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

[John_Atkinson]

3 minutes ago, rickca said:

1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said:

I have not heard the MQA version sound worse than the PCM original

Yeah, not exactly a WTF moment.

 

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

[pkane2001]

6 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

The 2014 article in which I used that phrase can be found at https://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa

 

I request that CA posters read the full text of what I wrote, in order to comprehend the context.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

Just read the article. The context doesn’t seem to change much of the meaning of that quote.

 

I do see that you were going to test MQA process with your own recordings. How did that come out? Was the result ever published? Apologies if that’s an answered question, I’ve not been following most of the MQA debate in detail.

[John_Atkinson]

4 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

I do see that you were going to test MQA process with your own recordings. How did that come out? Was the result ever published?

 

Yes, In an article I linked to earlier.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

[miguelito]

2 hours ago, randyhat said:

Characterizations like "drinking the kool-aid" and referring to people you disagree with as being "brain washed" only serve to further polarize people around this issue rather than inform.

I don't think it is the most effective rhetorical instrument to use those words, but... Not every opinion is a valid opinion. The press has had some sort of bent in the last decade to allow for every argument to have the same weight - sometimes referred to bothsidesism. This is nonesense.

[pkane2001]

14 minutes ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

Yes, In an article I linked to earlier.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

Thank you! The conclusion in your listening tests article seems to be that MQA ‘doesn’t damage the sound’. That’s a bit different than ‘MQA is as important to the quality of sound recording and playback as digital was 40 years ago’. 

 

Do you still think it’s the greatest development since digital? Again, I apologize if this is a rehash of a previous discussion; it’s hard to follow all the different threads.

[Tsarnik]

On Friday, March 02, 2018 at 6:54 PM, Fokus said:

Many thanks for putting so much effort into this.

 

+1!

[skatbelt]

Very informative article. I would describe myself as having a healthy critical attitude towards supposedly better products, techniques, protocols etc. And although interested in the technical background, in the end I always let my ears to be the judge. From this perspective I want to add my experience with MQA. I don't own a MQA-enabeled DAC and I didn't compare MQA-files with with redbook and/or hires versions but I did compare Tidal MQA 'masters' with their CD-quality counterparts via Roon and Audirvana and in all cases the SQ of the 'masters' were better to my ears. I have to remark that I mainly listen to classical and jazz music. So my point is that - separate from all claims, promises and objective counter proof - I really enjoy and welcome the introduction of MQA in streaming services and hope that Tidal will expand their range, especially in the genres of my taste.

[HalSF]

1 hour ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

The 2014 article in which I used that phrase can be found at https://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa

 

I request that CA posters read the full text of what I wrote, in order to comprehend the context.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

Thanks for pointing back to this original 2014 context. That context doesn’t really temper the possibly intemperate enthusiasm of that widely cited “birth of a new world” statement, but it does offer a retrospective summary of the early hope that profoundly innovative and beneficial things would flow from MQA.

 

Here’s my attempt at summarizing what you were proposing MQA might be:

 

— MQA will offer sonically uncompromised hi-res music via “lossless compression” for streaming delivery “without any increase in bandwidth” beyond current data rates.

— MQA will be a way for record companies and streaming services to offer high-resolution quality to everyone from “a single inventory [that] will serve both the general public and audiophiles."

— MQA will provide a sweeping improvement in digital sound, by eliminating audibly insidious “smearing,” and will do so “in a way analogous," as Meridian put it, “ to the processes expert antique picture restorers use to clean the grime and discolored varnish from an Old Master to reveal the original color and vibrancy of the work.' 

 

All of that does sound great! Where do I sign up?

 

And what’s the catch? My impression of what has happened since the initial MQA rollout is that the closer you look at those bright promises the more they become entangled in provisos, qualifications, complications, fine print, and cautionary warnings of potential side effects. A classic case of overpromising and underdelivering. 

 

And the thing I find most frustrating is that there still appears to be no clear simple path for all of us who have a burning curiosity and concern about MQA, whether we’re simply open-minded audiophiles or total skeptics, to actually *hear” MQA in a way that gives it a fair and honest shot, letting the chip fall where they may. But this clarifying reckoning never arrives. Instead the sound I hear is the sound of people arguing about MQA and of MQA people temporizing.

 

Any new thing that makes music sound better, I want it to be real and I want naysayers to be wrong. It’s depressing to think that MQA is actually a dead end, and we’re all stuck at an impasse.

