MQA is Vaporware

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5 hours ago, UkPhil said:

Reaction to an all analogue recording from 1974, my question how is this at all possible it cannot be that much better, (oh we seem to have forgot to include Cassette / 8 track and 7.5ips reel to reel as well as Mini Disc to the list……..sheeesh

Quote:

“One of the most convincing examples how good MQA streaming on Tidal sounds. This is my all-time-favourite rock album and I own Vinyl, CD, MoFi CD, 24/96 and 24/192 download versions. But the MQA version literally floored me. So much more detail, clarity, slam, silence and soundstage improvement". 

 

Yeah, a good example of why it's easy to say whatever one wants, not expecting to be questioned about the veracity of such a statement... Since it's "subjective" after all! Given what we know about mQa, this quote is literally bullshit.

 

Much harder (if not impossible) for this person to show that it is in fact mQa that's making a difference! And that's exactly what I hope reasonable audiophiles should remind people who say these things - not just for mQa of course.

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4 hours ago, GoldenOne said:

Depends how you'd define 'broken'.
Many would argue that the MQA renderer filter is problematic.

But there is no 'perfect' filter.

The main issue is that there is no choice to opt out of the MQA filter, or to use a proper filter that actually has decent attenuation by 22.05khz, and the device is presented as if you do have that option, even though you do not.

 

Good work @GoldenOne. Yeah, no surprise that this kind of thing would happen with mQa DACs. Another reminder of how this so-called "technology" hampers DAC designs and the ability for companies to have freedom in their filter implementation (if they want to avoid stuff like obvious gapless disruption).

 

Unfortunate that Topping has fallen into this dishonesty with the faux filter settings which again isn't particularly surprising when doing business with such a company and seems to permeate almost every aspect of mQa. 

 

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2 hours ago, JoeWhip said:

I do not read TAS so can’t comment on RH. In zoom calls with JA, he doesn’t wax poetically about MQA, seems to be just another option for him.

 

The issue IMO is not whether he waxes poetically about mQa now, but rather the fact that he was one of the ones at the helm of the audiophile magazines who bought into the scheme and actively tried to sell the product to audiophiles.

 

Instead of being the wise elder-statesman of audiophilia who based much of his career on technical writing and testing, as he approached retirement, John Atkinson lacked the insight or courage (depending on what he knew or didn't know) to act the part. Even when there were many voicing concerns, had evidence to suggest problems with the scheme, even some well-known audiophile companies like Linn in those early days speak against it, or well respected engineers (Charley Hansen for example!). This sadly says a lot about the magazines - and in turn of Atkinson and Harley that they persisted like this.

 

Whether MQA would have continued if Atkinson/Harley were not on board we would never know. But we know that a guy like Bob Stuart who is a well-known figure to "high end audio" would not have been given the kind of platform he "enjoyed" at least from 2014-2017. Maybe wining and dining the press at the Shard in late 2014 works!

 

I do hope the audiophile press recognizes the results of what they've done to the hobby. "We" audiophiles are not as united in thinking as they might have thought, and using mouthpieces like Atkinson/Harley is likely to draw as much suspicion as faith. In fact much of the "faith" incorporated into the audiophile culture (if not "cult" in some circles) is weak. Untrue claims (especially as grossly incoherent as mQa) will be examined by many hobbyists who have already recognized long ago that these magazines did not speak up for their interests.

 

As far as I am aware, Atkinson has still never acknowledged that mQa is actually a highly compromised approach to "high res", that it's technically questionable whether it encapsulates "everything" in the music as advertised, or simply stated openly that these days with true lossless hi-res streaming on Qobuz, Amazon and Apple, mQa has no benefit for audiophiles (unless one really is some kind of TIDAL die-hard). That last point, IMO, he must appreciate and conclude if he truly is interested in "perfectionist" audio intending to cut through all compromises! What's the point of "high end" otherwise except for catering to luxury?!

 

IMO, Atkinson must realize that the events of these last few years will play into his legacy as he retires into the sunset. Audiophiles should, and I think will remember this about him and the compromises he seems to have made in choosing the interests of mQa without adequate thought to the consumer audience or "keeping the faith" as to what "high fidelity" audio is supposed to represent.

 

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56 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Really wish that was a written interview. Took a lot of time to watch what could’ve been read in a couple minutes. 

 

Yeah, this is why YouTube videos are a bit of a pain a lot of the times...

 

What I got:

1. Lindberg is wrong that objections are because of mQa being "closed source" and comparing this to stuff like Dolby. Even if we didn't know how Atmos is encoded, audiophiles could still experience and appreciate that it adds height channels and this could sound more enveloping. A proprietary codec is not a problem as long as it does something good.

