botrytis Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 I know that is what dcs said, at the get together that Chris was at, last week (the Paragon SNS event). They put in MQA but they are being agnostic about it. Current: Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC Pre-amp - Rotel RC-1590 Amplification - Benchmark AHB2 amplifier Speakers - Revel M126Be with 2 REL 7/ti subwoofers Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects Link to comment
ednaz Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 7 minutes ago, Archimago said: The issue is not simply about GIGO. It is that MQA processing changes the sound with distortions that would not have been in the original high resolution master. This file format both adds anomalies (errors of commission) and is incapable of "containing" all that was fed into it (errors of omission). I'm a process guy. I can get better performance out of people than I could ever give myself. There's a whole profession of that. Also helps to be good at exotic math. Your last paragraph is exactly my point when I compared to photography. I make photographs feel more real, and more natural, by adding distortions that aren't there in the original image. Some it is adding artifacts and noise. Some of it is excluding information. The image is qualitatively improved by quantitatively degrading it. When I read comments from people who like MQA and think it improves things, and then I see the data you presented, that's what comes to mind. Your examples (or maybe it was in one of the articles linked) of a DAC that takes the pitch of A up a bit higher (welcome to the 1960s pitch wars), of the files being a bit louder, of noise showing up quantitatively that isn't there in a non-MQA file, and the filter being limited to post-ringing, all felt to me like engineering for psycho-acoustics and not accuracy. That's why the McGill study will be interesting. Currawong 1 Link to comment
adamdea Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 1 hour ago, ednaz said: I'm a process guy. I can get better performance out of people than I could ever give myself. There's a whole profession of that. Also helps to be good at exotic math. Your last paragraph is exactly my point when I compared to photography. I make photographs feel more real, and more natural, by adding distortions that aren't there in the original image. Some it is adding artifacts and noise. Some of it is excluding information. The image is qualitatively improved by quantitatively degrading it. When I read comments from people who like MQA and think it improves things, and then I see the data you presented, that's what comes to mind. Your examples (or maybe it was in one of the articles linked) of a DAC that takes the pitch of A up a bit higher (welcome to the 1960s pitch wars), of the files being a bit louder, of noise showing up quantitatively that isn't there in a non-MQA file, and the filter being limited to post-ringing, all felt to me like engineering for psycho-acoustics and not accuracy. That's why the McGill study will be interesting. If it's properly conducted. You are not a sound quality measurement device Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted March 8, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 8, 2018 2 hours ago, ednaz said: I'm a process guy. I can get better performance out of people than I could ever give myself. There's a whole profession of that. Also helps to be good at exotic math. Your last paragraph is exactly my point when I compared to photography. I make photographs feel more real, and more natural, by adding distortions that aren't there in the original image. Some it is adding artifacts and noise. Some of it is excluding information. The image is qualitatively improved by quantitatively degrading it. When I read comments from people who like MQA and think it improves things, and then I see the data you presented, that's what comes to mind. Your examples (or maybe it was in one of the articles linked) of a DAC that takes the pitch of A up a bit higher (welcome to the 1960s pitch wars), of the files being a bit louder, of noise showing up quantitatively that isn't there in a non-MQA file, and the filter being limited to post-ringing, all felt to me like engineering for psycho-acoustics and not accuracy. That's why the McGill study will be interesting. That's fine ednaz. If the process is representative of some kind of subjective auditory "exciter", "awesomifies" the sound or "spatializing" DSP to make it sound more "real", "focused", "deblurred", then truly this is something I hope MQA sells to the pro audio world as an effect that the artist/audio engineer can incorporate. I agree, if in doing this there is a bit of noise added, etc... then that's fine. If