AudioNervosa

Systemic Development => Digital Audio Devices => Topic started by: dBe on November 06, 2017, 12:23:25 AM

Title: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: dBe on November 06, 2017, 12:23:25 AM
This is not my first rodeo.  I've been 'doing audio' since the mid 60's.  That, in itself, should qualify what I am going to say.  I've been involved in every phase of music production that can be done with the exception of that of a mastering engineer.  Musician, recording engineer, live sound FOH mixer, producer, mixing desk. Been there done that.  I think that is why my quest is now the music and its enjoyment.

In video, I went through all of the formats from film, through the VHS/Beta wars to have learned to be wary of new formats.

I went from analog audio (records, 2-24trk tape) into digital in all of its guises to realize a few things.  Everything is at best a picture (analog) or a reconstruction (digital) of something that happened in real space at real time using transducers to capture that or those moments.

I have heard symphonic music recorded on wire recorders in Germany in the early through late thirties
that were reconstructed by an amazing engineer that were among some of the best mono recordings I have ever heard.  Analog, in whatever format, captured the emotion, the humanity of those recordings.

Enter digital.

Does anyone here know that Sara K's first album was done on a Sony U-magic 14 bit recorder?  What we captured there were amazing performances by Sara, Bruce Dunlap and many others in a tiny little studio here in Albuquerque.  No one really cared that the strings sounded too woody.  There were just masterful performances by talented musicians recorded on the format at hand.  The producer, Eric Larson, was a wizard.

I have terabytes of Redbook recordings.  Some are stunning, some suck.  That is the music industry.  There is either talent there or not.  It doesn't matter how a performance is encoded or decoded to me.  It is either good work, or it sucks.  I can either enjoy it or not.  It doesn't matter to me whether the recording was sampled at 3.7645231 terahertz.  If it sucks it just sucks in technicolor.  Couple this with the fact that every new format that comes along tends to trade colorations for colorations.  I particularly like this quote: " It was like a veil had been lifted...  Blah, blah, blah". How many times have I hear or read that crap?!?!

Now MGA.  When I read that MGA is a form of lossy compression I was completely out.  What we get with this approach is someone else's idea of what we (I) want to hear upon reconstruction.  Seriously?

I get lied to enough by watching the news.  I don't need it in my enjoyment of real music.

Grumpy, out.
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: rollo on November 06, 2017, 12:13:04 PM
 You ain't grumpy you are 100% correct. Just back from CAF. Talked to several DAC designers. They were against it. AQUA the line I carry has yet to embrace as well.
Who wants to re-buy their library all over again. The CD was enough cost to get what I liked on vinyl.

charles
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: P.I. on November 06, 2017, 03:59:25 PM
You ain't grumpy you are 100% correct. Just back from CAF. Talked to several DAC designers. They were against it. AQUA the line I carry has yet to embrace as well.
Who wants to re-buy their library all over again. The CD was enough cost to get what I liked on vinyl.

charles
Time and experience has taught us that the encoding end of Redbook cxrammed a bunch of data into the data files.  It has always been the decoding end that has been suspect in extracting everything from that file.  For whatever reason we have chosen to look for new, instead of better ways to "fix" digital.  Everytime I listen to the latest and greatest, I hear a different presentation that is represented by advocates as better. 

To me music is best compared to food.  I have eaten both simple and extravagently prepared dishes.  Too many 'chefs' overcome the shortcomings of the base component with a variety of spices, additions etc and then a stunning visual presentation.  All of that is just window dressing when it comes to the enjoyment of the meal.  The most memorable meals I have every had were some of the most simply prepared using the highest quality foods. 

Diferent is only different.  More is merely more.  Better is better when it comes to serving the music. 

A lot of what goes on with audio is the GAS syndrome.  There comes a point to where newer, more technically acclaimed gearjust stops being better, becomes more expensive and is simply more gear to feed GAS while shorshifting the enjoyment aspect.  I have several DACs here.  One is 24bit 384KHZ.  Another is a 64X oversampling  DAC and my favorites are both 16bit 44.1KHz NOS DACs.  Those are the ones that crank up the emotion and enjoyment for me.  In audio it is KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid.  Simple electronics without a lot of bells and whistles feeding or being fed by a simply designed minimilistic DAC is what floats my goat.  Then again I'm in the geezer realm and have learned that a simple, fulfilling life is the most rewarding. He that dies with the most toys missed the point.
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: malloy on November 06, 2017, 11:23:51 PM

When I read that MGA is a form of lossy compression I was completely out.  What we get with this approach is someone else's idea of what we (I) want to hear upon reconstruction.  Seriously?


