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

[amirm]

Would you use the same defense for $5000 cables?
They keep their design process a secret, they don't have to open it up to you. Should we therefore just start taking them at their word?

No. We test them properly with instrumentation appropriate to the job that the cable is supposed to do. We don't take a speaker cable and see if it works to connect a Wifi antenna because to a lay person, "signal is signal."

 

[DimitryZ]

AFAIK he did not do the null for this track (which is from here: https://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/06/measurements-audioquest-dragonfly-black_24.html ) but he did for others:

• software decoded vs flac: https://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/01/comparison-tidal-mqa-music-high.html
• hardware decoded vs flac: https://archimago.blogspot.com/2017/02/comparison-hardware-decoded-mqa-using.html

But he is not using DeltaWave there because there was no DeltaWave back then.

Thanks, that's a good article.

Largely confirms my "eyeball" analysis - nulls below 100dB in the baseband and higher than that in the ultrasound.

 

[GoldenOne]

Of course you wouldn't want your name out there. Why would you? Because folks like you would do this when they know my name:

View attachment 132957

View attachment 132956

I kept my company going during the hardest economic times in US when all construction was shut down and we could do no work. Not one employee was let go. Not one payment of rent or any kind of bill was missed. I have not accepted one penny from anyone for any purpose to write or do what I do here. Yet we get a despicable individual like you with zero regards for facts standing on high horse now saying you don't want to tell people who you are?

You have taken my name and who I am and spun it in the most unethical, untruthful way into your anti-MQA campaign to promote a video. You have milked every bit of traffic we have sent to your video and to you personally. Yet you go and say stuff like that behind my back?

I have a thick skin about what people say to me here and elsewhere. But when they spin their conspiracy theories about me into their their arguments, i.e. MQA is evil, then you have crossed a serious line. Your time here is very short. Say whatever you want now because you won't be here much longer.

I've not addressed this on the previous times you've mentioned it because I'm sure the second I do you'll remove the post and ban me.


If you'd genuinely like me to address it here in this thread I will do so. But I had sort of assumed that
a) you wouldn't want any of it brought up
b) you would ban me the second I mentioned any of it.

If this isn't the case, I'll address it.
If not, then I'm happy to continue discussing MQA itself in this thread and leave the personal stuff out.
You've done your fair share of throwing accusations at others including myself, and refused to take offers to disprove them, such as accusing me of "spinning" the phone call, but then ignoring my offer to post the call and be transparent. Instead choosing to divert to other concerns I'd raised to try to paint me as some horrible human being that dared to say "you know what, I think censorship is bad".

If you'd like to have a proper, two-way discussion, either here or in private I would be happy to do so. But right now I cannot say anything because whilst you can throw any accusation or argument out you desire, I am unable to respond properly and will likely be banned the second I do.

 

[Grooved]

I thought the person who did the graph (Archimago, I was told) may have done the null as well, but I don't know how to find it.

Thanks for the information

 

[amirm]

you reminded me of this meme

I have lived in UK for a bit so know both types. So I should not remind you of that. If you were like me, you would have watched a lot of BBC news and get the reference.

 

[PierreV]

I've not addressed this on the previous times you've mentioned it because I'm sure the second I do you'll remove the post and ban me.

Public company information is fair game, for MQA, for Amir's company, for mine, etc...
But weaving conspiracy theories is something else entirely though.

 

[Grooved]

Well, this was just a test to see what one would get when streaming MQA content without an MQA DAC/decoder compared to Redbook. If you have a file (digital or analog loopback?) then, sure, send me a copy along with the PCM version. I can run the same analysis on them.

OK, I will try to find a track that have all available formats if possible. It also may be good if I can find two from different kind.

 

[jensgk]

The fact that you produced a second video without asking for feedback from the experts, you doubled down making things much worse because this time MQA provided very detailed and public response that you got wrong on multiple fronts. Instead of accept all of this, you continue to defend what you did. That's wrong.

@amirm You mean the "right" experts. You are desperately trying to control the narrative here, but I am afraid it is not working. You have not been able to convince me nor a lot of other intelligent people, even though you came from a role of high respect and esteem.

