MQA is Vaporware

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1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Bissie (nickname for the head of the BIS recording label, which puts out some really beautiful classical recordings) always said the word length was more important than the sample rate.

Do you think 32/32 is the future?

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1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

I don't know for sure but remember my LAAS report only a few elite studios can do hi-res. Stuff above 24/48 is unusual not the norm. That's why there is so little stuff 24/96 and above.

Not buying that.  Find me pro gear that doesn't do at least 96/24.  Other than older gear even sub $100 ADCs do 96 and usually 192.

[esldude]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Mark Knopfler puts out quite some nice stuff at that resolution (or any).  I'm thinking it's just the flip side of DAC (or software) oversampling - higher rates give the filters more headroom.  Correct, or not?

Mark Knopfler put out some very fine sounding recordings at 44/16. I think there's something to be learned there. ?

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2 minutes ago, mansr said:

Starting with Brothers in Arms.

I used to have the LP of that.

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3 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Still do.  And the DSD.

And I am stuck with the lousy CD, and a digital rip of a cassette copy of the LP. 

 

BTW, what does DSD add to a recording done with 24 tracks at 44/16,  mixed on a Neve analog desk which was recorded a second time to stereo DAT tape?  There are no analog recordings while digital mix and master tapes are all 44/16.

[esldude]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Consider me an "unreal person" then, because there's no way I'm spending that much on a car :~)

 

More than anything, I dislike the looks. Not classic. They will look dated in 5 years. 

All cars look dated in 5 years.  It is only later we figure out which had classic looks.  I remember my father driving a 67 model 427 Vette to work for 6 months because someone traded it to him in 1969.  The 68 and 69 models were so great and futuristic looking no one wanted the 'old' version.  Well here some 50 years later which is the most classic and which is worth more money?  It isn't the late 60's models. 

 

The current Vette to me looks okay except the rear view.  Looks like the Chrysler Cordoba designer was allowed to do that part.  The C5 and C6 I think will age better than the C7.  Still classic looks is usually not on the mind of customers for those cars.  Performance is, and the old classics are a sick joke in that department.

[esldude]

6 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Mobile Fidelity's mastering.

Yeah I have some MoFi recordings.  Usually quite good.  Just spent a few minutes reading about the re-mastering.

 

Lots of funny things there. One is the original tracks use pre-emphasis.  The fellow doing the remastering said there was no way to digitally handle that so he used the old Sony Dash machines to record the analog output of them to 24/96.  One of those weird things.  He could have gotten a Meridian 516 which did digitally do the de-emphasis outputting it over a 20-bit format.  I guess they didn't know about it.

 

So this was an extra AD to DA stage.  This one then played out digitally to analog again to an analog Neve to be recorded digitally one more time.  Then of course to go DSD you needed one more step to go from PCM to DSD. 

 

I haven't heard it, and can believe it is better or at least different and good.  It still can't change that originally the tracks had real limitations which many audiophiles today would turn their noses up at.  Plus one extra ADC-DAC stage, and PCM to DSD. 

[esldude]

9 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Ha!  The early Porsche 911 does not look dated in 5 years, or even 50.

 

Lest I be considered biased, I will also nominate a dozen or so 1960s Italian designs...

 

Old classics of the 1960s allow you to feel the road and have fun at near legal speeds, while newer high end sports cars do not.

 

Currently, cars tend to look similar due to a lot of emphasis on aerodynamic considerations.

 

and to stay OT...  modern SS and tube amplification components seem ot be converging in sound also

Yeah, a variation of a 1940's design didn't look dated in the 1960's?

 

I know I will get no sympathy, but I have always considered the 911 just for appearance to be one of the uglier cars seen on the road.  That it more or less survives in that 'beloved' form till this day despite attempts by Porsche to kill it is something I don't grok. 

