yahooboy Posted December 18, 2020 Share Posted December 18, 2020 On 12/16/2020 at 3:47 AM, wklie said: This is by design. 1. With a non-MQA DAC, Roon correctly outputs 24/88.2kHz. 2. If you set in Roon your DAC as a MQA Renderer only, you force Roon to do MQA Core decoding, Roon correctly outputs 24/88.2kHz. Your MQA Renderer correctly displays (not outputs) 44.1kHz. 3. If you set it as MQA Decoder + Renderer, in the absence of Roon DSP, volume leveling and multi-zone grouping, Roon will correctly leave the MQA signal unchanged. This is similar to "MQA Passthrough" in Tidal desktop app. Your MQA DAC displays (not outputs) 44.1kHz. Part of the complication comes with Roon support for different types of MQA hardware, along with different users' needs for DSP, volume leveling and multi-zone playback. Peter, You forgot one thing...... All of the above is pure marketing regurgitation. 1. We have never seen evidence of this being the correct output 2. Please show that any "decoding is going on - i.e. that it's not just an upsampling 3.Well this does depend heavily on what's in the "embedded" flags - no All in all none of this has been shown beyond MQA marketing - which You are a part of. Link to comment
R1200CL Posted December 18, 2020 Share Posted December 18, 2020 I like just to post an answer from the Roon forum. “The album art below shows the ‘FLAC 44.1kHz 16bit, MQA 44.1kHz’ is actually file tag information. Encoder MQAEncode ORIGINALSAMPLERATE 44100 If you tag the above to a non MQA file, Roon will display it. Of course when you try to playback, the signal path will a normal PCM 😄 Why MQA decoder must output 24/88.2/96k irregardless the source has to do with MQA filter applied during the encoding stage. Any filter applied during encoding process requires 2x OS to achieve the desired filter response at the end. This is similar to oversampling digital filter.16bit to 24bit output increase the precision so that the filter will perform better. Since the output from MQA decoder is already 24/88.2/96k, normal DACs without MQA rendering will perform better in preserving the impulse response. It will bypass the first stage of OS filter (usually the most steep, i.e, 44.1/48k filter) followed by a more gentle filter response in the conventional DAC Not much is known about MQA rendering process but my guessed, even DSP can be applied after MQA decoder by first taking out the renderer information and later put back, means, the renderer does not depends on the musical data but the renderer bits which is set during the encoding stage. This rendering bits are used to select the different type of MQA filters that match the characteristics of the DAC types. As I said before in order for the filters to work, oversampling must be applied. Meaning the rendering stage is actually selection of filters and oversampling. The whole process of doing this is to improved impulse response and MQA processing is behind all this.” I won’t comment before I’ve done test with different setting in my setup. I plan to make a table. I think we still need a confirmation about what Roon does/displays vs what a DAC displays. Link to comment
lucretius Posted December 18, 2020 Share Posted December 18, 2020 13 hours ago, R1200CL said: I think we still need a confirmation about what Roon does/displays vs what a DAC displays. https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/?do=findComment&comment=1096581 https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/?do=findComment&comment=1096604 https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/?do=findComment&comment=1096647 https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/?do=findComment&comment=1096664 https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/?do=findComment&comment=1096681 https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/?do=findComment&comment=1096847 mQa is dead! Link to comment
Popular Post The Computer Audiophile Posted December 18, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted December 18, 2020 Not sure if you guys have seen this yet, but you’ll never guess who is pushing conspiracy theories and debunked election fraud narratives on Twitter. The Absolute Sound’s very own, and huge MQA supporter that doesn’t believe the evidence presented to him by anyone here, Lee Scoggins. Shocking, I know. yahooboy, Jud, JoeWhip and 2 others 4 1 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
daverich4 Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said: Not sure if you guys have seen this yet, but you’ll never guess who is pushing conspiracy theories and debunked election fraud narratives on Twitter. The Absolute Sound’s very own, and huge MQA supporter that doesn’t believe the evidence presented to him by anyone here, Lee Scoggins. Shocking, I know. Do you have a link? I googled Lee Scoggins Twitter and came up with zip. Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 4 minutes ago, daverich4 said: Do you have a link? I googled Lee Scoggins Twitter and came up with zip. Check out his re-tweets. Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
