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MQA

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DimitryZ said:
You have clearly been well out of the loop.

I have long confirmed, years ago now, that MQA is a poor universal delivery system, through listening tests alone. That this is confirmed through technical analysis is of academic interest.

My actual technical interest is how MQA compares to LPCM, when properly decoded - i.e. unfolded and rendered.

Now that MANSR has cracked the MQA playback, I hope that people with relevant technical abilities will perform actual analyses of music files with proper pedigrees and chain of custody - 2L files. They should also publish final decoded MQA versions as LPCM, so those without MQA hardware can judge for themselves.

When "cost of MQA" has fallen to $35/DAC, focusing on undecoded MQA is interesting but practically irrelevant.
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Yes...I have been sleeping on this.....but I'm fully awake now and rather alarmed.
I'm warming to your more reasoned stance. But to your last statement, I urge you to re-consider as this is the Trojan Horse!
 
nostromo said:
mansr, please share more. We need to document all the data you may have. Perhaps if you have a nicely prepared paper/document?
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MANSR has an open invitation to use his Bluesound-based full MQA software decoder to analyze MQA and LPCM 2L files and publish both technical results and final decoded clips so all can see and hear.

Unfortunately, he seems to be getting chilly feet.

The fact that that both him and Jim insist on focusing on undecoded MQA instead of properly decoded MQA, even though the full software decoder is now available, makes one think that an actual comparison, in an open and transparent experiment may be quite favorable to MQA.
 
davidsrsb said:
Many of us have amplifiers with built in non-MQA dacs. Cost a little bit more to change them
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So buy a small $150 DAC (IFI ZEN) for MQA duty if the absolutely impossible happens.

I find format differences interesting and rewarding. Thanks to aspersions cast on HDCD by the anti-MQA contingent on this thread, I have an HDCD DAC coming from Europe and bought a dozen HDCD discs.

I can't wait!
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
FWIW I'm currently doing an analysis of various MQA files. One preliminary result is currently here
http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/temp/MQAspectra.png
This shows a time averaged FFT spectrum of a section of one of the GO test files. Note this if what you'd get when playing them with a *NON* MQA system. That's because one of my concerns is the impact of MQA encoding for people who don't have an MQA decoder and may find something is only available as MQA.

Almost tweeter burning levels and certainly enough to excite dome tweeter oil can resonances and down mix into more audible frequencies
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nostromo said:
I've just read this and noticed you were acknowledged very prominently. So I would like to congratulate you and Archimago for maintaining a professional tone in this paper and bringing these major issues with MQA to the uninitiated audiophile like me. I haven't followed up as yet to see what McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada found on MQA, but if anybody has a lowdown I'd be interested to read it.

I think Archimago has clearly shown that it's the filter that MQA must impose that creates the issues and rather than deblurring anything MQA adds delays. Which leads me to conclude the end-game for MQA must be DRM (in the future for sure).

I am even more adamant now ....actually worried...that as an audiophile music loving community 'we' may have inadvertently helped MQA establish itself (probably because of Bob's reputation with Meridian). But 'we' must now do all we can to stop MQA gaining any further ground. We must actively appose it and cancel our Tidal subscriptions. I personally don't have Tidal, but a good friend and my daughter do, I will be persuading them to ditch it at their earliest convenience as soon as tonight!

I now see more clearly why Rosewind brought this thread to PFM and kept it alive for so long and I'm so glad he did. It seems there is still time to prevent MQA establishing itself as the end-to-end DRM that it will be at the expense of HiFi, which is our passion, raison d'être.

Archimago's article was written in Feb 2018, kudos to Audiophile Style for publishing it. Fellow PFM members who have similar fears of our music being locked into an inferior format, we must act and announce this widely to stop MQA before 75% of our music is mutilated forever.

We must keep the pressure up. GoldenOne, you are a hero along with mansr, Jim audiomisc, Rosewind and Archimago and co.

Those on the fence, especially with an independent platform like Darko need to take a side now and do something. Inaction and dithering (not digitally speaking) will not be forgotten (by me at least)...we need to know if you're actually on the consumers' side and whether you care about HiFi or not.
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Oh LORD, another DRM freakout.

Again, you are free to copy MQA.
 
tuga said:
Jim, or @mansr , are you able to show the spectra of a source file converted without upsampling/filter (NOS)?
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I can't currently comment on that at present as it isn't in-line with what I'm currently trying to do. But something I wrote years ago might shed light, albeit written for a very different context.

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/temp/UID.pdf

The above considers what you get from 'sample-and-hold' NOS versus alternatives. In the end they all depend as well as what following analogue filtering may be employed (or not!). But it was written for different reasons that aren't really that relevant here. Not sure I'd write it now, but some of it may help.
 
mansr said:
I did that over four years ago.
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Well, use it in an honest and transparent way to allow people to compare PROOERLY DECODED MQA and LPCM from 2L.

