MQA is Vaporware

[asdf1000]

40 minutes ago, crenca said:

Why would we think of MQA like that?  MQA is not as compressible as the equivalent PCM.

 

While I would prefer MQA go away, if we are talking about the 1st unfold only, some have forgotten about Archimago's comments/analysis...

 

"Objectively with the songs I examined, the software decoder works well to reconstruct what looks like the equivalent 24/96 download."

 

and

 

"Bottom line: TIDAL/MQA streaming does sound like the equivalent 24/96 downloads based on what I have heard and the test results"

 

https://archimago.blogspot.hk/2017/01/comparison-tidal-mqa-music-high.html

 

This applies to the 1st unfold only (up to 96kHz)… he’s done plenty of analysis on the stuff after the 1st unfold, which doesn’t need repeating of course.

[asdf1000]

38 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Evidence?

 

Actually, I have some evidence.  I recorded a track from Tidal (Dreams by Fleetwood Mac from the Rumours album) and saved it to a flac file with the recommended level 5 compression.  I made sure it was exactly the same duration (by cutting the beginning or ending silence) as noted both on Tidal and the 24/96 file I own of that track. Then I converted the 24/96 track to 24/48 with the recommended level 5 compression. Here is what I got:

 

52.3 MB for the MQA file

52.0 MB for the non-MQA file

 

That's pretty close.  However, for the MQA file the compression was done by Sound Forge, while for the non-MQA file the compression was done by dbPoweramp. Maybe that accounts for the .3 MB difference? Plus, when I cut the MQA file to size, I may have been off a half second.  Then again, the MQA file may be from a different master.

 

 

I've done the same and looked at the files via spek spectrum analyser on macOS and they looked the same. 

 

Similar to Archimago mentions in quote I shared above.

 

 

 

[asdf1000]

30 minutes ago, manisandher said:

Decoded MQA (the 1st unfold) is objectively different from the original hires:

 

Can you share which track and album that is?

[asdf1000]

21 minutes ago, lucretius said:

difficult to know what trash Tidal was sending).

 

Tidal 'normal' streaming is 160 kbps aac streaming... not sure how that would help here...

 

'High' is 320 kbps and 'HiFi' is obviously RBCD.

[asdf1000]

40 minutes ago, crenca said:

Just an update:  I checked under advanced device settings and I have "Enable MQA Core Decoder" set to 'off' as well, so apparently Roon is ignoring settings and decoding MQA now matter what.  Now why would they do that?

 

What makes you think Roon is doing this? Does your DAC show incoming sample rate to confirm this?

[asdf1000]

On 5/2/2019 at 10:39 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Netflix is going up to 640Kbps for audio and says that is perceptually lossless. So much for that market for high resolution, at least when it comes to video. 

 

https://www.wired.com/story/netflix-adaptive-audio/

 

Interesting.

 

Of the Big 5 in streaming (not just music - Netflix, Amazon, Google, Spotify, Apple) Netflix now offer the best audio sound quality with this change.

 

I've converted many of my CD's into 320 kbps AAC to go into my Apple iCloud Music Library for mobile listening (in parallel to Apple Music) and they sound fantastic.

 

I don't know of any way to convert to 640 kbps otherwise I would try and have a listen to compare with the RBCD versions. iTunes and XLD converter are limited to 320 kbps for conversion.

 

[asdf1000]

https://www.mqa.co.uk/customer/news/post/mqa-at-munich-high-end-2019

 

I forgot Arcam is now part of Harman... and Harman itself is part of Samsung...

 

Bob probably dreams every night of MQA being on all Samsung devices.

[asdf1000]

54 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I’m about 45 minutes into the Munich High End show and a major manufacturer already tracked me down

 

Stay safe out there... for every one to thank you, there may be two to curse you lol

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

Outside of Mytek - which is fairly niche - none of the established studio ADC/DAC-vendors offers MQA

 

EMM Labs (long history of both ADCs and DACs) have a DAC (DV2) that now supports MQA in some capacity.