 

2. Lindberg identifies the impulse response as the problem with ADCs. He feels pre-ringing is an issue and that somehow mQa is a solution. Oh boy.

 

3. Lindberg believes that he has added to a "library" of ADC "fingerprints" that now mQa uses to analyze and fix the sound of recordings. Apparently also believing that this is beneficial to the batch-encoded stuff from the large record labels (with no knowledge of all the ADCs, DSP that could have been used!).

 

4. Lindberg compares the supposed sophistication of the mQa encoder to YouTube recognition of content (you know, copyrighted songs uploaded to YouTube so they can demonetize), or Shazam! He believes this is how mQa recognizes the "fingerprint" of ADCs. This sounds like new elaboration and the beginnings of some kind of myth... Don't know if BS has used this kind of analogy before?

 

5. Lindberg refers to the limited number of manufacturers of ADC chips and claims that there are only a couple factories at any one time making them (and AKM had a fire last year)!? So I guess having a system to "correct" the anomaly can be easier or something like that. Huh???

 

Lots of hand-waving gestures and speaks as if this somehow is coherent. Hard to believe he or anyone would go through the ordeal he claims can be done to optimize the sound using these mQa plugins and stuff... (He has terrible, disrespectful posture BTW for an interview. 😒)

 

Don't think I'll be buying any more 2L stuff given how unrealistic and simply implausible this sounds. (I actually bought an LP from them a little while back.) I'd certainly be very suspicious of any music coming from 2L as possibly being corrupted by mQa on any streaming service given his performance here.

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1 hour ago, JoeWhip said:

Very will could be. Clearly, BS turned on the charm with the press to get MQA moving forward. I have been reading Stereophile since the late 80’s. I have known some reviewers, one quite well, enough to know that I do not trust their revenue model or their hearing for that matter. Too many audiophiles put their trust in these guys and it is misplaced trust. In case anyone is wondering, AQ is not who I am referring to. I have known Andy for years, he is a friend and not part of some deep state audio cabal. If I have questions about classical music and recordings, he is the guy I go to first for recommendations. Cut him some slack. He is one of the good guys in audio. As for some others……..

 

Yup. I agree. The exercise IMO is not one of painting audio writers/reviewers as all good/bad. (I've had PM/E-mails in the past with AQ for example and I certainly hold no ill will.)

 

I know some are good people and doing their best in a very difficult hobby given multiple agendas and keeping the finances balanced. The issue is being able to incorporate facts into the "worldview" as they are presented. To be honest with the meanings of the facts, to learn the implications, be honest with themselves, and ultimately with audiophile hobbyists. That I believe will result in respect when demonstrated, something I sense is very much missing these days when you look at how many places shut down comments like on TAS, and if they have the courage to keep comments open, just look at the tone.

 

No need to keep a charade going if it's basically in collapse mode. No need to look even more ridiculous in support of something false (in my eyes, that's how the Morten Lindberg video appears trying desperately to keep mQa afloat as if it's a solution to anything).

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3 hours ago, garrardguy60 said:

 

As someone who worked in the trade press for many years, and lived through its precipitous decline during the rise of the Internet -- the salient economic epigram on this is that there was a shift from "Print [advertising] dollars to digital pennies" --  my take on Atkinson is that he could have a legacy or a job, but not both. (This of course applies to Harley too and indeed anyone who writes for a living.)

 

I apologize that this will come across as an argument from authority, which I hate, but it's where I'm coming from so here goes: You have no idea how difficult it is to survive running a content site. Reader revenues are nil, and to get advertisers to pay you have to show clicks. Now, there is a further wrinkle that's emerged over the last decade. Sites like Stereophile (and its sisters) simply cannot generate enough clicks to make money on click-based and remnant advertiser (the pay rates and interest in both having dropped significantly over the last few years). Still, one has to maintain enough clicks for respectability. And it's harder all the time to clear the minimum bar here.

 

[When I said "you have no idea" I was referring to the general/global "you." "You" as in "Archimago" actually do have an idea about what drives audio reader traffic. (I have been a fan and faithful reader of your site since 2015, so as they say on sports talk radio, I'm a first-time, longtime.) So you've probably seen the swings depending on story; that you have a minimum baseline but that your upside is driven both by the, er, "agitativeness" of the current piece of content and referrer traffic. You've probably also seen that, once you think you've figured it (traffic driving) out, everything changes. (This, btw, is the hallmark of an experienced site editor. It recalls the famous screenwriter William Goldman's line, "Nobody knows anything. . .") ]

 

Anyway, I'm getting discursive and verbose, but I've pretty much been in Atkinson's situation. Either you get with the program (both the implied program and what your boss says out loud) and stir the pot, or you will be replaced. TL:DR ads qua ads (i.e., based on raw traffic) don't even pay the bills anymore. You have to blow smoke up vendors' butts with tailored content (even though there are never any specific quid pro quos. Everything's understood. You have to make your site ever more friendly -- in tone, presentation and opinions expressed-- to those few who are willing to give you ad dollars, which from their end they only do if they think they will get sales "leads." (There's also image advertising, but we're not talking IBM in the audiophile world; that $2k cable vendor is spending in hopes of customer acquisition.)

