MQA reviewed at Audiostream

[plissken]

I guess you can but it would take circa 8x the bandwidth to stream MQA so it would be greatly inefficient. And not all have a good enough internet connection to allow for a seamless rendition of DSD 256 or DXD or have capped data plans, want to do it on the go, etc

 

It takes what it takes to stream. Some still have dial up. I'm getting ~12MB / s from my ISP so DSD and MQA won't be a problem.

 

As a side note it's Michael Lavorgna for christs sake. The guy that has the ability to hear 'plain as day' differences in Ethernet cables. He's a hack.

[plissken]

I can surely see that that can be a downside for you.

 

For someone like me, who just cares about SQ, it being a black box is not relevant.

 

About measurements I really just care about what my ears can do. In that department MQA has passed with flying colours.

 

Does the black box come with an unlock key if Meridian goes belly up? Walmart left people in the lurch with their proprietary music services. They weren't the first and they weren't the last.

[Octavius]

Where is the free bonus part? They want license fees for encoding, streaming and decoding.

 

Instead standard FLAC is truly free and achieves the same or better result. No license fees involved and anybody can independently implement encoder or decoder. To me that sounds like a future-proof solution to store content.

 

 

 

I already have a computer and DACs. I anyway keep my computers up to date and my computers provide much more processing capability per Euro than I have seen in any DAC. I'm not interested spending extra money to buy a new DAC to get something like MQA support especially when it means limiting possibilities on doing digital room correction and stuff. But I obtained MQA capable DAC just for the fun of measuring it, otherwise I wouldn't bother because it is technically sub-par.

 

It's virtually free because I have a DAC that decodes MQA.

 

Again IMO MQA's SQ is at least on pair with DXD or DSD 256. So way better than FLAC.

 

If you say that you've bought an MQA DAC just for fun does it mean that that you've bought the £200 Explorer2?

 

If so I'd take your claim that you've listened to MQA with a good DAC with a grain of salt. At least the original Explorer was far from being a good DAC IMO.

[Octavius]

It takes what it takes to stream. Some still have dial up. I'm getting ~12MB / s from my ISP so DSD and MQA won't be a problem.

 

As a side note it's Michael Lavorgna for christs sake. The guy that has the ability to hear 'plain as day' differences in Ethernet cables. He's a hack.

 

I have 100Mb/s so I guess I could stream DSD 512 at home but that's beside the point.

 

 

I'm not basing my opinion on what was written on the review but on what I've heard for myself.

[Octavius]

Does the black box come with an unlock key if Meridian goes belly up? Walmart left people in the lurch with their proprietary music services. They weren't the first and they weren't the last.

 

The worst that can happen is that MQA will not be well accepted and there will not be a streaming service offering MQA.

So what? I'd still have my DAC to decode the couple of albums I've bought.

[Miska]

It's virtually free because I have a DAC that decodes MQA.

 

With MQA license price baked into price of the DAC.

 

Again IMO MQA's SQ is at least on pair with DXD or DSD 256. So way better than FLAC.

 

What is format of your DXD? My DXD content is encoded with FLAC...

 

What DSD256 content did you use for testing and what was the reference point?

 

If you say that you've bought an MQA DAC just for fun does it mean that that you've bought the £200 Explorer2?

 

Yes, I can buy other devices too as long as they are below 2k€. So what do you think I should buy for measurement purposes?

 

I'm only interested measuring MQA against equivalent resolution standard FLAC. At least Explorer2 performs better with standard FLAC than with MQA. I also have M2Tech hiFaceDAC that is built around the same DAC chip and can accept 352.8/32 and 384/32 input data, good for comparison to external upsampling too, huh?

 

MQA was supposed to improve the DAC, wasn't it? So Explorer2 should perform better with MQA than without, shouldn't it? Regardless of absolute performance.

 

If so I'd take your claim that you've listened to MQA with a good DAC with a grain of salt. At least the original Explorer was far from being a good DAC IMO.

 

I've heard bunch of MQA demos elsewhere, not impressed. My subjective listening opinions are not really important to anybody else except me. And I have not seen any MQA capable DAC that I would be actually interested to buy for listening. There's no content available in MQA that I would be actually interested in listening to.

 

My usual hardware selection system:

1) Measure first to make sure it is technically good and worth listening to

2) Listen to hear differences between technically good solutions

[Octavius]

With MQA license price baked into price of the DAC.

 

 

 

What is format of your DXD? My DXD content is encoded with FLAC...

 

What DSD256 content did you use for testing and what was the reference point?

 

 

 

Yes, I can buy other devices too as long as they are below 2k€. So what do you think I should buy for measurement purposes?

 

I'm only interested measuring MQA against equivalent resolution standard FLAC. At least Explorer2 performs better with standard FLAC than with MQA.

 

 

 

I've heard bunch of MQA demos elsewhere, not impressed. My subjective listening opinions are not really important to anybody else except me. And I have not seen any MQA capable DAC that I would be actually interested to buy for listening. There's no content available in MQA that I would be actually interested in listening to.

 

There's a Mytek Brooklyn selling for 1,600 EUR at AudioMarkt. Add a good linear PSU (like the one made by Qualiaphysic) and you'll get quite a good DAC IMO.

 

About lack of content in MQA format I agree of course. If I weren't such a big fan of classical music I'd struggle to find more than a handful of albums I'd be interested in.

Hopefully the new Warner Music agreement will change that.

[mansr]

But I obtained MQA capable DAC just for the fun of measuring it, otherwise I wouldn't bother because it is technically sub-par.

 

Have you done a digital capture of the decoded MQA fed to the DAC chip?

