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MQA Deep Dive - I published music on tidal to test MQA

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RichB

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The pitch for the record labels and the streaming services is that you can use one file and can sell it 3 different ways... Unfolded (good), 1st unfold (better), full unfold (best). The record companies get to "protect" their masters and the streaming services get to save some bandwidth as added bonuses. MQA's consumer marketing ties it all together. Obviously if MQA cuts a deal with the big boys they are not going to get to charge much if anything but you don't need to make much if you have the majority of a huge market.... maybe just encoder royalties and "blue DAC light" royalties are enough. I think it could go either way with MQA and right now with Apple and Spotify announcing "lossless" it is pretty much "do or die".

This precisely why MQA began by marketing MQA Lossless. Then, contorted lossless refer to the FLAC container and streaming service transmission.
After much beating around the head, there is now MQA better than lossless.
Don't you think they would have started with better than lossless if they believed that.
A note to the literal among us: No one was actually beaten around the head :p

It is fear mongering to be concerned that MQA succeeds.
I guess that means, that the expectation is that they will not succeed so there is nothing to fear. Hmmm.
Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Speaking of ringing, why would technical discussion exclude the MQA filter forced upon the listener?

Back to your point, I don't think MQA better than lossless will win if the other providers counter message for true Lossless Hi-Res audio.
After all, Tidal does not claim to provide CD quality nor Hi-Res Audio. Weird.
There is some comfort in that the marketplace is less gullible than some of the audiophile community.

- Rich
 

noobie1

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Really? Because you are the person who repeatedly asserted that MQA is free to users, which shows a lack of understanding of intellectual property licensing. How could you not know, based on your claimed experience, that such intellectual property licensing costs are passed onto consumers? And you were invited to explain your statement, or admit it was a mistake, and you did neither. Reliable experts are people who will admit when they are wrong.

Is there evidence that MQA is getting any substantial royalties for licensing its product? I read on APS awhile back that MQA is likely giving its license for essentially free in order to gain market share. Given how they are bleeding money and desperately need a large streaming service to adopt their product, I could certainly see a scenario where this is true.
 

DimitryZ

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This precisely why MQA began by marketing MQA Lossless. Then, contorted lossless refer to the FLAC container and streaming service transmission.
After much beating around the head, there is now MQA better than lossless.
Don't you think they would have started with better than lossless if they believed that.
A note to the literal among us: No one was actually beaten around the head :p

It is fear mongering to be concerned that MQA succeeds.
I guess that means, that the expectation is that they will not succeed so there is nothing to fear. Hmmm.
Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Speaking of ringing, why would technical discussion exclude the MQA filter forced upon the listener?

Back to your point, I don't think MQA better than lossless will win if the other providers counter message for true Lossless Hi-Res audio.
After all, Tidal does not claim to provide CD quality nor Hi-Res Audio. Weird.
There is some comfort in that the marketplace is less gullible than some of the audiophile community.

- Rich
Technically, MQA filter isn't forced on the listener. If you just do a software unfold, you can use any DAC with any choice of filters it provides
 

RichB

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RE the reasons people might be choosing Tidal: Is your claim that customers are making these decisions solely with their ears, and that their listening experiences are in no way influenced by the technical information provided about each streaming service's content?

RE the point of my prior comment: Even if people are choosing with their ears in the way you describe, that does not change my point that customers cannot choose a format/codec if the subscription includes files in different formats/codecs. You yourself have been actively involved in a sub-topic of this thread that has shown Tidal's MQA offerings comprise about 2% of their total available streaming catalogue, and so they are not choosing (or refusing to choose) MQA or any other format, since they are not able to make that choice.

That also means that about 98% of what Tidal customers are hearing is straight-up PCM, no different than the offerings of other streaming services with lossless/high-res tiers. So if customers are hearing something better with Tidal, wouldn't our first hypothesis have to be that confirmation bias is more likely to be the cause?

Was not Tidal on of the first to offer CD quality audio?
If that is the case, name recognition, large catalog, and name recognition would account for whatever level of success they have.

My daughters listen to Spotify on their phones. they would have no idea what we are talking about and probably have not heard of Tidal or QOBUZ.
Spotify seems to be the market leader. Spotify, Apple, Amazon offering losses is curtains for Tidal.
This is why MQA must sell the labels or they have no hope of survival.
Let's hope they fail, it will be a win for the music industry, consumers, and artists alike.

