Popular Post nycaudiolistener Posted June 15, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 15, 2021 Hello. First post. I have not read all 929 pages of comments and my comment may be duplicative and/or redundant, but I played some songs with Apple lossless and Tidal MQA on an MQA-approved DAC and headphones, in a quiet room, for a professional person who has ears unlike anyone else I have ever met in my entire life. No details about the person. This person could immediately identify the differences between lossless and MQA. They greatly preferred the lossless. Basically, the person told me that they believe MQA is using something like sidechained 32-band compressors to realign very short differences in time between different frequencies along with a time-stretching tool that shortens or extends the waveform at various frequencies to make up for the slip and slide of the timing of various frequencies. To this person’s ears, the artifact of this process is that, for example, a snare drum sounds different in different parts of a song, depending on what else is going on, what other instruments are playing, in different parts of the song. Whereas, on the lossless file, the snare drum sounds the same throughout the song. In this person’s opinion, which they were clear, could be completely wrong, and was based on listening to only two songs, from the same artist, is that MQA is modifying the lossless files in a way that is very noticeable as well as being computationally difficult and technologically impressive, from an engineering perspective. They also said they hated it and liked the lossless better. I, on the other hand, prefer the MQA, probably because I like the more “percussive” nature of the processing imposed on the music. To each their own. But, definitely, under no circumstance, is MQA “lossless”… rather, it is a heavily processed remaster of the actual master. Peace! kumakuma, botrytis, fas42 and 2 others 4 1 Link to comment
Popular Post mevdinc Posted June 15, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 15, 2021 1 hour ago, nycaudiolistener said: Hello. First post. I have not read all 929 pages of comments and my comment may be duplicative and/or redundant, but I played some songs with Apple lossless and Tidal MQA on an MQA-approved DAC and headphones, in a quiet room, for a professional person who has ears unlike anyone else I have ever met in my entire life. No details about the person. This person could immediately identify the differences between lossless and MQA. They greatly preferred the lossless. Basically, the person told me that they believe MQA is using something like sidechained 32-band compressors to realign very short differences in time between different frequencies along with a time-stretching tool that shortens or extends the waveform at various frequencies to make up for the slip and slide of the timing of various frequencies. To this person’s ears, the artifact of this process is that, for example, a snare drum sounds different in different parts of a song, depending on what else is going on, what other instruments are playing, in different parts of the song. Whereas, on the lossless file, the snare drum sounds the same throughout the song. In this person’s opinion, which they were clear, could be completely wrong, and was based on listening to only two songs, from the same artist, is that MQA is modifying the lossless files in a way that is very noticeable as well as being computationally difficult and technologically impressive, from an engineering perspective. They also said they hated it and liked the lossless better. I, on the other hand, prefer the MQA, probably because I like the more “percussive” nature of the processing imposed on the music. To each their own. But, definitely, under no circumstance, is MQA “lossless”… rather, it is a heavily processed remaster of the actual master. Peace! Plus the MQA sounds 3+ db louder, which also makes the music sound more impressive/dynamic or as you put it, more 'percussive'. Which I found it to be fatiguing after a while. As a result I always preferred the non-MQA versions. lamode, Currawong and botrytis 3 mevdinc.com (My autobiography) Recently sold my ATC EL 150 Actives! Link to comment