Funny how they left out this very important bit (no pun intended) of information in the marketing spiel. Or have  they stated this from the start?
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: Nick B on November 07, 2017, 10:14:46 AM
As I only have 16/44 CDs and  no hirez material, I’m happy where I’m at. Tidal allows me to play with upsampling and I could give a rat’s a.. about MQA. Must be nice to have money coming in via licensing fees.
When the dust settles with my current single driver and amp projects, I’m going to test the nos dac  waters.....
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: rollo on November 07, 2017, 02:39:03 PM
As I only have 16/44 CDs and  no hirez material, I’m happy where I’m at. Tidal allows me to play with upsampling and I could give a rat’s a.. about MQA. Must be nice to have money coming in via licensing fees.
When the dust settles with my current single driver and amp projects, I’m going to test the nos dac  waters.....

 If and when you want to play with NOS chip DAC I have a Promitheus transformer output DAC that still kicks some butt that you could use for awhile.

charles
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: Nick B on November 07, 2017, 07:27:18 PM
As I only have 16/44 CDs and  no hirez material, I’m happy where I’m at. Tidal allows me to play with upsampling and I could give a rat’s a.. about MQA. Must be nice to have money coming in via licensing fees.
When the dust settles with my current single driver and amp projects, I’m going to test the nos dac  waters.....

 If and when you want to play with NOS chip DAC I have a Promitheus transformer output DAC that still kicks some butt that you could use for awhile.

charles

Thanks, Charles. I appreciate that very much
Nick
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: P.I. on November 09, 2017, 10:31:56 AM

When I read that MGA is a form of lossy compression I was completely out.  What we get with this approach is someone else's idea of what we (I) want to hear upon reconstruction.  Seriously?


Funny how they left out this very important bit (no pun intended) of information in the marketing spiel. Or have  they stated this from the start?
I found out about this by cruising on the net reading as much as I could.  It's VHS/Beta/HDCD/DVD-A/SACD/MSMFT/LSD all of again.

The worst thing that can happen to Redbook is when it is decimated to 96K or above.  88.2 sounds infinitely better than 96.  Whose moronic idea was that anyway... oh, yeah: video guys  ](*,)
 
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: richidoo on February 11, 2018, 09:49:32 AM
Because of all the negative comments in the online audiophile echo-chamber about MQA, I had ignored it until last Thursday when my friend called to ask me what I knew about Masters on Tidal. I had to say, geez I don't know anything about that, because I had read that it's the devil's spawn. He said, man you gotta try it, it's awesome.

So I did, and it is. My DAC is proudly antiMQA but Roon recently updated to decode MQA and sends the unfolded PCM 24/96 to my DAC. I understand there's even more potential for MQA than this, up to 8x unfolding for DACs that can count that high and don't have philosophical resistance to change, but for me MQA 1x still sounds better than the standard 44k flac files from Tidal. What I thought were cheap caps on my tweeters sound fine on MQA streams. That makes me question just how "uncompressed" Tidal Hifi tracks really are.

Surprisingly, there is some excellent music to be found in Tidal Masters that sound divine, even compared to the non-master Hifi versions on Tidal.

Masters are included in Hifi level subscription to Tidal, so it doesn't cost me anything extra. It seems like there's about 100 Master albums on Tidal? Maybe 10 classical, maybe 20 of jazz. I hope they add many more, or I hope to find out there are 20,000 Masters on Tidal and I'm just looking in the wrong place.

As I grow accustomed to this level of high resolution files I would consider buying hirez downloads of those recordings I really love and listen to a lot, if they are available. If MQA allowed me to store hirez files in significantly smaller space then I'd do it.

At this point, without reading much about MQA technology, I still hold the simple belief that it MQA is a new form of compression on same principle as flac, but either sounds better, or compresses smaller, or some other advantages over flac. Am I wrong?

I can see a future for MQA, if kids can hear the improvement over 192k mp3. And with national(ized) 5G coming, we'll need much bigger files to justify all the spending. We have a right to MQA! Every poor child deserves equal access to high resolution audio files! It's not fair! Check your audiophile privilege!

