Today MQA Audio

I understand Naim will look at it again when they feel the filter drivers and code has sufficienlty matured - they consider it currently immature, inefficient and too restrictive  and not suitable for consideration of  integration into the  Naim portfolio  at this time - but when that changes they will look at it again to see if it brings any merit.

In my opinion its somewhat of an improvement from Tidal streamed FLAC PCM, but falls someway to a long way short of CD replay / local 44.1/16 replay - especially when using 1x over/upsampling.

Yes I'm looking forward to what it'll be like once it has matured and Naim takes another look at it.  I also don't have a MQA-enabled DAC so I don't quite know what other improvements can be had.  In addition most of my favorite content isn't MQA enabled so its hard for me to make a complete judgement but I do like what I'm hearing at this stage.   

Downloaded the OS X Tidal Player to my Apple Laptop and played Tidal Master recordings for 4+ hours last night via USB. 

They sound fantastic!  My DAC reports 96/24 files.

Last night I compared a few albums to Tidal HiFi streaming and it's pretty much a no-brainier, the Master Streaming sounds better in every way.  As of today I counted 484 Master albums available to stream. https://support.tidal.com/hc/e...397069-TIDAL-MASTERS

Today for fun I played Steely DAN Two Against Nature via a CD rip, then 96/24 download, and finally Tidal Master streaming.  They all sounded different from each other, no surprise there. While the CD rip had a noticeably smaller soundstage its sounds closer to the 96/24 download. The Tidal Stream & 96/24 download both filled the room with sound but I'm almost positive they are sourced from different masters. The Master Stream presents a completely different presentation of this live recording. Which one of these sounded the best to me.

None of them ... I put on the LP version and it blew all these digital recordings out of the water. 

Crazy, I did some checking on the Steel Dan Two Against Nature recording and the claim is my vinyl LP is supposedly a bootleg. Go figure I like this version the best! 

Not sure what that says about me, my system, or subjective listening in general. I do know I probably won't listen to this Steely Dan album again for years after this marathon. I feel sorry for anyone so driven they force themselves to go through this sort of torment. 

I was thankful when Tidal HiFi streaming became available, I'll be even more thankful if HiRes streaming becomes widespread and MP3's fades away like the Disco era. 

Bill Allen posted:

Downloaded the OS X Tidal Player to my Apple Laptop and played Tidal Master recordings for 4+ hours last night via USB. 

They sound fantastic!  My DAC reports 96/24 files.

Last night I compared a few albums to Tidal HiFi streaming and it's pretty much a no-brainier, the Master Streaming sounds better in every way.  As of today I counted 484 Master albums available to stream. https://support.tidal.com/hc/e...397069-TIDAL-MASTERS

Today for fun I played Steely DAN Two Against Nature via a CD rip, then 96/24 download, and finally Tidal Master streaming.  They all sounded different from each other, no surprise there. While the CD rip had a noticeably smaller soundstage its sounds closer to the 96/24 download. The Tidal Stream & 96/24 download both filled the room with sound but I'm almost positive they are sourced from different masters. The Master Stream presents a completely different presentation of this live recording. Which one of these sounded the best to me.

None of them ... I put on the LP version and it blew all these digital recordings out of the water. 

That is very interesting, good to know LP still has the edge.

Apart from just worthwhile remembering that unless the the vinyl you are listening to is old it will almost certainly be created from a digital recording..... in which case all you are hearing are the differences between your TT/arm/cartridge/phonoamp and your DAC/DSP acting as the reconstruction filter....

analogmusic posted:

Bill Allen posted:

Downloaded the OS X Tidal Player to my Apple Laptop and played Tidal Master recordings for 4+ hours last night via USB. 

They sound fantastic!  My DAC reports 96/24 files.

Last night I compared a few albums to Tidal HiFi streaming and it's pretty much a no-brainier, the Master Streaming sounds better in every way.  As of today I counted 484 Master albums available to stream. https://support.tidal.com/hc/e...397069-TIDAL-MASTERS

Today for fun I played Steely DAN Two Against Nature via a CD rip, then 96/24 download, and finally Tidal Master streaming.  They all sounded different from each other, no surprise there. While the CD rip had a noticeably smaller soundstage its sounds closer to the 96/24 download. The Tidal Stream & 96/24 download both filled the room with sound but I'm almost positive they are sourced from different masters. The Master Stream presents a completely different presentation of this live recording. Which one of these sounded the best to me.

None of them ... I put on the LP version and it blew all these digital recordings out of the water. 

That is very interesting, good to know LP still has the edge.

