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MQA

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Yank said:
Apple and Amazon don't own the masters. They can only distribute what they are supplied. If the owners of the masters are convinced that MQA is the way to protect their investment, they'll go for it. MQA are still lobbying record companies.
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That's not how it works. Amazon and Apple will never pay licensing fees to MQA.

Evidence at hand: Amazon went into hires in a big way... without MQA.

You guys should be celebrating! Instead you are in a defensive crouch.
 
mansr said:
With the small sample size, poorly controlled conditions (including self-selected participants), unknown confounding variables, etc, the reported preference would have to be much stronger in order to mean anything one way or the other.


The MQA core process is probably audibly transparent for most inputs. However, since true lossless encoding is guaranteed transparent for all inputs, MQA serves no useful purpose. When you buy MQA, you are, at best, giving Bob Stuart money for nothing. If you're feeling generous, give to a local charity. Bob doesn't need a handout.
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So you are not unreasonable in your methodological critique of Archimago's survey. But my own experience with Weibull reliability tells me that initial imperfect small samples results aren't likely to change with a much larger sample size. Theoretically possible, but practically rare.

Let's do a better test, with an open listening component, a blind test component and a technical analysis component.

Fair and square - and we all learn a lot. I will try to be as helpful in setup as I can be.

Deal?
 
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Jim Audiomisc said:
The above seems to me to raise a different issue. We've had decades of 'industry' people telling me that buyers *like* LOUDNESS and large amounts of sustained clipping on CDs. - even on 'highly regarded' classical CDs. I've also documented case after case of mess-ups like HDCDs with no flagging and poor conversions with needless error patterns that degrade the sound. So TBH I tend not to regard those who 'produce' CDs as 100% reliable. They have skills and experience, but it doesn't always mean they are correct. So their views are worth considering, but not automatically accepting. Unless you also think that distortion is a bonus which improves the sound. :)
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mansr said:
With the small sample size, poorly controlled conditions (including self-selected participants), unknown confounding variables, etc, the reported preference would have to be much stronger in order to mean anything one way or the other.


The MQA core process is probably audibly transparent for most inputs. However, since true lossless encoding is guaranteed transparent for all inputs, MQA serves no useful purpose. When you buy MQA, you are, at best, giving Bob Stuart money for nothing. If you're feeling generous, give to a local charity. Bob doesn't need a handout.
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So what does it sound like? Neither of you replied to that question?
I have been a very satisfied customer of Bob over the years and as I pointed out MQA isn’t for me for several reasons.
I class ending a post with “unless you like distortion “ as really quite rude, it’s like saying something rude to someone as you’re walking out the door. So again I ask, what are your own listening impressions of MQA?
 
Wolfmancatsup said:
I thought this was interesting. A review of MQA-CD by the not-very-techy Techmoan. Interesting that in Japan some MQA-CDs were released with regular CDs in the box as well, to give the listener a way of comparing the two. Also worth reading Techmoan’s later notes beneath the post, to put his comments in the video into perspective.
Please note - I have no axe to grind in either direction. I’ve never listened to MQA-anything, and so long as it doesn’t take over and remove access to non-MQA stuff I have no real interest; I just thought the video was interesting from a techy point of view:-


Mick
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Thank you for posting this. What a delightfully British reviewer!

I learned that my OPPO UDP-205 decodes MQA-CDs. I pat myself on the back every day for buying this awesome unit as soon as it came on the market! Now, I have another fun new format niche to explore. It's a tragedy that OPPO moved away from disc player business....there is nothing better.

This was another reviewer with no agenda that was genuinely surprised he likes the MQA sound. Though his explanations of its workings were simplistic and didn't touch on the controversies.

MQA certainly doesn't carry lossless information from a 352KHz DXD recording, since it's 95% nasty shaped, ultrasonic, un-FLACable noise. What it attempts to do (and is largely successful at) is to extract and carry the actual musical information (to musically relevant near ultrasonics) from all that noise in an "audibly transparent" coding (mansr's definition).

