MQA is Vaporware

[jhwalker]

16 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

 

BTW

I now have Qobuz on my Roon.

And the one thing I have noticed so far is that you can’t browse hi res albums or see what’s hi res. (As you can Tidal maters). But that’s a Roon issue. 

 

Right - given the bit depth / sample rates are clearly labeled on the album covers (i.e., that information is obviously available), if they would just add the "Focus" feature in the Qobuz section (and the corresponding Tidal section, too - why not?), it would be great - I'd set up a bookmark for all new Qobuz content, Classical genre, hi-res and I'd be set

[crenca]

1 hour ago, jhwalker said:

 

Right - given the bit depth / sample rates are clearly labeled on the album covers (i.e., that information is obviously available), if they would just add the "Focus" feature in the Qobuz section (and the corresponding Tidal section, too - why not?), it would be great - I'd set up a bookmark for all new Qobuz content, Classical genre, hi-res and I'd be set

 

Why not?  Good question.  I started a thread on their forum a while back (maybe a year ago), and it went nowhere.  Mostly the usual noise about MQA really being hi res, MQA hate, etc.  Someone recently started another thread in the feature request section.  Nothing from Roon itself.  I asked them point blank why not - Roon is all about tagging and focus and search.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, R1200CL said:

 

I think he referring to the hi res logo trademark of the Japan Audio Society, and those criteria apply to the use of that logo. (And that logo also appears on The White Album)

 

Not his personal definition.

Maybe those supply Qobuz with music is are the ones (mis)using and promoting the logo. Would be interesting to know. 

 

BTW

I now have Qobuz on my Roon.

And the one thing I have noticed so far is that you can’t browse hi res albums or see what’s hi res. (As you can Tidal maters). But that’s a Roon issue. 

 

I was thinking of his various posts through the years. He's said variously that DSD is bad, that 24/192 and DXD are unnecessary, in fact that pretty much everything except the 24/96 resolution recordings he produces and sells are a type of fraud on the consumer.

 

As for his own recordings, despite the fact his customers apparently aren't able to tell the difference between them and CDs, his site still says, "The more people experience real high-res audio the more they will demand record labels provide them."

[The Computer Audiophile]

There’s an issue with Qobuz metadata. They are working to get it sorted so things appear in Roon better. 

[Sonicularity]

2 hours ago, Jud said:

 

I was thinking of his various posts through the years. He's said variously that DSD is bad, that 24/192 and DXD are unnecessary, in fact that pretty much everything except the 24/96 resolution recordings he produces and sells are a type of fraud on the consumer.

 

As for his own recordings, despite the fact his customers apparently aren't able to tell the difference between them and CDs, his site still says, "The more people experience real high-res audio the more they will demand record labels provide them."

 

More people demanding HiRes after experiencing it has nothing to do with audio quality.  There is no conflict, even with bold, quoted text.

[Jud]

24 minutes ago, Sonicularity said:

 

More people demanding HiRes after experiencing it has nothing to do with audio quality.  There is no conflict, even with bold, quoted text.

 

That isn't what Mr. Waldrep has said for many years. I was pointing out the hypocrisy.

[4est]

12 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

There’s an issue with Qobuz metadata. They are working to get it sorted so things appear in Roon better. 

In Audirvana, one can simply put hi res in the search, for instance "Hi res Americana".

[Rt66indierock]

34 minutes ago, 4est said:

In Audirvana, one can simply put hi res in the search, for instance "Hi res Americana".

 

Does anyting come up? I love Americana but I’ve also said the only way I’m going to listen to it hi-res is to record it myself.

 

PS just bought tickets for Shakey Graves.

[4est]

1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Does anyting come up? I love Americana but I’ve also said the only way I’m going to listen to it hi-res is to record it myself.

 

PS just bought tickets for Shakey Graves.

Why certainly, 1300 albums for Americana, 43,000 for rock.

[psjug]

2 hours ago, 4est said:

Why certainly, 1300 albums for Americana, 43,000 for rock.

What format is typical for these?  Recently I've come across  stuff in Deezer in 24/44 (e.g. Caitlin Canty Motel Bouquet).  Problem is I don't know how to search for the 24-bit files on Deezer; it's just a matter of stumbling onto them.  But I wonder how many of these 1300 albums might be 24-bit on Deezer - just a few or many.

[Rt66indierock]

2 hours ago, 4est said:

Why certainly, 1300 albums for Americana, 43,000 for rock.

 

Thanks I notice a lot of the Americana is 24/44.1. A pretty normal ADC output for quite  awhile.