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

Is Andreas Koch still with EMM?

 

Nope, he's mainly with Playback Designs now. I think he still does some consultation with Nagra too.

 

2 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

But even if not I didn't expect Meitner to go there.

 

Me too. Probably like PS Audio, they're not for MQA, but gave it to their customers that asked. Apparently there is more demand than seen on forums (like requests via direct email and phone calls...)

[asdf1000]

16 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

Outside of Mytek - which is fairly niche - none of the established studio ADC/DAC-vendors offers MQA.

 

dCS have a long history in ADC's and DAC's too and their current DACs support MQA in some capacity...

[asdf1000]

45 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

If only the behind the scenes talk could be released 😳

 

Do tell. Just leave the names of individuals and companies out of it.

[asdf1000]

4 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Only on USB on a $30k DAC. Just a check the box feature for those want every format before they spent a large amount of money and a small crowded market.

 

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, this is probably similar to PS Audio DirectStream... Ted Smith didn't want MQA decoding/rendering code in his FPGA... MQA Ltd initially wanted the FPGA code.... Paul McGowan isn't for MQA either but due to customer requests (he says) they added it via the ConversDigital network card... they sent a unit to MQA Ltd and let them do the impulse response measurements and whatever else they do.

 

Ed has done similar and limited it to just USB input...

 

If one understands the work of Ted Smith and Ed Meitner (hint: DSP... both worked together at a point) then it's not hard to understand why they won't go 'all in' on MQA...

 

As I already mentioned a few posts back, there is apparently more customer/dealer demand 'offline' than we see online (forums etc), which is the only reason they would add this ... again thinking about their work...

[asdf1000]

43 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

You are looking in the wrong places. If there was actual demand RIAA would have reported a number of tracks available in hi-res far larger than 400,000 on May 6th.

 

Respectfully you are looking at the wrong place. When Paul talks about customer demand (for example) he is talking about offline requests from DirectStream owners and dealers... despite him not wanting it personally...

 

You can probably put Ed Meitner in the same boat, as I discussed previously...

 

This is absolutely not talking about global demand....

 

I don’t really understand how you are in a position to correct PSA on their comments about customer demand... keeping in mind PSA themselves don’t like MQA...

[asdf1000]

55 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

As for the North American demand issue  I just got notified of a fairly large symptom of falling demand. 

 

Can you expand on this breaking news? It’s all rather vague ...

[asdf1000]

20 minutes ago, Ishmael Slapowitz said:

Often, the smart move is NOT giving the customer what they want. Being gutless to sell more boxes in another topic.

 

I appreciated their transparency to be honest.. 

 

Quite a few DS DAC owners against MQA also appreciated the transparency, all on the PSA Forum... I saw no public backlash at the decision...

 

We have no idea what a “smart move” is without knowing before and after sales figures (to start with)...

[asdf1000]

4 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

Among other things I went to their forum typed MQA and sorted by most current. Then I looked at what Paul is talking about servo woofers and his book. That servo woofers cause audiophiles angst is just a bonus in my eyes.

 

Why are so many of your posts in riddles... I imagine you are trying to find something specific?

 

Can you be clear and specific please and I can try to help...

[asdf1000]

1 minute ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Answer my PM

 

Will do, a bit later today.

[asdf1000]

13 minutes ago, 4est said:

I am sorta in Paul's camp on this. One can be against the adoption of MQA without the vitriol I see in this thread.

 

Agree

[asdf1000]

7 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

Among other things I went to their forum typed MQA and sorted by most current.

 

I'll get to your PM but I'll answer this thing you posted publicly here first, because it's easy...

 

I have no idea what you're looking on the PSA forum for with another riddle, but I assume you are looking for evidence that Paul is against MQA and where he has mentioned his customers (not global demand... sigh) have asked for it?

