MQA is Vaporware

[bluesman]

6 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Not every version of Carpenters is mastered appropriately, not every version of ABBA has been processed/mastered correctly (for a really sickening time -- listen to the premium  'The Complete Studio Recordings -- Crest of 4.6, peak-rms of 13-14dB -- BAD!!!)  There is a lot of substandard material out there...

A lot of what's substandard out there is the music, not the recording and its presentation.  "You can't shine [expletive deleted by author]."

 

I don't think I'm narcoleptic.  I can listen through almost any music to hear the musicians' parts and appreciate the technical quality of the charts, the playing, and the recording.  I can stay awake listening to Kenny G, even if I do have to keep reminding myself that he's a skilled musician and an educated man who simply chooses to play sonic Sominex.  But I have a bit of trouble with the Carpenters and ABBA as reference source material  .  I'd suggest checking out Wes Montgomery's California Dreamin' album on A&M to hear what they could do with a heartbreakingly dull set of performances. It's a Van Gelder / Creed Taylor production with one of the greatest studio bands in history - Herbie Hancock, Wayne Andre, Bucky Pizzarelli, Richard Davis, Grady Tate, Ray Barretto etc.

 

As I recall, the Wrecking Crew backed them on many of their records. A&M was not a shoddy house - their overall quality was pretty fine, even with the studio trickery popular at the time.  And their original mastering was pretty uniform in approach and quality.   I actually bought many such albums because I was in one of the top wedding & Bar Mitzvah bands on the east coast from '69-75 or so & had to be able to play all the hits at 3 or 4 events a week.  So I have a large collection of vinyl that includes - shudder! - Perry Como (Tony Mottola on guitar), Enoch Light & the Light Brigade (some of the best charts and musicians ever on the Command albums, e.g. Mottola, Pee Wee Erwin, Bob Haggart), Ricky Nelson (James Burton!), and a host of artists whose music would never have crept into my home were there not a practical need for it.

 

Every night I say a little prayer: "May ABBA never emerge from my speakers!"

 

PS:  Karen Carpenter was actually a fair drummer, but she couldn't play well enough to do studio work and apparently had some difficulty singing her best while also playing.

[bluesman]

43 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 You guys are missing the point here. John is developing new techniques to correct the distortions created by Dolby Encoding and Decoding as used in MANY (most ?) releases of the era. He is using those as they are particularly challenging to correct.

These recordings that he is working on now will be archived and preserved so that future generations will be able to hear them as they were meant to be heard.

The techniques being  used by John now, which have resulted in MAJOR improvements over the source material could also be used to great benefit with numerous recordings of the Dolby era.

Sadly, there's no emoji with its tongue in its cheek - and I was afraid the only image I have expressing this phenomenon would take up too much screen. But you force my hand.....

 

 

So I guess I'm wasting my good humor to suggest that the real challenge is to make ABBA and the Carpenters swing.  If "sonic Sominex" didn't tip my hand, I'll have to be more forthright: I understand and appreciate the hard work you're putting into improving sound quality by overcoming the limitations of previous generations of processing.  I only hope that once you fix Dolby aberrations, you can find a way to improve boring, generic progam material.

 

 

...and there are a lot of 40 to 60 year old eastern European women up my family tree, so let's show some love!

[bluesman]

On 4/5/2019 at 2:00 PM, John Dyson said:

Linda Ronstadt vocals are often distorted by the Aphex distorter (I think that is the name, or should be.)

That thing was called the Aphex Aural Exciter - there was one in every studio rack in America back in the day. I’m lucky enough to live in Philly, the home of the original Sigma Sound Studios (where I got to record as a sideman on several instruments). I don’t remember if they had an AAE, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that even Sigma used it when producers asked for it. I suspect that Rudy VG never did, but I don’t know this for certain.

[bluesman]

25 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

That is like calling the Ring of Sauron a fraud.  MQA aims to dominate.

