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

[firedog]

Way to go. Will be interesting to see the reaction in the audiophile press. 

 

Re-read that Stereophile description of the MQA "comparison test" at the LA audio show.

 

Pretty amazing that no one present thought to comment that the tests were sighted and took place in a presentation where listeners were being told "and now you are going to hear the better sounding (MQA) version".

 

 

[firedog]

24 minutes ago, Chiger Yelam said:

It always worries me when I see rhetorical tricks being used to enhance an argument. I see no reason to mistrust the audiophile press on this issue as it is their job to give informed and unbiased reviews and there are clear attempts in this article to undermine trust in these reviews. Claiming that past or previous links to the industry in someway mean that they are incapable of doing their current jobs professionally strike me as a stretch. As to whether they "push" (author's quotes) MQA, well only in so much as they "push" any other product they give a good review to. Additionally just because the author has no industry affiliations does not make him/her somehow more trustworthy or unbiased; personally I trust someone more if they make their name and resume known rather than hiding behind anonymity.

If the author is entirely happy with the recent state of computer audio playback then fine, many of us are not and welcome innovative solutions which offer greater choice. This is my main objection to this article. If I want higher resolution sound and am sensible enough to ask my local HiFi retailer to audition new equipment (and can be trusted to make up my own mind) before I buy then what is the problem? The "internet blind test" put forward as evidence by our author is an insult to our intelligence.

I don't see MQA taking a monopoly position here, legacy codec will still be available and alternative improved products may emerge. If MQA and like minded innovators are undermined and ultimately fail then I fear we will be left with genuinely inferior products.

The stated goal of MQA is to become the default format, instead of high res and even CD. That's the big goal if they succeed and apparently the reason the record labels are on board. Then "legacy codec" won't be available.

 

How is a blind test an insult to your intelligence? More so than all the sighted test the audiophile press drools over, where they are told, "here's the inferior sounding file", and afterwards, "and now we will playback the superior MQA file that sounds better because..."?

Do you think there is no possibility that all the positive results from such demonstrations result from expectation bias?

 

Do you not find it odd that many experienced audiophiles are indifferent to the sound of MQA, or even find it sometimes inferior to CD or hi-res, yet many in the audiophile press say they've never heard an MQA track that didn't sound better than the non-MQA version, or that MQA is a "revolutionary" upgrade in SQ?  How do explain this difference?

 

Personally, I think the lack of critical examination of claims made by MQA and lack of objective/fair listening tests given to MQA by many in the audiophile press before crowning it as the next big improvement in SQ is prima facie evidence that the audiophile press is biased and not to be trusted on this topic.

[firedog]

8 hours ago, randyhat said:

 Likewise I think there have been listening observations and comparisons; the results of which are intriguing.  Is there no room for nuance when it comes to explaining and evaluating the listening preferences that have been expressed by people who have compared MQA to non-MQA music files?  Are all reviewers who have expressed a preference for MQA versions just lying to their readers?  Or, are ALL the tests contrived in a manner to favor MQA?

Sure there is. The problem is that most of the lack of nuance is coming from the audiophile press, and this forum is reacting to that. 

 

The “greatest sound ever” type of comments are suspicious on their face. Why haven’t these reviewers done blind testing, just to make sure there isn’t expectation bias influencing their reaction? 

 

Are all those reviewers lying? No, I don’t think so. I think they: a) are suffering from expectation bias; or b) responding positively to the coloration MQA filters cause in the music playback. That’s fine, but maybe talk about MQA on this basis, instead of telling us how revolutionary it is.

 

Why hasn’t the audio press done the obvious testing of MQA similar to what’s being presented here, instead of just reprinting what “Bob says” along with marketing material from MQA?  Why did it take hobbyists to reveal that the bit rate of unfolded MQA is not above 17 bits and the 4X sample rates simply upsampling (meaning there are no 24/176,192, 352, or 384 hi res files with MQA, despite what the MQA dac tells us)?  Shouldn’t the audiophile press have been examining these issues and informing us about it? It doesn’t say much for the professional audio press that they have done none of this and it has been left to hobbyists to discover. 

