MQA is Vaporware

[mfsoa]

I like minimum phase filters. I was disappointed that the Rotel Michi did not allow selection of filter types, so I needed to confirm that the one chosen was not a linear phase.

 

When comparing MQA vs. non-MQA (if using a linear phase filter), the difference should be at least as great as simply switching between phases on a DAC, I'd guess, which is clearly audible.

 

Seems there should be a pretty clear diff between linear phase non-MQA and MQA given the same master

[Phil Baker]

Whether a sample of people can hear the difference or not is immaterial. I have friends that can't tell the difference between an inexpensive bottle of wine and something much more expensive. I personally can't tell the difference between an 8000 line HDTV and a 4000 line set.  But I wouldn't want to deprive those that can. There will be a small number of experts with trained ears or palates that can tell the difference. There always are in any category. You just can't prove the opposite based on some experiement.  

 

But in reality, none of this matters, because of a more important argument: MQA is a product of lower quality (think cheaper wine, 1000 line HDTV) that is trying to convince others it is actually better and should cost more.  

[John Dyson]

10 hours ago, mfsoa said:

I like minimum phase filters. I was disappointed that the Rotel Michi did not allow selection of filter types, so I needed to confirm that the one chosen was not a linear phase.

 

When comparing MQA vs. non-MQA (if using a linear phase filter), the difference should be at least as great as simply switching between phases on a DAC, I'd guess, which is clearly audible.

 

Seems there should be a pretty clear diff between linear phase non-MQA and MQA given the same master

This is not a commentary on what 'sounds better', because that can be judged only by the listener.  This note simply describes a major reason why the sound can be different between two EQ of different delay characteristics (e.g. minimum phase vs linear phase/constant delay.)

 

The audible difference between linear phase and not-linear phase is mostly dependent on the time delay through the filters, and whether the delay differences vs freq are significant.  A typical minimum phase LP filter will tend have longer delays at one end of the spectrum as opposed to the other end.   Linear phase filters keeps the delay the same.   For just a few taps,  filter of short sample length, then difference in sound should be minor.   For longer filters, the time delay in minimum phase (or non-constant delay filters), being different at different frequencies can sound different.  AFAIR, the higher frequencies are less delayed for minimum phase, therefore the leading highs will probably brighten the sound a barely perceptable amount,perhaps with a subtle change in stereo image, therefore giving a slight difference in sound from a constant delay.   One might claim that the linear phase is more pure, and in some ways is more pure, but on the other hand ALL low pass filters with skirts in the audible region will change the sound.   For some purposes, linear phase (or constant delay) make an engineering design easier or practical, because chasing the variable delays all over the place makes the math a lot more tricky.   For more complex applications, more detailed computer modeling is needed, so whether or not one needs to constrain/simplify the design by using constant delay is more dependent on the available SW development tools.

 

* At low frequencies, the waveshape and how it is modified comes into play, but seems to be at about 500-600Hz or below.  At higher freqs, audible difference is more related to time delays and relative signal levels.

 

(I am giving this info because it sometimes appears, often in other places, there there is some kind of mistery or strange, incorrect reason why EQ will different delay characteristics sound different -- lets not even get started with the fact that Gibbs effect is NOT ringing :-)).

 

 

 

 

[Phil Baker]

15 hours ago, Ryan Berry said:

 

There's a lot of moving parts at play here that make comparative studies extraordinarily difficult compared to comparing other formats, not the least of which has been the obvious alteration of tracks to sound more impressive for reviewers when MQA was pitching their technology.  There was some uncomfortable shuffling when we let them know we have a copy of the original master files from our connections that we were going to use for A-B listening tests.  I felt this was even more to test appropriate at Ayre as we were already using a Minimum Phase filter in our products for years at that point, so there was less chance of being "wow'd" by introducing the filter into a product that may otherwise not have one when switching over to MQA mode.  

I can say that I have yet to hear a single track offered in MQA format that sounds anything like the the equivalent high-rez version from the same album.  I don't know if I've been unfortunate and just picked tracks at random that happen to have had a heavy remastering hand or had something go horribly wrong in the conversion process, but I can spot them instantly as they all suffer from sounding overly bass-inflated and lacking the same level of detail to my ears.  At best, it was "better MP3" to us.  I can also say that I've ran into accidentally listening to a MQA track enough times at this point where I only had to look at the file playing after the first 10-15 seconds to confirm it was one that snuck into a playlist on me in Tidal to feel confident that it's not a case of listener's bias at play.  Listening to the non-MQA version easily confirms this.  Similarly, artists who don't have the "Master" tag, such as Shawn Colvin, never seems to suffer from the same issue.  Why the McGill study find differently, I'm interested in looking into.  The differences were so stark, frankly, that I really haven't followed up much on what others have found since as I expected it would be obvious to any listener as tracks became more available and more companies continue to adopt a similar Minimum Phase filter as an option.

