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

[The Computer Audiophile]

26 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

You are forgetting the labels own enough of MQA Ltd to exert significant influence and I doubt the primary investor would disagree with them. 

I don’t see who there is to influence. 

[crenca]

The investment aspect of MQA reminds me of just how much of an "insider" genesis and concern MQA really is.  It is the creation of a handful - an alignment of Bob S, labels, and old guard trade publications.  On the level of their concern, such as their perceived need for DRM and yet-another-format-version to sell, it largely failed.  For the consumer, it was an answer to a question never asked and thus is a non-starter.  

[Andrei]

Thanks Archimago - a good read.  To take another angle on this, I say:

- We already have good formats; PCM in its various guises, DSD (SACD or Diff etc), Vinyl (some great developments on the way in laser cutting), Tape.

- We need another format like a hole in the head.

- Even if MQA was better then all the money invested in purchasing the same music in the new format would not come close to investing in better speakers ... or amplification ...

[HelpfulDad]

So much discussion about theory but have all of you actually heard fully decoded MQA content?  The difference is dramatic.  I can understand discussion about whether that duffereosound is good or not.  But I can’t understand those who opine about quality without experience hearing it, or those who don’t know how it actually works.

I was skeptical til I heard it.  The time domain corrections are remarkable.  I think a professional drummer could discern specific cymbals used on tracks.  Cymbals from digital sources have always annoyed me

 

I don’t know why people think it’s a DRM scheme. It’s just clever digital signal processing 

 

[crenca]

1 minute ago, HelpfulDad said:

So much discussion about theory but have all of you actually heard fully decoded MQA content?  The difference is dramatic.  I can understand discussion about whether that duffereosound is good or not.  But I can’t understand those who opine about quality without experience hearing it, or those who don’t know how it actually works.

I was skeptical til I heard it.  The time domain corrections are remarkable.  I think a professional drummer could discern specific cymbals used on tracks.  Cymbals from digital sources have always annoyed me

 

I don’t know why people think it’s a DRM scheme. It’s just clever digital signal processing 

 

 

[Ralf11]

I know why people think it’s a DRM scheme.

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, HelpfulDad said:

So much discussion about theory but have all of you actually heard fully decoded MQA content?  The difference is dramatic.  I can understand discussion about whether that duffereosound is good or not.  But I can’t understand those who opine about quality without experience hearing it, or those who don’t know how it actually works.

I was skeptical til I heard it.  The time domain corrections are remarkable.  I think a professional drummer could discern specific cymbals used on tracks.  Cymbals from digital sources have always annoyed me

 

I don’t know why people think it’s a DRM scheme. It’s just clever digital signal processing 

 

Oh boy. 

 

We’ve all heard it. Using the same master it isn’t better. 

 

White glove remasters may sound good but MQA has nothing to do with that. It could be done better without MQA. There’s no way to remove data from the original and make it sound better. 

 

There is no such thing as deblurring. 

 

Here are a couple concise links. 

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/page/470/?tab=comments#comment-936690

 

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/page/485/?tab=comments#comment-938207

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

9 minutes ago, HelpfulDad said:

So much discussion about theory but have all of you actually heard fully decoded MQA content?  The difference is dramatic.  I can understand discussion about whether that duffereosound is good or not.  But I can’t understand those who opine about quality without experience hearing it, or those who don’t know how it actually works.

I was skeptical til I heard it.  The time domain corrections are remarkable.  I think a professional drummer could discern specific cymbals used on tracks.  Cymbals from digital sources have always annoyed me

 

I don’t know why people think it’s a DRM scheme. It’s just clever digital signal processing 

 

Oh yeah. Mansr found DRM inside when he tore it apart. 

[firedog]

8 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

So much discussion about theory but have all of you actually heard fully decoded MQA content?  The difference is dramatic.  I can understand discussion about whether that duffereosound is good or not.  But I can’t understand those who opine about quality without experience hearing it, or those who don’t know how it actually works.

I was skeptical til I heard it.  The time domain corrections are remarkable.  I think a professional drummer could discern specific cymbals used on tracks.  Cymbals from digital sources have always annoyed me

 

I don’t know why people think it’s a DRM scheme. It’s just clever digital signal processing 

 

 

I've heard it fully decoded and reaction was: "meh". Some cuts slightly better, some not very  different, some worse. Ergo, I see no reason for the existence of such a proprietary format. 

