Now we know why Amir is pro-MQA

[Wombat]

The audio industry is in a similar position to some other mature industries in trying to figure out ways to maintain sales and product churn of a mature technology which effectively plateaued years ago. Actually in some respects it has gone down hill in terms of mastering. My CD player in a mid 90's Sony ES model and until it dies I have no reason to replace it as it still cuts the mustard sonically. Despite all the interest in DACs, if we look beyond measured performance I think the audible performance of DACs passed a point of diminishing returns years ago. Any PC or tablet can be used as a genuine hi-fi source and despite efforts to convince us other wise I firmly believe the RBCD standard is as good as anybody needs. But the industry can't really say that the gears they sold us years ago is as good as we need and that high-res is a waste of time when their whole commercial existence requires us to believe otherwise hence the efforts to convince us that things like high-res and MQA are some sort of big improvement.
My own opinion is that for the record labels they might be better off offering de-crapified re-masters of their back catalogues that they completely screwed up with digital re-mastering. I have zero interest in MQA or other high-res formats per se but what I would be very interested in is being able to buy high dynamic range re-masters of a lot of the stuff which has been rendred as crap in order to play well on BT speakers and car stereos. One of the ironies of the audio industry is that as the hardware reached technical perfection (almost) the software took a nose dive.

Bravo.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I only had time to quickly skim the report so I know I missed detail. When you say discern it from PCM do you mean it was though better on PCM? The test was looking for one parameter, clarity. Was there better clarity on these particular tracks with MQA or PCM?

Ah yeh, should have explained. The subjects were only rating the stimuli on clarity, yes. But with some recordings their preferences indicated that they were able to reliably discern between the PCM original and the MQA conversion. This implies that there was an audible difference between the two under these conditions, which in turn implies that the MQA conversion was not transparent.

 

[March Audio]

Can you get better clarity than the original?

Isn't one of the tricks of MQA "deblurring" the a to d?

 

[andreasmaaan]

Isn't one of the tricks of MQA "deblurring" the a to d?

Ok yes, that could be a factor. Notwithstanding that in all known tests of MQA files evidence of this (to my knowledge) has never been found, nor to mention that there is no “blur” problem with PCM in the first place.

In my humble and non-expert opinion ofc...

 

[Cosmik]

Isn't one of the tricks of MQA "deblurring" the a to d?

Yes, it also clarifies, de-granulates, re-defines, freshly delineates, and copiously restores the original intentions of the performers.

 

[JJB70]

It lifts the veil and puts you in the first row.

 

[svart-hvitt]

Yes, it also clarifies, de-granulates, re-defines, freshly delineates, and copiously restores the original intentions of the performers.

That’s what social scientists (i.e. economists, cfr. Mankiw textbook) call «magic».

MQA works its magic as if an invisible hand...

 

[March Audio]

Yes, it also clarifies, de-granulates, re-defines, freshly delineates, and copiously restores the original intentions of the performers.

Hehe it makes your skin younger and your breasts perkier too

 

[mansr]

Yes, it also clarifies, de-granulates, re-defines, freshly delineates, and copiously restores the original intentions of the performers.

In one track I examined, the MQA treatment had miraculously restored 8 seconds that had been edited out in the CD release.

 

[mansr]

I only had time to quickly skim the report so I know I missed detail. When you say discern it from PCM do you mean it was though better on PCM? The test was looking for one parameter, clarity. Was there better clarity on these particular tracks with MQA or PCM?

The study was, IMO, badly framed. Before doing anything else, they should have tested for a discernible difference with no further qualifiers. Clarity is such a vaguely defined term that we can't really know what the test subjects were listening for, or if they were even assessing the same thing. Only once a difference has been established is it meaningful to start evaluating its nature or discussing preference.

 

[amirm]

The study was, IMO, badly framed. Before doing anything else, they should have tested for a discernible difference with no further qualifiers. Clarity is such a vaguely defined term that we can't really know what the test subjects were listening for, or if they were even assessing the same thing. Only once a difference has been established is it meaningful to start evaluating its nature or discussing preference.

Agree. I was looking forward to the study but when I read it, it was a big letdown. McGill university should know better.

 

[Krunok]

My own opinion is that for the record labels they might be better off offering de-crapified re-masters of their back catalogues that they completely screwed up with digital re-mastering.

Unfortunately I don't think that's gonna happen.

One of the ironies of the audio industry is that as the hardware reached technical perfection (almost) the software took a nose dive.

Except for the speakers/headphones. IMHO there's still significant room for improvements there.

 

[LF78]

Personally I would like to understand what do MQA proponents mean exactly with "time-domain optimized format", vs. PCM that they label as a "frequency-domain optimized format". We all know from any signal processing class that time and frequency/phase are just different views of the same signal.