 

HERE, I would actually say that in one sense (not us the reader sense, but the audio press industry sense) John Atkinson is in a comparatively STRONGER position than he was before he was "retired." That's because, his replacement, who I will refer to as the editor in chief of plodding prose ("As I [Who Wants to Be a Serious Essayist] See It"), prickly comment responses, and passive-aggressive "civility" mongering (a friendly but pointed shoutout to fellow AS forum member Dr. Quint). It's my sense that as long as JA2 is EIC, JA1 will have a job in the wings. While as Arch says he has lost credibility over MQA, he still has his measurements credibility, which is the only differentiator Stereophile has. (This is similar to how AnalogPlanet has Mikey's personality as its site persona. Without Mikey, no AnalogPlanet).

 

Anyway, so I'm not proud to say this but as a realistic, 60-year-old American, if I were in Atkinson's shoes, (and apropos of nothing I am an EE), I can't say I would have done things differently. It's a nice gig if all you have to do to absolve yourself when a piece of equipment is bad to is tack a few sentences onto the end of the measurements write-up that have the opacity of a Federal Reserve pronouncement but yet can still be correctly decoded by EE-knowledgeable "Kremlinologists. 

 

Love it.

 

Excellent comment and I certainly appreciate all that you're saying there 😉. It is a tough gig and beyond the interests of consumers, hobbyist audiophiles, there are all those other dimensions of what is implied, unspoken, to keep the publication afloat over the years. Of that I do have great respect, even if personally thankful not to be involved in such a "career" that requires blowing smoke up butts for advertising dollars.

 

You're right about the importance of targeting the "agitativeness" tone and the power that has in driving clicks online these days. The natives are restless, sometimes even angry, sometimes with good reason. Like the intentional opacity of the Federal Reserve, the "mainstream" message conveys an "air" of reason, a desire to maintain the status quo narrative, a "mask of sanity" yet the tension is not far below the surface; and obvious for all those willing to look. A few "straight" words have the power of a mini-abreaction for those who suspected or even "knew" all along that there's something not quite right. (Audiophilia for me has always been a microcosm of what is happening in society as technologies mature and "systems" aiming to satisfy disparate complex "appetites" in a world of gross inequality.)

 

Indeed other than the objective stuff, there isn't enough to differentiate Stereophile from others. And that objective association is for sure linked to Atkinson, hence his "power" and ongoing inevitable influence. However, his objective halo is being challenged and I think has eroded in light of his betrayal of objective principles as it relates to mQa, among other examples of "blowing smoke".

 

Will be interesting in the days ahead what happens when he "finally" retires and is ready to hang up his taped accelerometers and turns off the Audio Precision for the last time. InnerFidelity is for me the best example of how the publication was intrinsically linked to the person at the helm. Talk about a disaster that one turned out after Tyll H! Surely at Stereophile there must be some contingency plan being formed around succession planning for the next Technical Editor. If we can talk about it openly like this, obviously it must be top-of-mind for JA2.

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16 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Lee Scoggins is firmly on the record as a proponent of mQa.  And even though you're pointing to what is actually a weak critique of a CD format that has less resolution than Redbook, there's still enough wiggle room for you to face your dear friend Peter McGrath and claim that it wasn't you that said those mean things about mQa.

 

And you managed to drive clicks for your boss.  Bravo!  👏

 

Yeah, mQa-CD is pretty well the lowest resolution digital "format" one can get short of full-on lossy MP3 and AAC downloads! Amazing to me to think that some are even promoting this as having any kind of benefit over CD.

 

I trust Agitater in Toronto's take on listening to mQa-CD more than this review. At least he's using music that normal people listen to, rather than 2L 🤨.

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21 hours ago, FredericV said:

Once again, our well known influencer keeps spamming old "unscientific" HB videos, in an attempt to educate his audience:

 

He probably has a list of canned articles he keeps spamming.

In his failed attempt of debunking GoldenSound, HB has admitted he can only guess, and this video example is a simulated example of time smear and more proof of the same.

HB can only guess how mQa tries to correct this, as mQa has never provided before- and after files or has explained the process:

 

Still waiting for scientific proof ...
 

