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Topic: Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA. (Read 148432 times) previous topic - next topic
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Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #125 –
Quote from: ChronoSphere on
All I'm getting from this is yet another hymn to hi-res music, to be honest. The usual "it sounds so much better than regular CD!".
The only "advantage" is that it supposedly takes as much space as a regular audio CD, so you get "more" for "free". Kind of like HDCD?



So how does a MQA file size compare to a 24/192 FLAC file?

I know that a lot of high rez FLAC files compress like crazy because after all, there's nothing but zeros in a lot of that 24/192 file.

The obvious comparison would be to a 16/44 uncompressed .wav file which is what the MQA blurb seems to be using as its baseline.

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #126 –
Anyone been able to find MQA files to download to try with the Meridian Explorer2 MQA DAC?

As far as I can see Tidal has not started streaming MQA data yet.
 

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #127 –
The esteemed Robert Harley, never one to miss an opportunity to demonstrate he has no idea how sampling theorem works (he even manages to bring up "a sampled system cannot convey time differences shorter than two sample periods" as an "inviolable law" of pre-MQA sampling), has excreted a great deal of words on MQA.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/b...igh-resolution/

Truly, digital filtering is the new jitter, as far as incoherent audiophile ramblings are concerned.

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #128 –
Quote from: Willakan on
The esteemed Robert Harley, never one to miss an opportunity to demonstrate he has no idea how sampling theorem works (he even manages to bring up "a sampled system cannot convey time differences shorter than two sample periods" as an "inviolable law" of pre-MQA sampling), has excreted a great deal of words on MQA.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/b...igh-resolution/

Truly, digital filtering is the new jitter, as far as incoherent audiophile ramblings are concerned.



What Harley actually says is:

"Once inviolable “laws” of sampling theory, such as “a sampled system cannot convey time differences shorter than two sample periods,” are exposed as merely the conventional wisdom of an earlier age."

So what he says is in a sense a little bit different than affirming the false idea. More properly stated, it is a straw man, since it has never been true, but more than a few golden ears who should know better have asserted it, most (in)famously Kuncher (sp?).

One of the differences with MQA appears to be that it is capable of turning on an indicator when it is in play. This is obviously, a sighted cue. The efficacy of this refinement goes all the way back to the advent of FM Stereo, where FM stations discovered that they could vastly increase listener perceived satisfaction by broadcasting the 19 KHz FM stereo pilot signal, no actual stereo recordings required. ;-)

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #129 –
It seems MQA will stay a lot longer than I thought....

http://www.twice.com/news/audio/pioneer-s-...table-mqa/58527


To be honest, I am utterly surprised to see this technology appearing from non-Meridian companies. It seems Meridian is pushing MQA really hard.

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #130 –
Quote from: wnmnkh on
It seems MQA will stay a lot longer than I thought....

http://www.twice.com/news/audio/pioneer-s-...table-mqa/58527


To be honest, I am utterly surprised to see this technology appearing from non-Meridian companies. It seems Meridian is pushing MQA really hard.


I'm surprised you're surprised that a nearly $800 portable wouldn't have (need?) nonsense bling like MQA.
The question remains whether nonsense bling like this will sell, but there is only one way to answer that.

cheers,

AJ
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #131 –
Quote from: ajinfla on
http://www.twice.com/news/audio/pioneer-s-...table-mqa/58527

I'm surprised you're surprised that a nearly $800 portable wouldn't have (need?) nonsense bling like MQA.
The question remains whether nonsense bling like this will sell, but there is only one way to answer that.

Finaly dsd up to 11.2MHz on a portabe!!
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #133 –
The bit I like best on that page....

Quote
Want to read more stories like this?


Well, no, actually.  But something tells me that I probably will.
The most important audio cables are the ones in the brain

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #134 –
I'm not sure if this thing comes with headphones that have the high frequency extension necessary to "appreciate" the added range, but for that matter does anyone here have links to third party measurements of the high frequency response of the Pono's headphone output?

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #135 –
Quote from: mzil on
I'm not sure if this thing comes with headphones that have the high frequency extension necessary to "appreciate" the added range, but for that matter does anyone here have links to third party measurements of the high frequency response of the Pono's headphone output?

Relevance?

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #136 –
I was wrong to specify Pono. Sorry. I should have written: "Does anyone have links to third-party measurements of the headphone outputs' high frequency response of any of these various portable Hi-Res music players?"

Last I heard Pono was said to be MQA capable with a firmware upgrade. Since I have little interest in these for my own use, I don't follow them closely, and  I'm not sure if that ever came to fruition. Did it?

If these various MQA portable players claim their sound is better at the higher frequencies, yet their electronics don't have much HF output because most typical, off the shelf headphone amp chips don't support much above 20kHz or so (at least I'd think), it would be interesting.

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #138 –
I think they are playing word games with lossy audio re-categorizing it as lossless so they can create an industry and make a lot of money via patents and licensing and so forth. 
I don't trust it.  I am putting my faith in future improvements of web streaming going way of AAC or OPUS.  We already have 256 kBps AAC internet radio and it sounds pretty good without cloggin up nets with 96 kHz nonsense.  And if websites would just adopt that for streams, most people would be happy.  And they could still provide lossless downloads like SoundCloud does. 

