MQA is Vaporware

[Pure Vinyl Club]

23 minutes ago, mansr said:

What ADC do you have? It needs to support 192 kHz, 24-bit or better to be useful for this test.

 

Antelope Audio Pure2 + 10M Atomic Clock.
24/192...

[james45974]

4 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

Michael Ritter thinks there may be more to get out of MQA theoretically and it may be true or he may be trying to justify man hours spent that may be unproductive since MQA is not taking off the way he thought. I tend to believe the latter since he said he supported MQA because there is nothing else on the horizon. And he was not happy to hear about the possibility of a generic standard that would make the time and effort Berkeley Audio Design put into MQA worthless.

 I would think that Berkeley would not be the only company to regret the time they put into MQA if a "generic standard"  becomes available!

[FredericV]

1 hour ago, Pure Vinyl Club said:

 

Hi, FredericV. 

How could you play on Antelope Zodiac Platinum (which is not MQA) native MQA files?
Please explain in more detail the whole process of listening ...

The zodiac platinum will accept 24 bit in any samplerate up to 384K, so those decimated MQA files which are typically 24/44.1 or 24/48 will just play, but with a higher noise floor as 9 bits contain the control data and secret DRM encrypted MQA non-nyquist data, which a normal dac will play as noise. When using sox based resampling, the difference between the original DXD master (in case of 2L.no) and upsampled MQA using nothing more than the 24/44.1 or 24/48 files and no licensed decoder, becomes so small it cannot be distinguished under blind testing, even on the most expensive sets. Most are guessing or can't tell them apart. In the test we did on the show, nobody could even numerate any difference between both.

Anyone can peer review the test:
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/07/kih-46-mqas-missing-link/

[psjug]

17 hours ago, mansr said:

Nobody knows.

 

17 hours ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

I have read some of the references - but what is the 10x figure related to air, mean - why is it important ?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

 

Because air attenuates ultrasonic frequencies transmitted >3m.  So a terrible problem (sarcasm).  See Page4 here

http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20171005/17501.pdf

[mansr]

7 minutes ago, psjug said:

Because air attenuates ultrasonic frequencies transmitted >3m.  So a terrible problem (sarcasm).  See Page4 here

http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20171005/17501.pdf

Here's some more comprehensive information about sound in air (and other substances): http://www.kayelaby.npl.co.uk/general_physics/2_4/2_4_1.html

[FredericV]

41 minutes ago, psjug said:

 

 

Because air attenuates ultrasonic frequencies transmitted >3m.  So a terrible problem (sarcasm).  See Page4 here

http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20171005/17501.pdf

So this means in a 1000 seat concert hall like de Singel in Antwerp
 

most of the ultrasonics are gone, because of the distance:

 

I was in the 7th row and at least more than 10m from the choir.

Video done with Nikon D750 and no tripod (I was to make photo's but it was so impressive I started recording):

My colleague Kommer Kleijn made me aware of the above curves, and that this is an actual problem in PA design. It's even more a problem outdoor, with changing weather conditions, temperature, humidity ....

I made recordings of this hall, and indeed, the highest frequencies are severely attenuated. The unamplified sound of the choir is also much better than the artist K''s Choice playing via the PA. Furthermore this hall also has reflector panels, making the traveled distance of sound even longer, which is mixed with the directional sound.

For those listeners in the rear rows of the hall, all the ultrasonics are gone. Sarcasm indeed.

[Pure Vinyl Club]

13 hours ago, FredericV said:

Anyone can peer review the test:
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/07/kih-46-mqas-missing-link/

 

Thanks for the comment.
If you so praise the Metrum Adagio, then why did not you use it on the demonstration, but Zodiac Platinum (delta-sigma ...)?

[FredericV]

1 minute ago, Pure Vinyl Club said:

 

Thanks for the comment.
If you so praise the Metrum Adagio, then why did not you use it on the demonstration, but Zodiac Platinum (delta-sigma ...)?

 

politics

[mansr]

17 hours ago, Pure Vinyl Club said:

I can try. I think that there is such an opportunity.

Test files are here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/clouddrive/share/6zeeXXiiwDki6dqkt0y9jeJzSG9r5DZ8RNiq6EKdR6P

The README file says what's what.

 

It is likely that the filter setting is ignored when an original sample rate of 96 kHz is indicated, so you need only record two or three of those.

 

Please also record some silence so we can get a baseline noise profile of your system.