 

Yeah, lots of claims and hand-waving by HB in his videos. He has a way of comparing devices he reviews based on price as if sound quality and cost are that closely correlated!

 

I'm always struck by how he describes his "reference setups" with graphics instead of just a picture of his room. Hard to take an audio hardware reviewer of his vintage who apparently hears jitter, time smearing, aliasing from poor filters, and of course the superiority 🤮 of mQa but is afraid to be transparent enough to show us the nature of the evaluation space.

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5 hours ago, John Dyson said:

The 'time smearing' started happening back in the 1980s with the commonly used processing technique began back then.   Whenever doing a lot of multi-band variable gain at multiple levels and the band splitting filters are minimum phase, there WILL be lots of time smearing.   I know, I know -- I am not shilling my project, but it HAS made great inroads, and has special techniques that remove left-over smearing that result from modulation of the signal and incomplete synchronous demodulation (dynamic gain control IS modulation and fast dynamic gain control is *almost* impossible to remove modulation.)   Whatever flaws the project previously (and still) had/has, it could remove most of the effects of modulation distortion.

 

Until the ubiquitous kind of smearing is removed or mitigated, there will never be a clean audio signal. 

MQA and it's kind of processing just makes it worse.

 

Anyone advocating that MQA removes the time smearing is totally whackko.   If MQA (as a signal obfuscation method) is used INSTEAD of the current ubiquitous scheme, then there might be fewer complaints, but the proprietary aspect of MQA is still disqualifying in my view.

 

No worries John, I get you with the time smearing when it comes to the music processing used in the studio and what you're doing with your project.

 

The problem with HB is that he's simplistically talking about time smearing inferred just by looking at impulse responses and in turn how that is supposed to be fixed by mQa; nothing truly more sophisticated like say the work you're doing or something like excessphase correction for speaker/room DSP.

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1 hour ago, ARQuint said:

I'm just saying that there are some who choose to paint with a pretty broad brush. That, because of the two print magazines' out-of-the-gate enthusiasm for MQA, everything they write about, even four years later, is worthless—every equipment write-up, every interview, every music review, every show report, every award feature. That JA's "legacy" has been sullied because of this one stance he took. This is not the best critical thinking, in my view. It's possible to be an uncompromising "partisan" about MQA and still find some value in the work of a group of writers with a lot of experience and who share your love of perfectionist audio.

 

Speaking of sullied legacies and making mistakes, a couple of quotes came to mind...

 

"Sometimes you don't get but one mistake, if the one you pick is bad enough." - Madison S. Bell

 

IMO both Atkinson and Harley selected doozies about "birth of a new world" and "paradigm shifts" when they "picked" to misrepresent and hype up mQa the way they did. We all make mistakes, but this is pretty damn terrible for a couple of guys who are supposed to be at the top of the game and "leaders" in the audiophile world.

 

Then there's this...

 

“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.” - Sophocles

 

Good to see perhaps that TAS is "yielding" to further hype in that article @ARQuint. As other noted, it's important to see more from TAS to build confidence. Is JA and RH ready to "repair evil" in the sense of truly taking back the thoughts in those articles?

 

Is Atkinson ready to concede that in 40+ years of listening, he was clearly mistaken about what he heard and thought when BS talked to him and showed him the scheme? That in fact, mQa is absolutely nothing like the shift in quality when the CD came on the scene in the early '80s?

 

For Harley, are you ready to declare that no paradigms have changed? That Thomas Kuhn would probably scold you if you were his pupil (if he were still alive) for writing a ridiculous thesis on something that's more akin to pseudoscience and "preparadigmatic" ideas?

 

Looking back in 2021, do you think it's time to "repair" what's still online for all to see? If not, is there pride at work?

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5 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

The context for my "birth of a new world" comment - I haven't written "paradigm shift" - was this, written 7 years ago: "In almost 40 years of attending audio press events, only rarely have I come away feeling that I was present at the birth of a new world. In March 1979, I visited the Philips Research Center in Eindhoven, Holland and heard a prototype of what was to be later called the Compact Disc. In the summer of 1982, I visited Ron Genereux and Bob Berkovitz at Acoustic Research's lab near Boston and heard a very early example of the application of DSP to the correction of room acoustic problems. And in early December, at Meridian's New York offices, I heard Bob Stuart describe the UK company's MQA technology, followed by a demonstration that blew my socks off."

 

See https://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa, where I concluded that "Judging by the recordings I heard in Manhattan, some dating back to the early 1950s, I feel the launch of Meridian's MQA is as important to the quality of sound recording and playback as digital was 40 years ago."

