My Questions and Answers (MQA): An Interview with Andreas Koch

[Fitzcaraldo215]

3 hours ago, labjr said:

I think he's just an MQA fan who's a bit overzealous. He's also on a couple other forums. And apparently English is not his first language. 

 

But I don't know why anyone would disregard the opinion of Andreas Koch. He's a very brilliant man.

I agree, Koch is brilliant.  But, so is Stuart.  They just happen to disagree.

 

The annals of history are filled with brilliant men who just disagreed:  Edison and Tesla, Newton and Leibniz, me and my high scool teachers, etc.

[mansr]

Just now, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I agree, Koch is brilliant.  But, so is Stuart.  They just happen to disagree.

 

The annals of history are filled with brilliant men who just disagreed:  Edison and Tesla, Newton and Leibniz, me and my high scool teachers, etc.

History has shown that Tesla was right, but Edison had the better PR machine, just as Stuart does now with MQA.

[labjr]

1 minute ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I agree, Koch is brilliant.  But, so is Stuart.  They just happen to disagree.

 

The annals of history are filled with brilliant men who just disagreed:  Edison and Tesla, Newton and Leibniz, me and my high scool teachers, etc.

I don't think they disagree. They both know where the problems lie with DSD and PCM. But Bob Stuart is cleverly talking out of both sides of his mouth here. Now many people, including Andreas Koch, are calling him out on it.

[Samuel T Cogley]

1 hour ago, PeterV said:

Well.. I am again surprised.., strange question 'Am I being paid by MQA..' would be nice, but no, not at all. I am not a troll either, but just a critical audiophile, who is not easily convinced.

 

Can you elaborate on why you believe that MQA is a "stunning innovation", and "disruptive"?  What precisely is so stunning about it and how is it disruptive?

[crenca]

Just now, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Can you elaborate on why you believe that MQA is a "stunning innovation", and "disruptive"?  What precisely is so stunning about it and how is it disruptive?

 

It is a safe bet your going to regret asking those questions...

[Samuel T Cogley]

5 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

It is a safe bet your going to regret asking those questions...

 

I'm just hoping for a deviation from the boiler plate marketing copy I've seen so far.  Believe it or not, I want people like @Jud to be correct about "how the world really is".  But the evidence I see is scant.

[labjr]

1 hour ago, PeterV said:

Well.. I am again surprised.., strange question 'Am I being paid by MQA..' would be nice, but no, not at all. I am not a troll either, but just a critical audiophile, who is not easily convinced.

 

What the heck were we thinking!!

 

Something new exists that most people haven't had a chance to hear or compare. Most experts tells us that it's a bad idea for many reasons. But you're gaga over it and repeating all the marketing buzzwords in every forum. 

 

 

[jhwalker]

13 minutes ago, labjr said:

 

What the heck were we thinking!!

 

Something new exists that most people haven't had a chance to hear or compare. Most experts tells us that it's a bad idea for many reasons. But you're gaga over it and repeating all the marketing buzzwords in every forum. 

 

 

 

"Most people haven't had a chance to hear or compare" - whose fault is that?  It's very easy to hear and compare.

 

"Most experts . . . " - no, they don't.  Some experts say it's good, some don't.

 

"gaga over it" - again, exaggeration.  

 

"marketing buzzwords" - maybe just opinion?  

 

"every forum" - really, *every* forum?

 

Come on, these personal attacks are unnecessary.

[bogi]

12 hours ago, PeterV said:

MQA is capable to repair the temporal blur of PCM recordings to a very large extend.

 

Thanks, I am doing it with HQPlayer filters already some years without any need of marketing agenda and DRM features. I want to use DAC and software player of my choice.

[PeterV]

Well..let me explain why my impression of MQA is so positive that I am using these words 'stunning'  and 'disruptive'

My first encounter with MQA was at home. I have a NAD C390DD dac/amp and a BlueOS module and some vintage, but very fine Wilson Audio WP 5.0 loudspeakers. All MQA updates about 3-4 Months ago went flawlessly and I was off course eager to hear what it brought in comparison to other sources like USB direct ( up to 24/192) , 16/44 CD and normal FLAC streams. When a very familiar album like Pink Floyd's 'The Division Bell' is played, the first tones of the cymbals on 'Cluster One'is so much different than I heard from all other formats and sources and so much more natural, normal, that it really stuns me..

