MQA is Vaporware

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, botrytis said:

Catholic means universal   So, you are saying it is universal, universal? Jes asking.....

 

I feel a Doublemint gum commercial coming on ...

 

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, firedog said:

There is tons of low priced near state of the art equipment on the market: Topping, Emotiva, TEAC, Audioengine and many others.

 

You really think Audioengine is "near state of the art"?

[Rt66indierock]

2 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

This was actually my point to @Archimago& @Doug Schneider - that things are not really changing in Audiophiledom to a more objective, reality and evidence based engineering and fidelity culture.  MQA might be a fraud too far for Audiophiledom, but that's not because there is a trend to a more objective/technology based audio culture...

 

Actually I think things are changing. Many in the press aren't happy about it. At RMAF last year there was a seminar about high performance audio centered around $500 for a headphone system.  As I prepare for this years RMAF I'm listening to an almost too good headphone system. A Neurochrome HP-1 headphone amp, Gustard DACX26 DAC and Sennheiser  HD-650 headphones all for about $3,000. Substitute a Drop THX AAA789 and a March Audio DAC1 and you're down to just over a grand. 

 

And like Jud my morning walks are just fine with an IPod Shuffle and AKG 450 headphones. And have been for years.

[Rt66indierock]

8 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

You really think Audioengine is "near state of the art"?

 

The better question is how much expensive stuff isn't state of the art? 

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Rt66indierock said:

The better question is how much expensive stuff isn't state of the art? 

The real question is which art.

[crenca]

5 minutes ago, mansr said:

The real question is which art.

 

Bingo.  Synergistic Research, boxes of rocks, anti-vaxers - it's all art...

[Ralf11]

50 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

One wonders what number field/rational domain the old guard is employing.

 

obviously somewhere on the imaginary line

[Jud]

27 minutes ago, crenca said:

You can't have it both ways.

I think maybe you can. I’ve got a couple of pretty ironclad Cisco commercial grade switches in my system, $20 each, and know who clued me in? A couple of “radical subjectivists.” Good ideas come from lots of places. (So do bad ones of course, so education is key.)

[John Dyson]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Agree 100%. But, we can only control what we purchase. I wish we could control the sound of our favorite albums. 

I kind of agreed with you (with frustrated conditions)  -- you know the kind of thing on my mind all of the time -- we can buy the very best, super high quality audio gear of all stripes and colors (and even go for high quality 'coloring'), but the source material SOMETIMES is lacking.

 

Definitely no begruding esoteric gear, even though sometimes it is frustrating, and not even irritated with the mastering engineers when mastering is allowed.  Much of the material that reaches our homes is disgusting -- considering the money being spent, and the enjoyment that really clean/good material would support.

 

This is NOT intended to advocate my project -- because my project is the result of my own frustration.  I lost my own 'audiophile' hobby back in the late '80s after giving up -- little good source material other than Sheffield labs or similar.  Starting in the '80s, we were supposedly going to have super quality audio recordings in our homes, but ended up with messy stuff.

 

Please, I never intend to be rude -- please interpret my statements result from frustration and almost NEVER personal irritation against individuals.   Whenver needed, I ascribe to disagreement with good humor, not personal attacks.  I respect you and most people on this forum (even some of those not currently visiting), PLEASE never interpret my sometimes frustrated & strident comments as being personal.

 

John

 

[mansr]

24 minutes ago, Jud said:

I think maybe you can. I’ve got a couple of pretty ironclad Cisco commercial grade switches in my system, $20 each, and know who clued me in? A couple of “radical subjectivists.” Good ideas come from lots of places. (So do bad ones of course, so education is key.)

Even a blind chicken finds the occasional grain.

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, crenca said:

 

You can't have it both ways.  If Chris' radical subjectivism is going to be the "standard", then how can you disagree with MQA, Denney, or any other subjective "truth"?  Live and let listen, don't bother me with the facts.