 

I thought it obvious that my comments were based on the sound quality of the demonstrations I experienced, and my views haven't changed as result of the further comparisons that I have performed. I recently arranged a blind comparison of one of my own recordings in original 24/88.2k form and the MQA-encoded version for a visiting engineer. His preference for the MQA version was the same as I had originally reported in 2016: that there was less ambiguity in the spatial relationships between the performers and the surrounding acoustic with the MQA version (See https://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-mqa.)

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

 

Thanks John for the response. I've certainly seen the other link over the years.

 

I bet at this point you must be a bit tired about the "birth of a new world" quote (as I said in my original post, the whole "paradigm shift" thing refers to Harley). Alas, this quote from the first sentence of the article does make for quite an impressionable "sound bite". I appreciate that time has passed and it's possible that you've modified your position since then.

 

So just to be really clear about your stance in 2021 so those of us discussing MQA today do not misrepresent how you currently feel, perhaps you can just respond with YES/NO/MAYBE to these questions... I trust this should not be too difficult and take only a few minutes out of your day. More nuanced responses of course would be appreciated given your experience (especially for "MAYBE" answers).

 

1. Do you still think in 2021 (seeing that streaming audio has expanded to include lossless Qobuz, Apple, Amazon, upcoming Spotify) that the MQA codec (generally limited to Tidal, with some MQA-CDs out there) is "the future of streaming" that audiophiles should pay special attention to?

 

2. You mentioned in the article that the 1982 visit to Acoustic Research allowed you to hear DSP correction of "room acoustic problems", right before being blown away by MQA (thus implying some connection). Do you believe MQA has DSP technology that improves room acoustics?

 

3. After seeing what is known about MQA now, are you still thinking "WTF", and just as impressed by what was revealed to you that day on a technical level?

 

4. In your "Correcting the Source" section, you said, and quoted Meridian:

Meridian describes this as "taking an original master further, toward the original performance, in an analogous way to the processes expert antique picture restorers use to clean the grime and discolored varnish from an Old Master to reveal the original color and vibrancy of the work."

 

Do you think that this is true? That the technology has the ability to take a hi-res "original master" and move it towards this concept of an "original performance"?

 

5. With hindsight then, would you still say that the "launch of Meridian's MQA is as important to the quality of sound recording and playback as digital was 40 years ago"?

 

As a respected member of the audiophile press, writing for decades, exploring the technical performance of all kinds of devices over your lifetime career, I think many of us would appreciate your candid assessment of MQA in light of what clearly was extremely positive testimony laid out in 2014. As far as I can tell, I don't believe you have since said anything to question those impressions in that article.

 

Thank you for your consideration to have hopefully an open discussion and clear up any confusion/misconceptions.

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41 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

Gee, what processing was done to the file JA is talking about in his test? I am sure there are many folks here that can take a recording, play around with it to change the sound so that it sounds better subjectively.  I would need a detailed analysis of that file vs the non MQA file to even start to make any assessments.

 

It's a shame that mQa/BS did not take up Mark Waldrep's request to have his 24/96 samples converted for him to analyze. How convenient again that mQa thwarts attempts for open A/B comparisons by someone who might end up being critical!

 

One cannot but wonder why were John Atkinson and Peter McGrath the only folks well known among audiophile circles (as far as I am aware, leaving 2L out of this for a second), given the opportunity to have their recordings "treated" by mQa?

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On 8/21/2021 at 12:52 PM, Archimago said:

 

Thanks John for the response. I've certainly seen the other link over the years.

 

I bet at this point you must be a bit tired about the "birth of a new world" quote (as I said in my original post, the whole "paradigm shift" thing refers to Harley). Alas, this quote from the first sentence of the article does make for quite an impressionable "sound bite". I appreciate that time has passed and it's possible that you've modified your position since then.

 

So just to be really clear about your stance in 2021 so those of us discussing MQA today do not misrepresent how you currently feel, perhaps you can just respond with YES/NO/MAYBE to these questions... I trust this should not be too difficult and take only a few minutes out of your day. More nuanced responses of course would be appreciated given your experience (especially for "MAYBE" answers).

 

1. Do you still think in 2021 (seeing that streaming audio has expanded to include lossless Qobuz, Apple, Amazon, upcoming Spotify) that the MQA codec (generally limited to Tidal, with some MQA-CDs out there) is "the future of streaming" that audiophiles should pay special attention to?

 

2. You mentioned in the article that the 1982 visit to Acoustic Research allowed you to hear DSP correction of "room acoustic problems", right before being blown away by MQA (thus implying some connection). Do you believe MQA has DSP technology that improves room acoustics?

 

3. After seeing what is known about MQA now, are you still thinking "WTF", and just as impressed by what was revealed to you that day on a technical level?

