Another major look at MQA by another pro.

[Jud]

10 minutes ago, PeterV said:

 

Nope, but this is not a pissing contest and let's agree to disagree. I focus to the audible spectrum, you probably not.

 

Sorry @PeterV - saying you focus on the audible spectrum and then in the next breath speaking of 384kHz makes no sense.

[soxr]

20 minutes ago, Fokus said:

How often do we have to repeat that MQA contains one stage of folding. All else is leaky downsampling and upsampling. MQA themselves won't deny this.

It's like arguing with flat earthers. They never learn from the discussion and repeat the same canned responses over and over again.

 

[mav52]

On 8/6/2017 at 3:10 AM, firedog said:

And the above posts are why even though I use Tidal extensively, I still buy albums (either disc or download) that I know I am going to listen to repeatedly. That way, if only MQA versions are available or if Tidal disappears, I will still have copies of music that I have more than a passing interest in and will be able to listen to it as I please. 

I do the very same thing.  I purchase LP's and CD a few times a week.

[soxr]

28 minutes ago, PeterV said:

 

I am having fun myself as well, knowing you are prejudiced and unable to listen.

That flat earth trick: change the subject. You don't have much technical knowledge, or you would know analog tapes don't have aliasing. But you changed the subject, so here's my reply:

I have an MQA dac, so what.

Unable to listen is another false ad-hominem claim. If I was not able to listen, I would not have been able to create a product unrelated to MQA that in Munich 2017 was in the top 5 rooms at $very_big_name_in_hifi_press  and best of show at another well known US based hifi press outlet.

What did you create in your life? Any product that you can be proud of?
 

Quote

A will take a blind A/B test immediately and am not afraid of MQA. So let's see how this will evolve. This is what 2L publishes http://www.2l.no/hires/documentation/2L-MQA_Comparisons.pdf

Nothing new from the same old hired gun. Another of your canned reponses. Tell me something new. You can't. You don't create anything, don't do research. You are a repeater of the same arguments we have already heard so many times, and don't learn from the mistakes that you post here, which were already corrected many times.

Like those false claims:
- mqa is 24 bit
- mqa can do 384k
- mqa has a third unfold

and so many other mistakes you keep repeating.

[Digital Assassin]

1 hour ago, PeterV said:

 

Simply because all recording studio's are standardised to PCM and some DSD which at the end is mixed as DXD. So for archiving, DXD will remain the highest standard out there.  MQA is to me nothing more than a nice add-on feature for folding to a streamable package and the 'extra' is the backward compatible ringing correction feature. I do not assume recording studio's will start using exclusively hardware encoded MQA analog to digital converters. A professional DXD recording played on a proper DXD DAC will probably not need MQA. But for now, the format is a nice compression and 'cleansing' tool I would say 

You have absolutely and utterly no idea what you are talking about.

 

DXD is totally a NON ENTITY in 99.99 or recording studios. Nobody, aside from an tiny group of purists is "mixing to DXD".

 

This is a total fabrication. For 99.99 of commercially available music the recordings are tracked at 24/44.1, 24/48, or 24/96. and mixed to similar rates. Rarely to 24/92.

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

14 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

To the degree that the sound is changed by MQA, it is self evident that the reduction of bit depth and the discarding of musical content above 48kHz cannot improve the sound quality.

 

This made me think of Monty's video that "proved" high resolution is actually worse than Redbook because of the very high frequencies were detrimental to sound quality. With this logic, MQA should be better than the master :~)

 

Now I need to find that video :~)

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, soxr said:

Anything above 48 Khz = upsampled.

 

That should be a typo.

[soxr]

6 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

That should be a typo.

No, MQA don't have more data than 96K samplerate, or just not 48 Khz of audio that can be described.
It can't describe higher frequencies, which is also the reason why they obtain a 9:1 ratio when going from DXD to a 24/44.1 distribution file. It's cheating.

Aren't you supposed to know this?