 

I think Chris prefers an environment that permits multiple ways to enjoy the hobby, with a choice of paths to audio Nirvana, with no “right path”. No one is denying that truth is absolute --  although the truth is not always lucid.

[botrytis]

35 minutes ago, Jud said:

I think maybe you can. I’ve got a couple of pretty ironclad Cisco commercial grade switches in my system, $20 each, and know who clued me in? A couple of “radical subjectivists.” Good ideas come from lots of places. (So do bad ones of course, so education is key.)

 

Are these the same Cisco routers that have flawed chips inside that can't be patched? Or are they the ones that were open to attack and were patched 1 yr after the fault was identified? Cisco doesn't have a great rep on those.

[Doug Schneider]

3 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

That experience is echoed every day in my endeavors to characterize the performance of the audio components reviewed in Stereophile - every product, be it speaker, amplifier, CD player, is fundamentally a black box with input and output terminals. All I have to do is ask the question ‘What does it do?’"

 

Hi,

 

While I can understand treating components as a black box -- when we put a speaker in the chamber and close the door on it, I tell people "now all the marketing claims and other hoopla go away, let's see what it does" -- I don't see why guessing at why something works the way it does, versus asking and finding out the answer why it does, is the way to characterize something.

 

For example, the reader is supposed to benefit from what they're reading. In this case, you "suspect" something, which is wrong. But instead of suspecting it, why not say, "I asked the Naim engineers about this measurement anomaly and they told me . . ." After all, does it matter if you suspect something if what you suspect is wrong?

 

And before you or anyone gets defensive about that, there's a reason that the saying "A jack of all trades is a master of none" exists -- can one person really be expected to know everything? This is even more true today with advancements in computers, even in hi-fi -- no one can know everything about what really goes on inside.

 

So while we each have our way of working, I favor the idea of getting the answer instead of guessing at the answer. I don't know how many times I've told my writers, "Instead of guessing, why don't you just ask something?"

 

Doug Schneider

SoundStage!

[Jud]

11 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

Are these the same Cisco routers that have flawed chips inside that can't be patched? Or are they the ones that were open to attack and were patched 1 yr after the fault was identified? Cisco doesn't have a great rep on those.

Switches, not routers. Internal to the network.

[John Dyson]

46 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

You really think Audioengine is "near state of the art"?

My silly little headphone preamp -- nice short leads and connections, and relatively low distortion op amp is really good...  Is it state-of-the-art?  Definitely not absolutely state of the art.  Is it beyond state of the art quality for yr2000?  Sure.  It all depends on the power supply & ground noise, along with ambient EMI, but it is damned good.

Would I purchase a $500-$1k headphone preamp?  Maybe, if it gives me a volume control and a few more convienience features, along with the extra wiring not causing potential EMC issues.  It is pretty hard to do better than 0.001% distortion for the amplification portion of the design.  Maybe a better DAC might be useful -- generally they are pretty good though..  The rest of the quality is in layout, power, EMC, and other things like that.

Can I design a headphone amp that would technically outperform my current headphone amp?  Definitely -- the question is why do I need better?  I'd get a 'notch above' set of headphones first, and use both sets of headphones for recording quality determination -- the DAC/amplifer really is down in the noise (figuratively and literally.)

 

How much quality do you need?  As an engineer -- enough to give accurate results.

How much quality do you need?  As a friend making a suggestion -- enough to sound good for you.

How much quality do you need?  As an equipment sales person -- how much can you afford?

How much quality do you need?  As a snake oil sales person -- how much money can you borrow? :-).

How much quality do you need?  As my cynical self -- for pop, not much, the recording copies are pretty bad anyway...

