Can MQA encoded CDs be ripped?

[daverich4]

In the current issue of Stereophile, Herb Reichert has a review of the Mytek Manhattan II DAC. Part way through the review he asks the question, "if you were contemplating the purchase of a new DAC, why would you not want it to include MQA processing?" My first response to that is the same as when a DAC has a headphone jack. Because I don't want to pay for something I have no use for. I don't stream Tidal so it just doesn't come up. However, Herb mentioned something else that it occurred to me I don't know the answer to. In the review he talks about an MQA encoded CD. Although I have a Sony SCD-777ES SACD player in my equipment rack, it's been years since I've used it. I also have boxes and boxes of CDs that have been in a disk player exactly once, when they were ripped. My question is, can an MQA encoded CD be ripped and still retain all of the MQA information? If you can, would it be possible to use any software (I use JRiver Media Center and Roon) to send the files to an MQA enabled DAC and have it work? Herb didn't say what CD player he was using but I'm not aware of any special "MQA enabled" CD players so I'm guessing the MQA digital stream itself isn't encoded in some special way? 

[lucretius]

A good question. I would like to know the answer as well as I have not been able to get a hold of an MQA CD to try for myself.

[wklie]

1 hour ago, daverich4 said:

My question is, can an MQA encoded CD be ripped and still retain all of the MQA information? If you can, would it be possible to use any software (I use JRiver Media Center and Roon) to send the files to an MQA enabled DAC and have it work? Herb didn't say what CD player he was using but I'm not aware of any special "MQA enabled" CD players so I'm guessing the MQA digital stream itself isn't encoded in some special way? 

 

Yes.  Yes.  MQA CD has MQA metadata and hi-res data folded and embedded in the noise.  I've successfully tested a ripped track of a Japan demo MQA CD and played it on Lumin network player, with MQA decoding working as expected.

 

If you use Roon to send MQA music to a USB MQA DAC without DSP / volume change / grouped playback, it should work.  If you use Roon to send MQA music to a Roon Ready MQA player, at the time of this post only Lumin works (as far as I know).  The other manufacturers which support both RAAT for Roon and MQA but not together are working on firmware upgrade to enable MQA over RAAT.

 

If you do not have a MQA DAC, you can use Audirvana to decode the ripped MQA CD to MQA Core.

[mansr]

1 hour ago, wklie said:

MQA CD has MQA metadata and hi-res data folded and embedded in the noise.  I've successfully tested a ripped track of a Japan demo MQA CD and played it on Lumin network player, with MQA decoding working as expected.

I'd like to have a look at such a track and see how many bits are used for what. Would you mind sharing 30 seconds or so from it, or if it is available online somewhere, point me in the right direction?

[wklie]

Sorry

[lucretius]

13 minutes ago, wklie said:

Sorry

 

Non-disclosure agreement?

[Digital Assassin]

10 hours ago, daverich4 said:

In the current issue of Stereophile, Herb Reichert has a review of the Mytek Manhattan II DAC. Part way through the review he asks the question, "if you were contemplating the purchase of a new DAC, why would you not want it to include MQA processing?" My first response to that is the same as when a DAC has a headphone jack. Because I don't want to pay for something I have no use for. I don't stream Tidal so it just doesn't come up. However, Herb mentioned something else that it occurred to me I don't know the answer to. In the review he talks about an MQA encoded CD. Although I have a Sony SCD-777ES SACD player in my equipment rack, it's been years since I've used it. I also have boxes and boxes of CDs that have been in a disk player exactly once, when they were ripped. My question is, can an MQA encoded CD be ripped and still retain all of the MQA information? If you can, would it be possible to use any software (I use JRiver Media Center and Roon) to send the files to an MQA enabled DAC and have it work? Herb didn't say what CD player he was using but I'm not aware of any special "MQA enabled" CD players so I'm guessing the MQA digital stream itself isn't encoded in some special way? 

No, but YOU can be ripped....OFF.

 

One of the most preposterous reviews I have ever read, on so many levels.

 

Reichert at this point is a clown, who bowed before the Master Atkinson..or in Game Of Thrones terminology,

he bent the knee..to shill for MQA.

 

This is as clueless a review as I have ever read.

 

if I were Schiit I would ask freaking furious. Thanks for nothing buddy.

[soupdujour]

The MQA-encoded CD Herb Reichert mentioned is "Inside the Moment" by Camille Thurman.  I could not readily lay my hands on the disc, so instead I downloaded the 44.1khz, 16-bit version of the record from HDtracks.  I've tried playing the album from both Roon and Audirvana 3.1 (beta).  Neither player reports the tracks as being MQA, and no blue light illuminates in the player applications or on my Mytek Brooklyn.  And, yes, I disabled all DSP before sending the signal on its merry way.  So, unfortunately, it seems the MQA encoding is not included in standard resolution downloads.  

[tmtomh]

Wouldn't an MQA CD just be a 16/44.1 MQA-encoded digital file that happens to have been written to a CD? If so, a rip of it would preserve all the data, just as a rip of an HDCD does. I understand that the ripped file might not be able to be properly decoded in some situations - but that would have nothing to do with the rip, or with the fact that the file started out on a CD.