 

Somewhere I have a folder called "most beautiful cars".  Whenever I saw a photo of what I thought was a beautiful car I snagged it to save.  Lots of Euro cars in there.  These going back into the 1920's.  One will notice looking thru it most of the incredibly beautiful Euro designs are near one offs.  Usually less than 50 were made by some combo of coach builder and car maker.  So color me less impressed with that verses some more egalitarian designs made in the thousands which are also very beautiful.  I feel the same way regarding the car available in Corvette form vs Porsche or Ferrari or McLaren etc. etc. at a few to many multiples of the Corvette price. 

 

Then again any of them are better than MQA (just to get back on target).  We just need a Ralph Nadar expose on MQA.  It would be called "MQA: Unsound at any speed". 

[esldude]

40 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

C5?  Just no way.  Maybe the C6, but I think overall (granted the rear is the worse part) the C7 has the best chance of being tested through time.  

 

Perhaps related (or not) the C7 looks worse than the C5 & C6 in photographs, but comes together (mostly) in person.

 

Funny my opinion is exactly the opposite from first two letters to last two words.

[esldude]

Maybe they were inspired by the folding of layers of steel in samurai swords.  Origami was the gentler explanation.

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1 hour ago, Fokus said:

 

Your position is based on just that short statement, that a 352k recording is folded three times, in a blurb. That's all.

 

1) if you study the MQA patents, you'll find that there is no room for such 3 times folding.

 

2) if you study MQA's technical literature, as was made public since 2014 or so, you'll find that there is no 3 times folding. What you may find is an allowance to encode and decode a small portion of original signal above 48kHz, in other words, a little bit of a 192k recording (up to 56kHz or so). Not a 352/384k one.

 

3) if you understand how MQA works (which is not that hard at all), then you'll see that thruthful three times folding is not possible, unless the original signal has no content above, say, 48kHz.

 

4) there are a few post-MQA DAC spectral analyses on the web from files that are known to originate from 192k originals, which upon playback through an MQA DAC light the DAC's '192k' indicator. These spectra consistently show the result of lazy upsampling above 48kHz. No actual original content is conveyed.

In order for a recorded spectrum to show the fingerprint of this upsampling the signal has to contain a lot of treble. This can come from the music, but also from high-frequency interference (from CRTs and whatever) originally recorded with the music in the studio. In my experience 2L recordings do not contain much treble (at least the ones I tried), and were cleanly recorded so as not to be contaminated. That, and the typical modulation noise bump above 40kHz of many DAC chips and many ADC chips make these recordings hard to fingerprint. But again, AFAIK, all 192k recordings analysed so far show upsampling as the sole mechanism to get back to 192k upon MQA playback.

 

Of course you have the right to keep on dreaming.

 

 

Yes, if you study the patents you'll see everything Fokus said is true.

 

Measured results from Mansr and Miska show nothing to disagree with the above description. 

[esldude]

4 hours ago, mansr said:

I've never accused them of outright fraud. They are, however, excessively vague and deliberately repurpose well-defined terminology as well as invent their own. One might easily suspect that this is done in order to confuse and give false impressions while in reality not actually saying much of substance at all.

That is one of my big complaints.  If you hoped this would be a great new improvement in sound distribution, you quickly get the impression asking about details, these are people trying to hide something.  Evasive answers, you have to specifically nail down details to drag reluctantly any real info about how it works, still can't get a simple straight answer.  You end up feeling even if you weren't suspicious, that these people are trying to hide, mis-direct or otherwise not be honest and straightforward about what MQA really is.  There are too many things they have done that fit with someone hiding things from you.  Once, twice, maybe bad PR wisdom on their part, maybe you had the wrong idea.  Yet by now, no, we don't have the wrong idea, these are evasive people about the product they are pushing.  It is like the combined equivalent of a shady used car salesman and an ambulance chasing lawyer. 

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3 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

You are not getting the difference, perhaps it is too subtle.  If I as a manufacturer say "best sound ever!"  or "this will improve your sound" or any number of other unquantifiable, subjective remarks, there is no recourse.  Those statements are too subjective and too wishy washy unquantifiable.  This is what the audio snake oil guys do.  So, you might be able to get your money back, but you could not nail them in court or with the FTC, etc. for those statements.

