radamel
Music Fiend
Perhaps he does but compared to Bob Stuart or John Westlake I'm not sure he'd qualify as one.
Perhaps if I listen to one of his audio designs I'll change my mind.
Schiit Audio boycott MQA
- Thread starter AndyU
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Perhaps he does but compared to Bob Stuart or John Westlake I'm not sure he'd qualify as one.
Perhaps if I listen to one of his audio designs I'll change my mind.
mark-hants
pfm Member
OK, I'll bite. I have some free time, winding down for the weekend..
Contrast with vinyl. I have a disc with the music pressed on to it. However were I to swap out the turntable, the arm or the cartridge, it would sound different. If I just twist the head shell a fraction out of alignment it will again sound different.
It's highly subjective and esoteric and I can choose between different types of colouration and distortion as suits me. This is not the realm of "high fidelity to source".
Moving to the joy of digital: it is not subjective. Nyquist Shannon came up with a theory to reconstruct the waveform. And there is only one right answer. All the subjectivity has been removed.
Therefore, with some relatively minor differences such as the quality of the PSU and the internal circuitry, all DACs, from one that costs £12 to one that costs £12000 will sound identical. Precisely because there is only one right answer.
Except they don't all sound the same. We've had non-oversampling DACs, then oversampling DACS. Some have femto clocks and so forth. But there is only one way to unpack the digital stream and recreate the analogue waveform, isn't there.. there is one "right answer".
Because all of the subjectivity has been removed. The joy of mathematics. This enables the DAC to "fill in" the time in between the samples on playback and reconstruct the data that was not sampled. So you don't get a stepped output, a series of discrete steps. You get an accurate waveform.
That being the case, we don't need 24/192. We just need to build DACs which comply with the NS theory and do what that told us to do. Then, 24/192 is pointless because we've done the maths and 16/44 is perfect.
And yet, 24/192 is audibly better than 16/44. Something does not compute.
As I've posited before, perhaps the "ADC" in some peoples' brains runs a bit quicker than others which would explain why timing issues are only apparent to some.
If it's the case that, were I to listen to a £12000 DAC with 16/44 and note that the timing issues are fixed, great. Except that digital has been around for a long time and this means that the entry level for a "Nyquist Shannon DAC" remains as out of reach as it ever was. Cheaper DACs have engineering shortcuts and for want of a better expression, can only manage some subjective approximation of the music.
Digital's timing failure is vinyl's crackles, pops and other subjectivity.
Providing another argument for MQA: affordability.
Contrast with vinyl. I have a disc with the music pressed on to it. However were I to swap out the turntable, the arm or the cartridge, it would sound different. If I just twist the head shell a fraction out of alignment it will again sound different.
It's highly subjective and esoteric and I can choose between different types of colouration and distortion as suits me. This is not the realm of "high fidelity to source".
Moving to the joy of digital: it is not subjective. Nyquist Shannon came up with a theory to reconstruct the waveform. And there is only one right answer. All the subjectivity has been removed.
Therefore, with some relatively minor differences such as the quality of the PSU and the internal circuitry, all DACs, from one that costs £12 to one that costs £12000 will sound identical. Precisely because there is only one right answer.
Except they don't all sound the same. We've had non-oversampling DACs, then oversampling DACS. Some have femto clocks and so forth. But there is only one way to unpack the digital stream and recreate the analogue waveform, isn't there.. there is one "right answer".
Because all of the subjectivity has been removed. The joy of mathematics. This enables the DAC to "fill in" the time in between the samples on playback and reconstruct the data that was not sampled. So you don't get a stepped output, a series of discrete steps. You get an accurate waveform.
That being the case, we don't need 24/192. We just need to build DACs which comply with the NS theory and do what that told us to do. Then, 24/192 is pointless because we've done the maths and 16/44 is perfect.
And yet, 24/192 is audibly better than 16/44. Something does not compute.
As I've posited before, perhaps the "ADC" in some peoples' brains runs a bit quicker than others which would explain why timing issues are only apparent to some.
If it's the case that, were I to listen to a £12000 DAC with 16/44 and note that the timing issues are fixed, great. Except that digital has been around for a long time and this means that the entry level for a "Nyquist Shannon DAC" remains as out of reach as it ever was. Cheaper DACs have engineering shortcuts and for want of a better expression, can only manage some subjective approximation of the music.
Digital's timing failure is vinyl's crackles, pops and other subjectivity.
Providing another argument for MQA: affordability.
Whaleblue
Southbound
I won't presume to comment further.
mark-hants
pfm Member
But nobody has done this.
Perhaps it's a bit like medical science.
Given enough money and incentives (analogy: licencing fees), people might be able to come up with a cure for cancer.
Otherwise, the "it can't be done" status quo remains.
