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MQA

Richard Kimber

Richard Kimber

pfm Member
Does anyone have a view on the new MQA system? The article in the recent HFN seems to suggest that it's the best thing since sliced bread, or at least the triode valve :)

Has anyone heard it? Presumably if it really is any good we'll all have to get new DACs to get the best out of it, unless DACs like the MDAC2 can cope with it via software.

- Richard
 
Sounds like lossy compression, covered by the mags because its Meridian. Like the F80 and the mu-so, they only cover that sort of stuff when an important (to them) brand is on it.
 
The claim is that, lossy or not, it sounds better than hi-res on normal 16 bit kit because of better time domain performance. Also, with the right kit, it seems to claim that the end user gets unmodified studio sound.

- Richard.
 
Yep - I'd put MQA up against the DSD lot and let 'em fight it out. There's probably a prize or two for the winning codec but in the interim we have lossless, hi-res and mountains of other stuff all over the Internet to chose from. Slight problem is that it still all sounds worse than a decent LP.

I might pop back on five years and see if anybody's really got beyond PCM and £10 a pop.
 
Richard Kimber said:
Does anyone have a view on the new MQA system? The article in the recent HFN seems to suggest that it's the best thing since sliced bread, or at least the triode valve :)

Has anyone heard it? Presumably if it really is any good we'll all have to get new DACs to get the best out of it, unless DACs like the MDAC2 can cope with it via software.

- Richard
Click to expand...

Sliced bread being the original PCM recording ;)

Peter
 
I understand we'll not have to have new DACs, because MQA is primarily about getting the bits off the streaming companies' servers and over the Internet to our homes. I understand that my PC will receive the MQA and then convert it to regular USB audio stuff for sending on to my DAC. My DAC will not have a lamp lit up to tell me that the audio has been "authenticated", but that doesn't worry me.

Meridian are claiming that there are benefits in using MQA all the way to the DAC, rather than just to the PC. Like DSD I guess. I don't know about that.

I guess if you have a streamer then you'll not be able to receive MQA without an upgrade/new box.

But I'm not sure - not read the HFN article. Hope I'm not creating false rumours.

That's the benefit of Windows/Apple/Android, in my view, at present - things are changing so quickly that specialist appliances cannot keep up as easily as can computers.
 
Mark Dirac said:
I understand we'll not need new DACs, because MQA is about getting the bits over the Internet to our homes. I understand that my PC will receive the MQA and then convert it to regular USB audio stuff for sending on to my DAC.

I guess if you have a streamer then you'll not be able to receive MQA without an upgrade/new box.

But I'm not sure - not read the HFN article. If someone tells me I'm creating false rumours I'll delete this post.

That's the benefit of Windows/Apple/Android, in my view, at present - things are changing so quickly that specialist appliances cannot keep up as easily as can computers.
Click to expand...

That sounds plausible. Presumably the MDAC2, with its upgradeable FPGA, should also be able to cope (?)

- Richard.
 
Werner said:
It is very clever and very useless. The time accuracy thing is BS.


http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=165839&page=3
Click to expand...

You may be right, but I haven't heard it (and, indeed, nobody here has yet explicitly claimed to have done). I seem to recall John Westlake suggesting that the time domain is far more important than the frequency domain, so clearly some reputable people think time accuracy not entirely BS. HFN say they will be doing a follow-up on what it sounds like "in the near future"

- Richard.
 
Richard Kimber said:
That sounds plausible. Presumably the MDAC2, with its upgradeable FPGA, should also be able to cope (?)

- Richard.
Click to expand...

"MQA is being licensed by leading hardware and software creators around the world"

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

But if there's a Big Fat Fee involved it's going to be uneconomic for a run of 150-odd MDAC2s.
 
Richard Kimber said:
You may be right, but I haven't heard it (and, indeed, nobody here has yet explicitly claimed to have done). I seem to recall John Westlake suggesting that the time domain is far more important than the frequency domain, so clearly some reputable people think time accuracy not entirely BS. HFN say they will be doing a follow-up on what it sounds like "in the near future"

- Richard.
Click to expand...
The problem is -what does it actually mean? Curiously Rob Watts claims that you need a 32000 tap filter for good time domain performance, and other people claim you need a zero tap filter. And no, they can't both be right- they mean exactly the opposite of each other.

Don't let that put you off though, there's an industry to support and in the absence of more people wanting to buy stuff, the remaining folk are going to have to man up and box swap a bit quicker.
 
Cynical On
The recent Spotify normalisation thread shows that the file on the server appears to have been changed for a more compressed version. Then along comes along the new premium MQA service sounding better
Cynical Off
It's easy to sound better if you cripple the comparison
 
Richard Kimber said:
You may be right, but I haven't heard it (and, indeed, nobody here has yet explicitly claimed to have done). I seem to recall John Westlake suggesting that the time domain is far more important than the frequency domain, so clearly some reputable people think time accuracy not entirely BS. HFN say they will be doing a follow-up on what it sounds like "in the near future"

- Richard.
Click to expand...
Time domain may be important, but unless they're willing to invent their own proprietary (USB?) driver with their own proprietary DACs (eliminating any SPDIF possibility btw), they're not going to get any better accuracy than "hi-res". Or maybe they aim for PCM-packing their own format, much like what DoP (DSD) does.

Neither seems IMHO probable, as I wrote earlier, http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?p=2498433#post2498433 , it so far seems really just like a market hype. Maybe it isn't, but we're still waiting for any technical data from Meridian - so far it's been "<this famous person> listened to our MQA and they were impressed", which can easily mean "better mixing/mastering" or just "great system/speakers".
 
Quite a few Meridian owners have had MQA demos at Premium Partners now. It's an ongoing process in early stages of being brought to market. Bob Stuart hasn't put all these years into developing this for nothing, nor does he engage in BS. Marketing people may well do so of course. Bob ploughs his own furrow, so I'm happy to see where this goes, rather than try to find reasons to denigrate it prematurely.
 
Richard Kimber said:
suggesting that the time domain is far more important than the frequency domain,
Click to expand...

The time domain and the frequency domain are two sides of the very same coin, or two views on the same reality, and are as such equally important. Nothing new here.

The BS part is in the assertion that because the auditory system has a timing acuity of about 5 microseconds (it has), that a digital audio sample rate of 1/5 us is required (which is wrong), and that filter impulse responses should be confined to a few tens of microseconds at most (which also seems wrong). But it makes for good marketing, people always need a (new) enemy to battle, something new to put their hopes on.

MQA is an elegant way for packaging audio of unnecessarily-high resolution in a more compact container so that it can be streamed over bandwidth-limited channels. Now tell us, are today's channels really limited?
Moreover, with MQA making it harder to inspect the contents of an audio file, how many of the 'new' releases will be 44.1kHz recoded to 192kHz and then packaged/obfuscated into MQA?
 
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