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MQA is Vaporware


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30 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Thanks for the report, I don't doubt your findings, most CDs sound crap. How would you say the SQ compares to vinyl? 

 

I haven't tested any MQA-CDs against vinyl yet. However my vinyl in general is significantly superior to my digital. The setup pictured here (the CDP is put ontop of the amp temporarily for testing) shows my vinyl setup as well. The area where vinyl outshines the digital is dynamic performance which either directly or in conjunction with other factors leads to a more convincing sound, ie, more real-life. My digital has significantly better bass definition and overall better soundstage but they don't overcome the superiority of the vinyl overall. 

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20 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

I am someone who works on better/improved audio processing technology -- MQA isn't a way of providing improved audio...  Period.

MQA is a money siphoning scheme, does not benefit sound quality...  Period.

MQA is a poor compression scheme as compression schemes go...  Period.

MQA is a curiosity as invented to increase profits for a group of people and uses a false elitism.

There is a new story similar in some ways to  'emperors new clothes', it is called the MQA story.

(There are probably some interesting mathematical attributes, but of no real benefit to the audio listener.)

 

MQA is not intended to benefit the audio listeners in ANY way...  PERIOD.

MQA succeeds very well in not benefiting audio listeners in ANY way...  PERIOD.

(When it comes to the details of audio processing, I either already know it, or within an hour of remembering the details -- I do make mistakes about my memory -- I am not mistaking MQA for what it is -- 'snow job'/'emperors new clothes', etc.)

 

John

 

1. Part of MQA is based on research into the human auditory system which shows our time domain acuity is far higher than our frequency domain acuity. Do you disagree with that research? Does MQA not improve time domain resolution?

 

2. Another part of MQA is the idea that almost all meaningful music data exists up to around 50 kHz and past that it's mostly just noise. Do you disagree with this? Does MQA not accurately re-construct up to around 50 kHz?

 

3. Undoubtedly the people who developed MQA want to make money off it. Do you disagree with it?

 

4. The point of the Emperor's New Clothes is that no one was willing to point out the Emperor was naked. There wasn't a forum full of anti-Emperor activists posting non-stop about the Empror being naked.

 

5. MQA is intended to benefit listeners by improving sound quality and also to provide wider distribution / accessibility to high-resolution audio. Do you disagree? Is improved sound quality just an incidental unintended effect?

 

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Just now, KeenObserver said:

 

Your entire premise is based on fallacies.  None of your "givens" are given.

 

MQA alters the music.

 

MQA may alter the music, but altering the music in of and by itself does not necessarily mean that it makes it inferior.

 

Let's go a little bit deeper into this concept. Recording music to PCM alters the music more so than recording it to tape. However, unless you are dedicating a lot of bandwidth to the tape recording the PCM recording will be better is most ways. DSD alters the music less than PCM -- in fact, DSD is essentially an analog waveform contained in a digital carrier. However, low-rate DSD may actually sound worse than high-rate PCM (ie, DXD) due to the effects of a steep filter needed for low-rate DSD.

 

Based on my own testing using a good MQA DAC there is a clear and significant audio improvement over the non-MQA version. Audiophiles universally agree to the nature and general degree of the improvement. If there is an alteration of music in MQA it does not overcome the improvements or are the cause of the improvements.

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2 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Item 1 -- vacuous gobbltygook.

Item 2 -- your statement is meaningless WRT the distortion that MQA causes -- we already have perfect 192/24 transport without MQA.

Item 3 -- Making money for the license holders -- only positive attribute -- for the license holders..

Item 4 -- MQA advocates have no 'clothes'.  MQA is a big silly exercise WRT improving audio quality...  Why distort, when we already have near perfection?

Item 5 -- MQA only distorts the signal, we can already handle full quality 192/24bits...  No  need for further distortion.

(No need for compression, we can easily handle 192/24 nowadays, even on my cell phone.)
Why start with really great bit-wise quality: 192/24 and do any further distortion?  Like MQA does.  Why?  No reason other than obfuscation and an attempt by the license holders to wedge in a profit -- giving truly no benefit.  Effectively MQA interpolates to try to hide the fact that it throws away information.

MQA -- emperors new clothes.

 

John

 

 

 

 

1. If you have no response the research than you....have no response to it.

2. The concept behind MQA is that high-resolution audio only sounds better due to higher time-domain resolution.

3. No one seriously thinks the developers of MQA shouldn't make money from it. Is there a thread with hundreds of posts complaining about Sony making money off of DSD?

4. 192/24 is not "perfection". 382/32 is better. High-rate DSD is significantly better. Analog is still the best audio overall.

5. MQA reduced quality over regular PCM is subjective, but a subjective evaluation no audiophiles seem to share. Can you describe your MQA playback chain?

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6 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

"Recording music to PCM alters the music more so than recording it to tape."

 

Says who?

 

The rest of your post is pure fiction. C'mon try harder please.

 

 

 

PCM modulates a sinewave into a squarewave for digital; this process causes a transformation of the music. Analog tape records sinewaves to a magentic media.