 

Even JA will only say that he hasn’t heard an MQA track that sounds worse than CD. That’s something, but also not convincing, as others have. As just one example, I thought the MQA version of Astral Weeks sounded awful, worse than the hi-res (which is apparently the same master) and also not as good as my CD. But neither JA or several other reviewers can find even one example like that. Hard to believe that isn’t expectation bias or some other kind of prejudicial listening.

[firedog]

6 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

With respect, you are taking what I said out of context. The article in which I expressed that thought and performed several comparisons can be found at https://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-mqa.

 

In that article I wrote: "My conclusion from these uncontrolled listening sessions was that MQA certainly doesn't damage the sound. Quite the opposite—the Prime sounded consistently sweeter than it had in the comparisons with the Ayre and Simaudio headphone amplifiers with regular PCM files."

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

Reread the article. Not impressed. Still mostly an evaluation of MQA based on sighted listening, and a reprint of MQA claims without analysis. And the idea that evolution has “fine-tuned” us so that standard sample rates aren’t adequate for hearing temporal differences? Not backed up by science (it’s a “sciencey” speculation). What temporal differences aren’t reproducible wth Redbook?

[firedog]

Here’s an interesting take at what some people hear when listening to MQA.

 https://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-reviewed

https://www.audiostream.com/content/bluesound-plays-mqa

https://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/8/87573.html

 

 

It’s a look back at what the late Charlie Hansen wrote in response to Michael Lavorgna’s praise of the MQA version of “Riders on the Storm”. CH said the MQA version was actually making some fine detail more difficult to hear and thus taking away  some of the emotional nuance of the vocal. ML heard this as praiseworthy: “more dimensional” and “pleasantly softer”.

[firedog]

3 hours ago, FredericV said:

Remember the GO LISTEN argument? Most arguments of MQA opinion makers fall into one of these pre-defined categories:
 

Here's how the GO LISTEN argument works, from their secret MQA group:

The post opened with "Oh boy here we go again". I removed all names from the post and replies. Screenshot used under fair use.

When they no longer have any argument left, they always revert to the GO LISTEN argument. So this is why we have articles like this one, and several MQA topics, which counteract such non-critical thinking.

They basically throw away all our research. Which means they know it's true. If there were mistakes in our research, they would attack them. They can't. So all they have left is their GO LISTEN fallback argument.

 

And what about those of us who have listened and aren't impressed?

[firedog]

18 minutes ago, Pete-FIN said:

Great article! Thanks for the effort to write it. Enjoyed reading it.

 

 

I have a MQA filter related question that I hope someone could give clarifying answer. 

 

I found out that Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital can not change DAC-filter when listening MQA. I am in the belief that Meridian has forbidden this to be possible. This is just my assumption, I don't know for sure. So, to get some actual knowledge to this, I present the following questions.

 

What is Meridians policy, is it allowed (or forbidden) to make an audio gear that have user changeable filters while listening MQA ? 

 

Are there any MQA enabled devices that can change DAC-filter while listening MQA ? 

Meridian hasn’t forbidden it, as far as we know. It apparently can be difficult to implement, which is one reason it doesn’t happen. There are DACs that switch, I can’t really remember which ones. 

[firedog]

7 hours ago, Pete-FIN said:

 

Has anyone seen or heard of a device that can do this ?

 

If there is at least a single device that can do this, then we know for sure that it is not forbidden by Meridian (like I pondered earlier).

 

Because of Meridians "hear it the way the artist intended" nonsense, I think it might be forbidden. Or, like firedog said, maybe it is just so difficult, that it hasn't been implemented as a feature in any device.

Didn't I read that dCS units can?

[firedog]

2 hours ago, botrytis said:

I am disheartened by the reaction on Stereophile, particularly Mr. Atkinson, as to Archimago and his pseudonym. I feel his reaction here, is one thing and then on Stereophile's site, it is another. 

 

I understand Archimago's reasoning about using the pseudonym. This is also a passion/hobby for him not his sole means of support. It seems since they cannot deflect, damage, or deny the science and thought behind the article, they deflect and go after the author. This is telling.

 

Dalethorn is also there throwing shade.

Where are these reactions?

 

[firedog]

5 hours ago, ednaz said:

All that scientific fact about moving images (I was talking about stills) ignores what I see about MQA. People with great ears (I was a union card holding musician until I was 30) talk about how MQA has more reality in the sense of environment. Which, given the de-blurring techniques, and noise feedback... makes a lot of sense.

