Don Hills

Probably in the "MQA Technical Analysis" thread. I think it was done by user mansr. Now do your own homework. On the deblurring topic, Jud summed it up well thusly: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/page/470/?tab=comments#comment-936690

I'm assuming your PC is part of your audio chain. A well designed LPS will likely generate less noise than a SMPS, and do a better job of blocking noise both incoming and outgoing (from/to mains). It won't help much with noise generated in the PC itself, there are several other SMPS units built into the motherboard to convert the 12 volts to 5v, 3.3v, 1.8v etc for the various circuits.

Sometimes they sound just as good at 33 as they do at 45... Jolene at 33

But do it politely, there's no sense in stooping to their level. Like wrestling with a pig... Packing out the room with a "silent protest" audience would indeed be an effective statement.

1 ohm resistor? Shurely shome mishtake... ☺️ (dBm takes into account the source/load resistance, dBu / dBV doesn't.)

There's more to it than that. In many cases, trying to make a track "radio friendly" can make it sound worse on the radio. For many years radio stations have used specialised compressors / processors in the feed to the transmitter. Their job is to multi-band compress, de-ess and phase rotate to maximise the on-air loudness. Traditionally, they were designed to work best with uncompressed sources. With the rise of hypercompressed sources, the on-air sound quickly became unlistenable. Modern iterations of the processors now try to reduce the adverse effects of hypercompressed material. Hypercompression arose for several reasons: - Artists saying "Make my CD as loud / louder than the competition." - As an artistic effect (such as Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Californication".) - When a track was auditioned for including on a station's playlist, louder tracks stood out more. Here's a piece about broadcast processing, written at the height of the loudness wars: What Happens to My Recording When it’s Played on the Radio?

Hmmm... released in 2014. http://www.standard-audio.com/stretch.html https://www.musictech.net/reviews/standard-audio-stretch-review/ John: Regarding your thoughts on where in the chain it would be done, my comments still stand - it wouldn't be done outside of the mixing / mastering studio. It's all digital from that point on and I don't see any label / distributor spending the time=money to do a real-time process. It was invariably quality checked too, a copy of the pressed CD was compared against what was mastered. There's no place in the workflow for a label or distributor to make post-production changes. Edit: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/bright-idea https://www.audiothing.net/blog/the-dolby-a-trick/

Thanks, John. Even assuming that someone did build a compressor using cascaded Dolby A encoders, it can't be in common use. If it was as widely used as you believe, they would be ubiquitous - found in almost every studio. A secret that big could not be kept. And because they would be analogue and work in real time, they would be time-expensive to use, especially when working from digital masters. Knowing what you do about the processes involved, how would you go about building / coding such a FA encoder? Returning to the non-flat response at high levels, can you clarify for me? Is it due to EQ applied at each stage so that the processing works correctly, or is it an overall static EQ? If static, can it be adjusted flat using command line parameters, or would I need to apply external EQ? We really need more examples for comparison - masters before FA processing versus the released CDs. I understand why they are hard to come by.

John, It does appear from Klaus' measurements that the decoder frequency response is not flat, at least at high levels where the decoder isn't applying dynamic gain or EQ changes. Assuming that the non-flat response is deliberate, what might be your reasoning behind it? For example, might the response be to correct perceived response changes applied by the original "FeralA" processing?

Has anyone played any of the tracks? Are they blue light or green light?

Agreed. I remember her original audition for HGT. I feel these shows perform a useful service as well as entertainment, as they unearth innate talent that might otherwise be lost to the world.

It's possible to get quite good audio quality in a car. It's a well damped environment, particularly free from bass resonances. A good install can sound as good as a good pair of headphones. The problems start when the car is moving. This is where DSP technology is playing an increasing part. As well as the traditional EQ and stereo image shift, it is increasingly used for active noise cancellation and adaptive (speed / noise level) EQ etc. Granted, it'll never be "audiophile" but if you're listening critically, you're not paying attention to your driving...

I was surprised to see that listed as a positive attribute. ☺️

It's hard to get "LPS" (conventional iron) transformers for halogen lights now. All the modern ones are SMPS, and can be noisier than CFL/LED SMPS due to the higher currents involved. They're also designed for purely resistive loads, so aren't suitable for 12 volt LED strings etc. In any case, CFLs are on their way out thanks to improvements in LED lamps. Many LED lamps use capacitive droppers and have switching noise levels comparable to a classic LPS. The best ones still use SMPS, but the lower currents usually mean less noise.

The decoder looks for a particular bit sequence that marks the beginning of a series. The series repeats at regular intervals. Editing a section out of an MQA file only breaks one instance of the series.