But the Crack of Doom is such a great test track!

[bluesman]

16 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

Yes, the >20kHz content is correlated with the sounds of recorded musical instruments.  When the music stops the overtones disappear.

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

 

 

I suspect that a lot of that energy is IM - not distortion, but true acoustic intermodulation among the higher frequency components of the source instruments. This is then created anew on reproduction, occurring “after” and independent of any IM in the system, and it’s additive to the same natural intermodulation generated during the source performance.  As you know well, IM between a 10kHz tone and a 12 kHz tone will produce sum & difference frequencies, i.e. 2 kHz and 22 kHz. It’s already on the recording, so there’ll also be IM among the recorded and reproduced intermodulation products. Simple math tells us that this will add / reinforce 34, 36, 44, 46 kHz components, etc etc.

 

This is measurable in the source signal as well as the acoustic output of speakers during reproduction. And there will be more of it in the latter that isn’t in the source.

 

All of this intermodulation has to be adding a layer of energy above 20 kHz that is in or just above the noise floor but still measurable and, even if only indirectly, audible. I’ve always believed (and taken flack for, on this very site) that this is a reason why reproduced music will never sound exactly like the source performance - we’re hearing intermodulation among the performers, which is part of the music even though it’s not generated by any individual instrument. And we’re adding another layer on playback that’s not on the recording.

 

And if I’m right, limiting output to 20kHz may well improve realism in reproduction

[bluesman]

15 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

A very reasonable theory. Of course if as reported earlier in this thread, all the high end speakers do not reproduce sound above 13khz, then a disproven one.  Not sure who to believe here, respected audio engineer and  journalist - or accountant. 🤪

 

 

With all due respect, I don't think it's disproven at all, even if there's no output at all above 13k.  I also mean no disrespect to Rt66indierock.  But I frankly and strongly doubt the assertion that no available speaker emits audible energy above 13k, based on observations and measurements made and described by so many others who would all have to be wrong, lying, or both.  Are we supposed to believe and accept that Wilson is simply making up the ToneTot's frequency response of "65 Hz – 23 kHz +/- 3 dB", or that Focal is simply lying about the Utopia's alleged FR of "27Hz – 40kHz +/- 3 dB"?

 

Whether or not all the intermodulation generated during the live performance is being captured / archived / reproduced is irrelevant to the theory.  Even if there's nothing above 13k in the source material, 10 + 10 = 20 and 10 + 20 = 30, etc at the listening position, so there will be intermodulation products above 13k in any measurement of acoustic output from the speakers.  If this is not duplicative and interactive with the same IM products in the source because they weren't captured / stored / reproduced, there may even be a very tiny bit of added realism.  But, of course, all the IM products that occur naturally in the performance below 13k will be created anew on playback to muddy the spectral waters - and this component is most probably more audible than the spectrum above 20k.

[bluesman]

36 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

I would encourage you to measure the frequency response of your system and report back. Say from a foot then back to your listening position.

 

Sound pressure levels drop by 6 dB with each doubling of distance from the source, although that's technically true only for true point sources.  Although in the same ballpark, it's a bit less precise for planar and multiple driver systems.  Reputable, believable, reliable frequency response measurements for speakers in a listening environment are most often made on axis at a specified distance from the source.  Assuming (because I can't find confirmation) that Wilson measures 23k to be down 3 dB at a meter on axis, it would be down 6 db at 2 meters, 12 db at 4, etc.  But every other frequency would also be down by 6 dB at 2 meters etc, because free air attenuation with distance is not frequency dependent.  So the "frequency response" in isolation from the listening environment is going to be the same at any distance all the way out to inaudibility.  Only the SPL will change.

 

I have no trouble believing that a listening room could damp, cancel (e.g. out of phase reflections) or otherwise attenuate enough high frequency energy to be an effective low pass filter, e.g. at 10k or 12k. And this would prevent capture and identification of energy above the passband measured at a listening position beyond a very near field.