"people with great ears" - only some of them, and almost all  in sighted tests. Have you not read all the reports of listeners (many in blind testing) that don't agree? Or those who hear that the "softening" and "more natural"  sound is also acdompanied by a loss of small detail?

 

And it still isn't clear that the "deblurring" is being applied they way they claim, or that a user can't achieve the same result without MQA, just by using different filters. 

[firedog]

4 hours ago, kissov said:

Here is a link to an adult talking about MQA who uses his real name.

 

Uh, I think you meant to write, “an adult who should be embarrassed to use his real name because now everyone knows he is either ignorant and doesn’t know what he is talking about, or just a shill for MQA who will say anything, true or not.”

[firedog]

2 hours ago, astromo said:

@Archimago thank you for the "cut through". You saved me the effort of pointing out the flaws that I could spot in the HB presentation. Leaves me at this point with the thought of "bring on the McGill Uni study".

 

If the analytical work by Meyer and Moran are any guide:

Audibility of a CD-Standard A/DA/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback

we'll see confirmation of the ABX work you've reported on in your blog.

 

Interestingly, the Meyer Moran paper points to this commentary from another AES Journal Paper as part of the motivation for their study, dating back over ten years now:

The similarity of language used to describe MQA by it's co-inventor with the description above is no coincidence (but it's certainly amusing to reflect upon). I've not fully read the paper that the above quote is extracted from yet but a quick skim made me notice this comment:

 

From my own technical background, I know that modelling can only take you so far (George Box's advice is often quoted, "all models are wrong, some are useful" or something along those lines). Without empirical testing and validation, theory and models can quickly lead you down the garden path to leave you dancing around the magic mushrooms with the pixies and the fairies. To take Box's point, if you don't test your models empirically, it's not possible to understand the strengths and weaknesses and ultimately their reliability.

 

If MQA had been subjected to the rigour that Moran and Meyer applied (here's the testing detail from their paper that the abstract above alludes to):

We would already have an answer that would put all this angst and debate from the last couple of years beyond doubt to even the greatest proponents of the format.

 

Thanks again for your efforts.

The Meyer Moran study has been fairly thoroughly discredited. Even one of the authors said he no longer stands by the conclusions. 

One of the big problems with the study was that they didn't find out the provenance of SACDs they used, and several of them were produced from upsampled Redbook. I wouldn't exactly call that testing "rigour". 

 

 So their study wasn't comparing hi-res recordings to Redbook at all in those cases, it was comparing Redbook source to Redbook source. And somehow they got to the conclusion that there was no discernable difference between Redbook and hi-res.

 

There were also some statistical issues with the study that put the findings in doubt. 

And as far as studies go, see this: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18296

And that meta-analysis rejected the Meyer-Moran results for inclusion as being statistically suspect, i.e.,  results appearing to not be statistically random.

 

I'm not actually arguing the point of whether hi-res is audible - I'm just arguing that the Meyer - Moran study isn't where you should go if you want scientific proof it isn't. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Pete-FIN said:

Mr. Atkinson, would you be interested on taking closer look to MQA now that there is new info and research that has been presented at CA? 

 

To me, one part of audio hobby is to understand how things function, and I would love to see Stereophiles deep analysis on MQA, that would explain comprehensively how MQA functions. The reason why I ask you Mr. Atkinson to do this, is that maybe you can get Bob Stuart on interview to explain, confirm or refute the new research findings on MQA. I believe Stuart knows about the conversation that we are having here and he has chosen not to participate, but maybe he would be interested participating on Stereophiles interview. 

Don't believe you can get Bob Stuart to give straightforward answers. His whole approach since MQA was announced has been to seem forthcoming, but obfuscate when he has to deal with inconvenient truths. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Pete-FIN said:

I agree, it really seems like it's "all about Bob", that's why I'm hoping Bob would join the conversation.

 

A few years a go I found some interviews that he gave when MQA was brand new thing. Now that there is new research findings on the matter, I think it would be very appropriate to give a response. I just wonder what rubbed him wrong when he didn't want to give any kind of official response to the CA article. I think there must be such 'industry authority' that it would be very rude to back off an interview request from. Stereophile, I'm hoping you guys man up and do some proper journalism to serve your readers and uphold the integrity of your magazine.