 

 

 

 

 

[crenca]

2 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

You omitted a fourth possibility: that the magazines' writers honesty report what they hear.

....

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

36 minutes ago, skatbelt said:

....From this perspective I want to add my experience with MQA. I don't own a MQA-enabeled DAC ....but I did compare Tidal MQA 'masters' with their CD-quality counterparts via Roon and Audirvana and in all cases the SQ of the 'masters' were better to my ears....So my point is that - separate from all claims, promises and objective counter proof - I really enjoy and welcome the introduction of MQA in streaming services and hope that Tidal will expand their range, especially in the genres of my taste....

 

Unbelievable.

 

I think after all that we now know about MQA -  @Archimagohas written about, about apples to oranges masters, etc., the best that can be said about such subjective, "sounds like - this is what I hear" is that they are unbelievable.  Such honesty is irrelevant.  Ask any investigator what happens when you have a dozen or so witness to a crime what they saw.  In a "scientific" age where we know about the limits of perception, psychology, bias, and subjective self reporting it simply is not honest to continually beat the drum of radical subjectivised audiophiledom.  Honesty and the truth are two different things, as there are still men who honestly believe the world is flat, down is up, right is left, etc.  

 

I wonder what it would look like for Stereophile to honestly discuss their biases, methods of doing "sounds like" reviews, their place and relationship to "the industry" and the highly subjectivised audiophile culture of the last 35 years or so?  

 

Now THAT would be an "honest" report worth reading...

[astromo]

A great read and a worthwhile addition to the knowledge base to inform the consumer and those who enjoy music.

 

Congratulations to @Archimago for all the hard work to draft the opening essay and to @The Computer Audiophile for engaging with the subject matter.

 

I thought it useful for my own interest to reflect back on Chris' initial listening impressions and views of MQA (with underlining by me for emphasis):

My First 24 Hours With MQA

 

Quote

Overall I am happy with the MQA music I’ve heard. I wish I could render an opinion, that would carry across all MQA products and music, that MQA is always better by a wide margin, but this isn’t the case. The differences I’ve heard so far are subtle and my opinions are limited to the music and hardware I used in the last 24 hours. I also have a suspicion that the MQA process will be more beneficial to recordings that were done under less than stellar circumstances (i.e. lesser quality A to D converters, etc…). The 2L recordings are done with the utmost care using very good equipment and very good engineers. While there is still improvements MQA has made to the original 2L masters, I’m willing to bet there are greater improvements to be made to more traditional popular recordings or very old recordings. On the other hand, it may not be easy to compare an MQA version and non-MQA version of some old recordings because the MQA version has been done with the white glove process. It would be the same as comparing two difference masters of the same album, of course they’ll sound different. There will be clear differences with or without MQA. The real question many people will want answered is, how much of the difference is MQA and how much is the white glove process? But, does this question really need to be answered? I’m not so sure because we don’t have the option of getting new white glove masters of some of our favorite music. If MQA is the impetus to get us better sounding music, that’s all that really matters. In a dream world we may have the option of a white glove MQA and white glove non-MQA, but this is the real world. The options are, MQA or live with what we already have. Anyway, the MQA train is finally leaving the building. I’m cautiously optimistic that everything will work out and we’ll have better sounding music without too much trouble.

 

That final line was telling. Prophecy or an possibly an underlying expectation that trouble would be unavoidable?

 

As with  @Archimago I'm very interested to read the findings of the McGill University work. I'd also be interested to understand the source of their research funding, so hopefully that is made clear at the time of publication.

 

Thanks for your effort and keep it going. There are many who appreciate the input from people who have access to the resources and technical capability that are simply beyond the average Joe.

[Archimago]

1 hour ago, HalSF said:

Thanks for pointing back to this original 2014 context. That context doesn’t really temper the possibly intemperate enthusiasm of that widely cited “birth of a new world” statement, but it does offer a retrospective summary of the early hope that profoundly innovative and beneficial things would flow from MQA.

 

Here’s my attempt at summarizing what you were proposing MQA might be:

 

— MQA will offer sonically uncompromised hi-res music via “lossless compression” for streaming delivery “without any increase in bandwidth” beyond current data rates.

— MQA will be a way for record companies and streaming services to offer high-resolution quality to everyone from “a single inventory [that] will serve both the general public and audiophiles."