 

And I assume you could find none of this? This is all from 2017... no breaking news here as I mentioned....

 

 

 

 

If the posts by Paul aren't clear enough, here he is in video form...

 

https://youtu.be/xl3LDwQ1pVs?t=372

 

Now context is very important... why did I bring up old news about PS Audio... because it was in context of what we were discussing about DACs where non-MQA content is not affected with an MQA filter....

 

And I even said, this was all very old news... no breaking news... see the highlighted section below and some context:

 

 

Again, I don't know from your riddle what you were trying to find but I hope I guessed right.

 

And again - this has nothing to do with global demand so please don't bring up global demand - we know already. This is about a manufacturer being transparent about why they gave it to their customers... hint: demand... and transparent despite being openly against it...

 

I really don't want to continue this riddle tango, so I hope this helps.. Finding all of the above old info, took me about 60 seconds btw, using the search feature on their forum...

[asdf1000]

10 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Exactly this old news things have changed.

 

You haven't read anything above in detail, including the context I shared above of why PS Audio was brought up... again it took me 60 seconds to find the above, which would have saved you commenting about it in the first place...

 

But now you've left yet another riddle  here which you can't expand on I guess. So what's the point of posting it?

 

 

[asdf1000]

37 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

There was pressure in 2017 to have MQA. Then people found out how much money Bob Stuart lost at Meridian. And we all could listen to enough MQA files to see that it wasn’t any different than any other format, some good, most no different and some worse. In 2018 we also got a better understanding of how MQA files were different. I’m still working on the DSP aspect of it.

 

That's great but has nothing to do with what we were discussing.. you're jumping all over the place with all sorts of riddles on different points..

 

If you have details about MQA demand PS Audio has from customers and dealers then do share. Otherwise you will need to trust Paul McGowan. This has nothing to do with global demand for MQA as I and others above have hinted...

 

I would guess it is similar with EMM offering MQA today (2019) but I won't pretend to know with certainty... I wished some people would stop pretending to know details that they have no way of knowing with certainty...

 

[asdf1000]

3 minutes ago, firedog said:

You don't have to do massive marketing research to know about such a customer base. You hear directly from them and the small dealer network if there is one. Your present customer profile is also highly predictive of your future customer. 
Lots of audiophiles read the magazines and not this forum.

 

As the great late Charles Hansen would say, it's not rocket surgery...

 

[asdf1000]

4 hours ago, firedog said:

I have zero issues with companies like PSA or Roon that add first unfold and stop there.

 

As previously mentioned a few times, PSA sent a unit to MQA Ltd for them to do impulse response measurements (at the analogue output...) and the other crap that they do. So in the case of PSA with their network card, it’s more than the 1st unfold (more than Core/software decoder).. it does MQA unfolding (leaky upsampling) up to 192kHz with MQA content... 192kHz is the max supported sample rate of the ConversDigital network card that they use...

 

Of course we don’t need to repeat how crap MQA is - and anyone can read Paul’s own words that I shared above about how MQA performance is worse than Ted Smith’s DSP (according to PSA)..

 

But this should also make it obvious by now, why non-MQA content is not affected by MQA filtering with their DirectStream DAC...

[asdf1000]

On 5/11/2019 at 11:13 AM, Rt66indierock said:

There was pressure in 2017 to have MQA. Then people found out how much money Bob Stuart lost at Meridian. And we all could listen to enough MQA files to see that it wasn’t any different than any other format, some good, most no different and some worse. In 2018 we also got a better understanding of how MQA files were different.

 

Not ruled out in 2019, for PS Audio's next DAC (Ted Smith Signature - TSS) by the way, with the streamer - similar to DirectStream's FPGA not having any MQA code either, as previously explained... So I'm not sure your theory about 2017 MQA pressure has any relevance...  If it doesn't happen it will be for technical reasons associated with their new custom in-house streamer... with their previous streamer for the DS DAC, the ConversDigital board took care of it, as I previously explained...