to go that route, a different forum would probably be better. The sales pitch for MQA is just as vague. It just uses words that sound scientific.
> 
> 
> 
> I have a Mac Mini based media server. I can play my own files, or rip just about anything, or stream from the internet from thousands of different content providers. That loop isn't closed and it likely never will be. I think the loop gets closed on the end of the market that requires so much convenience that it borders on sloth. Alexa and that Mac equivalent seem like that to me.


How do you typically copy or record music, that's to say, how do you download it to your computer. For example, if you were listening to music on YouTube and wanted to add that music to your iTunes Library how would you import the music? What would be  your step by step actions?


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## slinkyjynx

Sterling2 said:


> How do you typically copy or record music, that's to say, how do you download it to your computer. For example, if you were listening to music on YouTube and wanted to add that music to your iTunes Library how would you import the music? What would be  your step by step actions?


I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we'd listen to a song on Youtube, and if we liked it, we'd purchase the CD/Album download from a vendor of some kind and then either rip the CD or dowload the files they provide


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## Sterling2

slinkyjynx said:


> I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we'd listen to a song on Youtube, and if we liked it, we'd purchase the CD/Album download from a vendor of some kind and then either rip the CD or dowload the files they provide


Yes, that's exactly what you would do. It's what I do to. And, in fact, it may be the only way to get the music into your music library; meaning, what if you heard some music on YouTube which did not have a link to iTunes, Apple Music, or other to be able to buy or play the music from your library. Well, I'll tell you, would not be able to enjoy the music unless you went back to YouTube to listen to it. That is unless you had some sort of legacy audio recorder which could receive the optical S/PDIF output from the player you are using to listen to the music on YouTube. For example, let's say you have a Smart TV and you are listening to music on YouTube, you could output from the TV's optical S/PDIF to a digital recorder with S/PDIF input. But, here's the thing, soon, there will be no TV's or other electronics which will have anything other than HDMI output. That effectively means an end to home recording, such as enjoyed in the past using CD, or DAT Recorders. Of course, usb to S/PDIF can be used for recording to legacy recorders, but once those recorders give it up you will be out of luck.


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## bigshot (Feb 14, 2018)

I generally buy a lot of CDs, DVDs, SACDs and blu-rays and I can rip from all those formats to load onto my media server. It's possible to download YouTube videos too, and it isn't necessarily illegal. Here is an article on c/net about it... https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-download-videos-from-youtube-vimeo-and-more/

If there is something you find on YouTube that you can't find anywhere else, I'd recommend downloading an archive copy of it. Stuff on YouTube is ephemeral. I've run into instances were incredibly important stuff just disappeared for no reason. Our culture is becoming like Alzheimers.

To me, it's important to have a copy of something. I don't listen passively or randomly. I try to compare performances and analyze. That is very difficult to do with streaming, especially if it's set up for random play with no set playlist. That kind of setup has never worked for me. I want to hear music I'm not familiar with, not music I already like and know about.


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## Sterling2

bigshot said:


> I generally buy a lot of CDs, DVDs, SACDs and blu-rays and I can rip from all those formats to load onto my media server. It's possible to download YouTube videos too, and it isn't necessarily illegal. Here is an article on c/net about it... https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-download-videos-from-youtube-vimeo-and-more/
> 
> If there is something you find on YouTube that you can't find anywhere else, I'd recommend downloading an archive copy of it. Stuff on YouTube is ephemeral. I've run into instances were incredibly important stuff just disappeared for no reason. Our culture is becoming like Alzheimers.
> 
> To me, it's important to have a copy of something. I don't listen passively or randomly. I try to compare performances and analyze. That is very difficult to do with streaming, especially if it's set up for random play with no set playlist. That kind of setup has never worked for me. I want to hear music I'm not familiar with, not music I already like and know about.


How do you rip SACD, either stereo and/or multi-channel? And, BTW, I like your posts, perhaps because I too like to compare and analyze, at least think critically about topics within the hobby.


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## bigshot

There are specific players that can rip SACDs... I have an Oppo BD103d that can do it. Here is info on that... https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...ipping-using-an-oppo-or-pioneer-yes-its-true/


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## bfreedma

bigshot said:


> There are specific players that can rip SACDs... I have an Oppo BD103d that can do it. Here is info on that... https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...ipping-using-an-oppo-or-pioneer-yes-its-true/



Nice find and thanks for the link.  I wonder of my Oppo BD93 will work?  I'll have to give it a try this weekend.

I probably have less than 30 SACDs, mostly for the 5.1, but it would be nice to rip the 2 channel tracks for mobile listening.


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## Sterling2

bigshot said:


> There are specific players that can rip SACDs... I have an Oppo BD103d that can do it. Here is info on that... https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...ipping-using-an-oppo-or-pioneer-yes-its-true/


What an ordeal for anyone other than an IT guy. Makes hybrid SACDs seem a more viable solution. Just insert in CD burner and copy CD layer to music library on your computer. This is what I do and I can not discern for better or worse the sound of the created ALAC 16/44 file and SACD from stand alone player.


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## bigshot

It really isn't that hard. But if all you want to rip is two channel, it's a lot easier to just rip the CD layer. The only reason to rip an SACD is for the multichannel.


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## Sterling2

bigshot said:


> It really isn't that hard. But if all you want to rip is two channel, it's a lot easier to just rip the CD layer. The only reason to rip an SACD is for the multichannel.


After you have ripped multi-channel, how do you enjoy it? I have a few multi-channel flac files in my J. River Media Center Library; and, recently I tried to play them via the MC as DLNA server to my OPPO UDP-205. The OPPO lists the file but will not play them, multi-channel or stereo. That's been my luck, no means to play multi-channel except  multi-channel SACD via OPPO.


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## bigshot (Feb 15, 2018)

You can convert them to a multichannel FLAC or wrap it in an MKV file. My media server will play either of those formats. You can keep it in DSD, but that requires a special player app. There are limitations to how the Oppo works with certain types of streaming connections. You might try putting the file on a thumb drive and plug that into the Oppo and see how it works.


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## Sterling2

bigshot said:


> You can convert them to a multichannel FLAC or wrap it in an MKV file. My media server will play either of those formats. You can keep it in DSD, but that requires a special player app.


OK, but what  multi-channel pre/pro are you outputting to?


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## bigshot

I play FLACs and MKVs in Plex on my Mac Mini and use an HDMI out to run them through my Yamaha AVR. Plex transcodes it to multichannel PCM on the fly.


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## Sterling2

bigshot said:


> I play FLACs and MKVs in Plex on my Mac Mini and use an HDMI out to run them through my Yamaha AVR. Plex transcodes it to multichannel PCM on the fly.


Yeah, you are using HDMI for multi-channel so now I see you have ZERO issue. I can output HDMI from my computer but I have nothing to input it too. That's to say no HDMI AVR or pre/pro. All of my pre/pros are pre HDMI; therefore, I am precluded to SACD multi-channel playback or Bluray, both to analog multi-channel equipment.


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## bigshot

My brother had the same problem. He has a McIntosh system he bought in the late 70s. It's a complete albatross when it comes to AV. He is stuck in the past because of it. Might be time to think about getting an AVR. They are quite inexpensive and they have a LOT more features than old style amps and receivers.


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> My brother had the same problem. He has a McIntosh system he bought in the late 70s. It's a complete albatross when it comes to AV. He is stuck in the past because of it. Might be time to think about getting an AVR. They are quite inexpensive and they have a LOT more features than old style amps and receivers.



But the '70s was when McIntosh made good products, and most low cost AVR have very poor analogue sections, particularly the power amps.

The big names like Yamaha, Denon, Pioneer and Onkyo are a better bet, but the bottom of the range is not a wise choice.  The expensive part is the decode licensing, and it should b the power amps.  Once they've paid for the licenses they skimp on the amps.  Arcam make great AVRs. Probably why Harman bought them.

But to do it well, get an OPPO bluray player ending with the number 5 (BDP-205 for example) and add power amps you trust.

Dragging this back on topic Onkyo have MQA on several of their products.  Their AVRs may be next.


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## Sterling2 (Feb 17, 2018)

bigshot said:


> My brother had the same problem. He has a McIntosh system he bought in the late 70s. It's a complete albatross when it comes to AV. He is stuck in the past because of it. Might be time to think about getting an AVR. They are quite inexpensive and they have a LOT more features than old style amps and receivers.