Listening to "Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson" on Tidal Masters now. Magnificent!  :thumb:
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: _Scotty_ on February 11, 2018, 01:15:04 PM
The chances are good that the streamed MQA tracks are from a different master than their flac files. Also they are paying for the privilege to stream MQA content so it is in their best interest to have the MQA files sound better than the flac files.
 There is a real possibility that it is not the apples to apples comparison that it may seem to be.
Scotty
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: dBe on February 11, 2018, 11:49:58 PM
The chances are good that the streamed MQA tracks are from a different master than their flac files. Also they are paying for the privilege to stream MQA content so it is in their best interest to have the MQA files sound better than the flac files.
 There is a real possibility that it is not the apples to apples comparison that it may seem to be.
Scotty
I may get a lot of FLAC for this, but I don't like it either.

Aw, come on.  Somebody had to say it... :rofl:  I'm killin' me here, but it's late.
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: richidoo on February 12, 2018, 10:24:28 AM
The chances are good that the streamed MQA tracks are from a different master than their flac files. Also they are paying for the privilege to stream MQA content so it is in their best interest to have the MQA files sound better than the flac files.
 There is a real possibility that it is not the apples to apples comparison that it may seem to be.
Scotty

I can accept that, especially because I naively thought that MQA was by definition higher resolution playback. Just a more efficient compression that allows streaming hirez content at similar bitrate as the Tidal hifi flac stream.

I assumed MQA starts with a higher resolution master, compressed by MQA small enough to stream. Isn't that what MQA claims?  Or does MQA claim to make hirez silk out of redbook sow's ear?  Like all the other resamplers we see that are intolerable in the long run.

Roon says it is streaming 24/96 to my DAC when I play Tidal Masters. I have upsampling turned off. Tidal Hifi streams to my DAC at 44.1/16. It sounds like 24/96. It does not sound like upsampling/resampling. So I assume it is legtimately 24/96 master taken from analog original. 

My question is: Should I not expect MQA to always be a high resolution master? Or can MQA just be a redbook master? Thanks for your insight.
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: dBe on February 12, 2018, 10:24:07 PM
The chances are good that the streamed MQA tracks are from a different master than their flac files. Also they are paying for the privilege to stream MQA content so it is in their best interest to have the MQA files sound better than the flac files.
 There is a real possibility that it is not the apples to apples comparison that it may seem to be.
Scotty

I can accept that, especially because I naively thought that MQA was by definition higher resolution playback. Just a more efficient compression that allows streaming hirez content at similar bitrate as the Tidal hifi flac stream.

My question is: Should I not expect MQA to always be a high resolution master? Or can MQA just be a redbook master? Thanks for your insight.
Rich, I think that is THE question a lot of people are asking.  I have seen some "MQA" titles that I know cannot possibly me more than 44.1/16 natives recordings.  I am such a curmudgeon in my old age [having been ripped off all to often in audio] that I just wonder. 

I have had discussions with more than a few people that are wondering what MQA is all about.  I remember getting direct to tape and half speed master vinyl back in the day.  There was no question about those technologies (thank you Clark Johnson, et al), but when I heard something these days that is supposed to be better and all it does is sound brighter and pumped on thr bottom I wonder.

I used to be cynical when it came to audio BS.  Now I'm really, REALLY cynical.

I really do hope that it is more than these old ears can hear  :roll:  kinda sucks getting older in more ways than diminished HF.
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: _Scotty_ on February 13, 2018, 05:59:30 PM
Rich, I don't know if you read any of the posts in the Bryston Circle on AC but James Tanner posted a lot of links to some good information on MQA.
 http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=151245.0
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/mqa-op-ed.3817/page-3#post-166101
Scotty
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: tmazz on February 14, 2018, 08:48:13 AM
The chances are good that the streamed MQA tracks are from a different master than their flac files. Also they are paying for the privilege to stream MQA content so it is in their best interest to have the MQA files sound better than the flac files.
 There is a real possibility that it is not the apples to apples comparison that it may seem to be.
Scotty

I can accept that, especially because I naively thought that MQA was by definition higher resolution playback. Just a more efficient compression that allows streaming hirez content at similar bitrate as the Tidal hifi flac stream.

I assumed MQA starts with a higher resolution master, compressed by MQA small enough to stream. Isn't that what MQA claims?  Or does MQA claim to make hirez silk out of redbook sow's ear?  Like all the other resamplers we see that are intolerable in the long run.

Roon says it is streaming 24/96 to my DAC when I play Tidal Masters. I have upsampling turned off. Tidal Hifi streams to my DAC at 44.1/16. It sounds like 24/96. It does not sound like upsampling/resampling. So I assume it is legtimately 24/96 master taken from analog original. 

