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

[guenthi_r]

In my experience, decoding by hardware with a MQA DAC makes a BIG sonic difference.

What a messy propaganda.

 

[RayDunzl]

See whats going on here? The HF is a perfect mirror image of the LF, just with a lower level and a sloping.

That's a very amusing observation. The frequencies above 20kHz being a reversed and attenuated mirror of the frequencies below 20kHz (or so).

Now I'm interested (well, a little bit) to see what kind of responses it generated.

As you might notice, I'm only 22 23 pages behind, in reading this thread.

Sorry for the "late" reply. It seemed timely to me when I wrote it since I just now read the post.

It doesn't take me long each session to have "had enough", so, I can never catch up to the current posts.

I'll shut up now, since MQA hasn't yet caused me any grief, and likely, never will.

 

[PO3c]

Hi-Res audio label is already loosey goosey. Dr. Mark Waldrep has pointed out that masters that do not contain ultrasonic information can be labeld HD-Res Audio as defined by Sony requires the following:

All What you need to know about Hi-Res Audio logo? (samma3a.com)

Japan Audio Society | Hi-Res Audio Logo (jas-audio.or.jp)



You do not see the Hi-Res logo on Tidal.
MQA is not Hi-Res audio, it does not provide 24 bit audio and it is not sampled at the rates shown by the MQA DACs.

- Rich

dang! I had a new look at MQA site and you are right. They actuality don't tell us their genius file compressor are hi-res compatible. It's only implied reading their adds and talk about high sample rates. That's interesting misconception as so many of their talking points are ment to do.

 

[RichB]

Mr. Dorsey, who is one of the richest people in the world, did not purchase Tidal unaware of MQA. He is not going to be content with 1% market share. His other businesses, Twitter and Square, have achieved near monopolies in their respective fields. Whether or not he can succeed in monopolizing the music delivery business remains to be seen but it is a good bet he is going to take a shot at it. I find it interesting that MQA, which has been a smoldering issue for years, has suddenly become hot topic after Mr. Dorsey purchased Tidal. While on these boards MQA is not popular I see a lot of subjective praise about "MQA sound quality" on the other sites. I doubt this in a coincidence.

Want to bet the pitch to Dorsey was monopolization and extracting royalties.
I doubt he had any interest in its other "benefits".

I think we can guess what is going to happen to tweets that are not flattering to Tidal and MQA.

- Rich

 

[mansr]

Thanks. Did you make the chart in the AS post yourself? Would that have been with the Bluesound decoder? Do you have Audirvana to see if you can the MQA first unfold to track to 48KHz?

Yes, I made that plot using the Bluesound decoder. No, I don't have Audirvana.

 

[pjug]

Yes, I made that plot using the Bluesound decoder. No, I don't have Audirvana.

Audirvana trial is free if you want to check it. Anyone else want to try this? The file is the 2L #053 (bottom one):
http://www.2l.no/hires/

 

[RichB]

Mr., Dorsey may already have had a chilling effect on the already tenuous audiophile media.

Can they really afford to alienate him?
Loss of access to the social media is at stake, and not just twitter, the tech giants have cooperated to preserve each others interests.
Those who are vocal threaten the financial interests of powerful people may start to wonder if direct opposition is unwise, though they may find a way to justify it. Just pay the royalty, and move on.

- Rich

 

[RayDunzl]

I could not let this one slide Have you actually looked at the graph:

Notice anything strange except for the hole in the middle? No? Then let's do some "folding" and show you (I've done this one before, but one more won't hurt anyone):

View attachment 125593

See whats going on here? The HF is a perfect mirror image of the LF, just with a lower level and a sloping.

You know what they call that in circles outside of MQA: aliasing... of the worst kind! So please stop telling us that MQA somehow solves aliasing, because all evidence points towards the expact opposite.

@amirm: why do you condemn this kind of behaviour when reviewing DAC's, but not when MQA does it? If you were given an upscaler to review that showed the exact same properties, I bet you it would get a scolding review.

Now I'm curious (and still late, maybe it's been covered).

Do you have another example (different artist preferably) that exhibits the same enhancement?

 

[Stokdoof]

in dutch we say:
“Zeg nee tegen MQA en trek het door de plee”

 

[voodooless]

Now I'm curious (and still late, maybe it's been covered).

