Let's stick to the concrete product and not imaginary costs.
I posted a video explaining what is wrong with MQA earlier in this thread. It corrupts the signal introducing distortion in the audible band. They charged licencing fees for products to support the decoding. They were lying about MQA and they got found out. MQA is no use to anyone
Probably an atheist in the Bible belt feels the same way I do right now.
My reply was to your question specifically about the dislike towards MQA itself. Inclusion or not, only in this product, is not particularly relevant to that.
I agree. I tried to point that out as soon as someone mentioned it but it escalated.
Yes, it might be the ESS hump except that it seems too far down from full scale. The classic ESS hump used to live in the -20 do -40 dB range.Allow me to compensate as I already published elsewhere, and I guess it makes it easier to republish here.
J-Test as Amir does it (24bits/48kHz input, view 20Hz to 20kHz, linear frequency scale):
He would comment: Text book perfect, I guess
The internal clock is precise beyond requirements for audio, as I measured 1ppm.
For people missing the IMD sweeps, here are a few. First the IMD DIN and IMD AES-17 MD:
These are measurements from -60dBFS up to -2dBFS (not full scale else the two tones generate clipping). I think the IMD DIN shows what is known as "ESS IMD hump".
Next is the standard IMD SMPTE which is 60Hz and 7kHz tones (ratio 4:1). I added a "European" version of it, for fun, as I replaced the 60Hz by our 50Hz that we get from mains here:
The traces are nearly identical and they are very good.
Next is the Multitone for left and right channels, only to show the consistency with Amir's results (reassuring to know he did not get a particularly good/well selected device):
We have more than 21bits of distortion-free range (excellent).
The linearity is nailed too, the below shows 20bits:
The two traces (fundamental is blue and measured result is green) are split because at max output of the SMSL, I am at -2.34dBFS input of the Cosmos ADC that I use for the measurement. So we should find 2.34dB difference all the way from 0dBFS down to -120dBFS. And the graph shows that at -120dBFS, the deviation is only 0.24dB. So the PS200 is linear down to -120dBFS: excellent.
Below is the bandwidth at 48kHz (1 division = 0.1dB):
In addition, the two channels are perfectly matched, as you can see above (the traces overlay perfectly), which is again excellent.
And to finalize measurements, this is a view of the oversampling filter responses at 44.1kHz, 48kHz and 96kHz sampling rates (Linear frequency view up to 80kHz):
The attenuation is minimum -100dB which is good.
Overall this low cost DAC does a perfect job, I could not find any issue with it.
Ah, and I also reviewed it in the context of being used as an external DAC with a CD Player, which creates a very high-end solution for CD-A playback
Hater may be a little strong but, the whole MQA saga has largely been about deception, leaving the audiophiles with a bad taste.
MQA is a totally useless format that does nothing other than giving Meridian money they don't deserve, what's not to hate with that?
I wouldn't say this is true. Lots of snakeoil survives in this business because audiophiles buy into a whole bunch of crap.
???Allow me to compensate as I already published elsewhere, and I guess it makes it easier to republish here.
J-Test as Amir does it (24bits/48kHz input, view 20Hz to 20kHz, linear frequency scale):
He would comment: Text book perfect, I guess
The internal clock is precise beyond requirements for audio, as I measured 1ppm.
For people missing the IMD sweeps, here are a few. First the IMD DIN and IMD AES-17 MD:
These are measurements from -60dBFS up to -2dBFS (not full scale else the two tones generate clipping). I think the IMD DIN shows what is known as "ESS IMD hump".
Next is the standard IMD SMPTE which is 60Hz and 7kHz tones (ratio 4:1). I added a "European" version of it, for fun, as I replaced the 60Hz by our 50Hz that we get from mains here:
The traces are nearly identical and they are very good.
Next is the Multitone for left and right channels, only to show the consistency with Amir's results (reassuring to know he did not get a particularly good/well selected device):
We have more than 21bits of distortion-free range (excellent).
The linearity is nailed too, the below shows 20bits:
The two traces (fundamental is blue and measured result is green) are split because at max output of the SMSL, I am at -2.34dBFS input of the Cosmos ADC that I use for the measurement. So we should find 2.34dB difference all the way from 0dBFS down to -120dBFS. And the graph shows that at -120dBFS, the deviation is only 0.24dB. So the PS200 is linear down to -120dBFS: excellent.
Below is the bandwidth at 48kHz (1 division = 0.1dB):
In addition, the two channels are perfectly matched, as you can see above (the traces overlay perfectly), which is again excellent.
And to finalize measurements, this is a view of the oversampling filter responses at 44.1kHz, 48kHz and 96kHz sampling rates (Linear frequency view up to 80kHz):
The attenuation is minimum -100dB which is good.
Overall this low cost DAC does a perfect job, I could not find any issue with it.
Ah, and I also reviewed it in the context of being used as an external DAC with a CD Player, which creates a very high-end solution for CD-A playback
I did it with my old iPhone 12. I used the app "Audio Function Generator".
Watch the video I posted about it by GoldenSound and you'll see why people dislike MQA. That should end the discussion on MQA in this thread really.
I was never an MQA hater. Like you, I was actually defending it back in the day as an extra feature. However, I realized it was a threat to take over all of digital audio with a proprietary lossy DRM'd format. Now that it's defunct, I don't care. I'm just surprised Bob Stuart put his reputation on the line with it. I used to think Meridian was a leader in digital audio. Thanks to ESS and AKM we have great inexpensive DACs.
You learned.
You have been able to get the same audible result for many decades.