DRM: if you mis-define DRM only as copy protection, you are correct. But that's not the definition. 

Now a question for you: in your listening comparisons:

a) are you sure you were comparing the same master;

b) were you listening with an MQA device that switches seamlessly between MQA filtering and non MQA filtering acc'd to the appropriate file format (very few devices do, almost all use the MQA filters for both types of files);

c) were your comparisons sighted? 
 

If your answers to the any of the above were a-"not sure or no"; b- no; c-yes; then your evaluation of the SQ of MQA is based on a faulty comparison.

I'm glad you think the differences were "remarkable". They are so remarkable that lots of experienced audiophiles and professional listeners don't hear them. I'm not judging what you heard, but I'd say that if a format truly makes a "remarkable" difference, then virtually everyone would hear it. 

[mansr]

You're wasting your time. When account that has been dormant for 3 years suddenly awakens to make a post on an MQA thread with no activity for a month, I have to suspect it has been sold to or stolen by a troll farm. I'm sure there is such a market.

[Miska]

12 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

I don’t know why people think it’s a DRM scheme. It’s just clever digital signal processing 

 

You need to have a contract and NDA with them to get anything encoded, and even then the encoding happens in a cloud service when they keep the encryption keys secure. You need some more paperwork and some $20k to have your own encoding server and encryption keys. And then only decoders pre-approved by MQA are allowed to decode it. Sounds awful lot like DRM doesn't it?

 

Clever digital signal processing doesn't need to contaminate entire supply chain with a proprietary closed codec that doesn't allow people to encode their content and test signals. And reduces quality to achieve lossy compression without actually saving any bandwidth.

 

Clever digital signal processing would do it's magic at playback side with the original uncontaminated lossless content. For all the content you already have.

 

I'm quite sick and tired of walled gardens, especially when it comes to content.

 

[jacobacci]

I have been participating in the Roon Community MQA discussion for a while and I am struck by the fact how irreconcilably the pro and con side defend their postitions. After a discussion about the two MQA white glove treatments on record, I gave the matter some more thought and decided to post here where the thread explicitly refers to a review of the controversies (which indicates a desire to be objective).

 

Disclaimer: My thoughts are from a 10'000 feet level, they are not mathematically exact, nor based on double blind tests. I am not looking at questions like DRM at all. I am not a native english speaker.

 

The conclusion I have come to is that the perspective MQA make their claims from and the arguments brought forward to debunk these claims refer to two fundamentally different scopes of investigation and hence can never be reconciled.

 

Lets look at MQA's claims of "deblurring" etc. first. The MQA scope of thought as I have understood it, is roughly as follows (I may be totally wrong here):

 

 

MQA claims to achieve a higher degree of end-to-end fidelity by compensating for errors in the recording and reproduction chain. In the model, a fingerprint of the recording chain is taken, which is then compensated for  during the reproduction process, in order to minimize any errors in the ADC Process. This is akin to correcting lens distortions of a satellite camera after the photograph has arrived back on earth. This is what was partially done in the two white glove projects of the Christian Eggen and Radka Toneff recordings.

 

The signal is then folded to reduce bandwidth, transmitted and unfolded. I don't believe MQA claim this step improves the fidelity of the signal. The goal here seems to be to reduce bandwidth with minimum deterioration of signal quality.

During the reproduction stage, selected filters are applied to the signal to compensate for deviations from ideal the DAC, amp and speakers might have.

 

All of this is how it would occur in a ideal world and MQA's claim is that through this process they achieve a more accurate reproduction of the live event. This I understand to be the "deblurring" bit. The evidence they present to back this claim is by demonstrating the audibility of certain distortions that this end to end process reduces. At no point have I found information on a scientific test that the MQA reproduction chain as a whole actually does achieve such improvements.

 

So far so good. 

 

In real life things unfold (sic!) quite a bit differently.

 

 

We start with a Master of a recording, not with a life event. So any improvments to the ADC part of the chain are out of the window. There is no way, the quality of the Master can be improved upon, as it is by definition the master. Reproduction can only be different, not more accurate that then master. If some people prefer the different to the Master, that's a completely different story.

