In fairness Meridian are not the only high end audio company which is reliant on their automotive contracts. I read somewhere that automotive presence was the principal reason Samsung bought Harman.
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MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions
- Thread starter mitchco
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So isn't it lossy by definition? Lossy in the sense that bit depth of the original file is reduced.
Interesting. So can we say that MQA is lossless up to 16 bit and lossy from 16 to 24? This point is not really clear to me, because some sources says that it's lossy even for the first 16 bits:
Well it can be hard when guys have their shorts hiked up , on the belt line is fine in this case but @amirm did stray low with one , keep them up champ! .
Any more of that and I will be forced to take a point off
That's exactly what I wrote. His streaming module is the bridge.
No, I quoted what you wrote. Again, you wrote:
"Paul only allowed the “first unfold” in his streaming module. Nothing else."
The first unfold goes up to 96kHz..
As I wrote, the Bridge 2 unfolds (leaky upsampling) to 192kHz...
Wow, how small minded you are.
And as usual, you operate on baseless assumptions about others. Go searching for some supposed way to find out about me on another site and then use half truths to smear me.
Why not ask why I have those devices or if I think they do something?
ifi units and Isol units are for surge/spike protection, DC offset protection, and simply isolating some devices from others. I live in an area with problematic power and I have an issue with DC offset that is outside my apartment but affects me. Are you against surge protection?
The computer PS is there because I wanted a robust 12v power supply and not a cheap wall wart after a couple of them burnt out. That's all it is. Do you know anything about the PS? I bet not.
But come to conclusions anyway, right?
That's very scientific....not.
Again, lack of knowledge is with you. Check out Meridian- it continually loses money and is kept afloat by cash infusions from his wife's family. Most high end audio companies don't have a family sugar daddy willing to keep a money losing company afloat.
Not manufactured dirt. Publicly available facts. It's all in the Meridian financial statements if you know how to read them. It's you who is uninformed. Period.
So your ad hominem response is both factually wrong and also irrelevant.
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MQA files have a maximum bit depth/resolution of 17/96. This has been confirmed by Bob Stuart. Everything above that is "thrown away" as being perceptually irrelevant and it's part of the way they get the file size down. Some MQA files have as low as 15 bit depth.
It's been shown that a properly dithered 18/96 flac file derived from a 24/96 master is no bigger than the equivalent MQA file, and can be made with no loss of musical content. For masters like 24/48, 24/44.1 MQA files are actually bigger than some non lossy compression codecs and are space wasting, not space saving.
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AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
Thanks.
So there is some genuine hi-res material from specialists such as 2L, AIX, and Linn. Good.
I'm trying to understand this so I hope someone can help me with these questions:-
1. Is all signal > 22 kHz below, say, -96 dB (bottom 8 of 24 bits)?
2. Given the shape of the Fletcher-Munson curves, is it likely that anyone can hear (1), even those with exceptional hearing?
3. If anyone can, they must also be able to hear < 22 kHz signal below -96 dB, and much more easily.
4. MQA replaces the bottom 8 bits in the audible band (possibly useful) with a compressed version of the bottom 8 bits in the > 22 kHz band (less useful).
5. Harmonic distortion of signal < 22 kHz (H2 for > 11 kHz, H3 for > 7 kHz, H4 for > 5.5 kHz, etc) could easily swamp (1) anyway.
Have I got something badly wrong here?
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Smear you? I pointed out what you own and you consider that smearing you? Smearing would look like this: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-of-sonore-microrendu-streamer.577/post-17605
You went on and on in CA forum behind my back. Hence the reason I went there to look but once I saw your signature, that was enough.
As to your claims of usage, you are forgetting that the Internet remembers everything:
If you believe in such things, then I can easily and trivially convince you that MQA sounds worlds better then CD music. Certainly many people would say that you believe in snake oil in thinking linear power supplies, and different network streamers sound different.
I equate you with a non-believer in audio science. And a vocal one. I consider you a subjectivist with little trust in audio science. I also consider you personally to have very low ethics in how you have conducted yourself here and elsewhere.
Now, maybe you are a new person now. In that case, start acting that way. You sure are not in the way you are going after Bob Stuart the way you went after me above. And that doesn't sit right with me.
Oh? Meridian has been in business since 1977. I think I met Bob back in 1980 or so. Is your claim that you went and researched the company across their 42 years of existence and found out they were losing money all along and funded by Bob's wife? Here is the press release when Muse invested in his company:
Seems like someone else was willing to invest in them for lots of money. You think they did that because they were a failure?
Say, any other dirt you uncovered about Bob? Where do his kids go to school? Do they drink tea or coffee?
I bet they use tea bags and not loose tea... Typical !
If you want to see their houses ask ray ..
If you want to see their houses ask ray ..
Well, things are less clear here. Prior to MQA being rolled out, Bob Stuart and crew published peer-reviewed research/double blind tests showed that people could tell the difference (to P<0.05) that if you resampled the high-res file to 44.1 kHz, the effect could be audible. Therefore, their mission became preserving the high sample rate, not because people could hear ultrasonics, but because filters could impact the audible band.
