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MQA at CES


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MQA vs DSD 64/128/256 there is no competition..

 

DSD wins

 

I'm confused by this logic. Wins what? I am a huge DSD fan (of course) but there is no reason that this is a competition. There's a million high rez PCM tracks out there. MQA potentially allows us end users to subscribe to a relatively low bandwidth streaming service like Tidal and get high rez at the dac end (currently MQA dacs but that is likely short term as they get software decoding approaches worked out). Are you saying you've tested Tidal doing DSD? Of course not. Where does DSD fit in with a competing business plan of MQA?

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Fair enough. Let me clarify. MQA might very well be the de facto standard for hi res streaming but ofcourse there is competition. If you don't think DSD will respond to the threat from MQA then think again. MQA aka Meridian aka Roon spinoff are trying to corner the hi res market just like Apple did for low res music. It's always about money!

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Fair enough. Let me clarify. MQA might very well be the de facto standard for hi res streaming but ofcourse there is competition. If you don't think DSD will respond to the threat from MQA then think again. MQA aka Meridian aka Roon spinoff are trying to corner the hi res market just like Apple did for low res music. It's always about money!

 

A little paranoid? ... How is anyone - especially a tiny company like Roon - trying to corner the market? And "DSD" is a format - it can't respond to the non-existent threat. Are you trying to say some proponent of DSD is going to come out with a competing DSD package to compete with MQA for streaming? I seriously doubt it - those little companies are doing all they can just to keep DSD a living format.

 

Neither Roon nor Meridian have any reason to be against DSD and I haven't seen any evidence they are - especially Roon. One of Roon's first "upgrades" in functionality was to integrate HQPlayer - the DSD'ers favorite toy.

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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It's always about the money. Who do you think stands to benefit. DSD is a format just like MQA wants to be a format. License fees. Meridian. Roon. Streaming services. They just want users to pay a monthly subscription. Are you kidding. Meridian wants MQA to be the de facto standard since they think they have a better format except the just fucked over one of their biggest early supporters Auralic.

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P.S. Meridian spun off Roon for a reason and it's about trying to capture the market share and dominating the streaming business with license fees from MQA for hardware and software and the rest to pay for a monthly streaming service through Tidal or even through Roon. Monthly fees will just go up every month in the near future once they hook u

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In addition to Miska's spectrograms here are the waveforms of MQA-encoded 24/44 sample from 2L & my home-made downrezzed/downsampled to 16/44 version of the 24/352 DXD master (which utilizes SoX95 linear-phase re-sampling & moderate noise-shaped MDA VST dithering):

 

- MQA:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]23296[/ATTACH]

 

- 16/44:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]23297[/ATTACH]

]

 

Testikoff (love the name), could you interpret this in layman terms for us?

Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math!

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MQA lost out to DXD again.

2L-064 Come away death, mezzo soprano singing with accompaniment by piano.

The DXD track was one of my favourites some time ago.

Now a chance to compare with its MQA processed offspring.

The MQA did not screw up anything, for example, the size of the mouth and smoothness of the voice with no trace of compression or distortion, but did not improve anything either.

The DXD has the voice and piano in more 3D, hence better perceived separation, and a deeper front to back soundstage.

So the MQA goes to archive and the score is now 3:2 in DXD's favour.

 

francisleung,

 

Clearly you are a music lover and are using a "hi-fi" playback chain. In your estimation, would tweaks to the soundstage make any difference at all to the 99%, who are listening to electronic/pop/rock/country through "mid-fi" at best? Do you believe what you are hearing could be heard with a smartphone/earbuds, or a pair of Best Buy "speaker deal of the week" hooked up to your standard AV receiver?

Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math!

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Testikoff (love the name), could you interpret this in layman terms for us?

Elevated high frequency noise in non-decoded MQA track compared to moderately dithered 16/44 downrezzed one (what Miska's spectrograms showed, too). No wonder really, since 3 LSBs out of 16 are utilized by MQA encoder... ;)

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In reading this thread I'm surprised that the audio industry can make any technological progress at all. The amount of hostility being expressed about a format that no one here has been able to test using the necessary equipment to hear its potential benefits is amazing.