nycaudiolistener Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 I adjusted the volume of the Apple lossless up one "click" to compensate for that. Like I was saying, the person's ears told them that MQA was literally changing the music, by modifying the time alignment of sounds at different frequencies, and calling it "impulse response repair", in order to collect royalties. It's actually kind of amazing people have bought it hook, line, and sinker as a "repair" of "digital blurring" when, in fact, it's "repairing" musicians timing. Sigh. The songs used for comparison were Stressed Out and Jumpsuit, by the way. Currawong 1 Link to comment
nycaudiolistener Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 They also said the panning on the MQA seemed more centered than the lossless. Currawong 1 Link to comment
nycaudiolistener Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 In summary, if digital is inherently "unnatural" more digital doesn't make it more "natural." botrytis 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Rt66indierock Posted June 15, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 15, 2021 6 minutes ago, nycaudiolistener said: In summary, if digital is inherently "unnatural" more digital doesn't make it more "natural." Digital isn't inherently unnatural. The MQA encoding process thins the edges of the soundstage and deepens the center, All well known years before you ever heard of MQA. The vast majority of recording and mastering engineers have rejected it. And the only ADC with MQA is now a legacy product. It almost looks like a few folks in NYC got suckered by MQA and they think well if I like it must be good. I just got back from the T.H.E. Show in Long Beach, CA, only sunny Components was demoing MQA becasue nobody else cares. botrytis, nycaudiolistener, Archimago and 2 others 4 1 Link to comment
nycaudiolistener Posted June 15, 2021 Share Posted June 15, 2021 Yup. Sounds about right. I hear that! Link to comment
Popular Post FredericV Posted June 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 16, 2021 The fact that this question is being raised ... opus101 and Currawong 2 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
Popular Post Archimago Posted June 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 16, 2021 7 hours ago, Rt66indierock said: Digital isn't inherently unnatural. The MQA encoding process thins the edges of the soundstage and deepens the center, All well known years before you ever heard of MQA. The vast majority of recording and mastering engineers have rejected it. And the only ADC with MQA is now a legacy product. It almost looks like a few folks in NYC got suckered by MQA and they think well if I like it must be good. I just got back from the T.H.E. Show in Long Beach, CA, only sunny Components was demoing MQA becasue nobody else cares. Nice. Apathy at this point is exactly what mQa deserves from the "high end" industry as more and more audiophiles are educated about its nature and this feeds back on a waning desirability of the product even if discussions online might get a little heated. Companies will only include the feature if it appears that having the logo on the box actually translates to more sales. Let's see if mQa tries to create more buzz in an attempt at attracting attention and relevance. I see JVS doing his thing with the Sunny Components Stereophile report. "Extra clarity delivered by MQA rendered the musical experience more alive and involving". Sure... 🥱 Hugo9000, March Audio, MikeyFresh and 1 other 4 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post lucretius Posted June 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 16, 2021 1 hour ago, Archimago said: Companies will only include the feature if it appears that having the logo on the box actually translates to more sales. Why don't we just say that MQA is dead! Let that permeate the internet. That should translate to less sales. Teresa, MikeyFresh, March Audio and 3 others 6 mQa is dead! Link to comment
Daren F Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 10 hours ago, lucretius said: Why don't we just say that MQA is dead! Let that permeate the internet. That should translate to less sales. Is Tidal going to go down with the sinking ship? Link to comment
Popular Post Confused Posted June 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 16, 2021 16 minutes ago, Daren F said: Is Tidal going to go down with the sinking ship? It remains very popular amongst Roon users. Maybe the good ship Tidal would sail on a little longer if it were to throw MQA overboard? lucretius, Daren F and MikeyFresh 3 Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade. Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones. Link to comment
