A question about MQA

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Kuoppis said:
Why on earth would I get in an argument with someone, who just wants to be a smart ass?


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I’m not looking for an argument. I’m trying to understand why you have no faith in the provenance of regular PCM files and yet you have absolute faith in the provenance of MQA files. I was hoping you would share what you have learned that convinced you to have such faith in the provenance of MQA files.
 
mep said:
I’m not looking for an argument. I’m trying to understand why you have no faith in the provenance of regular PCM files and yet you have absolute faith in the provenance of MQA files. I was hoping you would share what you have learned that convinced you to have such faith in the provenance of MQA files.
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You seem to be a smart guy, why are you looking for me to educate you?

Just read a book, for god sakes.


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ok, lets get real here.

with digital we don't worry about provenance. period. bits is essentially bits. it's not like there is an early version of a source file. if we have an MQA title they would have to pay the rights and so would have access to the best source file. it costs nothing for the label/artist/rights holder to provide the best source.

the whole idea of MQA is to capture the higher rez musical nuance and package it in a lower bandwidth package and possibly improve on the source file performance for the end user while doing it. there would be no rational to start with a lower rez format. the only niggle would be a dsd source file which is very rare. it would have to be converted to PCM for MQA treatment.....again this is trivial to do.

some recordings are using MQA in the original mastering, but this is also rare at this juncture. if so, then even non MQA versions are stuck with that. or maybe there are alternate master mixes with and without. this is theoretical at this point. but with digital all this stuff is trivial to do. so it's possible.

so for conversation sake every commercial digital version starts with the same source file. it's a non issue.

if you are getting files from your buddy, or CD's that are copies......now provenance is an issue.
 
Every MQA thread ends in a bitchfest. Along the way somebody mentions provenance and blind testing. It’s all very predictable.

I don’t get it. Because it just doesn’t matter.

the whole idea of MQA is to capture the higher rez musical nuance and package it in a lower bandwidth package and possibly improve on the source file performance for the end user while doing it
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That’s it. Very simple.

I happen to be one of the people with limited internet bandwidth so MQA is a good option for me. Too bad it ended up being unreliable via Tidal. The issue is with my isp, not Tidal. So I ditched it.

When I was doing some comparisons, I found it impossible to compare versions of the same work in MQA, CD, and HiRez as I’m hearing gross variations in the various mixes in each format that eclipse any differences in the performance of the transmission and storage media itself.
 
In a way, I can understand the struggle about audio formats. Usually there is a limit in the amount people have available to invest.

If people feel they have to pick one format to bet on, they’re trying to pick the “best” one. Best as in best sound, best material, best availability, best technology, best gear, and ideally at the best price. And once they have made up their mind, they might feel locked-in, and thus compelled to defend that choice.

Then there are others who are keen to learn, and do have the means to explore more freely. It’s just another perspective, not right or wrong. PCM, DSD, MQA, vinyl, tape - anything goes.

Personal experience in the format space came through buying a Meitner DAC, and ensuing curiosity about DSD. I was interested in the format, and its advantages and limitations. After some time I however concluded, that while it is a nice format, there just was too little material available I’m interested in. Hence, one might run the risk of listening to a format, rather than enjoying music.

In general, change is psychologically uncomfortable for most people. This is, as it often pertains loss of something familiar, confusion due to lack of understanding, insecurity about own positions in light of new information, and lack of clarity about about what’s to come. Counter-reaction is resistance. This sets up a platform for opinionated people, who appear not to be interested in understanding themselves. They rather take interest in insisting someone else‘s view is wrong, based on their own limited understanding. A result are these Batman vs. Superman exchanges, which serve no purpose. A completely futile undertaking, if you ask me.

While this is just a hobby, and everyone participates in the forum based on their own free will, destructive attitudes can take much more sinister forms. Then the implications are more profound. I just love this quote from French General Charles de Gaulle: “A patriot is someone, who loves his country. A nationalist is someone, who hates the others.”

As Mike L. elaborately described, it does not help when a change appears to involve some kind of scheming or lack of open disclosure, as practiced by Bob and Meridian. But to be fair, Sony’s attempt to control the industry through SACD and DSD roughly a decade earlier was not very different. Correspondingly, the reaction was also similar.
 
Kuoppis said:
In general, change is psychologically uncomfortable for most people. This is, as it often pertains loss of something familiar, confusion due to lack of understanding, insecurity about own positions in light of new information, and lack of clarity about about what’s to come. Counter-reaction is resistance. This sets up a platform for opinionated people, who appear not to be interested in understanding themselves. They rather take interest in insisting someone else‘s view is wrong, based on their own limited understanding.
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While I agree with this very well formulated statement, it is rather funny to apply it in defense of MQA. If people were actually interested in -- technical -- understanding, they would realize that MQA is a fraud. It is precisely, quote, "limited understanding" that makes people embrace MQA. If you like the format, fine, but it's not because it is objectively better. It may do things that you find pleasing, but that doesn't mean they are correct.