Do you have another example (different artist preferably) that exhibits the same enhancement?

This was never mine. I think the original is here: https://community.roonlabs.com/t/mqa-first-unfold-in-roon-mqa-delivered-in-1-5/26336/1017

 

[RayDunzl]

Jeez...

I've been steadily reading, and I'm 3 more pages behind than I was when I started an hour or so ago.

I think I'll give up.

---

This afternoon's plan, after 2pm:

Go to the Florida State Fair, with a $2 admission and Free Parking today, and wander around the Agricultural Exhibits.

 

[gatucho]

There is now a Hifi Plus in addition to Hifi.

I just saw that. If they offer plain CD quality flacs in the Hifi tier and MQA in the Hifi plus, I just hope that those CD quality flacs won't be just folded MQAs! That would be the cherry on top

 

[guenthi_r]

Audirvana trial is free if you want to check it. Anyone else want to try this? The file is the 2L #053 (bottom one):
http://www.2l.no/hires/

What information you need?

Blue: downloaded file
White: "unfolded" with Audirvana

 

[TurbulentCalm]

I would start by this convention paper (free download from AES):
https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=17501
Perhaps a bit difficult to understand it in full, but it gives a good general approach.
There are some 90 references in this paper, some of them could be useful for further reading if you are doubtful about some claims; specially neuroscience research about human perception of time domain.


Then (borrowing some info of a previous comment):
About time domain:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mqa-time-domain-accuracy-digital-audio-quality
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10867614B2/
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200395918A1

About file size reduction:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9548055B2
https://bobtalks.co.uk/blog/mqaplayback/origami-and-the-last-mile/
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160005411A1
https://www.meridian-audio.info/public/mlp_jap_new[2521].pdf


General articles about MQA:
- Search for a series of articles of 2017, 2018 about MQA in Stereophile by Jim Austin, each one dealing with specific subjects of the technology.
- Nice summary of MQA byRobert Hartley in The Absolute Sound https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/beyond-high-resolution
- A very interesting assessment of MQA by Robert Hartley. This I could find it complete only at MQA'ssite, not in TAS:
https://mqa-production.s3.amazonaws.com/default/0001/01/6a10f3ba2385770ac3658df2cadc537ffcd09cd3.pdf
- look here for a John Atkinson's post with an interesting link about an article of him in Stereophile.
- https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers (some 20 pages, all of them worth a open-minded read).

And, I know it is a hard thing to ask, but most of the articles by Stuart here are required reading:
https://bobtalks.co.uk/blog/science-mqa/mqa-playback/#

Thanks for all those. Even a small improvement in my understanding of the low level details would be welcomed.

 

[mansr]

Thanks for all those. Even a small improvement in my understanding of the low level details would be welcomed.

Too bad none of those sources are trustworthy.

 

[pjug]

What information you need?

Blue: downloaded file
White: "unfolded" with Audirvana
View attachment 126651

Thanks for doing this. The spectra should go to 48KHz. You need to set Audirvana to send to a "MQA Renderer" DAC. So that the software does the unfold before sending. At least that's how I think it should work. Then I'm using VB Cable to connect output to Audacity.

 

[muslhead]

Jeez...

I've been steadily reading, and I'm 3 more pages behind than I was when I started an hour or so ago.

I think I'll give up.

---

This afternoon's plan, after 2pm:

Go to the Florida State Fair, with a $2 admission and Free Parking today, and wander around the Agricultural Exhibits.

View attachment 126645

Please take down this picture of my brother. you are not authorized to use it

 

[guenthi_r]

Thanks for doing this. The spectra should go to 48KHz. You need to set Audirvana to send to a "MQA Renderer" DAC. So that the software does the unfold before sending. At least that's how I think it should work. Then I'm using VB Cable to connect output to Audacity.

ok, will do shortly

 

[guenthi_r]

Thanks for doing this. The spectra should go to 48KHz. You need to set Audirvana to send to a "MQA Renderer" DAC. So that the software does the unfold before sending. At least that's how I think it should work. Then I'm using VB Cable to connect output to Audacity.

Virtual Cable goes only up to 96khz sampling rate.

Edit: Audirvana allows max. 88.2khz samplerate here.

 

[Raindog123]

in dutch we say:
“Zeg nee tegen MQA en trek het door de plee”

"...en kak er bovenop"