 

If Bob Stuart says MQA will deode MQA files in 3 folds with content up to 384k, and involving no upsampling, that is something much more precise and verifiable.  It is a totally different ball game.  

 

Mansr says Stuart's statement is verifiably false.  Stuart's  statement is potentially verifiable with proper methodology as true or false, with no subjective maybes or gray areas in between.  Therefore, it is potentially an easily winnable case of fraud, if mansr is correct in his claim and he has followed acceptable methodology.  I say that not as a lawyer, but I have some understanding of commercial law by both education and experience.

 

Therefore, as I have tried to say, this is much more significant, and it is not comparable to the usual lying audiophile marketing nonsense.

 

 

Couldn't you say the same about people who make USB cables specifically saying you get fewer errors and they sound better for this reason.  Technically very easy to show errors are a non-problem and don't change sound the way they claim.  About as straightforward a false claim as you can come across.

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12 hours ago, jabbr said:

Interesting, of course with HQPlayer or XXHighEnd (which I can upsample to 768k on a celeron), the fixed cost is very low, and it works with my entire library... 

I have the same question.  Why would that graph be interesting?  It has the same informational content as this one:

 

[esldude]

From Archimago's excellent blog, with assistance from mansr, of many things that stand out here are two from my view:

 

Basically it looks like different MQA devices could behave differently!

 

Like I said not long ago, that term "authenticated" (MQA) appears completely meaningless at least when it comes to sound quality.

 

If MQA does not whatsoever achieve the primary objective, and key marketing goal so important it is part of the name, MASTER QUALITY AUTHENTICATED, then it is worse than before MQA.  All we are left with are vague promises it will sound better which also appear about as likely as the authentication.  All we needed for real authentication is for the studios to put together one approved master file, and honestly give us a check sum which could be compared to any hires download offered.  MQA fails on its premise, and is not consistent across devices, and being baked in actually makes it less likely you could playback a file with authentic accuracy.  All I see are FAIL, FAIL, FAIL, and BS.  If it turns out not to be audibly detrimental that mainly says more about how much in excess of audibility digital sound formats already are.

[esldude]

9 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Because I upsample all my PCM before sending to DAC, there should be no SQ difference with MQA according to that graph.

According to the measurements of MQA at archimago's blog with mansr's help that will not be true.  Miska's software will be more accurate and cleaner.  MQA can only wish it were that good.  Well except for that highly informative graph there.

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46 minutes ago, rickca said:

Can you please clarify what you mean by behave in this context?  

 

I fully expect that different MQA devices will apply different processing (such as filters) based on the same MQA stream metadata (hints).  There's no way I can see the Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference Series 2 implementing exactly the same processing as something like an Audioquest DragonFly.  The price difference between these devices is huge.

 

Surely Berkeley is going to want their implementation to sound superior.  Why would a DAC manufacturer do something wimpy when they have the resources to do something more sophisticated?  If that's what it takes to get MQA approval, I don't think you would see high-end DACs supporting MQA.

 

Perhaps I've entirely missed your point about MQA devices behaving differently.  That's why I've asked you for clarification.

I would not expect different behaviour.  The promise is the Master Quality Authenticated.  Meaning a promise of linking end to end.  From the approved high quality master recording all the way thru until the device you play back a recording with outputs precisely and exactly an audibly lossless version of the master itself.  When the light is lit, you are supposed to know you are listening to the master itself as if you were at the studio where it was created.

 

Now if someone made a ridiculous promise that a lit MQA on a Dragonfly does replicate a lit MQA on a far more expensive device they have claimed more than they can deliver or mislead you.  Yet this very basic premise is supposed to be the very raison d'etre of MQA itself.