My system's heart is made up from 4 components: Sony TA-E9000ES preamp/processor, Sony TA-N9000ES 5 channel power amp, Sony TA-P9000ES 5.1 analog multi-channel preamp, and a Sony TA-N80ES stereo power amp bridged to mono to power my sub. Now, what do I lack from this system: 1. no HDMI input; but I do not need that, since I have an OPPO UDP-205 which outputs 5.1 analog multi-channel music. This means I can enjoy SACD multi-channel, as well as multi-channel files on usb thumb drive. 2. I do not have Airplay circuit in my TA-E9000ES; but, that problem was solved by adding an Airport Express to the system. So, I have as state-of-the-art  system for stereo or multi-channel that's out there today; plus, my equipment is built better than anything produced today regardless of price. If my stuff was made today, I'd have about $9,000 into it  for what I got for about $4000 back in 2000. And, I am not sure at all I would have equipment which would have the long life my equipment has had. Perhaps it's why vintage is so popular today- great build quality for peanuts. One more thing, I still have a 30 year old Sony TC-K950ES Cassette Recorder that's still going strong; and, I have an over 40 year old Sony PS-4750 which rivals any turntable out there today.


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## bigshot

jagwap said:


> But the '70s was when McIntosh made good products, and most low cost AVR have very poor analogue sections, particularly the power amps.



I don’t have anything in my system using analogue any more. My oppo player has analogue out, but HDMI is theoretically cleaner and much more convenient. The only reason I can think of for analogue would be a turntable, and it would be easier to just put an ADC between it and the media server so you could capture easily.


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## jagwap (Feb 17, 2018)

Sterling2 said:


> My system's heart is made up from 4 components: Sony TA-E9000ES preamp/processor, Sony TA-N9000ES 5 channel power amp, Sony TA-P9000ES 5.1 analog multi-channel preamp, and a Sony TA-N80ES stereo power amp bridged to mono to power my sub. Now, what do I lack from this system: 1. no HDMI input; but I do not need that, since I have an OPPO UDP-205 which outputs 5.1 analog multi-channel music. This means I can enjoy SACD multi-channel, as well as multi-channel files on usb thumb drive. 2. I do not have Airplay circuit in my TA-E9000ES; but, that problem was solved by adding an Airport Express to the system. So, I have as state-of-the-art  system for stereo or multi-channel that's out there today; plus, my equipment is built better than anything produced today regardless of price. If my stuff was made today, I'd have about $9,000 into it  for what I got for about $4000 back in 2000. And, I am not sure at all I would have equipment which would have the long life my equipment has had. Perhaps it's why vintage is so popular today- great build quality for peanuts. One more thing, I still have a 30 year old Sony TC-K950ES Cassette Recorder that's still going strong; and, I have an over 40 year old Sony PS-4750 which rivals any turntable out there today.



Do you use the 5.1 preamp after the Oppo? You may find the Oppo is good enough to feed straight into the 5 channel amp, probably better.  It is a good DAC.

You can buy stuff this good or better today, but you are looking at a lot more than $9000.



bigshot said:


> I don’t have anything in my system using analogue any more. My oppo player has analogue out, but HDMI is theoretically cleaner and much more convenient. The only reason I can think of for analogue would be a turntable, and it would be easier to just put an ADC between it and the media server so you could capture easily.



HDMI is not cleaner than the analogue out of your Oppo, as HDMI often suffers badly from jitter.  However the analogue section of your AVR may end up not helping.  You do have analogue in your system: the CODEC outputs, and the power amps.  Converting analogue to digital and back again to do vinyl is pretty pointless, unless you jest want to rip.

Sterling 2 is doing it right.


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## bigshot (Feb 17, 2018)

jagwap said:


> HDMI is not cleaner than the analogue out of your Oppo, as HDMI often suffers badly from jitter.



Jitter as it occurs in even the cheapest audio equipment is a whole order of magnitude below the threshold of audibility. The noise in the Oppo's analogue outputs is considerably higher than any kind of noise in the HDMI output. Likely they're both inaudible so it doesn't matter. But there's no reason to spend more or sacrifice features just to use analogue.

The DAC in a typical AVR is well beyond the threshold of transparency. There's no reason to use the Oppo's DAC over any other decent DAC as long as you are listening with human ears.

The only practical reason to use the analogue outs from the Oppo is to use it with pre HDMI pre sundown equipment. If your AVR can't handle DSD, just convert to PCM. It's all the same.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Jitter as it occurs in even the cheapest audio equipment is a whole order of magnitude below the threshold of audibility. The noise in the Oppo's analogue outputs is considerably higher than any kind of noise in the HDMI output. Likely they're both inaudible so it doesn't matter. But there's no reason to spend more or sacrifice features just to use analogue.
> 
> The DAC in a typical AVR is well beyond the threshold of transparency. There's no reason to use the Oppo's DAC over any other decent DAC as long as you are listening with human ears.
> 
> The only practical reason to use the analogue outs from the Oppo is to use it with pre HDMI pre sundown equipment. If your AVR can't handle DSD, just convert to PCM. It's all the same.



Back to the "all digital is perfect".  Its the analogue parts of the CODEC that matter, and Oppo very likely spent more on that and they've proven they know what they are doing.  Next you will be saying that the cheap class D amps in low cost AVRs sound the same as well designed separate amplifiers.

HDMI jitter that I've seen the measurements for is several orders of magnitude higher than SPDIF or AESEBU.  It is the HDMI chipset manufacturers, they don't take care of it.  The jitter in an all-in-one server and CODEC is going to be better if the master clock is next to the DAC.  Why replace a godd system with a cheap one just because says DIGITAL?  It all ends up analogue.  Why not let the conversion happen in the right place?

Anyway, I doubt you'd listen to me, as I only design the stuff...


----------



## Glmoneydawg

jagwap said:


> Back to the "all digital is perfect".  Its the analogue parts of the CODEC that matter, and Oppo very likely spent more on that and they've proven they know what they are doing.  Next you will be saying that the cheap class D amps in low cost AVRs sound the same as well designed separate amplifiers.
> 
> HDMI jitter that I've seen the measurements for is several orders of magnitude higher than SPDIF or AESEBU.  It is the HDMI chipset manufacturers, they don't take care of it.  The jitter in an all-in-one server and CODEC is going to be better if the master clock is next to the DAC.  Why replace a godd system with a cheap one just because says DIGITAL?  It all ends up analogue.  Why not let the conversion happen in the right place?
> 
> Anyway, I doubt you'd listen to me, as I only design the stuff...


Yep analog section seems to be forgotten in the digital era (beach portable electronics in a lot of stuff)...analog out needs to be up to snuff.


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## bigshot (Feb 17, 2018)

jagwap said:


> Its the analogue parts of the CODEC that matter, and Oppo very likely spent more on that and they've proven they know what they are doing.



What is the analogue part of a codec? A codec is a digital processing program.



jagwap said:


> Next you will be saying that the cheap class D amps in low cost AVRs sound the same as well designed separate amplifiers.



There are plenty of audibly transparent AVRs, so if the separate amps are also transparent, yes.



jagwap said:


> HDMI jitter that I've seen the measurements for is several orders of magnitude higher than SPDIF or AESEBU.  It is the HDMI chipset manufacturers, they don't take care of it.  The jitter in an all-in-one server and CODEC is going to be better if the master clock is next to the DAC.  Why replace a godd system with a cheap one just because says DIGITAL?  It all ends up analogue.  Why not let the conversion happen in the right place?



I'm afraid you lost me there. In general I would think that it's better to hand bit perfect digital all the way though to the final stage and *then* convert it to analogue signals in the amp. That way you aren't stacking up multiple analogue stages, each one with its own noise floor.

But what matters is the threshold of perception for jitter. How much does it take for it to be audible? Do you know? If so, you can compare it to the outputs and know if it's important or not. Hint: I've done this. It isn't audible even in a $40 Walmart CD player.

Here is a crib sheet for you...

JITTER

Just Detectable Threshold in Music 20ns
http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=8354 (needs subscription)
http://www.nanophon.com/audio/1394_sampling_jitter.pdf (cited in section 2.2)

Note that this figure is for 17kHz. As the frequencies go lower, jitter is even less of a problem. It's also useful to google time measurement and familiarize yourself with exactly how much a nanosecond or a picosecond is.

The level of jitter as it occurs in most modern audio equipment is inaudible. Something has to be major league messed up for jitter to reach audible levels.



jagwap said:


> Anyway, I doubt you'd listen to me, as I only design the stuff...



Share some of your designs with us. We have other designers here in this forum as well. You can compare notes.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

bigshot said:


> What is the analogue part of a codec? A codec is a digital processing program.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





bigshot said:


> What is the analogue part of a codec? A codec is a digital processing program.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is gonna get ugly...sigh


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> What is the analogue part of a codec? A codec is a digital processing program.