[firedog]

1 hour ago, PeterV said:

 

Only studiomasters in DXD, played on DXD DAC is superior to MQA. The principle of MQA remasters of older 16/44 masters is improving the sound as we have known it for years. Maybe difficult to accept, but it is the way this innovation works

PeterV - no argument with your subjective evaluation-it's what you hear.

But it certainly isn't a fact as you state it. There are even people who have heard MQA'd versions of albums that they think sound worse than the non-MQA version.

Personally, I'd be happy to listen to MQA if it really made everything sound better. So far I haven't heard the evidence. My listening tells me results are mixed, and for most recordings I've heard I don't have a fair basis for comparison, anyway, as there's no way of knowing if an MQA album comes from the same master as a non-MQA version.

[PeterSt]

Anything above 48 Khz = upsampled.

 

 

I know you like to be right on everything, but you just aren't.

 

1 hour ago, soxr said:

MQA has no 384K resolution. MQA has no 24 bit of audio resolution.
Forget it. Anything above 48 Khz = upsampled.

 

So if no typo, then you don't understand. In the context of your text (quote above), according to you DXD is 705.6  sampling rate, right ?

And btw, anything which would be e.g. 50KHz of frequency response inherently can not be upsampled from e.g. 22.05 or whatever new terminology you now try to introduce.

 

Never mind. But this sure isn't the first time.

[soxr]

5 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

I know you like to be right on everything, but you just aren't.

 

 

So if no typo, then you don't understand. In the context of your text (quote above), according to you DXD is 705.6  sampling rate, right ?

And btw, anything which would be e.g. 50KHz of frequency response inherently can not be upsampled from e.g. 22.05 or whatever new terminology you now try to introduce.

 

Never mind. But this sure isn't the first time.

MQA second unfold does not create new data. It's nothing more than upsampling.
All audio data coming from first unfold is max 88.2 or 96 Khz samplerate, so because of nyquist, MQA cannot describe a 50 Khz tone.

Strange that you don't understand this given your affiliation. How can you design DAC's if you don't understand the basics of sampling?
 

[PeterSt]

1 minute ago, soxr said:

Strange that you don't understand this given your affiliation.

 

About changing the subject ...

 

Do you ever try to understand what anyone writes ?

 

2 minutes ago, soxr said:

All audio data coming from first unfold is max 88.2 or 96 Khz samplerate, so because of nyquist, MQA cannot describe a 50 Khz tone.

 

Don't BS !

Yes, you are right. AGAIN. Because you just change the subject to something where you're right in.

 

You are again in shouting mode. And it does not work for you.

[mansr]

16 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This made me think of Monty's video that "proved" high resolution is actually worse than Redbook because of the very high frequencies were detrimental to sound quality. With this logic, MQA should be better than the master :~)

It is easily demonstrated that high-frequency content can result in audible intermodulation distortion. Actual music has low enough levels of ultrasonics that it isn't a problem for most equipment, but the phenomenon is quite real. The upsampling filters in MQA actually increase the ultrasonic content significantly through imaging of the base band, and I wouldn't be surprised if it reached levels high enough to cause audible distortion in some cases. Save your snark for where it's deserved.

[PeterSt]

9 minutes ago, firedog said:

and for most recordings I've heard I don't have a fair basis for comparison, anyway, as there's no way of knowing if an MQA album comes from the same master as a non-MQA version.

 

But of course you know. Just look at the Dynamic Range hence level of compression. So :

 

We'd only NOT know when the DR of both a RedBook and an MQA are the same. But this is not my experience, and both are always different. Btw, it could be better to compare with the hires version some times, but the result is the same - they are different.

 

So the masters are, IMO, not the same.

You'd say that this is not much helpful, but as long as the masters used for MQA show less compression ... there is a benefit somewhere. It is a strange benefit, but it is one. No ?

[soxr]

13 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

About changing the subject ...

 

Do you ever try to understand what anyone writes ?

 

 

Don't BS !

Yes, you are right. AGAIN. Because you just change the subject to something where you're right in.

 

You are again in shouting mode. And it does not work for you.

No BS.

