JVS Cheerleads an MQA CD..Sis Boom Bah!

[Spacehound]

1 minute ago, realhifi said:

No, I think I'll stick with what people wrote.  As far as threats, I hardly see my comment as a threat. 

Point out where anyone wrote that you are a liar. You insinuated you were, but  that's it.

 

Keep digging your hole it you want, personally I shall just watch from now on, being bored with your nonsense. Brinkman Ship seems to have taken over. It's not 'all about you'  anyway.

[realhifi]

1 minute ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Understood, I actually think you posted without thinking. I don't think you were lying.

Happens to the best of us.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Spacehound said:

Point out where anyone wrote that you are a liar. You insinuated you were, but  that's it.

 

Keep digging your hole it you want, personally I shall just watch from now on, being bored with your nonsense. Brinkman Ship seems to have taken over. It's not 'all about you'  anyway.

Calm down Mark. 

 

I've received more PMs about your posts on the site than anyone in recent memory. You call it stating the facts, but many here call it abrasive and unneeded. It seems like you really need to find a forum for the debate club and one on which you don't share the same enjoyable hobby. Everyone here is trying to get the most out of our wonderful hobby. You? Not so much. 

[Brinkman Ship]

28 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

 

Exactly my thoughts, that is a JVS fantasy/dream sequence of some sort.

 

He picked a very bad example in using Japan as the supposedly more educated and interested in MQA market, I'd venture it's really quite the opposite.

Yes, the articles I linked contain some pretty devastating numbers. Forbes even reports they could not give away lossless streaming for free.  The fact that so many music mega stores still continue to thrive is an indication they have different priorities.

[FredericV]

Let's test what the MQA dac does, when it receives a truncated version of 2Lno's test files:

 

[root@mqb]# sox -D -V 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.flac -b 16 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-16b.wav
[root@mqb]# file 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.flac 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-16b.wav
2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.flac:              FLAC audio bitstream data, 24 bit, stereo, 44.1 kHz, 8015028 samples
2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-16b.wav: RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft PCM, 16 bit, stereo 44100 Hz

the -D disables dithering in sox

-V to see what sox does, including the processing chain
 

[Indydan]

8 hours ago, Tintinabulum said:

Meridian 808.6?

 

 

As I understand it, the Meridian 808.6 has digital inputs (Coaxial, USB and optical) that allow the user to plug in a transport (computer, server, etc.) to use the onboard DAC of the Meridian 808.6. This onboard DAC is MQA capable. 

 

So if someone plugged a computer into the Meridian and played an MQA file, the file would be MQA decoded. It is not clear if an MQA CD was played by the Meridian, that the full MQA decoding would take place. 

 

What Hifi reviewed the player, but they did not seem to have any MQA CDs to test it. 

 

https://www.whathifi.com/meridian/808v6-signature-reference-cd-player/review

 

Either way, at 11 000 pounds sterling for a big ugly box the size of a shipping crate, I will not buy it to find out...  

[Spacehound]

12 minutes ago, Indydan said:

 

As I understand it, the Meridian 808.6 has digital inputs (Coaxial, USB and optical) that allow the user to plug in a transport (computer, server, etc.) to use the onboard DAC of the Meridian 808.6. This onboard DAC is MQA capable. 

 

So if someone plugged a computer into the Meridian and played an MQA file, the file would be MQA decoded. It is not clear if an MQA CD was played by the Meridian, that the full MQA decoding would take place. 

 

What Hifi reviewed the player, but they did not seem to have any MQA CDs to test it. 

 

https://www.whathifi.com/meridian/808v6-signature-reference-cd-player/review

 

Either way. At 11 000 pounds sterling for a big ugly box the size of a shipping crate, I will not buy it to find out...  

Rickety  CD tray, switches from Toys 'R Us, and a sound that "might not suit all tastes". And this from a 'popular' magazine that does how to watch Formal one, how to set up  Amazon Echo,and so on.