 

[amirm]

I've not addressed this on the previous times you've mentioned it because I'm sure the second I do you'll remove the post and ban me.

If you'd genuinely like me to address it here in this thread I will do so. But I had sort of assumed that
a) you wouldn't want any of it brought up
b) you would ban me the second I mentioned any of it.

If this isn't the case, I'll address it.
If not, then I'm happy to continue discussing MQA itself in this thread and leave the personal stuff out.
You've done your fair share of throwing accusations at others including myself, and refused to take offers to disprove them, such as accusing me of "spinning" the phone call, but then ignoring my offer to post the call and be transparent. Instead choosing to divert to other concerns I'd raised to try to paint me as some horrible human being that dared to say "you know what, I think censorship is bad".

If you'd like to have a proper, two-way discussion, either here or in private I would be happy to do so. But right now I cannot say anything because whilst you can throw any accusation or argument out you desire, I am unable to respond properly and will likely be banned the second I do.

No problem. Let's start with one of them:

"Meanwhile on APS there has also been some information posted which might hint as to why Amir is so defensive of MQA. Obviously his ties to SMSL/Topping who have MQA in everything likely play a part, but also while at microsoft he was trying to push DRM schemes anyway. "

You say "obviously his ties to SMSL/Topping." What ties? What evidence do you have of that?

Second, you say "who [SMSL/Topping] who have MQA in everything." What survey of their products you performed that led you to this?

Both of these are related to the topic at hand. So let's see your response.

And note that you have not only made a serious accusation about me, but also about the above two companies. So do your best to respond properly.

 

[Grooved]

Thanks, that's a good article.

Largely confirms my "eyeball" analysis - nulls below 100dB in the baseband and higher than that in the ultrasound.

Whichever the results, we need to keep in mind it's on decoded file only, not rendered one which will be more difficult to evaluate.
And at this moment, the test done by pkane was between 16bit FLAC and 24bit MQA (not 16bit MQA), and the one I did was 24 to 24 but from 44.1 upsampled to 96.
We need better and matching files to get more accurate results.

 

[amirm]

@amirm You mean the "right" experts. You are desperately trying to control the narrative here, but I am afraid it is not working. You have not been able to convince me nor a lot of other intelligent people, even though you came from a role of high respect and esteem.

Convince you of what? I am not here to convince you MQA is good and is something you should adopt if that is what you mean. I am simply here to make sure incorrect technical or business/industry information is not spread. This has nothing to do with "intelligence." I have the industry and technical experience as this was part of my profession.

Now if you are not convinced of my technical explanations, ask your questions. But don't just make statements like this with debating tactics like "desperately trying to control the narrative." There is a massive "control of the narrative" in the form of OP's videos that you are oblivious to in your statement.

 

[tw99]

I think the conspiracy theories about Amir being some sort of paid shill for MQA are way wide of the mark. He's made many posts where he says he doesn't think MQA will succeed in the wider market due to the presence of Apple, Amazon, Google etc. That's hardly the behaviour of someone who's in some way benefiting from promoting it.

Honestly we'd all be better off if such accusations were withdrawn, any necessary apologies were made, and we return to a purely technical discussion.

If you don't agree, just say you don't agree rather than resort to the ad-hominem " You're being paid to say otherwise" or "You're just a blogger so why should we care about your results" stuff.

The S/N ratio of this thread at the moment is appalling...

 

[jensgk]

Your tests were entirely botched. The fact that MQA wasn't mathematically lossless has been known since its' inception.

Not by their marketing people, who kept talking and writing it was lossless.

 

[danadam]

Whichever the results, we need to keep in mind it's on decoded file only, not rendered one which will be more difficult to evaluate.

That second article is an analog capture of fully, hardware decoded mqa vs an analog capture of flac.

 

[DimitryZ]

Whichever the results, we need to keep in mind it's on decoded file only, not rendered one which will be more difficult to evaluate.
And at this moment, the test done by pkane was between 16bit FLAC and 24bit MQA (not 16bit MQA), and the one I did was 24 to 24 but from 44.1 upsampled to 96.
We need better and matching files to get more accurate results.