You have been drumming the MQA into non-MQA DAC drum for years. Duh... anyone can hear that without the fancy graphs. And fanning the flames of "MQA takeover" paranoia at the same time. So you were propagandizing our community to

1. Falsely believe MQA always sounds bad

2. Falsely fear that it will take over the world.

It's time to put that BS to rest and let people find out the truth for themselves. Are you ready for my challenge or are you still hiding?
 
Dear DimitryZ, if you have addressed the points raised by Archimago would please direct me to your best post on that. Also if MQA have responded, please direct me there if you have the time. Thanks.
 
DimitryZ said:
MANSR has an open invitation to use his Bluesound-based full MQA software decoder to analyze MQA and LPCM 2L files and publish both technical results and final decoded clips so all can see and hear.

Unfortunately, he seems to be getting chilly feet.

The fact that that both him and Jim insist on focusing on undecoded MQA instead of properly decoded MQA, even though the full software decoder is now available, makes one think that an actual comparison, in an open and transparent experiment may be quite favorable to MQA.
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To clarify:

1) I'm quite happy with well produced and played LPCM.

2) I'm also satisfied that a method like noise shaped FLAC of the kind outlined on one of my webpages will reduce the filesizes and stream rates by amounts comparable with MQA and that this alternative is free, open, and doesn't require a new DAC or anyone to pay for MQA.

3) I also have a Benchmark ADC which I think can do quite decent captures.(*) So I'd be happy to try using this to examine what 'unfolded' MQA material is like. *Provided* I can get both MQA files *and* files of what was input to the MQA encoder to create them, and an MQA DAC which people regard as 'good'. But this means someone would need to give/loan me the DAC as I personally have no interest in owning one. And the relevant files. (if the 2L ones would do, OK, but we need 'assurance' that they *are* what went into the encoder. Which I people keep saying MQA refuse to allow. So I guess I'd also need a 2L statement on that.)

4) As I've said more than once: My main interest at present here is the impact which may arise when someone plays MQA material on a non-MQA system. Given past examples like HDCD this is as likely as night-follows-day if MQA becomes common. So it *will* matter for some. That's why my current focus on that. But this is also preliminary to the question:

5) Does MQA decoding totally remove the artifacts which encoding generates? So far as I can see at present, it probably doesn't, and probably can't. (**) In which case at least some portion of them will remain in 'properly decoded MQA' output. Hence if MQA continues I will eventually want to address (3).

(*) Plus a pile of other DACs and ADCs to compare if that were useful.

(**) Indeed, Mansr's graphs indicate the artifacts remain at least to some degree.

Hope that helps. :)
 
nostromo said:
Dear DimitryZ, if you have addressed the points raised by Archimago would please direct me to your best post on that. Also if MQA have responded, please direct me there if you have the time. Thanks.
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Archimago's post is quite old news and burned itself out in anti-MQA threads worldwide years ago. I will re-read it.

The point that MQA is not a good universal format has been proven, by analysis and listening. I have done the latter 3 years ago on another odious anti-MQA thread. It absolutely requires MQA hardware to sound good in audiophile terms.

The point that anti-MQA contingent has so far refused to address is how does it sound when properly decoded vs. LPCM. Lots of excuses are constantly being made to avoid an honest and transparent testing and hearing of decoded MQA on its own merits.
 
DimitryZ said:
I have long confirmed, years ago now, that MQA is a poor universal delivery system, through listening tests alone. That this is confirmed through technical analysis is of academic interest.
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Did you mean this? I have been reading your stance completely wrongly.
 
DimitryZ said:
The point that anti-MQA contingent has so far refused to address is how does it sound when properly decoded vs. LPCM. Lots of excuses are constantly being made to avoid an honest and transparent testing and hearing of decoded MQA on its own merits.
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This is a good point....Do you have any ideas why? Does potential DRM use worry you at all?
 
DimitryZ said:
The point that anti-MQA contingent has so far refused to address is how does it sound when properly decoded vs. LPCM. Lots of excuses are constantly being made to avoid an honest and transparent testing and hearing of decoded MQA on its own merits.
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Again for the sake of clarity: I'm not interested in being expected to be an arbitor of what sounds 'good' or 'bad'. My taste isn't the same as everyone else. And I'm now pushing 70 years old and won't ever hear 15kHz again. My interest is in evaluating things like the level and form of added artifacts, noise, etc which others can then decide for themselves may or may not be something that affects what the 'like' or 'dislike', or be a reason for that. And by doing so, contrast MQA with alternatives like simple noise shaping that avoids such artifacts and can be freely used.

Matter of well-informed choice. Yours to make, not for me or anyone else to tell you.
 
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