I just love this quote from French General Charles de Gaulle: “A patriot is someone, who loves his country. A nationalist is someone, who hates the others.”
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Great quote indeed!
 
Kuoppis said:
Personal experience in the format space came through buying a Meitner DAC, and ensuing curiosity about DSD. I was interested in the format, and its advantages and limitations. After some time I however concluded, that while it is a nice format, there just was too little material available I’m interested in. Hence, one might run the risk of listening to a format, rather than enjoying music.
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Well said. This is precisely why I was never interested in "high res". Too little music available, especially in the less commonly explored spaces that interest me.

Fortunately, with more recent advances in digital technology, apparent limitations of the CD Redbook format that I had resigned myself to in the past disappeared, giving way to musically satisfying tonality and high resolution.
 
W9TR said:
Every MQA thread ends in a bitchfest. Along the way somebody mentions provenance and blind testing. It’s all very predictable.
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True!
And no one answered the first questions I asked when opening this thread:
Is a file FLAC 24b 96k MQAed in 96k needs a third unfold/rendering unfold? Or decoding this MQA file is enough to make it comparable to the same file labeled "HiRes" in 24b 96k?

Please don't tell me to read a book, this is supposed to be the friendliest audio forum so I come here to have information without reading a tons of stories

And again, I claim that no one can really make a difference between CD, HiRes and MQA. It is all psychological
 
skbe, I don't think you have to read a book and I think the 2nd unfold is only required for 24/192, but pamphlets on meridian ans roon's homepage that quite simply show the process.
 
steve59 said:
skbe, I don't think you have to read a book and I think the 2nd unfold is only required for 24/192, but pamphlets on meridian ans roon's homepage that quite simply show the process.
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Thanks for the info!
 
Mike Lavigne said:
ok, lets get real here.

with digital we don't worry about provenance. period. bits is essentially bits. it's not like there is an early version of a source file. if we have an MQA title they would have to pay the rights and so would have access to the best source file. it costs nothing for the label/artist/rights holder to provide the best source.

the whole idea of MQA is to capture the higher rez musical nuance and package it in a lower bandwidth package and possibly improve on the source file performance for the end user while doing it. there would be no rational to start with a lower rez format. the only niggle would be a dsd source file which is very rare. it would have to be converted to PCM for MQA treatment.....again this is trivial to do.

some recordings are using MQA in the original mastering, but this is also rare at this juncture. if so, then even non MQA versions are stuck with that. or maybe there are alternate master mixes with and without. this is theoretical at this point. but with digital all this stuff is trivial to do. so it's possible.

so for conversation sake every commercial digital version starts with the same source file. it's a non issue.

if you are getting files from your buddy, or CD's that are copies......now provenance is an issue.
Click to expand...

Mike-Can you define what a "source file" is?
 
Al M. said:
While I agree with this very well formulated statement, it is rather funny to apply it in defense of MQA. If people were actually interested in -- technical -- understanding, they would realize that MQA is a fraud. It is precisely, quote, "limited understanding" that makes people embrace MQA. If you like the format, fine, but it's not because it is objectively better. It may do things that you find pleasing, but that doesn't mean they are correct.



Great quote indeed!
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Al, thank you for taking the time to respond.

The question arising in this thread is, how many people on the forum do actually have the technical proficiency to discuss coding differences between MPEG1 layer 3, pulse-code division, direct stream digital or master quality authentication? My guess would be very few.

Pulse-code modulation is a compression mechanism, filed for patent in the US in 1946 and 1952. The patent was granted a few years later. NHK developed the first PCM recording device in 1967. Please note, that was before the moon landing. From today’s perspective it would be a bit strange to believe the world has not evolved ever since.

From a technical perspective, pulse-code modulation simply could not handle today’s communications requirements. It’s just too inefficient. That’s why it was superseded in professional application by time-division modulation, code-division modulation, and wideband code-division modulation after that. And the next future is already on the horizon with millimeter wave-division.

Technical evolution typically occurs when a new method is developed to overcome insufficiencies of an old one. Sometimes the new method is successful, and completely overcomes limitations of the old one. In other cases it resolves one challenge, while introducing a new one in the process. This is what happened with DSD.