I would trust Ryan before I'd trust any group of listeners. Ayre makes some of the world's finest audio equipment.

[dericchan1]

Just now, Phil Baker said:

I would trust Ryan before I'd trust any group of listeners. Ayre makes some of the world's finest audio equipment.

True but more importantly you should simply trust your ears!!! I tried a brief 15 min session of mqa just to test the functionality of my dac and not going back to it ever

[Phil Baker]

5 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

True but more importantly you should simply trust your ears!!! I tried a brief 15 min session of mqa just to test the functionality of my dac and not going back to it ever

Not if I'm trying to expand my capabilities, skills and knowledge. I learn from experts in all fields.

[JoeWhip]

If you can’t hear a difference with MQA, what is the point as a music consumer? In short, there isn’t any. 

[dericchan1]

1 hour ago, JoeWhip said:

If you can’t hear a difference with MQA, what is the point as a music consumer? In short, there isn’t any. 

The point is you are paying more as a music consumer on something technically inferior because of the silly tax mqa imposed. Some people can’t tell difference between mp3 and hires too but mp3 is cheaper.

 

Say a Honda civic is $30k VS a 3 series BMW is $60k, it may not make much difference to you as a auto consumer simply commuting from point A to point B, but if I am making claims that a Honda Civic is equal to if not better all things considered and asking you to pay $60k for a Honda civic, would you do it?

 

Deric

[JoeWhip]

No and I have no interest in MQA. I would prefer that it disappear.

[James lee]

On 1/17/2022 at 4:10 AM, Revelation said:

All this bitching about MQA....if you don't like, just don't use it. No one is forcing you to use it. It sounds better than Spotify and they have a better catalog than some of the other ones out there that sound slightly different. 

The background of MQA does not seem to be good but if I'm not playing records or CD's Tidal is currently the best option for me. If don't like the Dolby sound effect Apple puts on their music and we have the choice to choose what we want. Trying to get people to change their mind and debate is a waste of time.

Peace!

You can turn of Dolby Atmos in Apple Music

[The Computer Audiophile]

Cleanup in aisle mQa. 

 

Don't waste your time with stuff nobody else wants to read. It'll just get removed.

[Abtr]

On 1/18/2022 at 1:22 AM, Ryan Berry said:

...
I can say that I have yet to hear a single track offered in MQA format that sounds anything like the the equivalent high-rez version from the same album.  I don't know if I've been unfortunate and just picked tracks at random that happen to have had a heavy remastering hand or had something go horribly wrong in the conversion process, but I can spot them instantly as they all suffer from sounding overly bass-inflated and lacking the same level of detail to my ears.  At best, it was "better MP3" to us.

My original response to your post has fallen victim of otherwise justifiable moderation ridding the forum of some increasingly irrelevant interaction. I'm still left with the basic question though which I think is appropriate and not off-topic (else I trust this post will be removed). What do people who hear *clear* differences between MQA and e.g. redbook actually hear? I'm not saying that you don't hear what you describe you hear, I will only suggest that what you hear may actually be different masters, i.e., not the (very real) artifacts of MQA processing an sich. And I'm of course open to other suggestions/explanations.

 

IMO people hearing a difference between MQA and the original master must be hearing the aliasing and ringing added by MQA which allegedly can give a false sense of detail and a softening of transients respectively. If at all audible, in the case of MQA this difference should be (very) subtle. You say MQA is overly bass-inflated and lacks detail. That doesn't sound like a subtle difference, it sounds more like EQ, i.e. a different master, which should be visible as such in the analog frequency spectrum.

 

I regularly listen to 96, or 88.2 kHz MQA streamed from Tidal through a non-MQA-enabled DAC using a minimum phase filter (short delay slow). I never heard an MQA-enabled DAC playing 'higher-rez' MQA (second unfold) and I will not buy one to try it. So this may be an important difference in the way we listen to and evaluate MQA. Anyway, if I compare 96 or 88.2 MQA to redbook from the same master, I generally can't distinguish them in a blind test. And in my admittedly limited experience with high-rez (24/192) I found that most high-rez is remastered and sounds indeed clearly different (not necessarily better) from the redbook version. This may explain some of the difference you hear since many MQA releases use the same master as the available redbook version.

 

Sometimes there is a clearly audible difference between MQA and redbook. For example the Steely Dan album Gaucho. The redbook version sounds much better to my ears than the MQA version (both versions are on Tidal). The MQA version is from the 24/96 master with a DR of 9 while the 16/44.1 version has DR 15! The fact that different masters were used is obvious and very audible. But when I compare e.g. the recently MQA-ed version of Alice in Chaines' MTV unplugged with the original CD (which is clearly from the same master), played through the same DAC, then I can't distinguish them in a blind test.
 

