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MQA - CD


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I got a couple of samplers from Japan CD.

 

These discs have two technologies at play — UHQCD media which greatly improves the signal performance of the CD media itself and apparently includes a new mastering format as well. The second is of course MQA. I thought that MQA CD was just MQA with the least 8 bits truncated, but apparently that’s not the case and there is some high frequency data encoded. I don’t have a DAC that decode MQA over SPDIFso I can’t test it.

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1 hour ago, GUTB said:

I got a couple of samplers from Japan CD.

 

These discs have two technologies at play — UHQCD media which greatly improves the signal performance of the CD media itself and apparently includes a new mastering format as well. The second is of course MQA. I thought that MQA CD was just MQA with the least 8 bits truncated, but apparently that’s not the case and there is some high frequency data encoded. I don’t have a DAC that decode MQA over SPDIFso I can’t test it.

If you send me a rip of a track or two, I'll test it.

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2 hours ago, GUTB said:

I got a couple of samplers from Japan CD.

 

These discs have two technologies at play — UHQCD media which greatly improves the signal performance of the CD media itself and apparently includes a new mastering format as well. The second is of course MQA. I thought that MQA CD was just MQA with the least 8 bits truncated, but apparently that’s not the case and there is some high frequency data encoded. I don’t have a DAC that decode MQA over SPDIFso I can’t test it.

These CDs are not from new transfers..they are form DSD transfers done back in 2010 for the SHM SACDs, this is what my research shows. They sound not nearly as good as those SACDs.

 

Roon now does the first "unfold" btw.

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1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

how does UHQCD media improve the signal performance of the CD media ??

http://hqcd.jp/uhqcd_eng/

 

Apparently they use a low-viscosity polymer that more accurately replicates the pits in the stamper, and the reflective layer uses something (undisclosed what) superior to the usual aluminium. These modifications result in a signal from the optical pickup with higher contrast and less jitter than with a regular CD. That's all quite reasonable, though I'd like to measure the improvement for myself rather than trust the pictures they provide. The reason this is still snake oil is that every CD player is designed to work with the signal parameters specified by the "red book" standard, IEC 60908. A correctly working CD player can retrieve the data from an undamaged standard disc with 100% accuracy. Further improving the signal quality will not result in better than correct readout of the data, and it certainly won't have any of the claimed miraculous effects on the sound.

 

This is the pickup signal of a Philips CD 160 playing a regular pressed CD (Naxos):

tek00000.thumb.png.91b71fefe19df923b0ad225e8d6c1725.png

 

Same player with a CD-R (Verbatim Super Azo):

tek00001.thumb.png.5b7793a409a514b63555eef58aee5d56.png

 

There is clearly a difference in the signal, so that part of the (U)HQCD claims is plausible. The fallacy is concluding that it will sound different because of this.

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3 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

SHM claimed the same and made no difference, especially when ripped.

 

I listened to UHQCD sampler that included both a UHQCD and CD versions of the same tracks. Overall I found improvement in UHQCD to be small but noticeable. Mind you I have a mid-fi tubed CDP, people with better CD setups may find more of an obvious difference.

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5 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

I listened to UHQCD sampler that included both a UHQCD and CD versions of the same tracks. Overall I found improvement in UHQCD to be small but noticeable. Mind you I have a mid-fi tubed CDP, people with better CD setups may find more of an obvious difference.

My server/DAC set up is superior virtually any CD player.

 

The UHQCD is another long line in CD alphabet marketing (K2HD, HQC,  SHM, Platinum SHM, Blu-Spec CD, Blu-Spec CD2, blah blah) designed to exploit the Japanese worship of physical media.

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Just now, Ralf11 said:

of course you perceived an improvement - you expected to do so; next time try ...  blind testing

 

 

Confirmation Bias in a bottle.jpg

 

I have spent a lot of money on things in my audiophile journey that resulted in NO improvement. I have a degree of confidence in my ability to be objective about what I hear. Yes, I had expected to hear an improvement otherwise the manufacturers wouldn’t have been so bold as to include a CD version of the samples allowing everyone to do back-to-back comparison — but I somewhat expected to hear more of a difference than what I did.

 

Also, the differences are too small to survive a blind test: the stress of testing combined with audio memory effect would completely destroy my ability to discern fine differences. I know this because I’ve challenged these kinds of tests.

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4 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

My server/DAC set up is superior virtually any CD player.

 

The UHQCD is another long line in CD alphabet marketing (K2HD, HQC,  SHM, Platinum SHM, Blu-Spec CD, Blu-Spec CD2, blah blah) designed to exploit the Japanese worship of physical media.

 

K2 / XRCD24 is different from these other examples because that includes a complete mastering through to production process using a Rubidium clock.

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5 minutes ago, GUTB said:

K2 / XRCD24 is different from these other examples because that includes a complete mastering through to production process using a Rubidium clock.

Why bother? Playback is still governed by whatever quartz oscillator is in the CD player.

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6 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I do hope you realize that a Rubidium clock is the cheapest, most common atomic clock made.

 

Mid-Fi at best

 

 

I have a Uranium 238 clock, in a lead lined room buried in my basement.  It sends the clock signal out to my system via neutrinos to an aggregator on the outside, connected to the master clock. It's all very high tech and top secret.  I could tell you more but the nice man in the black helicopter told me I wasn't able to or he would have to kill me.

No electron left behind.

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