N, it isn't.  It is a DAC and an ADC.  Sure there are digital filters and a bunch of glue logic and state machines, but there is analogue in there, by necessity.  Also I'm tlaking about the analogue stage after the CODEC, which makes more difference than the CODEC itself.



> There are plenty of audibly transparent AVRs, so if the separate amps are also transparent, yes.



There are few transparent audio products out there.  It is all a matter of degree.  Not all amplifiers sound the same (maybe they should but they don't).



> I'm afraid you lost me there. In general I would think that it's better to hand bit perfect digital all the way though to the final stage and *then* convert it to analogue signals in the amp. That way you aren't stacking up multiple analogue stages, each one with its own noise floor.



What is the final stage?  working backwards, ignoring the room: Speakers, amplifier, pre-amp, DAC, DSP, Source.  You added HDMI decoder and encoder.  Putting the DAC and analogue under the same power supply as noisy class D amps (any amp is noisy in the audio band on the power supply rails, but class D does where the power supply rejection is lower) is less than ideal. So having it in the Oppo should be better for a number of reasons.

AVRs are a compromise.  Good value, but rarely ideal.  The Dolby decoding bill is upto $40, so your are paying $120-200 just for that, twice (as it is in the Oppo too).  They have to have that to sell, so the money of the analogue is far less than if you just bought a 5 or 7 channel amp



> But what matters is the threshold of perception for jitter. How much does it take for it to be audible? Do you know? If so, you can compare it to the outputs and know if it's important or not. Hint: I've done this. It isn't audible even in a $40 Walmart CD player.
> 
> Here is a crib sheet for you...
> 
> ...



That is a huge subject, and we have already de-railed this thread too much.  There are multiple types of jitter and I don't think they can be classified the same.  But thank for the links.  I will re-read them as it's been a while.



> Share some of your designs with us. We have other designers here in this forum as well. You can compare notes.



Nobody I've seen in Sound Science stays if they disclose their background.  It's too judgemental here.  I wish it wasn't but hey I'm thick skinned.  Also my current employer has strong rules about employees speaking publicly if they say where they work.  It's all about representing the brand.  I can speak with more freedom if I keep it undisclosed.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

bigshot said:


> What is the analogue part of a codec? A codec is a digital processing program.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If it's coming out of your speakers its analog my friend.I agree with a lot of your digital praise comments,but you have to have a good analog section to output your signal to the speakers or headphones.


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## bigshot (Feb 18, 2018)

That is the amp, not the codec. The codec is pure 100% unadulterated digital.

Analogue stage after the DAC is a different story, but analogue stages aren't that hard to make clean. Off the shelf components are perfectly capable of being clean and transparent. The distortion of transducers is MUCH bigger than sound messed up by op amps and that sort of thing. That shouldn't even be an issue. A simple AB level matched blind listening test will prove that. Good luck telling the difference between a decent AVR and an audiophile amp. Or even the difference between the Oppo's HDMI and analogue outputs. It's all clean. I have a Walmart DVD player that sounds every bit as good as my Oppo. I've done a controlled comparison to know that. I'm not just going on theory.



jagwap said:


> Nobody I've seen in Sound Science stays if they disclose their background.



I've never made a secret of my identity online. Do you want a link to my IMDB page? I'll trade you. Or you can just figure it out. It's no secret. Most of the regulars here know who I am. No employer I've ever worked for has ever required I be anonymous online, and they've been deeply invested in content on the internet.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> Nobody I've seen in Sound Science stays if they disclose their background.  It's too judgemental here.  I wish it wasn't but hey I'm thick skinned.  Also my current employer has strong rules about employees speaking publicly if they say where they work.  It's all about representing the brand.  I can speak with more freedom if I keep it undisclosed.


that's just me speaking and not Head-fi, but I'm not a fan of full background and job disclosure. on principle I'm all for transparency, but it indeed brings on a lot of bias, pro and against the person by association with brand/product/job. ideally I'd love to see arguments be strictly about what is right and what is wrong, instead of who's talking and how to win an argument. if we were better people, you could say anything you like about your background, and we'd still focus only on available evidence when something is said. in practice... well I blame the human in me. ^_^

I really don't know enough about HDMI, to me it's still a video interconnect and as such, the audio part was never really targeting hyper high res like maniac audiophiles can do. I've seen some clock logic when feeding a video signal, but I don't really have a clew what happens when it's audio only, or how specific audio gear deal with the incoming HDMI signal. a few audio measurements I've seen(not a lot), seem to suggest that we can more often than not, do better with an alternative digital solution. but I can't say I know the reason why or if it's even true at a statistical level. also there is always the good old measurable vs audible, and I don't have enough personal experience or material to say anything about audibility so far. as mentioned it isn't exactly the topic for that, but I'd be interested in getting some more information on HDMI and audio because to sum it up, I don't know shiiiiiit. ^_^


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## jagwap (Feb 18, 2018)

bigshot said:


> That is the amp, not the codec. The codec is pure 100% unadulterated digital.



No it isn't. It is analogue in, and analogue out. The process to do this has analogue sections. If it is not current output then it has analogue stages inside. Even if it is there is the switchec capacitor section which needs good analogue design to be accurate. That's without getting into the power supply rejection issues.



> Analogue stage after the DAC is a different story, but analogue stages aren't that hard to make clean. Off the shelf components are perfectly capable of being clean and transparent. The distortion of transducers is MUCH bigger than noise from op amps and that sort of thing.



Transducers have more distortion sure, but that doesn't make the other stuff trival to get right. Most manufacturers do the bare minimum as they spent all their budget on the decoding licenses.


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## bigshot (Feb 18, 2018)

HDMI is handing a pure digital signal across. It isn't even converting it to analogue. It is the digital equivalent of lossless. The DAC in my Yamaha AVR is audibly transparent. Why would I do the conversion to analogue in the Oppo and then carry it across in analogue to the AVR? An amp is always going to be noisier than a player, and a transducer is always going to be noisier than an amp. Wouldn't it be cleaner to carry the signal across in lossless digital and then convert it right as the last stage at amplification? Analogue to analogue is just stacking up analogue noise. Digital to analogue only has one layer of analogue noise. And transparent is transparent.



castleofargh said:


> that's just me speaking and not Head-fi, but I'm not a fan of full background and job disclosure. on principle I'm all for transparency, but it indeed brings on a lot of bias, pro and against the person by association with brand/product/job.



I can usually tell whether someone knows what they're talking about without a resumé. But if someone wants to tell me that they have expertise in particular area and I shouldn't question them, then I feel free to ask.

Here is the wikipedia cite for specs for HDMI audio.,,

For digital audio, if an HDMI device has audio, it is required to implement the baseline format: stereo (uncompressed) PCM. Other formats are optional, with HDMI allowing up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio at sample sizes of 16-bit, 20-bit and 24-bit, with sample rates of 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, 176.4 kHz and 192 kHz.[6](§7) HDMI also carries any IEC 61937-compliant compressed audio stream, such as Dolby Digital and DTS, and up to 8 channels of one-bit DSD audio (used on Super Audio CDs) at rates up to four times that of Super Audio CD.[6](§7) With version 1.3, HDMI allows lossless compressed audio streams Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.[6](§7)

That is my definition of overkill. No analogue outs in a consumer player are going to compare to 24/192 or four times SACD DSD rate. And any halfway decent DAC should be audibly transparent if they are capable of decoding these formats. Going through two analogue stages isn't going to sound better than going through one.


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## Sterling2 (Feb 18, 2018)

jagwap said:


> Do you use the 5.1 preamp after the Oppo? You may find the Oppo is good enough to feed straight into the 5 channel amp, probably better.  It is a good DAC.
> 
> You can buy stuff this good or better today, but you are looking at a lot more than $9000.
> 
> ...