On 1/18/2022 at 1:22 AM, Ryan Berry said:

I can also say that I've ran into accidentally listening to a MQA track enough times at this point where I only had to look at the file playing after the first 10-15 seconds to confirm it was one that snuck into a playlist on me in Tidal to feel confident that it's not a case of listener's bias at play.  Listening to the non-MQA version easily confirms this.  Similarly, artists who don't have the "Master" tag, such as Shawn Colvin, never seems to suffer from the same issue.

...

I experienced this a few times when Tidal replaced the redbook track that I was used to with an MQA track from a different master. But, again, I generally hear no difference between MQA tracks and redbook tracks from the same master. By the way, my Tidal desktop app (macOS) frequently stalls when it switches from a non-MQA track to MQA in playlists. This is of course ridiculous and annoying and it makes unbiased listening to the MQA tracks more difficult. 

[Iving]

4 minutes ago, Abtr said:

I'm still left with the basic question ... What do people who hear *clear* differences between MQA and e.g. redbook actually hear?

 

Just a suggestion - Brian Lucey is a respected mastering engineer - yes - he works for Neil Young who's not fond of mQa - Lucey has a view about how mQa differs - he says inter alia "It’s distorted. Messes with eq and mid side balance". The whole thread for the whole view.

 

5 minutes ago, Abtr said:

I can't distinguish them in a blind test.

 

If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, then blind test challenges are the spurious resort of dogmatists. Blind tests are great for a particular purpose - establishing beyond reasonable doubt differences between conditions. But they are mostly irrelevant to the sensitive ears of individual audiophiles simply trying to build at-home systems without lab resources, a willing and co-operative bank of listening subjects, their travel expenses, the time to conduct such tests - or the inclination to do so - especially accommodating the inevitably ensuing design & procedure challenges from sceptics - no matter how robust the experiment. There isn't enough intellectual goodwill in the mix. Who cares.

 

6 minutes ago, Abtr said:

it makes unbiased listening to the MQA tracks more difficult. 

 

For myself I have no interest in "unbiased listening" to mQa because I can't and don't want to get out of the starting blocks. imo it's a commercially corrupt venture which has no compensating merits.

[Abtr]

On 1/24/2022 at 2:10 PM, Iving said:

Just a suggestion - Brian Lucey is a respected mastering engineer - yes - he works for Neil Young who's not fond of mQa - Lucey has a view about how mQa differs - he says inter alia "It’s distorted. Messes with eq and mid side balance". The whole thread for the whole view.

As I said, if the same master is used then I personally don't hear a difference, and I don't personally know anyone who does. Brian Lucy used to use tube amps to power his studio monitors and his masterings used to be much too loud (compressed/limited) for my taste. Possibly his ears hear subtle distortion and EQ-ing in mQa that I can't hear. But I have my doubts about that. In the same thread someone called mQa "worse, but inaudibly worse". I tend to agree with that.

 

On 1/24/2022 at 2:10 PM, Iving said:

If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, then blind test challenges are the spurious resort of dogmatists. Blind tests are great for a particular purpose - establishing beyond reasonable doubt differences between conditions. But they are mostly irrelevant to the sensitive ears of individual audiophiles simply trying to build at-home systems without lab resources, a willing and co-operative bank of listening subjects, their travel expenses, the time to conduct such tests - or the inclination to do so - especially accommodating the inevitably ensuing design & procedure challenges from sceptics - no matter how robust the experiment. There isn't enough intellectual goodwill in the mix. Who cares.

To do a blind test you only need someone to switch sources for you. And you don't have to convince me, convince yourself, before stating on a forum that mQa sounds clearly audibly worse than PCM.

 

On 1/24/2022 at 2:10 PM, Iving said:

For myself I have no interest in "unbiased listening" to mQa because I can't and don't want to get out of the starting blocks. imo it's a commercially corrupt venture which has no compensating merits.

I too want mQa to disappear, for the same reasons you do. But IMO this goal is not getting any closer by stating how bad mQa sounds, which is easily verifiably false and may do more harm than good. If it was true I don't think mQa would be where it is today. Let's stay with real technical and commercial arguments against the mQa lies.

[Iving]

6 minutes ago, Abtr said:

I too want mQa to disappear, for the same reasons you do. But IMO this goal is not getting any closer by stating how bad mQa sounds, which is easily verifiably false and may do more harm than good. If it was true I don't think mQa would be where it is today. Let's stay with real technical and commercial arguments against the mQa lies.