Popular Post pdvm Posted June 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 16, 2021 1 hour ago, Confused said: It remains very popular amongst Roon users. Maybe the good ship Tidal would sail on a little longer if it were to throw MQA overboard? I hope it sinks, and Qobuz picks up the castaways. lamode, MikeyFresh and Jeff_N 3 Link to comment
Currawong Posted June 16, 2021 Share Posted June 16, 2021 On 6/16/2021 at 1:04 AM, nycaudiolistener said: Hello. First post. I have not read all 929 pages of comments and my comment may be duplicative and/or redundant, but I played some songs with Apple lossless and Tidal MQA on an MQA-approved DAC and headphones, in a quiet room, for a professional person who has ears unlike anyone else I have ever met in my entire life. No details about the person. This person could immediately identify the differences between lossless and MQA. They greatly preferred the lossless. Basically, the person told me that they believe MQA is using something like sidechained 32-band compressors to realign very short differences in time between different frequencies along with a time-stretching tool that shortens or extends the waveform at various frequencies to make up for the slip and slide of the timing of various frequencies. To this person’s ears, the artifact of this process is that, for example, a snare drum sounds different in different parts of a song, depending on what else is going on, what other instruments are playing, in different parts of the song. Whereas, on the lossless file, the snare drum sounds the same throughout the song. In this person’s opinion, which they were clear, could be completely wrong, and was based on listening to only two songs, from the same artist, is that MQA is modifying the lossless files in a way that is very noticeable as well as being computationally difficult and technologically impressive, from an engineering perspective. They also said they hated it and liked the lossless better. I, on the other hand, prefer the MQA, probably because I like the more “percussive” nature of the processing imposed on the music. To each their own. But, definitely, under no circumstance, is MQA “lossless”… rather, it is a heavily processed remaster of the actual master. Peace! Thank you for taking the time to do this. If your professional friend is willing to share any more impressions, they would be most welcome. I've been waiting for such a person to do something like this for some time. I had guessed that a seasoned professional would be able to take a good guess at what was being done to the music. On 6/16/2021 at 3:21 AM, nycaudiolistener said: In summary, if digital is inherently "unnatural" more digital doesn't make it more "natural." It's rather like tweaking a photo to make it pop I guess. It's very visible to me when people oversaturate the colours in photos to make them pop. Looks impressive to the untrained eye, but the experienced one can see it isn't representative of the reality. 7 hours ago, Confused said: It remains very popular amongst Roon users. Maybe the good ship Tidal would sail on a little longer if it were to throw MQA overboard? If you want to kill MQA dead, you'd reverse-engineer whatever processing they were actually doing and make something similar freely available. Hence my comments on it sounding like it has been run in through a 3D plug-in. nycaudiolistener provided a better potential analysis. Lately people have been talking about pre-upsampling music with software that uses a million tap or better sync filter. Why not something similar for people who want an "MQA effect" on any music they choose? Might require some serious programming effort though. Link to comment
Popular Post jparvio Posted June 17, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 17, 2021 To put our mouth where the money is; journalism is NOT DEAD, at least in the free World. Against normal protocols I decided to publish here this months Editorial from our Editor-in-Chief. Remove if necessary. For those who don't do Finnish (what a shame), headline translates more or less to "The scam of master proportions": lamode, MikeyFresh, Archimago and 4 others 2 3 2 Jussi Arvio Contributing Editor Hifimaailma Magazine Link to comment
