• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

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

Status
Not open for further replies.

MDT

Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2021
Messages
63
Likes
216
When a DAC, like Schiit's ladder DACs, makes grand claims that are measurably false, Amir, rightly, gives a scathing review. I came to this site after reading that controversy. What MQA is claiming vs what their implementation is actually outputting is no different to the above, yet @amirm in this case is defending this practice?

This is doing a disservice to himself and everyone who believes in using measurements as the basis for evaluating audio, rather than feelings. And ASR is losing credibility.
 

voodooless

Grand Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 16, 2020
Messages
10,223
Likes
17,799
Location
Netherlands
And ASR is losing credibility.

Nah, we have 55 pages to prove it's still credible, along with hundreds of other threads with interesting conversations. We don't have to agree on everything. We all have our biases and inconsistencies. Still, it's interesting to see where they come from and why they exist. In that sense, the questions are obviously legitimate ones.
 

JSmith

Master Contributor
Joined
Feb 8, 2021
Messages
5,153
Likes
13,211
Location
Algol Perseus
And ASR is losing credibility.
Not at all mate... ASR is here to test physical products for design faults and the forum is here to provide a place to discuss same.

One should also keep in mind that Amir helped design and implement WMA Pro, so has a personal connection with the audio codec industry and the people therein. If I'd worked with people in the past in a certain industry, I'd certainly not be shitting over their ideas or products, or disrespecting them either. So at this stage I think we should all be happy that we have a place to discuss this and should not try and drag Amir into this any further. If people continue to try and do this, those actions will be to the detriment of the forum, not one persons personal opinion not aligning with yours.

@GoldenOne has taken this on and is prepared to put his name to it where other may not be so willing, so I'd suggest any further discussion should be directed there and not demanding agreeance from Amir... that is simply rude.

Proprietary is proprietary and open source is open source, so it's up to us as consumers to tell the market what we want or will accept by voting with our wallets. Money talks, bullshit walks as they say...



JSmith
 

noodlesontoast

New Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2021
Messages
2
Likes
0
So if I listen to Tidal albums that are NOT offered in 'Master' quality, and I listen to these albums using the 'HIFI' (CD quality lossless) option, then what am I listening to exactly?
 

awdeeoh

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2020
Messages
68
Likes
28
So if I listen to Tidal albums that are NOT offered in 'Master' quality, and I listen to these albums using the 'HIFI' (CD quality lossless) option, then what am I listening to exactly?

You get a plain 16/44.1 if it's not under WMG.

Varies from label to label. Most of Warner's 16/44.1 are now in MQA.
 
Last edited:

MDT

Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2021
Messages
63
Likes
216
not one persons personal opinion not aligning with yours
Measurements show mqa mirroring the audible region into the ultrasonic. Mqa claims to provide the original master quality. This is proven false by data. This is not my opinion and your dismissing this data as opinion only serves to further reduce the credibility of this site and yourself.
 

MDT

Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2021
Messages
63
Likes
216
Nah, we have 55 pages to prove it's still credible, along with hundreds of other threads with interesting conversations. We don't have to agree on everything. We all have our biases and inconsistencies. Still, it's interesting to see where they come from and why they exist. In that sense, the questions are obviously legitimate ones.
To me the point of this site is to do away with the need to agree or disagree by having objective data. And the data shows that mqa does not do what it claims to do. If you dismiss this as simply disagreement, why should anyone else not do the same to all of amir's DAC and amp measurements?
 

abdo123

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 15, 2020
Messages
7,423
Likes
7,940
Location
Brussels, Belgium
To me the point of this site is to do away with the need to agree or disagree by having objective data. And the data shows that mqa does not do what it claims to do. If you dismiss this as simply disagreement, why should anyone else not do the same to all of amir's DAC and amp measurements?

you're obviously new to this forum. Amir's measurements and practices have been RUTHLESSLY criticized and this continues to this day.

he has never, ever censored someone unless their actions and words are derogatory. this thread is an evidence to that.

this is not really the place where everyone is subservient to Amir's opinions and actions. far from it.
 