But maybe more apples to apples comparison. Also, since MQA does some digital processing on the original digital master, even if their packaging scheme was perfect, they will not null perfectly.

 

[DimitryZ]

Not by their marketing people, who kept talking and writing it was lossless.

By everyone else though

 

[voodooless]

You have not been able to convince me nor a lot of other intelligent people, even though you came from a role of high respect and esteem.

So? He can still have esteem and respect even though he does not convince on all matters? I really don’t see a problem in doing that. And it should not even always be about convincing. It can also be about understanding a viewpoint. That is something everyone here (and that includes me) seems to have a hard time grasping at times. You can see it in the way people react to certain words, jump to conclusions based on misunderstandings and worse. I guess that’s the nature of online discourse in heated discussions.. but it is very counterproductive at best.

So can we just stop the ad hominems and go on to much more interesting technical discussions? They are a lot more fun and entertaining.

 

[bboris77]

Two points I would like to make before this thread finally implodes:

1. While the British RP accent can give someone a sense of authority, it is worth remembering that this very accent has traditionally been associated with the role of the main villain in Hollywood movies So, it goes both ways.

2. On a more serious note, this thread has been the longest Mexican standoff I have ever seen. The MQA here is a pure MacGuffin even though there has been some really valuable information exchanged. This whole thing has really been about @amirm's integrity as a reviewer which has been brought into question either directly or indirectly.

@GoldenOne has been threatening with releasing this taped conversation, and @amirm has been threatening to ban him from ASR. Perhaps "threatening" is a bit harsh, but I cannot think of a better word now. And we keep going in circles.

What I would suggest to @GoldenOne is: just come out with the evidence you are referring to, and if @amirm deletes it and bans you, post it somewhere else. Let us all make up our minds about this so we can go back to discussion the actual technology of MQA without this hanging over our heads.

EDIT: I apologize for using the word "threatening". I should have used the word "offering" instead.

 

[dmac6419]

Don't you realize that we are several to realize the problem in his test, and we are still searching other things. At least his test tried to bring another method that even people working since 20 years ago didn't tried.
I don't care if comes from Mars or Neptune, or is the The Invisible Man, I know and understand what he did, and what was wrong. Don't need to create one thousand of posts to repeat such a thing.



Now, it's irritating me a bit
Don't you realize that you're on these last days posting more than anyone on this thread while never trying/bringing any new technical elements ?
You like Tidal and other providers, so do I, it doesn't change the fact that even if I was perfectly fine with how I used it, having some 16bit MQA files in the Hifi setting while they claim it's 16bit FLAC is not normal for consumers, unless at least we can get a result that it doesn't change anything.
If you are not interested to know, then stop it. If you are interested, stay but please stop doing what I would call "constant soft-trolling"
And by saying that, I'm not attacking you as I don't know you, but I'm attacking your action on this thread.
Keeping Amir aside of this example and never implying that you can do that because you would know him, you are reminding me this kind of guy in nightclubs who constantly subtly triggers general fights, night after night, but who is always there because he's a friend of the boss

You just answered me on the part that was interesting for your answer, but you have yet to provide an answer on the simple question I asked you that just needs some logic
Some weeks ago, it was written under your name "Addicted to fun and learning", you seem to have at least forgot the "Fun" part before turning into "Major contributor"

If Amir confirms this thread is only on repeating that this test had problems, then we need to start another thread to continue the search and analysis and let the people fight on this one. It looks like some are searching a little thing yet important in middle of a football field while the game is on


One big post or repeated smaller ones should get at least the same warning for both sides, and it will be easier for people in the middle to continue

I'm posted no more than you or anyone else and i don't care if you're irritated or not,who are you to tell me how little or how much I can post,you have a problem this site have moderators,take it to them.P.S. "Addicted to fun and learning" was never my name or "Major contributor" ,I have no control over that this is not my forum I'm just a member like you.

 

[jensgk]

By everyone else though

No, marketing works.