Ishmael Slapowitz Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 39 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: Check out his re-tweets. Any surprise here???? A Trumpanzee who just happened to be a gullible MQA troll. And THIS is who "manages" TAS...what a farce! MikeyFresh 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Currawong Posted December 19, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted December 19, 2020 On 12/16/2020 at 8:22 AM, GUTB said: I'll drop by Archimago's site at some point. I was very unimpressed by his earlier anti-MQA hobbyhorse and responded to it in detail which went without substantive answer, I'll see what he's come up with now. Weather or not MQA's time domain is fakery is not something which can be determined by looking at a frequency plot of a rendered MQA file. As Jim Austin -- a PhD in physics -- over at Stereophile commented that the only way to test the time domain claims is with the participation of MQA Ltd. No one here, and not Archimago, has the ability to do so. Setting aside whether or not MQA sounds better, it seems that everyone who has actually listened to MQA through a MQA DAC reports that it can sound very different. Many albums I could detect no difference. Many albums I could detect only a slight improvement. Some albums have shown a huge difference, the first one such I was immediately suspicious that there were EQ-ing going on. I have since then begun to suspect this perception of increased volume, or forwardness, as if one were leaning into the mic, is an illusion from improved time domain performance. I noticed that in my vinyl system, many of my records displayed a clear and obvious improvement of dynamics over the digital versions of the same album. This is what has sent me chasing after a digital solution to this gap for the last few years. I wonder if what I was actually hearing in the records was the correct time domain information. You can't blame different masters either. Hit up Tidal for Confederation: https://tidal.com/browse/album/50641444 This is a Sheffield Lab direct-to-disc recording, the album was directly transcribed to wax in real time with the performance. Completely analog to start to finish. The Tidal version is essentially a needledrop done by a professional mastering engineer. Now when you listen to this album, you'll probably find nothing wrong with it. It sounds fine. Except you have no idea what the record from 1977 sounds like. It's a different experience. It may give the impression of being more forward, but in reality, it's the sense of reality, of higher highs and deeper dips, that dynamic power and contrast which is so pleasing and life-like. Everyone knows that vinyl is nosier, more distorted, has less (usable) bandwidth, etc. So what is it? What if it just boils down to the lack of timing errors endemic to digital? What if Stuart's theory is correct and it's this timing information what actually makes hi-res sound better than Redbook? I have spent some time recently listening to a variety of TIDAL MQA albums, both the originals (some which required listening via Qobuz) and the MQA versions. I've also done a bit of file analysis, as I have been able to capture the digital output, or get the original TIDAL file (with help from a software developer). I haven't looked at the new MQA 16-bit files on TIDAL yet though. After a long, heated discussion with a friend, who is or was pro-MQA (he didn't know about many of the things discussed here) he discussed some of the issues brought up with friends in pro audio, and there are some issues with some of the arguments here, which I'll leave for another time. However, he did suggest to me some albums he felt were improved by MQA, which I had a listen through a Chord Hugo 2 direct to headphones (Focal Utopias or Final D8000s) or through my speaker system which, while not super high-end, was enough to determine what I'm about to write about. I do have MQA DACs here I can listen with also, but listening with those didn't change what I experienced. The one album that sounded better with MQA was the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club. Whatever processing they did brings some quieter sounds more forward, which was pleasant. However, the album itself isn't super high resolution in terms of what subtleties are noticeable in the recording, so no loss from the processing. Various classical albums (there are a variety) were wrecked by MQA, the subtle atmospheric details around the instruments obliterated, making everything sound more "one-note". This was very obvious through headphones direct out of the Hugo 2, and may not be noticeable through a complex speaker system that loses some resolution through having multiple components and cables. With regards to timing information being improved by MQA, that is categorically bullshit. With correct timing information, I can hear a good-quality, standard stereo recording of classical appear to come from behind my speakers, which are ~2.5m away from me, with the instrument locations correct in two dimentions. The depth and width of the stereo image are both preserved extremely well with Chord DACs, unlike with others, where the "space" of the stereo image is often compressed front-to-back to one degree or another. When the timing information is preserved, so is the stereo image! Timing is how our brain interprets the location of objects around us. The MQA filters are all short filters of one type or another, and they cannot reproduce a correct spacial representation of a recording. This, both from the science of filters, as well as what is clearly audible when comparing with digital equipment that does it correctly. For example, when you use the short filters with an iFi DAC like the Pro iDSD, even on a non-MQA album, instead of a correct, deep stereo image from this music, instead the instruments are brought unnaturally forward -- on my system it sounds like they are coming from in front of the speakers. While this is more exciting to listen to, especially on headphones, it isn't a proper reproduction. Again, it's enjoyable, but the actual stereo image is clearly not real. A full MQA chain doesn't change this at all! So there isn't a question of "What if Stuart's theory is correct" because there is no "if" involved -- he's abusing a valid science to justify something that has the opposite effect. yahooboy, fas42, MikeyFresh and 3 others 3 3 Link to comment