 

The Master at the origin of an MQA file on Tidal is most likely exactly the same Master that is found on Qobuz or on HD Tracks. In the case of Qobuz or HD Tracks, the master is transported and fed to the DAC in uncompressed / unmodified form and arrives as an exact copy at the DAC. In the case of Tidal folding and unfolding take place along the way, modifying the file in the process. Whether this modification is audible or not, whether it sounds better or not is subject to debate, but no way can the resulting bitstream be more accurate to the master than the master itslef.

 

The third stage, the compenstation of the fingerprint of the DAC and the rest of the recording chain is usually implemented by  applying a standard filter without any knowledge of what characteristics this filter should correct. So we have another potential deviation of the signal away from accurate. 

 

My conclusion:

The claims MQA makes are based on a compensation of errors of the recording and reproduction chain, so that its transfer characterictis are optimized. On top of this a folding / unfolding is applied to reduce bandwidth which in theory will deteriorate the signal less than the improvement brought about by the error compensation of the chain. Hence MQA claim to overall improve the fidelity of the chain. The two white glove treatments are an attempt to illustrate that this approach may work, if all stars line up. And the white glove treatments do sound good to my ears. But as I can't compare before and after that is no proof whatsoever.

 

Unfortunately MQA have elected to use only two stages of the complete process in a less than perfect way:

• the folding / unfolding can only modify the signal to be less accurate. The majority of users seem to think that the modifications introduced are not severely unpleasant to the ear and some people even prefer them to the original Master (akin to vinyl distortions)
• the filters at the DAC end are standard and hence will likely not compensate for anything, but introduce additional modifications of the signal that further deviate from accurate.

 

In consequence any investigation of actual implementations of MQA can only show a deterioration of a signal, not an improvement and the conclusion is inevitable that the myth is debunked. There seems to be some quite smart technology in the complete MQA process, but the current use of MQA cannot reveal its potential benefits.

 

Things like taking a fingerprint of a recoding chain after the fact seems only possible in very rare cases (puristic recording chain, equipment still available) and subject to many caveats. In the case of the thousands of available MQA recording, they can only sound different from the Master they were derived from. They can't more accurately represent the master than the master itself.

[jcbenten]

6 hours ago, jacobacci said:

I have been participating in the Roon Community MQA discussion for a while and I am struck by the fact how irreconcilably the pro and con side defend their postitions. After a discussion about the two MQA white glove treatments on record, I gave the matter some more thought and decided to post here where the thread explicitly refers to a review of the controversies (which indicates a desire to be objective).

 

Disclaimer: My thoughts are from a 10'000 feet level, they are not mathematically exact, nor based on double blind tests. I am not looking at questions like DRM at all. I am not a native english speaker.

 

The conclusion I have come to is that the perspective MQA make their claims from and the arguments brought forward to debunk these claims refer to two fundamentally different scopes of investigation and hence can never be reconciled.

 

Lets look at MQA's claims of "deblurring" etc. first. The MQA scope of thought as I have understood it, is roughly as follows (I may be totally wrong here):

 

 

MQA claims to achieve a higher degree of end-to-end fidelity by compensating for errors in the recording and reproduction chain. In the model, a fingerprint of the recording chain is taken, which is then compensated for  during the reproduction process, in order to minimize any errors in the ADC Process. This is akin to correcting lens distortions of a satellite camera after the photograph has arrived back on earth. This is what was partially done in the two white glove projects of the Christian Eggen and Radka Toneff recordings.

 

The signal is then folded to reduce bandwidth, transmitted and unfolded. I don't believe MQA claim this step improves the fidelity of the signal. The goal here seems to be to reduce bandwidth with minimum deterioration of signal quality.

During the reproduction stage, selected filters are applied to the signal to compensate for deviations from ideal the DAC, amp and speakers might have.

 

All of this is how it would occur in a ideal world and MQA's claim is that through this process they achieve a more accurate reproduction of the live event. This I understand to be the "deblurring" bit. The evidence they present to back this claim is by demonstrating the audibility of certain distortions that this end to end process reduces. At no point have I found information on a scientific test that the MQA reproduction chain as a whole actually does achieve such improvements.

 

So far so good. 

 

In real life things unfold (sic!) quite a bit differently.

 

 

We start with a Master of a recording, not with a life event. So any improvments to the ADC part of the chain are out of the window. There is no way, the quality of the Master can be improved upon, as it is by definition the master. Reproduction can only be different, not more accurate that then master. If some people prefer the different to the Master, that's a completely different story.