No, I am not using the OPPO as a preamp, but I could. Right now, the OPPOs 5.1 analog output is feed to my Sony TA-P9000ES Analog Preamplifier, so I am using the OPPOs DAC whether or not the Sony is preamp, or OPPO is preamp. The Sony has a motorized volume control I like; plus, even though I am using the OPPOs bass and speaker management, I can quickly make additional analog gain adjustments if useful from the Sony without needing to go into the OPPOs menu. I also have the unbalanced analog stereo output from the OPPO fed to an analog input on my Sony  TA-E9000ES Preamp/processor. I use that connection for listening to hi-res files, AAC, ALAC, AIFF and other from my iTunes Library via the OPPOs usb DAC. With that chain I can control a 2.1 configuration from the Sony with mains set for 60hz crossover and sub operating at -10db at 50 percent gain at sub's amp. At any rate, I likely have 9 ways to Sunday to enjoy the OPPO. And, although I purchased it specifically to enjoy multi-channel SACDs through the player's analog output, having no HDMI input on my amplification, I am actually using the OPPO mostly for enjoyment of my iTunes Library via the usb DAC. The OPPOs DAC is delivering subtle overtones, undertones, bass, and detail which I had not heard through prior listening using Airport Express 16/44 DAC, Creative Sound Blaster X-FI HD 24/96 DAC, or Sony 24/96 DAC. BTW, I have my OPPO driver set to 24/192, and iTunes is set to  Windows Audio Session at 24/192. Thing is, the OPPO stereo DAC presents all files, whether 256k AAC or 24/192, with indistinguishable results. All files sound great. It makes me wonder in fact why buy hi-rez. It's all good, a very entertaining distraction for sure. Only downside is the OPPO DAC does get so much detail it reveals the recorded media's engineering flaws too. Some of my DOO WOP on iTunes, i.e. Duke Of Earl, Who Wrote The Book Of Love, Why Do Fools Fall In Love, and Denice, actually sound worse than when played back with lessor DACs. Interestingly enough, when that music was originally recorded and most folks were listening to it on $8 Magnavox transistor radios, the recording quality was, I'm sure, not as discernable to  recording engineers as it would be today for that sort of music.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> HDMI is handing a pure digital signal across. It isn't even converting it to analogue. It is the digital equivalent of lossless. The DAC in my Yamaha AVR is audibly transparent. Why would I do the conversion to analogue in the Oppo and then carry it across in analogue to the AVR? An amp is always going to be noisier than a player, and a transducer is always going to be noisier than an amp. Wouldn't it be cleaner to carry the signal across in lossless digital and then convert it right as the last stage at amplification? Analogue to analogue is just stacking up analogue noise. Digital to analogue only has one layer of analogue noise. And transparent is transparent.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I started replying, but noticed I am just repeating the same information, which you chose not to accept.  You are enjoying your system and it is perfect for you, so fine.


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## jagwap (Feb 18, 2018)

Sterling2 said:


> No, I am not using the OPPO as a preamp, but I could. Right now, the OPPOs 5.1 analog output is feed to my Sony TA-P9000ES Analog Preamplifier, so I am using the OPPOs DAC whether or not the Sony is preamp, or OPPO is preamp. The Sony has a motorized volume control I like; plus, even though I am using the OPPOs bass and speaker management, I can quickly make additional analog gain adjustments if useful from the Sony without needing to go into the OPPOs menu. I also have the unbalanced analog stereo output from the OPPO fed to an analog input on my Sony  TA-E9000ES Preamp/processor. I use that connection for listening to hi-res files, AAC, ALAC, AIFF and other from my iTunes Library via the OPPOs usb DAC. With that chain I can control a 2.1 configuration from the Sony with mains set for 60hz crossover and sub operating at -10db at 50 percent gain at sub's amp. At any rate, I likely have 9 ways to Sunday to enjoy the OPPO. And, although I purchased it specifically to enjoy multi-channel SACDs through the player's analog output, having no HDMI input on my amplification, I am actually using the OPPO mostly for enjoyment of my iTunes Library via the usb DAC. The OPPOs DAC is delivering subtle overtones, undertones, bass, and detail which I had not heard through prior listening using Airport Express 16/44 DAC, Creative Sound Blaster X-FI HD 24/96 DAC, or Sony 24/96 DAC. BTW, I have my OPPO driver set to 24/192, and iTunes is set to  Windows Audio Session at 24/192. Thing is, the OPPO stereo DAC presents all files, whether 256k AAC or 24/192, with indistinguishable results. All files sound great. It makes me wonder in fact why buy hi-rez. It's all good, a very entertaining distraction for sure. Only downside is the OPPO DAC does get so much detail it reveals the recorded media's engineering flaws too. Some of my DOO WOP on iTunes, i.e. Duke Of Earl, Who Wrote The Book Of Love, Why Do Fools Fall In Love, and Denice, actually sound worse than when played back with lessor DACs. Interestingly enough, when that music was originally recorded and most folks were listening to it on $8 Magnavox transistor radios, the recording quality was, I'm sure, not as discernable to  recording engineers as it would be today for that sort of music.



Sounds like anecdotally that not all CODECs are transparent.  Strange that.


----------



## Sterling2

jagwap said:


> Sounds like anecdotally that not all CODECs are transparent.  Strange that.


I've gotta tell ya, my understanding of digital storage is mostly from what I read inside the cover of  Telarc's "The Firebird" LP which was produced using the Soundstream Digital Recorder engineered by  Dr. Stockham in the 1970's. I was told that 16/44 was as much as anyone could appreciate. Then, there was no argument about analog to digital conversion of one sort sounding better than another sort. I got the overall gist of it; and, that was enough to know I liked the idea, mostly because I would no longer be subjected to poor quality LP's with distracting snap, crackle, and pops. I have no more understanding for digital storage today than I did then. I just want to enjoy the music as best I can within a modest budget. My interest in the OPPO was simply to be able to enjoy multi-channel SACDs, so the DAC in it sounding better than other DACs I've used was a surprise, especially since I too had been told that all DACs sound the same.


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## bigshot (Feb 18, 2018)

jagwap said:


> Sounds like anecdotally that not all CODECs are transparent.  Strange that.



Would you like to find out where the line is for audible transparency? I have a test file that includes samples of three different codecs at three different data rates along with a lossless sample. All you have to do is listen to the ten samples and rank them from best to worst. Then you'll know for sure what you can hear and what you can't. It isn't anecdotal any more. Let me know if you'd like to take the test and I'll set you up with the test file. I've handed this test out to a lot of people. I know where the thresholds lie. Do you?

---

Sterling2, the music is the whole purpose of this stuff to be sure, but there's an awful lot of misinformation being thrown around by people who just parrot sales pitch. Recent audio reproduction technology has reached a point where just about every piece of electronic equipment- even very cheap ones- are audibly transparent. They all sound the same- perfect.

So what do you do if you are selling expensive audio equipment? Why should someone pay more to buy *your* DAC or amp or DAP? Well, most people would talk about their extra features and build quality. But that isn't good enough for some manufacturers. They choose to point at abstract numbers on a page to show that their numbers are better. They know that most people don't know much about how digital sound reproduction works. They count on the buyer assuming that better numbers mean better sound. But our ears have limitations. We can only hear so much. At some point, the level of transparency is achieved and everything sounds the same beyond that.

Just about all DACs and amps are audibly transparent, and just about all DACs and amps sound the same. The exceptions to that rule are DACs and amps that are *designed* to sound different. They have more distortion or an imbalanced frequency response. People hear a difference and assume that a difference means "better". It doesn't. Amps and DACs should be designed to not have a sound of their own. They should take the audio file and translate it without adding or subtracting anything from the sound. That is what most of them do.

It really pays to make a little effort to understand how things work, at least on a basic level. My grandmother was raised on a farm. She would ride a horse and when she was done riding, she'd just turn the horse loose into a field to take care of itself. When she bought a car, she did the same thing. No servicing, no oil changes. The car was only used on Sundays to drive to church, and church was a block away. That car had less than 20,000 miles on it when she gave up driving, but it might as well have been 200,000. It ran like a truck and would barely start up in the morning.

Electronics now are designed to do their job perfectly. Understanding the basics of how they work helps you keep them doing their job perfectly. There are things that make a difference to sound quality, but analogue stages and jitter aren't things that do make a difference.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Would you like to find out where the line is for audible transparency? I have a test file that includes samples of three different codecs at three different data rates along with a lossless sample. All you have to do is listen to the ten samples and rank them from best to worst. Then you'll know for sure what you can hear and what you can't. It isn't anecdotal any more. Let me know if you'd like to take the test and I'll set you up with the test file. I've handed this test out to a lot of people. I know where the thresholds lie. Do you?



Ah, I see the misunderstanding now. CODEC is also a term used for the hardware, usually a single IC, which is an ADC and a DAC of various numbers of channels. It has nothing to do with lossless verses compressed in this case as all CODECs need PCM (or occasionally DSD). My bad, I assumed you and others knew that in this context. As to them sounding different, they can. It is often more to do with the implementation than the choice of chipset, but it still is true.


----------



## bigshot

Which DAC chips sound different and what are the differences? Do you know anyone who has measured the differences?