Are they simply referring to linear phase vs. minimum phase reconstruction filters? In this case also with PCM you can use minimum phase/slow roll-off filters if you wish, but actually ringing/time-domain accuracy is worst than a good old linear phase brickwall.

Also it was measured and demonstrated that an hardware decoded MQA file is pretty equivalent (up to 48kHz) to a PCM 352 KHz/24 bit. Cool, but the same is also true for (obviously) a lossless FLAC 96 KHz/24 bit, and probably even for a lossy OPUS of a comparable size of the MQA file.

It would be interesting to measure the same file across modern codecs/formats, together with MQA.

 

[Soniclife]

Can you get better clarity than the original?

You probably can if you have can produce a narrow definition of what clarity means, and that definition isn't, sounds exactly like the original. If you push up the midrange it might seem to have better clarity, and I'm sure there are loads of tools in a DAW that claim to improve clarity. All of this would be considered mastering tweaks, nothing to do with mqa, but as mqa is another master it could be done.

 

[Sal1950]

Can you get better clarity than the original?

You probably can if you have can produce a narrow definition of what clarity means, and that definition isn't, sounds exactly like the original. .

Yep, if we use a subjective impression of "clarity" there are a number of freqency response and other waveform modifications that can be used to phool the ear into beleiving the detail of the recording has been improved.

 

[JJB70]

Hehe it makes your skin younger and your breasts perkier too

I've just bought some MQA downloads for the wife.

 

[March Audio]

The study was, IMO, badly framed. Before doing anything else, they should have tested for a discernible difference with no further qualifiers. Clarity is such a vaguely defined term that we can't really know what the test subjects were listening for, or if they were even assessing the same thing. Only once a difference has been established is it meaningful to start evaluating its nature or discussing preference.

I'm not sure I quite agree with you there. I don't think the terms of reference were particularly nebulous. I may be wrong but I don't think many would have much trouble interpreting the guidence provided;

To aid casual listeners who may not have been familiar with the term “clarity”, a guide was provided referencing the EBU definition for “Transparency”, stating: “All details of a performance can be clearly perceived; the opposite of ‘muddy’; the subjective impression that all details of the performance can be clearly perceived

I think from the lack of clear or difinitive conclusions drawn from the data its obvious that MQA is doing nothing significant or useful

 

[JJB70]

Unfortunately I don't think that's gonna happen.



Except for the speakers/headphones. IMHO there's still significant room for improvements there.

Sadly I suspect you're right, in this case I think the market has spoken and most consumers are happy with the sort of crappy re-masters that are the norm. I do wonder if some people might re-consider if they were able to listen to really good masters on a half decent set up (I don't mean an audiphools wet dream set up, but just a decent well set up entry level amp and decent speakers of the sort that most people could easily afford). To me the quality of the recording and mastering makes a far bigger difference than hardware.

 

[Krunok]

To me the quality of the recording and mastering makes a far bigger difference than hardware.

I fully agree with you. That kind of difference I can again compare only with significant upgrade in speakers quality. But quality jump in the recording and mastering can make bigger difference than that as well.

 

[The Dragon]

Ah but there was a problem, how was the recording industry going to get bit perfect files of the original master recordings out of the hands of Joe Citizen? Discussion of conventional DRM, copying, etc had blown up in the past, so what to do. OH WAIT, I know, let's come up with a new proprietary file system that can be sold on the basis of claimed improved SQ and reduced file size. Over time we can encode even CD's and HD downloads and ultimately only give the consumer something less than the gold standard of audio. All the while with everyone making money on selling new software, hardware, and all those golden oldies in the vault one more time.
WOO HOO, we're gonna screw them and they'll pay us for the privilege.

Exactly! This is what our "friends" in the consumer audio business think of us. We have "bought" into so much other pseudoscience, marketing hype, and outright nonsense, they think they can fool us again with MQA. But, we turned out to be smarter than that. Now, the only way they can make us pay them is to get the music production business involved and encode (encrypt) on the front end. The eventual goal is to have ALL newly produced music encrypted with MQA. This gives the music companies the DRM control they have been wanting, and Bob Stuart (and MQA stockholders) get a royalty off of all music produced (or remastered) with MQA. The MQA encryption of CDs has already begun. The non-audiophile, non-technical music consumer will believe the marketing hype and "believe" they are hearing some kind of miracle sound when they are actually helping to pay for Stuart's car collection and vacation homes. Personally, I will not support any product or music associated with MQA. It's one thing to implement DRM and be honest about it. But, honesty is in short supply these days.

Happy Holidays!