MQA is Vaporware

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, John Dyson said:

(High res doesnt solve the problem, but GOOD mastering and a GOOD recording does.)

 

Amen!

[GUTB]

Who's going to pick up this new Asus MQA headset?

[Chris A]

2 hours ago, John Dyson said:

I just tested some of those super wide dynamic range Telarc disks -- they were similarly damaged recordings, but with slightly different parameters.  The scheme is NOT well known and has taken me almost 10yrs to reverse engineer.

 

Care to expand on those parameters a bit?  is this wrapped up with this comment?

 

 

Chris

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, GUTB said:

Who's going to pick up this new Asus MQA headset?

I'm sure they sound just as the artist intended because of MQA removing information from the master and using leaky filters to upsample the music. 

[John Dyson]

9 minutes ago, Chris A said:

 

Care to expand on those parameters a bit?

 

Chris

Okay -- here is what happens to almost EVERY normal consumer recording:

 

3 or four layers (sometmes more) of DolbyA compression (not for noise reduction), with equalization to make the sound reasonably flat sound, each layer has 10dB calibration/level offset.   Different albums have very slightly different EQ to make the recording in playback have a reasonable spectrum/frequency response balance.

 

(A DolbyA unit can be used as a multi-band compressor, and has very special characteristics that allows for super fast compression without lots of distortion.)

 

The telarc disks that I tested had the same kind of compression but a few 10dB lower threshold.   One was

' Ein Straussfest II'.

 

My current project is to undo the compression.  I don't want to worry you about it -- it is a long/complex thing and off topic. :-).

 

John

[Chris A]

2 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

I don't want to worry you about it -- it is a long/complex thing and off topic. :-).

 

Perhaps not...I can go to whatever thread that you choose to talk about this subject in more detail. 

 

Chris

[John Dyson]

Just now, Chris A said:

 

Perhaps not...I can go to whatever thread that you choose to talk about this subject in more detail. 

 

Chris

I am happy to explain it privately (I blather too much about it publically and bore a lot of people.)   So, in a way, I am happy that you are interested.

 

Give me a bit of time to explain it, and I'll send you a more complete explanation.  I have a mental/brain limitation that I cannot draw other than simple things like schematics, but I'll try to explain what is going on.   As soon as I have to draw a box on a draw program, I get confused.   So -- give me a few to put together some ascii-art -- I did try to draw a drawing a few months ago.

 

My software is within days (or weeks at most) of being a complete entity.   I'll also add you to the PM group.

 

John

 

[Chris A]

Thanks!

 

Chris

[FredericV]

Comments in the secret group are amusing to say the least

I never consider headphones with a microphone to be audiophile, but rather practical for office work, so you can listen to audio and use the headset for video conferencing. So what is the idea here, expose MQA to new target groups (gamers) which would otherwise never buy MQA? The kind of people who listen to spotify and don't care about flac / lossless / hi-res?

[KeenObserver]

https://essentialinstall.com/features/exclusive-ei-interview-bob-stuart-mqa-meridian-co-founder/

 

I came across this.  Reading it made me want to go put on muck boots.  I think every single buzz word was used.  Do people actually buy into this BS?

 

I still envision Professor Irwin Corey whenever I see Bob Stuart.

[John Dyson]

2 hours ago, FredericV said:

Comments in the secret group are amusing to say the least

I never consider headphones with a microphone to be audiophile, but rather practical for office work, so you can listen to audio and use the headset for video conferencing. So what is the idea here, expose MQA to new target groups (gamers) which would otherwise never buy MQA? The kind of people who listen to spotify and don't care about flac / lossless / hi-res?

 

Well, maybe some people want to sing along.  :-).

 

John

 

[botrytis]

What is funny is I think Hypex (who makes gaming headphones0 are better and cheaper than the ASUS ones. No MQA either.

[GUTB]

58 minutes ago, botrytis said:

What is funny is I think Hypex (who makes gaming headphones0 are better and cheaper than the ASUS ones. No MQA either.

 

The point is the MQA support. I wonder how many gamers are aware of MQA, and how many are going to find out about it because of these?

[UkPhil]

Sounds like MQA need another avenue to push as streaming audio has stalled at Tidal, Deezer never happened for them Spotify and Apple are happy with lossy (and so are the masses) the behemoth Amazon and Qobuz kept with good "ole" PCM so they need to boost the revenue somewhere ???

[botrytis]

19 hours ago, GUTB said:

 

The point is the MQA support. I wonder how many gamers are aware of MQA, and how many are going to find out about it because of these?