I used to offer 48 kHz 24-bit FLAC's on SoundCloud for free download.  Now I offer 44.1 kHz 16-bit FLAC's for more compatibility with portable players.  Most people occasionally complain about the sound quality of their conversions down to 128 kBps MPEG streaming. 

My point is, there's not a true demand for this technology which is must trying to pull the wool over people's eyes.  We don't need more gear.  Musicians and engineers already have plenty of hardware and software tools and formats to choose from.  And most of us record 24-bit or 32-bit float and render down to 16-bit but still at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz.  Most people in the studio really aren't into 96 kHz at all.  And they would be the gatekeepers of the master encodings.  It's fine as it is now.  I use my home computer and gear to create my own masters and deliver the formats conveniently without having to go to a "specialist" with Meridian.  Seriously geez!

i'm the guy who used to have a miniDisc recorder with 24-bit ADC's for goodness sake... that was a big deal back then because not everything was 24-bit yet, but it was still utilized for the ATRAC compression which was about as good as humble MP3 encoding.  Yes, the input was less noisey which is good, but still 90 % (or whatever percent it is) of the audio was thrown out to get the remainder onto those tiny discs!  My point is, this Meridian junk is probably similar in terms of being a fancy high quality encoding front end for a lousy=lossy back end. 

I don't trust it!  Just let me keep my FLAC's and WavPacks and low-brow MP3's there's no need for another middle man.  And now they say they are going to disguise their product within ALAC and FLAC containers?  Don't do it, man!  corruption of formats that work!
Be a false negative of yourself!

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #139 –
It is a shame how this HiBit business tries to push several things lately. I bet you will get some MQA releases exclusively mastered to sound better as the releases before. That way they always faked improvement. Even so called audiophile labels makes fools out of their customers when a CD suddenly can't hold enough dynamics. See the last Al Di Meola as only one out of many. The CD has DR6 while the 24/96 has DR12. In this case DR tells us something.
This dsd rebirth is even more fascinating! Marketed as the one and only digital format able to catch the magic of analog mixing gear.
These weird things atm make me wonder if the business goes really that bad so they have to push such crap to survive.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #140 –
Quote from: Wombat on
These weird things atm make me wonder if the business goes really that bad so they have to push such crap to survive.


yes. this.

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #141 –
Quote from: Wombat on
It is a shame how this HiBit business tries to push several things lately. I bet you will get some MQA releases exclusively mastered to sound better as the releases before. That way they always faked improvement. Even so called audiophile labels makes fools out of their customers when a CD suddenly can't hold enough dynamics. See the last Al Di Meola as only one out of many. The CD has DR6 while the 24/96 has DR12. In this case DR tells us something.
This dsd rebirth is even more fascinating! Marketed as the one and only digital format able to catch the magic of analog mixing gear.
These weird things atm make me wonder if the business goes really that bad so they have to push such crap to survive.


Well it makes me hope that the business may push better masterings as a survival strategy. Of course annoying that they try to fool people into thinking the difference is in the format, but worth it we finally get over the loudness war.
On the other hand ... chances are that they will release hypercompressed masterings to the rest of us, only to act as proof of their (selling) point.

I am not sure if it has been discussed around here, but: http://www.meridianunplugged.com/ubbthread...p;Number=227413
It seems that an MQA source will ask the DAC to identify itself and then feed the 'appropriate' signal. Because the identification will be encrypted certificate-based (most likely not so much flawed as CSS on DVD, and most likely not so many geeks trying to hack it) one can only speculate whether they can choose to deliver different-sounding signals depending on how they identify.

(Don't think I will rush to my Meridian dealer to have my speaker firmware upgraded.)

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #142 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Well it makes me hope that the business may push better masterings as a survival strategy. Of course annoying that they try to fool people into thinking the difference is in the format, but worth it we finally get over the loudness war.
On the other hand ... chances are that they will release hypercompressed masterings to the rest of us, only to act as proof of their (selling) point.

Hasn't this happened already many years ago when SACD was introduced? It failed, and one could argue why. Of course this doesn't mean that it will fail again.

I think it is fair to say that the content industry has tried to kill off the "normal" CD with all their might. It started when CDs became copiable with the advent of CD-R. This gave rise to CD copy protection schemes, some of which worsened the sound. It was in vain and the CD copy protection schemes died out.

Next try was the SACD. A number of releases indeed had better mastering than the equivalent CD. However, they needed to be CD compatible, which means that they had to provide this compatibility layer. And that means that you look bad when the CD and the DSD layer has significantly different levels. And that is a hindrance to making both layers significantly different in quality. Furthermore, you would have to master twice for a single product. And the customers were already wary of the copy protection schemes of the CD before, and (rightly) saw the SACD as a trick to establish copy protection once more.