 

I am sitting here just after decoding a couple of master tape copies -- even they can be variable (I am speaking of Jazz/Classical type stuff) -- however lightyears beyond anything that I have heard on vinyl, and better than many CDs.  We are talking about hearing air handlers kicking off and on buried deep in the audio (not normally audible on released copies DEFINITELY not on vinyl.)  That is certainly better than hearing subway rumble on other such material :-).  Feeling/hearing the finest touch of the bow against the string -- we are talking really really good quality.  Frankly, no reason why a 44.1k/16bit cannot sound just as good as the freshly minted 192/24 decoded copy (in fact, a good idea for an experiment.)  Too bad I cannot share the results!!! (Frustrating!!!)  Most likely (cynical again), a distributed 192/24 copy will not sound as good as a freshly minted decode.  The distributors JUST DONT CARE.

 

This kind of thing is where the MACRO quality issues reside.  It is NOT in the equipment, even though some stuff can sound sucky.

 

The technology exists for REALLY good quality, and it isn' tdifficult.  The music distributors simply have to decide to produce clean copies of many ALREADY clean recordings.  It is ALMOST like they already use a primitive form of the MQA distortion scheme to obscure the actual quality.

 

(I know, a little off topic, but had to get it off my chest.)

 

John

[Jud]

17 minutes ago, mansr said:

Even a blind chicken finds the occasional grain.

Not the first time, so from a scientific point of view after a while it becomes improbable to continue assuming the “chickens” are just lucky.

[Jud]

9 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Most likely (cynical again), a distributed 192/24 copy will not sound as good as a freshly minted decode.  The distributors JUST DONT CARE.

What would the reason(s) for the difference be?

[firedog]

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

 

You really think Audioengine is "near state of the art"?

Yes, their better stuff. As I said, speakers are somewhat different from other components because there are large changes in sound when you pay more money. However, in comparison to other small bookshelf speakers they certainly are near state of the art.

 

The biggest difference you get with more expensive speakers is deeper bass and more ability to fill a room, especially at louder volumes. From upper bass to the high end relatively inexpensive speakers are not a lot different in sound from expensive ones.

The HD6 is quite good sounding. How different do you think it sounds from a $2000 or $3000 set of conventional bookshelf speakers with an added DAC and amp? I'd say not very. Meaning it will get you 90% or 95% or maybe even 98% of the SQ. I don't really know how to put a number on it.

Aside: I heard a $25000 pair of bookshelf speakers connected to about $100k of electronics that I didn't like the sound of. Did the expensive system have more detail, etc? Yes. But I'd prefer the Audioengine in my room.

 

Put in another way: Can you use the HD6 to listen to 2 different masterings of the same album and hear the difference and lots of the detail in each one? Yes.

I'm not saying a more expensive system isn't better and the difference can't be heard. I'm saying the difference is small, and in audiophilia we talk about a 2% difference as if it is a 50% difference. We like to pay big bucks for these small differences. And the differences are mostly in the speakers and not in the electronics. As a result we tend to think the good quality less expensive stuff "sucks". It doesn't.

 

When non audiophiles ask me how much a "really good" system costs, I say $1000. Why not say $15K? Because the system is for them, not me. And I'm not lying to them.

 

But this is all OT, sorry.

[Ralf11]

17 minutes ago, Jud said:

Not the first time, so from a scientific point of view after a while it becomes improbable to continue assuming the “chickens” are just lucky.

 

did you do a t-test on the chickens?

[John Dyson]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

What would the reason(s) for the difference be?

I don't know -- you'd think that the distribution copies will be as good as what I can decode.  I am looking forward to hearing a distribution copy on the specific recording with strings.  I am NOT the mastering engineer, and I don't know what DolbyA decoding mechanism that they will use.   I have true DolbyA decoded versions of the material -- the best way to describe is that the sound has sharp details, but then immediately folowing the sharp details, then the details are muted, then the clarity comes back.  It is like a 'saturation' somewhere in the sound processing. 

 

I DO know that there are lots of recordings out there with missing detail -- I know that it is not a conspiracy, but SOMETHING is wrong.  My hearing is not SO good to be able to hear 'nothing' -- but I do hear a lot of inferior and boring sounding stuff when I do listen.

