Article: MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions

[John_Atkinson]

8 hours ago, mav52 said:

I'm just disappointed that Stereophile has decided to attack the man, rather than attack the data in Archimago's report. 

 

One small correction. I have not "attacked" Archimago. I have explained that I disagree with Chris Connacker's decision to keep his identity a secret.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

[Doug Schneider]

3 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

One small correction. I have not "attacked" Archimago. I have explained that I disagree with Chris Connacker's decision to keep his identity a secret.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

Likewise, many people probably disagree with you to keep Sam Tellig's pseudonym for 30+ years, which you did. In fact, you said it bothered you from the get-go, so you must disagree too.

 

With that in mind, I've talked with Chris and I've talked to Archimago and I can understand Chris going the route he did. A little research and you might agree too. 

 

Doug

[botrytis]

1 minute ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

The latter is a benefit to the record industry, as I mentioned in my 2014 "birth of a new world" essay and the subsequent discussion; the former is a purported benefit to the consumer, the sugar to make the medicine go down, as Jon Iverson describes it.

 

 

The audio origami is impossible to examine on its own. But an examination of the "deblurring" is something I am working on for an article to be published in the July or August issue of Stereophile.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

Sorry, Mr. Atkinson. I disagree with you about the 'digital origami'. It is not difficult to to understand but we need to pull apart all the steps and then put them together. The origami part is just anther type of compression, nothing more nothing less. What it does is make the file unfolding a DRM, kind of like having a password on a zip file. 

 

The rest of the process has been explained by Archimago.

[Doug Schneider]

Just now, botrytis said:

The origami part is just anther type of compression, nothing more nothing less.

 

I agree with this. Mansr, Archimago, weigh in...

Doug

[botrytis]

So, continuing on with my thoughts that Origami = compression, the first fold is probably the most efficient. The 2nd fold is less efficient, so the file will not shrink as much. Ever do a *.zip in a *.zip file? Same basic idea. Then when you use another type of compression ,say flag you really can't compress it any more.

 

Sorry, just thinking out loud here. Been a researcher for so long (biochemistry/mycology, hence the moniker   ), that logic problems fascinate me. Maybe that is all the folding is, a glorified compression system that has to be unlocked with 1. Software; 2. Hardware. The rest is as Archimago and Mansr suggest.

[Don Hills]

30 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

One small correction. I have not "attacked" Archimago. I have explained that I disagree with Chris Connacker's decision to keep his identity a secret.

...

 

You said that you won't discuss the facts of Archimago's article because he is pseudonymous.  Regardless of your convictions on the subject of anonymity, it doesn't help your credibility and the respect people have for you. 

(I do respect you for the quality of your participation here. Calm and polite under pressure in spite of considerable provocation.)

[mansr]

26 minutes ago, botrytis said:

So, continuing on with my thoughts that Origami = compression, the first fold is probably the most efficient. The 2nd fold is less efficient, so the file will not shrink as much. Ever do a *.zip in a *.zip file? Same basic idea. Then when you use another type of compression ,say flag you really can't compress it any more.

There is only one "fold."

[crenca]

7 minutes ago, Don Hills said:

 

You said that you won't discuss the facts of Archimago's article because he is pseudonymous.  Regardless of your convictions on the subject of anonymity, it doesn't help your credibility and the respect people have for you. 

(I do respect you for the quality of your participation here. Calm and polite under pressure in spite of considerable provocation.)

 

I don't know, does being good at Audiophile Voodoo Jiu Jitsu count for something? 

[botrytis]

4 minutes ago, mansr said:

There is only one "fold."

I stand corrected 

 

What do you think about the idea that it is just a compression with a key?

[Archimago]

1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said:

...

The audio origami is impossible to examine on its own. But an examination of the "deblurring" is something I am working on for an article to be published in the July or August issue of Stereophile.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

I'm sure many will be looking forward to your July / August issues for the article then.

 

Ultimately, whether you write it, another of your writers, or even ghostwritten by Bob is not that important. Let's see how it's tested and whether it can be replicated and "deblurring" represents anything worthwhile.

 

[Archimago]

10 minutes ago, botrytis said:

I stand corrected 

 

What do you think about the idea that it is just a compression with a key?

 

Yes. "Compression with a key" sounds apt.

 

Either way (decoded or non-decoded), the source audio data is altered by the loss in bitrate (compression) - supposedly in a "good", "deblurred" way. And with the "key" (proper software / DAC / "authentic" MQA file), one "unlocks" some potential bit-depth and lossy content in the first and only unfold.

