Qobuz streaming MQA CD's?

[rickca]

25 minutes ago, mansr said:

2L has, without telling anyone, decided to deliver MQA whether you want it not. Roon apparently sends everything through the MQA decoder which then flags any such content regardless of source.

Dastardly!

[austinpop]

6 minutes ago, rickca said:

Dastardly!

 

Agree. 

[rickca]

37 minutes ago, mansr said:

2L has, without telling anyone, decided to deliver MQA whether you want it not. Roon apparently sends everything through the MQA decoder which then flags any such content regardless of source.

Collusion! 🤐

Somebody call Rudy Giuliani quick!

 

[austinpop]

1 minute ago, rickca said:

Collusion! 🤐

 

I am thankful that Roon allowed me to detect it, at least.

[rickca]

1 minute ago, austinpop said:

 

I am thankful that Roon allowed me to detect it, at least.

Maybe Squeezelite sounds better than Roon at the endpoint because Roon runs everything through an MQA decoder.  That would be a nasty find.

[austinpop]

My bigger concern is when other label "partners" of Qobuz supply 24/44.1 or 24/48 MQA files, and characterize them as hi-res. Since they meet the technical definition of Hi-Res, the real question is:

 

What is Qobuz's stance? MQA or no MQA?

[asdf1000]

6 hours ago, dmackta said:

I would encourage you to also investigate this issue directly with the labels who appear to be providing these files in lieu of redbook CD audio. 

 

This has been already happening with more main stream stuff too, like on Tidal the below is only available in MQA - the redbook CD version is not available on Tidal:

 

 

 

This is a collaborative EP with Coldplay, Pharrell Williams, David Guetta and some other popular acts.

 

So this is happening not just with more traditional audiophile recordings it seems, but slowly with some of the more popular stuff too.

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

@austinpop Interesting that removing the tags made it show as a normal file. Did you play that file and see what showed up in the playing window?

 

There are a few things left unexplained by that though

 

@mansr findings that it is indeed an MQA file

ROON doing the first unfold into a 24/88 file

2Ls admission they supplied MQA material.

[austinpop]

Just now, AudioDoctor said:

@austinpop Interesting that removing the tags made it show as a normal file. Did you play that file and see what showed up in the playing window?

 

There are a few things left unexplained by that though

 

@mansr findings that it is indeed an MQA file

ROON doing the first unfold into a 24/88 file

2Ls admission they supplied MQA material.

 

They are right. I hadn't been paying attention to MQA. There is such a thing as MQA CD. Apparently it is a 16/44.1 abomination that still passes MQA authentication. I thought MQA was only 24-bit 44.1 or 48 containers.

[AudioDoctor]

@austinpop That's ok, we're all confused here a bit, I think.

[austinpop]

4 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Did you play that file and see what showed up in the playing window?

 

It shows up as Redbook in Roon. But my sample files are dated April 2016, so I would expect them to be actual Redbook.

 

 If Morten Lindberg is to be believed in his post: https://community.roonlabs.com/t/qobuz-subscriptions-questions/58691/13 then current samples on the testbench are likely this so-called MQA CD format. 

 

Yuck!

[rickca]

Can I pay for counterfeit high res in counterfeit money?

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, rickca said:

Can I pay for counterfeit high res in counterfeit money?

Bitcoin?

[AudioDoctor]

11 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

It shows up as Redbook in Roon. But my sample files are dated April 2016, so I would expect them to be actual Redbook.

 

 If Morten Lindberg is to be believed in his post: https://community.roonlabs.com/t/qobuz-subscriptions-questions/58691/13 then current samples on the testbench are likely this so-called MQA CD format. 

 

Yuck!

 

That may very well be the case.

[mav52]

20 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

@austinpop Interesting that removing the tags made it show as a normal file. Did you play that file and see what showed up in the playing window?

 

There are a few things left unexplained by that though

 

@mansr findings that it is indeed an MQA file

ROON doing the first unfold into a 24/88 file

2Ls admission they supplied MQA material.

I

m not using Roon, just my Lumin player and its app.  I can via the Lumin app turn off MQA and the 2L file comes up as a 44/16 bit file.

[austinpop]

Here's the bigger question. Streaming is one thing, but what about when you buy music from Qobuz:

 

 

What are we getting?

1. Hi-res: since it's advertised at 24/192, I would expect this is "real" hi-res, not MQA.
2. "16-bit CD quality": this one's the concern for me. In light of Morten's comments: is this Redbook or MQA CD?

Maybe @dmackta or @David.. Qobuz, Hi-Res Music Evangelist could set our minds at ease.

[Cebolla]

2 hours ago, austinpop said:

There are actually 2 issues here. Let's unpack:

1. Roon thinks this is a 24/192 file, due to the Qobuz API showing download resolutions, not streaming resolutions. I know you are working to fix this. So in fact, as you said, since you don't have (yet) hi-res streaming rights for 2L, the streaming file is actually redbook.
2. But then when you see Roon's handling of the file, it seems to think the file is MQA - due to those tags

What I'd suggested when I reported this to the US beta team is to run some automation to strip these tags, at least from 2L - or better yet, have 2L fix it as the supplier. What I don't understand is - even if Roon was confused into thinking it was an MQA encoded file, how did it pass MQA Authentication? Is that code so easy to spoof? Don't know, don't really care.