----------



## Sterling2

jagwap said:


> Ah, I see the misunderstanding now. CODEC is also a term used for the hardware, usually a single IC, which is an ADC and a DAC of various numbers of channels. It has nothing to do with lossless verses compressed in this case as all CODECs need PCM (or occasionally DSD). My bad, I assumed you and others knew that in this context. As to them sounding different, they can. It is often more to do with the implementation than the choice of chipset, but it still is true.


As I mentioned earlier on this thread, I am using my new OPPO UDP-205's usb DAC to enjoy the music I have on iTunes anywhere from 256k to 24/192.  All music so far seems to be more "detailed" than former listening using Airplay at 16/44, for better or worse depending on how well the recordings were engineered.


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## Glmoneydawg (Feb 27, 2018)

Sterling2 said:


> As I mentioned earlier on this thread, I am using my new OPPO UDP-205's usb DAC to enjoy the music I have on iTunes anywhere from 256k to 24/192.  All music so far seems to be more "detailed" than former listening using Airplay at 16/44, for better or worse depending on how well the recordings were engineered.


Oppo has good sounding machines....their dacs are not proprietary though i believe....is there another part of the chain that could be involved here?


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## bigshot

Sterling2 said:


> As I mentioned earlier on this thread, I am using my new OPPO UDP-205's usb DAC to enjoy the music I have on iTunes anywhere from 256k to 24/192.  All music so far seems to be more "detailed" than former listening using Airplay at 16/44, for better or worse depending on how well the recordings were engineered.



I've done a direct A/B switched line level matched comparison between my Oppo BDP103 and a $40 WalMart DVD player and I couldn't detect any difference between them. I couldn't tell any difference between my Oppo HA-1 and the $40 DVD player either. I'm guessing your comparison wasn't direct switched or blind.


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## jagwap

Or you didn't want to hear a difference. The opposite of the audiophile bias.


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## Strangelove424

Yes, it's called the "I value money and don't want to throw it at random things" bias.


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## bigshot

jagwap said:


> Or you didn't want to hear a difference. The opposite of the audiophile bias.



Given the choice between "What I can't hear can't hurt me" and "I want to worry about things I can't hear", I know which bias I'd prefer!


----------



## jagwap

Or...8

Refusal to hear something that could disagree with entrenched ideals...


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## bigshot

That is simple and is solved by controlled testing. We all do that here in this forum.


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## jagwap

I propose that the same bias often accuse of "the audiophiles": that everything makes a difference, can equally and oppositely applied to the other team: that nothing makes a difference.

In blind listening you are listening for a difference. But there is still a bias that can creep in: whether you want to find one.


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## gregorio (Feb 28, 2018)

jagwap said:


> Or you didn't want to hear a difference. The opposite of the audiophile bias. ...
> Refusal to hear something that could disagree with entrenched ideals...



The whole point of a DBX or double blind testing is to listen specifically for differences. So what you're suggesting is unlikely, although it can't be completely ruled out. However, we do have a commonly used test to identify differences which does NOT rely on eliminating hearing biases, the Null Test. What we are left with (after time and volume matching) from a null test is an objective measurement of purely the difference/s. I often perform a null test to determine if there are any differences which even could be audible and if not, I have my answer and there's no need for a double blind listening test but if there are measured differences which could be audible then I do a double blind test with the expectation that I should be able to hear a difference which I know (have proven) is there.

G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> The whole point of a DBX or double blind testing is to listen specifically for differences. So what you're suggesting is unlikely, although it can't be completely ruled out. However, we do have a commonly used test to identify differences which does NOT rely on eliminating hearing biases, the Null Test. What we are left with (after time and volume matching) from a null test is an objective measurement of purely the difference/s. I often perform a null test to determine if there are any differences which even could be audible and if not, I have my answer and there's no need for a double blind listening test but if there are measured differences which could be audible then I do a double blind test with the expectation that I should be able to hear a difference which I know (have proven) is there.
> 
> G



Nulling two analogue signals is notoriously difficult, due to small phase changes, particularly at the frequency extremes. Can you point to a system that copes with that?


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## gregorio

jagwap said:


> Nulling two analogue signals is notoriously difficult, due to small phase changes, particularly at the frequency extremes. Can you point to a system that copes with that?



I just do a loop back (back into the digital domain) with a very short impulse of a known amplitude just before the test signal to provide an easy to identify alignment point. It's a bit fiddly to align but not especially difficult.

G


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## Sterling2 (Feb 28, 2018)

bigshot said:


> I've done a direct A/B switched line level matched comparison between my Oppo BDP103 and a $40 WalMart DVD player and I couldn't detect any difference between them. I couldn't tell any difference between my Oppo HA-1 and the $40 DVD player either. I'm guessing your comparison wasn't direct switched or blind.


The greater detail I hear from iTunes Library using the OPPO UDP-205 usb  DAC vs Airport Express DAC, Creative Sound Blaster X-FI HD DAC, or Sony TA-E9000es DAC I suppose could be the result of a multitude of factors, which I have no interest in exploring, or defending. The perception stands as an impression which  does not need to be proven or tested, assuming I had an interest, capability, and means to test such things, which I don't. .My familiarity with the music was ample resource to  understand having detail not previously heard from other listening means. At any rate, the detail was not something I sought from the OPPO, that's to say, I did not buy it for it's usb DAC, but instead, as a means  to enjoy multi-channel SACDs though a player having multi-channel analog output which could be connected to an analog multi-channel preamp (Sony TA-P9000ES). The usb DAC feature nevertheless was a pleasant discovery, since music from iTunes does seem to be more detailed from OPPOs usb DAC than other means of enjoyment. BTW, does the OPPO 103 have a usb DAC? Does it have the same DACs as found in the 205? One thing for sure, since you can not tell a difference I hope you did not buy your OPPOs expecting a difference. That would surely be very disappointing.


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## jagwap

The audio on the BDP-105 & 205 is significantly more advanced then the BDP-103 & 203. As you say the 103 does not have the asynchronous USB input, so you may miss that. The 105 and 205 have the ESS DACs. One for the stereo outputs (balanced, single ended and headphone all have separate DAC channels) and another for the 7.1 outputs. These are not sharing. They have their own DAC channels hardwired.

This is part of why I upgraded.


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## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> Or you didn't want to hear a difference. The opposite of the audiophile bias.


I agree that it's obviously a thing. for actual research, depending on what the actual question is, we could involve various barely audible controls that could invalidate the test if the guy doesn't pick them up. I'm guessing that kind of stuff exists.

now, @bigshot tries one Oppo device and some other DAC, then reaches his own conclusions. no matter how good the test was, the conclusions obviously don't go far beyond his personal level of experience. 1/ it's an anecdote. 2/ failing a test doesn't prove he or anybody else will never be able to pass it. we won't be writing a paper for AES anytime soon. ^_^


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## Sterling2 (Feb 28, 2018)

jagwap said:


> The audio on the BDP-105 & 205 is significantly more advanced then the BDP-103 & 203. As you say the 103 does not have the asynchronous USB input, so you may miss that. The 105 and 205 have the ESS DACs. One for the stereo outputs (balanced, single ended and headphone all have separate DAC channels) and another for the 7.1 outputs. These are not sharing. They have their own DAC channels hardwired.
> 
> This is part of why I upgraded.


My purchase was sort of an upgrade, from 1080 to 4k; but, for the most part, it was about  having a means to enjoy multi-channel SACD. All of the extras are a bonus, now making me think my $1300 expenditure was a bargain, since I am using the unit's extras in addition to multi-channel SACD playback capability. Of course, only time will tell if I still think my OPPO is a bargain, since I've got some equipment that is now over 40 years old providing service just like day 1 with the equipment.


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## bigshot (Feb 28, 2018)

jagwap said:


> The audio on the BDP-105 & 205 is significantly more advanced then the BDP-103 & 203. As you say the 103 does not have the asynchronous USB input, so you may miss that. The 105 and 205 have the ESS DACs. One for the stereo outputs (balanced, single ended and headphone all have separate DAC channels) and another for the 7.1 outputs. These are not sharing. They have their own DAC channels hardwired.



I understand feature differences. But if you look at the specs of both, they are both well into the range of overkill. You can measure a difference, but human ears can't hear it. The HA-1 may be closer to the sound of a Oppo X05, but I failed at detecting a difference with that too. Audibly transparent is audibly transparent.

Perhaps the greatest contribution to the "improved" sound quality of high end Oppos is the sales literature, which is great at evoking expectation bias. I just did a basic controlled listening test and I was able to eliminate that. There's no audible difference.