Popular Post firedog Posted December 19, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted December 19, 2020 Quote the only way to test the time domain claims is with the participation of MQA Ltd. No one here, and not Archimago, has the ability to do so. And of course MQA refuses to let anyone do the test. I think that tells you all you need to know. botrytis, MikeyFresh, lucretius and 1 other 4 Main listening (small home office): Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments. Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three . Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup. Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. All absolute statements about audio are false Link to comment
Popular Post Abtr Posted December 19, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted December 19, 2020 Despite the recent flood of Warner MQA albums on Tidal, I noticed that some previous MQA titles disappeared and were replaced by the original redbook version (e.g., Psycho Tropical Berlin by La Femme: Caroline Records, a Universal France label). So there might still be hope.. lucretius, daverich4 and Currawong 3 Current audio system Link to comment
daverich4 Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 13 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said: Check out his re-tweets. Thanks, not sure why my search didn’t come up with his user name. As a subscriber to TAS for more than 40 years it’s difficult to express how disappointed I am to learn about this. My equipment buying days are pretty much over so I’ve been able to ignore the more over the top reviews of the “next new thing” including MQA but I look forward to the music reviews. More and more of that is online however so after four decades I guess it’s time to move on. Thanks again for the heads up. Link to comment
UkPhil Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 Are 2L actively using MQA in their workflow ? Can anyone confirm if this is what’s happening or are they just releasing MQA as their “go to” delivery streaming format. I am not aware of any other recording studio/ company that use it ? Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted December 19, 2020 Share Posted December 19, 2020 11 minutes ago, UkPhil said: Are 2L actively using MQA in their workflow ? Can anyone confirm if this is what’s happening or are they just releasing MQA as their “go to” delivery streaming format. I am not aware of any other recording studio/ company that use it ? There are no tools. Ask any studio other than 2L. MikeyFresh 1 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
R1200CL Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said: There are no tools. Ask any studio other than 2L. You’re soon convincing me to call him 😀 (or just drop by). As others I thought MQA was used in studio as a real tool in authentication etc. Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 1 hour ago, R1200CL said: You’re soon convincing me to call him 😀 (or just drop by). As others I thought MQA was used in studio as a real tool in authentication etc. Nope. It’s all after the fact sending it off to the big DSP black box in the cloud. botrytis 1 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
Popular Post botrytis Posted December 20, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted December 20, 2020 1 hour ago, R1200CL said: You’re soon convincing me to call him 😀 (or just drop by). As others I thought MQA was used in studio as a real tool in authentication etc. How? In looking there is only one ADC that does MQA, that I found from Mytek. With so many older LP's being converted to MQA, the only way that it is possible is by mass encoding. "They say that they have different MQA for different ADC's used', but that is impossible. The Computer Audiophile and MikeyFresh 2 Current: Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC Pre-amp - Rotel RC-1590 Amplification - Benchmark AHB2 amplifier Speakers - Revel M126Be with 2 REL 7/ti subwoofers Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects Link to comment
Popular Post The Computer Audiophile Posted December 20, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted December 20, 2020 P.S. Ask anyone in a real studio about the MQA DAW plugins they need to actually hear what the DSP will do to their recordings. For all intents and purposes, they are nonexistent. The sound of the studio, except no studio can create it. lucretius and MikeyFresh 2 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
GUTB Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 21 hours ago, Currawong said: I have spent some time recently listening to a variety of TIDAL MQA albums, both the originals (some which required listening via Qobuz) and the MQA versions. I've also done a bit of file analysis, as I have been able to capture the digital output, or get the original TIDAL file (with help from a software developer). I haven't looked at the new MQA 16-bit files on TIDAL yet though. After a long, heated discussion with a friend, who is or was pro-MQA (he didn't know about many of the things discussed here) he discussed some of the issues brought up with friends in pro audio, and there are some issues with some of the arguments here, which I'll leave for another time. However, he did suggest to me some albums he felt were improved by MQA, which I had a listen through a Chord Hugo 2 direct to headphones (Focal Utopias or Final D8000s) or through my speaker system which, while not super high-end, was enough to determine what I'm about to write about. I do have MQA DACs here I can listen with also, but listening with those didn't change what I experienced. The one album that sounded better with MQA was the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club. Whatever processing they did brings some quieter sounds more forward, which was pleasant. However, the album itself isn't super high resolution in terms of what subtleties are noticeable in the recording, so no loss from the