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1 minute ago, mansr said:

Owls, actually. Not that MQA actually has anything to do with the cited research.

 

I forgot the specific research paper, but it was shown that human time-domain acuity was approx. 3 times higher than the frequency domain acuity would suggest. There was a study from the 70s I believe that showed something similar (measuring click duration reaction times). I would go hunt them down but something tells me you won't care. The animal study you a referring to is one of the studies but there were human studies as well.

 

Tangentially, did you know that the human auditory system was our fastest sensory system?

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9 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Aha. I guess it costs 20K+, right ?

Or do you have other means to define "good" ? What actually is an MQA DAC, you reckon ?

 

My entire system is around $20k. The MQA chain is much less....CDP $500, DAC+LPSU $1,100 = $1,600. Yeah sure there's a lot more $ in the amp chain but we're talking about quality differences between PCM and MQA. I don't have it in the main system right now but that includes a $3.5k big bottle tube DAC in which I found the MQA version of tracks on the the Liberty sounded better than the non-MQA version with the tube DAC.

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10 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

Oh my gosh -- I don't believe this statement...  How old are you?  This is crazy stupid.

 

Sorry -- you are not worth responding to.

 

John

 

 

Music through a transducer is an electrical sinewave. PCM transforms this into a square wave. If this is wrong can you please explain the actual process or link to an article that describes it?

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4 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

I worked part time in recording studios downtown for 10 years. Hear every format.

 

I have two Revox half track B77s and have heard many 15 its masters. You?

 

Not "many", perhaps a half-dozen or so at audio shows. What struck me about them is how they sound like high-end vinyl except better. The best sound overall. Last one I listened to they were selling tapes for $500-$600 a piece so I assume they are 2nd or 3rd-generation master copies.

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1 minute ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

So. NEVER in your home. And you don't even own a tape machine? Ol. 

 

In my home soon...I hope. I have to find the right machine I don't won't junk, but if I don't need the show hotrods for $10k+ than I'd prefer something cheaper.

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3 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Oh, that again.

MQA sounds better than vinyl.

Or am I mixing up things now ?

 

I haven't tested MQA directly against vinyl yet. My sense is that my best vinyl records are still better. But my vinyl system is also over $10k so it's maybe not the best comparison. I paid $600 for a SMARTractor alignment tool. I'm proud of my $1k Hashimoto SUT. I'm definitely deeper into the analog side of things currently.

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Well I just compared the MQA CD and regular CD version of Portrait in Jazz (Bill Evans Trio - Riverside). My initial impression listening primarily to the 2nd track is that there little difference. I think the MQA-CD has better tone on the cymbal and the cymbal decay is more defined against the background / longer lasting. Definitely one of the least different MQA vs non-MQA tests I've done. I'll do a more comprehensive test later, maybe demag the discs too.

 

I'll note that MQA-CDs you get out of Japan like this one is are technically MQA on UHQCD media. UHQCD is a new CD media which has a priority physical mastering process and produces media that returns a much stronger signal from the laser head of a CD player. Someone on here tested it last year I believe and was able to verify this claim. Using a sampler disc I found the improvement of UHQCD is most heard in lower frequencies.

 

I bought a non-Japan MQA CD the other day so we'll see how that sounds.

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17 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

I’m an audiophile. I don’t have an MP3 playback chain. Lossy is for losers. 

 

If I want to play around with SQ “enhancing” DSP I can load kernels into HQPlayer Embedded etc. but I only store my music in lossless formats without exception. 

 

I also have synth software etc so there are many ways to manipulate audio.

 

You only had to say "I don't have MQA". You're anti-MQA activism appears to be ideological and/or social.

 

Why not? Weren't you curious about the sound quality improvements being reported?

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1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 While away, you probably missed that quite a few members, including myself, were able to compare MQA against the original high res recording from posted samples, with the vast majority preferring the original high res LPCM

 

If so why won't anyone describe their MQA playback chain?

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5 hours ago, FredericV said:


Watch it until you learn:
 

 

 

It's been a while since I watched this misinformation video. I note that comments have been disabled. For those who are confused by misinformation like this, it's just tired BS about how digital audio is perfect because of lines on an analyzer. Based on this junior-grade explanation no DACs sound different from one another and there is no benefit to any resolution of audio above Redbook. If anyone of you have have heard one DAC being better than another, or who use various filters and DSD conversion schemes to get better sound, or you find high-resolution audio sounds better than you should discard this video.

 

If you think this misinformation is authoritative than forget about MQA you appear to think there is no such thing as high-resolution audio whatsoever.

 

A sinewave cannot be transformed to and from a square wave without change of data. There is nothing wrong with Nyquist from a mathematical standpoint but only between two arbitrary limits (ie, 20-20k). Liken it to a circle -- no such thing exists in nature, it's a series of lines close enough together that our brains can summarize the shape as a circle, but that is an illusion. However, when Shannon-Nyquist developed the sampling theorem it was at a time before human's time-domain (and high-frequency) acuity was widely understood.

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