 

Very reasonable, balanced remarks. Thank you

 

Perhaps we near agreement that one rarely if ever improves something by fiddling about with it for the wrong reasons. iow you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear.

 

I don't mind what people say about what they hear either way. I'm more inclined to find a "garbage" report compelling than "ooh that sounds nice and the pretty blue light makes me feel all squishy" . Hypothetical of course. I've never heard anybody say that. But that's what Lucey thinks "audiophiles" are like. And I do regret that.

[mrjktcvs]

MQA is in business for one reason -- to separate us from our money. Another facet of their plans involves record companies that want to sell us another copy of something we already own, via encoded discs. This reminds me of the European model of taxation. The manufacturers are taxed, who pass that off to the losers in this scheme: the  consumers.

[GregWormald]

I'm just having a conversation with a music lover who knows almost nothing about streaming formats except that both Spotify hi res and Tidal Master both sound worse than his own ripped copies, CDs and Qobuz.

[Abtr]

12 hours ago, GregWormald said:

I'm just having a conversation with a music lover who knows almost nothing about streaming formats except that both Spotify hi res and Tidal Master both sound worse than his own ripped copies, CDs and Qobuz.

That's highly unlikely unless he uses different digital hardware to stream these different media/services. And *always* galvanically isolate your DAC from your computer/streamer.

[Rt66indierock]

14 hours ago, GregWormald said:

I'm just having a conversation with a music lover who knows almost nothing about streaming formats except that both Spotify hi res and Tidal Master both sound worse than his own ripped copies, CDs and Qobuz.

 

Spotify hi res doesn't exist and according to Forbes Spotify Hi Fi is in development hell. A Hollywood term, we may never see it.

[Rt66indierock]

Ten more days til the MQA Limited 2020 financial statements are posted. Time get a Dear Jim Austin post ready for Audio Asylum and Bill (Leebens) and Ted's (Green Strata-gee) MQA Misadventure post or article finished. 

[Archimago]

11 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

Ten more days til the MQA Limited 2020 financial statements are posted. Time get a Dear Jim Austin post ready for Audio Asylum and Bill (Leebens) and Ted's (Green Strata-gee) MQA Misadventure post or article finished. 

 

Hmmm... This could be interesting. Wonder how much money they (likely) lost and how much the directors withdrew ;-).

 

Do you know if the reports typically itemize income sources like for example TIDAL streaming side, or hardware licensing for the ESS chips that incorporate mQa filtering?

 

Too bad only to Dec 2020. I suspect late 2021 would be even more interesting and into 2022 after TIDAL splits into HiFi and HiFi+ tiers.

[Stereo]

2 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

Hmmm... This could be interesting. Wonder how much money they (likely) lost and how much the directors withdrew ;-).

 

Do you know if the reports typically itemize income sources like for example TIDAL streaming side, or hardware licensing for the ESS chips that incorporate mQa filtering?

 

Too bad only to Dec 2020. I suspect late 2021 would be even more interesting and into 2022 after TIDAL splits into HiFi and HiFi+ tiers.

What is worrying is how many people that may be leaving Spotify for Tidal due to Neil Young and now Joni Mitchell as well as the attention Tidal is getting which is potential for MQA to gain money. Maybe not enough to be viable but it’s heading in the wrong direction.

[RichardSF]

3 hours ago, Archimago said:

Do you know if the reports typically itemize income sources like for example TIDAL streaming side, or hardware licensing for the ESS chips that incorporate mQa filtering?

There is little detail. After all, these are financial statements for the government, not like an annual report of a publicly traded company for shareholders and investors.

You can find filings for MQA Ltd. here: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09123512/filing-history

Here is their filing for the year ending 2019: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09123512/filing-history/MzI4NzY4NTAzMmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0

 

You can look up various well known UK audio companies (Naim Audio, Linn Products, Harbeth Audio, etc). For someone like me in the tech industry, their financials are shockingly tiny.

 

[mevdinc]

So sorry to hear Neil's music is no longer available on Spotify, as I've been using the service for over a year now!
Neil is one of my favourite song writers, so many great songs.
Oh well, I have almost all his stuff locally available, it's not a massive loss. But if I were to leave Spotify I'd not be going back to Tidal, that's for sure. There's always Qobuz as a viable alternative.

[Rt66indierock]

8 hours ago, Stereo said:

What is worrying is how many people that may be leaving Spotify for Tidal due to Neil Young and now Joni Mitchell as well as the attention Tidal is getting which is potential for MQA to gain money. Maybe not enough to be viable but it’s heading in the wrong direction.

Why? Neil Young pulled his music from Tidal last year because of MQA. The post is still on his website. And after Tidal's false information about subscriber and streaming numbers. I'm not believing a press release from them.