Do some DACs decode MQA better than others?

[ShiZo]

To me @amirm, It sounded like it solved like 2 problems. One having to do with impulse response (i think) and making it easier to stream hifi saving resources.

 

[ShiZo]

What's with the hate. I haven't heard any reasons why it's bad. It's like zip format for music.

 

[q3cpma]

What's with the hate. I haven't heard any reasons why it's bad. It's like zip format for music.

No, that's what FLAC is. Pretty sure MQA is kind of lossy; and an unnecessary DRM format from a company that wants to become a parasitic leech on the whole industry.

 

[Theriverlethe]

To me @amirm, It sounded like it solved like 2 problems. One having to do with impulse response (i think) and making it easier to stream hifi saving resources.

Both problems imaginary to begin with. Here's a blind test conducted on the subject:

https://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/09/mqa-core-vs-hi-res-blind-test-part-ii.html

 

[ShiZo]

I understand people's fears about the company, but doesn't it just compress and uncompress when you play through a mqa dac, saving bandwidth ect?

I want to find out whats wrong with it...

 

[Theriverlethe]

I understand people's fears about the company, but doesn't it just compress and uncompress when you play through a mqa dac, saving bandwidth ect?

I want to find out whats wrong with ot...

It involves licensing fees on both producer and consumer sides for an equivalent result that could be achieved for free. Ie., there's absolutely nothing wrong with 16/44.1kHz FLAC as an audibly transparent delivery mechanism.

 

[ShiZo]

It involves licensing fees on both producer and consumer sides for an equivalent result that could be achieved for free. Ie., there's absolutely nothing wrong with 16/44.1kHz FLAC as an audibly transparent delivery mechanism.

Yes but streaming a flac file and a mqa is quite different as far as resources used.

 

[Theriverlethe]

Yes but streaming a flac file and a mqa is quite different as far as resources used.

If you're trying to stream ultrasonic noise for some reason, MQA will have the advantage in bandwidth usage. I don't see a reason to stream ultrasonic noise in the first place.

 

[yejun]

Both problems imaginary to begin with. Here's a blind test conducted on the subject:

https://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/09/mqa-core-vs-hi-res-blind-test-part-ii.html

If I read this result correctly, it clearly shows MQA can compete with Hi-res PCM.

 

[jhwalker]

I understand people's fears about the company, but doesn't it just compress and uncompress when you play through a mqa dac, saving bandwidth ect?

I want to find out whats wrong with it...

MQA is NOT a "ZIP file for audio" - it is lossy.

When Meridian started developing it 15 years (or so) ago, there may have been a use case (i.e., a "better" MP3, transmitting near-CD quality results from a smaller file, using lower bandwidth); however, by the time it was actually released, both disk space and bandwidth had ceased to be a problem for most.

If you are still concerned about space / bandwidth, FLAC (for example) can be tweaked to produce smaller files (and therefore require less bandwidth to stream) than MQA files, and it WOULD be lossless.

So MQA is simply a solution looking for a problem. IMO.

 

[Theriverlethe]

If I read this result correctly, it clearly shows MQA can compete with Hi-res PCM.

It shows they're indistinguishable, or more accurately fails to refute the null hypothesis. Now find evidence that "hi-res" PCM is distinguishable from 16/44.1kHz.

 

[ryohnosuke]

I understand people's fears about the company, but doesn't it just compress and uncompress when you play through a mqa dac, saving bandwidth ect?

I want to find out whats wrong with it...

I would really like to say yes... But ultrasonics (above 20KHz) is completely lossy (even they add garbage) and the content below 20KHz -with cropped bitdeph- will be just upsampled to "any rate". So no, isn't true 'Hi Res'.

 

[Count Arthur]

https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/mqa-is-bad-for-music

 

[JustAnandaDourEyedDude]

MQA performs an unnecessary irreversible lossy compression of your wallet.

 

[mansr]

It depends on the certification requirement from MQA. Some codec vendors require very high level of matching against their own results. Some not.

The decoder core is provided by MQA for common systems (x86, ARM, XMOS). The ARM and x86 versions produce output identical down to the last bit. I haven't had an opportunity to examine an XMOS decoder. The computational resource requirements of the ARM decoder are far lower than what XMOS chips provide, so there is no reason for them to have reduced precision there.