With disruptive I mean that all the fuzz and buzz which MQA is causing amongst 'non-believers'and scepticists and reading their arguments and then start checking their background, well.. it raises my eyebrows quite high.. The Xivero guys, who are also raising questions about the quality of MQA and desperately started writing a hypothesis paper, well just check their website.. It is a very interesting company selling a lot of fine DSP audio related software. In between the lines of criticizing MQA, stating that it is just a 17 bit resolution, lossy software, they are promoting their own solution.. That is fine, but it raises the paper and their points-of-view towards MQA into a different perspective.

The same counts for mr. Koch, who is indeed a very respected engineer and one of the founders of DSD. Yes, streaming via internet in DSD should be feasible, certainly when 4K vidieo is no problem as well. But there is more behing MQA than only the compression aspect. There has been ( and probaby still is)  for a very long time strong competition between PCM and DSD and the MLP ( Meridian) solutions. This is normal competition and some call these 'format wars'  But that is what I read between the lines and when then a new technology pops up, one who claims that it is able to restore the original sound during the recording, a technology which is using a totally different approach, and has the potential  to became the new industrial standard, well, than this is a direct threat to current technology and with that 'disruptive' to existing ones and their business.. That is an intuitive reaction, but not necessary. Some companies and former 'anti-MQA' adopt fast, like PSaudio and others. Maybe not out of love or conviction, but for marketing reasons, but especially with those products, it is interesting to listen carefully to pro & con of MQA.. 

 

Anyway, my first 'truly high-end' experience with MQA was during a 4 hour listening session with the Meridian Ultra DAC , some high-end Swiss amplifiers and Avid loudspeakers. The first song was a Frank Sinatra  MQA remaster in mono.. it made to everyone in the room a deep and profound impression..Later on we heard The Doors 'Riders on the Storm' which was the one I was waiting for for a long time. Very nice.. but afterwards the same song but in normal FLAC, but from a different remaster (not MFSL, forgot the name) and we all preferred this version..!  It proved to us, that MQA works, but should be applied from the best source / masters..

 

But anyway, all I tell and share, here and elsewhere, is just a personal impression and opinion and therefore Yes, I am biased. But I encourage everyone to listen and evaluate, preferably for a longer period of time. the costs are not as high, the MQA renderer DAC versions like Merdian Explorer are available at relatively low costs. But yes.. the UltraDAc and Mytek and PSaudio and MSB technology is a different league..  I hope to be able to audition also the ultra expensive MSB Technology DAC in Antwerpen one of these days. A very serious test which should provide the answer that even the best DAC still has room for improvement by employing MQA.. 

 

As with the proceeding discussions between analog, vinyl or digital, upsampling or DSD etc. there is no format war for me, just increased listening pleasure.

 

 

[Norton]

1 hour ago, labjr said:

 

Something new exists that most people haven't had a chance to hear or compare. But you're gaga over it.

 

Presumably precisely because he has had a chance to hear and compare?

[botrytis]

Until I do a double blind listening test and can hear the 'improvement' I will not believe it. Sorry, and doing a 4 hour listening stint with Meridian telling me what I SHOULD expect to hear is not valid listening nor positive proof that MQA is good. So far, every single listening I have heard with MQA, which has been limited, has been negative and not at all flattering, but that is my bias because they told me the tracks were MQA. Get the problem? The biasing is in our head.

 

I do not like that the major audio press has been so flowery about this tech, w/o any critical thinking or listening (like they do with speakers, DACs, etc.) and that is scary to me. 

 

I do not want to have to be another DAC and my music again. I mean I have over 20K songs on digital (I know compared to some members that is not alot) and would hate to buy them over because some company wants to bleed the turnip again.

[Jud]

30 minutes ago, PeterV said:

There has been ( and probaby still is)  for a very long time strong competition between PCM and DSD and the MLP ( Meridian) solutions.