— MQA will provide a sweeping improvement in digital sound, by eliminating audibly insidious “smearing,” and will do so “in a way analogous," as Meridian put it, “ to the processes expert antique picture restorers use to clean the grime and discolored varnish from an Old Master to reveal the original color and vibrancy of the work.' 

 

All of that does sound great! Where do I sign up?

 

And what’s the catch? My impression of what has happened since the initial MQA rollout is that the closer you look at those bright promises the more they become entangled in provisos, qualifications, complications, fine print, and cautionary warnings of potential side effects. A classic case of overpromising and underdelivering. 

 

And the thing I find most frustrating is that there still appears to be no clear simple path for all of us who have a burning curiosity and concern about MQA, whether we’re simply open-minded audiophiles or total skeptics, to actually *hear” MQA in a way that gives it a fair and honest shot, letting the chip fall where they may. But this clarifying reckoning never arrives. Instead the sound I hear is the sound of people arguing about MQA and of MQA people temporizing.

 

Any new thing that makes music sound better, I want it to be real and I want naysayers to be wrong. It’s depressing to think that MQA is actually a dead end, and we’re all stuck at an impasse.

 

Good summary HalSF,

 

Let's strip MQA of all the hype. Forget claims that it's "revolutionary", never mind any stuff about it somehow surpasses sampling theorem, ignore various claims of "analog-to-analog" or "end-to-end", don't be impressed about claims of "de-blur"...

 

What do we have?

A software technique that keeps about 16-bits of audio data and hides some lossy sparsely sampled data from one octave above down to 24-bits + cryptographic signature + a way to play this using a certain type of upsampling filter.

 

If MQA had wanted us to hear the difference MQA makes, they could have done so years ago. And likewise, I believe the audiophile press already knew this by 2015. @John_Atkinson, I would actually be disrespectul of your knowledge and experience if I doubt that you must have already had suspicions about this early on!

 

Basically, if MQA wanted us to hear for ourselves what the process did, they could have just released some 24/192 samples that had gone through the MQA encoding/decoding/render process and let us compare with the original 24/96 file without MQA "deblurring", upsampling, and filtering. Heck, release some 24/384 if this makes a difference! Back in 2015/2016, there were already many good DACs capable of 384kHz playback and would perform better than low-end MQA devices like the Dragonfly or Meridian Explorer2 DACs. Audiophiles with high quality gear would have been more than happy to sample the MQA effect and report back whether it sounded at least the same or "better".

 

Instead, IMO, they kept things secretive. They maintained the mystique and fed the "friendly" audiophile press with listening sessions and at least encouraged unbelievably positive articles. For example, one needs to ask why Mark Waldrep who clearly has genuine high-resolution recordings from AIX Records, was not provided with MQA encodings of his submitted music.

 

The secrets, mystique, exaggerations, etc. do not play well in this age of interconnection and communication where many audiophiles obviously possess knowledge beyond the mainstream press. And when truth comes out, there will be "blowback".

 

The "sound of people arguing" I believe is the unfortunate side-effect of the chaos created by MQA's strategy in promoting their "format". This is why my essay is >7000 words! It's not difficult to get a good grasp of what's going on. The problem is that audiophiles who are trying to understand what is happening here have been made to jump through hoops to address the claims one by one without the assistance of the mainstream press - the ones we should hope are working for audiophiles as partners in truth, clarity, and education.

[rickca]

7 minutes ago, Archimago said:

The problem is that audiophiles who are trying to understand what is happening here have been made to jump through hoops to address the claims one by one without the assistance of the mainstream press - the ones we should hope are working for audiophiles as partners in truth, clarity, and education.

Kind of utopian.  It clearly doesn't work this way.  Did it ever?  We are on our own.

[Archimago]

Just now, rickca said:

Kind of utopian.  It clearly doesn't work this way.  Did it ever?  We are on our own.

 

True. Utopian. But if we cannot desire, ask, or hope for something better in the form of a higher standard of journalism in the audiophile press... Then we might as well just see the audiophile media as pure advertising.

 

As much as I criticize what I've seen from the press, I do believe that things are not irremediable and wish for something better than this from John, Jim, Jason, Michael, Steve, and yes, even Mr. Harley, et al.

