MQA Update

[bigguyca]

Here is a link to the first AES paper on MQA from the AES Convention of 2014 October 9–12. Some of the general audio information is interesting:

https://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20251102/17501.pdf

An important section of the paper is Section 6:

"6. PATENT NOTICE.
Some aspects of the technology described here are covered by patent applications."

Clearly one goal of MQA was to monetize the technology.

 

[antcollinet]

I don't need to convince anyone here and I'm championing the format, but I wont deny what I hear.

I will (my bold) - or at least I'll explain the real reason you are hearing it.

Trouble is - one of the aspects of being human is having a brain that acts as a prediction machine. All those optical illusions you’ve seen, or the auditory illusions you've heard : They're the result of your brain making stuff up from imperfect senses bringing in imperfect information.

See that 3D world all around you as you look around? That perception exists only in your brain. It is built from the ground up based on two tiny blurry and with a blind spot right in the middle images projected onto your retina. I think it is almost miraculous how the brain manages to create that perception for you.

Now without moving your head, picture the stuff that is behind you. You can actually build that into your perception of the world even when not looking at it. It is not coming from any of your senses - it is simply a prediction from your brain based on what you've seen in the past.

Ever been walking down a path in woodland and seen a person up ahead that turns into (e.g.) a tree stump when you get closer - that's your brain predicting.

Ever heard someone say something, and then they deny they've even opened their mouth - brain prediction.

This is happening all the time. Our brain is continuously making pretty good predictions based on imperfect information - we couldn't function if it didn't. Sometimes though it gets the predictions wrong. And it is multi-sensory. It can alter sound based on what you see, or change what you see based on what you hear. Or how we feel, or what we've imbibed, or how comfortable we are, or if we are in unfamiliar surroundings.

It is well known that we will hear differences between audio devices even when there is no difference in the sound reaching our ears. We've all experienced it. In fact we all experience it all the time. Ever sat down to listen to music to find your system doesn't impress you the way it normally does - or on this day it suddenly sounds sublime. The system hasn't changed, you have : your perceptions have.

Your subjective listening can be evidence, but it has to be controlled (eg accurately level matched) and blind (so that you don't know what device is playing), and you have to be able to consistently detect the difference (at least 9 out of 10 times).

Without that level of rigour, then your subjective experience is nothing more than anecdote and tells us nothing about what actual physical differences there may (or may not) have been between MQA and PCM.

 

[antcollinet]

I don't understand the hate for a format that can easily be ignored.

The "hate" such as it is - comes from the same source as our dislike for all snake oil. An attempt to extract money from the uninformed, that cannot provide any of the benefits it claims to do.

This is also why we will clearly point out the problems to anyone "championing" the format as you are - because you are simply propagating the misinformation that is leading to people being ripped off.

 

[steve59]

Lets consider this for just a moment, Dolby turns out more sound reproduction formats in order to 'enhance' the experience. Each new format requires more upgrades for the consumer. I have $2000. dollars for a sound system, should I spend it on 7 or 9.1 speakers on the budget of the month system or spend the same on 3-4 piece stereo? I see big money swaying all the markets, why wouldn't I question the hate campaign generated for a competing format regarding mqa?

 

[steve59]

antcollinet, I hear these arguments and can only say if you tell yourself if it measures the same it'll sound the same and we're back full circle, except I'd say I'm happy for you if you can't ear a difference because it'll save you loads of money for hobbys you're truly passionate about. I think my set of $50 eldorado golf clubs bought in the early 70's hit a ball just fine, all cigars taste the same, smoky. I'm great with that. this is how i think, gets me through the day without wanting to yell at people that don't, dress, drive or work like me.

 

[qirex]

There's another question one could ask: why, if the format really did sound better and have legitimate advantages, did MQA the company and Bob Stuart personally consistently attack and harass anyone who tried to do analysis or ask technical questions about it? They originally sold it as lossless and had to walk that back, settling on "studio master quality" and forbade all analysis of their software or its output in their license agreement. Folks who asked questions were threatened with legal action or called names by Stuart. It wasn't until Goldensound published an audio test suite to Tidal as music many years later that we got actual analysis. My favorite finding of that is there was a special bit in the file format solely to light up the "MQA" light on compatible equipment, independent of the bitrate or quality of the file.