 

The Master at the origin of an MQA file on Tidal is most likely exactly the same Master that is found on Qobuz or on HD Tracks. In the case of Qobuz or HD Tracks, the master is transported and fed to the DAC in uncompressed / unmodified form and arrives as an exact copy at the DAC. In the case of Tidal folding and unfolding take place along the way, modifying the file in the process. Whether this modification is audible or not, whether it sounds better or not is subject to debate, but no way can the resulting bitstream be more accurate to the master than the master itslef.

 

The third stage, the compenstation of the fingerprint of the DAC and the rest of the recording chain is usually implemented by  applying a standard filter without any knowledge of what characteristics this filter should correct. So we have another potential deviation of the signal away from accurate. 

 

My conclusion:

The claims MQA makes are based on a compensation of errors of the recording and reproduction chain, so that its transfer characterictis are optimized. On top of this a folding / unfolding is applied to reduce bandwidth which in theory will deteriorate the signal less than the improvement brought about by the error compensation of the chain. Hence MQA claim to overall improve the fidelity of the chain. The two white glove treatments are an attempt to illustrate that this approach may work, if all stars line up. And the white glove treatments do sound good to my ears. But as I can't compare before and after that is no proof whatsoever.

 

Unfortunately MQA have elected to use only two stages of the complete process in a less than perfect way:

• the folding / unfolding can only modify the signal to be less accurate. The majority of users seem to think that the modifications introduced are not severely unpleasant to the ear and some people even prefer them to the original Master (akin to vinyl distortions)
• the filters at the DAC end are standard and hence will likely not compensate for anything, but introduce additional modifications of the signal that further deviate from accurate.

 

In consequence any investigation of actual implementations of MQA can only show a deterioration of a signal, not an improvement and the conclusion is inevitable that the myth is debunked. There seems to be some quite smart technology in the complete MQA process, but the current use of MQA cannot reveal its potential benefits.

 

Things like taking a fingerprint of a recoding chain after the fact seems only possible in very rare cases (puristic recording chain, equipment still available) and subject to many caveats. In the case of the thousands of available MQA recording, they can only sound different from the Master they were derived from. They can't more accurately represent the master than the master itself.

Your fundamental flaw is the exclusion of DRM...for many that is the entire point of the debate.  Whether the providers are lying about the technical (or not...NOT), if all music is MQA'ed...then the label can implement DRM.  The Consumer pays twice...on the encoding and decoding and is stuck with music, for the most part (not always depending on mastering), compromised.

 

As limited as MP3 can be most times, MQA is a marketing/technical scheme to allow studios to limit quality.  MP3 is pretty much transparent to the consumer.

[HelpfulDad]

On 3/28/2019 at 5:08 AM, Miska said:

 

You need to have a contract and NDA with them to get anything encoded, and even then the encoding happens in a cloud service when they keep the encryption keys secure. You need some more paperwork and some $20k to have your own encoding server and encryption keys. And then only decoders pre-approved by MQA are allowed to decode it. Sounds awful lot like DRM doesn't it?

 

Clever digital signal processing doesn't need to contaminate entire supply chain with a proprietary closed codec that doesn't allow people to encode their content and test signals. And reduces quality to achieve lossy compression without actually saving any bandwidth.

 

Clever digital signal processing would do it's magic at playback side with the original uncontaminated lossless content. For all the content you already have.

 

I'm quite sick and tired of walled gardens, especially when it comes to content.

 

Using that logic,  CD, Dolby B, SACD and cassettes are DRM schemes as well because we had/have to pay Sony and/or Philips to use those technologies.  Someday, a CD could include a content licensing scheme.  And, Neil Young, et al, found a way to enforce content licensing with PCM, so the ability to embed a scheme means nothing. 
 

MQA sounds most accurate, small files and most of the naysayers haven’t even heard it properly decoded, while artists who have verified it have agreed the sound is accurate.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot they’re in on it too.  Verifying accuracy because they want more money.  Some people just want to object for the sake of objecting.

[The Computer Audiophile]

11 minutes ago, HelpfulDad said:

Using that logic,  CD, Dolby B, SACD and cassettes are DRM schemes as well because we had/have to pay Sony and/or Philips to use those technologies.  Someday, a CD could include a content licensing scheme.  And, Neil Young, et al, found a way to enforce content licensing with PCM, so the ability to embed a scheme means nothing. 
 