Sterling2 said:


> The greater detail I hear from iTunes Library using the OPPO UDP-205 usb  DAC vs Airport Express DAC, Creative Sound Blaster X-FI HD DAC, or Sony TA-E9000es DAC I suppose could be the result of a multitude of factors, which I have no interest in exploring, or defending. The perception stands as an impression which  does not need to be proven or tested, assuming I had an interest, capability, and means to test such things, which I don't.



That reply seems to indicate that you don't care to know the truth one way or the other. I think differently than that. If you don't test to find out if you're getting the result you want, then everything you do is just random flailing hoping something ends up working. I actually want to work to improve my system. I don't want to just pay money and trust someone else to do that for me. The fun isn't in ownership, it's in solving the problems. But they have to be problems that actually exist, not ones that are manufactured out of whole cloth to convince someone to spend more money.

I bought my Oppo player because it was region free modded with simple switching between regions, it could play MKV files off a thumb drive, and it had very good image adjustments (i.e.. Darbee). I choose for features I can use, not abstract claims of sound quality I can't hear.



castleofargh said:


> now, @bigshot tries one Oppo device and some other DAC, then reaches his own conclusions. no matter how good the test was, the conclusions obviously don't go far beyond his personal level of experience.



I compare every piece of equipment I own for audible transparency. It isn't just the Oppo and the WalMart player, it's blu-ray players by Sony and Pioneer, Oppo's top of the line headphone amp/DAC, a high end SACD player by Philips, my numerous Macintosh computers, a variety of iPods and several generations of iPhone. They all sound the same. Perfect. No one else has to take my word for it. They can do their own test and find out for themselves. But the fact that I've actually gone to the trouble to carefully compare should count for something beyond someone who says they have no interest in anything but purely subjective impressions.

There are degrees of legitimacy to claims. For my purposes, I don't need to go to the extremes that someone publishing a paper for the AES would be required to do. But that doesn't mean that my careful comparison testing is no better than someone who depends entirely on their impressions.


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## Sterling2 (Feb 28, 2018)

bigshot said:


> I understand feature differences. But if you look at the specs of both, they are both well into the range of overkill. You can measure a difference, but human ears can't hear it. The HA-1 may be closer to the sound of a Oppo X05, but I failed at detecting a difference with that too. Audibly transparent is audibly transparent.
> 
> Perhaps the greatest contribution to the "improved" sound quality of high end Oppos is the sales literature, which is great at evoking expectation bias. I just did a basic controlled listening test and I was able to eliminate that. There's no audible difference.
> 
> ...


When you say I don't care to know the truth makes me think you don't care to have a conversation. Your  opinion is no more legitimate than any other here.  And, what would be the point of me testing anything? My ears have already told me  I am hearing more detail with the OPPOs usb DAC than from other DACs I've used to enjoy music stored on digital files. The proof is my familiarity with the music at the levels I like to listen to music. You don't have to believe it. I certainly don't need for you to believe it; and, in fact, it is not important to me at all what you believe. Now, you might want to set aside attempting to convince me that you cannot hear a difference, since I already believe that you indeed cannot hear a difference. I'd believe you without you  even having tested it.  BTW, I was not driven to buy the OPPO for any claims made by OPPO on its DACs sounding better. I did not even see such a claim. As I said, I just wanted a player with which I could enjoy my multi-channel SACDs. I got that and much more.


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## castleofargh

bigshot said:


> I compare every piece of equipment I own for audible transparency. It isn't just the Oppo and the WalMart player, it's blu-ray players by Sony and Pioneer, Oppo's top of the line headphone amp/DAC, a high end SACD player by Philips, my numerous Macintosh computers, a variety of iPods and several generations of iPhone. They all sound the same. Perfect. No one else has to take my word for it. They can do their own test and find out for themselves. But the fact that I've actually gone to the trouble to carefully compare should count for something beyond someone who says they have no interest in anything but purely subjective impressions.
> 
> There are degrees of legitimacy to claims. For my purposes, I don't need to go to the extremes that someone publishing a paper for the AES would be required to do. But that doesn't mean that my careful comparison testing is no better than someone who depends entirely on their impressions.


you did nothing wrong when describing your experience and impressions. here is what you initially posted.


bigshot said:


> I've done a direct A/B switched line level matched comparison between my Oppo BDP103 and a $40 WalMart DVD player and I couldn't detect any difference between them. I couldn't tell any difference between my Oppo HA-1 and the $40 DVD player either. I'm guessing your comparison wasn't direct switched or blind.


not even as much as an objective claim. very fine by me. and I also happen to agree with jagwap that we can be biased in both directions. I stated your anecdote as an example, not as a critic.


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## sonitus mirus

Sterling2 said:


> When you say I don't care to know the truth makes me think you don't care to have a conversation. Your  opinion is no more legitimate than any other here.  And, what would be the point of me testing anything? My ears have already told me  I am hearing more detail with the OPPOs usb DAC than from other DACs I've used to enjoy music stored on digital files. The proof is my familiarity with the music at the levels I like to listen to music. You don't have to believe it. I certainly don't need for you to believe it; and, in fact, it is not important to me at all what you believe. Now, you might want to set aside attempting to convince me that you cannot hear a difference, since I already believe you. I'd believe you with out you  even having tested it.  BTW, I was not driven to buy the OPPO for any claims made by OPPO on its DACs sounding better. I did not even see such a claim. As I said, I just wanted a player with which I could enjoy my multi-channel SACDs. I got that and much more.



Have you made any attempt to remove obvious biases or to verify the setup/audio chain is not introducing a change that could account for an audible difference?  What are the specifications or measurements in this very well established technology that you can point to that would be responsible for any differences you might be hearing?   A modern DAC should be transparent.  Anyone claiming they can hear obvious differences should at least verify that the volume level is precisely matched and that no special filtering is being applied. 

With audio, it is already well established that our perception is easily tricked.  And with a general lack of any proof that anyone can hear a difference, more conjecture is really useless on the subject and deserves no further discussion.  This is especially true for an industry that has flourished on human fallibility with audio perception and is filled with misguided or dishonest vendors that take advantage of customers.


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## Sterling2 (Feb 28, 2018)

sonitus mirus said:


> Have you made any attempt to remove obvious biases or to verify the setup/audio chain is not introducing a change that could account for an audible difference?  What are the specifications or measurements in this very well established technology that you can point to that would be responsible for any differences you might be hearing?   A modern DAC should be transparent.  Anyone claiming they can hear obvious differences should at least verify that the volume level is precisely matched and that no special filtering is being applied.
> 
> With audio, it is already well established that our perception is easily tricked.  And with a general lack of any proof that anyone can hear a difference, more conjecture is really useless on the subject and deserves no further discussion.  This is especially true for an industry that has flourished on human fallibility with audio perception and is filled with misguided or dishonest vendors that take advantage of customers.


 I don't need to make an attempt to convince anyone here about the reality of my  surprise discovery. My perception, based on familiar music at the level I enjoy that music, is that it seems more detailed from the OPPOs usb DAC than with the DACs of other devices I have used to listen to said music. I do not need to account for it, I do not need to measure it, I do not need to point to technology; and, here's why: I am stating my observation, not professing on a matter of which I have no credentials to convince or prove to you or anyone else here that I can hear more detail. It's just a pleasant surprise. Now, if I was attempting to account for the detail I'm hearing I would assume it has something to do with my other DACs not being modern types. But, I'm a layman, interested in music pleasure not audiophile matters.


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## bigshot (Feb 28, 2018)

Sterling2 said:


> Your  opinion is no more legitimate than any other here.



You're mistaken. All opinions are definitely *not* created equal. Some opinions are based on research, testing and knowledge. Others are based on personal bias or misconceptions. If you want your opinion to be more useful for other people, you have to make an effort to make sure that your opinion is informed. Placebo effect and expectation bias are real. If you don't want your opinions to be colored by those things, controlled testing is a great way to check yourself. If you have no desire to make any effort to back up your opinions, then they're probably less useful than the opinions of other people. Particularly if there is no reason to believe they are even correct.

You don't have to be an expert to back up your opinions. A simple google search will help.

Here are the specs for the BDP103

Frequency: 20Hz – 20kHz (±0.05dB), 20Hz – 96kHz (-4.5dB ~ +0.05dB)
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: >115dB (A-weighted)
THD+N: < 0.006% (1kHz at 0dBFS, 20kHz LPF)

Here are the specs for the BDP205

Frequency Response: 20Hz – 160kHz (-3dB ˜ +0.05dB)
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: > 120dBr
THD+N: < 0.00018%

Now, I've done a little research into the thresholds of perception. Both of these specs are well over the line into audible transparency. Looking at these figures, I see no reason to expect that one would sound different than the other, because human ears can't hear anywhere close to this sort of sound quality.


