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


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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

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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.

 

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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

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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.

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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)?      

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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!

 

 

Mola_Ram_(ToD).jpg

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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 :D

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

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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 ...

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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!

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