 

I have to admit, that in part of my comment, I became overwrought -- there ARE good recordings reaching the consumer.  I simply don't expect to be able to predict what is good or bad.  I gave up on an audio listening hobby some 30+yrs ago because I couldn't find good material, why buy good equipment, right?

 

John

 

[shadowlight]

Question for the group:

 

1. Outside of Tidal, what other way is MQA available?  I have seen MQA CD mentioned but how much of those cd are being bought?
2. Are the folks who are demanding MQA in DAC are they streaming Tidal or are they insisting on it because it's a new buzz word generated by the press and they believe they are going to get left behind when they discuss new toys with folks that they know.  Oh, you do not have MQA on your DAC, that's just not right 😆
3. I would also like to find out the ratio of folks who have the lower price (<$2000) MQA DAC with Tidal v/s higher priced DAC with Tidal usage.  The low price was picked randomly and if I as looking at low price it would be in the range of under a grand so that number is likely to change based on your preference.

[lucretius]

35 minutes ago, firedog said:

Yes, their better stuff. As I said, speakers are somewhat different from other components because there are large changes in sound when you pay more money. However, in comparison to other small bookshelf speakers they certainly are near state of the art.

 

The biggest difference you get with more expensive speakers is deeper bass and more ability to fill a room, especially at louder volumes. From upper bass to the high end relatively inexpensive speakers are not a lot different in sound from expensive ones.

The HD6 is quite good sounding. How different do you think it sounds from a $2000 or $3000 set of conventional bookshelf speakers with an added DAC and amp? I'd say not very. Meaning it will get you 90% or 95% or maybe even 98% of the SQ. I don't really know how to put a number on it.

Aside: I heard a $25000 pair of bookshelf speakers connected to about $100k of electronics that I didn't like the sound of. Did the expensive system have more detail, etc? Yes. But I'd prefer the Audioengine in my room.

 

Put in another way: Can you use the HD6 to listen to 2 different masterings of the same album and hear the difference and lots of the detail in each one? Yes.

I'm not saying a more expensive system isn't better and the difference can't be heard. I'm saying the difference is small, and in audiophilia we talk about a 2% difference as if it is a 50% difference. We like to pay big bucks for these small differences. And as a result we tend to think the good quality less expensive stuff "sucks". It doesn't.

But this is all OT, sorry.

 

I cannot question someone's subjective evaluation but I did find it odd for an owner of Kii Three's to have such a positive opinion of Audioengine.  I would argue that the drivers in Audioengine speakers are nothing special (i.e. off the shelf cheap junk) and the bass from HD6's or A5+s is rather uncontrolled and woolly but this is just my subjective opinion. Here's where measurements can assist one in making a better (or more informed) decision.

[John Dyson]

2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

I cannot question someone's subjective evaluation but I did find it odd for an owner of Kii Three's to have such a positive opinion of Audioengine.  I would argue that the drivers in Audioengine speakers are nothing special (i.e. off the shelf cheap junk) and the bass from HD6's or A5+s is rather uncontrolled and woolly but this is just my subjective opinion. Here's where measurements can assist one in making a better (or more informed) decision.

I believe that transducers will be a challenge for years to come.  Some parts of the audio  system are now  'perfect' from a practical standpoint.  Transducers (depending on size) tend to be a challenge.  Big transducers for high power tend to have more troubles because of mass, inertia, momentum and simple doppler effect -- among other things.  Microphones will tend to be perfected before headphones, then before speakers.  Turntable cartridges perhaps a little slower than microphones because of the physical aspects of needles.

Up until recently (30yrs) media was a major issue, but now, it can be as perfect as the electronics -- then the quality issues become aspects of production and their own transducers, processing, etc.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

2 hours ago, lucretius said:

 

One wonders what number field/rational domain the old guard is employing.

 

obviously somewhere on the imaginary line

 

Perhaps I should have affixed this "⸮" to the end of my statement?  ☺️

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

 

did you do a t-test on the chickens?

 

... or, for that matter,  some form of equivalence testing (e.g. a two one-sided t-test)?