[#Yoda#]

1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Thanks I notice a lot of the Americana is 24/44.1. A pretty normal ADC output for quite  awhile.

It seems as if publishing new albums in minimal HiRes requirements to a superior price, is the new strategy of many labels that are not focused on Jazz or Classical, to secure their crown jewels since they've noticed that the download numbers for MQA albums are continuously marginal.

Meanwhile I'm quite happy for any well produced Americana or Indie Rock/-Folk album that is being published in at least real 24/88.2 or /96.

[Rt66indierock]

37 minutes ago, #Yoda# said:

It seems as if publishing new albums in minimal HiRes requirements to a superior price, is the new strategy of many labels that are not focused on Jazz or Classical, to secure their crown jewels since they've noticed that the download numbers for MQA albums are continuously marginal.

Meanwhile I'm quite happy for any well produced Americana or Indie Rock/-Folk album that is being published in at least 24/88.2 or /96.

 

My main goal is to get a decent level of production in Americana even at 16/44.1 and that is harder than you think. The economics are a real challenge.

[#Yoda#]

48 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

My main goal is to get a decent level of production in Americana even at 16/44.1 and that is harder than you think. The economics are a real challenge.

For sure you know the current situation in music production for this genre better than I do. I just wonder about your concerns, because recording equipment in most studios today is capable to record and master in at least 24/96. Apple requires for their "Mastered for iTunes" 24/96 WAV or AIFF files and iTunes requirements are still the benchmark. I assume, production costs for a mp3 version of an album is not significantly cheaper as for a 24/96, if any. Presumably, the conversion of the PCM masters to MQA files costs additional money. Finally, it seems that the real issue is a lack of qualified sound engineers and producers for this genre and has nothing to do with HiRes or MQA.

[Sonicularity]

18 hours ago, Jud said:

 

That isn't what Mr. Waldrep has said for many years. I was pointing out the hypocrisy.

 

His idea of real hi-res audio could be made on a Redbook CD from what I have read on his site and elsewhere.  I don't believe the format alone determines the audio quality from his perspective.

[Rt66indierock]

1 hour ago, #Yoda# said:

For sure you know the current situation in music production for this genre better than I do. I just wonder about your concerns, because recording equipment in most studios today is capable to record and master in at least 24/96. Apple requires for their "Mastered for iTunes" 24/96 WAV or AIFF files and iTunes requirements are still the benchmark. I assume, production costs for a mp3 version of an album is not significantly cheaper as for a 24/96, if any. Presumably, the conversion of the PCM masters to MQA files costs additional money. Finally, it seems that the real issue is a lack of qualified sound engineers and producers for this genre and has nothing to do with HiRes or MQA.

 

A lot stuff is not recorded in studios are even the equipment used isn’t the  quaility of a $700 Sony digital recorder.

 

Apple asked and didn’t get high resolution masters sorry. 

 

Actually the real reason in the Americana genre is resources to hire engineers in the first place. Some pretty good acts tour by camping.

[crenca]

23 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

There’s an issue with Qobuz metadata. They are working to get it sorted so things appear in Roon better. 

 

Just a point of clarification, what I requested and while back and is still being requested by others (I think jhwalker was asking for the same thing) is for Roon to allow focusing - curating, search, etc. - of the streaming services based on file type, resolution, etc.  Even when Qobuz gets their tagging straightened out around 2L and any other MQA, we as end users don't have the ability to focus on "only MQA" or "only hi res > 24/48", etc.

[gcoupe]

10 hours ago, crenca said:

 

Just a point of clarification, what I requested and while back and is still being requested by others (I think jhwalker was asking for the same thing) is for Roon to allow focusing - curating, search, etc. - of the streaming services based on file type, resolution, etc.  Even when Qobuz gets their tagging straightened out around 2L and any other MQA, we as end users don't have the ability to focus on "only MQA" or "only hi res > 24/48", etc.

 

I agree that searching of TIDAL and Qobuz in Roon needs to be able to take account of formats, but the Focus feature of Roon does take account of the formats being used by streamed albums (TIDAL and Qobuz) in your library.

[crenca]

7 hours ago, gcoupe said:

 

I agree that searching of TIDAL and Qobuz in Roon needs to be able to take account of formats, but the Focus feature of Roon does take account of the formats being used by streamed albums (TIDAL and Qobuz) in your library.

 

This is true, but with Roon being as much of a front end to the two hi res streaming services, why not extend the already built in curating functionality of Roon to them as you say?  Everything is there - the tagging on the services side and the functionality in Roon.  On Roon's own forum it is evident that a great many of their customers (It appears to be a majority) would not even bother with Roon if not for it being a front end to Tidal/Qobuz.  Why is a player/service like Roon, which is all about end user search/curating, so "dumb" when it comes to its format and streaming?

