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Topic: How to identify MQA decoding? (Read 18927 times) previous topic - next topic
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How to identify MQA decoding?

I recently placed an order of a couple of ECM albums from www.highresaudio.com with MQA encoding.

I noticed that files have a flac extension which is what the 2L record company also follows (http://www.2l.no/hires/) with only a reference in the filename indicating MQA.

I guess since flac is only a container hence it can indeed contain an MQA encoding and I should not expect the file extension to be .mqa

Now, foobar perfectly reproduced those files as if no special plugin required for the decoding. Maybe the ability is built-in or maybe I have a dll that supports this and have forgotten about it.

I noticed that foobar's metadata panel indicate 24bit/48kHz lossless with Codec shown as FLAC. Is that correct and expected?

How can I identify I'm reproducing/decoding genuine MQA contents?

Thank you in advance for any responses.

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #1
When you hear De-Blurred sound and you start to feel like being in the studio just like the artist approved it you are there.
foobar can't Unfold MQA
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #2
You need a DAC, such as the Meridian Explorer2, which is capable of decoding MQA.  I believe there is talk of a software-based decoder to come if licensing permits but not here yet.

The MQA decoder will "unfold" the 24/48 file to its full, glorious 24/192 as the Lord intended.

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #3
Thank you for the prompt responses.

I have a Bluesound PowerNode which does support MQA and indicates as such when decoding during playback.

This was probably my first attempt to reproduce from my laptop and was expecting a hissing noise or something.

Judging by your responses it's not so much a topic of compatibility but rather in getting the full potential of MQA if a software/hardware supports it. 

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #4
As you talk about ECM i wonder about watermarks. ECM is part of Universal. If you have a cd version of one of these MQA albums it could be checked for it. It is not an easy task but please try.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #5
There you go, use your Bluesound. MQA is a "money-grab" so don't expect to see an open source decoder for foobar2000 soon.

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #6
There you go, use your Bluesound. MQA is a "money-grab" so don't expect to see an open source decoder for foobar2000 soon.
Maybe someone can reverse engeneer a usable free solution for De-Cripple. I call THIS a good step forward.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #7
There you go, use your Bluesound. MQA is a "money-grab" so don't expect to see an open source decoder for foobar2000 soon.

Doesn't have to be open source, right? If MQA has to be purely a money-grab then I'm probably one of the candidates for a payed plug-in for foobar. :-P ;-)

By the way I have high respect for Meridian (the company behind MQA). Every effort towards better sound is welcome. Ok, companies need to profit somehow but so far Meridian has proven its morality and quality. At the end of the day companies risk jeopardizing legacy and reputation if proven otherwise.  

I'm new to MQA and still evaluating it. Hell, MQA is new to all of us. Probably at the price level of my Bluesound and its partnering equipment I might not be able to get audible differences in between   320kbps mp3 and MQA (bombs away... :-D). Could requiring 4-digit maybe even 5 or 6-digit price figures of equipment to tell but I welcome evolution (revolution too). Sure I'm sceptical too hence the need to evaluation as said before.

Time will tell...

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #8
By the way I have high respect for Meridian (the company behind MQA). Every effort towards better sound is welcome. Ok, companies need to profit somehow but so far Meridian has proven its morality and quality. At the end of the day companies risk jeopardizing legacy and reputation if proven otherwise.

I don't have any respect for them. They attempt to monetize what is essentially a lossy encoding/decoding process encapsulated within marketing blabla and other fancy smokescreens. The way I see it, they just wanted something they could license to other companies in order to earn some money.

If their goal would have only been hi-res-streaming (as they continue to claim), they could have essentially licensed WavPack hybrid. Lossy as well, but achieves the same without questionable upsampling / adding artifacts. Oh, and I forgot to add: it's open source, not proprietary.
marlene-d.blogspot.com

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #9
By the way I have high respect for Meridian (the company behind MQA).
I don't and I don't see how or why.

Every effort towards better sound is welcome.
No, not all means justify the end, and more importantly: you first need to show that this goal actually is better sound and that what they're doing actually achieves that.

Ok, companies need to profit somehow but so far Meridian has proven its morality and quality.
With their high res paper, and MQA .. they certainly have proven their agenda. Morality? Nope...


At the end of the day companies risk jeopardizing legacy and reputation if proven otherwise.
And that sentence shows everything that's wrong with high end audio (well, not just that).
Make a shiny product, throw in some anecdotes, add marketing material .. and the believers will come trickling in.
And while they haven't proven anything in the first place, except that people hear what they want to hear, the burden is now on others to disprove their claims?
(And let's ignore how MQA is not only lossy and inferior to free, open source formats, it also means vendor lock-in, requires special hardware ...)


I'm sorry for the rant. Please don't take it personal.
"I hear it when I see it."