From information theory perspective, MQA is an absolutely relevant and sane solution. FLAC is competitive at moderate recording rates, but quickly looses as the sampling frequency increases and noise shaping kicks in. I think Bob Stuart is actually correct here - active information management is required (as has long been recognized in video transmission). As we say in Russian - "mansr and JimA are nurvously smoking in the corner."
:)
 
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Isn't the impact of this thread (and similar others) likely to be akin to the Streisand effect?

Without any hope of resolution, the existence of a controversy and its nature are brought to the attention of more and more people.
 
eevo1969 said:
So what does it sound like? Neither of you replied to that question?
I have been a very satisfied customer of Bob over the years and as I pointed out MQA isn’t for me for several reasons.
I class ending a post with “unless you like distortion “ as really quite rude, it’s like saying something rude to someone as you’re walking out the door. So again I ask, what are your own listening impressions of MQA?
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What does MQA distortion sound like objectively?
From my understanding MQA-generated artifacts are programme-related so it depends first and foremost on the content. (they may also be more or less audible depending on certain characteristics of the playback system)
Even taking into account that some types of distortion, so called "euphonic", are found pleasing by some people what MQA does is an (unnecessary) alteration of the original (for the worst).

What does MQA distortion sound like subjectively?
Depends on who you ask.

You question is a bit shallow.
 
DimitryZ said:
And we should add a disclaimer (because JimA doesn't) that he is only interested in MQA into non-MQA aspect of the system.
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No need for a 'disclaimer' if people:

a) read pg 76 #1504... and actually understand it. :)

b) note that I am considering how to get an MQA DAC. :) The results I've got from the analysis thus far make that an interesting thing to try out. So events are proceeding pretty much as I'd thought they might when I wrote (a). Indeed, so far it seems even *more* interesting than I'd thought. :)

HTH
 
DimitryZ said:
Sure, MQA into non-MQA is a compromise. The MQA information is at 16+KHz, so shouldn't be a problem for most people.

Core unfold or MQA DAC eliminates this, of course. Mansr calls this "audibly transparent."
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I'll let you know when I have evidence wrt your opinions. I'd agree with Mansr, *depending* on the details of the case because the reality looks like being a tad more complex and case-variable.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
The potential snag is that the 'regular' CD may not be exactly the same up to 22kHz as what was fed into the MQA encoder. Some of the 2L examples that are the 'not MQA' versions are low pass filtered, for example. The MQA ones show what renders as 'noise' on a simple power spectrum in that region if you have no other way to deal with it.

So although you can compare, the *reason* for any 'difference' may not be what it seems on the surface.
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Interesting that you consider that may not be a fair comparison. Watching the video on that Dire Straits CD/MQA comparison, the first thought that popped into my head was that the different sample rates were not sound level matched, with the MQA appearing louder. As with the loudness wars, this translates in allot of peoples brains as "better".
 
eevo1969 said:
So what does it sound like? Neither of you replied to that question?
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I've explained in the past that my views on what something 'sounds like' are just my own. *And* not to be relied upon by anyone else. I've never had 'golden ears'. They have to make their minds up for themselves about what they like/dislike. My interest is in understanding and explaining how it works and the implications we can draw from that when people form a view of what it 'sounds like'.

This is particularly important with MQA because AIUI they try to prevent us hearing precisely what went into the MQA encoder to A/B that with what emerged. Thus the 'non-MQA' version we compare with it may sound different for reasons that aren't due to MQA.

e.g. some of the 2L files that are non-MQA have been low-pass filtered below Nyquist. But the MQA may not have been. So any simple comparison might cause a preference to a filtering of the non-MQA version. (And if they MQA encoded the *filtered* version it makes you wonder why they bothered to run it though MQA as there would be no HF to process and 'unfold'!)

Perhaps the above example why analysing the data can be useful even when someone wants to make a listening comparison.

More to come when the round tuits arrive. :)
 
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