Stereophile Series on MQA Technology

[semente]

18 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

I'm finally getting the hang of stopping myself from clicking certain people's profiles to find their system. Usually what happens is that someone makes a claim without a hint of qualification so my natural impulse is to find out what they're listening to in order to ground their statements in a certain subjective reference. As an audiophile posting in an audiophile forum, I automatically assume that others have generally the same outlook on these topics as I do -- the experience of listening to music.

 

When John Darko posted his Inconvenient Truth, MQA had been on my radar. When I finally had the chance to compare MQA and non-MQA, I had to admit that the MQA version sounded better. The qualitative difference often -- but not always -- seemed to be the subjective difference between hi-res and lo-res. My subjective experience with MQA was not an instant path to enlightenment, however. My first experience with MQA was with the Explorer 2, but I found differences to be more often than not undetectable -- basically, it isn't a good DAC. I tried the Node 2, but again, this was a bad DAC. Finally the DragonFly Red's MQA update dropped and it was then that I finally got to accept Darko's inconvenient truth that a good MQA track was substantially better than the non-MQA version. With the Pro-Ject S2, the qualitative difference is even more pronounced, and in some cases the improvement is so obvious that I've wondered if the non-MQA version was degraded somehow.

 

A lot of work was conducted analyzing MQA's code from Bluesound. Some measurements show interesting results -- but they are just that, interesting. We don't know what's going on at the mastering level, and we don't know how other manufacturers implement MQA.

 

Stereophile steps up to the plate to leverage their extensive expertise and tools to evaluate MQA's claims. Instead of supporting the effort, or just waiting to see what Stereophile comes up with, certain people go hysteric attacking MQA and Stereophile. Instead of taking Austin's words at face value and see what he comes up with, we have people here attacking him instead. It really is an emotional response that's so frenzied that you even have a poster here openly revising history of this very thread that's not older than 24 hours...I mean, what? The hatred of MQA does not seem subjective or even technical, and for the most part does not even seem based in reality.  I even have one of my fans from SABF reporting that I'm defending MQA "as if it gave birth to me".

 

And yet, very outspoken opponents of MQA won't post their systems...

 

I hope this doesn't mean that you are leaving us.

 

By the way, nice set of High-End DACs.

[semente]

8 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

With due respect, I'm really, really hard pressed to believe you have "fans".

In this day and age anything is possible...

[semente]

28 minutes ago, psjug said:

This is hilarious.  I haven't seen this - do they say how they find MQA to be elegant or do they just throw out the word because it sounds nice?

 

I confess that I like the look of the MQA logo. 

[semente]

7 hours ago, GUTB said:

 

Sorry, I thought you said HK900.

 

It's very unlikely that a consumer grade class A/B at that price bracket is close to state of the art...but it's a decent weight, so it might be good. Also, it seems that it's out of production...looks like HK tried and failed to sell into the mid-fi market (which doesn't mean the amp sucks, just that HK wasn't successful for whatever reason).

This is the most preposterous thing I've read from you so far:

 

"but it's a decent weight, so it might be good"

 

Do you have any idea of what makes a SOA equipment?  (note: this is not a question, do not reply)

 

I've had the current Modwright integrated with DAC at home. Heavy piece of junk... High-end pedigree.

[semente]

6 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

 

@GUTB

 

I don't get it dude... You declare that I'm spreading FUD. I ask you to clarify. And nothing all day about this?

I recommend that you simply just ignore him.

[semente]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

DRM doesn't necessarily mean copy-protection. In this case it is not that, yet. DRM in this case control over the production and distribution chain and specifically the decoding part. Content is tied to a particular licensed decoder implementation they want to review. So here DRM is not protecting the content, it is protecting the technology (for example from objective evaluation) and control over who can have the technology in first place. MQA can decide who they want to sell a decoder, enforce the way things are implemented and require broad NDA that could contain all kinds of gag orders and penalties about communication regarding MQA.

 

For comparison, you can have an AAC SLS encoder and decoder, from some vendor of your choice, including payment the standard patent license to the patent holders and then you can encode and decode whatever test signals you want. You can study the codec specification throughout since it's an open standard so you know exactly how it works, inside out. If the patent holders or codec vendor goes out of business, you can still independently implement the codec and have all your valuable content fully decoded and possibly encoded with some other, newer standard.

 

If you don't get access to the full-res Master files but a lossy copy instead then the former is copy-protected.

 

From that perspective MQA is a form of copy-protecting the Master files.

[semente]

3 hours ago, psjug said:

 

Yes it seems that the MQA encoded test signal is quite different from an impulse. There is a manufacturer comment that was posted: https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-tested-part-1-manufacturers-comment 

I am wondering what some of you make of this.  The test input is shown there and below.

Bob Stuart comments:

"If we look at the 48kHz MQA test signal waveform (fig.1 in this comment), there is no pre-response. It is elegant that the decoder "unfolds" it back to a perfect impulse as we can infer from Jim's fig.5. Fig. 4 shows us the convolution of the signal with the linear-phase response of the particular chosen DAC (which is contributing the pre-and post-ringing). The result, as would also be the case with non-MQA files, will be different with other converters, according to the filter type (linear- or minimum-phase), rate and user settings." 