It is a matter of opinion, and of course the system used. Vinyl has more inherent compromises, but of course for many that is the sound they first new as they started their hifi journey (me too, and for a while when digital came along the limitations of its early implementation made me reject it, then it became equivalent (though not identical), and  more recently digital has moved ahead, and can sound distinctly better (not only to my ears, but also a diehard vinyl fanatic friend, who has now acknowledged the same): but so much of course depends on the recording and mastering , and MQA is just one variant - which might improve the quality of bandwidth-critical online streaming, but not direct playing.

Simon - you will also be hearing a difference because of EQ - RIAA compensation and all that.

Indeed, technically called reconstruction filtering as it gets the signal back closer to the original or the designers version of a modified original.. such as rolled off treble etc.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Martinca - all I will say is I suggest one is wary of getting wrapped up in the marketing/sales bubble. I am still not convinced/understand what relevance MQA has if its reconstruction filter is not used to expand 'lossy' compressed hidef. I have seen no detail other than vague marketing Q&As and this forum about this so called 'clearing up' of masters - that kind of reads like 'it just does it - trust us'. If it was that straightforward even if no MQA decode capability was required everyone would do it and no one would need MQA. So which MQA patent is used for this 'clearing up' and I/we can then look up this patent to see what they say they are uniquely doing... without that it just comes across as  sales speak - and as Jon H states one should be professionally cynical unless more proper white paper and clearer explanations are made... as we have all been hear before over the years.

Well - I think you have a good point about being professional scepticism. 

I must admit that the more I read, the further away from 'bit perfection' the MQA process seems.  And in that light, when MQA talk about recapturing the sound as originally heard before it is even encoded and talking about psychoacoustics, it could easily be seen as an attempt to gloss over the compromises the process has to make.

There is an interesting unofficial post on the Linn forum by one of their staff members entitled "MQA looks bad for music. Let me explain" which highlights what MQA has to gain (a lot of royalties), which certainly makes for a strong motive for them to win the propaganda war.  Equally companies like Linn, Chord, and Naim have a strong commercial motive to be highly sceptical of the claims made (which is not to dispute any reservations they may have or their commitment to reproduction of music).

But on the other hand, to be fair to MQA, some of the interviews with Bob Stuart has gone into a lot of detail about all this.  It is difficult for them to explain what MQA is all about in terms that satisfy a casual listener, and audiophiles, and sound engineers.  I think we need to cut them a little slack in interviews aimed at a broad audience, where explanations like 'its a folding process  like origami' may help provide a basic level of understanding.  Of course the analogy is flawed, and all analogies are flawed when pushed.  And it sounds like sales speak to someone who's an expert in the field.  But once they start getting into deeper levels of explanation you lose most peoples interest.  Also flagging the fact that it isn't bit perfect isn't a recipe that will endear them to many people whose nirvana is access to bit perfect music.  The more you dig, the more questions there are to answer.

I do find the stuff about psychoacoustics interesting though.   Bob Stuart gives an example of a snapping twig behind you, where you instantly recognise it and can pretty much determine where and how far away it was. The sound is identified by its 'envelope' which includes its start and end transients and its length.  It's like a fast reader who will recognise a word without reading it fully from its first few letters, its context, and its length.  And it reminds me of the trick good small speakers can play of sounding like they have more bass than they actually have which has been explained by the listener's brain implying the missing lower frequencies from the higher harmonics.  And apparently our hearing is adaptable, tuning into the part of the sound that the situation demands.   Stuart says that the pursuit of bit perfection is blinding us to the quest for the more important quest to accurately realistically render the most important elements of the original sound (such as getting the transients right).

I can't help feeling that this is early days and that there is a lot in this to be explored.  It would help explain to me how sometimes a vinyl record can still sound better to me that a hidef recording (not always, but sometimes).   Whether MQA is an answer to this, whether there are better options available, I really don't know.   So I also agree with you that we need better clearer explanations and until then some scepticism is necessary.

BUT finally - whatever the reason - I am finding the new Master recordings played through Tidal do sound better to me even without full MQA unfolding.  This is worthwhile progress for me, especially if it also helps shift the mass market away from the sub-CD quality streaming.   So my variation of scepticism will remain rose tinted and optimistic for the time being! 

Martin

Well I've just figured out how to join in and experience MQA with may Naim Nd5 XS. I have a MacBook Pro so all in needed is a mini toslink cable. I'll keep it short because so many people know more about the technical side, it sounds superb. I really do think this has potential, for sure sounds better than redbook streamed from tidal. £20 a month for this is feeling like a real bargain. ��

Martin, if you are interested in this you might want to join the AES if not already. A lot of this research and discovery is not particularly new - there is an interesting 'summarising paper' here that brings lots of other research together - and in particular showing our inter aural time discrimination is typically less than 2uS and is important in true high resolution audio, (CD can only theoretically achieve approx 22uS)  this when used in conjunction with spatial discrimination and other considerations shows there is far more to our hearing that merely frequency detection - and these temporal queues equate to reality for us

Physical and Perceptual Considerations for High Resolution Audio; Wieslaw Woszczyk

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12372

Mr2Harvey posted:

 £20 a month for this is feeling like a real bargain. ��

Hey, I'm only paying $20 CAD. "Rip-off Britain"!