utilized like this, I don't think anyone would deny that the final output is "as intended" by the studio. But the idea of incorporating the DSP effect into all releases, claiming that this is the "studio sound" (when it looks like it's just a batch conversion not actually involving the artist/original engineer for the most part) and packaging it all with the other bits and pieces of encoding, "origami", and "authentication" is a bit much IMO. Yes, I look forward to what the McGill folks have to say. michael123 and MikeyFresh 2 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Popular Post sullis02 Posted March 8, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 8, 2018 On 3/6/2018 at 7:37 AM, 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. It's the same sort of attack JA and certain smug jackasses on his staff (named Art Dudley) deployed on James Randi, when the latter dared to assert (in jeering tones entirely appropriate when addressing the likes of Michael Fremer) that sighted claims of audible difference produced by Shakti Stones, pricey high-end cables, etc. amounted to superstition. One of their supposed 'gotchas' was a lame-brained reveal of the non-secret that Randi is an 'illusionist' and that 'James Randi' *is a stage name* . Heavens! (Dudley proceeded to refer to him by his surname 'Zwinge' ). Alas it is indeed possible that the old white male shut-ins who comprise most of Stereophile's base really found these facts novel, and sufficient to undermine Randi's claim. Ugh. Anyway: Archimago has done stellar work here. Yet I've noted that on his excellent site he relatively rarely gets deeply into the matter of whether the things he measures actually *sound different* (he's pretty careful to note that even his *own* impressions aren't blind-tested). (And notwithstanding his brave and much-needed setup of public listening tests) But this is the perpetual elephant in the room. Much of mainstream consumer audio, and the hi-end and its cheerleader magazines (Stereophile, TAS) and websites most loudly, endorses or embraces subjective ('sighted') comparison as its means of evaluating sound quality. Yet subjective evaluation by itself is demonstrably and fundamentally unreliable for detecting and judging audio difference (even when the difference is real, explainable, and audible). It is unacceptable as evidence in scientific audio research. The hi end, TAS, Stereophile, etc, are essentially practicing a form of science denial. Their opinions and claims about what something 'sounds like' are scientifically worthless. ( As are, by the same token, the numerous 'sighted' evaluations of MQA 'sound' , pro and con, that have been expressed on this thread too! ) Bob Stuart has yet to offer *any* substantive listening test findings to support his claims of large audible improvement due specifically to MQA. He was called out on this sort of overreach decades ago when he was still hawking MLP. For years there was a healthy scepticism (and even pushback -- the notorious Meyer & Moran article, for example) of his claims in the AES and it journal; now , it seems, not so much. There is a whole essay to be written on how that's come about, too. From my perspective of what science has told us so far (including numerous published attempts to test the idea that there's something 'wrong' with CD audio) - we didn't really need 'hi rez' (at the consumer end) - we didn't really need DSD - we didn't need HDCD - we don't need MQA - you very probably don't need a new DAC CD audio done 'right', as it turns out, is excellent (within the limits of 2 channel audio*). So what we 'need' for 2 channel home digital audio, if we are most interested in transparent playback of what was recorded, is *good mastering* , *good loudspeakers* and *good room acoustics*. Everything else is a 'more than good enough' commodity at this point. From that perspective, even this site (Computeraudiophile) is mainly spinning its wheels, trying doggedly to 'improve' the sound of audio that is already easily delivered with incredible sonic fidelity along the chain from file to loudspeakers. (*Personally I'm more into surround, including upmixing from 2->6 channel) blue2, pedalhead, Currawong and 2 others 4 1 Link to comment
mansr Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 3 hours ago, John_Atkinson said: Interesting posts on imaging. I will admit that I don't know much at all about digital photography, but from my reading of sampling and filtering, it appears that sinc-function filters - which are almost ubiquitous in digital audio - are sub-optimal for image processing. Is that correct? No, that is not correct. The ideal interpolator is always the sinc function. In imaging, Lanczos is a commonly used approximation. Link to comment