 

4. In your "Correcting the Source" section, you said, and quoted Meridian:

Meridian describes this as "taking an original master further, toward the original performance, in an analogous way to the processes expert antique picture restorers use to clean the grime and discolored varnish from an Old Master to reveal the original color and vibrancy of the work."

 

Do you think that this is true? That the technology has the ability to take a hi-res "original master" and move it towards this concept of an "original performance"?

 

5. With hindsight then, would you still say that the "launch of Meridian's MQA is as important to the quality of sound recording and playback as digital was 40 years ago"?

 

As a respected member of the audiophile press, writing for decades, exploring the technical performance of all kinds of devices over your lifetime career, I think many of us would appreciate your candid assessment of MQA in light of what clearly was extremely positive testimony laid out in 2014. As far as I can tell, I don't believe you have since said anything to question those impressions in that article.

 

Thank you for your consideration to have hopefully an open discussion and clear up any confusion/misconceptions.

 

Paging @John_Atkinson.

 

Since you're around here, mind answering a few basic questions on your stance on MQA these days and make sure there are no misunderstandings? Looks like there are a number of longtime readers here...

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18 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

That leaves us at this point in time, where some people have adopted MQA, and many others question the need for another scheme.

Hopefully, MQA will die off and become another bad memory.

Hopefully, people will look back and say: "We dodged a bullet with that one".

 

Yeah, presumably that was the strategy. Get the press together, have a big party at The Shard on Dec 4, 2014. Media blitz afterwards with the editors (dealing with head honcho BS), and associates (JA2) interviewing others like Spencer Chrislu. I think long ago they knew that "hi-res" was a nothingburger so they had to shelter these "crown jewels" and extend the mystique with another intermediate "format" that proposed to be better than 16/44.1, supposedly has "hi-res"-like characteristics, but still not those jewels left for another day to capitalize on.

 

Obviously the mainstream technology press didn't take up the offer to present mQa as much of an advancement. And the audiophile press showed themselves as being not much use as "influencers". And inevitably people would look under the hood and recognize the silliness and waste of money.

 

The value of mQa is totally gone now. The hi-res "crown jewels" have been released for all to see/hear through Apple, Amazon, Qobuz. Some might be able to appreciate them, but I think most of us realize that 16/44.1 is pretty darn good already and would not spend much money to grab 24/192 of anything from Neil Young (for example ;-).

 

Tidal remains the remnant with whatever "believers" there are for mQa (?Peter Veth?). Doubt the "faith" is strong. I think Tidal needs to rethink how they're doing this especially if the tables have turned now and mQa could very much be a liability for them since the "crown jewels" are out there and they're stuck with 2nd rate batch converts that deteriorate resolution. Plus the word-of-mouth for mQa is poor. Hope they're not paying royalties to mQa these days!

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31 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

Is it?

Absolutely 😉 just go ask a few friends and family members if CD sounds good. I don't think we need to be that special... 

 

The days of hi-res as a desirable specialty product are IMO just as unlikely to make money as mQa. Digital format agnosticism is basically a given for the vast majority. If the masses can differentiate lossy from lossless, we'll be fortunate! We need to be OK with that unless all we listen to is specialty "audiophile" music. 

 

(I see this separately from whether one thinks one can hear a difference. I try to be more pragmatic about this. )

[Archimago]

3 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

I think we need to.

If not us, then who.? 

 

But seriously - I expressed it many times - to me hi res makes a meaningful difference.

Everyone's MMV, of course.

 

 

IMO one of the reasons why so many hear so little is the fact that the very thinking process itself stands in the way of really well done comparative listening test. In particular, the dense and tense thinking. All one has to do is to allow some gap between the thoughts. It is already there anyway.. That's where hearing process takes place  

Think I'm gonna write a book about it some day.

It will be entitled 'Zen and the Art of Listening' 

 

Of course don't treat the whole thing too seriously.. 

 

 

Sure @sphinxsix, not gonna argue with you on this. In fact, in Mark Waldrep's 24/96 vs. 16/44.1 blind test recently, I "passed" I think with 5/5 correct as I recall for the tracks I tried. Even though I got the answers "correct", it did take quite a bit of A/B listening and I really don't think that difference added more enjoyment to my listening.

 

I'm happy to buy hi-res of the music I love but generally true hi-res is few and far between for the genres I like (pop, rock) so again 16/44.1 lossless is practically the best I can usually get and I'm happy with that... Pushing for better recording, production, and mastering makes much more sense than 24-bits or >44.1kHz for me (and I suspect for the majority).

 

There's more that can be said, but I think that's reasonably complete in terms of what I think/feel these days...