 

None of them care. Honestly. The games have enough wonky code w/o worrying about MQA. Most games are in 48/24 or 96/24 and surround. That is the big thing for gamers, more immersion. 

[KeenObserver]

13 hours ago, UkPhil said:

Sounds like MQA need another avenue to push as streaming audio has stalled at Tidal, Deezer never happened for them Spotify and Apple are happy with lossy (and so are the masses) the behemoth Amazon and Qobuz kept with good "ole" PCM so they need to boost the revenue somewhere ???

 

MQA attached their wagon to Tidal.  What is the status of Tidal?  The only thing i come up with is articles that are two or three years old.

[FredericV]

Facebook does not fact check MQA claims... so these posts are not blanked like what they do with covid-19 when false information is being posted.

But let's fact check this screenshot which I just received:

1. There is no third unfold, only 2 unfolds, the first which recovers one more octave compared to redbook and 48 Khz sampling, and a second unfold which does upsampling with their predefined filters, and which does not extract more audio data, but rather alters it by means of upsampling, and then the user sees 176.4 or 192 Khz on his display or app and believes this is actual 24/192

When MQA upsamples to 24/352.8 (44.1 x8) or 24/384 (48 x8) the uninformed may believe this is the third unfold ... while it's just the second unfold with a higher resample setting. Gear which does not support x8 will then fallback to x4 rate.

Also if there would be an actual third unfold, the filesize of an MQA compressed 24/352.8 file would be bigger than a 24/176.4 file, but in reality all these MQA compressed files are similar size no matter what the input resolution was before encoding, as they are already band limited during encoding, and where the x4 and x8 versions after decoding are just containing fake ultrasonics from their leaky filters and not the original ultrasonics. So they only recover the first octave above the human hearing treshold (first unfold), and anything above that (second unfold) is replaced with fake aliased content from leaky upsample filters.

2. MQA's second unfold = upsampling, even though some members claim MQA does not do upsampling. They are wrong.

Maybe truth seekers can join and educate them a little bit more




Upsampling is never lossless. If it was lossless, why would you use it in the first place? Why waste CPU cycles on upsampling if it is lossless and therefore should sound the same as the original? Why research upsample recipes and filter settings, if it is lossless?

Several vendors in the music server industry are actually using hardware or software upsamplers, not because it is lossless, but because it changes the sound in a way customers prefer. Purists can still go the bitperfect route.

[KeenObserver]

"Purists can still go the bitperfect route."

 

Purists can avoid anything infected with MQA altogether!

[Archimago]

On 9/2/2020 at 1:29 PM, KeenObserver said:

https://essentialinstall.com/features/exclusive-ei-interview-bob-stuart-mqa-meridian-co-founder/

 

I came across this.  Reading it made me want to go put on muck boots.  I think every single buzz word was used.  Do people actually buy into this BS?

 

I still envision Professor Irwin Corey whenever I see Bob Stuart.

 

Hopefully the ASUS haeadset is just a sign of desperate times for MQA which should have been aborted years ago and saved investors money.

 

Looks like the MQA-enabled ESS DACs are out and we'll be seeing some products that can decode MQA due to the use of the chips. 

 

"EssentialInstall" website? I've seen a number of these generic-looking websites over the years that runs "interviews" on MQA... Are these generic "RoboWebsites" that are run by advertisers to just create media presence out there and as conduits of news announcements? Are there actual personalities behind a site like this creating unique content?

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, Archimago said:

Are these generic "RoboWebsites" that are run by advertisers to just create media presence out there and as conduits of news announcements?

Yes

 

6 minutes ago, Archimago said:

Are there actual personalities behind a site like this creating unique content?

No

[KeenObserver]

Bob Stuarts intent with MQA was to "fix" recorded music.

 

So, if MQA was adopted, we could say that the "fix" was in!

[Maldur]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

"Purists can still go the bitperfect route."

 

Purists can avoid anything infected with MQA altogether!

Very well said, I must say.

[Confused]

Some interesting comments:

 

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/best-music-streaming-service-for-2020-spotify-apple-amazon-and-youtube-music/

 

Note that MQA is listed in the bad section of Tidal’s good / bad summary.

[UkPhil]

On 9/6/2020 at 8:15 PM, Confused said:

Some interesting comments:

 

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/best-music-streaming-service-for-2020-spotify-apple-amazon-and-youtube-music/

 

Note that MQA is listed in the bad section of Tidal’s good / bad summary.

 

Interesting, looking at the article not sure what is relevant to 2020 as it may be a rehash as the comments area is closed and they go back 5 years ? 

[Allan F]

MQA is the CD green edge marker of today.