 

Important to remember FredericV's experiments showing the "key" mechanism only looks at the top 16-bits. MQA files can be easily altered in the lower 8 bits and still be seen as "authenticated" by the DAC.

[botrytis]

Thanks, I kept thinking this folding nonsense just sounds like compression, nothing more, it couldn't be THAT simple? Maybe it is....

[Archimago]

1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

One small correction. I have not "attacked" Archimago. I have explained that I disagree with Chris Connacker's decision to keep his identity a secret.

...

 

1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

... I have been an Economist subscriber for 4 decades and while I respect their policy, as an editor I don't agree with it...

 

Okay, I think we get it. You disagree with other editors' decisions about allowing "secret identity" writers whether it's in the pages of The Economist or Chris Connaker's website.

 

I trust we can move on now to other material discussions?

[botrytis]

1 minute ago, Archimago said:

 

 

Okay, I think we get it. You disagree with other editors' decisions about allowing "secret identity" writers whether it's in the pages of The Economist or Chris Connaker's website.

 

I trust we can move on now to other material discussions?

 

He already said he won't discuss other things BECAUSE of that fact, which is nonsense to me. As I said, being a scientist, the data is the data. I don't think we will get anything more from Mr. Atkinson.

[Archimago]

1 hour ago, botrytis said:

 

He already said he won't discuss other things BECAUSE of that fact, which is nonsense to me. As I said, being a scientist, the data is the data. I don't think we will get anything more from Mr. Atkinson.

 

I trust he doesn't just think an article written in The Economist is not worth discussing because the person was either anonymous or used initials like B.S. right?  Rather double standard for someone who subscribed for 4 decades!

 

I can appreciate if he comes here just to make sure that inaccurate perceptions around Stereophile are corrected. Bring up anonymity once or twice, remind people he's just monitoring and will not participate and move on...

 

I wonder... Suppose this article were written anonymously and the results were in favour of Stereophile's listening reports (JVS, ML, JA), "birth of a new world" ideas, and thought that Jim Austin was the wisest audiophile around in his foresight around needing to make the Industry happy by everyone getting on board the MQA-train. Heck, maybe the article even referenced the genius of Mr. Harley's appropriate use of the Kuhnian Paradigm Shift.

 

Suppose my objective results again confirmed how awesome the minimum phase, slow roll-off impulse response looked and continued to perpetuate the idea that this represented time-domain performance that sounds "ideal". Maybe even show how impressed I am that unfolding a 192kHz "studio master" results in a smorgasbord of 16 super-duper-time-domain-beautiful filters baby!!! Furthermore, suppose I agreed that we can't hear better than 17-bits dithered resolution so there's no issue at all! Thus MQA is capable of encoding everything human beings can possibly hear! A true masterpiece of engineering that elegantly and efficiently "encapsulates" any potential qualitative joy a human being could possibly appreciate through his/her auditory facilities!

 

Obviously many of you would be unhappy, calling Chris an Industry shill, the worse editor ever, etc... But I wonder what kind of defense would also be mounted by the audiophile press referred to in the article and MQA Facebook page participants in support of the anonymous author? Maybe even congratulated Chris' courage to allow an anonymous voice to be heard knowing all the opposition he/she would be expecting! Most importantly, would this article still be unworthy of discussion because of anonymity? We would never know I suppose...

 

[guymrob]

Here is a review from Stereophile 'MQA Benefit and Cost' by Jon Iverson:

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-benefits-and-costs

[Fokus]

4 hours ago, botrytis said:

Thanks, I kept thinking this folding nonsense just sounds like compression, nothing more, it couldn't be THAT simple? Maybe it is....

 

It isn't. The compression part is easy enough: you have the supersonic band (i.e. 24-48kHz) at 24 bit, and you have to put that into something like 6-8 bits. Bound to be lossy, but really not much because there simply is not that much supersonic signal (in a clean recording).

 

The folding is something else. The initial signal band 0-48kHz has to be split into two bands, 0-24kHz and 24-48kHz, that each then can be sampled at 48kHz. Afterwards these separate bands have to be joined again during the reconstruction ('unfolding') of the output. The split and join require specific filters that allow this procedure to be mathematically lossless. These filters will have an impact on the undecoded baseband signal: while the full split-join cycle may be lossless, an undecoded split-only cycle likely will not. This is the stuff that has to be investigated. And this investigation is reasonably tough without access to an MQA encoder.

 

Which is why I do not count on Stereophile, or anyone of the traditional press, getting anywhere with their 'investigations'.