[Allan F]

4 hours ago, Digital Assassin said:

One of the most preposterous reviews I have ever read, on so many levels.

 

Reichert at this point is a clown, who bowed before the Master Atkinson..or in Game Of Thrones terminology,

he bent the knee..to shill for MQA.

 

This is as clueless a review as I have ever read.

 

Instead of your ad hominem attack which lacks anything of substance, a post describing why you consider the review to be "clueless" or "preposterous" might actually offer something informative that is worth reading.

[mansr]

7 hours ago, soupdujour said:

The MQA-encoded CD Herb Reichert mentioned is "Inside the Moment" by Camille Thurman.  I could not readily lay my hands on the disc, so instead I downloaded the 44.1khz, 16-bit version of the record from HDtracks.  I've tried playing the album from both Roon and Audirvana 3.1 (beta).  Neither player reports the tracks as being MQA, and no blue light illuminates in the player applications or on my Mytek Brooklyn.  And, yes, I disabled all DSP before sending the signal on its merry way.  So, unfortunately, it seems the MQA encoding is not included in standard resolution downloads.  

I'd say that's fortunate.

[daverich4]

8 hours ago, soupdujour said:

The MQA-encoded CD Herb Reichert mentioned is "Inside the Moment" by Camille Thurman.  I could not readily lay my hands on the disc, so instead I downloaded the 44.1khz, 16-bit version of the record from HDtracks.  I've tried playing the album from both Roon and Audirvana 3.1 (beta).  Neither player reports the tracks as being MQA, and no blue light illuminates in the player applications or on my Mytek Brooklyn.  And, yes, I disabled all DSP before sending the signal on its merry way.  So, unfortunately, it seems the MQA encoding is not included in standard resolution downloads.  

 

After a quick search of HDtracks it appears they only have one MQA encoded album for sale at this point, Mozart Violin Concertos. 

[daverich4]

15 hours ago, Digital Assassin said:

No, but YOU can be ripped....OFF.

 

One of the most preposterous reviews I have ever read, on so many levels.

 

Reichert at this point is a clown, who bowed before the Master Atkinson..or in Game Of Thrones terminology,

he bent the knee..to shill for MQA.

 

This is as clueless a review as I have ever read.

 

if I were Schiit I would ask freaking furious. Thanks for nothing buddy.

 

I'm the OP. I wasn't asking if MQA was good or bad, I asked if an MQA CD could be ripped with all the information intact. There are several other threads with bazillions of posts in them on the subject of good or bad. Perhaps you could wander back to one of them with your comments and leave my thread to the topic I asked about? Thanks.

[mansr]

32 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

I'm the OP. I wasn't asking if MQA was good or bad, I asked if an MQA CD could be ripped with all the information intact.

If it can be played in a normal CD player, it can be ripped.

[Rt66indierock]

13 hours ago, daverich4 said:

 

After a quick search of HDtracks it appears they only have one MQA encoded album for sale at this point, Mozart Violin Concertos. 

 

It is an MQA remix not an MQA file. It says it is not MQA encoded.

[Hifi Bob]

Wow; muddy, muddy waters.

[Sasaki]

> My question is, can an MQA encoded CD be ripped and still retain all of the MQA information?

 

Yes you can. I used XLD on Mac and A+3. You only need bit perfect player software for hardware decoding. Also software decoding is possible with a little tweak on A+3.
I did it actually and I discussed about it with Damien Plisson and Bob Stuart himself.
I wrote two articles about it in Philweb JP audio magazine below.

 

MQA-CD ripping trial
http://www.phileweb.com/sp/review/article/201704/17/2496_3.html

 

Interview with Bob Stuart
http://www.phileweb.com/sp/interview/article/201707/12/471.html

[dsnyder]

Apparently, this works in Audirvana Plus 3.x, but you have to rename the files. Goofy, but I'll give it a try this afternoon.

 

Quote

According to Mr. Pisson, recognition of MQA at Audirvana Plus 3 is divided into two stages. First, it is confirmed whether the file name contains ".mq" character, and only when it is judged that it is an MQA file, MQA additional information in the binary is analyzed. It is possible to analyze all the files and determine whether it is MQA or not, but that is because it slows the operation so it is doing this. For example, putting .mq before the extension like ".mqa.flac" ".mqa.aif" ".mql.flac" is the form proposed by MQA (extension itself It seems to be okay to change it to .mqa).

 

[CJA]

I'm wondering if anyone can explain the behavior and sample rate/bit depth I see when I play my ripped MQA cd of Blondie's "Best of Blondie" released in Japan a few years ago. It was a new flat transfer from Japanese tapes that spurred me to buy it - not the fact it was MQA encoded. Maybe someday they'll release the DSD transfer as an SACD.

 

I have a Vitus integrated which has a Convers Digital Board. I would guess my Vitus uses the CDMCM-2121R board because the serial number of the device starts with CDM212 - specs for this board with regard to MQA are: 

"MQA Full decoding up to 4x(192kHz)

• Core decoding only is optional."