 

It's ok to speculate about how Meridian is doing what they are doing (as Miska, elsdude, testererr and others have done), but why attack a group of little companies like Meridian, Tidal or Roon that have, by and large, been focused on producing great products for us as consumers? This isn't Apple, Google or Sony or some other behemoth with giant market share trying to force something on us.

 

I can only assume that it is Meridian's marketing approach for MQA that has brought out this level of hostility. I'm glad we weren't this hostile as Damien, Miska, John Swenson, Jesus and others were giving us their new software and hardware to try and comment on. Maybe this is more like JRiver, who also seems to have brought out a lot of negativity and hostility, but also engaged directly with this community and thus may have spurred it on.

 

In the end, until we can really test MQA files played on MQA enabled DACs in our own home versus our current favorite formats and equipment, I think most of the posts here say more about us, and our hostility toward new technology, than it does about Meridian. For a crowd that is supposed to represent the leading edge of technology in the audio industry we (or at least a lot of us) seem amazingly hostile to new thinking or approaches.

Synology NAS>i7-6700/32GB/NVIDIA QUADRO P4000 Win10>Qobuz+Tidal>Roon>HQPlayer>DSD512> Fiber Switch>Ultrarendu (NAA)>Holo Audio May KTE DAC> Bryston SP3 pre>Levinson No. 432 amps>Magnepan (MG20.1x2, CCR and MMC2x6)

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None, they offer a firmware module for the XMOS chip commonly used to implement USB interfaces for DACs. So typically MQA decoding wouldn't work for example if you send the data to a DAC through S/PDIF.

 

None: You then mean as the present situation ?

Or are you also saying the decoded MQA must use an USB interface. Always.

Or that even if a dac chip was MQA it could not communicate over spdif.

 

Like the Auralic had to use the USB interface ? (If released).

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In the end, until we can really test MQA files played on MQA enabled DACs in our own home versus our current favorite formats and equipment, I think most of the posts here say more about us, and our hostility toward new technology, than it does about Meridian. For a crowd that is supposed to represent the leading edge of technology in the audio industry we (or at least a lot of us) seem amazingly hostile to new thinking or approaches.

 

THANK YOU for your oasis of sanity in an ocean of negativity -and even paranoia- displayed so far in this thread. Let's see what decoded MQA actually sounds like before everybody brings out the long knives...

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The amount of hostility being expressed about a format that no one here has been able to test using the necessary equipment to hear its potential benefits is amazing.

Any format or codec based on PCM can't be better than PCM. We start testing PCM again? Meridian developed also some A/D converter for MQA? At least we don't know any yet. So, what about we start talking? Even reduced filesize is not benefit as turns out.

Sorry, english is not my native language.

Fools and fanatics are always certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts.

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Elevated high frequency noise in non-decoded MQA track compared to moderately dithered 16/44 downrezzed one (what Miska's spectrograms showed, too). No wonder really, since 3 LSBs out of 16 are utilized by MQA encoder... ;)

 

Ok, confirmation of Miska's finding that if/when Tidal switches our 16/44 streams to MQA, we will in fact have a worse SQ, not "the same/slightly better" than what we had before as Meridian has told us thus far - unless of course we are willing to put ourselves into a closed/propriety and "authenticated" format putting MQA hardware in our playback chain.

 

I actually don't think this will happen, rather Tidal and others will get a software solution because this is the only effective way to gently walk folks into a closed/proprietary format...

Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math!

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In reading this thread I'm surprised that the audio industry can make any technological progress at all. The amount of hostility being expressed about a format that no one here has been able to test using the necessary equipment to hear its potential benefits is amazing.

 

It's ok to speculate about how Meridian is doing what they are doing (as Miska, elsdude, testererr and others have done), but why attack a group of little companies like Meridian, Tidal or Roon that have, by and large, been focused on producing great products for us as consumers? This isn't Apple, Google or Sony or some other behemoth with giant market share trying to force something on us.

