The Brinkman Ship MQA Listening Results

[Spacehound]

16 minutes ago, GUTB said:

The Explorer 2 is not a good DAC.....

So there we have it.

 

'Bob', the CEO/chief designer of Meridian  produces  what we might call a 'first signifer'  to show the 'merits' of MQA  for MQA Ltd, of which he is also the CEO/chief designer and it isn't any good.

 

Does  that give you pause that Meridian, which 'Bob' founded after the failure of his first company, the disastrous Lecson Audio,   has never made a profit in the forty years of its existence?  Thus causing suspicion (now found to be well-justified) about MQA from the more experienced members of the audio community.

[kumakuma]

9 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

So there we have it.

 

'Bob', the CEO/chief designer of Meridian  produces  what we might call a 'first signifer'  to show the 'merits' of MQA  for MQA Ltd, of which he is also the CEO/chief designer and it isn't any good.

 

Does  that give you pause that Meridian, which 'Bob' founded after the failure of his first company, the disastrous Lecson Audio,   has never made a profit in the forty years of its existence?  Thus causing suspicion (now found to be well-justified) about MQA from the more experienced members of the audio community.

 

According to company filings, Bob's appointment as a director of Meridian was terminated on September 4, 2017.

[Brinkman Ship]

This cracks me up:

"The Explorer² is an easy purchase, but what makes it a compelling value is its ability to fully decode MQA files. MQA is the result of a rethinking of audio principles by Meridian's co-founder Bob Stuart and others, in the light of recent insights from neuroscience into how human hearing works. MQA takes the focus off sampling frequency and the frequency domain and puts it on the time domain, where music lives. MQA's main objective is to avoid and repair the blurring, or time smearing, that occurs every time a conventionally designed low-pass (especially brick-wall) filter is employed in the recording and/or playback chains. MQA uses knowledge of the specific digital converters involved in that chain to restore timing information so that the temporal resolution is much better than even in high-frequency, high-bit-rate audio files."

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/meridian-explorer2-da-headphone-amplifier#vS7E463e3h0Ygrh0.99

 

[GUTB]

12 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

This cracks me up:

"The Explorer² is an easy purchase, but what makes it a compelling value is its ability to fully decode MQA files. MQA is the result of a rethinking of audio principles by Meridian's co-founder Bob Stuart and others, in the light of recent insights from neuroscience into how human hearing works. MQA takes the focus off sampling frequency and the frequency domain and puts it on the time domain, where music lives. MQA's main objective is to avoid and repair the blurring, or time smearing, that occurs every time a conventionally designed low-pass (especially brick-wall) filter is employed in the recording and/or playback chains. MQA uses knowledge of the specific digital converters involved in that chain to restore timing information so that the temporal resolution is much better than even in high-frequency, high-bit-rate audio files."

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/meridian-explorer2-da-headphone-amplifier#vS7E463e3h0Ygrh0.99

 

 

What's funny about that?

[Spacehound]

27 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

According to company filings, Bob's appointment as a director of Meridian was terminated on September 4, 2017.

I didn't l know that, not being a fanboy.  Meridian has been a game of musical chairs since it started.

 

It's all the same outfit anyway,  owned by Richemont of Switzerland who are a  'luxury goods' outfit, mostly watches, who instantly put it in their 'more financially dodgy' division.

 

So as in all  foreign owned  'subsidiaries' the board(s)  don't have any real power, they are just there to make the 'local natives' feel ok about it. 

[NOMBEDES]

Let me fix this for you:

 

Set up a booth in the center of a large city:

 

1. Ask 1000 people "What is an audio DAC?"  You will get maybe 50 to 100 folks who can answer the question.  (this demonstration will indicate how few people give a crap about our hobby)

 

2.  Ask 1000 people to compare a high resolution audio file with a standard redbook file.   You will get a distribution of "no difference" "high rez is better" and "standard rez is better".   (This exercise will show you that few random participants can tell the difference between files.)

 

3.  Play a MQA file and a standard file for the casual listener and you may get the same distribution of no difference to better and worse.