sullis02 Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 17 hours ago, ednaz said: JPG = MP3 RAW = DSD TIFF = FLAC Audio with tons of added ultrasonic noise = RAW video? Hmm. What does 'RAW' actually mean in image formats (given that every reproduction method has limits)? Link to comment
HalSF Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 27 minutes ago, sullis02 said: From my perspective of what science has told us so far (including numerous published attempts to test the idea that there's something 'wrong' with CD audio) - we didn't really need 'hi rez' (at the consumer end) - we didn't really need DSD - we didn't need HDCD - we don't need MQA - you very probably don't need a new DAC CD audio done 'right', as it turns out, is excellent (within the limits of 2 channel audio*). So what we 'need' for 2 channel home digital audio, if we are most interested in transparent playback of what was recorded, is *good mastering* , *good loudspeakers* and *good room acoustics*. Everything else is a 'more than good enough' commodity at this point. From that perspective, even this site (Computeraudiophile) is mainly spinning its wheels, trying doggedly to 'improve' the sound of audio that is already easily delivered with incredible sonic fidelity along the chain from file to loudspeakers. All hail the Red Book audio God of Xiph.org! Link to comment
HalSF Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 6 minutes ago, HalSF said: All hail the Red Book audio God of Xiph.org! BTW I”m just kidding, or trying to, poking fun at 16/44 superfans. Link to comment
HalSF Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 4 hours ago, John_Atkinson said: I also wrote about this aspect of perception in my 2011 Richard Heyser Memorial Lecture to the AES: https://www.stereophile.com/content/2011-richard-c-heyser-memorial-lecture-where-did-negative-frequencies-go-nothing-real Money quote: "The auditory system . .. attempts to build an internal model of the external world with partial input. The perceptual system is designed to work with grossly insufficient data." - Barry Blesser, The Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, October 2001 issue. John Atkinson Editor, Stereophile I know we’re all supposed to be fighting to the death in the muddy trenches here, but I want to say that your Heyser Lecture from 2011 is a fascinating survey of ideas and studies surrounding the field of psychoacoustics and listening. (As for the comments below it, see “muddy trenches,” above. Yikes.) I missed it the first time around and look forward to re-reading it carefully again. Link to comment
mansr Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 52 minutes ago, sullis02 said: Audio with tons of added ultrasonic noise = RAW video? Hmm. What does 'RAW' actually mean in image formats (given that every reproduction method has limits)? Raw (I have no idea why people write it in all caps) just means the raw data from the image sensor plus information about lens, flash, and various settings. To be useful, it must be processed in software. Link to comment
billg Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 On 3/03/2018 at 11:26 AM, The Computer Audiophile said: At the same time the artists to blame for signing their rights away. Nobody is innocent in this business. A story for another day. I deleted my comment. Link to comment
Popular Post mitchco Posted March 8, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 8, 2018 Wrt what is audible or not, I would love to see more of this type of audibility testing in the consumer audio industry: The best I could do is around 12 bits of resolution before auditory masking became too much. The experiment posted is repeatable if anyone would like to try, plus files can be downloaded and listened to. When Archimago and I attended the Vancouver Audio Show to listen to MQA files, we had an expectation that we would be presented with some AB testing, so we could hear the difference, as the system was certainly resolving enough :-) However, there were no comparisons and instead listened to some gobbledegook from the MQA sales rep, then a few nice sounding recordings, but no AB comparisons. Given @Archimago's article, we now know why there are no audibility tests. wdw, pedalhead, mrvco and 3 others 3 2 1 Accurate Sound Link to comment
