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Do MQA DACs benefit non-MQA music?

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Beave

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Step 1: Invent a non-existent problem.
Step 2: Convince people the problem is real and important.
Step 3: Invent a non-needed solution to non-existent problem.
Step 4: Market non-needed solution.
Step 5: Profit.
 
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I think probably not. But perhaps if you define what you think temporal blur is, we'd stand a better chance of telling you whether that is a thing or not.
In Layman’s terms, temporal blur would be hearing the sound of a note before it actually happens. An example in electronic audio would be a “sharp roll off” impulse filter that has audible pre-ringing and post-ring. Post-ringging isn’t an issue as much because it’s usually masked by the music itself.
 

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theREALdotnet

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I think they mean “ringing”.

Ringing can occur in any system with energy storage when subjected to a step input. This is well-known and occurs in a analog electronic and mechanical systems, too.
 

theREALdotnet

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In Layman’s terms, temporal blur would be hearing the sound of a note before it actually happens.

This is a misconception. You would not hear the sound of a note before it is played. You’d hear the build-up of a step or impulse response, which is the way a step or impulse response will always be heard in the real world. There are no steps or impulses in reality (that would require an infinite amount of energy), what you hear or experience is always spread out over time.

Music in particular contains no steps or impulses, even the sharpest cracks you hear are relatively slow build-ups, as far as digital processing is concerned. Assuming the digital processing chain has sufficient bandwidth, of course. There are of course steeper sound impulses in nature than we can hear, but since our hearing apparatus is bandwidth limited there is little point in over-engineering the digital processing bandwidth by too much. I’d say a factor of two to four is more than enough.
 

RayDunzl

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Music in particular contains no steps or impulses, even the sharpest cracks you hear are relatively slow build-ups, as far as digital processing is concerned.

Transients don't look like Impulses.

Two small hardwood blocks, clapped together (loud) and recorded in-room. It's a real snappy sound.

index.php


Looking at the one marked:

1551534942721.png


And closer...

1551534994226.png


And closer...

1551536049783.png


And closer, individual samples dotted...

index.php
 
OP
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Transients don't look like Impulses.

Two small hardwood blocks, clapped together (loud) and recorded in-room. It's a real snappy sound.

index.php


Looking at the one marked:

1551534942721.png


And closer...

1551534994226.png


And closer...

1551536049783.png


And closer, individual samples dotted...

index.php


Maybe I am misunderstanding some things. But a sound in nature doesn’t actually “build up”. But some electronic impulse response filters induce this unnatural build-up or pre-ring. This isn’t as much as a problem for the post-ring. But I’m just trying to learn, so...
 

DonH56

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I fooled around with a number of MQA-enabled DACs, many of which defaulted to the MQA-specific filter. However, when I manually chose among the non-MQA filters and aurally compared the sound on non-MQA sources with the MQA filter, I always preferred the sound of several non-MQA filters.

So, my experience is different from yours and I know of no reason why the MQA filter would be optimum for non-MQA source material.
Speaking of reputable reviewers... :)
 
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This is a misconception. You would not hear the sound of a note before it is played. You’d hear the build-up of a step or impulse response, which is the way a step or impulse response will always be heard in the real world. There are no steps or impulses in reality (that would require an infinite amount of energy), what you hear or experience is always spread out over time.

Music in particular contains no steps or impulses, even the sharpest cracks you hear are relatively slow build-ups, as far as digital processing is concerned. Assuming the digital processing chain has sufficient bandwidth, of course. There are of course steeper sound impulses in nature than we can hear, but since our hearing apparatus is bandwidth limited there is little point in over-engineering the digital processing bandwidth by too much. I’d say a factor of two to four is more than enough.
I’m referring to minimum-phase filters which have only a post-echo in their impulse response. Although you have other undesirable artifacts.

The way I understand it is if you increase sample frequenciy to 192kHz or 384kHz you reap dividends for impulse response filters, because as filter slopes relax, so does the degree of pre-or post-ringing.