Then iPod & Co. came along and showed everyone that copy protection really was unacceptable, as it made transferring your legally acquired titles to the mobile player a steeplechase. Effectively, if you got your material legally, you were more restricted in what you could do with it, than those who had illegal rips.

Now we have hi-res streaming, and we can already see how they try to rip off the customer again. There are numerous cases where the alleged high-res material is really an upconverted CD-quality original. People have started to obfuscate this by adding some fuzz that makes the higher frequences a bit busy for people who look at spectrograms. This is starting to become so widespread that formerly respectable companies latch on to it. See the Clari-Fi stuff from Harman with their expensive promo video last year. I recently became aware that something similar is being sold with the newest smartphones by Samsung. We really have the next wave of bullshit rolling in full force.

I see MQA as another attempt at establishing a form of copy control. Its benefit for the customer is basically nonexistent, but it might seem to some business players that it can serve as a trojan horse to get more control over copying. In this regard, it is nothing new. The industry keeps on trying the same thing over and over again, apparently in the belief that if it didn't work, you need to try harder.

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #143 –
Isn't MQA supposed to be completely backwards compatible?
Isn't it just putting aliased content below levels of the original content? So if it should gain acceptance then I don't see how implementing the unfolding algorithm would be that hard, but that of course would be illegal because then they don't own their license fee....

Maybe we should implement an open and free alternative?


Anyway, I'm wondering why audiophiles are not complaining about the lower bits being "abused" to store something other than was recorded. That was the whole point of going to 24 bits in "high-resolution" audio files, right?
"I hear it when I see it."

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #144 –
Quote from: pelmazo on
People have started to obfuscate this by adding some fuzz that makes the higher frequences a bit busy for people who look at spectrograms.


Wasn't that just tape hiss?


Quote from: xnor on
Anyway, I'm wondering why audiophiles are not complaining about the lower bits being "abused" to store something other than was recorded.


Oh, but it stores reconstructions of what was recorded, but lost when converting to digital, right? Isn't that the point Bob S. is touting about knowing which ADCs were used?

(Why does one not just remaster it properly?)

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #145 –
I'm not sure I understand.

I assumed that tracks were recorded normally e.g. into 24/192, edited, mixed ... and finally the high frequency content is attenuated and aliased into e.g. 48 kHz sampling rate. Isn't that basically it?

This wouldn't work if the signal content at high frequencies wasn't low level and noise-like to begin with. ADCs could produce a rising noise floor at higher frequencies, which of course needs to be dealt with.
"I hear it when I see it."

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #146 –
Quote from: Wombat on
It is a shame how this HiBit business tries to push several things lately. I bet you will get some MQA releases exclusively mastered to sound better as the releases before. That way they always faked improvement.
Has anything like this surfaced with the Pono, yet? And I doubt you will get "better" masters, because people in charge don't realize what's "wrong" with the old ones.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #147 –
Quote from: Kohlrabi on
Has anything like this surfaced with the Pono, yet? And I doubt you will get "better" masters, because people in charge don't realize what's "wrong" with the old ones.

Now i don't know what you mean. These new HiBit releases mostly for sure sound different as the CD remaster before and the DVD version and the older remaster and the original realease...
Now maybe less compressed as the last attempt. There are funny examples. At Acoustic Sounds they sell for example a Blues album.The 24/48 is mastered by Doug Sax, the 24/96 is mastered by Kevin Grey and the DSD version is no idea but most likely a bit more huggle bass. If there was a MQA version i bet it will be different again.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #148 –
One more thing Porcus, regarding (re)mastering. If you've recorded at 48 or even 44.1 kHz then you cannot create a genuine "hi-res" track from it. MQA doesn't help here either.

I think what they want to achieve is some minimal recording format (say 24/96 or even 24/192) with MQA'd tracks, so that the consumer doesn't have to worry about fake "hi-res". But from a purely technical pov, I don't think anything prevents one from creating a fake "hi-res" MQA file...
"I hear it when I see it."

Meridian Audio's new... sub-format called MQA.

Reply #149 –
Quote from: xnor on
I assumed that tracks were recorded normally e.g. into 24/192, edited, mixed ... and finally the high frequency content is attenuated and aliased into e.g. 48 kHz sampling rate. Isn't that basically it?


Not really, if the buzz is to be believed (which is certainly some of an "if"). Seems that they want to reverse ADC artifacts from recordings that were certainly not recorded into 24/192.
http://www.audiostream.com/content/tidal-s...mqa-music-files


Quote from: xnor on
One more thing Porcus, regarding (re)mastering. If you've recorded at 48 or even 44.1 kHz then you cannot create a genuine "hi-res" track from it. MQA doesn't help here either.


Not a "genuine", but if we for the sake of the argument buy into the claim that anti-aliasing filters with artifacts way down in the audible range were employed upon digitizing, then you can certainly try to improve. As you point out, you cannot (re-) create a "genuine" lossless version of what was filtered off, but you can in principle use knowledge of the filter to improve.

(Again, I do not want to sound like I endorse their claims, but there could be more to it than ultrasound mumbojumbo.)