 

Peter: MQA is a commercial implementation of something Meridian themselves were using a long time ago, and has been known and implemented for many years by many people.  The "deblurring" is just another term for removing ringing caused by AD filters.  MQA is a not particularly high quality implementation, which is one of the reasons it's come in for criticism.  It's not high quality because it allows certain types of distortion that many people really like.  (This is a reason for the popularity among many audiophiles of NOS DACs.)  This has all been measured; we're not dealing with opinions or people somehow bothered by better sound.

 

So it isn't a breakthrough, it's distortion you find euphonic.  That's fine.  But just as you've noticed me telling everyone else to allow you to have your opinion, you must allow for the facts of the matter.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Peter: MQA is a commercial implementation of something Meridian themselves were using a long time ago, and has been known and implemented for many years by many people.  The "deblurring" is just another term for removing ringing caused by AD filters.  MQA is a not particularly high quality implementation, which is one of the reasons it's come in for criticism.  It's not high quality because it allows certain types of distortion that many people really like.  (This is a reason for the popularity among many audiophiles of NOS DACs.)  This has all been measured; we're not dealing with opinions or people somehow bothered by better sound.

 

So it isn't a breakthrough, it's distortion you find euphonic.  That's fine.  But just as you've noticed me telling everyone else to allow you to have your opinion, you must allow for the facts of the matter.

Jud - much as I respect you and your levelheadedness, I am not convinced that all you say here is factual.  You may be convinced it is, but I am not.  I think it reflects opinion more than undisputed fact.  For example, I do not think there is any existent measure by which NOS DACs can be factually deemed "popular" among audiophiles.  I suspect they remain a tiny niche, perhaps deservedly so.

 

I also have have not seen proof positive satisfactory to me that MQA is nothing more than a recycling of older Meridian filtering ideas.  That is perhaps true, but  I do not think it has been proven beyond doubt.  I understand that MQA is highly proprietary and we lack visibility into the inner workings.  But, I do not think publically available information to us is sufficient to be cock sure about this, elevating it to "fact".  

 

And, your statement, "MQA is a commercial implementation of something Meridian themselves were using a long time ago" is misleading.  It omits consideration of the a-d side of the process, and it omits MQA hi rez compacted encoding in the least significant bits, neither of which Meridian was previously doing.

 

Again, MQA may turn out to be a turkey, but I think far too much is still unknown.  I say that having read most all of the threads here at CA, which are still pure idle speculation, not factual, though they may think they have this baby and Bob Stuart's motives all figured out.

 

 

[Ralf11]

"de-blurring" is simply them trying to use an word for audiophiles that is easier to understand than deconvolution

 

I sincerely doubt they did it long ago due to lack of processing power then.

 

It is plausible that they would cherry pick the music for their demos.

 

The jury is still out on the SQ of MQA and on whether they can use it to restrict consumers.  

[crenca]

40 minutes ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Jud - much as I respect you and your levelheadedness, I am not convinced that all you say here is factual.  You may be convinced it is, but I am not.  I think it reflects opinion more than undisputed fact....I also have have not seen proof positive satisfactory to me that MQA is nothing more than a recycling of older Meridian filtering ideas.  That is perhaps true, but  I do not think it has been proven beyond doubt.  I understand that MQA is highly proprietary and we lack visibility into the inner workings.  But, I do not think publically available information to us is sufficient to be cock sure about this, elevating it to "fact"....Again, MQA may turn out to be a turkey, but I think far too much is still unknown.  I say that having read most all of the threads here at CA, which are still pure idle speculation, not factual...

 

 

 

Well, given the IP/legal nature of MQA and the intentional obfuscation of its inner workings  (a strategy not strictly necessary - as mansr and others have pointed to Dolby and the like) what you are really asking us to do is "prove" the non-existence of Bigfoot.  This is where Bob and company knew exactly what they were doing - talk the talk but don't actually reveal anything (a central point of Koch).  