[firedog]

22 hours ago, #Yoda# said:

It seems as if publishing new albums in minimal HiRes requirements to a superior price, is the new strategy of many labels that are not focused on Jazz or Classical, to secure their crown jewels since they've noticed that the download numbers for MQA albums are continuously marginal.

Meanwhile I'm quite happy for any well produced Americana or Indie Rock/-Folk album that is being published in at least real 24/88.2 or /96.

I think the reason may be less nefarious. I don't think mainstream labels think hi-res is important at all, and I don't think it is a primary part of their thought process. They master (and possibly also record) in 24/44.1 because that's all they deem necessary. The 24 bits are there merely to preserve dynamic range when mixing and mastering multi-tracks. Since they have a 24/44.1 master anyway, that's what they send to hi-res download and streaming outlets. There are a lot of recordings in 24/44.1 if you check. 
Audiophiles tend to think that it 's a no-brainer to record in 24 \2X or 4X rates; I don't think the commercial recording world makes that assumption. I think there's a tendency to see anything above 24/44.1 as a waste of space and a time, as every track in higher resolution takes that much more time to work with when processing. 

[Thuaveta]

4 hours ago, crenca said:

On Roon's own forum it is evident that a great many of their customers (It appears to be a majority) would not even bother with Roon if not for it being a front end to Tidal/Qobuz.  Why is a player/service like Roon, which is all about end user search/curating, so "dumb" when it comes to its format and streaming?

 

There's a scarier question here: "what does it say of Tidal / Qobuz if their UI is so bad that customers have to pay an extra $10 a month to have something workable ?"

[Jud]

55 minutes ago, Thuaveta said:

 

There's a scarier question here: "what does it say of Tidal / Qobuz if their UI is so bad that customers have to pay an extra $10 a month to have something workable ?"

 

Tidal and Qobuz' UIs are reasonable.  Roon is a luxury UI, where you can, for instance, bring up all the albums in Tidal or Qobuz that have a certain bass player or session guitarist on them.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Not many people want to switch back to UPnP from RAAT either. 

[asdf1000]

3 hours ago, Thuaveta said:

 

There's a scarier question here: "what does it say of Tidal / Qobuz if their UI is so bad that customers have to pay an extra $10 a month to have something workable ?"

 

I have Roon but I'm really liking the Tidal app these days.

 

Tidal's "suggested new albums" and "suggested new tracks" is starting to work really well for me, for recommendations based on artists I follow, listening habits and tracks I add to my playlists.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

On 2/16/2019 at 4:48 PM, FredericV said:

 

Some years ago I took a 24/96 file which I considered one of the best guitar demo tracks ever, and ran that through foobar with and without DSP.

The DSP was: downsample it to 16/44.1, and upsample it back to 24/96 - both with secret rabbit code.

I was doing the A/B on the fly by switching the DSP on and off in foobar, on a set which included a big Vitus amp and a big pair of Marten speakers on some hifi show. Nobody could hear the diff. I later did another experiment with the same file, where i used sox with highest settings, to create a "cd filtered" 24/96 version, and posted this on some internet fora. Both files were 24/96 files, but one had downsampled to 16/44.1 + upsampled back to 24/96 content from the original, in order to eliminate any sound differences by the DAC.

Nobody except one hifi dealer claimed to hear the difference. One listener cheated by opening the files with an audio editor and looking at the spectrum.

The content of that file was produced by Mark, so yes I believe him as I did a similar experiment.

So why go for hi-res? Not for the sound quality of hi-res itself, but for the fact that most likely more effort was put into the production as it is geared towards those who want quality. And thus recording & better mastering leads to better sound quality ...

 

The problem here is that the A/B is contaminated by the level of quality of the upsampling/downsampling algorithm used.  

 

A better test is to make a recording and split the mic feed into two recording boxes, one recorded at 16/44 and one at 24/96, level set to same.  Use acoustic instruments to make it easier to discern the quality.  

 

Then do just basic editing on both, then you have a fair test.  You want to have the exact same mastering so I just play it back on the same devices used to record over headphones.  The only thing that has changed is resolution.  I've done this over a dozen times.  The improvement from hires is noticeable.  One particularly strong test is classical violin.  24/96 clearly captures more of the sweetness of a pricey violin than 16/44.

 

The next test, we recorded one mic split to DSD and the other to 24/176 and 24/192.  The DSD sounded more like the live performance.