Popular Post Fokus Posted June 17, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 17, 2021 On 6/15/2021 at 6:04 PM, nycaudiolistener said: they believe MQA is using something like sidechained 32-band compressors to realign very short differences in time between different frequencies along with a time-stretching tool that shortens or extends the waveform at various frequencies to make up for the slip and slide of the timing of various frequencies. Well ... that's not at all how MQA works. For hi-res sources MQA uses three basic techniques: 1) downsampling/upsampling with very lazy filters to turn 192/384k sources into 96k. 2) folding to house a 96k source in a 48k container 3) all-pass filtering at the cut-off of the original anti-alias filtering to move any original pre-ringing behind the main impulse. For lo-res sources only 3) is done. botrytis and MikeyFresh 2 Link to comment
Popular Post Fokus Posted June 17, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 17, 2021 1 hour ago, jparvio said: For those who don't do Finnish (what a shame), headline translates more or less to "The scam of master proportions": Nice title. MikeyFresh and botrytis 2 Link to comment
Popular Post Confused Posted June 17, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 17, 2021 I'm sorry, but the author of the above article appears to have used his real name, and indeed has included a photograph of himself. I refuse to acknowledge any anti-MQA material unless the author is is truly anonymous or using some kind of fancy sorcerer pseudonym. r0dd3r5, svart-hvitt, Currawong and 6 others 1 8 Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade. Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones. Link to comment
GregWormald Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 3 hours ago, jparvio said: To put our mouth where the money is; journalism is NOT DEAD, at least in the free World. Against normal protocols I decided to publish here this months Editorial from our Editor-in-Chief. Remove if necessary. For those who don't do Finnish (what a shame), headline translates more or less to "The scam of master proportions": I've got a nice Finnish-->english translator that would work if there was a text version of that. Link to comment
Popular Post Marco Klobas Posted June 17, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 17, 2021 Finnish text should be the following: Quote Hifin perusperiaate on alkuperäisen äänen säilyttäminen mahdollisimman muuttumattomana. Äänitteen matkalla esityksestä toistolaitteistoon on monta vaihetta, jossa tulos voi muuttua. Yksi merkittävimmistä on äänisignaalin pakkaus. Siinä missä rehellisesti häviöllisen mp3-pakkauksen toimintaa on tutkittu laajalti, vallitsee MQA:n ympärillä hämyisiä pilviä. Kaikki voivat kokeila miten mp3-pakkaus vaikuttaa musiikin toistoon. Sama ei ole mahdollista MQA:lla. Ongelma on, että suljettua ja patentoitua pakkausmenotelmää ei päästä kunnolla testaamaan, koska ohjelmia ei ole saatavilla. MQA on keskitetty taho, joka tekee suljettujen ovien takana salamyhkäisiä temppuja. Hommasta peritään lisensointimaksuja niin studioilta kuin hifilaitevalrnistajilta ja striimauspalveluiltakin. Hinta jää viime kädessä harrastajien maksettavaksi. Ja hyöty ruljanssista on vähintään kyseenalainen. Pakkauksen nimessä teknologiaa on turha hehkuttaa, sillä yhteydet riittävät helposti oikeasti häviöttömien flac-tiedostojen siirtoon. Eikä MQA edes merkitävästi pienennä tiedostokokoa, vaan voi cd-tasoisilla äänitteillä jopa kasvattaa sitä. Tidalin markkinointi sen master-äänitteille on harhaanjohtavaa. Palavelun mukaan master-äänitteet ovat laadultaan nimensä mukaisesti alkuperäisen studiomasterin tasoisia. Näin ei tuitenkaan ole, sillä MQA-pakkaus heikentää riippumattomien testaajien mukaan Tidaliin siirrettyjen äänitteiden laatua (lähde: youtube.com/watch?v=pRjsu9-Vznc). MQA on kommentoinut testejä väittämällä, äettä pakkaus toimii vain musiikilla, ei testisignaaleilla. Neil Young veti koko tuotantonsa pois Tidalista alkuvuodesta, kun hän huomasi, että palveluun lähetetyt cd-tasoiset biisit oli pakattu erikuuloisiksi ja merkitty master-äänitteiksi. Hän kommentoi tapausta blogipostauksessaan sivustolla neilyoungarchives.com näin: "TIDAL is calling their files of my songs Masters. But Tidal's MQA files are not my masters. I make my masters – not TIDAL. I don't need some hocus-pocus file manipulation that claims to improve my work.” Da-muuntimen MQA-valon pitäisi ilmaista, että se vastaanottaa alkuperäistä studiotason signaalia, mutta ei esimerkiksi ota kantaa siihen onko toistettava äänite cd-tasoista vai hiresiä. MQA-valo saattaa myös testien mukaan palaa, vaikka alkuperäistä MQA-signaalia olisi matkalla peukaloitu ties kuinka paljon. Valo on siis silmänlumetta, joka ei takaa bittien oikeellisuutta eikä missään nimessä masteroijan näkemystä. Tidalin sijaan kannattaa siirtyä palveluihin, jotka tarjoavat musiikkia alkuperäisessä