An educated view, perhaps?

pmcuk

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Reading this thread I realise I'm in a time warp. I had to look up MQA for instance. The only streaming I do is from YouTube or sometimes Spotify. I have a large collection of CDs ripped to an external HD which I access in iTunes. 

So I pay no monthly fee whatever. And I'm happy with the sound quality, since all my ripped CDs are kept in lossless AIFF. YouTube sound doesn't bother me - it sounds pretty good and as good as I need it to for casual listening. 

I also use Garageband a lot for making recordings and playing them back. 

So how many years out of date am I, and does it matter? 

 

MartinC

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Reading this thread I realise I'm in a time warp. I had to look up MQA for instance. The only streaming I do is from YouTube or sometimes Spotify. I have a large collection of CDs ripped to an external HD which I access in iTunes. 

So I pay no monthly fee whatever. And I'm happy with the sound quality, since all my ripped CDs are kept in lossless AIFF. YouTube sound doesn't bother me - it sounds pretty good and as good as I need it to for casual listening. 

I also use Garageband a lot for making recordings and playing them back. 

So how many years out of date am I, and does it matter? 
It costs you money whenever you want to listen to new music at CD quality though.

Nothing at all wrong with what you're doing if you're happy  :) .

 
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DomT

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The url, is a link, you can copy them over for radio stations such as the BBC, Radio Paradise maybe Qobuz is different as it's  a subscription service. Can you add internet radio stations to your Auralic? I have done it on my Node. But it seems Auralic have added Qobuz anyway. I did see this setup guide: https://hometheaterhifi.com/technical/technical-reviews/setting-up-an-auralic-aries-g1-streamer-and-qobuz-streaming-service-review/

Do you have an ipad or iphone?
Auralic only works on an iPhone or iPad.  Just checked for QoBuz and I also saw that Amazon Music is now added. 

 

Jazid

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Reading this thread I realise I'm in a time warp. I had to look up MQA for instance. The only streaming I do is from YouTube or sometimes Spotify. I have a large collection of CDs ripped to an external HD which I access in iTunes. 

So I pay no monthly fee whatever. And I'm happy with the sound quality, since all my ripped CDs are kept in lossless AIFF. YouTube sound doesn't bother me - it sounds pretty good and as good as I need it to for casual listening. 

I also use Garageband a lot for making recordings and playing them back. 

So how many years out of date am I, and does it matter? 
How many years? Depends - MQA has been around for maybe four, maybe three? But it isn't gaining huge traction thank goodness so Meridian keeps banging the drum to hook in the big media companies. The 'virtue' of it appears to be that it requires the purchase of secret processing in proprietary format in order to listen to at full resolution, but nowhere have I seen anyone able to show that it improves either resolution or sound quality, nor is the pricing exactly transparent, but instead there is evidence aplenty that suggests that it is a sham. I tried it for a while and thought it was good. After a month I went back to standard cd quality and noticed no drop in SQ or enjoyment. Auditory memory huh? MQA is (in my opinion) a non-event, and no, being out of date doesn't matter when it comes to audio enjoyment :)

 
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nomore landings

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What were the MQA cds that you bought. 

After my Tidal 3 months contract is up, I'm going back to Qobuz, I use a Node as well but have a Jolida DAC (non MQA). When I switched from Qobuz to Tidal, I thought the sound quality was not so good, seemed brighter/harsher, some albums were worst than others, I did go through all the settings, just in case it had defaulted to some low res mp3, but everything was in order. I think there are slight differences in EQ settings. Amazon is not good interface on the Node, seem Amazon are not interested in developing it. That's why I would stick to a  specialist streaming service. Tidal I looked at the recommended albums for me and this was after I had selected my favourite artists,  5 out of 6 of the albums were Rap or R&B, none of my chosen artists are in that genre, so it is still going on, this promotion of certain genres. There have been a lot of changes at Tidal recently and some are better such as the CD level for £10pm, £20pm was looking far too expensive compared to their peers. 
The cheapest on Amazon as only for curiosity! You can see the unfold to 176.4Khz or 4 X redbook. Soft jazz not my thing but passes Hans"s Steinway test with flying colours. MQA done properly absolutely does sound "better", but as said, not necessarily via TIdal. Sorry. Lo Res photo to fit the download limit

IMG_9117.jpeg

 
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The cheapest on Amazon as only for curiosity! You can see the unfold to 176.4Khz or 4 X redbook. Soft jazz not my thing but passes Hans"s Steinway test with flying colours. MQA done properly absolutely does sound "better", but as said, not necessarily via TIdal.

51ulxkEkUnL._AC_.jpg
If it sounds better then it’s a shame that nobody outside of MQA knows what exactly it is. No peer review or published papers just nothing. And that’s why it’s weird. 

 

tuga

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An educated view, perhaps?
Naa.

Move along, nothing to see.

aa5phVO.gif


 

George 47

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I have a Luxman D-10 CD player here so I can play with MQA again. I have ordered a CD that has an MQA recording on 1 CD and a 'normal' 16/44.1 CD on the other CD. I'll see what that shows.  I abandoned Tidal for Qobuz but may be tempted to get a months worth to play with MQA. But my favourite so far is Qobuz at 24/192. A dealer I know prefers CD to SACD but that is another subject. I like Hans B so will keep an eye on his follow up.

 
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MartinC

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I had no idea that MQA discs existed!

The meaningful comparison should be MQA vs a true high-res version of the identical master, not MQA vs redbook (unless the MQA in question isn't claiming to be a form of high-res).

 

tuga

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I had no idea that MQA discs existed!