- Rich
 

RichB

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Technically, MQA filter isn't forced on the listener. If you just do a software unfold, you can use any DAC with any choice of filters it provides

I believe it is engaged automatically and some portable DACs only supplied the MQA filter.
I don't know how to tell which filter is in use at any time in Roon nor in the UDP-205 when MQA is engaged.

- Rich
 

DimitryZ

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I believe it is engaged automatically and some portable DACs only supplied the MQA filter.
I don't know how to tell which filter is in use at any time in Roon nor in the UDP-205 when MQA is engaged.

- Rich
I meant you would choose a non-MQA DAC. A lot of people use it that way.
 

RichB

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I meant you would choose a non-MQA DAC.

Right, so with a non MQA DAC, MQA encoding restricts the quality. What's not to love.

- Rich
 

tmtomh

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Not really. You can use any filter and you aren't limited by the MQA's leaky filter.

I can see how this is relatively simple to accomplish by using a non-MQA DAC and feeding it with an MQA-capable software/digital streamer. That way you get the "first unfold" but not the "render" - and without the "render" you avoid the MQA reconstruction filter (and the pointless upsampling and fake sample-rate indicator).

But if you have an MQA-capable DAC, isn't this a more uncertain proposition? The DAC would have to have a user-selectable option or switch to disable MQA decoding, to ensure the DAC did not "render" any MQA content coming out of your software streamer. And even with MQA decoding turned off at the DAC, what if it's one of those MQA DAC that uses the MQA reconstruction filter as it's default filter for all content, not just MQA content? Wouldn't the DAC also have to have a user-accessible option to change the filter?

I don't know the details of what most MQA DACs provide in the way of user control at this level of detail. Appreciate any info folks can provide. Thanks!
 

Raindog123

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I don't know the details of what most MQA DACs provide in the way of user control at this level of detail. Appreciate any info folks can provide. Thanks!


A typical consumer MQA-rendering DAC - eg infamous $300 Dragonfly Cobalt - when fed with a core-unfolded stream, will apply one of its (16) MQA filters following the command embedded/watermarked in the data. And will turn on the ‘blue (actually magenta) light’. No non-MQA filters or user-selection options are available.
 
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DimitryZ

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I can see how this is relatively simple to accomplish by using a non-MQA DAC and feeding it with an MQA-capable software/digital streamer. That way you get the "first unfold" but not the "render" - and without the "render" you avoid the MQA reconstruction filter (and the pointless upsampling and fake sample-rate indicator).

But if you have an MQA-capable DAC, isn't this a more uncertain proposition? The DAC would have to have a user-selectable option or switch to disable MQA decoding, to ensure the DAC did not "render" any MQA content coming out of your software streamer. And even with MQA decoding turned off at the DAC, what if it's one of those MQA DAC that uses the MQA reconstruction filter as it's default filter for all content, not just MQA content? Wouldn't the DAC also have to have a user-accessible option to change the filter?

I don't know the details of what most MQA DACs provide in the way of user control at this level of detail. Appreciate any info folks can provide. Thanks!
I will check my M2TECH manual. But it seems like a high quality non-MQA DAC that most people already own is a way to go.
 

DimitryZ

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A typical consumer MQA-rendering DAC - eg infamous $300 Dragonfly Cobalt - when fed with a core-unfolded stream, will apply one of it (16) MQA filters following the command embedded/watermarked in the data. And will turn on the ‘blue (actually magenta) light’. No non-MQA filters or user-selection options are available.
However, folks who don't like MQA are unhappy that they will be forced to buy another DAC. This is not the case. The DAC you already own will do just fine - and no leaky filter, to boot!
 

pjug

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However, folks who don't like MQA are unhappy that they will be forced to buy another DAC. This is not the case. The DAC you already own will do just fine - and no leaky filter, to boot!
You are assuming everyone uses a PC for the streaming. Also is there any free software that does the decode? Seems no matter what you have to pay something if you want that first unfold, if you don't already own something that can do it.

edit: Ok I guess Tidal deskto app is "free" if you are using Tidal. I was thinking of software that can do more than one service.
 

DimitryZ

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You are assuming everyone uses a PC for the streaming. Also is there any free software that does the decode? Seems no matter what you have to pay something if you want that first unfold, if you don't already own something that can do it.

edit: Ok I guess Tidal deskto app is "free" if you are using Tidal. I was thinking of software that can do more than one service.
Since 99.99% of MQA content is on Tidal, you will be using Tidal if you are getting MQA. Those ultra-expensive MQA-CDs that I bought are really hard to play with full decoding- essentially you will need a UDP-205.