 

I can only assume that it is Meridian's marketing approach for MQA that has brought out this level of hostility. I'm glad we weren't this hostile as Damien, Miska, John Swenson, Jesus and others were giving us their new software and hardware to try and comment on. Maybe this is more like JRiver, who also seems to have brought out a lot of negativity and hostility, but also engaged directly with this community and thus may have spurred it on.

 

In the end, until we can really test MQA files played on MQA enabled DACs in our own home versus our current favorite formats and equipment, I think most of the posts here say more about us, and our hostility toward new technology, than it does about Meridian. For a crowd that is supposed to represent the leading edge of technology in the audio industry we (or at least a lot of us) seem amazingly hostile to new thinking or approaches.

 

Respectfully, and using the word in a technical sense and not as a pejorative towards you personally, but this is just a bit naive. "new technology" is not, and never has been a "neutral" thing, let alone always a step in the right direction (which is always a moral judgement). For example, how many of you have "neutral" or "positive" view of the invention of the hydrogen bomb?

 

As recent history has shown, "technology" that uses IP and software patents in particular has a very disruptive impact on the market and the folks who participate in that market. It usually divides folks into those who support and those who believe they are being wronged.

 

Miska and the others did not bring us a disruptive technology that depends on his controlling a fundamental format (and thus controlling us) through the use of IP and "magic box" solutions. MQA will not, and can not be judged soley on it's SQ or technical innovation alone, because unlike a speaker, amp, or cable it is much more than that - it is a legal entity in a way that those other things are not.

 

See my post here:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/mqa-ces-27127/index14.html#post500746

Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math!

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THANK YOU for your oasis of sanity in an ocean of negativity -and even paranoia- displayed so far in this thread. Let's see what decoded MQA actually sounds like before everybody brings out the long knives...

 

I agree that some of the comments are bordering on ridiculousness but the fact that this seems to be spinning out of control can be laid directly at Meridians feet, they are doing nothing that I can see to quell any rampant speculation. They are shooting themselves in the foot big time!

Jim

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OK, Jim. Meridian announced this at CES 2015 and hasn't delivered. I'm unhappy that they sold me a "MQA-ready" DAC last spring that still can't decode the music now available. But their missteps don't justify all of the techno-gibberish such as "Any format or codec based on PCM can't be better than PCM. We start testing PCM again?" seen here to discredit the entire project before anyone has listened to any benefit, or not, to music reproduction. I'm a Computer Audiophile, all about the music and curious what this credible company is up to, not an enraged defender of the status quo.

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Can somebody with extensive computer audiophile knowledge explain "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON" - Donald Trump LOL in laymens terms... If people that actually care to try to understand can't understand then something is wrong. Additionally, why fuck would MQA fuck over Auralic? They knowingly did. My Conspiracy theory is that there really is no MQA chip this can all be done with firmware which is why Auralic was all set.

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P.S. Meridian spun off Roon for a reason and it's about trying to capture the market share and dominating the streaming business with license fees from MQA for hardware and software and the rest to pay for a monthly streaming service through Tidal or even through Roon. Monthly fees will just go up every month in the near future once they hook u

 

 

You'd help your cause if you developed your ideas a little, show a little rational, possibly some evidence? Meridian would struggle to get drunk in a brewery, let alone take over the world. They would however have a fabulous HIFI playing music whilst searching for the beer...

 

Room was going to be Sooloos 2, free at that, a promised development eagerly awaited by Sooloos users. My guess is the investors were bored waiting for revenue from the existing business and decided to monetise Sooloos 2 by hiving it off as Roon. Same with MQA, licensing the technology. Less of a conspiracy more of return on investment.

 

Not quite world domination but possibly closer to the truth. I guess as soon as its out, we can actually have a listen and perhaps take it from there?

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I did some analysis and the result is quite a bit less than 16-bit worth. While the source FLAC file is pretty big. Here's some of my initial results:

 

Some analysis and comparison of MQA encoded FLAC vs normal optimized hires FLAC - Blogs - Computer Audiophile

 

In short, my result was that if you optimize the encoding to a standard FLAC (without MQA), the file is smaller than the MQA encoded one...

 

Very informative. Thanks for sharing this information.