Please provide an MQA file with a 50 Khz sine, which I can playback on my Mytek, and get that sine back at the analog output of the DAC using a scope. You can't. Bonus points for 60 Khz, 70 Khz ... if MQA was real 384K, it could describe analog signals up to ~ 190 Khz.

But it can't.

MQA is unable to describe any frequencies above 48 Khz, as the first unfold has a max samplerate of 96 Khz

This is all pretty basic sampling theory, which given your affiliation, should be trivial.

 

[PeterSt]

1 minute ago, soxr said:

This is all pretty basic sampling theory, which, given your affiliation, should be trivial.

 

Why don't you keep on repeating that. Then I keep on repeating that you have a comprehension problem.

Deal ?

[PeterSt]

1 minute ago, PeterSt said:

comprehension problem.

 

Nobody anywhere said that MQA should be able to show 50KHz frequency response. And might you coincidentally think it was me, then quote me and quote that in full context.

Take your time with it.

 

[soxr]

1 minute ago, PeterSt said:

 

Why don't you keep on repeating that. Then I keep on repeating that you have a comprehension problem.

Deal ?

I think it's obvious the comprehension problem is not at my side.

So if you have a 96 Khz samplerate, what is the max. music frequency of this rate?

[PeterSt]

And I say once again that you mix up things :

 

5 minutes ago, soxr said:

Please provide an MQA file with a 50 Khz sine, which I can playback on my Mytek, and get that sine back at the analog output of the DAC using a scope. You can't. Bonus points for 60 Khz, 70 Khz ... if MQA was real 384K

 

So you again mention frequency response and sampling rate in one sentence and which is exactly what I resonded to.

And if your intentions with such a sentence (very similar to the one I responded to) are different, then hear me that it is as hazy as can be.

So what do you want ... must the 50Khz you mention be 25Khz, 100Khz ... must the 384K be 768K, 192K ?

I can go all directions with your Belgian sentences. But then I am Dutch. Just saying ...

 

[PeterSt]

8 minutes ago, soxr said:

So if you have a 96 Khz samplerate, what is the max. music frequency of this rate?

 

Ah, today it is 96Khz sample rate. Odd. for a brief moment I thought that your 384K implied sampling rate (or samplerate, also OK). But clearly it doesn't.

 

Btw the answer to your question would be 48KHz (minus 1). Strange eh ?

[soxr]

These contradictions do not help

 

[PeterSt]

14 minutes ago, soxr said:

These contradictions do not help

 

It is no big deal, so let's cut it out. But you seem to be full with telling someone like me that for sure I don't know what I am doing.

What you could do instead is watch for the pitfall you may be falling in yourself. Maybe you misread something ... possibly you wrote something strange yourself ... Maybe the contradiction you see it too big to be real ...

 

[PeterV]

2 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Sorry @PeterV - saying you focus on the audible spectrum and then in the next breath speaking of 384kHz makes no sense.

 

No, sorry Jud that is just a partial interpretation of the importance of the spectrum. As you know, MQA enables reduction of the Temporal Blur which requires these high, but inaudible frequencies. I referred already several times to the Soun On Sound article in which this aspect is clarified https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mqa-time-domain-accuracy-digital-audio-quality

[Charles Hansen]

3 hours ago, PeterV said:

 

So how do you regard this statement by Peter McGrath, who last year told this on Audiostream and  this year at LAAS demonstrated MQA with his own recordings: 

 

"MQA closes the gap between what I hear from the mic feed and the storage medium chosen to present it" is another of my favorite quotes from Peter since recording engineers, and musicians as we are learning from Graham Nash's comments over on Stereophile, have heard things we haven't—namely the original context of the recording. Jon Iverson, who is also a recording engineer, has also commented that what he looks for in hi-fi is a sound as close to the mic feed as he can get. Interesting. I'll leave our conversation with Peter with one last quote, "This is of breathtakingly unbelievable significance."