 

So if as the Archimago blog shows, one MQA device selects one filter, and another selects differently and they don't all have the same capability upon playback for the same level of filtering then that very raison d'etre has obviously not been true at all.  Simple bit perfect playback of the master file if of good provenance with accepted formats blows the actual MQA implementation completely out of the water.  What good does having provenance confirmed by MQA if subsequent playback is whatever is convenient for various quality levels of playback devices do for the music lover?

[esldude]

21 minutes ago, rickca said:

Seems like MQA assures you only that you are playing the MQA distribution file.   That's all there is to the authenticated claim.  There is no assurance of getting the sound that the artist or recording engineer intended.  That's just marketing hype. 

Indeed just marketing hype.  So how this different from any other distribution file?  Well in fact it can be very inferior to existing simple formats like 96/24 PCM or in some ways even 48/24 PCM.  We don't need licensing, quality dilution of undecoded playback or any of the other inconvenient aspects of MQA for that.

 

You get the idea MQA was a sucker play?

[esldude]

6 hours ago, AJ Soundfield said:

I'm waiting to buy the 4th version of the same Black Sabbath music I already own, before making any decision on the wonders of unsmearing and relaxation, with crunchy electric guitars

A real audiophile would be waiting for Pink Floyd DSOTM. 

 

Then they could see if the change, and chimes sound more 'natural' or not.

[esldude]

1 hour ago, String said:

 

Just A Little Remember About That/Who This Forum Is For/About!

 

An audiophile is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction.[1]

Audiophile values may be applied at all stages of music reproduction: the initial audio recording, the production process, and the playback, which is usually in a home setting.

A key goal of audiophiles is to capture the experience of a live musical performance in a room with good acoustics, and reproduce it at home. It is widely agreed that this is very difficult and that even the best-regarded recording and playback systems rarely, if ever, achieve it.[2][3]

The term High-end audio refers to playback equipment used by audiophiles, which may be bought at specialist shops and websites.[4] High-end components include turntables, digital-to-analog converters, equalization devices, preamplifiers and amplifiers (both solid-state and vacuum tube), horn and electrostatic speakers, power conditioners, subwoofers, headphones, and acoustic room treatment. [5][6]

 

It's much talk about the other music listening people!

Who not are audiophiles, I wonder why?

Is this not a forum for audiophiles and in this forum Computer Audiophile's. Or? I just became confused about comments like, "usual people will not buy especially DAC's for MQA! They will not pay $$$ for music services like TIDAL!

What have it with us Computer Audiophile's to do? We are a miniature among people who listen to music about 10%.

 

About MQA.

 

So isn't 44.1 or 48 kHz the thing or the issue with MQA!

It's the 24 bits! Because it's a incredible difference between 16 bit and 24 bit way much more than, the difference between 44.1 and 96 kHz!

You referring to papers and now that else......

Use your ears instead and compare music with 16/44.1 against 24/44.1 and if you don't hear, the huge difference! We'll wash your ears or buying a new equipment!

 

The first part is from google about Audiophile.

So is this!

CD audio signals are encoded in 16-bit values. Some higher-definition consumer formats such as HDCD-encoded CDs contain 20-bit and even 24-bit audio streams. With more bits more dynamic range is possible; 20 bit dynamic range is theoretically 120 dB—the limit of most consumer electronic playback equipment.[8]

 

So it's clear as a diamond ? 

With more bits more dynamic range is possible.

I don't know about you, but I prefer the best dynamic range on the music I listen to.

 

L&R

String

 

Most modern music is so squashed in the mastering 8 bit with dither would hardly sound different.  Most definitely 12 bit with dither is plenty. 

 

If you can't hear noise at normal volume settings coming from your system while playing silence you won't benefit from more bits.  Try a silent 16 bit file and see if you hear anything at all.  Let us know what you hear. Then explain how a more silent silence of 24 bit will help sound quality.

[esldude]

5 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

what is u-law?

 

and, is HDCD worth ~~ a couple of bits?  or?