Popular Post Doug Schneider Posted March 8, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 8, 2018 47 minutes ago, mitchco said: >>>However, there were no comparisons and instead listened to some gobbledegook from the MQA sales rep, then a few nice sounding recordings, but no AB comparisons. This is the way that the folks at MQA have been going at things since Day 1 -- and probably the biggest mistake of the audio press who praised what they heard not to actually mention. I sat in a press demo at Munich's High End where they played one MQA recording after another -- and nothing non-MQA. Total B.S. But the shocking thing was what I read afterwards from writers who were there, praising the sound yet never mentioning that no comparisons were done. They could've been listening to MP3s for all they new. What's probably the worst thing about all this is that the MQA folks still don't do demos today. In fact, when I mentioned that to one designer, he said, "That should tell you all you need to know, shouldn't it?" Doug Schneider SoundStage! MikeyFresh, ChrisG, Nikhil and 7 others 7 1 2 Link to comment
botrytis Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 1 minute ago, Doug Schneider said: This is the way that the folks at MQA have been going at things since Day 1 -- and probably the biggest mistake of the audio press who praised what they heard not to actually mention. I sat in a press demo at Munich's High End where they played one MQA recording after another -- and nothing non-MQA. Total B.S. But the shocking thing was what I read afterwards from writers who were there, praising the sound yet never mentioning that no comparisons were done. They could've been listening to MP3s for all they new. What's probably the worst thing about all this is that the MQA folks still don't do demos today. In fact, when I mentioned that to one designer, he said, "That should tell you all you need to know, shouldn't it?" Doug Schneider SoundStage! Interesting but not shocked Mr. Schneider. I wonder if there will be any MQA talk at AXPONA this year? So far on the site, I see nothing. Current: Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC Pre-amp - Rotel RC-1590 Amplification - Benchmark AHB2 amplifier Speakers - Revel M126Be with 2 REL 7/ti subwoofers Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects Link to comment
mav52 Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 3 hours ago, mansr said: Raw (I have no idea why people write it in all caps) just means the raw data from the image sensor plus information about lens, flash, and various settings. To be useful, it must be processed in software. Raw The primary benefit of writing images to the memory card in a Raw format rather than TIFF or JPEG is that no in-camera processing for white balance, hue, tone and sharpening are applied to the Raw file. With software the user can change the original image's RAW data without messing up the original file. . The Truth Is Out There Link to comment
Doug Schneider Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 41 minutes ago, botrytis said: I wonder if there will be any MQA talk at AXPONA this year? So far on the site, I see nothing. From what I can tell, MQA has been close to nonexistent at shows. I think they probably figured out it doesn't help their cause. Doug Schneider SoundStage! MikeyFresh 1 Link to comment
botrytis Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 26 minutes ago, Doug Schneider said: From what I can tell, MQA has been close to nonexistent at shows. I think they probably figured out it doesn't help their cause. Doug Schneider SoundStage! Well, looking forward to AXPONA this year. I hope to people there Current: Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC Pre-amp - Rotel RC-1590 Amplification - Benchmark AHB2 amplifier Speakers - Revel M126Be with 2 REL 7/ti subwoofers Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects Link to comment
Popular Post sullis02 Posted March 9, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 9, 2018 9 hours ago, HalSF said: BTW I”m just kidding, or trying to, poking fun at 16/44 superfans. If you are aiming at mindless fandom, your poker is pointed in the wrong direction. The 'audiophiles' are over there---->, touting the stunning improvements brought by 'hi rez'/HDCD/DSD/newflavor, year in and year out , despite the big echoing emptiness where the slam-dunk listening test data should be. HalSF and pedalhead 1 1 Link to comment
Popular Post Archimago Posted March 9, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 9, 2018 Just cleaning out photos from my cell phone tonight and ran into 2 shots from late last year. A few months ago, I was perusing the magazine stands and ran into the TAS "Ultimate Guide to Headphones & Personal Audio 2017-2018" (came out in November 2017 I think). I saw these 2 pages on MQA: Amazing just how far they would go to promote this product: Once you threw MQA into the equation, I have to say, "Game over" for any DAC that can't keep up. THE HOLY GRAIL of consumer-audio formats has been to deliver to the listener the same sound quality that the artists and engineers heard in the studio. In the past all formats have fallen far short of that lofty goal - until now. My goodness. How can anyone say these things with a straight face? Are these the words of "true believers"? maxijazz, sullis02, MikeyFresh and 6 others 8 1 Archimago's Musings: A "more objective" take for the Rational Audiophile. Beyond mere fidelity, into immersion and realism. R.I.P. MQA 2014-2023: Hyped product thanks to uneducated, uncritical advocates & captured press. Link to comment