The meaningful comparison should be MQA vs a true high-res version of the identical master, not MQA vs redbook (unless the MQA in question isn't claiming to be a form of high-res).
MQA (~17-bit/60kHz) uses lossy compression - it's sort of a high-res "mp3"

Redbook (16-bit/44.1kHz) is lossy but not compressed

.

MQA is not even effective as a data compressor:

MQA - 60k, 17-bit: 31M
FLAC* - 88.2k, 20-bit: 34M
FLAC* - 88.2k, 17-bit: 21M

* - level 8 compression

.

MQA is :td:

 

George 47

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I had no idea that MQA discs existed!

The meaningful comparison should be MQA vs a true high-res version of the identical master, not MQA vs redbook (unless the MQA in question isn't claiming to be a form of high-res).
True, but with so many rumours about 're-mastering' files before MQA it is always fraught with problems. The  Universal Music CDs is from Japan and maybe it is a far comparison....most of the leaflet is in Japanese so I can't translate. But it probably less 'interfered with' than Tidal. I'll see/hear.

 
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George 47

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MQA (~17-bit/60kHz) uses lossy compression - it's sort of a high-res "mp3"

Redbook (16-bit/44.1kHz) is lossy but not compressed

.

MQA is not even effective as a data compressor:

MQA - 60k, 17-bit: 31M
FLAC* - 88.2k, 20-bit: 34M
FLAC* - 88.2k, 17-bit: 21M

* - level 8 compression

.

MQA is :td:
Don't hold back, tell us what you really think. :D  

I'll assume you have read the Meridian papers, the psychoacoustics  and the folding process.

 

tuga

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Seems a bit odd that it's not in Portugal when you can get it in New Zealand, Ireland and Finland. Qobuz is based in France. 

Not native but you can copy an url over?
I'll add some 2019 numbers to @DomT's post above:

Portugal
GDP - 239.5 billion USD
Average income - 10k £

UK
GDP - 2,831 billion USD
Average income - 30k £

.

Edit: interestinly the UK is almost 12x richer but the average income is only 3x higher...

 
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tuga

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DomT

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I have a Luxman D-10 CD player here so I can play with MQA again. I have ordered a CD that has an MQA recording on 1 CD and a 'normal' 16/44.1 CD on the other CD. I'll see what that shows.  I abandoned Tidal for Qobuz but may be tempted to get a months worth to play with MQA. But my favourite so far is Qobuz at 24/192. A dealer I know prefers CD to SACD but that is another subject. I like Hans B so will keep an eye on his follow up.
Who produces the MQA CDs? Do you know if the two CDs be from the same master?

I had thought that MQA was about streaming Amal packets of info so am not sure what the point of an MQA CD is. 

One thing that bothers me about MQA is they say artist approved and yet launched hundreds of thousands of MQA albums. It would appear logistically impossible to get artist approval. Even if a record label gave approval it can’t have been by a listening sessions as they don’t have the manpower. 

 

tuga

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Coding High Quality Digital Audio
J. ROBERT STUART

The author has led the campaign mounted by Acoustic Renaissance for Audio of which he is Chairman. The ARA has made consistent arguments for higher standards of audio recording quality on the next major format (which should be DVD Audio). This article is an adaptation of material that the author has presented during this campaign. It summarises some of the important issues we face in deciding how to code audio for the next generation of archive and distribution.

.

Coding for High-Resolution Audio Systems
J. ROBERT STUART, AES Fellow

What do we mean by high resolution? The recording and replay chain is reviewed from the viewpoints of digital audio engineering and human psychoacoustics. An attempt is made to define high resolution and to identify the characteristics of a transparent digital audio channel. The theory and practice of selecting high sample rates such as 96 kHz and word lengths of up to 24 bit are examined. The relative importance of sampling rate and word size at various points in the recording, mastering, transmission, and replay chain is discussed. Encoding methods that can achieve high resolution are examined and compared, and the advantages of schemes such as lossless coding, noise shaping, oversampling, and matched preemphasis with noise shaping are described.

 

StingRay

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Who produces the MQA CDs? Do you know if the two CDs be from the same master?

I had thought that MQA was about streaming Amal packets of info so am not sure what the point of an MQA CD is. 

One thing that bothers me about MQA is they say artist approved and yet launched hundreds of thousands of MQA albums. It would appear logistically impossible to get artist approval. Even if a record label gave approval it can’t have been by a listening sessions as they don’t have the manpower. 
Neil Young was very upset about the artist approval as he did give any and thinks MQA is worse and how do they know what the artist wants. https://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=7218

Most of warners catalogue was mass processed. Some albums probably are remastered, I should think the cds were, just like some HiRes have been remastered.

 
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tuga

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Who produces the MQA CDs? Do you know if the two CDs be from the same master?

I had thought that MQA was about streaming Amal packets of info so am not sure what the point of an MQA CD is. 

One thing that bothers me about MQA is they say artist approved and yet launched hundreds of thousands of MQA albums. It would appear logistically impossible to get artist approval. Even if a record label gave approval it can’t have been by a listening sessions as they don’t have the manpower. 
MQA is a "fraud".

• it's not Master Quality but a lossy copy

• it's not Authenticated

But it's expensive and the audiophile press is shoving it down our ears so it must be good...

 
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MartinC

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True, but with so many rumours about 're-mastering' files before MQA it is always fraught with problems. 
Absolutely. Uncontrolled comparisons of what sounds 'better' are essentially useless in this instance I fear, with MQA's approach of secrecy making it very difficult to properly test independently.

 

George 47

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Thanks Ric. I have seen and read most of them, but Bob Stuart does have a great track record in digital data compression in video and audio. And Golden Sounds is somewhat more controversial and he does not really use acoustic/natural music. Just the odd track or two. I'll listen to what appears to be a great classical recording and hear the differences for myself. Fun and not really much more. 

 
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