MQA is Vaporware

[fas42]

5 hours ago, miguelito said:

 

I actually have to admit I don't generally know what it is that I like in a sound once you get to a certain level. For me is how deeply I get pulled into the music. I must also admit that when I hear a system that is "highly resolving" I often find them not doing it for me. 

 

One time I visited Jonathan Carr in Tokyo. It was many years ago. He played some records, and after a few hours I sort of felt in trance, confused, almost sleepy. The experience was so wonderful and relaxing, and the music frankly not what was up my alley at the time, but it was wonderful and it made me look up and purchase those tunes afterwards.

 

Edit: JC is the head designer of Lyra cartridges. The playback system included the Connosieur air dielectric preamp, 

 

A good description of something approaching, or achieving "convincing" sound. "Highly resolving" may be when the system over-emphasises fine detail, rather than allowing it to blend it in in a 'natural' fashion, as for live acoustic music.

 

It's a quality that one can live with for any length of time, because it doesn't demand of the senses to respond - you can "turn your back to it", and it still sounds "wonderful", heard out of the corner of one's ears ...

[fas42]

I just find it remarkable at how much energy is thrown into this MQA stuff - it's an irrelevant blip in the audio timeline, Just Another Method to try and make people's playback "sound better" - by foolin' around around with the source end. IME, the reproduction chain is where the real action is - why concern oneself with trying to compensate for lack of integrity in the reproduction mechanism by 'pre-distorting' the material, when the smart move is to make the system that presents the sound work better.

[fas42]

39 minutes ago, Lee Scoggins said:

 

I think you need both: 1.  a good playback chain and 2. good source material.  Stuart came up with a clever way to improve the source material.

 

Yes, good source material always helps. But the question arises as to what "improving" means - I have a CD of Glenn Miller tracks, some of which have had "professional" noise reduction applied to them; guess which are the least interesting, the most sounding like a kitchen radio quality about them ? Yes, they are "nice and quiet" - but they also sound very mundane compared to the others; the vitality and oomph has been sucked out of them ...

 

My take is that the options for "improving the material" should be left to the consumer - if he wants to add tone controls, and DSP to "make it nicer" he has full range in what he can do - for others, just leave the raw material completely untouched, apart from fixing clear technical faults.

[fas42]

10 hours ago, mansr said:

With headphones and the volume turned up, dither at 16 bits is audible. Since it's easily possible to lower the noise level, there's no good reason not to.

 

As an example of a commercial release that got it wrong, in the intro,

 

 

The YouTube clip appears to be OK, but in this album release it definitely is there,

 

 

This was the first CD we ever bought; we used it to check the playback of dealer systems, when going for our first digital system, over 30 years ago. Even in the dealer showrooms I was bugged by the beginning of this - there was something not right ...

[fas42]

MQA is on target to die because because it's not open - that alone should guarantee its demise. Oracle attempted to put its own, proprietary, version of an online system out there, just as the Internet started to gather steam - guess everyone here can remember that product, ... the juggernaut of huge numbers of people getting excited, or upset about some concept is what makes things happen - if music is largely wallpaper for most people then MQA may succeed - because it doesn't matter either way, for them.

[fas42]

4 hours ago, new_media said:

 

I have also been amazed to see people who claim that "everything matters" settle for a lossy format.

 

As a side note ... the goal is all important - "whatever it takes!" is the mantra. Sometimes, you find taking one step back allows two or more steps forward - later in the journey one can finesse, refine every aspect of the system, to fully optimise and make 'perfect' every part - when one fully understands.

 

This has nothing to do with saying that MQA is part of a solution to something - just, that one may need to 'compromise', or do something silly to make the bigger picture happen, at that moment.

[fas42]

4 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

With respect, this is just gibberish.  Mind numbing gibberish.

 

 

IOW, you refuse to buy a piece of sofware that isn't certified to be 100% perfect - it is "gibberish" to allow real world systems to operate that may possibly have long term 'defects' in them, which have had a bit of rough plumbing put in place to make the core functionality behave itself?

 

BTW, which OS do you use - and where is its certificate of perfection?

[fas42]

Ahhh, I see ... the concept of system integrity, and attempting to refine such, is foreign to you ...

[fas42]

47 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

As a side note ... the goal is all important - "whatever it takes!" is the mantra. Sometimes, you find taking one step back allows two or more steps forward - later in the journey one can finesse, refine every aspect of the system, to fully optimise and make 'perfect' every part - when one fully understands.

 

This has nothing to do with saying that MQA is part of a solution to something - just, that one may need to 'compromise', or do something silly to make the bigger picture happen, at that moment.

 

Do some people need an alternative wording ... ? How about this,

 

For some people, MQA improves the subjective quality of their rigs - they don't care that it's "taken something away!" ... it sounds better, because it's a means of getting around some other weakness in their setup. And the importance of what it's given overrides the losses.