[mcgillroy]

6 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

 

Okay, I think we get it. You disagree with other editors' decisions about allowing "secret identity" writers whether it's in the pages of The Economist or Chris Connaker's website.

 

 

Thus the solution to this dilemma offered by @John_Atkinson is to get the Economist to write an article about MQA. 

 

Let‘s all write friendly letters to Mr. Atkinson’s favorite British magazine and kindly ask to investigate the MQA-affair. With some luck it‘ll be out in July, right in sync with Mr. Atkinson’s deblurring article.

 

Gentleman, pls wet your quilts...

[astromo]

46 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

 

Thus the solution to this dilemma offered by @John_Atkinson is to get the Economist to write an article about MQA. 

 

Let‘s all write friendly letters to Mr. Atkinson’s favorite British magazine and kindly ask to investigate the MQA-affair. With some luck it‘ll be out in July, right in sync with Mr. Atkinson’s deblurring article.

 

Gentleman, pls wet your quilts...

There's been limited coverage here:

https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/feel-the-noise

by one of their journos.

[astromo]

49 minutes ago, mcgillroy said:

 

Thus the solution to this dilemma offered by @John_Atkinson is to get the Economist to write an article about MQA. 

 

Let‘s all write friendly letters to Mr. Atkinson’s favorite British magazine and kindly ask to investigate the MQA-affair. With some luck it‘ll be out in July, right in sync with Mr. Atkinson’s deblurring article.

 

Gentleman, pls wet your quilts...

There's been limited coverage here:

https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/feel-the-noise

by one of their journos.

[Fokus]

10 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

But an examination of the "deblurring" is something I am working on for an article to be published in the July or August issue of Stereophile.

 

Given high quality high-res source material and a state of the art SRC with programmable filters, such as iZotope RX, it is quite easy to create a set of test files that mimic MQA-style 'deblurring'.

[John_Atkinson]

2 hours ago, astromo said:

There's been limited coverage here:

https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/feel-the-noise

by one of their journos.

 

Thank you for the link. Note that the articles in The Economist's "1843" magazine are published with bylines, in this case a Jennifer Brown.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

[Pete-FIN]

11 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

The audio origami is impossible to examine on its own. But an examination of the "deblurring" is something I am working on for an article to be published in the July or August issue of Stereophile.

 

Mr. Atkinson, can you please answer this: Is it going to be an article about MQA deblurring, or an article that talks about many things including MQA deblurring?
 

When measurements are done for this article, I hope you will use scientific methods that make the findings repeatable for others. Just by listening with an ear is definitely not enough.

 

I have realistic expectations towards this coming article, I understand it wont answer all the questions related to MQA. But, I do have high expectations that the article will handle MQA deblurring with proper depth and detail.

 

The way I see it, here is the moment when Stereophile can show that they can do proper and unbiased investigative journalism.

[FredericV]

3 hours ago, Fokus said:

 

Given high quality high-res source material and a state of the art SRC with programmable filters, such as iZotope RX, it is quite easy to create a set of test files that mimic MQA-style 'deblurring'.

Or use sox filters. Sox can easily replicate MQA's time domain filters, and so much more.

[crenca]

8 hours ago, Fokus said:

 

It isn't. The compression part is easy enough: you have the supersonic band (i.e. 24-48kHz) at 24 bit, and you have to put that into something like 6-8 bits. Bound to be lossy, but really not much because there simply is not that much supersonic signal (in a clean recording).

 

The folding is something else. The initial signal band 0-48kHz has to be split into two bands, 0-24kHz and 24-48kHz, that each then can be sampled at 48kHz. Afterwards these separate bands have to be joined again during the reconstruction ('unfolding') of the output. The split and join require specific filters that allow this procedure to be mathematically lossless. These filters will have an impact on the undecoded baseband signal: while the full split-join cycle may be lossless, an undecoded split-only cycle likely will not. This is the stuff that has to be investigated. And this investigation is reasonably tough without access to an MQA encoder.

 

Which is why I do not count on Stereophile, or anyone of the traditional press, getting anywhere with their 'investigations'.

 

How could they?  Is JA and Stereophile really going to reverse engineer software such as MQA?!?  Have they ever done anything like that before, or do they have the requisite skills/experience?  The answer is a firm no as far as I can tell.

 

OR

 

Is JA implying that Bob Stuart and MQA are going to cooperate and allow him to peer into the code, or work with an encoder and run some test signals through it - all from behind an NDA but at the same time actually publish the results?  Possible, but unlikely.