 

http://www.soundstageglobal.com/index.php/shows-events/los-angeles-audio-show-2017-los-angeles-usa/712-laas-2017-a-different-kind-of-mqa-demo

 

To me these experiences by Peter McGrath are genuine, but I am an MQA  'believer'  :-)

 

Peter -

 

Apparently you have a trouble with either reading comprehension or with logic. The answer is obvious. Peter liked the sound of the MQA digital filters better than the ones built into his portable recording device. Big deal. There are over a dozen different companies building D/A converters that use custom digital filters to achieve what they feel is the best overall sound. If you think that somehow Bob Stuart came up with the world's best sounding digital filter that will never be surpassed by anyone, anywhere, anytime, then you may want to consider buying into his closed, proprietary system that includes DRM and encryption, extra costs for licensing and royalties at every single step of the playback chain and absolutely no guarantees that they will not raise the streaming prices or add more restrictions in the future.

 

Glad you like the sound. Some people do, and others don't.

[PeterSt]

54 minutes ago, mansr said:

It is easily demonstrated that high-frequency content can result in audible intermodulation distortion. Actual music has low enough levels of ultrasonics that it isn't a problem for most equipment, but the phenomenon is quite real. The upsampling filters in MQA actually increase the ultrasonic content significantly through imaging of the base band, and I wouldn't be surprised if it reached levels high enough to cause audible distortion in some cases. Save your snark for where it's deserved.

 

What I told about elsewhere, is that this already happens in mid air; I tested this. De test :

 

Have an ultrasonic tweeter which officially starts at 40KHz (I did not measure this but it was advertised like this and don't ask me whether that is a -3dB point or something else). Connect it as the only speaker. Listen.

You hear nothing (OK, I didn't).

 

Now have your normal system - listen to it. Then add the same tweeter. Now suddenly the sound is significantly changed, and for 100% sure not for the better to these ears.

Impedance reactance change on the same amplifier let alone (the ultrasonic was connected in parallel to the normal tweeter), the HF distortion products of which I know they are there (and most certainly with MQA), now have to inter-modulate with the normal frequencies or else I can not explain the SQ difference.

 

...

 

There's also something like "beats" (http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/demos/superposition/superposition.html - scroll to the very bottom), and this is an oscillating LOWER frequency than the two higher causing it. This is what I wrote about that myself a few years ago :

 

-----

I have an update on the "Beating" : I have set up one of my synthesisers in order to find the merits of this "beating" and in the end I succeeded in mimicking the behavior easily; It requires two fairly low frequencies to be close to each other (and not too low either because the beat can't be heard then) and I found as example 65Hz and 70Hz to work very well. When these are played together, in mid air (thus not in electronics) these frequencies "beat" and the result is an estimated 4Hz of "tone". BUT : Nothing from my theories happened, hence my theories were wrong. What happens is that indeed the two frequencies cancel out and add (at this 4Hz frequency) but this is really all. So, the FFT will not show any 4Hz distinct frequency, and all what happens is that the 65Hz and 70Hz both disappear and get louder. The FFT just shows that. Still what you perceive from it is a low frequency roar which sounds square like but is not. So, no harmonics appear either. Just those two (btw sine) frequencies hopping up and down and the result is a way more deep perceived tone. I think this is just deceiving but the result is "nice" so to speak anyway. I must add that I tested this through normal PA speakers and regarding the remaining of this topic I may wonder whether there's merit in that. I mean, might these speakers not be able to produce undistorted low frequencies then maybe they don't show any of that at all. And might that be 4Hz, then of course that won't go anyway. It is difficult to (without changing setup) to test these speakers for distortion, because the synthesiser I use for it is not able to produce clean sines to begin with. Thus not useful to test the result for THD in that speaker as well. I will continue examining these kind of things.

-----

 

What I stipulate in the context of MQA, is that any aliasing two frequencies, them in itself inaudible, also could imply these beats, and at a lower frequency in the audible spectrum. This is a bit if a tough call, because as I showed in the test from my quote above, the FFT only shows the 65 and 70HZ frequencies going up and down, and no 4Hz frequency at all. Still this is what you perceive from it (mentioned low frequency roar).