 

In other words, you want us all to give the benefit of the doubt, "keep an open mind", blah blah.  Thing is, in the all too often $voodoo$ world Hi Fi most reasonable folks know that where there is is voodoo smoke, there is voodoo fire.  Plenty of smoke around MQA.  Some of it is already proven (the de facto DRM quality of the format, the legal aspects, the signal behavor, etc. etc.) which is enough to stir up a hornets nest of consumer resentment.

 

You can argue this "keep an open mind" about MQA but for all the reasons above I suspect you will continue to see people pointing to the smoke...

[Ralf11]

Then there is the issue of whether MQA adds anything worthwhile to a modern recording -- one to be done tomorrow or next week (which avoids a lot of the end to end issues).  

 

We are not really bandwidth limited in the home these days.  In the car or for a portable (earbuds) player, the SQ is already pretty marginal, so is MQA really needed?

 

But I am going to keep an open mind... and thanks for the writeup of listening impressions above.

[Jud]

11 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Jud - much as I respect you and your levelheadedness, I am not convinced that all you say here is factual.  You may be convinced it is, but I am not.  I think it reflects opinion more than undisputed fact.  For example, I do not think there is any existent measure by which NOS DACs can be factually deemed "popular" among audiophiles.  I suspect they remain a tiny niche, perhaps deservedly so.

 

Yes, what I really meant to express is that it is possible people may like MQA for the same reason people who like NOS DACs like them (the "popularity" of NOS DACs among people who like them).  The MQA D/A filters have been analyzed and found to cut very, very little, thus potentially letting through ultrasonics, which can intermodulate with each other and the audible part of the signal to create intermodulation distortion.  This is the same thing that happens with NOS DACs and RedBook material.

 

11 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

 

I also have not seen proof positive satisfactory to me that MQA is nothing more than a recycling of older Meridian filtering ideas.  That is perhaps true, but  I do not think it has been proven beyond doubt.  I understand that MQA is highly proprietary and we lack visibility into the inner workings.  But, I do not think publically available information to us is sufficient to be cock sure about this, elevating it to "fact".  

 

 

11 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

And, your statement, "MQA is a commercial implementation of something Meridian themselves were using a long time ago" is misleading.  It omits consideration of the a-d side of the process, and it omits MQA hi rez compacted encoding in the least significant bits, neither of which Meridian was previously doing.

 

There are MQA patents and white papers showing the "good old" Meridian apodizing filters and triangular filter kernel.  Since the MQA D/A filters have been analyzed and found not to cut sufficiently to be apodizing (eliminate ringing, or in MQA terms, "de-blur"), this must happen if at all at the A/D or D/D stage.  So either you have the traditional Meridian apodizing filters at A/D or D/D, or you have the intermodulation distortion I mentioned above.

 

The compacted encoding has also been thoroughly analyzed.  No magic there, it's just a lossy way of compressing a hi-res file and telling the DAC what to do with it, as opposed to lossless forms of compression like FLAC or ALAC.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with MQA sounding better to whoever likes it.  Many people liked the Meridian filters, or like Miska's apodizing filters in HQPlayer.  And many people like NOS or Ayre DACs, which also cut very little.  So there's plenty of precedent for people preferring either any apodizing filtering that may take place on the A/D or D/D side, or if that's not happening, the lack of cut and consequent intermodulation that may take place on the D/A side.  It's just not anything new.  At bottom it's a packaging of traditional ideas along with lossy compression that IMO isn't really necessary in an age when plenty of people stream Netflix.

[Jud]

12 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

"de-blurring" is simply them trying to use an word for audiophiles that is easier to understand than deconvolution

 

I sincerely doubt they did it long ago due to lack of processing power then.

 

I take it then you're not aware that apodizing filters have been available in digital audio nearly all the way back to Peter Craven's 2004 AES paper on them.

[Jud]

13 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I understand that MQA is highly proprietary and we lack visibility into the inner workings.  

 

 

12 hours ago, crenca said:

 

Well, given the IP/legal nature of MQA and the intentional obfuscation of its inner workings....  