JSmith

Master Contributor
Joined
Feb 8, 2021
Messages
5,153
Likes
13,211
Location
Algol Perseus
your dismissing this data
Mate it really pays to read peoples posts throughout the thread to get an understanding of their general position... basically you couldn't be more wrong about my personal position on this matter, so don't start going on about my credibility before you take a look at yourself in the mirror.



JSmith
 

MDT

Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2021
Messages
63
Likes
216
Mate it really pays to read peoples posts throughout the thread to get an understanding of their general position... basically you couldn't be more wrong about my personal position on this matter, so don't start going on about my credibility before you take a look at yourself in the mirror.



JSmith

The data shows that MQA does not do what it claims. You dismissed this as my opinion.
 

JSmith

Master Contributor
Joined
Feb 8, 2021
Messages
5,153
Likes
13,211
Location
Algol Perseus
The data shows that MQA does not do what it claims.
I agree, that certainly appears to be the case... once again go back and read all my other posts (search this thread by member name, it will list all that persons posts) before making any further assumptions and attempting to besmirch me or ASR.
You dismissed this as my opinion
No I questioned your attack on Amir and your opinion regarding the credibility of ASR... the two are very different things.

I won't defend MQA, but I will defend Amir's right to not comment further or be forced by people like you into a certain public stance on this issue.

The simple fact this thread is here and we are having this discussion speaks volumes anyway... read between the lines.



JSmith
 

sandymc

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2021
Messages
98
Likes
230
You aren’t thinking crazy enough! As I said a few posts back, if every version is really MQA they can easily engineer a situation where the “non-MQA” version is made to sound worse.

That may already be the case. If you play the MQA-without-tags masquerading as a regular track it seems you're playing an approximately 13-bit plus (shaped) noise track. If you then play the MQA-with-tags through an MQA DAC you're getting......maybe 15bits? I say maybe 15 bits because we still don't really know how good a perceptual encoder MQA really is. But it certainly should be better than 13 bits plus noise.

Also, and not wanting to take away from the rigorously objectivist path of this thread, as an experiment I downloaded some of the regular CD and MQA-CD tracks on the 2L website. The jazz tracks because that's what I usually listen to, usually Qobuz Hi-res. I played both through the most transparent, highest-resolving non-MQA stack I have - Topping E30/L30 and Focal Elex headphones. To me the regular CD tracks sound better. Notably the instruments sound more natural. Now of course, confirmation bias and all that. If I'd played the MQA tracks via an MQA DAC they might have sounded more similar. But MQA encoded tracks through a non-MQA DAC doesn't seem to be a good thing, either from a theoretical standpoint, or practically.
 

mansr

Major Contributor
Joined
Oct 5, 2018
Messages
4,685
Likes
10,700
Location
Hampshire
That may already be the case. If you play the MQA-without-tags masquerading as a regular track it seems you're playing an approximately 13-bit plus (shaped) noise track. If you then play the MQA-with-tags through an MQA DAC you're getting......maybe 15bits? I say maybe 15 bits because we still don't really know how good a perceptual encoder MQA really is. But it certainly should be better than 13 bits plus noise.
The "secret" MQA files will be recognised by a DAC that supports decoding. The missing tags are only FLAC metadata that some software uses, mainly for informational purposes.
 

sandymc

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2021
Messages
98
Likes
230
The "secret" MQA files will be recognised by a DAC that supports decoding. The missing tags are only FLAC metadata that some software uses, mainly for informational purposes.

Do we know whether the "secret" files actually have the watermark, or whatever the MQA guys call it?

Anyway, it still means that if you don't have an MQA capable DAC, you have a problem.
 

sandymc

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2021
Messages
98
Likes
230
The "secret" MQA files will be recognised by a DAC that supports decoding. The missing tags are only FLAC metadata that some software uses, mainly for informational purposes.

Also, is there a tool that picks up the watermark? Do I understand that the MQA repair tool picks up the watermark?
 

Digital Delay

Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2021
Messages
12
Likes
5
Coming from a location where my streaming options are limited to Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal, I guess my best choice in terms of music resolution is still Tidal Hifi/Master.


In fact, while reading through this somewhat heated debate, I’m still enjoying my MQA music and could not hear anything “nasty” in the songs I played. So from a real life perspective, I can’t really complain. Peace ☺️
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom