MQA is Vaporware

[manisandher]

I went to Bob Stuart's 30 minute talk at the Munich Show this afternoon. Nothing much that hadn't already been said, except perhaps his insistence that the temporal domain is much more important than the frequency domain (something many of us have believed for years). He quantified it as follows (in his slides):

 

- "time is 5-13x more important than frequency"

- "human discriminate acuity 5 - 8µs"

 

He then equated temporal response with distance travelled through air, showing that both sinc 48kHz and linear phase 192kHz fall far short of that required. MQA meanwhile was shown to be more than good enough.

 

[Apologies if this has all been posted before.]

 

Edit: I took some snaps of his slides, but am reluctant to share for copyright purposes. Found this in a published article though:

 

 

Mani.

[PeterSt]

2 minutes ago, manisandher said:

- "time is 5-13x more important than frequency"

 

Yeah, about that, right ?

 

[Albrecht]

3 hours ago, Sal1950 said:

I don't know and fear you may be right.

But I for one refuse to sit back quietly while Meridian and the labels collude to lock down digital distribution with a form of DRM they think we won't see and not object to. They use claims of improved sound quality over a high sample rate pure pcm file of the original to get those who care about SQ on board.

So now we have a situation where many are listening to a file that sounds "different" and applauding like trained seals over something that sounds different and ignoring the handcuffs locking around their wrists. At my age I'll probably be dead before MQA can make any difference in the big picture

BUT,

 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This is simply a brilliant post. Thank you!!

1. The last thing that we need is another format. Make more DSD files and more SACDs.

2. We all need to fight this with vociferous fury and sarcasm. Whatever we can do to harm Tidal, Meridian, & the other suckling sycophants, can only be a good thing.

3. The FCC and that horrible, cowardly, corporate criminal, Pai; will likely kill Tidal. (Likely the only good result of deregulating the Internets).

[Confused]

35 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

38 minutes ago, manisandher said:

- "time is 5-13x more important than frequency"

 

Yeah, about that, right ?

 

 

Coincidentally, I have calculated that money is 5-13x more important than love, a figure verified by many major record labels.

[crenca]

2 minutes ago, Confused said:

Coincidentally, I have calculated that money is 5-13x more important than love, I figure verified by many major record labels.

 

 

Well of course, everybody knows that.  This just in:  

 

Your interconnect cables are "a ton" more important than your digital encoding method 

[PeterSt]

1 minute ago, Confused said:

Coincidentally, I have calculated that money is 5-13x more important than love, I figure verified by many major record labels.

 

I had about 30 people (from an audio club) over the other day, and one of the reasons was that some local distributor refused to let hear the difference between MQA and "normal". So they heard MQA and had the idea it was fine, but were left with dissatisfaction because of (already) the "refusing" of being able to observe the difference.

I told them nothing else but "listen". 

 

By now I forgot which Led Zeppelin I showed (probably "I can't quit you ...") but at the fairly louder level people stuck fingers in their ears, while, being a car racer, I could have provided them all ear (protection) buds against too much of noise,

At the time they didn't even know this was about MQA because I fooled them by telling that this was about the "Hires" - and they could choose but had to guess first which was and was not hires.

After that I said I was sorry but I had another version prepared.

All chose for this next version which was played at the (prepared) same level.

 

The former was MQA and the latter was Redbook.

The (kind of) unanimous conclusion : See we were conned.

 

Disclaimer : I did not say "by MQA". They just said it and obviously implied the distributor.

I even forgot who that is here in Holland.

[Jud]

31 minutes ago, Albrecht said:

This is simply a brilliant post. Thank you!!

 

And he wrote it himself!

[Confused]

In fairness, I have a 24 bit 'remaster' of Led Zeppelin II that sounds terribly shrill versus a many year old CD version I have of the same.  I'd love to hear a MQA vs 24 bit version of the same master, but these things are difficult to verify.

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

At the time they didn't even know this was about MQA because I fooled them by telling that this was about the "Hires" - and they could choose but had to guess first which was and was not hires.

After that I said I was sorry but I had another version prepared.

All chose for this next version which was played at the (prepared) same level.

 

The former was MQA and the latter was Redbook.

The (kind of) unanimous conclusion : See we were conned.

 

What, you gave them an A/B test and they couldn't tell a difference?  Alert the media!

[mansr]

4 hours ago, manisandher said:

He then equated temporal response with distance travelled through air

Did he provide any scientific explanation for this?

[mansr]

6 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I've been digging for information. That's how I found out companies can avoid using MQA filters.

I'll take your word for it, for now, but it would be nice it you could point to a source for this information. It's the first I've heard of it.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, mansr said:

I'll take your word for it, for now, but it would be nice it you could point to a source for this information. It's the first I've heard of it.

 

I wish I could as well. 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

4 minutes ago, mansr said:

Did he provide any scientific explanation for this?

Did he need to?  There is a scientific concept you may have heard of called the "speed of sound", which relates the distance traveled by sound through an elastic medium, such as air, with time.    Here is the complete scientific explanation:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound

 

Does that help?

 

[Jud]

16 minutes ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Did he need to?  There is a scientific concept you may have heard of called the "speed of sound", which relates the distance traveled by sound through an elastic medium, such as air, with time.    Here is the complete scientific explanation:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound

 

Does that help?

 

 

 

From MQA:

 

"The increasing evidence of acute sensitivity to time/frequency balance and practical experiments showing deterioration in sound quality from steep filters have led Stuart and Craven to conclude that the most appropriate benchmark against which to judge the blurring in a sound reproducing system is air itself. [2]

 

"Air attenuates high frequencies and disperses transients, but in a way that is completely familiar. Can we therefore mimic this behavior to give a 'more natural' system response whose only effect would be to effectively move the listener a short but familiar distance from the source?"

 

They're saying air as a medium produces "temporal blurring," and that it's most appropriate to limit digital filters to this same amount of blurring.

 

I'm not familiar with scientific or engineering proofs of either proposition.  I'm not even sure either proposition is well formulated, i.e., sensible.  It's some scientific or engineering evidence of either that's being asked for.

[Rt66indierock]

4 hours ago, Confused said:

In fairness, I have a 24 bit 'remaster' of Led Zeppelin II that sounds terribly shrill versus a many year old CD version I have of the same.  I'd love to hear a MQA vs 24 bit version of the same master, but these things are difficult to verify.

 

One of my mentors in audio was fond of saying listen to the analog tape later in the day after you recorded it and it will sound different. All those electrons are moving around the moment you finish recording. Imagine the movement between 1969 and when they made the digital master.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

7 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

 

From MQA:

 

"The increasing evidence of acute sensitivity to time/frequency balance and practical experiments showing deterioration in sound quality from steep filters have led Stuart and Craven to conclude that the most appropriate benchmark against which to judge the blurring in a sound reproducing system is air itself. [2]

 

"Air attenuates high frequencies and disperses transients, but in a way that is completely familiar. Can we therefore mimic this behavior to give a 'more natural' system response whose only effect would be to effectively move the listener a short but familiar distance from the source?"

 

They're saying air as a medium produces "temporal blurring," and that it's most appropriate to limit digital filters to this same amount of blurring.

 

I'm not familiar with scientific or engineering proofs of either proposition.  I'm not even sure either proposition is well formulated, i.e., sensible.  It's some scientific or engineering evidence of either that's being asked for.

Makes intuitive sense to me.  Digression:  there is a parallel concept in vision called "atmospheric perspective", where more distant objects are increasingly blurred and robbed of color.  This has been known by artists since the Renaissance, who combined geometric and atmospheric perspective in their 2D paintings to generate a perception of depth that was often uncalnny. 

 

But, what does the reference [2] you quoted say? Shouldn't that explain and provide some basis for your concern?  

 

Why are you and mansr asking us here, when deep scientific questions like this are absolutely not going to get any sensible answers from the likes of us dodos?

[Jud]

33 minutes ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Makes intuitive sense to me.  Digression:  there is a parallel concept in vision called "atmospheric perspective", where more distant objects are increasingly blurred and robbed of color.  This has been known by artists since the Renaissance, who combined geometric and atmospheric perspective in their 2D paintings to generate a perception of depth that was often uncalnny. 