muodossa häviöttömästi, oli se sitten cd- tai hires-tasoista. Näitä ovat esimerkiksi Deezer ja juuri suomeen rantautunut Qobuz (sivu 20). Itse irtisanoin oman Tidal-tilaukseni. Itsekkäästi en enää anna mitään painoarvoa MQA-tuelle hifilaitteissa, jotta laitevalmistajat eivät kokisi lisenssiä pakolliseksi, ja saisin kamppeita itse halvemmalla. English automatic translation (Amazon Translate): Quote The basic principle of Hi-Fi is to keep the original sound as unchanged as possible. There are many stages in the way of the recording from the performance to the playback apparatus where the result can change. One of the most notable is the compression of the audio signal. Where the operation of the frankly lossy mp3 pack has been widely studied, there are baffling clouds around mqa. Everyone can experiment with how mp3 compression affects music playback. The same is not possible with MQA. Problem is, the closed and patented packaging expenditure won't get properly tested because programs aren't available. MQA is a centralized entity that performs secretive tricks behind closed doors. Licensing fees are levied on studios as well as hiphilis rents and streaming services. The price will ultimately be left to hobbyists. And the benefit of ruljance is at least questionable. In the name of the compression, the technology is pointless to glow, as connections are easily enough to transfer truly lossless Flac files. And MQA doesn't even markably reduce the file size, but can with cd level recordings even increase it. Tidal's marketing of its master recordings is misleading. According to Palavelu, the master recordings are of the standard of the original studio master in their quality. This is not the case, as the MQA compression reduces the quality of recordings transferred to Tidal, according to independent testers (source: youtube.com/ watch?v=prjsu9 -vznc). MQA has commented on the tests by claiming that compression only works with music, not test signals. Neil Young pulled his entire production off Tidal early in the year when he discovered that the CD level songs sent to the service were packaged as different hearing and marked as master recordings. He commented on the incident in his blog post on the site neilyoungarchives.com thus: “TIDAL is calling their files of my songs masters. But Tidal's MQA files are not my masters. I make my masters — not TIDAL. I don't need some hocus-pocus file manipulation that claims to improve my work.” The MQA light on the DA converter should indicate that it receives the original studio level signal, but does not, for example, take a position on whether the recording is to be played from cd levels or hires. The MQA light might also be lit, according to tests, even if the original mqa signal has been tampered with in god knows how much. Light, therefore, is an eyesore that does not guarantee the correctness of the bits and by no means the view of the masterer. Instead of Tidal, you might want to switch to services that offer music in the original format lossless, be it from cd or hires levels. These include Deezer and Qobuz, which was just beached in Finland (page 20). I personally laid off my own Tidal order. Selfishly, I no longer give any weight to MQA support in hiphilates so that device manufacturers wouldn't find the license mandatory, and I'd get the rig myself cheaper. MikeyFresh, MarkusBarkus, GregWormald and 4 others 4 3 Link to comment
Fast and Bulbous Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 Kiitos paljon! (Mina puhun Suomea vahan) Vahan! jparvio 1 Link to comment
Marco Klobas Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 Olet tervetullut! 🙂 jparvio 1 Link to comment
pdvm Posted June 17, 2021 Share Posted June 17, 2021 4 hours ago, Marco Klobas said: hiphilis 😂 sounds like a 19th century disease… lucretius 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Marco Klobas Posted June 17, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 17, 2021 1 minute ago, pdvm said: sounds like a 19th century disease… Hiphilis or Hi-Fi-lis is an infectious disease spread by a virus called audiophilis. Symptoms are: uncontrolled desire to change continuously audio gear, maniacal positioning of speakers and listening spots, cables delirium, violent analog/digital or solid state/tubes arguments and hearing hallucinations. Sometimes it leads to tinnitus, making the patient even more irascible. No cure has been found so far. Iving, Currawong, r0dd3r5 and 6 others 2 7 Link to comment
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