I paid 4 bits for the last three I purchased at a library fundraiser.  Same price I paid for 2 SACD/CD combo discs.  So I guess I overpaid.

[esldude]

14 hours ago, String said:

Hi all Computer Audiophiles,

 

I'm sorry for interrupting your interesting conversation, but I have tried to listen on music and doesn't write anything but, I can't relax and enjoy the music!

So here we go.

esldude: And you are Masters Level Member on Computer Audiophile!

 

I think you only get masters level by having too much time to post on CA.

14 hours ago, String said:

You answered me!

Most modern music is so squashed in the mastering 8 bit with dither would hardly sound different. Most definitely 12 bit with dither is plenty.

"I and other friends of mine we are definitely not doing that, when we mastering a record"! 

But radio station they have done it for many years, so I doesn't listen on radio!

 

 Well good for you!  I record as an amateur, and don't do it that way either.  Nearly all commercial recordings unfortunately are highly compressed in dynamics.

14 hours ago, String said:

And:

If you can't hear noise at normal volume settings coming from your system while playing silence you won't benefit from more bits.  Try a silent 16 bit file and see if you hear anything at all.  Let us know what you hear. Then explain how a more silent silence of 24 bit will help sound quality.

 

Maybe more silent silence won't help my sound quality, but the resolution between 16 bit and 24 bit will help my sound quality Much !

I have a few SACD's not for the surround but because they are 24/88.2-96.

I also have one or two of them in usual CD's 16/44.1, and there's a lot difference between them in resolution, maybe not in silent silence!

 

The problem with SACD vs CD is almost always the mastering was different.  That is what you are usually hearing.  The difference in the 16 or 24 bit I would not expect to make a lot of difference.  I wouldn't rule out that 24 bit could be better, but I think the difference is going to be small to maybe nothing.

14 hours ago, String said:

 

L&R

String

 

Sorry to hear of your health problems.  I hope things improve for you.  I agree a thread about the music you listened to through all this would be interesting.

[esldude]

2 hours ago, soxr said:

 

 

I own the Metrum Adagio, an R2R NOS DAC, but that's an exception as it's not a chip DAC but using custom built modules by Metrum. Adagio does true 24 bit SNR just like some overpriced MSB dac's. But no delta-sigma is going to cut it and reach 24 bit SNR in a chip.
 

 

http://www.metrum-acoustics.com/Specs_Adagio.html

 

The -155 db noise floor  relative to 2 v rms  seems very unlikely as does the true 24 bit SNR.  Anyone have any confirmation of those numbers, and how they were measured?

 

Yet they only claim THD down -84 db.  Not particularly great.  So they don't have spurious free dynamic range of 24 bits.

[esldude]

24 minutes ago, soxr said:

Someone sent me this link:
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdlmp7zpXLM

 

 

Read more  

Two different people and you are getting them mixed up.

 

There is Robert Stuart.  Pretty smart cookie.

 

There is Business Bob Stuart who does interviews with audiophile mags and such.

 

The above was Robert.  His ideas, usually very sensible ones, are in some of his earlier papers.  Compare that with interviews where he throws in with highly ridiculous ideas (read some of his interviews with Robert Harley), and you will find him contradicting the research results of Robert.

 

So the reason for the 180 degree turn.  I think he saw this cartoon.

 

 

 

[esldude]

44 minutes ago, ShawnC said:

What?

 

 

 

 

In case it was a real question.

There is this myth accepted in much of the audiophile world.  What sounds better to you is automatically of higher fidelity.  What sounds less good to you is automatically lower fidelity. 

 

Yet this is not always true.  It is where people confuse preferences with fidelity. 

 

Sal is merely saying he prefers fidelity as a base to start with.  Some number of audiophiles actually don't while maintaining they do.  There is no right or wrong with preferences and everyone should listen to the type of sound they prefer and enjoy whether their preference is for higher fidelity or pleasing coloration.

 

Colorations have a way of leading you away form the truth and into blind allies if you make the mistake of thinking they are better fidelity.