BS and MQA have consistently avoided speaking or demonstrating  in any setting where they can be directly and thoroughly challenged. I think the conclusion we draw from that is obvious.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, eclectic said:

 

The Malaysians should sue.

there goes the Malaysisan market...

[firedog]

5 hours ago, WiWavelength said:

 

I have my doubts about MQA's ability to research the recording provenance of albums slated for encoding.  Still, consider this an interesting aside.

 

Among my Stereophile CDs, I have the original "Test CD" [STPH-002-2] from 1990.  And on this CD is a 15 ips magnetic tape recording transferred to digital twice for comparison -- via the standard at the time Sony PCM-1630 ADC as well as via the then new Chesky 128x oversampling ADC.  Booklet text is credited to both John Atkinson (JA) and Robert Harley (formerly, RH), and in regards to the PCM-1630, the booklet quoth "...the initial A/D conversion for nine out of every ten CDs is made with this Sony converter."

 

I have no reason to doubt this assertion.  Per my understanding of early CD production, standard practice was to deliver to the pressing plant the digital master on U-matic tape, and the Sony PCM-1600 series provided the PCM adaptor for U-matic digital audio recording.

 

So, if a digital master is of a certain age, it likely had at least a final pass through a Sony PCM-1600 series ADC, perhaps even if upstream digital recording had been Soundstream, Mitsubishi, or 3M, etc.

 

AJ

MQA claim that the number of different ADCs used in old recordings was very small - as not many existed. So the issue of multiple unknown ADC's on old tracks isn't a problem.

 

They also claim they've analyzed so many tracks where they do know the ADC's used, that they've developed an algorithm that enables them to make a highly accurate guess about what ADC was used, even if provenance of the track isn't known. 

 

They can then apply the proper correction, and all of this is at least partially automated. 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, miguelito said:

How is this not the same as DSP at the end of the chain?

How is it the same?

They are claiming to correct the timing errors of the ADC in the recording.DSP at the end of the chain has a different purpose.

[firedog]

10 hours ago, Archimago said:

 

Looks like the same arguments he had a month ago before the previous thread on MQA got taken down after 50 pages or so at Steve Hoffman's. Of course, back then @The Computer Audiophile wasn't on his "hit list" as I recall .

 

@Lee Scoggins, I see you're not banned from here, so feel free to let us know the experiment results with those A/B files... Hmmm, did you ever publish a "part 2" to your MQA report? I thought you were going to do some research beyond being impressed by the "thousands of albums are coming and it sounds good to me"...

From what he writes there, looks like he won't be back here. Basically he made (mild) ad hominem attacks on your work without actually challenging any of the content. And he said people at CA were anti and closed minded. Again, no actual argument, just characterization. 

 

I think it's clear to him he doesn't have the knowledge or ability to answer the arguments made here.

He'd rather just keep repeating "what he's been told" - that fit's his pro MQA, pro monopolistic, pro "big corporations are good for you" POV. 

[firedog]

58 minutes ago, mansr said:

I stopped listening at "my friend Bob Stuart."

Too bad. He said it was lossy and that it robs music of something, of ״quality״. And that he doesn’t like it. But he’s clearly trying not to be controversial and not insult his friend Bob. Says he put it into his equipment b/c customers want it and many like the sound.

[firedog]

2 hours ago, labjr said:

So basically, Paul McGowan says it's lossy, he can hear the difference and doesn't like it,  won't  use it in his DACs because MQA forces you give them an unfair advantage in your own product, but it is in his streaming products because it makes them sell better. 

He didn't say unfair advantage. He said b/c they sell upgradeable FPGA based DACs, and not chip DACs, it would interfere with their business model which is based on owners downloading updates to the OS.

And because he said 70-80% of his users like it and  want it.

 

I don't see anything wrong with that. 

 

Several years ago there were  manufacturers that were against USB inputs or DSD compatibility for either SQ or technical reasons or both. They later made products including both because customers wanted those features. 

[firedog]

2 hours ago, labjr said:

 

He didn't say anything about FPGA's  or their business model.