Mr2Harvey posted:

I really do think this has potential, for sure sounds better than redbook streamed from tidal. £20 a month for this is feeling like a real bargain. ��

I think that Tidal redbook streamed generally sounds awful (I've tried trial subscriptions twice) compared to redbook from my $300 nas.  I'm taking a waiting approach; am happier with my home library for hi fi and iRadio for variety (with attendant sound quality issues that I can overlook in context).

MartinCA posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Martinca - all I will say is I suggest one is wary of getting wrapped up in the marketing/sales bubble. I am still not convinced/understand what relevance MQA has if its reconstruction filter is not used to expand 'lossy' compressed hidef. I have seen no detail other than vague marketing Q&As and this forum about this so called 'clearing up' of masters - that kind of reads like 'it just does it - trust us'. If it was that straightforward even if no MQA decode capability was required everyone would do it and no one would need MQA. So which MQA patent is used for this 'clearing up' and I/we can then look up this patent to see what they say they are uniquely doing... without that it just comes across as  sales speak - and as Jon H states one should be professionally cynical unless more proper white paper and clearer explanations are made... as we have all been hear before over the years.

Well - I think you have a good point about being professional scepticism. 

I must admit that the more I read, the further away from 'bit perfection' the MQA process seems.  And in that light, when MQA talk about recapturing the sound as originally heard before it is even encoded and talking about psychoacoustics, it could easily be seen as an attempt to gloss over the compromises the process has to make.

There is an interesting unofficial post on the Linn forum by one of their staff members entitled "MQA looks bad for music. Let me explain" which highlights what MQA has to gain (a lot of royalties), which certainly makes for a strong motive for them to win the propaganda war.  Equally companies like Linn, Chord, and Naim have a strong commercial motive to be highly sceptical of the claims made (which is not to dispute any reservations they may have or their commitment to reproduction of music).

But on the other hand, to be fair to MQA, some of the interviews with Bob Stuart has gone into a lot of detail about all this.  It is difficult for them to explain what MQA is all about in terms that satisfy a casual listener, and audiophiles, and sound engineers.  I think we need to cut them a little slack in interviews aimed at a broad audience, where explanations like 'its a folding process  like origami' may help provide a basic level of understanding.  Of course the analogy is flawed, and all analogies are flawed when pushed.  And it sounds like sales speak to someone who's an expert in the field.  But once they start getting into deeper levels of explanation you lose most peoples interest.  Also flagging the fact that it isn't bit perfect isn't a recipe that will endear them to many people whose nirvana is access to bit perfect music.  The more you dig, the more questions there are to answer.

I do find the stuff about psychoacoustics interesting though.   Bob Stuart gives an example of a snapping twig behind you, where you instantly recognise it and can pretty much determine where and how far away it was. The sound is identified by its 'envelope' which includes its start and end transients and its length.  It's like a fast reader who will recognise a word without reading it fully from its first few letters, its context, and its length.  And it reminds me of the trick good small speakers can play of sounding like they have more bass than they actually have which has been explained by the listener's brain implying the missing lower frequencies from the higher harmonics.  And apparently our hearing is adaptable, tuning into the part of the sound that the situation demands.   Stuart says that the pursuit of bit perfection is blinding us to the quest for the more important quest to accurately realistically render the most important elements of the original sound (such as getting the transients right).

I can't help feeling that this is early days and that there is a lot in this to be explored.  It would help explain to me how sometimes a vinyl record can still sound better to me that a hidef recording (not always, but sometimes).   Whether MQA is an answer to this, whether there are better options available, I really don't know.   So I also agree with you that we need better clearer explanations and until then some scepticism is necessary.

BUT finally - whatever the reason - I am finding the new Master recordings played through Tidal do sound better to me even without full MQA unfolding.  This is worthwhile progress for me, especially if it also helps shift the mass market away from the sub-CD quality streaming.   So my variation of scepticism will remain rose tinted and optimistic for the time being! 

Martin

Good post. "Perfection" in replay isn't the only way to the best aural experience. The vinyl crowd know this (at least tacitly). Starting with enough data, there is no reason that compression (even lossy), transmission and reconstruction can't result in something that sounds great.

winkyincanada posted:

Mr2Harvey posted:

 £20 a month for this is feeling like a real bargain. ��

Hey, I'm only paying $20 CAD. "Rip-off Britain"!