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## pinnahertz

Sterling2 said:


> I don't need to make an attempt to convince anyone here about the reality of my  surprise discovery. My perception, based on familiar music at the level I enjoy that music, is that it seems more detailed from the OPPOs usb DAC than with the DACs of other devices I have used to listen to said music. I do not need to account for it, I do not need to measure it, I do not need to point to technology; and, here's why: I am stating my observation, not professing on a matter of which I have no credentials to convince or prove to you or anyone else here that I can hear more detail. It's just a pleasant surprise. Now, if I was attempting to account for the detail I'm hearing I would assume it has something to do with my other DACs not being modern types. But, I'm a layman, interested in music pleasure not audiophile matters.


Your observation was highly biased and don't represent what was really going on.  A double blind test would remove all biases, and your observation then would be bias free, and most likely quite different.   However, your current biased "observation" is also your reality, and nobody can doubt that.  If your reality makes you happy, then go with it.  You may not find much agreement in this forum.


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## 71 dB

bigshot said:


> All opinions are definitely *not* created equal. Some opinions are based on research, testing and knowledge. Others are based on personal bias or misconceptions.



In social media opinions are equal in the sense that own opinions are good and whoever disagrees is simply wrong.




bigshot said:


> Placebo effect and expectation bias are real.



I tend to _assume_ 90 % of differencies I hear is due to placebo effect. I believe that's in the ballpark.



bigshot said:


> Now, I've done a little research into the thresholds of perception.



The thresholds are what they are, but I think there is something else going on at a very subtle level. Measurements do not analyse the signal in every possible ways and our hearing doesn't analyse sounds exactly the same way say a spectral analyzer does. What happens in our head is not a perfect Fourier transformation for example. It's possible our hearing reveals something about the signal that technical measurements hide (and vice versa of course!). If I take a signal through an all-pass filter that delays 1 kHz area 100 ms compared to other frequencies, it is certainly audible, but the magnitude spectrum looks the same! Visually we can have two squares which are both 1 ft x 1 ft to the accuracy of nanometers so they look to our eyes exactly the same size, but what if they are not exactly the same color? What if the other square is a bit darker for example? Does it mean it looks a bit smaller? Measurements tell the squares are the same size to the accuracy far beyond the resolution of eye, but darker square looks smaller! So, the question with sound quality is: *What properties of sound that affect perception we do not measure and are there differences in these properties above the threshold of our hearing?
*
I used to think that all well designed (especially digital) audio product sound "perfect", the same just because the differences are below thresholds of perception _as we understand them_. However, nowadays I'm not 100 % sure about this. To me my CD player and Blu-ray player have subtly different sound (CD player sounds "zesty" compared to "sappy" Blu-ray player and my first DVD player had a "glassy" sound while my first cheap crappy JVC CD player from 1990 had dull sound compared to the other newer players) which I think I might be able to tell apart in blind tests, althou I am not sure about that. Even my amplifiers I have used over the years seems to have their own sound signature! Maybe this is just placebo, but I can't be 100 % sure about anything! Maybe the differences in output impedance (damping factor) explains it? The only thing I haven't noticed differencies are the interconnector cables. They always sound the same. I try to keep myself open-minded in this issue.


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## pinnahertz

71 dB said:


> The thresholds are what they are, but I think there is something else going on at a very subtle level. Measurements do not analyse the signal in every possible ways and our hearing doesn't analyse sounds exactly the same way say a spectral analyzer does. What happens in our head is not a perfect Fourier transformation for example. It's possible our hearing reveals something about the signal that technical measurements hide (and vice versa of course!). If I take a signal through an all-pass filter that delays 1 kHz area 100 ms compared to other frequencies, it is certainly audible, but the magnitude spectrum looks the same!


All of the above can easily be measured.  Measurement and audibility correlation studies exist for all-pass delay.


71 dB said:


> Visually we can have two squares which are both 1 ft x 1 ft to the accuracy of nanometers so they look to our eyes exactly the same size, but what if they are not exactly the same color? What if the other square is a bit darker for example? Does it mean it looks a bit smaller? Measurements tell the squares are the same size to the accuracy far beyond the resolution of eye, but darker square looks smaller! So, the question with sound quality is: *What properties of sound that affect perception we do not measure and are there differences in these properties above the threshold of our hearing?*


Yes, perception and measurement correlation is the problem.  It's closer to a solution all the time.


71 dB said:


> I used to think that all well designed (especially digital) audio product sound "perfect", the same just because the differences are below thresholds of perception _as we understand them_. However, nowadays I'm not 100 % sure about this. To me my CD player and Blu-ray player have subtly different sound (CD player sounds "zesty" compared to "sappy" Blu-ray player and my first DVD player had a "glassy" sound while my first cheap crappy JVC CD player from 1990 had dull sound compared to the other newer players) which I think I might be able to tell apart in blind tests, althou I am not sure about that. Even my amplifiers I have used over the years seems to have their own sound signature! Maybe this is just placebo, but I can't be 100 % sure about anything! Maybe the differences in output impedance (damping factor) explains it? The only thing I haven't noticed differencies are the interconnector cables. They always sound the same. I try to keep myself open-minded in this issue.


If you'd ever done some actual ABX/DBT testing, you might feel differently.   Differences in CD sound would need to be carefully analyzed, as they are unlikely.  However, there can be differences in amplifier sound.  Simply, you must throw out any sighted impressions as biased, including those of the cables.  Bias is powerful enough to provide perceived differences where there are none, and cover differences where they exist.  It works both ways.


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## gregorio (Mar 1, 2018)

Sterling2 said:


> I do not need to account for it, I do not need to measure it, I do not need to point to technology; and, here's why: I am stating my observation ...



But that is exactly the point, you are not stating your observation, you are stating your impression/perception of your observation and have apparently not made any attempt to separate your impression/perception from your observation. A test procedure which does attempt to eliminate impression/perception and thereby present an actual observation IS therefore more legitimate than an impression/perception just presented as an observation!



71 dB said:


> So, the question with sound quality is: [1] What properties of sound that affect perception we do not measure and [2] are there differences in these properties above the threshold of our hearing?



1. There are none.
2. As there are no such properties, this part of your question is invalid.

G


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## bigshot (Mar 1, 2018)

71 dB said:


> To me my CD player and Blu-ray player have subtly different sound (CD player sounds "zesty" compared to "sappy" Blu-ray player and my first DVD player had a "glassy" sound while my first cheap crappy JVC CD player from 1990 had dull sound compared to the other newer players) which I think I might be able to tell apart in blind tests, althou I am not sure about that.



I find that when people describe sound in terms that describe things other than sound, odds are there is some sort of bias at work. Things that sound different sound that way for a specific reason, and the differences are describable. I always try to describe aspects of sound by words that directly relate to sound (response, distortion, dynamics, etc) and I always do a controlled comparison test of every piece of equipment. I'm betting that if you did a blind test, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart any more. It really isn't that hard. Just pick up a couple of identical preamps at eBay and a switch box.

In general, the audibility specs you see thrown around in audiophile forums are best case scenarios. For instance 20Hz to 20kHz only applies to young people. Many older people don't hear that high. And I remember reading that the world record for someone who could hear the highest was a young girl who could hear up to 22-23kHz, which isn't that much higher than 20kHz. Audiophiles love to argue that everyone's hearing is different, so some people may have golden ears that can hear things other people can't. But the truth is that some people have tin ears and can't hear well. The best hearing is still in the normal range of human hearing.


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## Glmoneydawg (Mar 1, 2018)

bigshot said:


> You're mistaken. All opinions are definitely *not* created equal. Some opinions are based on research, testing and knowledge. Others are based on personal bias or misconceptions. If you want your opinion to be more useful for other people, you have to make an effort to make sure that your opinion is informed. Placebo effect and expectation bias are real. If you don't want your opinions to be colored by those things, controlled testing is a great way to check yourself. If you have no desire to make any effort to back up your opinions, then they're probably less useful than the opinions of other people. Particularly if there is no reason to believe they are even correct.
> 
> You don't have to be an expert to back up your opinions. A simple google search will help.
> 
> ...


Opinion...a view or judgement not necessarily based in fact or knowledge....its JUST an opinion....good for you for standing by yours,but...we all have opinions and we all think ours smells best


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## bigshot

You support an opinion with facts. If you have facts to back your opinion up, it's worth more than someone who hasn't bothered to think.


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## artpiggo

Okay now after 100+ pages of discussion, Have we come up with any mutual agreement/conclusion on MQA format yet?


----------



## jagwap

artpiggo said:


> Okay now after 100+ pages of discussion, Have we come up with any mutual agreement/conclusion on MQA format yet?



