Another major look at MQA by another pro.

[soxr]

13 minutes ago, Fokus said:

 

What?

 

You take undecoded MQA and upsample it with a MP filter. That's not 'handling MQA files'.

 

 

Yes it is.

Let's use MQA's own "speak" to explain:
 

Even though some musical instruments produce sounds 
above 20 kHz [53] it does not necessarily follow that a 
transparent  system  needs  to  reproduce  them;  what 
matters is whether or not the means used to reduce the 
bandwidth can be detected by the human listener. 

Page 6: http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20170726/17501.pdf

If you can't tell apart the real studiomaster lossless file (e.g. DXD = what the studio engineer works on) from minimum phase upsampled MQA back to DXD, than this system is transparant. We tried this with several listeners on a very high-end system, and nobody could, or they were guessing and in doubt.

If insure, do a blind test (e.g. via foobar).  This will eliminate any confirmation bias.

The method used is in my first post here, anyone can do it. Please post your objective foobar blind test result as proof.

[Fokus]

23 minutes ago, soxr said:

 

Yes it is.

 

 

 

How does it then differ from handling non-MQA files?

 

You are just trying to direct attention to your own products.

How some people feel undecoded-MP-upsampled MQA sounds when compared to the (alleged) DXD master is not very relevant, and is not relevant at all when discussing MQA, because your 'method' does not employ anything that is specific to MQA.

 

[soxr]

31 minutes ago, Fokus said:

 

How does it then differ from handling non-MQA files?

 

You are just trying to direct attention to your own products.

I did not post my company here.

So you are mistaken. PeterV is actually making free publicity for our company by posting a direct hint to our DSP.

We want to give back our findings to the open source community.
The OSS world is not amused with MQA.

https://opensource.com/life/16/9/whats-wrong-with-mqa
 

 

Quote

How some people feel undecoded-MP-upsampled MQA sounds when compared to the (alleged) DXD master is not very relevant, and is not relevant at all when discussing MQA, because your 'method' does not employ anything that is specific to MQA.

 

 

That is your limiting belief. sox(mqa) is more honest to what the engineer heard than the werid anti-ringing filters applied in the renderer stage of MQA. This is what seriously alters the master into a new version crafted in an MQA facility (not in the studio). The good thing is that this filter is encoded as a metadata field, and can be ignored in later stages (but not ignored by a full MQA encoder).

So what does a real master engineer say about MQA's altering of the sound?

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/12548751-post460.html

 

The Sox method uses similar minimum phase upsammpling as the MQA renderer, but does not apply the weird anti-ringing filters. Sox is also a much higher quality library than the cheap MQA upsampler that needs to run on cheap MIPS devices and has limited CPU power. This was disclosed by Auralic's CEO.

Sox actually needs a real powerful cpu to do it's work in max quality.

[PeterSt]

I declare this the biggest sh*t thread of 2017.

 

Maybe the forum owner can delete this thread or move it to the shouting over at Gearslutz.

[mansr]

57 minutes ago, PeterV said:

insulting me for being a 'fanboy' being paid by MQA

If you're not paid by MQA, you are the epitome of a fanboy. If you are paid, you're a shill.

[Fokus]

33 minutes ago, soxr said:

The OSS world is not amused with MQA.

 

And rightfully so.

 

 

33 minutes ago, soxr said:

The Sox method uses similar minimum phase upsammpling as the MQA renderer, but does not apply the weird anti-ringing filters.

 

How can you use 'similar minimum phase upsampling' as the renderer, while at the same time not applying the 'weird anti-ringing filters'? The MP upsampling filters and the WARFs are the same in the renderer. Moreover, the renderer only acts on a core-decoded 2x input (ignoring for the moment the pathological case of 1x MQA), where HF signal levels are lowish and thus the output of the 'weird' filters is not that weird at all, if you follow the reasoning behind MQA.

 

You ignore the 2x to 1x folding stage. If you replay MQA with your method, starting from the 1x file, you throw away half of the signal bandwidth. How can this be a valid method for 'decoding' MQA?

 

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, Fokus said:

Moreover, the renderer only acts on a core-decoded 2x input (ignoring for the moment the pathological case of 1x MQA), where HF signal levels are lowish and thus the output of the 'weird' filters is not that weird at all, if you follow the reasoning behind MQA.

Those "pathological" 1x files make up about half the MQA tracks on Tidal.

[Fokus]

24 minutes ago, mansr said:

If you're not paid by MQA, you are the epitome of a fanboy. If you are paid, you're a shill.

 

How about a techo-challenged overenthusiastic audiophile, the kind the magazines and dealers must love to bits, because they can sell anything to them?

[Fokus]

Just now, mansr said:

Those "pathological" 1x files make up about half the MQA tracks on Tidal.

Yes. But they are not the reason MQA exists, and nor are they related to the fundamental trickery behind it.

 

It is as if the markering dept saw Craven/Stuart's ideas and then asked "how can we broaden the umbrella to include, and cash in on, 1x as well?"

 

[mansr]

14 minutes ago, Fokus said:

Yes. But they are not the reason MQA exists, and nor are they related to the fundamental trickery behind it.

 

It is as if the markering dept saw Craven/Stuart's ideas and then asked "how can we broaden the umbrella to include, and cash in on, 1x as well?"

The reason MQA exists is to put money in Bob Stuart's pocket.