 

I believe you've got this a bit mixed up:

 

1. Roon IS recognising the 2L 16/44.1kHz MQACD FLAC file as MQA, because it is decoding it and picking up the MQA signatures in the resulting PCM MQA encoded audio signal as mentioned by @mansr. Roon is not being confused and the Authentication passes because the FLAC file track contains a true PCM MQA encoded signal. It does not need Qobuz's error of labelling the track as 24/192 (the correct resolution for its download) to get it to do that.

 

2. Roon does not need to look for the <ENCODER> & <ORIGINALSAMPLERATE> MQA tags you mentioned in FLAC file that carries the PCM MQA encoded audio signal, because the equivalent parameters already exist in the PCM signal's MQA signatures. Hence the reason why Roon can display the (MQA) original sample rate value.

 

Calling for those MQA tags to be stripped is actually the wrong thing to be doing. In fact, the MQA tags are already missing from 2L's MQACD FLAC file tracks being streamed from Qobuz and that actually adds to the stealth!

[austinpop]

Ah I see - the 2L testbench now offers both MQA CD and original CD files.

 

 

Here's how Roon sees it:

 

That makes more sense now. So clearly, 2L are supplying MQA CD files to Qobuz.

[austinpop]

2 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

 

I believe you've got this a bit mixed up:

 

1. Roon IS recognising the 2L 16/44.1kHz MQACD FLAC file as MQA, because it is decoding it and picking up the MQA signatures in the resulting PCM MQA encoded audio signal as mentioned by @mansr. Roon is not being confused and the Authentication passes because the FLAC file track contains a true PCM MQA encoded signal. It does not need Qobuz's error of labelling the track as 24/192 (the correct resolution for its download) to get it to do that.

 

2. Roon does not need to look for the <ENCODER> & <ORIGINALSAMPLERATE> MQA tags you mentioned in FLAC file that carries the PCM MQA encoded audio signal, because the equivalent parameters already exist in the PCM signal's MQA signatures. Hence the reason why Roon can display the (MQA) original sample rate value.

 

Calling for those MQA tags to be stripped is actually the wrong thing to be doing. The MQA tags are already missing from 2L's MQACD FLAC file tracks being streamed from Qobuz and that actually adds to the stealth!

 

Yes, my bad. I didn't even know there was such a thing as MQA CD. Shows how much I care about MQA. I corrected myself in later posts.

[austinpop]

Clearly 2L have cleaned up their tags, because the samples I downloaded a couple of years ago had idiocy like this!

 

[Cebolla]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Roon apparently sends everything through the MQA decoder which then flags any such content regardless of source.

 

The Lumin devices also do the same. @wklie has said it's because they can't rely on the MQA tags used by the audio file containing the MQA encoded signal:

 

[wklie]

I'd also like to add that Lumin does a two-stage processing regarding MQA / PCM playback.  The first stage predetermines whether a file is MQA authenticated or not using the MQA decoder.  Once a PCM file (after FLAC / ALAC decompression) is identified to be MQA, the MQA playback path is used.  If it is not MQA, then the PCM is played in a bit perfect manner (if the user does not enable the optional upsampling) without going through the MQA decoder.

 

As @damien78 pointed out, yes, this slows down the loading a bit.  However, in our case it is the only practical way to ensure a MQA-free PCM playback path without total dependence on tags.  This is especially true for user rips of physical MQA CD (primarily from Japan).

[Cebolla]

9 hours ago, rickca said:

Maybe Squeezelite sounds better than Roon at the endpoint because Roon runs everything through an MQA decoder.  That would be a nasty find.

 

There should be no bit altering impact (so you'll likely need to look for another explanation for your lower sound quality experiences with Roon) if Roon uses a method to check for MQA in PCM containing lossless files similar to what the Lumin devices do:

7 hours ago, wklie said:

Lumin does a two-stage processing regarding MQA / PCM playback.  The first stage predetermines whether a file is MQA authenticated or not using the MQA decoder.  Once a PCM file (after FLAC / ALAC decompression) is identified to be MQA, the MQA playback path is used.  If it is not MQA, then the PCM is played in a bit perfect manner (if the user does not enable the optional upsampling) without going through the MQA decoder.

 

[firedog]

18 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Yes, we may be left with no choice. I would like to try as long as possible a strategy to reward companies that want to provide real Redbook and hi res streaming, while at the same time letting them know the objections to MQA.  It's the same as anything else I suppose - you try persuasion, and if your pleas fall on deaf ears, you stop patronizing them.

Well, if 2L is only supplying "Redbook" in the MQA verison, I won't be buying or streaming anything of theirs.

[firedog]

20 hours ago, rickca said:

@dmackta if Qobuz is forced by the labels to distribute MQA and withdraw high res that will be the end of my subscription after more than 3.5 years.

It's still a possibility they will stream Redbook MQA and also standard hi-res. My question right now would be is if you look thru the 2L catalog at Qobuz, are there albums that are available in what 2L now calls Redbook (with MQA) and also available as staight hi-res?