 

Again, I have zero interest in MQA. It has no value for a competent playback chain, and is an annoying detour, distracting from the real job of getting best sound.

 

 

[fas42]

On 3/1/2019 at 7:57 AM, Lee Scoggins said:

Slide 17:

This studio sound slide implies MQA are remixing the master.  In fact, the differences between the master file and MQA are very small.  MQA is applying filters to correct the time smear of ADC.  ...

 

This is the bit that gets me. In the article, https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers-tutorial-temporal-errors-audio, they say

 

Quote

There is no standard measure for temporal blur but we believe our use of the term is clear and intuitive. A causal transmission system has dispersive properties which result from filtering or attenuation. Fine details in the time waveform can be smeared or obscured if the end-to-end impulse response is not sensitive to the signal and to the receiver (human listener)

 

Ummm, if you want gibberish, this to me is a perfect example, . Sciencey talk which contains nothing. I want to see a piece of real music recording, before and after MQA is applied, which clearly shows how the signal is altered - by getting a diff of the result - and an explanation for why the MQA variety is "more accurate" to what the microphones heard. Talking about theoretical, impulse responses does not compute - what is the ear hearing that makes the difference; with a genuine music signal?

 

 

[fas42]

6 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

 

Sounds like 2 weaknesses are a step forward in your example. 

 

MAK

 

Weaknesses have different levels of subjective significance, and it varies per individual. First CD players came out, and person A said, "Thank God I can't hear pops and crackles!"; person B say, "It's terrible what that playback is doing to the treble - give me back my LP TT!".

 

The software world deals in this all the time - a bug may be so severe that it completely cripples the usefulness of the program for some people; another bug may be very subtle, but everybody comes across it now and again - which weakness is the "more important one"?

 

The real world is never "perfect" - everything we use is compromised in some areas, but we get used to the downsides, and they "become invisible" - "character" is the great word to use here ... .

 

The reality is that we all dance on beds of weaknesses - being aware of such can help to lower the level of vitriole; it ain't a Black and White world, even though many would love it to be so.

 

 

[fas42]

13 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 MQA is incapable of improving the subjective quality of their rigs,  provided that they are already capable of doing justice to the original high resolution music files, unless the originals have suffered badly from greatly excessive compression, and they also  took the opportunity to remaster the file when making the MQA release.

 

 

Alex, a lot of people say that MQA makes their rigs sound better - I would suggest there are multiple factors at work here; there won't be just one clearcut reason for why they hear the benefit.

[fas42]

14 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

Sometimes this may be achieved by the simple expediency of slightly increasing upper HF response to give a   little added " focus".

 This also applies to Video such as .mp4 where the bit rate used for encoding is a little too low.

 

IME when a rig "snaps into focus", the actual FR of the playback chain doesn't matter. This won't 'work' for everyone, I'm sure of that - but I have experimented with this area multiple times, on multiple setups; and it's consistent for me: the better the playback integrity, the less the measurable FR is relevant, subjectively.

 

Why this occurs appears to be because of that mighty DSP engine inside one's skull - if the sound meets the right standards in other areas, then the brain does all the filtering to adjust the characteristics to meet one's expectations - it just "sounds right"; irrespective of what an instrumentation microphone tells one in the analytical sense.

[fas42]

 

7 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Frank

 What you have just said has absolutely nothing to with what I am talking about ,and is irrelevant in this thread..

Alex

 

Alex, you said, " slightly increasing upper HF response to give a   little added " focus". This implies that fiddling with FR 'improves' the sound - IME, this is not the approach that gives the results I'm after - whether MQA does this in some fashion, altering aspects of FR, is another matter, yes.

[fas42]

Just now, Racerxnet said:

 

You want to fix your weaknesses? Fix your room with treatments. You don’t like the sound of the overall system, fix it with new speakers that meet your preferences for sound quality. Run REW and look at the room response.  Provide adequate amplification that meets the demand of room size, speakers impeadance, and of course, the choice of SS or valves.. Those very few things have the most impact on the overall sound of any system. Preferences of vinyl or CD are irrelevant to room response. I’m not saying that other items do not make a difference, but that those few things listed are always going to have the greatest impact of sonic changes to the “system”. Go ahead and add maple blocks, tuning sound with cables, etc. I’ll take my dedicated room with the ideas as above and can skip tweak nirvana. 

 

Stick to the proven basics and people will usually get much further

 

MAK

 

What I do is identify weaknesses in the sound - by listening to what comes out of the speakers - up close and personal! And silly shortcomings in the implementation of components, and how they are connected together, and the robustness in the face of electrical noise is a huge part of what offends, here.