 

Not  exactly  'Gobsmacked,  are they? 

[Indydan]

1 minute ago, Spacehound said:

Rickety  CD tray, switches from Toys 'R Us, and a sound that "might not suit all tastes". And this from a 'popular' magazine. 

 

Not  exactly  'Gobsmacked,  are they? 

 

This has always been my impression of Meridian gear; overpriced and under performing. Meridian's financial statements indicate I am not alone in feeling this way. 

[Spacehound]

Just now, Indydan said:

 

This has always been my impression of Meridian gear; overpriced and under performing. Meridian's financial statements indicate I am not alone in feeling this way. 

Meridian has never had any significant presence in its home market. 'Lay' people think it's far  too expensive, 'serious' people think it's a joke.

[FredericV]

40 minutes ago, FredericV said:

Let's test what the MQA dac does, when it receives a truncated version of 2Lno's test files:

 

[root@mqb]# sox -D -V 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.flac -b 16 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-16b.wav
[root@mqb]# file 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.flac 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-16b.wav
2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.flac:              FLAC audio bitstream data, 24 bit, stereo, 44.1 kHz, 8015028 samples
2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-16b.wav: RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft PCM, 16 bit, stereo 44100 Hz

the -D disables dithering in sox

-V to see what sox does, including the processing chain
 

 

The truncated version does not light up the blue quack light on my DAC.

[mansr]

21 minutes ago, FredericV said:

The truncated version does not light up the blue quack light on my DAC.

No green light either?

[Tintinabulum]

55 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

Meridian has never had any significant presence in its home market. 'Lay' people think it's far  too expensive, 'serious' people think it's a joke.

Wind up right? Check out a pair of DSP5000s second hand at £600. Allo digital board , pi, Roon, NAS. I doubt you’ll get a sound like that for less than three times the price. 

 

Yup look up RRP and swoon but plenty of people are picking up superb bargains just now.

 

dont let the real world interrupt your fantasy though which presumably is ....

 

Meridian=MQA=hate.

 

Serious? Eeeek....

[FredericV]

27 minutes ago, mansr said:

No green light either?

Original MQA file 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.flac shows blue light and renderer upsample resolution:

 

2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-16b.wav
+ 16 bits packed in a 24 bit file (2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-24b.wav) both show:



Note that the MQA light is off and not green.
 

[Brinkman Ship]

4 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

Wind up right? Check out a pair of DSP5000s second hand at £600. Allo digital board , pi, Roon, NAS. I doubt you’ll get a sound like that for less than three times the price. 

 

Yup up look at RRP and swoon but plenty of people are picking up superb bargains just now.

 

dont let the real world interrupt your fantasy though which presumably is ....

 

Meridian=MQA=hate.

 

Serious? Eeeek....

..they were, what, $15,000 new?

[Tintinabulum]

I don’t think so, I know what they cost now and how they sound, which is pretty stunning.

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, FredericV said:

Original MQA file 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.flac shows blue light and renderer upsample resolution:

 

2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-16b.wav
+ 16 bits packed in a 24 bit file (2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-24b.wav) both show:



Note that the MQA light is off and not green.

Did you check with mqascan that the MQA data is still there?

[FredericV]

Comparing the truncated version of an MQA file encoded back to flac, and the original encode in flac (16 bit file vs 24 bit file), we can see that the non-nyquist parts don't compress at all:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  31928793 Apr 26  2016 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.flac
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  14503274 Feb 20 18:40 2L-050_01_stereo_DXD_WAV.mqa.truncated-16b.flac

The 24 bit version is more than 2x the size of the 16 bit version. So the 8 extra bits with the secret crypto MQA drm sauce don't compress at all.

 

 

 

[FredericV]

7 minutes ago, mansr said:

Did you check with mqascan that the MQA data is still there?

 

Those tools are compiled on a raspberry somewhere, need to find it and boot it. But when I find it I will check it.