IMO if something is legitimately superior one shouldn't need the to use techniques of a grifter [confuse, harass, obfuscate] to sell it. Audio science is well understood and under the light of day it turned out to be exactly what everyone thought it was: a pretty good lossy format with a ton of ulatrasonic noise and the option for a file specific eq curve.

 

[danadam]

It wasn't until Goldensound published an audio test suite to Tidal as music many years later that we got actual analysis. My favorite finding of that is there was a special bit in the file format solely to light up the "MQA" light on compatible equipment, independent of the bitrate or quality of the file.

That was known long before Goldensound test.

 

[antcollinet]

Lets consider this for just a moment, Dolby turns out more sound reproduction formats in order to 'enhance' the experience. Each new format requires more upgrades for the consumer. I have $2000. dollars for a sound system, should I spend it on 7 or 9.1 speakers on the budget of the month system or spend the same on 3-4 piece stereo? I see big money swaying all the markets, why wouldn't I question the hate campaign generated for a competing format regarding mqa?

All the dolby formats have offered an improvment in performance. MQA does not.

if you tell yourself if it measures the same

It's not a case of measuring the same. The sampling theorem demonstrates Mathematically that PCM can perfectly represent any signal band limited to half the sample rate - with quantisation noise - at 24 bits, being 30 times lower than any human ear can detect (And incidentally - lower than any analogue electronics currently achieves in mainstream DACs - including MQA compliant DACs)

How can MQA possibly do any better than that?

If you are perceiving a difference when listening to the same recording/master then it can only come from perceptive bias, or lack of controls such as sufficiently accurate level matching.

 

[Mnyb]

Lets consider this for just a moment, Dolby turns out more sound reproduction formats in order to 'enhance' the experience. Each new format requires more upgrades for the consumer. I have $2000. dollars for a sound system, should I spend it on 7 or 9.1 speakers on the budget of the month system or spend the same on 3-4 piece stereo? I see big money swaying all the markets, why wouldn't I question the hate campaign generated for a competing format regarding mqa?

because dolby's formats actually acomplish something and does something , usefull or not you decide and buy .

MQA in the best of worlds do nothing, in reality sometimes makes things a tiny bit worse ,but maybe not audible in most cases .

The game was to have a proprietary format and license scheme to make money , but they forgot that some usefulnes of the the format is good for the customers to bite .
IE i have no problem that some license money goes to dolby when i buy an AVR because i get cinema sound at home .

But MQA i get the same as i ever had , but now i have to pay more ?

Note that it's notoriously difficult to compare streaming services and their masters . The MQA version may very well be another master and that's why it's sounds different not because of MQA per se . So that some albums sounds better with MAQ does not prove that MQA does anything ?

 

[steve59]

OK, i understand all this and I don't think I ever disagreed with it. I guess I consider most marketing to be complete bs and Mnyb states the same thing I tried to say, only from his perspective. I got a little concerned when tidal started moving all the 44.1 releases to mqa for the same reasons, I don't want the master recordings to be preserved by a lossy format (even though standard 16/44 is lossy) like mqa when it made no audible distinction in standard resolution. As we're all aware the folk pushing the format promised perfect sound forever. I'm not championing mqa so much as defending peoples choices. I keep coming back trying to basically say the same thing in different ways to explain my position, but that's it. I don't want redbook or flac to go away so much, but if there's more research that created more consistent recordings be it recording standards or formats I see that as a good thing.

No, 16-bit/44.1 kHz audio (standard CD quality) does not literally store "all the bits" of the original, continuous analog music signal, as digital conversion inherently involves some data transformation and limitations. However, it is designed to store all the bits necessary to reproduce the full range of sound audible to the human ear.


Are there any old farts like me on this thread? remember how flat and lifeless those original cd's were? I'm kicking a dead horse anyhow and need to go to work.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

If you are perceiving a difference when listening to the same recording/master then it can only come from perceptive bias, or lack of controls such as sufficiently accurate level matching.

So much this

@steve59 : you talk about "trusting your ears," but unless you're testing under blind, controlled conditions, you're not doing so. That's the only way to judge solely by your hearing. Although to be truly frank, as a self-described "old fart," your hearing isn't good enough for any of these distinctions to be perceptible anyway.