DSD was successful in improving fidelity of the signal by multiplying modulation frequency. But unfortunately that increased signal bandwidth to an extent, that it rendered DSD unusable for many use cases. Enter MQA. It addresses the bandwidth issue applying a partly similar logic as DSD by working in the inaudible signal band, while also adjusting amplitude and phase distortions (as e.g. introduced by R2R recording machines).

So, is MQA the final solution and the bees-knees for all things audio? Probably not. It‘s just another evolutionary step in an ongoing process. Is it a fraud as you say? According to former Stereophile Editor and recording engineer John Atkinson, and TAS Editor Robert Harley it’s not. You pick what you want to believe.


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mep said:
Mike-Can you define what a "source file" is?
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The source file is the original from which copies are made.

As you are also an analog aficionado, for vinyl that would be the master tape used to produce the vinyl stampers.

With every media, independent of whether digital or analog, copying always deteriorates the quality.


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mep said:
Mike-Can you define what a "source file" is?
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it's analogous to a master tape. the master tape is the end product of assembling the tape work parts that the artist and label approve for distribution. the source file is the end product of the underlying digital recording files, assembled by the recording/mixing engineer. with digital, all the work part manipulation can occur at the recording resolution to maintain optimum fidelity in the source file. the standard for most source files these days is 24/96. some others at 24/192, 24/176, 24/88, 24/48, and 24/44. a few outliers at 24/352, or dsd at some multiple, and a few at 16/44.

many/most of today's recordings can be found somewhere at higher rez than 16/44, and those are many times the source file......but not always. it's a crap shoot whether you can track down the information. but you can know that there is no reason any commercial access of the recording was NOT sourced from that source file. HD Tracks mostly offers files at 24/88 to keep file size reasonable for ease of transfer. you can go to a number of sites and get 4xdsd, or 352/24 files. some are native 4xdsd, but most are native 24/352. Reference Recordings uses 24/176 as their source files and you can download their source files from their website. Acoustic Sounds has thousands of source files for download. you can email them and ask about this issue.

on Quboz you see all sorts of pure source file hirez streaming; and i have many of the same hirez files on my server.
 
Mike Lavigne said:
ok, lets get real here.

with digital we don't worry about provenance. period. bits is essentially bits. it's not like there is an early version of a source file. if we have an MQA title they would have to pay the rights and so would have access to the best source file. it costs nothing for the label/artist/rights holder to provide the best source.

the whole idea of MQA is to capture the higher rez musical nuance and package it in a lower bandwidth package and possibly improve on the source file performance for the end user while doing it. there would be no rational to start with a lower rez format. the only niggle would be a dsd source file which is very rare. it would have to be converted to PCM for MQA treatment.....again this is trivial to do.

some recordings are using MQA in the original mastering, but this is also rare at this juncture. if so, then even non MQA versions are stuck with that. or maybe there are alternate master mixes with and without. this is theoretical at this point. but with digital all this stuff is trivial to do. so it's possible.

so for conversation sake every commercial digital version starts with the same source file. it's a non issue.

if you are getting files from your buddy, or CD's that are copies......now provenance is an issue.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your definition Mike. "Every commercial digital version starts with the same source" can only be true if each of the digital offerings at different bit depths and sampling rates were remastered from the original master tapes if they were originally recorded in analog. You would need to create 16/44.1, 24/48, 24/88, 24/176.4, and 24/192 etc. source files from the master tape. For all pure digital recordings, you are stuck with the bit depth and sampling rate of the original recording. For example, if the source file is 16/44.1, you can't turn it into a 24/192 file without upsampling. My point here is that every commercial digital version can't start with the same source file unless every version above the native bit depth and sampling rate of the source file is upsampled.

And when you say "It's not like there is an early version of a source file" that would be incorrect. When CDs were first introduced into the market place, the source files were mastered in 16/44.1 from the analog master tapes. Do you think those source files still aren't being used? There are lots of 16/44.1 files on Tidal and Quobuz and I wouldn't be confident to state that none of them came from the original 16/44.1 files paid for by the record labels and everyone of them has been remastered.

I also am not buying your statement that "with digital we don't worry about provenance. period." I don't know who "we is," but I do think provenance is always an issue in both analog and digital recordings. Just as some LPs try to hide the fact they were sourced from a digital file, we should also be curious as to what the source was for a given digital file.
 
Kuoppis said:
The source file is the original from which copies are made.

As you are also an analog aficionado, for vinyl that would be the master tape used to produce the vinyl stampers.

With every media, independent of whether digital or analog, copying always deteriorates the quality.


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Thanks. I know what my definition for a source file is, but I wanted Mike to explain what his definition is because I didn't agree with the statements he was making.
 
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