 

The test files are all 1 minute long, but you don't need to record more than a few seconds for the impulse response test. The dither test is easier to analyse if the recording at least 10 seconds, preferably 20, but there are only four of those.

 

Thanks for your help with this.

[lucretius]

15 hours ago, FredericV said:

The zodiac platinum will accept 24 bit in any samplerate up to 384K, so those decimated MQA files which are typically 24/44.1 or 24/48 will just play, but with a higher noise floor as 9 bits contain the control data and secret DRM encrypted MQA non-nyquist data, which a normal dac will play as noise. When using sox based resampling, the difference between the original DXD master (in case of 2L.no) and upsampled MQA using nothing more than the 24/44.1 or 24/48 files and no licensed decoder, becomes so small it cannot be distinguished under blind testing, even on the most expensive sets. Most are guessing or can't tell them apart. In the test we did on the show, nobody could even numerate any difference between both.

Anyone can peer review the test:
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/07/kih-46-mqas-missing-link/

 

 

So a MQA file played without a decoder cannot be distinguished under blind testing from the original DXD master. I fail to see how that is "very bad for MQA".

 

 

[FredericV]

7 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

 

So a MQA file played without a decoder cannot be distinguished under blind testing from the original DXD master. I fail to see how that is "very bad for MQA".

 

 

 

Only on the condition of using minimum phase upsampling, which so far hqplayer, 432 EVO and Auralic have implemented in their products. There may be other as well, I open sourced our findings, so any dev can use it in their product.

So it's still bad, as most don't have this resampler. It's also bad because MQA has DRM and deliberate crippling features in the patent so that the above can be sabotaged in the future without MQA decoder, and the file size increments compared to real nyquist data compressed as flac.

[lucretius]

2 minutes ago, FredericV said:

 

Only on the condition of using minimum phase upsampling, which so far hqplayer, 432 EVO and Auralic have implemented in their products. There may be other as well, I open sourced our findings, so any dev can use it in their product.

So it's still bad, as most don't have this resampler. It's also bad because MQA has DRM and deliberate crippling features in the patent so that the above can be sabotaged in the future without MQA decoder, and the file size increments compared to real nyquist data compressed as flac.

Thanks for the explanation.

[Fokus]

2 hours ago, FredericV said:

So this means in a 1000 seat concert hall like de Singel in Antwerp

 

I made recordings of this hall, and indeed, the highest frequencies are severely attenuated.

 

When I was 16 I spent days at the mixing desk there ...

 

What microphones did you use? If they were omnis it is only normal that the recording sounds severely lacking in treble, so deep in the reverberant field.

[FredericV]

12 minutes ago, Fokus said:

 

When I was 16 I spent days at the mixing desk there ...

In Antwerp?
 

Quote

What microphones did you use? If they were omnis it is only normal that the recording sounds severely lacking in treble, so deep in the reverberant field.

As I did not plan to film, I used my Nikon D750 builtin stereo microphones. My wife was in the choir so decided to film handheld. Treble is actually boosted by the D750 internal microphone and needs to be attenuated by 7 to 10dB to sound acceptable on a high-end set. Did not do that for the youtube video's.

Next months there will be another choir in de Singel, will take much better kit with me.

[Shadders]

5 hours ago, psjug said:

 

 

Because air attenuates ultrasonic frequencies transmitted >3m.  So a terrible problem (sarcasm).  See Page4 here

http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20171005/17501.pdf

Hi,

Thanks. So, does this mean that they have equalised the ultrasonics such that if you are 1m away from your speakers you have a lot of ultrasonics, and if you are 3metres away from the speakers, you receive the ultrasonics as if you were 1metre away ?.

If ultrasonics are so important, then surely this will distort your perception, in that, the closer i am to the speakers, the greater the overdose of ultrasonics which would be unnatural ?

Also, if there were a guitar player (example) in the room, and i am 3 metres away from them, as is probably the case for people and the distance to their hifi speakers, then the ultrasonics would never reach me anyway (or will be significantly attenuated).

Regards,

Shadders.

[psjug]

48 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

Thanks. So, does this mean that they have equalised the ultrasonics such that if you are 1m away from your speakers you have a lot of ultrasonics, and if you are 3metres away from the speakers, you receive the ultrasonics as if you were 1metre away ?.

If ultrasonics are so important, then surely this will distort your perception, in that, the closer i am to the speakers, the greater the overdose of ultrasonics which would be unnatural ?