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #10
I have spent more money on Meridian than on any other brand (I am using their active speakers, so I do not need any other gear than a computer and some USB-to-coax interface ... no expensive external amp), and I think BS had a good case for calling for sampling rates in the 60k range (at least to be safe - recall that we were talking analogue filters at the time, and the listening tests at the time were not adequate to establish the audible range).

But this BS is the BS that starts with a cow's husband I think. An excuse to sell the same music once again (DRM-infected this time), disguised as sound improvement. True, there is a potential merit to some remastering if that means we can (retro-actively!) win the loudness war, but that is the remastering and not the format.
The only good thing I can say about it, is that maybe, maybe the new remasters will find their ways to music stores (Google, Amazon, iTunes) and replace some loudness war victims. And maybe that would in practice not happen otherwise. But I would not call that high morality - rather, a byproduct of low morality.


Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #12
I'm sorry for the rant. Please don't take it personal.

I'm open on difference of opinion, And to some level most likely there isn't one here. As I said MQA is new to me and still under evaluation.

To be honest life taught me that music isn't driven by quality. If you love a tune it can still be enjoyable even through a crappy FM reception.
The immoral topic is probably pricing other than quality. Record labels have not learned their lesson yet. Even a CD quality download nowadays is more expensive than what the physical media used to be. And piracy is driven by that fact.
I believe that younger audience are more active on music. As we grow older we get more picky on music plus have less free time to enjoy it. And young audience has less money to spend on music. 
I used to buy a CD for 10 euros some 15 years ago, no I have to spend sometimes 16 euros for a digital download of CD quality without the manufacturing cost of the disk, case, printed booklet, transport costs, store costs etc.
And this is wrong. I have more reasons to blame record companies other than audio companies. And of course this is my own opinion.   

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #13
Highresaudio asks 22€ for a MQA download. Since you placed an order of several albums the Hi$es busines plan seems to work.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #14
Highresaudio asks 22€ for a MQA download. Since you placed an order of several albums the Hi$es busines plan seems to work.

My first post reads a couple not several. And that was for evaluation purposes. If that makes Meridian rich, let it be.

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #15
There you go, use your Bluesound. MQA is a "money-grab" so don't expect to see an open source decoder for foobar2000 soon.
Maybe someone can reverse engeneer a usable free solution for De-Cripple. I call THIS a good step forward.

I haven't followed this stuff closely.  Its basically a normal PCM stream with some kind of upsampling applied on playback? 

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #16
Since you have a very good understanding of the tech you may get the most complete technical explanation here:
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/MQA/origami/ThereAndBack.html
For me it is high samplerate PCM crippled to fit in a smaller file. These versions are newly remastered but all these improvement from remastering is sold as MQA magic.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #17
Since you have a very good understanding of the tech you may get the most complete technical explanation here:
http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/MQA/origami/ThereAndBack.html
For me it is high samplerate PCM crippled to fit in a smaller file. These versions are newly remastered but all these improvement from remastering is sold as MQA magic.

That seems like an enormous amount of work to get a factor of 2 worth of lossy compression.  Other than the fact that more direct ways are already patented, is there any particular reason to like that approach?  Seems like subband codecs were doing at least as well as this 25 years ago. 

UMG adopts MQA

Reply #18
Despite the criticism MQA must be doing something right (news from 16/02/2017):
Quote
Music technology company MQA and Universal Music Group (UMG) announced today that the companies have entered into a multiyear agreement that will encode UMG’s extensive catalog in the Hi-Res Audio format.
source URL

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #19
Despite the criticism MQA must be doing something right (news from 16/02/2017):
Quote
Music technology company MQA and Universal Music Group (UMG) announced today that the companies have entered into a multiyear agreement that will encode UMG’s extensive catalog in the Hi-Res Audio format.
source URL

Yup, they are doing what they have always done well - marketing and selling.

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #20
Despite the criticism MQA must be doing something right
Yes, they have convinced the studios there is more money to be made with yet another remaster, this time of everything, including wax cylinder music (straight from BS mouth).
I guess "right" has many meanings.
And "artist intent" is no longer relevant...except for the $$$
Loudspeaker manufacturer

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #21
Since all UMG related streams or digital downloads seem to have the partly audible watermark for standard and hi$res MQA may be the only way to get a clean file. Time for some free decoder!
This business wouldn't surprise if we get MQA together with watermarks, just like the artist intended.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #22
This business wouldn't surprise if we get MQA together with watermarks, just like the artist intended.

That is the A of MQA, a digital signature.
TheWellTemperedComputer.com

Re: How to identify MQA decoding?

Reply #23
No, watermarking is that https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,111198.0.html
The A is an authentication flag and afaik not inserted into the audio.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!