Fokus Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 14 hours ago, mansr said: No, that is not correct. The ideal interpolator is always the sinc function. In imaging, Lanczos is a commonly used approximation. Indeed. Sinc is computationally too much of a load to be feasible in image processing. We are lucky in audio ... Link to comment
Popular Post John_Atkinson Posted March 9, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 9, 2018 14 hours ago, HalSF said: I know we’re all supposed to be fighting to the death in the muddy trenches here, but I want to say that your Heyser Lecture from 2011 is a fascinating survey of ideas and studies surrounding the field of psychoacoustics and listening. Thank you. It's not often that a writer has an opportunity to present his current thinking on such a broad range of topics. I am in the Audio Engineering Society's debt for the invitation to present that lecture. It was an honor to be included in a group of forward thinkers like Ray Dolby, Phil Ramone, Ray Kurzweil, Manfred Schroeder, Stanley Lipshitz, Walter Murch, Andy Moorer, Roger Lagadec, Kees Schouhamer Imminck, Karlheinz Brandenburg, and Leo Beranek. As I said in the introduction to the lecture, those gentlemen invented the future. By contrast, I am just a storyteller; worse, I am a teller of other people's tales :-) John Atkinson Editor, Stereophile HalSF, look&listen and beetlemania 2 1 Link to comment
adamdea Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 Well @John_Atkinson this month's Stereophile really does seem to have changed position. Was it the ComputerAudiophile wot won it? [for non Brits see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_The_Sun_Wot_Won_It] You are not a sound quality measurement device Link to comment
crenca Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 9 hours ago, Archimago said: Once you threw MQA into the equation, I have to say, "Game over" for any DAC that can't keep up. THE HOLY GRAIL of consumer-audio formats has been to deliver to the listener the same sound quality that the artists and engineers heard in the studio. In the past all formats have fallen far short of that lofty goal - until now. My goodness. How can anyone say these things with a straight face? Are these the words of "true believers"? 4 hours ago, John_Atkinson said: Thank you. It's not often that a writer has an opportunity to present his current thinking on such a broad range of topics. I am in the Audio Engineering Society's debt for the invitation to present that lecture. It was an honor to be included in a group of forward thinkers like Ray Dolby, Phil Ramone, Ray Kurzweil, Manfred Schroeder, Stanley Lipshitz, Walter Murch, Andy Moorer, Roger Lagadec, Kees Schouhamer Imminck, Karlheinz Brandenburg, and Leo Beranek. As I said in the introduction to the lecture, those gentlemen invented the future. By contrast, I am just a storyteller; worse, I am a teller of other people's tales :-) John Atkinson Editor, Stereophile Respectfully @John_Atkinson, is this not part of the problem? Look how you describe these subjects, these mere men and researchers doing the plodding, incremental, boring task of basic research. It's like you and your staff (and the whole culture at these trade publications) have been reading too many utopian science fiction novels and are infatuated with some glorious future. It's just audio, consumer electronics, and in the case of MQA software and math. "progress", such as it is, is actually slow, incremental, and boring. Perhaps you should assign yourself and your writers some Philip K. Dick so you can gain a bit of perspective, balance, and healthy skepticism. I get it to an extant - you sit down to write your one thousand five hundred and eighty seventh review of yet-another-amplifier, and you have to somehow come up with something interesting to say, something worth reading. That said, right now you are far far too gullible, too doe eyed about "the future", and too willing to accept other people's tales and stories that are simply not true... Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math! Link to comment
wushuliu Posted March 9, 2018 Share Posted March 9, 2018 Great article. Amazing how informative Archimago can be without the snide remarks, derision, and sarcasm to weed through on his blog. Link to comment
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