[soxr]

23 minutes ago, Fokus said:

 

You ignore the 2x to 1x folding stage. If you replay MQA with your method, starting from the 1x file, you throw away half of the signal bandwidth. How can this be a valid method for 'decoding' MQA?

 

 

Please provide proof that these ultrasonics can be heard and do matter.

In the past, sox(sox(24/96 -> 16/44.1) -> 24/96) with the vsM options proved it was very hard if not impossible with DVD-A files that contained actual ultrasonic spectrum

Even MQA mentions this:

 

Quote

Even though some musical instruments produce sounds 
above 20 kHz [53] it does not necessarily follow that a 
transparent  system  needs  to  reproduce  them;  what 
matters is whether or not the means used to reduce the 
bandwidth can be detected by the human listener. 

A system can be transparant without those ultrasonics, and this comes directly from MQA's AES paper.

[The Computer Audiophile]

@PeterV and @soxr - Any more talk about exposing people's identities and you're banned from CA. It's not funny. 

 

I don't care if someone posts their home address on another site. If they don't want it here, I respect that. 

[Fokus]

1 hour ago, soxr said:

Please provide proof that these ultrasonics can be heard and do matter.

 

Allow me to be confused. You start this with a comparison to DXD, and then suddenly ultrasonics do not matter anymore.

 

1 hour ago, soxr said:

Even MQA mentions this:

 

They claim subjective transparency without actually conveying ultrasonic information (above 2x rate, below 2X they do convey it), but with the proviso that there has been no steep filtering at the 1x band edge.

 

Then you come along, take an undecoded MQA file, thus at 1x, and replay with a steep  filter and claim a similar result.

 

Oh well.

 

Ever considered this: if you play an undecoded MQA file through your Adagio it behaves as a NOS DAC (well, it is a NOS DAC) and you get the usual treble droop and imaging (and potential IMD).

If you play the MQA file through the Brooklyn and defeat MQA, yet retain the filter named 'MQA' (which is the MP filter with rather poor stop band suppression, see Stereophile measurements) you get almost as much imaging.

If you upsample with sox -vsM you get no imaging, no IMD...

 

 

[Jud]

When we get beyond the following summary, someone please wake me :

 

- MQA uses sloppy filtering frequency-wise, which allows imaging that creates IMD.  The IMD may be at audible levels, maybe not.

 

- Some people like MQA, some don't.  At least some of the liking may stem from mastering that is different, aside from anything to do with the MQA process itself.

 

(P.S. Where I've heard MQA and hi res of an album that sound like they are from the same master, I subjectively have tended to prefer the hi res slightly or more than slightly, in my system with my settings.)

[mansr]

5 minutes ago, Jud said:

When we get beyond the following summary, someone please wake me :

 

- MQA uses sloppy filtering frequency-wise, which allows imaging that creates IMD.  The IMD may be at audible levels, maybe not.

 

- Some people like MQA, some don't.  At least some of the liking may stem from mastering that is different, aside from anything to do with the MQA process itself.

 

(P.S. Where I've heard MQA and hi res of an album that sound like they are from the same master, I subjectively have tended to prefer the hi res slightly or more than slightly, in my system with my settings.)

One more point:

 

- MQA makes DSP EQ and room correction impossible.

[PeterSt]

17 minutes ago, mansr said:

- MQA makes DSP EQ and room correction impossible.

 

From PC software, yes. (edit, I meant : correct)

[The Computer Audiophile]

13 minutes ago, mansr said:

One more point:

 

- MQA makes DSP EQ and room correction impossible.

 

Without a license and working with MQA ltd.

[labjr]

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Without a license and working with MQA ltd.

Exactly what's wrong with MQA and why it should fail.

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, labjr said:

Exactly what's wrong with MQA and why it should fail.

 

I'm not defending it.

 

 

[Jud]

29 minutes ago, mansr said:

One more point:

 

- MQA makes DSP EQ and room correction impossible.

 

Not disagreeing, just wanting to know: Completely impossible under any circumstances, or possible (for some meaning of that word) if one makes no effort to work with MQA and simply does the DSP like soxr does his oversampling?

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

or possible (for some meaning of that word) if one makes no effort to work with MQA and simply does the DSP like soxr does his oversampling?

 

Jud, in the context you stipulate, impossible because the sox thing would be an even bigger hoax (assumed that MQA is one)

There. 

 

Right. I am going to downsample all my DXD, throw away the quite large files, and do the sox.

prrrrt

 

[MarkS]

On 7/20/2017 at 6:28 PM, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I agree.  This is the biggest issue that prevents me from considering MQA as anything other than a curiousity. 

 

Me 3.  DSP (with Roon) is more key to good sound than MQA, and I have heard MQA and think it improved the sound of hi res files in an a/b. 

[mansr]

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Without a license and working with MQA ltd.

Yeah, good luck with that.

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, mansr said:

Yeah, good luck with that.

I hear you. I know many people "working" with MQA now. It's moving slower than the tectonic plates. 

[ShawnC]

3 hours ago, mansr said:

One more point:

 

- MQA makes DSP EQ and room correction impossible.

Can't you take a Dragonfly or Mytech Brooklyn and run the output into a reciever/preamp and use the room correction there, like Anthem,  Audyssey (Marantz) or Dirac (Emotiva)?