processing. Various classical albums (there are a variety) were wrecked by MQA, the subtle atmospheric details around the instruments obliterated, making everything sound more "one-note". This was very obvious through headphones direct out of the Hugo 2, and may not be noticeable through a complex speaker system that loses some resolution through having multiple components and cables. With regards to timing information being improved by MQA, that is categorically bullshit. With correct timing information, I can hear a good-quality, standard stereo recording of classical appear to come from behind my speakers, which are ~2.5m away from me, with the instrument locations correct in two dimentions. The depth and width of the stereo image are both preserved extremely well with Chord DACs, unlike with others, where the "space" of the stereo image is often compressed front-to-back to one degree or another. When the timing information is preserved, so is the stereo image! Timing is how our brain interprets the location of objects around us. The MQA filters are all short filters of one type or another, and they cannot reproduce a correct spacial representation of a recording. This, both from the science of filters, as well as what is clearly audible when comparing with digital equipment that does it correctly. For example, when you use the short filters with an iFi DAC like the Pro iDSD, even on a non-MQA album, instead of a correct, deep stereo image from this music, instead the instruments are brought unnaturally forward -- on my system it sounds like they are coming from in front of the speakers. While this is more exciting to listen to, especially on headphones, it isn't a proper reproduction. Again, it's enjoyable, but the actual stereo image is clearly not real. A full MQA chain doesn't change this at all! So there isn't a question of "What if Stuart's theory is correct" because there is no "if" involved -- he's abusing a valid science to justify something that has the opposite effect. Interesting information. Can you explain what a short filter is and how it impacts time domain performance? MikeyFresh 1 Link to comment
FredericV Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 3 hours ago, GUTB said: Interesting information. Can you explain what a short filter is and how it impacts time domain performance? Designer of the 432 EVO music server and Linux specialist Discoverer of the independent open source sox based mqa playback method with optional one cycle postringing. Link to comment
FredericV Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said: P.S. Ask anyone in a real studio about the MQA DAW plugins they need to actually hear what the DSP will do to their recordings. For all intents and purposes, they are nonexistent. The sound of the studio, except no studio can create it. I found this post and remember MQA stating that they would create such plugin. Does it actually exists, or it is just smoke and mirrors? Also why do we only have one MQA enabled studio ADC? How many MQA releases were created with this MQA enabled Mytek ADC? https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/1182692-mqa-practicalities.html Designer of the 432 EVO music server and Linux specialist Discoverer of the independent open source sox based mqa playback method with optional one cycle postringing. Link to comment
FredericV Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 Found it: https://audioxpress.com/files/attachment/2592 Quote The plug-in is actually more for the studio. Mastering engineers will be able to hear it and not only have the choices on how it folds and the way it folds, but they can hear a 192k file fully unfolded and folded at 96k, folded at 48k, and unfolded to legacy—where someone doesn’t have a decoder. Then they can make those mastering choices and decide creatively if it revealed what they wanted to reveal.It’s an interactive tool in that sense. Does any studio engineer has this tool? R1200CL 1 Designer of the 432 EVO music server and Linux specialist Discoverer of the independent open source sox based mqa playback method with optional one cycle postringing. Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 4 hours ago, FredericV said: Found it: https://audioxpress.com/files/attachment/2592 Does any studio engineer has this tool? I know the person hired to write the plug-in. I can’t say more. If it was actually thing in real studios, you’d be able to add it to any Pro Tools DAW. lucretius 1 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
UkPhil Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 58 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: I know the person hired to write the plug-in. I can’t say more. If it was actually thing in real studios, you’d be able to add it to any Pro Tools DAW. I am assuming the studios would have to have an NDA in place and pay some money every time they to use it ? Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 45 minutes ago, UkPhil said: I am assuming the studios would have to have an NDA in place and pay some money every time they to use it ? No. MQA makes its money off consumers, not studios and content owners. Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
firedog Posted December 20, 2020 Share Posted December 20, 2020 41 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: No. MQA makes its money off consumers, not studios and content owners. And hi-fi manufacturers and audio software companies, no? botrytis 1 Main listening (small home office): Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments. Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three . Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup. Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. All absolute statements about audio are false Link to comment
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