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3 hours ago, fas42 said:

To repeat, MQA is merely a means of making playback "nicer" on systems that have distortion problems - it's a workaround, a kludge that gives some people, some of the time, a better listening experience. Its time will pass, because it's not addressing underlying issues - plenty of audio "breakthroughs" have occurred, which make for amusing reading when you pick up audio magazines of a few decades ago 😆; it's just another one on the list ...

 

Honestly Frank, I don't know what system actually benefits from mQa lowering distortion!? We've seen no example of how and what distortion mQa actually solves!

 

If anything, those filters almost invariably will be adding to the amount of ultrasonic distortion unless you're running NOS DACs with no other filtering before getting an mQa DAC!

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15 minutes ago, labjr said:

MQA was done for me when they simultaneously touted "better than hi-res" and "saves the crown jewels." 

 

I think there are even allegations of "Better than the Crown Jewels!" 🤣

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15 minutes ago, mfsoa said:

,,,

 

Hmmm, why wouldn't these magazines insist that their reviewers use the highest quality source possible, which according to them is MQA? Intellectually disingenuous of them to promote MQA yet not push for it's full adoption.

 

 

Indeed, as @labjr and yourself have indicated, if we take at face value all that magazines like TAS and Stereophile have claimed in support of mQa, then absolutely, they MUST include some kind of mQa evaluation with each review they do. And if the piece of gear does not natively support mQa, then they MUST at least have Roon or Audirvana do a Core Decode of some mQa track as part of the review process.

 

That would be the only logical path since mQa is the "new world" and the "new paradigm" for audio sound quality as declared by the leader of those magazines!

 

Totally messed up. Let's not worry about what's logical or intellectually honest. Just remember:

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

I know you are "cracking wise" but dCS has always offered a very short antialiaslng fliter on its A/D converters to reduce the otherwise inevitable sinc-function ringing on transients. And the late Charley Hansen of Ayre was also concerned about optimizing time-domain behavior. He used a "moving averages" filter for the Ayre QA-9 A/D converter that I found produced a perfect impulse response, at the expense of allowing some low-level aliasing energy. At a sample rate of 192kHz this was inconsequential.

 

Before Charley passed he sent me an experimental complementary reconstruction filter for the Ayre D/A converters. This allowed perfect time-domain behavior throughout the recording-reproduction chain, just as is claimed for MQA. That was ironic indeed, given Charley's hatred of MQA. For reasons unknown Ayre never released this reconstruction filter.

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

 

So what did this experimental DAC filter look like if you don't mind readers asking? Basically variants of the "Listen" and "Measure" filter? What's so "complementary" about the filters and how is the complementarity defined?

 

In my discussions with Hansen before he died, he really didn't think the mQa claims "worked" so maybe he just wasn't impressed by their lack of complementarity?

 

Also, if you have a couple minutes, there are some questions for you above that can clear up the "birth of a new world" article's claims.

 

Thanks...

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1 hour ago, mfsoa said:

JA, thank you for the reply, and I must compliment you for engaging with this community when we are often somewhat rude and abrasive. My apologies if I have come off this way. You have a thick skin and/or justifiable confidence in your knowledge. Your contribution is truly appreciated. The reason we look to you is BECAUSE you are so well positioned to shed light on this issue, and convey information to a large number of readers. But man, are we frustrated with this MQA deal.

 

We have to wonder, 7 years after the introduction of MQA, why their claims remain completely unverified.

That in itself is disqualifying for the format and sheds a very poor light on the audiophile press whom we believed were working in the best interests of the audiophile community.

 

An article on MQAs refusal to allow their technology to be evaluated, would provide such a service to your readers.  You will be lauded for your openness and honesty.

 

It is clear (in my little mind) that there is a right side of history here and a wrong side. I encourage Stereophile to do the right thing. You have a choice.

 

No benefit to consumer. Increase consumer cost. What is the audio press' response to this?

 

 

Well said @mfsoa.

 

@John_Atkinson, this is exactly it.

 

We've known about the MQA filter designs on the playback side for years - as shown here. What we don't know is what the supposed "complementary" side is doing or if this is all there is to the so-called "deblurring" process. Seeing that there are multiple filter variants, why would MQA not just show 1 example of how an ADC/DAC pair "deblurs"? Would that release too many trade secrets?

 

The fact that they remain secretive is a problem and I believe that the "right side of history" would have the press reporting on this and do its job in enlightening the consumers and audiophiles whom they serve.

 

That you still don't answer some simple questions above is also disturbing. I guess "birth of a new world" is still how you feel, and not just early enthusiasm?

 

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8 hours ago, labjr said:

Meanwhile, Chinese companies are churning out $100 DACs that measure better than virtually everything ever reviewed by the major publications. But apparently there's no interest in revewing them to see if they sound better. Or maybe they have listened and can't reveal the truth?