Many have come to an agreement, but they are all different ones.


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## bigshot

artpiggo said:


> Okay now after 100+ pages of discussion, Have we come up with any mutual agreement/conclusion on MQA format yet?



That depends on whether you're talking about audible sound or theoretical sound. There was one pretty carefully controlled listening test and there was no difference whatsoever.


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## artpiggo

Okay, so it is still individually concluded, isn't it? 

I will go test myself with set-up at retail shop some time. I have been curious about this thing for a long time.


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## Sterling2 (Mar 2, 2018)

bigshot said:


> You're mistaken. All opinions are definitely *not* created equal. Some opinions are based on research, testing and knowledge. Others are based on personal bias or misconceptions. If you want your opinion to be more useful for other people, you have to make an effort to make sure that your opinion is informed. Placebo effect and expectation bias are real. If you don't want your opinions to be colored by those things, controlled testing is a great way to check yourself. If you have no desire to make any effort to back up your opinions, then they're probably less useful than the opinions of other people. Particularly if there is no reason to believe they are even correct.
> 
> You don't have to be an expert to back up your opinions. A simple google search will help.
> 
> ...


There are uninformed opinions, informed opinions, and doctorate opinions. In this arena a doctorate opinion would be from someone with credentials in sound science, that's to say, someone highly qualified to profess on matters here. How highly qualified are you to profess that I can not hear more detail from the scenario I  earlier described? What are your credentials to claim your opinion is indeed more valid than others here. One thing for sure, you do have a bias about the OPPO UDP-205, making comparisons between it and the 103 which is not remotely germane to this thread, since I never claimed I thought the 205 sounded better than a 103. As you recall my statement was simply that I perceived the 205's usb DAC delivered more detail from my iTunes Library than previous means to enjoy that library, i.e. Airport Express. My "critical thinking"  was  listening to familiar music at the volume level I enjoy such music. In your "thinking" that apparently is  not enough thought  for such a statement as mine to be made here. Isn't that right? In other words, you have no interest in an opinion that is not in step with your logic, which you assume is the only route to what you believe is a "valid" opinion. Also, it's clear that you dismissed my observation for your own bias about all DACs sounding the same, which you believe to be fact when clearly not all experts in DAC technology believe that.


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## Sterling2 (Mar 2, 2018)

bigshot said:


> You support an opinion with facts. If you have facts to back your opinion up, it's worth more than someone who hasn't bothered to think.


OK, let's start with you alluding to all DACs sounding the same as being fact. Then, any opinion about a DAC delivering more detail than another would be rejected by you. Thing is, not all experts accept as fact that all DACs sound the same; so, while you say you support an opinion with facts, it appears, you do not adhere to your own rules regarding what makes an opinion valid; and, in fact, only use opinion from others that bolsters your arguments. Doesn't this invalidate your opinion?


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## bigshot (Mar 2, 2018)

I am speaking about every DAC in every digital audio component I've ever had access to. I've never run across one that sounded different than any other one- all audibly transparent. That's dozens and dozens of them, ranging from the DAC in a $40 WalMart DVD player all the way up to an Oppo HA-1. Now I don't doubt that there are high end DACs that are deliberately designed to perform out of spec. Those probably sound different. But for the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would want something like that, much less pay extra for it. If a DAC does sound different, the question would be why? Odds are, different doesn't mean better. It just means different.

Now the dozens and dozens of DACs don't mean jack diddly to you. You only care about *your* DACs. I totally understand that. But if you really care to know whether they sound the same, or one sounds better, or one sounds worse, you'll make the effort to eliminate potential bias and do some sort of controlled listening test. If you can't be bothered to do that, then I'm going to say that you just don't want to know, and your impressions are probably based on expectation bias- particularly when you grab on so hard to defend your opinions you haven't bothered to verify. I think you are trying to convince other people to convince yourself that you spent a lot of money wisely. I think you have a vested interest in one particular outcome. Bias.

Prove me wrong. Get a swtichbox and a way to balance line level. Corral a friend to help you with a blind test. Do a bunch of comparisons and come up with results that are statistically convincing. Then we can start talking about what the difference actually consists of.


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## bigshot (Mar 2, 2018)

artpiggo said:


> Okay, so it is still individually concluded, isn't it?



How about this?

Part 1: https://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/09/mqa-core-vs-hi-res-blind-test-part-i.html
Part 2: https://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/09/mqa-core-vs-hi-res-blind-test-part-ii.html
Part 3: https://archimago.blogspot.ca/2017/09/mqa-core-vs-hi-res-blind-test-part-iii.html



artpiggo said:


> I will go test myself with set-up at retail shop some time. I have been curious about this thing for a long time.



Let me tell you a story about my experience at a high end audio retail shop...

I was in the market for speakers. That is the area where money makes a big difference... much more than with electronics. So I went to a highly respected audiophile shop. They had a room full of speakers. The salesman was very helpful. I had several CDs and a notepad, and I wanted to systematically audition each speaker and make notes. So I sat down with my yellow pad and the salesman pointed to a set of speakers and played a couple of minutes of music through each one. At one point I asked him to jump back to a set that I had already heard. They sounded quite different. So I turned around and the salesman was standing with his back to the controls and his hands behind his back. I said, "Why does that sound different than before?" and I saw his arm move a bit. The sound changed. He pretended that he wasn't doing anything, and I asked him to step away from the panel. He had been goosing the volume and bass on the speakers he wanted to sell me behind his back. I said to him, "Look, if you're going to keep adjusting stuff behind your back like that this is going to take all night. I see how the switch box works. You just go help someone else and I'll let you know when I make a decision." He got all huffy and rude and stomped away. I sat there and figured out which speaker I wanted by myself... and then went to another store and bought them.

The absolute WORST place to try to do a controlled test is at a retail shop. The salesmen are on commission and they get paid different commission rates on different brands. Some equipment in stores is deliberately hobbled to make other equipment look good. They are going to skew any test you try to make.

When it comes to MQA, there is no way to do a totally controlled test. Archimago has done the best that anyone can. They have made it difficult deliberately by making it a proprietary format and mucking about with the mastering. You can't always directly compare apples to apples. You can either take them at their word without question, or reject their product because they haven't given any reason why their format should sound any different than competing formats. My advice is if something you buy has MQA built in, great. But don't pay an extra cent to get it. There's no evidence it improves sound at all. And AAC 256 VBR is both audibly transparent and streamable. Use that.


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## castleofargh

artpiggo said:


> Okay, so it is still individually concluded, isn't it?
> 
> I will go test myself with set-up at retail shop some time. I have been curious about this thing for a long time.


all those pages are mainly me whining about marketing and some of the stuff they have spammed over the years(sorry). then there are also many pages full of the readiness of people to go "hey I like that song in MQA, therefore temporal blurring is clearly audible and bad" or fallacies like that. really hard to put logic back in line once it's been bent so much and so eagerly. in short we don't discuss MQA itself that much.

 as a digital format with enough bits and frequency range, we can expect audible transparency in typical listening conditions like with most digital formats. which at this point makes new formats in general spectacularly uninteresting IMO. to me they're all just means to have a lock on copyrights and to force consumers to buy new devices needed for compatibility
some of the changes done on the files in MQA are arguable from an objective standpoint, but they say that it can subjectively sound nicer to some people. and here we are in subjective domain where anything goes because people will think and feel whatever they like, real or not. magnitudes are in the mind of the listener, all is true, all is false.

as you need a MQA DAC that will use a special sauce when playing MQA for complete cuisine, there is a potential cause for audible difference right there(different gears are different). and it makes proper testing complicated. at the same time it shouldn't make much of a difference because most of the special operations should occur above the audible range anyway(which is why some of us question the relevance of it all). so if the DAC isn't rubbish when playing PCM at 44 or 48khz, there is no reason to expect anything massive from an audible point of view.

our lack of knowledge about how much change is done on  each MQA file makes serious testing almost impossible(add that to the precious difficulties). like knowing how many of the MQA ingredients are integrated into a specific song, and for some "ingredients", how they're used. is the song remastered while we're at it or not? what is the actual final resolution of the signal(not the container, the audio content)? they all make reaching conclusions only readily available to MQA insiders and those who have no issue jumping to conclusion. for the rest of us, "it's complicated" with expectation of minimal to irrelevant changes from the format itself.

MQA as a format is lossy, which doesn't mean it can't contain "high res" ranges of data. it's just not stocked and reconstructed in a fully lossless way.




on the top of my head that's about it. I'm not a fan, so consider that how I present things could have done with a little more optimism.


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