 

[andrewmg]

2 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

Yes, In an article I linked to earlier.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

Dear Mr. Atkinson,

 

I really appreciate your participation in this thread and others on CA. As others have said, your measurements and analysis are simply invaluable. Whether here or in Stereophile, I'd be very interested in your thoughts, or those of another person with appropriate technical expertise, on @Archimago's findings and analysis here. Subjectively, MQA may be the bee's knees, but many of us doubt that a product can excel in listening if it fails at the technical aspects of reproduction--which is why I always read your Measurements sidebars before equipment reviews. Maybe MQA is different, but even so it would still be good to have additional people considering the accurate reproduction (versus, say, FLAC) question. So, how about it? 

 

Best,

 

AMG

[Rt66indierock]

59 minutes ago, astromo said:

A great read and a worthwhile addition to the knowledge base to inform the consumer and those who enjoy music.

 

Congratulations to @Archimago for all the hard work to draft the opening essay and to @The Computer Audiophile for engaging with the subject matter.

 

I thought it useful for my own interest to reflect back on Chris' initial listening impressions and views of MQA (with underlining by me for emphasis):

My First 24 Hours With MQA

 

 

That final line was telling. Prophecy or an possibly an underlying expectation that trouble would be unavoidable?

 

As with  @Archimago I'm very interested to read the findings of the McGill University work. I'd also be interested to understand the source of their research funding, so hopefully that is made clear at the time of publication.

 

Thanks for your effort and keep it going. There are many who appreciate the input from people who have access to the resources and technical capability that are simply beyond the average Joe.

 

I don't think Chris had any idea trouble was coming in February 2016.  He might have sensed trouble at RMAF 2016 but I think it was more like a year ago when things started to take off opposing MQA.

[TonyB]

An excellent article!

[mansr]

24 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

I don't think Chris had any idea trouble was coming in February 2016.  He might have sensed trouble at RMAF 2016 but I think it was more like a year ago when things started to take off opposing MQA.

I like to think that my reverse engineering efforts contributed in some small way.

[crenca]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

I like to think that my reverse engineering efforts contributed in some small way.

 

I noticed a change from our host when someone documented that link to Utimaco, MQA's crypto partner.   

 

As @Archimagosays:

 

 

What do we have?

A software technique that keeps about 16-bits of audio data and hides some lossy sparsely sampled data from one octave above down to 24-bits + cryptographic signature + a way to play this using a certain type of upsampling filter.

 

Ok, meh, another audiophile product among thousands's of otherwise "meh" audiophile products.  Now throw in crypto, DRM and "end to end" ambition...

[Archimago]

15 minutes ago, mansr said:

I like to think that my reverse engineering efforts contributed in some small way.

 

Absolutely @mansr!!!

 

You work laid bare the suspected emptiness of claims.

[Thuaveta]

5 hours ago, John_Atkinson said:

 

The 2014 article in which I used that phrase can be found at https://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa

 

I request that CA posters read the full text of what I wrote, in order to comprehend the context.

 

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

 

 

To save others a click, @Archimago's depiction of what you wrote sounded both accurate and fair to me. It's a bit lossily compressed, sure, but a philosophically transparent portrayal.

 

Giving you revenue to unfold the argument reveals that you consider MQA a breakthrough only comparable to the SQ improvement of room-correction by DSP, and also comparable to the birth of CD for some undefined reason.

 

This depiction is closed by "there was palpability to the sound, a transparency to the original event, that I have almost never heard before", then you appeal to another authority for authentication, and everything after that sounds like high-frequency MQA Ltd. boilerplate noise.

[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”.

[Rt66indierock]

3 hours ago, mansr said:

I like to think that my reverse engineering efforts contributed in some small way.

 

Your reverse engineering efforts were invaluable especially to me. Because of them I knew there was nothing new in MQA and could ask questions of people with  MQA NDAs in a way they didn't know what they were telling me. It also meant that the two times I talked with Bob Stuart I could ask questions that would seem simple and straightforward about studio issues like plugins for DAWs and that troubling issue about MQA changing the sound at the Los Angeles Audio Show last year . These questions allowed me figure out what MQA Ltd could and could not deliver and how personnel was allocated since at that time I'd read the financial statements and knew the number of employees they had.

 

But I don't think Chris realized the trouble we were causing until he got a second call from an MQA representative early in 2017 complaining or in Bob's case being vague. 

[Archimago]

47 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

...

 

But I don't think Chris realized the trouble we were causing until he got a second call from an MQA representative early in 2017 complaining or in Bob's case being vague. 

 

Damn audiophiles!!! Trouble makers!!!

 

(Good job for the perseverance Rt66! Some things just needed to be said... Some questions just needed to be asked...)