 

 

Yeah, IMO if you don't care about brand name, luxury and not too worried about service, focusing only on sound quality, then the Chinese DACs even at <$200 will easily satisfy. Don't waste money on the mQa Tax of course. 

 

Other than features, there's not much to differentiate DAC sound these days anyway. 

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4 hours ago, Currawong said:

...

 

I had a Chord DAVE here for a month, after which, those "$200 will easily satisfy" DACs, as well as quite a bit more decent ones, sounded like mud. So, maybe not in the low-end of things so much, or even around the $400-700 mark, but after spending some time with considerably better gear, even if I haven't listened to music for a few days, I can still clearly notice I'm not getting the level of reproduction with the cheaper gear. I can't un-hear it now. 

...

 

Dunno about this @Currawong. BTW, I did do some blinded, volume controlled listening at a friend's place with the DAVE compared to the Topping D10s a few weeks back (my friend didn't want me to mention his DAC but I'll mention it here ;-). Hard to differentiate and by no means "blown away" given the price differential! Obviously the feature set and build very different so there's quite a bit of stuff to talk about otherwise...

 

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand... mQa sucks. Doesn't "work", Charley Hansen had all kinds of issues (and there was a mailing list with a number of folks discussing concerns back in the day). And I notice that @John_Atkinson is very shy about answering questions about the "birth of a new world".

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7 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

Not shy. Everything I have had to say on MQA since 2014 is available on Stereophile's website, at www.stereophile.com/category/mqa . I also examined the band-splitting and buried data channel aspects of MQA in a series of posts on Audio Science Review earlier this year. See, for example, https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?threads/mqa-deep-dive-i-published-music-on-tidal-to-test-mqa.22549/page-72#post-760938

https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?threads/mqa-deep-dive-i-published-music-on-tidal-to-test-mqa.22549/page-72#post-760969

and https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?threads/mqa-deep-dive-i-published-music-on-tidal-to-test-mqa.22549/page-79#post-762223

 

Thanks for the response John.

 

Hmmm, still a bit of a non-answer as per @The Computer Audiophile to the basic questions asked above to see if you still hold on to the "birth of a new world" article. I guess you do... Maybe...

 

Hmmm, interesting, I never noticed the ASR links not working!

 

Anyhow, some thoughts on the links.

1. Band splitting thought experiment. As MansR responded a couple of messages down, it's not so simple and there are extra costs to that such as an extra bit being used to encode things like the peak extension. 13.5-bits of audio data without an mQa decoder. Is that good enough to claim that undecoded mQa sounds as good as a CD equivalent?

 

2. Referring to 16/44.1 mQa. So MQA-CD would likely be inferior to standard CD, right? If at least one of the bits is devoted as an mQa control signal/fingerprint, then it would not be possible to even maintain full 16-bit resolution. So do you have an opinion on whether mQa-CD is a good product or an advancement over standard CD?

 

3.  Your church recordings with 18-bit resolution. Hmmm, not sure what is or is not relevant here about mQa. Would be interesting running the original 24-bit compared to an mQa decoded version through DeltaWave, don't you think to see what has changed?

 

Quote

Other than the reduced need to keep streamed file sizes small, I haven't seen or read anything on this site or others that leads me to change my mind about the format's technical elegance.

 

Yeah, I guess they put thought into this. But is it truly "elegant"? Or is it more along the lines of a Rube Goldberg machine? Intellectually stimulating perhaps when it comes to the "folding" but completely overdone and simply unnecessary! Then there's the questionable parts like "deblurring", etc. of course.

 

Quote

On the commercial aspects of MQA, which are monopolistic, I commissioned and published an article on this in early 2018: https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-benefits-and-costs

 

To quote from that article: "Once securely in place in the industry, MQA would be very difficult to dislodge, and its very dominance would deter the development of newer, possibly better formats—or even discourage the retaining of such current alternatives as WAV, FLAC, etc., as viable choices in the marketplace."

 

John Atkinson

Technical Editor, Stereophile

Hmmm, the idea of mQa being a monopoly was not what you claimed you heard when declaring "birth of a new world". That this monopoly looks highly unlikely now (no thanks to your advocacy, but we must remain vigilant), I think readers are still wondering whether you still believe mQa represents a sonic advancement to digital audio reproduction...

 

Hence IMO, you're still being "shy", probably better to use the word "coy" = "reluctant to give details, especially about something regarded as sensitive".

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3 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

Is that what you use and have always used in the making of your own recordings?

 

And to take that 1 step further, does @John_Atkinson think the "otherwise inevitable sinc-function ringing on transients" in ADC recordings is a problem that needs to be fixed especially with a hi-res recording!?