I also understand higher sampling frequencies improve time domain rather than frequency domain. A number of scientific studies have found human auditory system is extremely sensitive to timing. We can discern tiny differences in timing between sounds played into both ears. I believe it was 6µs that we’re able to discern differences. 16/44.1 only gives us 23µs time resolution. This improvement in timing is where I believe MQA benefits music.
 

kschmit2

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Maybe I am misunderstanding some things. But a sound in nature doesn’t actually “build up”. But some electronic impulse response filters induce this unnatural build-up or pre-ring. This isn’t as much as a problem for the post-ring. But I’m just trying to learn, so...

You absolutely are misunderstanding some things. Especially the way sound propagates. Even an (ostensibly) instantaneous event like an explosion with its associated sound/noise simply means that the sound wave is being transported through the ambient medium.
None of this is in reality instantaneous. Not even the wave front that is approaching you.
 

voodooless

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The type of filter that MQA applies is very leaky and therefore only halfway acceptable when running high sample rate audio. Since that is what MQA pretends to give you it works. But you should not apply this filter to regular 44.1 kHz material. And no, first upsampling does not help, since the upsampling itself already applies a filter.
 

Kal Rubinson

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Because whatever extra processing MQA DACs are capable of doing they only apply it when it’s an MQA file.

Not so. I do not know if it is still so but, originally, the Mytek Brooklyn DAC would not switch impulse filters based on the presence/absence of the MQA flag. If the user chose the MQA filter, it was universally applied to all content until the user chose otherwise. With DACs that do not permit user filter choice, one does not know if the filters are switched.

Otherwise MQA would be opening up an audiophile charity.
Not a charity but a trick. By applying the MQA filter universally to all content (including hi-rez non-MQA content for which it is suboptimal), any comparisons the use might make to compare MQA to non-MQA versions of the same content would be biased against the non-MQA content.
 
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abdo123

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Not so. I do not know if it is still so but, originally, the Mytek Brooklyn DAC would not switch impulse filters based on the presence/absence of the MQA flag. If the user chose the MQA filter, it was universally applied to all content until the user chose otherwise. With DACs that do not permit user filter choice, one does not know if the filters are switched.


Not a charity but a trick. By applying the MQA filter universally to all content (including hi-rez non-MQA content for which it is suboptimal), any comparisons the use might make to compare MQA to non-MQA versions of the same content would be biased against the non-MQA content.

I think this was relevant for the very early DACs released with MQA support, but for recent designs this is not typical at all.
 

Kal Rubinson

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I think this was relevant for the very early DACs released with MQA support, but for recent designs this is not typical at all.
I'd like to hope so but can you offer some evidence of it?
 

abdo123

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I'd like to hope so but can you offer some evidence of it?
I'm sure the 'MQA light' only lights up when there is MQA meta-data in the PCM stream.

DACs with no selectable filters as you mentioned (DragonFly series from AudioQuest comes to mind) would indeed apply the filter to all content but this is far from typical in 2022 in my opinion.

Most DACs nowadays have selectable filters, and the MQA filter is either not available for normal use at all or is not the default choice.
 

mansr

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I'm sure the 'MQA light' only lights up when there is MQA meta-data in the PCM stream.

DACs with no selectable filters as you mentioned (DragonFly series from AudioQuest comes to mind) would indeed apply the filter to all content but this is far from typical in 2022 in my opinion.

Most DACs nowadays have selectable filters, and the MQA filter is either not available for normal use at all or is not the default choice.
The Dragonfly DACs use one of the ESS chip built-in filters for non-MQA material. Which one depends on the model. Although they deny it, iFi DACs use one of the MQA filters (I don't recall which one) as default. Some other DACs have been observed to use a normal filter until an MQA file is played, after which they will use the MQA filter for everything until a power cycle. There is no consistent behaviour here.
 

Raindog123

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All today's Auralic DACs let the listener select a filter (one out of a handful, through a config menu), and then stay with this selection for all the content - MQA and non-MQA - until a new filter is manually chosen.
 

Kal Rubinson

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I'm sure the 'MQA light' only lights up when there is MQA meta-data in the PCM stream.
Well, OK but that does not say anything about the impulse filter in use.
Most DACs nowadays have selectable filters, and the MQA filter is either not available for normal use at all or is not the default choice.
See the two posts above. Note that this behavior makes it difficult for A/B comparisons in addition to the need for tedious changes whenever playing music without paying close attention to format, e.g., normal music playing.
 
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