FWIW I completely agree than an open source option is preferable, but people have had 25+ years to come up with this.
radamel
Music Fiend
Any of his audio designs you'd recommend me to listen to though?
OK, lets accept that 24/192 is a good idea. Why are you supporting a lossy way of transmitting it? AIUI if you put a 24/192 file into the MQA process you don't get a bit-identical 24/192 file out the other end. And by some accounts, those that don't want to buy the proprietary decoder will end up with a worse than CD quality load of bits from the undecoded MQA stream, so they would be better off without MQA at all!
I got a sales mailshot from Warner/MQA the other day that used an old photo of Bob Dylan in his acoustic days to sell the technology. So it looks like all this fancy technology is going to be used to encode the hiss, wow, flutter and print-through from 40 year old analogue tape!
Werner
pfm Member
There (must) have been similar ideas in the past. With which I mean the wilful trading of filter width and aliasing in the context of a given music programme.
Classical recordist Tony Faulkner experimented with filterless 44k recordings a decade ago.
I described a mildly-filtered high sampling PCM system in my laboratory notebook in, oh, 1996 or thereabouts.
I am sure there is the odd knowledgeable mastering engineer out there being creative with the limitless filter options of iZotope.
None of this has much visibility.
MQA is the result of a very bright idea of Craven (a structured trade-off) married to the exposure afforded by a company like Meridian, marred by the shareholders' insistence on cynically monetising this idea, which will almost certainly mean its demise.
Whaleblue
Southbound
Werner, as I understand it, you don't see timing improvements with MQA, but as you say it's a very bright idea I assume you see some real sonic benefits?
Werner
pfm Member
No, I don't.
Does that look like a paradox?
I'll try to explain.
In my experience, all else carefully kept the same, hires brings no audible benefit. But that is the experience of a single person and as such this experience has a value very very close to zero.
There may be people out there (younger, healthier) who (using even better-recorded music and even better systems) can discern hires from normal-res. No problem with that. (This said, there hasn't been much evidence of these people speaking up so far, and differences reported are frighteningly subtle ... as can be expected.)
So, given that above people (etc.) and also given that a recording's anti-aliasing filter sits in a very crucial position in the signal flow, it makes sense to reduce any influence of such filter. It may be inaudible already, but if we can make it inaudibler still, at near-zero cost, then that is a nice thing to do.
Hence the clever idea.
And even if on its own it does not improve quality, its existence as a golden standard for mastering may keep the odd moronic mastering engineer from pushing the wrong buttons at the wrong time.
JohnW
pfm member
Well as a designer I'm also against MQA and have also decided to "Boycott" MQA.
I just see MQA as a cynical attempt at creating license fees... many other designers and I (such as Rob Watts) have been using similar filters designs that Meridian are now preaching about and somehow trying to "package" within the MQA process as there own...
I just see MQA as a cynical attempt at creating license fees... many other designers and I (such as Rob Watts) have been using similar filters designs that Meridian are now preaching about and somehow trying to "package" within the MQA process as there own...
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
Well, if you check out other threads, you'll find that they may be doing it now.
cf another posting I'll make shortly here...
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
Not quite.
The problem is that real world implimentations aren't the theoretical ideals. They are approximations.
e.g. For 'digital audio' the creation (ADC) filter may matter. And the details of this define how to 'interpret' the resulting series of sample values - i.e. what the best reconstruction filtering in the DAC should be.
On that basis, that part of the MQA argument is spot on. But that *doesn't* mean the details of the ADC have to be kept 'secret' from the user. The secrecy thus gives those who've paid up a control over the market and choice.
That also leads to: no generation (ADC) or reconstruction system will be 'perfect'. No set of microphones, etc, will be perfect. Nor will the test measurements on them give a perfect representation of their real behaviour. So you can't even ensure your system - hidden by MQA or not - can convey the correct 'metadata' to ensure that you can then even *try* to get a real world digital playback system that matches the theoretical ideal.
What you can do is make a decent stab at each stage. And - ideally - give the end user (listener) some *choice* and the ability to vary the way the output system reacts so they get results they feel are better.
Which is a bit like analogue, really...
The problem with MQA is that it attempts to cover all this in a 'secret sauce' so you can't even work out what's *actually* going on to get an idea of how you might want to alter the results. You can't examine the data, so you can't easily probe for flaws in what the creators of the MQA'd data did.
Given the track record (pun alert) of the music biz of making imperfect LPs, CDs, etc, I can't say that them telling me I can be "assured" fills me with confidence TBH.
All of which means that some people here have already started experimenting with an open alternative people can examine, check, improve, tweak, and understand. And one that could be used with no payments to any large companies or locking the basic info away from scrutiny. And its free.
I've no idea if people will use it. But it would be easy enough to impliment *if* people choose. After that, its up to producers, streamers, makers, and users to make their own free choices.
radamel
Music Fiend
Notwithstanding the IP issues involved have you actually listened to MQA?