 

Now to marketing:   The entire audio industry is based on the fact that human hearing preferences can be plotted on a bell curve.   Some audio consumers will like cable A over cable B.  If you can sell 25 sets of expensive cables for a 2000% mark up, Bob's your uncle and you have made a profit.  Please note that there is no audio advantage over cable A or B there is only human preference.   MQA is just more of the same marketing;  based upon, "let's make it sound different and will someone will spend money".  Just like cables and other audio/marketing voodoo,  there is no sonic advantage to MQA there is only the fact that some folks will like it and buy it.

 

We have had fully 36000 posts on MQA, all worthless:

 

if you like the sound, it follows that you should embrace the technology, if you don't like the sound, ignore it.

 

  

[Brinkman Ship]

8 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

What's funny about that?

Wait, even better..

 

Nothing like a little blue light to help with intimacy...lol

 

"The first recording that made the little light on my Explorer² turn blue—indicating that an MQA Studio file is playing—was Sally Beamish's Under the Wing of the Rock, with viola soloist Soon-Mi Chung, and Oyvind Bjora conducting the Oslo Camerata (SACD/CD, 2L-119-SACD). Listening through my Sennheiser HD 650 headphones and then my home system, I was struck by a remarkable sense of intimacy, a close connection to the solo instrument.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/meridian-explorer2-da-headphone-amplifier-page-2#ObkLZmkIms6Ed3Mb.99

 

[Brinkman Ship]

Just now, NOMBEDES said:

Let me fix this for you:

 

Set up a booth in the center of a large city:

 

1. Ask 1000 people "What is an audio DAC?"  You will get maybe 50 to 100 folks who can answer the question.  (this demonstration will indicate how few people give a crap about our hobby)

 

2.  Ask 1000 people to compare a high resolution audio file with a standard redbook file.   You will get a distribution of "no difference" "high rez is better" and "standard rez is better".   (This exercise will show you that few random participants can tell the difference between files.)

 

3.  Play a MQA file and a standard file for the casual listener and you may get the same distribution of no difference to better and worse.

 

Now to marketing:   The entire audio industry is based on the fact that human hearing preferences can be plotted on a bell curve.   Some audio consumers will like cable A over cable B.  If you can sell 25 sets of expensive cables for a 2000% mark up, Bob's your uncle and you have made a profit.  Please note that there is no audio advantage over cable A or B there is only human preference.   MQA is just more of the same marketing;  based upon, "let's make it sound different and will someone will spend money".  Just like cables and other audio/marketing voodoo,  there is no sonic advantage to MQA there is only the fact that some folks will like it and buy it.

 

We have had fully 36000 posts on MQA, all worthless:

 

if you like the sound, it follows that you should embrace the technology, if you don't like the sound, ignore it.

 

  

Wrong.

[kumakuma]

3 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

I didn't l know that, not being a fanboy .

 

Not sure how passing on this information makes me a fanboy...

 

If anything the fact that Bob appears to have been pushed out of Meridian bolsters your point.

 

[Spacehound]

2 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Wrong.

We in the UK must be somewhat backward. l suspect less than 1 in a  1000 would know what a DAC is, let alone a 'music' one.

[Spacehound]

Just now, kumakuma said:

 

Not sure how passing on this information makes me a fanboy...

 

If anything the fact that Bob appears to have been pushed out of Meridian bolsters your point.

 

I wasn't intending  to suggest you were.

[mav52]

18 hours ago, Brinkman Ship said:

The Brinkman Ship has docked and I can report on between 8-10 hours of listening to MQA and Non MQA files

 

(When it is FREEZING out, plenty of incentive to get cozy with music, wine, and a great system).

 

The listening took place at a long time friend's East Side apartment.  The system was beyond reproach:

 

-MSB Reference DAC / Roon / Tidal

 

-VPI Prime table / Audio Research PH9

 

-Audio Research Ref 6 Preamp

 

-Ayre MX-R Twenty Mono Block Amplifiers

 

Wilson Alexx speaker system

 

Wireworld cabling for all

 

Audience power conditioning, Symposium Acoustics isolation devices and platforms

 

My host has a very large digital library stored on a NAS. And a decent size vinyl collection.

 

We listened to approx. 50 albums where we confirmed there was both an MQA version, and an official

24 bit digital download  and where we could confirm the mastering was the same. We listened to quite a few new releases as well.

 

Volumes matched as close as possible.

 

I had my host select albums play MQA streams from Tidal, then the same tracks from his NAS without telling

me which was which, and we turned off the display of the DAC.  We also muted the first 3 seconds of every track.

