MQA is Vaporware

[sphinxsix]

11 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

I lost the connection. Is that Putin raging at Meridian ?

Or does it go via Johnson ?

 

All high-flying.

 

Oh, it seems I'm not communicative again (I happen to have strange associations, can't help it, sorry )..

Putin represents MQA which gives the factory owners (music lovers - listeners) the freedom of choice of the audio format on Tidal and maybe not only on Tidal in the near future..

 

[PeterSt]

1 minute ago, sphinxsix said:

Oh, it seems I'm not communicative again

 

No no no !

I lost internet connection. It was blurred.

Need to deblur it.

[PeterSt]

5 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

Does this Peter Veth have a website?

 

He's just an individual.

Aren't we all ?

[sphinxsix]

2 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

No no no !

I lost internet connection. It was blurred.

Need to deblur it.

Calling MQA.. One can always count on them with that..

 

[sphinxsix]

2 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

He's just an individual.

Aren't we all ?

 

It doesn't always work like this, you're Dutch, right.? 

 

[PeterSt]

Yeah, sorry about that.

[FredericV]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

So even if you had stored the ID in your database, you STILL get MQA a next time you play the very same album (ID). Although it is obvious, I just checked it and sadly it is so.

So those without an MQA decoder now get a degraded sound quality as some of the bits were traded for  non-nyquist data as used for the MQA crypto DRM process (so expect a much higher noise floor without decoder), and those with an MQA decoder also get a different sounding version.

And this all happened under the radar, which is NOT acceptable. Suddenly your saved favorites sound different and only if you had some form of MQA decoder you would notice that MQA is now active.
 

Quote

But what is to gain with this ? extra subscriptions ? (like pay MQA tax eventually ?)

No. This will STOP all subscriptions.

... But this has been stipulated before ...

Even in the MQA fanboy group, they are now questioning the fact that those redbook files are being replaced by MQA CD and this is not the same as the MQA they were used too ...

They even fear the troll ban hammer, so when they ask these questions they excuse themselves for not being a troll, but wanting to ask valid questions.

It must be fun to stay in the group, with the quest to find the mole, and the fear to be banned when asking a critical question  .... ;)

[KeenObserver]

Bob Stuart and Tidal are claiming that their processes are lossless because the FLAC container is a lossless process.

The garbage inside is not lossless, but the container is.

Bob Stuart has turned into a pathetic shill for MQA.  He was a respected figure in the audio community but he willingly and knowingly put himself in this position.

It is indeed a sad situation.

[sphinxsix]

16 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Yeah, sorry about that.

No need to be sorry, I have a great affection for the country since my first tourist visit 30 years ago - I've even settled here. What I meant was that the Dutch society is IMO and in opinion of many exceptionally egalitarian, which I really appreciate.

Cheers! Fijne avond! 

[fas42]

6 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

Sorry Frank but even the smartest algorithm can't restore data that's been thrown away. It may be able to come up with something that is pleasing to your ears but it won't be the original.

 

The "thrown away" argument is used many times, but a smart algorithm can rebuild damaged audio by 'learning', even 'deep learning', what's inside the data, and reconstructing that which has lost, by using the patterns it finds in the music data. Take severe clipping, for example, major lopping off of peaks - it can find matches to the waveform nearby, which weren't quite as high in level, and hence have peaks not damaged, and copy and paste, with slight randomising of the precise values perhaps, to reinstate the cut off bits. Fake!! you cry out - but I guarantee that you would have severe difficulty picking the 'fixed' from a completely undamaged version, from prior to the original clipping event - where the bits have been fixed is extremely transient, and the brain can't focus on just precisely that tiny bit of time, to pick something happening. Noise reduction, removal of pops and scratches in archival material is the same process - and if well done makes a huge improvement.

 

A scenario of how an algorithm could sort out MQA ... have copies of multiple original mastering, and the MQA variants; run deep learning against them until it understands the patterns of what has done; and then let it loose on the MQA releases. No, they won't be 100% faithful to the original, but they will be mighty, mighty close - no worse than slightly different masterings of the original material.