 

 

Just wanted to note before we get too carried away with how much we don't know, that the scope of a patent is restricted to what is fairly disclosed.  So anything MQA wants to have protected as its intellectual property must be disclosed in the patent.  There is certainly an art to such "disclosures," but it does mean that what MQA actually does is very, very unlikely to be entirely divorced from what is mentioned in the patent (otherwise why bother to obtain it?).  It isn't a cookbook and doesn't need to be, but the general nature of what MQA does is pretty clear.

[mansr]

28 minutes ago, Jud said:

Just wanted to note before we get too carried away with how much we don't know, that the scope of a patent is restricted to what is fairly disclosed.  So anything MQA wants to have protected as its intellectual property must be disclosed in the patent.  There is certainly an art to such "disclosures," but it does mean that what MQA actually does is very, very unlikely to be entirely divorced from what is mentioned in the patent (otherwise why bother to obtain it?).  It isn't a cookbook and doesn't need to be, but the general nature of what MQA does is pretty clear.

The full MQA process probably also includes elements not invented by them and thus outside the scope of their patents.

[PeterV]

Hi Jud and others,

 

Ever since MQA arrived, I was very intrigued how it would sound and how it works and if it is indeed capable to correct for both past- and current ringing effects. This aspect I find much more important than the compression advantage it offers.

 

I totally agree that any contribution by the MQA algorithm should be an upgrade to the SQ and it must be convincingly audible and also measurable and not be some kind of a 'euphonic' effect. 

 

Besides listening at home to  MQA Tidal streams and purchased MQA albums like Buena Vista Social Club, 2L Mozart and Jan Gunnar Hof recording and ECM release Atmospheres via this 'MQA renderer' package in my DAC, I also read a lot and not only the 'pro-, but also con-MQA' publications. 

 

What I notice is that there still is a lot of misunderstanding how MQA works, because much information is and might never be disclosed by the MQA team. Measuring MQA encoded material is in my view useless without presence of an MQA encoder or without the use of MQA encoded testsignals.

 

I have asked various audio journalists if the could perform impuls response measurements on both an MQA certified DAC and the exact same model without MQA certification. This would at least reveal how the algorithm is cabaple in lowering the temporal blur of the DAC itself. But even then, it seems that this is a wrong approach to understanding what MQA seems to acomplish.. They went a step further, to an end-to-end approach, where the effect of temporal blur in AIR is measured and where it seems to haveh influence on human hearing.  This is a new approach in which they state that even a perfect Gausian impulse response is not preferred when it comes to sound transmitted via air into our ears.

 

What intrigued me most in my search to understand how MQA works, is summarised in this quote: 'sound is analogue in air and if there is a digital storage channel it should fit into this framework'  which can be read in th Stereophile tutorial online. Their quest was and is a new approach what they define as end-to-end.

 

Beside understanding how MQA seems to work, it also explains me why analog recordings and vinyl still outperforms most digital recordings. Luckily the gap is getting smaller with 2x and 4x DSD and other HD formats. But my favourite records are captured on DAT recorders or 1st generation Sony digital recorders.. technology with severe digital time smear. So indee MQA can do the job it promises and restores these gems to a higher level than what I have ever heard before and i am much looking forward to the complete Pink Floyd, Supertramp and other music form the 70s - 90s 

 

But, let's also be realistic.. I recently heard some new MQA albums via Tidal which sounded clear but also very loud, but compresse offering very low dynamic range..The loudness war is nowadays becoming a problematic disease and as long as this will not be cured, neither MQA or DSD or higher formats will solve this horrible problem. Sorry to start drifting a bit 'off-topic'

 

 

 

[Ralf11]

5 hours ago, Jud said:

 

I take it then you're not aware that apodizing filters have been available in digital audio nearly all the way back to Peter Craven's 2004 AES paper on them.

 

I take you are not aware of the differences, and are conflating the two.

[Jud]

30 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

I take you are not aware of the differences, and are conflating the two.

 

Between apodizing and the made-up term "de-blurring"?  If you know exactly what MQA means by that, other than removing ringing, tell us.

[Ralf11]

Jud, it is good that you are investing time in trying to understand technical matters - just understand that they often require years of background study.

 

Nonetheless...

 

apodizing filtering covers a much greater and simpler range of phenomena than deconvolution - the latter is much more complex