 

We repeated the process with me selecting tracks from Tidal and his NAS.

 

We also broke things up by playing tracks from his vinyl collection of some of the same albums.

 

Verdict:

 

In each an every, case, without exception, we both preferred the non MQA version. Some by a little, and some it was not even close.

 

The MQA version created a whole in the center and an artificial Left and Right Spread, and a digital sheen that was

off putting to say the least. We both concluded MQA was DESTRUCTIVE to the music.  It was quite an eye opener.

It sounded like what happens when you hit the "3D" or "Loudness" buttons on mid level home theater receivers.

MQA was putting far too strong a stamp on the music.  We even preferred his 24 bit vinyl rips to the MQA versions.

 

MQA screws up the tonality and the soundstage. Period.

 

Bob Stuart, John Atkinson, Michael Lavorgna, Robert Harley, Jim Austin, John Darko (did I miss anyone?)..

you should all be ashamed of your selves.

 

MQA is by far the biggest farce ever perpetrated in "high end audio". 

 

Couple this with all the data presented here, the measurements, and looking behind the curtain at the financials,

the motives, and the players, it is clear MQA is a wholesale fraud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How do you like your MSB Ref DAC compared against the Brinkman Nyquist, non MQA of course

[Brinkman Ship]

3 minutes ago, mav52 said:

How do you like your MSB Ref DAC compared against the Brinkman Nyquist, non MQA of course

???

If you read the OP, I don't own an MSB DAC. I also do not own a Nyquist, which does do MQA btw.

[Brinkman Ship]

10 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

We in the UK must be somewhat backward. l suspect less than 1 in a  1000 would know what a DAC is, let alone a 'music' one.

I meant "wrong" about "liking" MQA or not. There is far more to it then that.

[FredericV]

6 hours ago, GUTB said:

 

Achimago's "work" doesn't prove anything.

 

Ever talked to a flat earther? Whatever proof of curvature is presented to these crazies, they always say "this does not prove anything".

At least the forum offers an ignore function





 

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

13 minutes ago, NOMBEDES said:

Just like cables and other audio/marketing voodoo,  there is no sonic advantage to MQA there is only the fact that some folks will like it and buy it.

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

2 minutes ago, FredericV said:

 

Ever talked to a flat earther? Whatever proof of curvature is presented to these crazies, they always say "this does not prove anything".

At least the forum offers an ignore function

 

The term "flat earther" is also used by the "believers" to vilify people who prefer science over feels.

[NOMBEDES]

28 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Wrong.

 

Dear Mr. Ship.

 

You may know audio,  but I know what darkness lies in the heart of sales and marketing.  

 

[mav52]

22 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

???

If you read the OP, I don't own an MSB DAC. I also do not own a Nyquist, which does do MQA btw.

Missed that small written piece of text,., Thanks

[Norton]

This thread reminds me of Fair Hedon for some reason.

[Spacehound]

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

 

What's funny about that?

You said the Explorer 2  is a bad DAC yourself.

 

And the rest (leaving aside the 'neuroscience' psychobabble) is demonstrably untrue.

[Dr Tone]

37 minutes ago, Norton said:

This thread reminds me of Fair Hedon for some reason.

 

I was thinking the exact same thing.

[Spacehound]

1 hour ago, Brinkman Ship said:

 

 

I meant "wrong" about "liking" MQA or not. There is far more to it then that.

He'd right about the  expensive cables too.

 

I will only buy one of those when the manufacturer gets a Nobel Prize  for discovering some previously unknown physics. Which has to be  relevant, replacing Einstein's General Relativity or  figuring out a  Unified Field Theory isn't good enough (though of course his  UFT could be it it's true ).

 

The company I work for has had several Nobel Prizes for physics and stuff. But  we don't know how to make  a fancy audio cable even though most of our stuff is electronic.

[knickerhawk]

1 hour ago, Norton said:

This thread reminds me of Fair Hedon for some reason.

 

History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes...

[Dr Tone]

19 minutes ago, knickerhawk said:

 

History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes...

 

Considering Chris already mentioned Brinkman Ship is using a VPN to hide his location.  A little back story to cover things up and then boom, full on MQA hate.

 

I think history can repeat itself...