 

Quote

 

If you've got something please share it. I've got some low rez mp3 files that I'd like to restore to Redbook format.

 

Step 1: convert to WAV format 😉. For many systems this will provide a significant improvement, because MP3 decoding is not in real time ... I always chuckle when people say how loathsome MP3 is - because my first listen of such encodings was from a burnt CD, hence reconstructed WAV files - at the time I was completely unaware that the source was MP3; and, there was nothing in the SQ that disturbed or threw me; the tracks sounded fine ...

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The "thrown away" argument is used many times, but a smart algorithm can rebuild damaged audio by 'learning', even 'deep learning', what's inside the data, and reconstructing that which has lost, by using the patterns it finds in the music data. Take severe clipping, for example, major lopping off of peaks - it can find matches to the waveform nearby, which weren't quite as high in level, and hence have peaks not damaged, and copy and paste, with slight randomising of the precise values perhaps, to reinstate the cut off bits. Fake!! you cry out - but I guarantee that you would have severe difficulty picking the 'fixed' from a completely undamaged version, from prior to the original clipping event - where the bits have been fixed is extremely transient, and the brain can't focus on just precisely that tiny bit of time, to pick something happening. Noise reduction, removal of pops and scratches in archival material is the same process - and if well done makes a huge improvement.

 

A scenario of how an algorithm could sort out MQA ... have copies of multiple original mastering, and the MQA variants; run deep learning against them until it understands the patterns of what has done; and then let it loose on the MQA releases. No, they won't be 100% faithful to the original, but they will be mighty, mighty close - no worse than slightly different masterings of the original material.

 

 

Step 1: convert to WAV format 😉. For many systems this will provide a significant improvement, because MP3 decoding is not in real time ... I always chuckle when people say how loathsome MP3 is - because my first listen of such encodings was from a burnt CD, hence reconstructed WAV files - at the time I was completely unaware that the source was MP3; and, there was nothing in the SQ that disturbed or threw me; the tracks sounded fine ...

Let’s step back into reality. None of this can be done by Joe Sixpack listener today. 

[KeenObserver]

" Let's step back into reality."

 

You're asking a lot!

[fas42]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

Let’s step back into reality. None of this can be done by Joe Sixpack listener today. 

 

No, but the music can always be restored if someone is motivated ... how long do you think it will take, if the demand is there, for someone to design and build a streamer that has the 'fixing' algorithm built-in - just have an "Un MQA" button on the front panel, to hit - fun time at parties to see which style people prefer ...

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

No, but the music can always be restored if someone is motivated ... how long do you think it will take, if the demand is there, for someone to design and build a streamer that has the 'fixing' algorithm built-in - just have an "Un MQA" button on the front panel, to hit - fun time at parties to see which style people prefer ...

Dynamic range has been crushed for decades. The demand to fix this is greater than demand to fix MQA. There is no fix for crushed dynamic range. 
 

With all do respect, your dreaming that you can get something from nothing. 

[fas42]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

Dynamic range has been crushed for decades. The demand to fix this is greater than demand to fix MQA. There is no fix for crushed dynamic range. 
 

With all do respect, your dreaming that you can get something from nothing. 

 

Probably, because the people with the expertise to do uncrushing aren't business people! I've done a number of experiments over the years that demonstrates, to me, that expanding poor dynamic range is not that hard - and could be turned into a largely automatic process, with some time time and effort put into it - what's hard is revving up the whole business machinery apparatus, to make it worthwhile for the individuals to go through the steps of making it happen.

 

John's work on changing the structure of tracks is an example of what can be done - and I consider the complexity of what his processing does as being significantly greater than that needed for dynamic range expansion ...

[kumakuma]

33 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The "thrown away" argument is used many times, but a smart algorithm can rebuild damaged audio by 'learning', even 'deep learning', what's inside the data, and reconstructing that which has lost, by using the patterns it finds in the music data. Take severe clipping, for example, major lopping off of peaks - it can find matches to the waveform nearby, which weren't quite as high in level, and hence have peaks not damaged, and copy and paste, with slight randomising of the precise values perhaps, to reinstate the cut off bits. Fake!! you cry out - but I guarantee that you would have severe difficulty picking the 'fixed' from a completely undamaged version, from prior to the original clipping event - where the bits have been fixed is extremely transient, and the brain can't focus on just precisely that tiny bit of time, to pick something happening. Noise reduction, removal of pops and scratches in archival material is the same process - and if well done makes a huge improvement.