MQA sounds most accurate, small files and most of the naysayers haven’t even heard it properly decoded, while artists who have verified it have agreed the sound is accurate.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot they’re in on it too.  Verifying accuracy because they want more money.  Some people just want to object for the sake of objecting.

Of the millions of batch processed Warner music, how many tracks were verified by the artists? What about the dead artists? 

[The Computer Audiophile]

@HelpfulDad by the way, you’re the one who said the following, correct?

 

 

On 4/25/2016 at 5:58 PM, HelpfulDad said:

the USB connection in a car from the lightning connector IS NOT A DIGITAL AUDIO CONNECTION

 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, HelpfulDad said:

while artists who have verified it have agreed the sound is accurate.

Except for the ones who haven't. And there are many. Including those who've said it sounded worse.

And no "artist" has verfied the vast majority of MQA conversions. They are batch converted in as mass/factory type conversion. The "authentication" is by some record label flunky, not by any artist who had anything to do with the original recording.

 

One thing is true about MQA: there is no concensus regarding whether it sound worse or better than the file it was made from.

If it really was significantly better, there would be near universal agreement that it sounds better, and there isn't.

So if many think it actually sounds worse, what good is it, and what does it actually give us? 

[MarkusBarkus]

17 minutes ago, firedog said:

They are batch converted in as mass/factory type conversion. The "authentication" is by some record label flunky, not by any artist who had anything to do with the original recording.

My take is what gets "authenticated" is the pre-defined process described to the labels/artists, expected to yield a result with certain characteristics.
 

While I have not personally witnessed the authentication process, I feel reasonably certain that they would run a batch process for this; how could they do anything else, given the volume of files? And the time it would take to get sign-off.

 

There was a parallel model with digital imagery. Sites did not anticipate how much consumers would embrace digital photography. They uploaded zillions of files into free storage.
 

Companies had to consider how to manage the storage load, and some were making copies of the original files, slightly down-rezed.
 

In some of these meetings (don't ask where) there were proponents of the down-rez batch process, since the images looked identical. We're talking about petabytes of data. Sorry to drift OT a bit there...

 

 

 

[botrytis]

2 minutes ago, MarkusBarkus said:

My take is what gets "authenticated" is the pre-defined process described to the labels/artists, expected to yield a result with certain characteristics.
 

While I have not personally witnessed the authentication process, I feel reasonably certain that they would run a batch process for this; how could they do anything else, given the volume of files? And the time it would take to get sign-off.

 

There was a parallel model with digital imagery. Sites did not anticipate how much consumers would embrace digital photography. They uploaded zillions of files into free storage.
 

Companies had to consider how to manage the storage load, and some were making copies of the original files, slightly down-rezed.
 

In some of these meetings (don't ask where) there were proponents of the down-rez batch process, since the images looked identical. We're talking about petabytes of data. Sorry to drift OT a bit there...

 

 

 

 

The point is, if an engineer or ARTIST has not OK'ed the MQA conversion, then there is no AUTHENTICATION. This is the problem here.

 

They are scamming it.

[MarkusBarkus]

...I agree @botrytis. I put authenticated in "quotation marks" for that reason. They play fast-and-loose with the word "authenticated." I think most folks would expect the okie-dokie to come from the artist, maybe the label. Not from the sausage maker.

[botrytis]

There is NO AUTHENTICATION besides just mass encoding.

[MikeyFresh]

4 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

MQA sounds most accurate, small files and most of the naysayers haven’t even heard it properly decoded, while artists who have verified it have agreed the sound is accurate.

Bullshit, you'd have no way at all of knowing what sounds "most accurate". Compared to what, you've heard the master tape? You also have no way at all of knowing what "most of the naysayers" have heard or not heard, and whether or not it was "properly decoded", as if that were even important.

 

Which artists do you claim have  "verified" MQA as accurate?

 

4 hours ago, HelpfulDad said:

Some people just want to object for the sake of objecting.

7 posts in and you are concluding people here just like to waste time "objecting for the sake of objecting"? Thats a very foolish statement, proving you haven't read this thread at all, or your reading comprehension level prohibits you from remembering all of the fine point details presented here (and elsewhere) that have fully debunked the supposed efficacy of Master Quality Approximated.