Great John, I'm with you on this.
The real issue with MQA is not sound quality but the rights management being implemented, see quote below from user cenca/StereoPhil which summarizes it quite well:
"MQA could be (if it actually impacts the market and music digital ecosystem in any significant degree) a fundamental change to this world. Right now, we operate in a mostly "free" and "open" digital musical world, where our music is either IP/software patent free or (such as PCM or DSD) or is closed in ways that are mostly benign to the music lover (mp3 and other popular IP protected lossy encodings). In a world where MQA is the primary (or only) encoded format, everything changes. Instead of ownership, you "lease" your music with a software license that explicitly allows the real owner of the file to do all sorts of things at his leisure, such as "authenticate" (DRM is such a dirty word
) your music and hardware preventing your to play "unauthenticated" files, requiring updates to your hardware that prevents "unauthenticated" play back, or copy limits, etc. While MQA in it's current form (v 1.0) does not do this, you explicitly sign over the rights such that in v 1.1 such things could be implemented. Even in it's current form (v 1.0) MQA is a "rights management" implementation because it "manages" what the end user hears based on whether he has licensed MQA hardware or not."Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/warner-music-group-goes-mqa#hzvhyklUfXh2TYdI.99
adamdea
You are not a sound quality evaluation device
Well, if you check out other threads, you'll find that they may be doing it now.
cf another posting I'll make shortly here...
I think we might be getting mixed up between the sonic bit of MQA and the origami packaging/ bit reduction part.
Mark- if all you are interested in is how to get 24/96 to sound like 24/192, which you seem to like, all you need to do is to get yourself some decent sample rate conversion software and fill your boots.
Try out the various different ways of downsampling (filter types lengths etc) until you see whether you can find one that works for you. I suggest starting off with a 24/96 "soft knee" filter.
Why on earth assume that this can't been/hasn't been done? I had the impression that until recently you had taken little interest in digital audio, so it seems unwise to me to making too many assumptions about what can or has been be done.
This is quite distinct from the "how to package 24/96 with minimal losses" issue.
Yes, I know that 24/192 files are hard to come by, but if they don't exist then there's unlikely to be anything to get MQA from either.
Great John, I'm with you on this.
The real issue with MQA is not sound quality but the rights management being implemented, see quote below from user cenca/StereoPhil which summarizes it quite well:
"MQA could be (if it actually impacts the market and music digital ecosystem in any significant degree) a fundamental change to this world. Right now, we operate in a mostly "free" and "open" digital musical world, where our music is either IP/software patent free or (such as PCM or DSD) or is closed in ways that are mostly benign to the music lover (mp3 and other popular IP protected lossy encodings). In a world where MQA is the primary (or only) encoded format, everything changes. Instead of ownership, you "lease" your music with a software license that explicitly allows the real owner of the file to do all sorts of things at his leisure, such as "authenticate" (DRM is such a dirty word
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/warner-music-group-goes-mqa#hzvhyklUfXh2TYdI.99
Mostly free?
Dolby and DTS might disagree with that for their movie soundtracks and for those of us with bugger all hair, cassette noise reduction.
JohnW
pfm member
"MQA could be (if it actually impacts the market and music digital ecosystem in any significant degree) a fundamental change to this world. Right now, we operate in a mostly "free" and "open" digital musical world, where our music is either IP/software patent free or (such as PCM or DSD) or is closed in ways that are mostly benign to the music lover (mp3 and other popular IP protected lossy encodings). In a world where MQA is the primary (or only) encoded format, everything changes. Instead of ownership, you "lease" your music with a software license that explicitly allows the real owner of the file to do all sorts of things at his leisure, such as "authenticate" (DRM is such a dirty word
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/warner-music-group-goes-mqa#hzvhyklUfXh2TYdI.99
For me, MQA is more about "Digital rights management" under the guise of "HiFi" improvements (credentials) to blindside people in a vain attempt to prevent too much backlash! ... Hey hey - look Bright Shiny object.....!
If its about sound quality then why the DRM aspects?
"Lets sell DRM under the guise of "HiFi"... sorry worrying about download file size in thesedays of Video streaming is bull....
JohnW
pfm member
MQA was being demonstrated at the Munich HiFi show, while in the next room Native DSD was demonstrating a true Native DSD system which was by far the best sound at the show and REALLY demonstrates that there is hope for digital...
radamel
Music Fiend
MQA was being demonstrated at the Munich HiFi show, while in the next room Native DSD was demonstrating a true Native DSD system which was by far the best sound at the show and REALLY demonstrates that there is hope for digital...
Although I like DSD I think I prefer prefer MQA's SQ. If you take into account MQA'S file size it becomes a no brainer for streaming.