 

He said: 

 

"MQA requires changes to our D to A converters that we are not willing to make. Because we don't want to compromise their performance or their sound." 

 

 

 

First, "our D to A converter" IS an FPGA. That's the context. 

Second, the wider context, if you understand their use of FPGA and their business model, is exactly what I said. Here's one  other quote by Paul M. on the subject (there are many similar ones):

 

Quote

Ted and the engineers continue to improve the state of the art with digital filters on a regular basis – and one of the whole reasons we went to an FPGA based DAC in the first place was the freedom to improve the product’s performance over time. If we were restricted in what we could to future developments, held back because everything in the USB chain had to be 'fixed' by the MQA engineers first… that would be nuts.

 

I'm not going to bring you a full page of quotes of his on the subject. So yes, I interpreted what he said based on understanding the context and what  he's said over time about MQA. It doesn't make sense for a DAC business model based on regular SW updates that are essentially giving you a "new" DAC with changes to the filtering on a regular basis. 

[firedog]

And access of MQA Ltd to their IP, which they may not want to give out.

 

AFAIK, they basically write firmware updates, listen, and as soon as they like what they hear they release it to the DAC owners. All at their offices. 

 

Putting MQA approval-code writing into this process would complicate it and slow it down, possibly quite a bit - not to mention the possibility it could also change the sound of the firmware they just wrote and decided they were happy with. 

[firedog]

6 hours ago, labjr said:

I just quoted exactly what he said was the reason they don't have MQA in their DACs.  

And you apparently still don't understand it.

[firedog]

14 hours ago, mitchco said:

 

Unfortunately, for rock, pop, blues and most anything not classical, this will not be the case. As an ex-recording/mixing engineer, I can say that tracks are already compressed before even being recorded. Meaning, most mixing consoles have compressors/limiters on every channel strip. More often than not, compression and limiting is applied on the way to the multitrack recorder (analog or digital). More often than not, during mixdown, not only possible on individual tracks, but absolutely on the stereo master bus before hitting tape or digital. Finally, applied again during the mastering process.

 

Speaking with one of the engineers that did the mass majority of HDTracks transfers, more often than not, receives whatever is provided by the publishing company, and more often than not, it is a "safety" master is provided, which is an already compressed mixdown on tape or digital. The best the engineer can do is eq the master and add some stereo processing, depth, maybe add a bit of reverb...

 

Finally, virtually all music has passed through the device before it even reaches your ears. The simple reality is that we have all heard the sound of this device since 1967 – that’s 50 years ago folks. In fact, if you are listening to mainstream music right now, it is likely that you are also listening to the sound of this device. If you look at how the  Universal Audio 1176LN Peak Limiter works, it can substantially alter the music waveform in a way that there is no coming back, regardless of anything MQA can or cannot do.

 

Not to paint the bleakest picture :), the likelihood of uncompressed tracks being in vaults, is about 0. Given the ubiquity of "studios in a box" and access to everyone, proper professional recording, mixing and mastering is becoming (or has become) a lost art...

 

If the consumer audiophile industry wanted to really do something, demanding better recordings, mixes and masters is where we would see real audible sonic improvements. Sorry Arch, did not mean to single you out, just a PSA.

But it's also a question of how much compression/limiting is added and when. AFAIK, the Beatles at some point started running everything through a limiter b/c they liked the sound. But there was  generally still a good amount of dynamics left in the final master .

Compare the 67 Sgt. Pepper to the 2017 one. I love the new remaster, but it is a lot more volume compressed than the original. 

[firedog]

10 hours ago, miguelito said:

To be honest, this is a pretty weak reason. You could have the MQA filter implemented and fixed, and implement whatever other filters you would implement be completely separate from the MQA filter you have. I see no limitation here - and btw this is how it works in the dCS case, which is also an FPGA DAC.

When it was said above that it took dCS "thousands" of hours to implement their solution, how is this a weak reason? That seems like a pretty strong reason to me. dCS made a decision that they wanted to add MQA and found a way. PS Audio decided they didn't really like MQA anyway, so they didn't want to invest the initial and ongoing  resources (it isn't a once done, you never have to touch it again situation) to fully implement it. No different from several other manufacturers who've decided it isn't in their interest to make MQA certified DACs.

 

Every company has to decide what's best for it.