 

[EJ3]

So much this

@steve59 : you talk about "trusting your ears," but unless you're testing under blind, controlled conditions, you're not doing so. That's the only way to judge solely by your hearing. Although to be truly frank, as a self-described "old fart," your hearing isn't good enough for any of these distinctions to be perceptible anyway.

The point is, I think: Why pay for licensing that is not necesary (and has been proven to be just a scam). It doesn't matter if one has good hearing or not. It's being forced by manufaturers who buy into the BS to be giving money to the scammer's, that's the issue.
If it was an option, fine.
Of course, there is the option to buy something else, that doesn't have MQA. But to have to buy it when you are not going to use it (the lisencing fee adds cost to the product whether you use MQA discs or not). And MQA tries to weasal it's way into products so that it's like Dolby (except that Dolby actually gives you meaningful benefits [and you can turn them off] for the licensing fees). Or buy stuff without Dolby.
Anyway: enjoy & do what you want.
Personally, I try not to support those that I deem to be scammers.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

It doesn't matter if one has good hearing or not.

well of course. as I wrote earlier in the thread, MQA is pure snake oil.

 

[antcollinet]

Are there any old farts like me on this thread?

How old? Probably.

remember how flat and lifeless those original cd's were?

No - they sounded great.

(even though standard 16/44 is lossy)

No, it isn't.

No, 16-bit/44.1 kHz audio (standard CD quality) does not literally store "all the bits" of the original, continuous analog music signal

No "bits" in analogue music. What 16bit /44.1 khz audio does is store *everything* in the analogue signal that is below 22.05kHz (With some roll off above 20khz due to imperfect filters). Ie everything we can hear.

But why have you suddenly brought redbook into the discussion - if we are comparing against MQA - that is not limited to 44.1 or 16bits - so why limit the comparison to 16/44.1PCM - when PCM can go up to 32/768 even in consumer DACs - far far more then needed to store all relevant information in any analogue master tape ever produced. In fact 16/96 will happily outperform any magnetic tape. And as far as i've been able to find, studio master tapes didn't much (if at all) exceed 20Khz in bandwidth - so even 16/44.1 is capable of capturing all the information on these.

 

[MarkHH]

Let’s not forget that some of the first and second generation CD players had a 14-, not 16-bit DAC.

 

[Ropeburn]

MQA was never about the actual mastering process. I don't know of any studio that used MQA and changed its mastering process or replaced its equipment.
How else could they have brought all those old recordings up to the highest MQA standard?

In fact, the original plan was to sell overpriced studio hardware, but that met with considerable resistance.

Of course they didn't. Because studio technicians and sound engineers are generally reasonable, logical people who know the simple fact that no codec, no matter how supposedly/claimed or factually "superior" it is to any other, can be any better than the original master recording/render. That's simple logic.

You render your production in 24/96 PCM for example, and that's as good as it gets, for all practical purposes including and especially regarding the end goal, that is human hearing and enjoyment. Even if you properly convert it to 16/44, it's still better than the average human ear. There is no way some magical new codec can possibly improve on that.

I'll make a bold claim and say that when actual release formats are concerned, everything above 24/96 PCM is complete bullshit and entirely unnecessary, and literally nobody can hear it. Not one single person on this planet - or at least no human person.

That's why I despise the whole MQA thing. Not just because the claims were false, misleading, and fraudulent to begin with, but because it's factually, logically, physically utterly useless. It's literally an invention nobody asked for and nobody needs.

 

[EJ3]

Let’s not forget that some of the first and second generation CD players had a 14-, not 16-bit DAC.

That is not the CD's fault though.
Pull the CD out of that 14 bit unit & put it in a better 16 bit unit & it will play great.

 

[antcollinet]

I'll make a bold claim

It's really not that bold. We are not bats - we don't need music with greater than 20khz in it - let alone the 48kHz that 96kHz sampling provides.

 

[antcollinet]

That is not the CD's fault though.
Pull the CD out of that 14 bit unit & put it in a better 16 bit unit & it will play great.

Plus I'm pretty confident that most people won't hear the difference between 16 and 14 bits in their normal listening environment. It only raises the inherent noise floor to -84dB rather than -96dB

 

[EJ3]

It's really not that bold. We are not bats - we don't need music with greater than 20khz in it - let alone the 48kHz that 96kHz sampling provides.

Unfortunately there are those that always think more is better, even when it has been extensively documented: No, not really.