 

[HelpfulDad]

On 9/30/2019 at 2:35 AM, jacobacci said:

I have been participating in the Roon Community MQA discussion for a while and I am struck by the fact how irreconcilably the pro and con side defend their postitions. After a discussion about the two MQA white glove treatments on record, I gave the matter some more thought and decided to post here where the thread explicitly refers to a review of the controversies (which indicates a desire to be objective).

 

Disclaimer: My thoughts are from a 10'000 feet level, they are not mathematically exact, nor based on double blind tests. I am not looking at questions like DRM at all. I am not a native english speaker.

 

The conclusion I have come to is that the perspective MQA make their claims from and the arguments brought forward to debunk these claims refer to two fundamentally different scopes of investigation and hence can never be reconciled.

 

Lets look at MQA's claims of "deblurring" etc. first. The MQA scope of thought as I have understood it, is roughly as follows (I may be totally wrong here):

 

 

MQA claims to achieve a higher degree of end-to-end fidelity by compensating for errors in the recording and reproduction chain. In the model, a fingerprint of the recording chain is taken, which is then compensated for  during the reproduction process, in order to minimize any errors in the ADC Process. This is akin to correcting lens distortions of a satellite camera after the photograph has arrived back on earth. This is what was partially done in the two white glove projects of the Christian Eggen and Radka Toneff recordings.

 

The signal is then folded to reduce bandwidth, transmitted and unfolded. I don't believe MQA claim this step improves the fidelity of the signal. The goal here seems to be to reduce bandwidth with minimum deterioration of signal quality.

During the reproduction stage, selected filters are applied to the signal to compensate for deviations from ideal the DAC, amp and speakers might have.

 

All of this is how it would occur in a ideal world and MQA's claim is that through this process they achieve a more accurate reproduction of the live event. This I understand to be the "deblurring" bit. The evidence they present to back this claim is by demonstrating the audibility of certain distortions that this end to end process reduces. At no point have I found information on a scientific test that the MQA reproduction chain as a whole actually does achieve such improvements.

 

So far so good. 

 

In real life things unfold (sic!) quite a bit differently.

 

 

We start with a Master of a recording, not with a life event. So any improvments to the ADC part of the chain are out of the window. There is no way, the quality of the Master can be improved upon, as it is by definition the master. Reproduction can only be different, not more accurate that then master. If some people prefer the different to the Master, that's a completely different story.

 

The Master at the origin of an MQA file on Tidal is most likely exactly the same Master that is found on Qobuz or on HD Tracks. In the case of Qobuz or HD Tracks, the master is transported and fed to the DAC in uncompressed / unmodified form and arrives as an exact copy at the DAC. In the case of Tidal folding and unfolding take place along the way, modifying the file in the process. Whether this modification is audible or not, whether it sounds better or not is subject to debate, but no way can the resulting bitstream be more accurate to the master than the master itslef.

 

The third stage, the compenstation of the fingerprint of the DAC and the rest of the recording chain is usually implemented by  applying a standard filter without any knowledge of what characteristics this filter should correct. So we have another potential deviation of the signal away from accurate. 

 

My conclusion:

The claims MQA makes are based on a compensation of errors of the recording and reproduction chain, so that its transfer characterictis are optimized. On top of this a folding / unfolding is applied to reduce bandwidth which in theory will deteriorate the signal less than the improvement brought about by the error compensation of the chain. Hence MQA claim to overall improve the fidelity of the chain. The two white glove treatments are an attempt to illustrate that this approach may work, if all stars line up. And the white glove treatments do sound good to my ears. But as I can't compare before and after that is no proof whatsoever.

 

Unfortunately MQA have elected to use only two stages of the complete process in a less than perfect way:

• the folding / unfolding can only modify the signal to be less accurate. The majority of users seem to think that the modifications introduced are not severely unpleasant to the ear and some people even prefer them to the original Master (akin to vinyl distortions)
• the filters at the DAC end are standard and hence will likely not compensate for anything, but introduce additional modifications of the signal that further deviate from accurate.

 

In consequence any investigation of actual implementations of MQA can only show a deterioration of a signal, not an improvement and the conclusion is inevitable that the myth is debunked. There seems to be some quite smart technology in the complete MQA process, but the current use of MQA cannot reveal its potential benefits.