 

Fig.1 MQA-encoded impulse response sampled at 48kHz (50µs/horizontal div.).
 

 

Have you noticed that Bob Stuart uses the same term to describe MQA as John Atkinson?

 

The Elegant MQA

 

 

 

This reminds me of The Strong And Stable May...

[semente]

14 minutes ago, GUTB said:

And yet—the Inconvenient Truth that MQA sound better is still with us. Last night I bough the 192 and MQA versions of the same album from hiresaudio and the MQA version is CLEARLY better. Since the booklet confirms that the album was mastered in multi-channel 24/192 with a stereo and MQA version also to be released (Japanese audiophile label UNAMAS) we are fairly well assured both versions are from the same source by the same engineer. This was on a Pro-Ject S2 that does native MQA full unfolding.

 

The difference was not small, and anyone with a native MQA DAC has had these experiences. What I’m really interested in knowing is if this is really the result of time domain deblurring or if there’s some form of EQ trick being applied.

 

You and others keep forgetting that there's also a chance that MQA produces one or several types of "euphonic" distortion which among other things add a perceptive sense of "enhanced spaciousness"... It's easier to like or dislike an aspect of reproduction than to describe it from an observationist perspective as objectively is as possible in a listening assessments.

 

What is an ear-bleeding distortion produced by a nasty cone resonance to you and me can be perceived as "liveliness" or "resolution" to others, just as flat frequency response can sound "boring".

[semente]

2 hours ago, Thuaveta said:

 

So elegant as to require the replacement of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of hardware to allow more efficient streaming when the average U.S household can already stream in better quality many times over, with the connections they already have, to gear they already own. 

 

MQA : let's elegantly reduce emissions by promoting coal rolling.

 

Sponsored by Trump?

[semente]

3 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

You can have too much resolution to enjoy a system for long periods. And good Redbook can be very good.

 

I don't agree with the first sentence. It's either something wrong with the system or with the recording (tonal balance?, close mic'ing?). There's no such thing as too much resolution.

 

P.S.: but yes Redbook can be very good.

[semente]

16 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Actually to much resolution causes fatigue. A reason a lot of people like vinyl which is about 14 bits, and people like CDs with no more than 16 bits when listening for long periods.

 

Don't get me started on hot top ends and the fatigue that causes. 

 

That's what I meant.

Properly recorded music will not cause fatigue or produce "clinical" sound; close mic'ing and tonal balance problems such as exaggerated treble do.

Those problems have no relation with resolution.

 

The same is true for the system with its many potential causes for fatigue.

Identifying (and dealing with) them is in my view the greatest and also the most interesting challenge in the practice of audio.

[semente]

27 minutes ago, FredericV said:

There are more lectures by Hans Beekhuyzen about MQA, for several distributors and resellers:
 

MQA lecture by Hans Beekhuyzen, by the NL branch of AES:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1305380532856375/
http://sound-engineering.nl/nl/lezing-aes-mqa/
http://www.aes-section.nl/lezingen/project 247/project247.html

Tijdens de lezing gaat audiojournalist Hans Beekhuyzen in op vragen als:

    hebben we meer bandbreedte nodig dan 20 kHz en zo niet,
    waarom dan hogere bemonsteringsfrequentie?
    Hoe word de hogere informatiedichtheid in een MQA bestand bereikt en
    wat zijn de vooruitzichten in de toepasbaarheid?

-> do we need more bandwidth than 20 kHz, and if not:
-> do we need a higher sample rate? (only for the fake time domain claim in the renderer / upsampler)
-> how is higher information density reached in an MQA file?
-> what are the prospects and applications?

XFI lecture by Hans:

https://www.audiovideo2day.com/x-fi-2016-lezing-mqa/
Wordt MQA het nieuwe audioformaat?
"Is MQA the new world format"?
-> includes the typical MQA lies " bieden MQA-bestanden gegarandeerd de kwaliteit uit de studio "
 

"MQA files are offering the quality of the studio guaranteed" -> sorry Hans but this has already been debunked

Lecture for Dali / Bluesound by Hans:

https://www.audioclub-limburg.nl/dali-benelux-bv-presenteert

 

He is advertising his services to us via email. You can't convince me he is NOT being paid to give these MQA lectures. Hans is not doing a very critical review of MQA, but quite the opposite. Furthermore Hans was outside our room at the XFI show where I overheard him discussing the remunerations of the hifi journalism business.


 

 

MQA Lecturing is a hobby like any other, and lots of fun too; I don't see a problem there.

[semente]

28 minutes ago, Norton said:

 

He's come to the right site then.  I imagine he'll have a Damascene conversion in the company of an anonymous rich friend in a few days time and start the "MQA is the work of the Devil" thread.

 

Do you mean Soros?