Also, if there were a guitar player (example) in the room, and i am 3 metres away from them, as is probably the case for people and the distance to their hifi speakers, then the ultrasonics would never reach me anyway (or will be significantly attenuated).

Regards,

Shadders.

I think (someone correct me if this is wrong) it is just some arbitrary comparison for MQA.  They say that the "blur" with MQA is similar than "blur" caused by 10m transmission through  air.  So, no they are not correcting for the ulltrasonic losses in air.

[PeterV]

7288 albums and counting.....:-)  not bad for 'vaporware'.....!...http://www.meridianunplugged.com/downloads/MQA_List.csv

[Ran]

4 minutes ago, PeterV said:

7288 albums and counting.....:-)  not bad for 'vaporware'.....!...http://www.meridianunplugged.com/downloads/MQA_List.csv

 

Thanks for the list. I will now know which albums to avoid on Tidal.

[psjug]

10 hours ago, FredericV said:

For those listeners in the rear rows of the hall, all the ultrasonics are gone. Sarcasm indeed.

 

Thanks for that.  I admire what you are doing with opening up MQA.  Point taken that I missed with the sarcastic comment.

[ShawnC]

I thought MQA was supposed to be a one container contains everything.  Many of those albums in that spreadsheet are 44, 48, 96, 192 versions of the same thing.  This makes it seem like they did a MQA version from a 44 Master (whatever that means), another from 48, 96 so on and so. Talk about trying to make a buck someday on this.

 

I could possibly see 2 Masters made from every album. One at 96 and one at 192 or any variation within the multiples/division of those numbers (which ever is the highest. 384/768).  That's is even if all those versions were made to begin with.  But I still thought it was this magic container with all versions that can be unfolded with the right software/hardware, DAC and filters.

[FredericV]

43 minutes ago, ShawnC said:

I thought MQA was supposed to be a one container contains everything.  Many of those albums in that spreadsheet are 44, 48, 96, 192 versions of the same thing.  This makes it seem like they did a MQA version from a 44 Master (whatever that means), another from 48, 96 so on and so. Talk about trying to make a buck someday on this.

There is technically no difference between the 96K and 192K versions unless they were created from different PCM files.

MQA does not contain real music content (e.g. harmonics) above 48 Khz, everything above 48 Khz nyquist is fake and contains aliasing errors.

Furthermore a renderer can be forced to upsample the first unfold to any multiple, so first unfold which has a samplerate of 88.2K or 96K (which limits the max musical content to 48 Khz) can be upsampled to 176.4, 192, 352.8, 384, ..... it's just a library call.

So I don't care about the csv list, all inflated numbers. Reduce the list to unique albums and it's still vaporware.

Tidal contains how many albums?
How many unique albums are also in MQA?

Do the math ....

 

[mansr]

1 hour ago, ShawnC said:

I thought MQA was supposed to be a one container contains everything.  Many of those albums in that spreadsheet are 44, 48, 96, 192 versions of the same thing.  This makes it seem like they did a MQA version from a 44 Master (whatever that means), another from 48, 96 so on and so. Talk about trying to make a buck someday on this.

Half the MQA tracks on Tidal are from 44/48 kHz masters.

[PeterV]

6 hours ago, Ran said:

 

Thanks for the list. I will now know which albums to avoid on Tidal.

Do not worry Ran...both MQA and the 16/44 versions are and will stay available on Tidal :-;

[Miska]

7 hours ago, FredericV said:

MQA does not contain real music content (e.g. harmonics) above 48 Khz, everything above 48 Khz nyquist is fake and contains aliasing errors.

 

It is even quite rolled off compared to brickwall 96k sampling rate PCM. Because their filters begin to roll off really early. At 48 kHz you find mostly artifacts if the source was higher than 96k rate.

[firedog]

3 hours ago, PeterV said:

Do not worry Ran...both MQA and the 16/44 versions are and will stay available on Tidal :-;

How do you know? Because Tidal or MQA or a record label said so? You have absolutely no way of saying this with any certainty. 

 

The record labels can decide tomorrow to pull all MQA or all non-MQA from Tidal. Tidal has no right to stream anything without agreement from the rights owner. Any agreement they have with a label is only good for the period of the agreement, and beyond that who knows what other "out" clauses are written into the agreements? 

I'm pretty certain you don't.