My question is: Should I not expect MQA to always be a high resolution master? Or can MQA just be a redbook master? Thanks for your insight.

Logically one would think that any MQA file should start with some kind of high res master. After all, what would be the sense of going through extra steps to encode a redbook signal so that it can be transported within a redbook signal?

But unfortunately logic does not always rule the day, especially when marketing folks are involved. What are the odds of somebody upsampling a redbook file and then encoding that upsampled file using MQA and trying to sell us, once again, something we already own under the guise of this version is "better"?

I would like to think that this kind of thing would not come out of major sources, but this would be just too easy to do in some kind of backroom piracy operation. We already have all kinds of "audiophile" 180g LPs coming out of Europe that are benig mastered off of commercial CDs due to some loopholes in the new EU copyright laws, I just can't imagine that nobody will try to sell scam MQA files as well. As far as I know, at this point MQA is pretty much limited to streaming services,  but once they start selling MQA files for download to your own hard drives, like anything else, we will need to be careful of where we buy them from.
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: tmazz on February 14, 2018, 09:45:20 AM

I can see a future for MQA, if kids can hear the improvement over 192k mp3.


But unfortunately there is a second half to that equation. Once they decide they can hear a difference they have to decide that the difference is worth paying for. As it is less than half of the tidal users subscribe to the Hi-Fi service, Meaning that more than half the Tidal user base is perfectly happy with mp3 quality. And if they are not willing to pay for Redbook, they certainly will not be laying out cash to buy MQA enabled hardware.

And even if young people get to the point where they hear the difference, it will in all likelihood not matter much to them because of the way that they tend to consume their music. Most of their listening is done on the go using earbuds and portable devices. This leads to two issues. One, their listening is usually done as a background to other activities and as such they are not paying attention to the music in a way that would allow them to appreciate they higher SQ. And two, the listening is very often done in hostile acoustic environments. If you are listening on the subway I don't care how high of a bitrate your files are, the ambient noise is going to wipe out any additional SQ you might get.

If you ask me the biggest challenge this hobby faces in the long run is getting more people to enjoy sitting down and listening to music as a primary activity. Because only then will people be able to really appreciate and start to value the things that a good high end system can bring to the party. One of the big draws of a good high end system is the way it can draw out an emotional connection between the listener and the music. It's tough to make an emotional connection when you are focusing 90% of you attention on an activity other than the music.

Unfortunately if music is being use mainly to kill the silence while we are doing other things, convenience and simplicity will win out over SQ for most folks.
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: richidoo on February 14, 2018, 09:48:31 AM
Rich, I don't know if you read any of the posts in the Bryston Circle on AC but James Tanner posted a lot of links to some good information on MQA.
 http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=151245.0
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/mqa-op-ed.3817/page-3#post-166101
Scotty

Thanks for the links Scotty! 
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: rollo on February 15, 2018, 08:49:58 AM
   When ALL agree including designers of world class DAC's maybe. For now very happy with a dedicated transport, DAC and 44.1 not upsampled.
   I use a separate SACD player for well SACD's. Why ? IMHO players that offer both must compromise one format over another. For me the only players that do proper justice to both formats are way to expensive.
  Until one actually hears state of the art redbook in direct comparison it it all BS. When directly compared if better I will be first one to say so. Until then happy trails.


charles
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: DRN on February 15, 2018, 10:01:16 AM
Completely agree, don't give a shit about MQA!!!!!!!!
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: _Scotty_ on March 02, 2018, 09:24:20 PM
New article by archimago on computer audiophile website.
Good overview of the technology and it's shortcomings without hyperbole.
https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/
Scotty
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: Nick B on March 02, 2018, 09:51:43 PM
New article by archimago on computer audiophile website.
Good overview of the technology and it's shortcomings without hyperbole.
https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/
Scotty

Hey Scotty,
Very interesting article and analysis. First time I’ve seen the patent diagram.
Nick
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: dBe on March 03, 2018, 08:14:06 PM
I stand by my original statement.  I love quote: "A solution looking for a problem" which is largely my viewpoint.

As a 70 year old man that knows "how to listen", but with admittedly age related frequency deficits, I do not hear or see MQA as a better way, but merely another way.