 

MQA attempts to "nicefy" the sound using various techniques on the source material - not a smart move; akin to how they used perfume in the old days to disguise the fact that they hadn't had a bath  ... intelligent tweaking thoroughly scrubs the playback chain clean of smelly stuff - it one does this several times, then one realises that this subtle degradation of SQ is part and parcel of nearly all rigs - including my own if I haven't gone the yards - and that hearing the recording in its pristine state makes all the difference.

 

While people remain intent on perfuming the sound they hear - which is also done by MQA - they will remain distant from the true nature of the recordings they possess ... which is a shame.

[fas42]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Frank

 Your requirements appear to be quite different to that of most members.

 

Alex

 

Alex, my requirements are that I hear the recording, and only the recording - there are those who use selected recordings to show off the 'qualities' of their playback rigs, but that's something that doesn't interest me, at all .

 

Connecting emotionally with the musical event captured is paramount, and if a setup can't do that, with "ordinary" recordings, then it's failed, for me. Adding distortion is not necessary to achieve this, but scrupulously worked on audible integrity is.

 

My attitude is that the recording is king, and the rig has to be fit, to be worthy of presenting it - this helps enormously in setting priorities, and making the right moves ... IME .

 

 

[fas42]

Hah! ... All you'll get is White Noise ...

[fas42]

5 hours ago, shtf said:

 

You are quite right.  In fact, sometimes it seems the more one focuses on hearing any minute differences, the less one hears any differences.  Especially when you might have easily distinguished those same differences the night before.  And of course audio memory can be so short too.

 

Which is why one works towards developing competency of the playback chain - then "minute differences" are completely irrelevant - changing which seat you're on while listening to a live violin player, some feet away, type of thing.

 

With that in hand, the non-MQA file will sound convincing - and, the MQA cooked variety will be just as convincing ... i.e., zero net gain.

[fas42]

Every time I've looked at a track with guaranteed genuine above 20kHz content, it's either been incidental noises from objects in the recording environment being impacted, or buried in the depths of a big musical climax, that is, completely masked. Also, big, big, ultrasonic noisefloor; completely random, constant twitching of the waveform at above 20k frequencies - which may have a completely unintentional, and positive effect, in continually exercising the DAC circuitry.

[fas42]

The need to suck up to authority is endemic - I despair at times when I read the nonsense sprouted by "authorative figures", when they proclaim that audio reproduction is inherently limited by various simplistic factors, which they consider the human mind is not capable of taking into account. Which is why much audio playback is so mediocre - if the standards aspired to are so low, how can it be otherwise out there in the real world - if you believe Model T travel is as good as it gets, then what are the chances of moving beyond that?

[fas42]

48 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

I need to go to the store.

 

On the way I have to cross a bridge that the builder stated was "perceptually sound".

 

The chasm between engineering in most areas, and methods used in audio are quite large - when the bridge falls down, and astronauts die because someone didn't fully check all the fine details - then there is usually little argument that the integrity of the system wasn't quite good enough ... in audio, one is assaulted with bad sound at every turn, because having one's ears suffer is a minor consequence; if they are all as bad as each other, in an infinite number of minor variations, then no-one is the wiser. The concept that the system should be robust enough that it simply presents what's on the recording, with inaudible additions because of the makeup of the chain, is quite foreign to most - it's more fun to play with paints.

 

At the moment audio is about building a bridge where only vehicles that are light enough, and cross at exactly the right speed will make it to the other side - one talks of the small number of "good vehicles" out there, the special ones amongst the numerous "bad vhicles", .

[fas42]

Just now, KeenObserver said:

 

How's the weather on your planet?

 

See what I mean? ... nothing like a flock of ostriches scurrying to their carefully guarded, heaped ...

[fas42]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

facts are established by experimentation - the question is whether or to what extent they apply outside the conditions of that experiment

 

A source of great amusement is reading many of the papers produced by, say, AES - "facts" which are only extremely vaguely connected to the requirements for high quality sound, with holes in the concept that one could drive multiple trucks, side by side, through ...

[fas42]

1 minute ago, KeenObserver said:

 

No no.  You misconstrued what I was saying!

 

Your theories are absolutely amazing and should be injected into every thread possible as many times as possible!

 

Ah, we need more men of humour ... audio does take itself far too seriously ... I mean, it's only about doin' something like foolin' around with old cars ...

[fas42]

31 minutes ago, Paul R said:

People read an article where turning on MQA made a device sound better. I am sure that the article was factual, and not misleading to people. If you buy one of those and turn on MQA in the settings, it will sound better. Its the same as reading an article where the MQA version of a file from Tidal sounded better than the Redbook version.

 

Anyone can apply DSP to make a system, and a recording, "sound better" - people being rewarded, as an industry wide thing, for doing this has the smell of "let's make money from something that's not the slightest bit special, that people can do for themselves"