[Miska]

Have you done a digital capture of the decoded MQA fed to the DAC chip?

 

No, not yet. Although it is quite easy to solder XMOS USB interface to the I2S pins of the DAC chip, but I wanted to measure from analog domain to give a full view of things including MQA's claims of correcting DAC errors. I'll try to do some more recordings from the analog output using higher performance ADC, hopefully tomorrow. And also again through my normal measurement equipment (peak wideband spectrum, etc).

 

I have a long queue of TODO-measurements...

[Miska]

About lack of content in MQA format I agree of course. If I weren't such a big fan of classical music I'd struggle to find more than a handful of albums I'd be interested in.

Hopefully the new Warner Music agreement will change that.

 

I'll wait for some progressive rock with some proper cymbal hammering.

 

Mark Knopfler/David Gilmour/Steven Wilson would be a good starting point for listening.

 

I do listen to classical too, but it's more in the lines of Mahler, Shostakovitch or Sibelius. 2L certainly has some nice material too that I used for testing. And for those, DXD upsampled to DSD256 was a clear winner.

 

I have the older Mytek Stereo192-DSD DAC and I use it exclusively fixed to DSD128, nothing else is worth using. Brooklyn is just under 2k, but I've been kind of reluctant of getting yet another Sabre DAC.

[Octavius]

I'll wait for some progressive rock with some proper cymbal hammering.

 

Mark Knopfler/David Gilmour/Steven Wilson would be a good starting point for listening.

 

I do listen to classical too, but it's more in the lines of Mahler, Shostakovitch or Sibelius. 2L certainly has some nice material too that I used for testing. And for those, DXD upsampled to DSD256 was a clear winner.

 

I have the older Mytek Stereo192-DSD DAC and I use it exclusively fixed to DSD128, nothing else is worth using. Brooklyn is just under 2k, but I've been kind of reluctant of getting yet another Sabre DAC.

 

 

I love all three being Mahler my absolute favourite composer. I must have listened to Mahler's 9th more than any other music.

 

Your Mytek 192DSD is quite good. But IMO the Brooklyn with a good linear PSU is a few notches above in terms of SQ. It should measure better as well.

Should you have the chance do test/ listen to one.

[Miska]

It should measure better as well.

 

Note that the measurements are with the same DAC using MQA versus conversion from the 352.8/24 master (or other non-MQA hires) to a standard FLAC. So not absolute, but relative with/without MQA.

 

So even if Brooklyn would be absolutely better doesn't matter, only whether MQA is better than what can be achieved within standard FLAC format. So far, clear winner for 2L content has been 120 kHz sampling rate at 18-bit quantization depth in a standard FLAC (smallest file / lowest bandwidth usage while maintaining all infomration of the source).

[wisnon]

It's virtually free because I have a DAC that decodes MQA.

 

Again IMO MQA's SQ is at least on pair with DXD or DSD 256. So way better than FLAC.

 

If you say that you've bought an MQA DAC just for fun does it mean that that you've bought the £200 Explorer2?

 

If so I'd take your claim that you've listened to MQA with a good DAC with a grain of salt. At least the original Explorer was far from being a good DAC IMO.

 

What Dac did you use to listen to that DSD256 content?

[Octavius]

What Dac did you use to listen to that DSD256 content?

 

Mytek Brooklyn with a Qualiaphysic Linear PSU.

[lmitche]

With my Brooklyn DAC I could not discern a significant sound quality difference between DXD, DSD 256 and the MQA tracks of the 2L material.

 

So as a compression scheme MQA seems to work well.

 

However the same DXD files upsampled to DSD512 sound even better. As the MQA format is proprietary this will never be possible with MQA files.

 

So I sold my Brooklyn DAC to fund the purchase of a DSD512 capable DAC.

 

It would be a sad day if the only way to obtain a high resolution file is via the MQA format.

[occamsrazor]

So I sold my Brooklyn DAC to fund the purchase of a DSD512 capable DAC.

 

What DAC did you replace it with?

[lmitche]

I'm about to pull the trigger on a T+A DAC 8 DSD. In the meantime I am using an IFI micro iDSD at DSD512 which surprisingly bests the Brooklyn when played at DSD512 with a battery powered REGEN and two .7 meter Supra cables.

[hornytoad]

Why would someone want a closed format with DRM* that is controlled by a single company who wants to control even the encoding process? What do you do if MQA company goes bankrupt or gets acquired by some other company and eventually discontinue the technology and you own a lot of content encoded with it? Just think what happened to HDCD or HD-DVD?

 

At least for me any closed content format is complete no-go. And even more so when associated with any form of DRM.

 

Why not use some open standard, standardized by international standardization organization instead? Like MPEG-4 SLS standardized by ISO/IEC? Or even better stick to a completely free format like FLAC that doesn't require royalties from all parties using it. There are no space savings or anything like that with MQA. You can store same resolution in a standard FLAC in smaller space.

 

*) They call it "authenticated", but that's just marketing trick to avoid saying "DRM". It is DRM as long as you cannot freely completely decode or convert the content to another format as you please.

+1000 .Yeah we don't need this at all.

[TubeLover]

I don't think there will be any showdown, as DSD is strictly a niche within the audiophile niche, while MQA is trying to be a broad based format. DSD isn't ever going to be something "the public" adopts.

 

If Tidal and some labels really start releasing/streaming significant amounts of content in MQA format, then MQA will establish itself as a viable format - since it can also be played back on standard equipment - and we will start to see lots of MQA capable devices.

 

It's my understanding that you would need an MQA capable DAC. Which leaves out about 98% of the world.

 

JC