The inherent SQ of well done, minimilist NOS 44.1/16 still keeps me in the seat.  Every, and I mean EVERY attempt to get "more" from digital audio recorded in native 44.1/16 format sounds a tad wrong.  This especially applies to massively oversampled formats.  I truly believe that it all comes down to the huge shifts in phase relationships that screw with the integrity of the music.

If we are to "improve" digital audio it needs to be done at 44.1, 88.2 or 176.4... Without the brutality of decimation.  It's all about sampling rate integrity for me.

YMMV
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: TrueAudio on September 22, 2018, 04:20:28 PM
I found out about this by cruising on the net reading as much as I could.  It's VHS/Beta/HDCD/DVD-A/SACD/MSMFT/LSD all of again.

The worst thing that can happen to Redbook is when it is decimated to 96K or above.  88.2 sounds infinitely better than 96.  Whose moronic idea was that anyway... oh, yeah: video guys  ](*,)
"MQA has received criticism from various sources within the music industry.

Audio product manufacturer Schiit Audio announced that it will not be supporting MQA due to, amongst other reasons, the understanding that “…supporting MQA means handing over the entire recording industry to an external standards organization.”[16]

In a blog post title “MQA is Bad for Music. Here’s why"[17] Hi-fi Manufacturer Linn Products criticises MQA’s licensing requirements, asserting that MQA is "...an attempt to control and extract revenue from every part of the supply chain, and not just over content that they hold the rights for.”[17] Linn conclude[clarification needed] that as a consumer you will "…pay a higher price for the same music, and you’ll pay more for your hi-fi system too. And even if you don’t buy into MQA, everyone will get less innovation, creativity and poorer music as a result."[17]

In an interview for online publication Positive Feedback, engineer Andreas Koch is critical of MQA due to its lossy algorithms and compression, along with its licensing requirements; also saying that a format such as this "does not solve any problem that the world currently has."[18] Koch was involved in the creation of the Super Audio CD, the development of the Direct Stream Digital codec, and is co-founder of audio product manufacturer Playback Designs.

An article titled Digital Done Wrong[19] on the International Audio/Video Review web site, concluded that MQA is founded on a fundamentally unsound understanding of correct digital audio processing and found that playback of a sample MQA encoding demonstrated gross distortion and reconstruction failure. It did however comment that some listeners may find the technical defects of MQA encoding subjectively pleasing.

Some critical comments have been made in online forums such as the Computer Audiophile forum[20] and in audio magazine website comments, and a few writers have expressed concern in some areas. Over 80 detailed questions, some of which voiced these concerns, were submitted to the editors of the Computer Audiophile forum and subsequently addressed in detail by the creator of MQA, Bob Stuart, in an extended question-and-answer article.[21]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: P.I. on September 23, 2018, 04:17:52 PM
As we travel down this road of digital reproduction.  I am confused by the number of new formats that come and go.  As far as I am concerned if it isn't a direct multiple of 44.1, I'm not interested. Do the math - divide 384K by 44.1K.

The amount of data encoded onto a Redbook disc is staggering. Getting it off intact and undamaged is much harder then many of us thought back in the 80's.

Agagin the sheer volume of software makes my decision a no brainer.

Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: tmazz on September 25, 2018, 02:02:51 PM
Dave, If what you are getting is a true high res file it does not matter if it is a multiple of 44.1 or not because you will need to decode it at the bit rate that it was encoded at in the first place. If it was recorded originally at a higher bit rate (like 192/24 ) the lower bit rate should divided evenly into the original,. But if you are starting with a 44.1 source in the first place up sampling it to any higher bit rate is some what of a scam because to won't end up with a higher resolution file, just an up sampled regular one. You can never end up with more information than you started with not matter what you do to the bit rate.
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: tmazz on September 25, 2018, 02:05:57 PM
I have a new reason why not to care about MQA anymore.

You can now get native hi res file streamed directly to you via Qobuz. and if the results of the shootout I did over the weekend ad indicative of the results across the board the native files sound better than there MQA counterparts. And since I now have Gigabit Fios in my house bandwidth is not an issue anymore, so who needs MQA?

http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=6902.msg87765;topicseen#msg87765
Title: Re: Why I don't give a **** about MQA...
Post by: P.I. on September 28, 2018, 01:48:35 PM
" if you are starting with a 44.1 source in the first place up sampling it to any higher bit rate is some what of a scam because to won't end up with a higher resolution file, just an up sampled regular one. You can never end up with more information than you started with not matter what you do to the bit rate.,"

Tru dat(a)!