Bob took this to another level then saying "timing" in audio matters and therefore if you can preserve 192 kHz sampling, you should. Don't ask me to defend this bit because I can't.
There is also some conjugate filtering which in practice doesn't seem to be in use.
My position in all of this is different. If a file is available in 24/96 kHz, I want it before someone tries to convert it to 16/44.1. I have no need for their conversion. That conversion is lossy of course so all this talk about MQA being lossy is for not. My other hope was that high-res audio would come without loudness compression. In some of the AB tests of MQA to no-MQA content, it is clear to me they have access to better masters than what is already released. That, makes an indisputable difference in fidelity.
Indeed, I know of no one who has made it their mission to try to encode high-res content for us as MQA has. They are likely spending some effort to try to find better masters at times if what I heard in demos is true.
Anyway, I get MQA for free in Tidal. Roon decodes it for me for free as well. Someone wants to cry that I am getting ripped off, doesn't have a leg to stand on.
You really are childish.
First, I responded to another listener saying he heard a increase in volume when using his specific PS, I didn't say I heard it.
Second, in the other post you quoted, I specifically said I had no explanation for what I heard and wrote that I could be fooling myself. I also said I used the renderer for reasons other than SQ (re: I liked the playback software/UI possibilities it gave me).
Third, I no longer have any such devices and have concluded they don't make any difference that can be reliably heard.
Fourth, I didn't attack Bob Stuart. What did I say about him as a person? I criticized his company, his product, and his deceptive PR for MQA. Please point out where I was unfactual about Meridian the company and MQA. Other than falsely claiming I was making up dirt, you haven't done so. Strictly off topic ad hominem attacks from you. Do you have the ability to read and understand publicly available financial statements? If you can, look at years of Meridian's and you will see what I said was correct. If you can't, you need to stop making false claims about me and falsely defending Meridian.
You can like and respect Bob Stuart as much as you want. It doesn't change any of the facts about Meridian and deceptive information he's put out about MQA (one example: calling it "lossless", which is what they did until they were called on it and then changed their description to "perceptually lossless").
If you don't want to be criticized, don't act like a petulant child. You seem to think it necessary to to personally attack someone who disagrees with you. Again, that's not "audio science". You are the last person who should be criticizing anyone else's ethics.
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Good. So what I/we were saying here was ultimately right. I suggest you listen to what I am saying here as well given that track record. You don't know the format adoption industry. Or the signal processing being discussed. Or the psychoacoustics. Or people's true backgrounds. You are just following the protest crowd, repeating their talking points. I have no use for this. Let the people who know these topics first hand make the case.
Oh, you said that plenty elsewhere. Here is a thread you started on buying such a power supply: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/18763-bought-a-sonore-linear-power-supply-for-my-server/
You have spread plenty of what people would call "snake oil." Denying it now is an insult to anyone who knows how to use Google!
Like? No. I don't go fishing with him. Respect, yes. As do my peers:
Going after him personally and his qualifications is the biggest mistake you all have made in your mission to put down MQA. That dog don't hunt. It never has, it never will. Talk about being "childish." Speak to me about your qualifications and then we can talk.
I want to take us back to the post that I made to open this thread again. With Amazon distributing high-res, in addition to Qobuz, all the predictions that MQA is going to lock up high-res content has become false. Labels happily licensed content to these two with no DRM, no MQA, no nothing. And with Amazon's staying power, we are assured a solid alternative to MQA and Tidal.
This has been the cornerstone of "let's hate MQA." None of the dire predictions have come through because they were not based on realities and knowledge of how the audio market and distribution works today. Everyday bloggers took it upon themselves to become experts in techno-political aspects of format making. Anyone daring to say otherwise was pounded on and asked to submit. I must have spent days on Gearslutz arguing with one of those guys on these things.
The lesson here is to not rely on people outside of their core expertise. This business is very complex and multifaceted. Very few people understand it and fewer still can predict it.
This has been the cornerstone of "let's hate MQA." None of the dire predictions have come through because they were not based on realities and knowledge of how the audio market and distribution works today. Everyday bloggers took it upon themselves to become experts in techno-political aspects of format making. Anyone daring to say otherwise was pounded on and asked to submit. I must have spent days on Gearslutz arguing with one of those guys on these things.
The lesson here is to not rely on people outside of their core expertise. This business is very complex and multifaceted. Very few people understand it and fewer still can predict it.
Again, you are just a cheap propagandist, who uses ad hominem attacks to avoid having a substantial discussion.
The post in question is from 2014. Again, as I’ve previously said, I don’t think those devices make an SQ improvement anymore. I still use the PS in question because it is more robust than typical external PS for servers, which has been an issue for me.
I’d suggest that anyone who knows how to use Google will also be able to see these sad posts of yours in which you degrade yourself.
Please , no one start googling what iv said about cable lifters and Black ravioli feet..
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