Ha ha yes you're probably right but even at £20 it's really good value to me. Plus having expensive hi-fi usually means you can afford such sums. I applaude Tidal for pushing forward and bringing us all into the 21st century! 

winkyincanada posted:

Mr2Harvey posted:

 £20 a month for this is feeling like a real bargain. ��

Hey, I'm only paying $20 CAD. "Rip-off Britain"!

Don't shout it too loud...!

I read somewhere today that mqa doesn't allow for digital output. Analogue. I shall try to verify this. 

jon honeyball posted:

I read somewhere today that mqa doesn't allow for digital output. Analogue. I shall try to verify this. 

I can confirm that you output digitally, I'm doing 24 bit 96khz via toslink and macbook pro into Naim nd5 xs... It's rather good to say the least! 

jon honeyball posted:

I read somewhere today that mqa doesn't allow for digital output. Analogue. I shall try to verify this. 

Well i am getting digital USB output from MQA enabled Tidal app connecting to my DAC - at either 88.2 or 96 kHz sample rate depending on MQA source file - which are all at 48/24

jon honeyball posted:

I read somewhere today that mqa doesn't allow for digital output. Analogue. I shall try to verify this. 

The MQA is outputting just fine over my Toslink from my Mac Mini.

winkyincanada posted:

...... Starting with enough data, there is no reason that compression (even lossy), transmission and reconstruction can't result in something that sounds great.

Absolutely codecs like AAC 320k, MP3 320k and MQA can all sound great - just because its lossy doesn't mean it sounds bad - its just that the audio has been processed such that some of the original content has been discarded or modified perhaps even to enhance the original audio- that probably is of little consequence for many.. especially listening in the car or with cheaper earphones... and of course MQA is the only lossy codec I am aware of for higher temporal bandwidths

Mr2Harvey posted:

jon honeyball posted:

I read somewhere today that mqa doesn't allow for digital output. Analogue. I shall try to verify this. 

I can confirm that you output digitally, I'm doing 24 bit 96khz via toslink and macbook pro into Naim nd5 xs... It's rather good to say the least! 

Well, that is right and wrong.  

You can get digital output from an MQA encoded file using software decoders (such as the Tidal interface), but all you get is the first "unfolding", i.e. 24/48 > 24/96.  To get full/"true" MQA then by definition it has to be an analog output from an MQA licensed DAC.  The MQA licensed DAC performs the reconstruction filtering (the "de-smearing" of the time domain), as well as performs additional unfolding, if applicable.

See the previously linked Audiostream article for more info or, if so inclined, see the MQA patent here: https://worldwide.espacenet.co...DOC&locale=en_EP

I wish we could use the proper term - which is up-sampling instead of 'unfolding'- why MQA had invent a new term for something that is otherwise universally understood.

Mr2Harvey - what do you mean by 'true' MQA please? I see no mention of this in the docs I have - other than you can increase the up sampling ratios with hardware - and perhaps this requires licensing  - that I don't know.

However I understand the higher the temporal resolution you allow into your master - the more artefacts you have to accept (aliased signals) into the reconstructed MQA signal.

Also I have seen no proper definition of 'desmearing' of the time domain - I am not aware how you can do this  - once smeared you have lost data as far as I am concerned - unless it means something other than what I understand  - however MQA does allow increased a temporal resolution (timing) for a reduced frequency bandwidth of the transported or stored signal- but the timing has to be there in the first place - and the end DAC has to have a high timing bandwidth like the Chord range of DACs for example and I assume MQS registered DACs (???)  so as to reconstruct the timing. Timing needs to be captured and restored at the ADC and DAC reconstruction. 

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

I wish we could use the proper term - which is up-sampling instead of 'unfolding'- why MQA had invent a new term for something that is otherwise universally understood.

Agree.  That is why I used quotes for the MQA marketing speak, like "de-smearing".

I've borrowed a Meridian Explorer 2 that I've used with my Focal Elears and HD650s and so far I'm not very impressed with the second stage of the MQA implementation (beyond the initial "unfolding").  However, since this is the only way that I can hear "true" MQA I'm so far chalking it up to the fact that I'm just not a fan of the Explorer 2 voicing as I don't really care for it playing back my other non-MQA WAV rips.  That said, from reading the patent I get the impression that a lot of the final "true" MQA sound is based upon Mr. Stuart's assumptions/voicing/application of various reconstruction filters, which leads me to believe that MQA licensed DACs will sound more similar than dissimilar.

In the end I would much rather just have the hi-res FLAC streaming without the whole MQA mess.