 

But, what does the reference [2] you quoted say? Shouldn't that explain and provide some basis for your concern?  

 

Why are you and mansr asking us here, when deep scientific questions like this are absolutely not going to get any sensible answers from the likes of us dodos?

 

Note this reference is for something Stuart and Craven concluded, so it could be a reference to their statement of the proposition rather than evidence of it.  (I haven't looked yet.)

 

I was explaining what mansr was asking about (whether any evidence of these propositions was given as part of the MQA presentation or in handouts).  Neither of us was asking the folks here, though of course answers from whatever source are welcome, I'm sure.

[Ralf11]

different frequencies are attenuated to different degrees by air - but it is not something over short distances; more like fractions of a mile or so

[esldude]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

 

From MQA:

 

"The increasing evidence of acute sensitivity to time/frequency balance and practical experiments showing deterioration in sound quality from steep filters have led Stuart and Craven to conclude that the most appropriate benchmark against which to judge the blurring in a sound reproducing system is air itself. [2]

 

"Air attenuates high frequencies and disperses transients, but in a way that is completely familiar. Can we therefore mimic this behavior to give a 'more natural' system response whose only effect would be to effectively move the listener a short but familiar distance from the source?"

 

They're saying air as a medium produces "temporal blurring," and that it's most appropriate to limit digital filters to this same amount of blurring.

 

I'm not familiar with scientific or engineering proofs of either proposition.  I'm not even sure either proposition is well formulated, i.e., sensible.  It's some scientific or engineering evidence of either that's being asked for.

For closer miking wouldn't the appropriate familiar distance be 3 inches of air?

[Don Hills]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I wish I could as well. 

 

In which case, all I can do is assign it the same amount of credibility as I find myself having to assign to so much else about MQA. And the amount of salt I'm thus consuming is having a bad effect on my health...

[esldude]

13 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

different frequencies are attenuated to different degrees by air - but it is not something over short distances; more like fractions of a mile or so

About .5 dB per meter at 20 khz.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

In which case, all I can do is assign it the same amount of credibility as I find myself having to assign to so much else about MQA. And the amount of salt I'm thus consuming is having a bad effect on my health...

 

Who you find credible is your decision. If you want to group me into the same category as others who you find lacking credibility, there's nothing I can do to help.

 

My sources of this information have proven to me to be very credible over the years. I believe them. 

[Don Hills]

56 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Who you find credible is your decision. If you want to group me into the same category as others who you find lacking credibility, there's nothing I can do to help.

 

My sources of this information have proven to me to be very credible over the years. I believe them. 

To be clear, I wasn't doubting your credibility. I do believe you were told the information. I can't be so sure about your source. I'd need to know whether they were in a position to know the information, and their motives for divulging it. We're not getting much hard information from MQA.

 

On the actual topic, it could well be that DAC designers can use their own filters, provided that they conform to MQA's filter specifications. It's been the story so far that DAC designers have to submit their DACs and filters to MQA for testing to confirm that the overall response is to MQA specs. What I'm hearing from designers so far is that their own preferred filters do not meet those specs.  If MQA are now willing to relax those specs, allowing DAC designers to do the final unfold while still using their preferred filters, then the final unfold can now also be done in software as the first unfold can. Which in turn removes the need for having an MQA enabled DAC...

[Sal1950]

17 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

Which in turn removes the need for having an MQA enabled DAC...

Hopefully sooner than later this whole business will be reverse engineered.  Hacked and released into the wild by open source coders and designers won't need MQA's permission to build a enabled DAC   

[darkmass]

8 hours ago, PeterSt said:

The former was MQA and the latter was Redbook.

The (kind of) unanimous conclusion : See we were conned.

 

Though well intentioned, that seems reasonably unscientific.

 

The next time you try this, play Redbook first and MQA second.  I've seen it stated (though I cannot provide an exact reference) that in these kinds of tests, people generally say the last thing played is the source listeners claim is the better sounding.

 

Now to be sure, if the promoters are to be believed, MQA should sound better all the time.  However, it you are really trying to determine the truth of the matter, more rigor may be required.