 

A scenario of how an algorithm could sort out MQA ... have copies of multiple original mastering, and the MQA variants; run deep learning against them until it understands the patterns of what has done; and then let it loose on the MQA releases. No, they won't be 100% faithful to the original, but they will be mighty, mighty close - no worse than slightly different masterings of the original material.

 

 

Step 1: convert to WAV format 😉. For many systems this will provide a significant improvement, because MP3 decoding is not in real time ... I always chuckle when people say how loathsome MP3 is - because my first listen of such encodings was from a burnt CD, hence reconstructed WAV files - at the time I was completely unaware that the source was MP3; and, there was nothing in the SQ that disturbed or threw me; the tracks sounded fine ...

 

I look forward to hearing your proof of concept.

[fas42]

14 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I look forward to hearing your proof of concept.

 

Of which process?

[PeterSt]

26 minutes ago, fas42 said:

experiments over the years that demonstrates, to me, that expanding poor dynamic range is not that hard

 

That can only be fake.

What's gone, is gone.

[kumakuma]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Of which process?

 

Let's hear you restore 64 kbps MP3 to 16/44.1 PCM.

[Samuel T Cogley]

40 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Probably, because the people with the expertise to do uncrushing aren't business people! I've done a number of experiments over the years that demonstrates, to me, that expanding poor dynamic range is not that hard - and could be turned into a largely automatic process, with some time time and effort put into it - what's hard is revving up the whole business machinery apparatus, to make it worthwhile for the individuals to go through the steps of making it happen.

 

John's work on changing the structure of tracks is an example of what can be done - and I consider the complexity of what his processing does as being significantly greater than that needed for dynamic range expansion ...

 

While you can use DSP to add dynamic range to previously compressed recordings, I hope you're not suggesting that the output of that process bears a significant resemblance to what the recording was before being compressed.  At best, it will be a facsimile of an uncompressed version.

 

Comparing material that was previously encoded in Dolby A is a little bit misleading, because there is dynamic range compression as part of the encoding process and the restoration of the original dynamic range was/is possible because of the encoding.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

33 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Let's hear you restore 64 kbps MP3 to 16/44.1 PCM.

Technically, the 64 kbps version is 16/44.1. 

[kumakuma]

6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Technically, the 64 kbps version is 16/44.1. 

 

That should make Frank's work even easier then...

[Rexp]

1 hour ago, FredericV said:

So those without an MQA decoder now get a degraded sound quality as some of the bits were traded for  non-nyquist data as used for the MQA crypto DRM process (so expect a much higher noise floor without decoder), and those with an MQA decoder also get a different sounding version.
 

Yes, yet Tidal are still descibing their Hifi tier as lossles, which is a lie. Maybe we can we force them into changing it to 'lossless unless you play MQA tracks' 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Yes, yet Tidal are still descibing their Hifi tier as lossles, which is a lie. Maybe we can we force them into changing it to 'lossless unless you play MQA tracks' 

Someone would have to contact a truth in advertising/consumer protection agency in a country that actually cares. 

[botrytis]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

No, but the music can always be restored if someone is motivated ... how long do you think it will take, if the demand is there, for someone to design and build a streamer that has the 'fixing' algorithm built-in - just have an "Un MQA" button on the front panel, to hit - fun time at parties to see which style people prefer ...

 

There is no 'UN-MQA' button. The damage is done before the files are compressed into the FLAC container. Think of FLAC like a 'zip' or 'tar' file. That is all it is. How can you un-erase anything when there is noting of that information left? Then you will also have to remove all the noise the crappy filters put above the music information.

 

I think you do not understand what you are talking about.

 

A FLAC file can me made out of an MP3 but the data removed will not be 'magically' restored. Nothing can do that.