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, FredericV said:

Those tools are compiled on a raspberry somewhere, need to find it and boot it. But when I find it I will check it.

The scanning tools will work on any Linux system. They don't use the Bluesound libraries.

[Brinkman Ship]

37 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

I don’t think so, I know what they cost now and how they sound, which is pretty stunning.

I was very close, they were $12,500 a pair. It would have been a foolish purchase at the time as you would have

been locked into antiquated digital tech. Then they would have baited you into updated to the 5200, the usual game.

 

At roughly $800 used, clearly they clearly held no value.

[Spacehound]

1 hour ago, Tintinabulum said:

Wind up right? Check out a pair of DSP5000s second hand at £600. Allo digital board , pi, Roon, NAS. I doubt you’ll get a sound like that for less than three times the price. 

 

Yup look up RRP and swoon but plenty of people are picking up superb bargains just now.

 

dont let the real world interrupt your fantasy though which presumably is ....

 

Meridian=MQA=hate.

 

Serious? Eeeek....

40 years of financial losses tell me how good Meridian  is. And Stuart's previous effort, Lecson,   lasted about two years. The controls, being only attached with sticky tape, fell off,  and the power amp melted.

 

And for me and Meridian the  UK is the real world. You try and find  many  dealers  that sell them, let alone who has anything in stock. Don't believe their  'dealer' list.

[Shadders]

5 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

40 years of financial losses tell me how good Meridian  is. And Stuart's previous effort, Lecson,   lasted about two years. The controls, being only attached with sticky tape, fell off,  and the power amp melted.

 

And for me and Meridian the  UK is the real world. You try and find  many  dealers  that sell them, let alone who has anything in stock. Don't believe their  'dealer' list.

Hi,

From the company accounts, how do you know whether it is financial mismanagement, and not tax reduction techniques ?

I had a Meridian CD player in the 1990's, and used it for 7 years no issue.

Regards,

Shadders.

[Brinkman Ship]

4 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

From the company accounts, how do you know whether it is financial mismanagement, and not tax reduction techniques ?

I had a Meridian CD player in the 1990's, and used it for 7 years no issue.

Regards,

Shadders.

This was covered extensively. They bled money. Their products were a day late and a dollar short.

 

It would take pages to detail how out of touch with the market they were/are.

[Spacehound]

11 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

From the company accounts, how do you know whether it is financial mismanagement, and not tax reduction techniques ?

I had a Meridian CD player in the 1990's, and used it for 7 years no issue.

Regards,

Shadders.

It's one company, not a  'conglomerate in which they can hide things.  And  our tax people are not notably stupid.

 

As Stuart's   extremely wealthy wife (Boston Globe?)  has stopped propping it up it's been sold at low cost to a bunch of Swiss venture capitalists who  have added it to their 'luxury goods' portfolio, mostly watches.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Spacehound said:

It's one company, not a  'conglomerate in which they can hide things.  And  our tax people are not notably stupid.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

In 2007 just under 50% of the company's shareholding was sold to the Muse Group, a consortium of the Swiss-based luxury goods group Richemont and U.S. film company New Regency. Muse is now a majority shareholder and is 100 percent owned by Reinet Investments, a sister company of Richemont.^[4][5] Robert Haefling departed soon after and was replaced by Tim Ireland, the previous COO of Mission Loudspeakers. Following the acquisition, and perhaps under the influence of Muse and Richemont, Meridian began to reposition itself as more of a luxury goods manufacturer and opened a series of flagship stores. Performance suffered and almost 20% of the company's workforce was laid off in late 2008. The decade since has seen many changes in the board of directors and business profitability has remained modest compared with the ambitions of the company when it was acquired by Muse. Ironically, the majority of the company's revenue now comes not from hi-fi products but from the contract to supply Jaguar Land Rover with audio systems for its vehicles (these systems are actually manufactured in China by a contract partner rather than by Meridian in the UK) and MQA - Bob Stuart's audio file compression technology.