 

Things like taking a fingerprint of a recoding chain after the fact seems only possible in very rare cases (puristic recording chain, equipment still available) and subject to many caveats. In the case of the thousands of available MQA recording, they can only sound different from the Master they were derived from. They can't more accurately represent the master than the master itself.

Great post and insight about a bunch of different discussions about it, hence irreconcilable.  Like arguing if Babe Ruth was GOAT with someone who thinks Jerry West was.
 

1) There’s a discussion about mathematical accuracy comparing a hi rez PCM stream befoe MQA processing and after.  I’m concerned with how it ultimately sounds and I can understand how various mathematical transforms can create a different bitstream that creates a more realistic analog reproduction so for me, I don’t care about this objection. It’s like trying to convince the Nyquist groupies that higher sample rates sound better.  I hear the difference, understand mathematics and signal processing to explain why what I hear is better so eh!

 

2) Another discussion is that DRM is why MQA exists.  Stuart has taken an egregious approach to getting paid for his technology, but it’s no different than paying Dolby a license to use their tech in hardware, the 1¢ we spent on cassettes for Philips, or what we pay Sony/Philips for each CD so again, who cares?  MQA is not some way to prevent archiving or prevent playing the content when you pay for the HW/SW license.
 

MQA is so much for than Dolby, so I can see why its handled by Engineers and can’t be encoded by HW alone but people fear what they don’t understand hence all the angst.
 

3)Another discussion is about MQA decoded to 96k from a 48k file doesn’t sound as good as source or even straight 96k PCM.  In every one of these objections I’ve responded to, they don’t fully decode MQA.  They do the first step or two to get 96k or 192k, but not the last step. So again, it’s probably true for partial decode, but who cares?  If you’re not going to apply all the math, it’s like recording Dolby C, then applying Dolby B on playback and complaining.  Don’t dismiss the codec if you’re not going to apply it. The only reason you’d do this is to save money on a DAC. Again, who cares?

 

4) Another discussion is that It is different than the Master.  If it’s authenticated as MQA Studio, that means the creative team who produced the Master has participated in the authentication and, at times, were able to correct hardware errors in the analog source or in the sampling. If Chris Squire, Eddy Offord, Steve Howe, Jon Anderson listen to Yes Fragile after it’s MQA encoded/decoded and they all agree and sign off that it’s what they were trying to do in the first place,  I’d feel confident that the codec is reproducing music that is an accurate representation of the album.  
 

5) My favorite discussion is “MQA is lossy”.   Digital audio is lossy compared to live or even analog,  No matter how quickly you sample, nothing captures what’s happened between samples.  The Nyquist groupies will tell you it doesn’t matter, because humans can’t hear above 20khz so it’s not lossy. But, MQA cleverly tosses unused bits outside the content’s dynamic range, and thats called lossy. This confusion seems to stem from describing anything below the noise floor of the content as not audible.  Sadly,MP3 devotees say that the part of the music that is lost to compression is inaudible. The difference is MQA loses no content, it tosses unused bits. Big difference. 
 

I’ve given up convincing all but those who haven’t actually heard quality MQA studio recordings fully decoded. Don’t let intellectuals stop you from hearing it.  Even the stereo store guy. They usually have axes to grind and may not even know how MQA works and how to properly decode it. 
 

Do yourself a favor, learn what hardware is necessary to get MQA Studio fully decoded, make sure the hardware and software is properly configured for your audition.  Make sure you’re listening to a good, hi rez PCM recording that was MQA Studio encoded (Abbey Road, Fragile, to name two) .  Don’t trust the stereo guy.  Ask questions and be sure you’re seeing the MQA DAC showing MQA Studio on the indicators as it plays back.  Sit back and enjoy.  It’s much more pleasant 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

10 minutes ago, HelpfulDad said:

Great post and insight about a bunch of different discussions about it, hence irreconcilable.  Like arguing if Babe Ruth was GOAT with someone who thinks Jerry West was.
 

1) There’s a discussion about mathematical accuracy comparing a hi rez PCM stream befoe MQA processing and after.  I’m concerned with how it ultimately sounds and I can understand how various mathematical transforms can create a different bitstream that creates a more realistic analog reproduction so for me, I don’t care about this objection. It’s like trying to convince the Nyquist groupies that higher sample rates sound better.  I hear the difference, understand mathematics and signal processing to explain why what I hear is better so eh!