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Can somebody with extensive computer audiophile knowledge explain "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON" - Donald Trump LOL in laymens terms... If people that actually care to try to understand can't understand then something is wrong. Additionally, why fuck would MQA fuck over Auralic? They knowingly did. My Conspiracy theory is that there really is no MQA chip this can all be done with firmware which is why Auralic was all set.

 

I expect you need to use metadata in the MQA file to control the DAC, to adjust for the original ADC, so you need a controllable DAC. So if they can do that, jobs a good 'un. Read metadata-control DAC, whatever it needs.

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OK, Jim. Meridian announced this at CES 2015 and hasn't delivered. I'm unhappy that they sold me a "MQA-ready" DAC last spring that still can't decode the music now available. But their missteps don't justify all of the techno-gibberish such as "Any format or codec based on PCM can't be better than PCM. We start testing PCM again?" seen here to discredit the entire project before anyone has listened to any benefit, or not, to music reproduction. I'm a Computer Audiophile, all about the music and curious what this credible company is up to, not an enraged defender of the status quo.

 

The fact that this was announced a year ago and they still are not allowing direct A-B comparisons makes me think the emperor has no clothes!

Jim

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OK, Jim. Meridian announced this at CES 2015 and hasn't delivered. I'm unhappy that they sold me a "MQA-ready" DAC last spring that still can't decode the music now available. But their missteps don't justify all of the techno-gibberish such as "Any format or codec based on PCM can't be better than PCM. We start testing PCM again?" seen here to discredit the entire project before anyone has listened to any benefit, or not, to music reproduction. I'm a Computer Audiophile, all about the music and curious what this credible company is up to, not an enraged defender of the status quo.

 

I am sure even if the IP stays with Meridian in the short-medium term, you will be hearing MQA through your playback chain soon enough. Clearly, Meridian is not that best managed company, but they certainly will get something out in the next few months.

 

As far as "discredit", it does appear that the technical promise of an MQA encoded file being the same as standard PCM 16/44 to a non-MQA DAC is being discredited by at least two persons here who have the technical chops to be plausible. This is nothing personal against Meridian however, it's just another pre-launch product/marketing promise being debunked and it happens all the time. MQA would be a truly unique product if it lives up to all it's promises as most products don't.

 

IMO, you won't see any actual "rage" until if and when Meridian sells the IP of MQA to a company like Apple or Sony as they have the proven track record and market clout to do something like introduce a fundamental new format (though they have failed in this also so it is not a guarantee)...

Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math!

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Can someone clear up a little confusion (?) on my part about MQA. Is there just a one size fits all file or are there different MQA files for each different resolution. For example, Tea for the Tillerman can be had at 64 & 128 DSD, & 192/24, does that mean there will be 3 different MQA files?

 

Not sure if I understand your question, and DSD is not part of MQA.

 

The coded MQA can either be 16 or 24 bit, (and 32 also seems as an option), these can then have either 44.1 or 48 before decompressing.

 

Unless you are told up front what resolution the original master was, those possible 6 combinations can unpacked to n combinations where n is one of these numbers: 1,2,4,8. (Multiplied with either 44.1 or 48). Depending of the master of cause.

 

To bring size into this may confuses more, as a file can have any size.

 

There can only exist one MQA originated from the master recording. But the record company seems to be allowed to decide how to deliver in either 24 or 16 bit. if the original was 16, so in theory you could generate more than one MQA file. (My understanding).

 

When it comes to decode and what is allowed, the communication from MQA is non existing at the moment to other companies.

 

A lower sampling frequenzy out to the DAC would mean less size, but then again I think size do not matter in this discussion.

 

Did I in some way answer your question ?

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I am sure even if the IP stays with Meridian in the short-medium term, you will be hearing MQA through your playback chain soon enough. Clearly, Meridian is not that best managed company, but they certainly will get something out in the next few months.

 

As far as "discredit", it does appear that the technical promise of an MQA encoded file being the same as standard PCM 16/44 to a non-MQA DAC is being discredited by at least two persons here who have the technical chops to be plausible.

 

Should not that read "to a non-MQA DAC or software decoder"?

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