 

My Vitus and the Mconnect app (also by Convers Digital) do not have an MQA light so I would guess it's not fully compliant in one way or another. MQA is listed as supported in the app info though not to what capacity.

 

So I ripped this MQA cd in different ways and for the file names I manually changed, I added .mqa to the file name. Then I used the MQA Macintosh helper tool to make another rip and automatically change the file names. 

 

On playback of the first track from this disc the results were:

non-mqa tagged file plays back at 16 bit / 44.1 kHz with 1415kbps rate and indicates aiff as the file type (as one would expect)

.mqa.aiff tagged file plays back at 16 bit / 352.8 kHz with 1415kbps rate and indicates MQA as the file type

.mqa.flac tagged file plays back at 16 bit / 352.8 kHz with 983 kbps rate and indicates MQA as the file type

.mqa.flac file tagged by the MQA helper app plays back at 16 bit / 44.1 kHz with 1415 kbps rate and indicates aiff as the file type - the album folder includes a subfolder of what initially appear to be rips of the album tracks as .mqa files but the files appear to be of a small size at 147KB for the first track and :00 track time.

 

1) Why do both of my manually tagged MQA files play back at 352.8 kHz and why would this happen if the specs on my streamer module should only go up to 192 kHz?

 

2) With regard to the MQA helper app files, would a fully compliant MQA dac (with the blue light, of course) play the resultant file and incorporate the data in the subfolder to "unfold" to 24 bit / 352.8 kHz? I may be able to test this in the near future if I can finally use my Lumin L1 library and stream it to my Lumin A1 in another location. I've been fighting with the settings to be able to stream from the L1 from a remote location. I think I may have the settings right for my third attempt over the past 2 months.

 

 

[Archimago]

I don't have nor used the Mcintosh hardware or software.

 

Maybe the tool is just reading the MQA control data and seeing that it's encoded as 352.8kHz. When your hardware is playing back the song, it just goes to the max 4x it can - probably 176.4kHz (with max 192kHz if the file is tagged with 384kHz).

[AudioDoctor]

What an absolute mess MQA is...

[wklie]

@CJA I would consider any MQA hardware that behaves differently for MQA-tagged and non-MQA-tagged to be a flawed implementation of MQA.  This difference is definitely not what I expect a correct MQA implementation to behave.  You should not need MQA tag or MQA filename suffix for MQA decoding to work.

 

Please put your MQA CD rip file (in FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, or WAV format) in a USB thumb drive.  Plug it into Lumin A1.  In Lumin app, select the Lumin USB Music Server to be the library.  Add those MQA CD rips to the playlist.  Observe what the Lumin front panel says about MQA.

 

The MQA 352kHz you see refers to what the album originally was in for MQA mastering, not how your DAC plays it.

[CJA]

11 hours ago, Archimago said:

I don't have nor used the Mcintosh hardware or software.

 

Maybe the tool is just reading the MQA control data and seeing that it's encoded as 352.8kHz. When your hardware is playing back the song, it just goes to the max 4x it can - probably 176.4kHz (with max 192kHz if the file is tagged with 384kHz).

 

I consider it an open question because the display on the Vitus changes to 352.8kHz when I play those files, too. But the specs for this digital board are not comprehensive - there is nothing written that I've come across that describes the file limits.

[CJA]

9 hours ago, wklie said:

@CJA I would consider any MQA hardware that behaves differently for MQA-tagged and non-MQA-tagged to be a flawed implementation of MQA.  This difference is definitely not what I expect a correct MQA implementation to behave.  You should not need MQA tag or MQA filename suffix for MQA decoding to work.

 

Please put your MQA CD rip file (in FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, or WAV format) in a USB thumb drive.  Plug it into Lumin A1.  In Lumin app, select the Lumin USB Music Server to be the library.  Add those MQA CD rips to the playlist.  Observe what the Lumin front panel says about MQA.

 

The MQA 352kHz you see refers to what the album originally was in for MQA mastering, not how your DAC plays it.

 

The thumb drive is my next test in case I still can't stream them remotely. I forgot I have a Bluesound Node with me now and will do the same with that and see what happens. I'll try them on the Lumin next week.

 

I consider the sample rate being played back an open question because the display on the Vitus changes to 352.8kHz when I play those files.. But the specs for this Vitus digital board are not comprehensive - there is nothing written that I've come across that describes the file limits. The Convers Digital specs support what you suggest but I don't know enough about the implementation in the Vitus to say definitively.

[Archimago]

4 minutes ago, CJA said:

I consider it an open question because the display on the Vitus changes to 352.8kHz when I play those files, too. But the specs for this digital board are not comprehensive - there is nothing written that I've come across that describes the file limits.

 

Who knows man. The  only way for sure is to get confirmation from the manufacturer as to what it's doing - eg. is the upsampling on the decoder limited to 192kHz. Or you can measure the output and see whether the upsampled content still has frequencies up at 176.4kHz if indeed it's going all the way to 352.8. Of course all that upsampled stuff is just artefact from the use of "leaky" filters...