So if you have Tidal, but don't want to pay more money for MQA, just use your existing DAC.

If you come into possession of MQA files outside the Tidal ecosphere, @mansr has a standalone software decoder.
 
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DimitryZ

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You are wrong, Amir.

For starters, Archimago's source file was 44.1kHz, MQA-encoded. He wrote that clearly here https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/.

That recording, regarded at 44.1kHz, rolls off at 21kHz and that's it. You claim to have investigated an 88.2kHz version and found the same roll-off. Fine. That just shows that your 88.2k version is an upsample of the 44.1, i.e. fake hi-res, an upsample done outside any MQA regime.

When you play the 44.1k MQA stream through Tidal, with Tidal MQA unfolding enabled, then Tidal generates a 88.2k stream, with the spectrum as demonstrated by Archimago, and by many others (by using digital capture after Tidal, obviously, and not some external ADC with all the errors that one can introduce).

The ultrasonics above 23kHz truly are images of the original <21kHz signal. They are there because MQA clearly specifies the reconstruction filter for CD-rate material, and we have known for years now that this is a very short, leaky filter, a filter that exactly produces what has been seen by Archi.

If you took the same 44.1k MQA stream and sent it, unmodified, to an MQA DAC, then its analogue-domain output would look the same.

I wonder what the fuzz is all about, because this really is no news.
Great, simple explanation.

When I look at the level of the aliased image "allowed through" by the MQA filter I see peaks at -96dB and when averaged, well below -100dB.

Regardless of the actual frequency involved, my system just doesn't have the analogue SNAD to resolve this for me to attempt to hear it.

So, we take the note of this imperfection, but this again seems to fall into a category of perceptually lossless to your system and fully lossless to the listener.

And since this appears at the reconstruction stage, this is easily remedied by not using an MQA DAC.
 
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pjug

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Since 99.99% of MQA content is on Tidal, you will be using Tidal if you are getting MQA. Those ultra-expensive MQA-CDs that I bought are really hard to play with full decoding- essentially you will need a UDP-205.

So if you have Tidal, but don't want to pay more money for MQA, just use your existing DAC.

If you come into possession of MQA files outside the Tidal ecosphere, @mansr has a standalone software decoder.
Should have made my point more simply. What if you stream with something like the Yamaha WXC-50. How do you get MQA without buying new hardware or making a big change in how you play music?
 

amirm

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RE the reasons people might be choosing Tidal: Is your claim that customers are making these decisions solely with their ears, and that their listening experiences are in no way influenced by the technical information provided about each streaming service's content?
You didn't read my post? I said there were *two* reasons: "Such customers are shopping on spec and "what their ears tell them."

Spec is the bit depth and sample rate. Customers are most definitely influenced by that and as I have said, it is a requirement to play. This is why 20 bits anything is a non-player so is low sample rate. Big numbers need to show up on DAC display or the whole value prop goes out the window.
 

symphara

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Since 99.99% of MQA content is on Tidal, you will be using Tidal if you are getting MQA. Those ultra-expensive MQA-CDs that I bought are really hard to play with full decoding- essentially you will need a UDP-205.
Why is that? Are you saying that if I feed the coax output of an ordinary CD player into an MQA capable DAC it won't decode? Just curious. What's special about the 205?
 

amirm

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Really? Because you are the person who repeatedly asserted that MQA is free to users, which shows a lack of understanding of intellectual property licensing. How could you not know, based on your claimed experience, that such intellectual property licensing costs are passed onto consumers?
I didn't tell you MQA is free to users. I said MQA is free to those of us who use software decoders in Roon (and Tidal App). None of us have ever paid for MQA. I paid for Roon what I paid without Tidal or MQA. I then subscribed to Tidal and Tidal later added MQA without raising its price. And Roon added decoding for the same without asking me for more money.

Roon charges plenty of money for their player and MQA costs are cost of doing business.

None of this has anything to do with "understanding intellectual property." Don't use big words whose meaning you don't understand. I do so just makes your commentary look more wrong than it is. How much a license costs has nothing to do with "intellectual property." It is a business terms which could exist with no intellectual property. I could license you to use ASR name. That doesn't mean it is intellectual property.
 
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