 

2) Another discussion is that DRM is why MQA exists.  Stuart has taken an egregious approach to getting paid for his technology, but it’s no different than paying Dolby a license to use their tech in hardware, the 1¢ we spent on cassettes for Philips, or what we pay Sony/Philips for each CD so again, who cares?  MQA is not some way to prevent archiving or prevent playing the content when you pay for the HW/SW license.
 

MQA is so much for than Dolby, so I can see why its handled by Engineers and can’t be encoded by HW alone but people fear what they don’t understand hence all the angst.
 

3)Another discussion is about MQA decoded to 96k from a 48k file doesn’t sound as good as source or even straight 96k PCM.  In every one of these objections I’ve responded to, they don’t fully decode MQA.  They do the first step or two to get 96k or 192k, but not the last step. So again, it’s probably true for partial decode, but who cares?  If you’re not going to apply all the math, it’s like recording Dolby C, then applying Dolby B on playback and complaining.  Don’t dismiss the codec if you’re not going to apply it. The only reason you’d do this is to save money on a DAC. Again, who cares?

 

4) Another discussion is that It is different than the Master.  If it’s authenticated as MQA Studio, that means the creative team who produced the Master has participated in the authentication and, at times, were able to correct hardware errors in the analog source or in the sampling. If Chris Squire, Eddy Offord, Steve Howe, Jon Anderson listen to Yes Fragile after it’s MQA encoded/decoded and they all agree and sign off that it’s what they were trying to do in the first place,  I’d feel confident that the codec is reproducing music that is an accurate representation of the album.  
 

5) My favorite discussion is “MQA is lossy”.   Digital audio is lossy compared to live or even analog,  No matter how quickly you sample, nothing captures what’s happened between samples.  The Nyquist groupies will tell you it doesn’t matter, because humans can’t hear above 20khz so it’s not lossy. But, MQA cleverly tosses unused bits outside the content’s dynamic range, and thats called lossy. This confusion seems to stem from describing anything below the noise floor of the content as not audible.  Sadly,MP3 devotees say that the part of the music that is lost to compression is inaudible. The difference is MQA loses no content, it tosses unused bits. Big difference. 
 

I’ve given up convincing all but those who haven’t actually heard quality MQA studio recordings fully decoded. Don’t let intellectuals stop you from hearing it.  Even the stereo store guy. They usually have axes to grind and may not even know how MQA works and how to properly decode it. 
 

Do yourself a favor, learn what hardware is necessary to get MQA Studio fully decoded, make sure the hardware and software is properly configured for your audition.  Make sure you’re listening to a good, hi rez PCM recording that was MQA Studio encoded (Abbey Road, Fragile, to name two) .  Don’t trust the stereo guy.  Ask questions and be sure you’re seeing the MQA DAC showing MQA Studio on the indicators as it plays back.  Sit back and enjoy.  It’s much more pleasant 

 

Just so we’re straight, you’re the guy claiming that iPhones with no analog output are outputting analog via the digital only lightning connector? And, you want people to believe you understand how MQA works?

 

Its all been debunked. 
 

I’ve listened to tons of MQA fully decoded. It’s different. It isn’t better. Yet, you pay for the privilege of different. 
 

Which albums have been signed off by the production teams? It’s very close to zero. I know people on production teams that found out their content was available in MQA only once it was on Tidal. One example of an artist who found this out recently is Neil Young, who then said it was worse and pulled his MQA music from the service. 

[AudioDoctor]

47 minutes ago, HelpfulDad said:

3)Another discussion is about MQA decoded to 96k from a 48k file doesn’t sound as good as source or even straight 96k PCM.  In every one of these objections I’ve responded to, they don’t fully decode MQA.  They do the first step or two to get 96k or 192k, but not the last step. So again, it’s probably true for partial decode, but who cares?  If you’re not going to apply all the math, it’s like recording Dolby C, then applying Dolby B on playback and complaining.  Don’t dismiss the codec if you’re not going to apply it. The only reason you’d do this is to save money on a DAC. Again, who cares?

 

SO they came out with a new format that requires me to buy all new gear to get the full quality of the playback? That sounds pretty dumb when I can playback non MQA files on my system as it sits that I feel sound better than the MQA. It makes me think that spending more money might not be a very good idea.