[erich6]

While I agree with what you're saying here, what I can't help but wonder (And here's the chicken and egg debate): does MQA "sound better" because of some essential "MQA-ness" or because they're trying to enforce some proprietary standard that brings with it quality remastering? Like in other words if you took the "MQA master" because obviously its coming from the studio in whatever conventional format from very conventional gear, and just encoded it conventionally and put it on a CD (or if we have to be particular about it, run it up to the moon and put it on DVD Audio), and then compared that very conventional track to the MQA stream, would there be some essential difference because of the MQA part, or would they both be "good" because they're remastered nicely.

It's like the whole "remastered on Blu-ray thing" - Blu-ray itself as a container isn't the reason some old movies look better than ever these days, its because they've been re-mastered on good, modern equipment, they just so happen to be released on Blu-ray, but you could achieve the same quality with any other sufficiently capable (in terms of size and throughput) container (e.g. HD-DVD, very high bitrate streams, whatever).

​The L2 label has published a "test bench" to do precisely the comparison you'd like to do.  You have the master in very high resolution (DSD and 352.8 kHz PCM), 24/96 FLACs, 16/44 CD, and MQA files for comparison.  You can download the files here: http://www.2l.no/hires/

 

[erich6]

Oh god no. That's what they're trying to sell you, but that's in no way what they're delivering. For whatever reason (and feel free to jump on me for that awful plattitude), the "music world" just can't seem to get its head around ultra-bitrate content like the motion picture industry has. Sure, (video) streaming/broadcast content is compressed by necessity (well, more like they want to get as much junk on the line as they can get away with before the lawsuits get too egregious), but in terms of what you can buy on removable media (and even more premium streaming) its just unbelievable the datarates/quality they'll happily provide in terms of containers (and how cheap they'll do it), and while there are plenty of notorious examples of bad eggs, its usually when they go back to clean-up back catalog releases (and try to cut corners), not new releases. Anyways, why the analogy you ask? Because the music industry, in 2017, is still on about "near CD quality" to try and tout their "we still haven't actually fully surpassed FM except now we want you to pay (a whole lot) for the privilege" distribution model. MQA is basically (in my view) yet another example of trying to put lipstick on that pig, but now it gets special LED lights that blink on and let you have warm fuzzies, and you get to buy new gear also.

I'm not saying the end result is bad - but its like why is this like pulling teeth on their part? CD isn't bad by any means, but why are fighting over digital content that's "near CD quality" or "lossless compression of CD quality" when we should be arguing about which Blu-ray Audio or HD-DVD Audio player can deliver the most realistic experience, and what software will deliver the best rips thereof (and that absolutely *would* be into the realm of multi-gigabyte data storage). And the albums shouldn't cost an arm and a leg, especially if they're just digital distribution. Of course you can always just keep buying CDs and rip them and be happy, and there's nothing wrong with that (and that's honestly part of where I'm at a loss with "all these new fangled things"), and there's plenty of infrastructure to give you 16/44 basically whenever/wherever you want it (and it doesn't have to cost a lot, and isn't hard to use), but they're going for buzzword compliance to try and get their gear on the merry-go-round.

 
Transport of audio signals got to quality levels that surpass our auditory senses much sooner than video signals.  We are still literally seeing improvements in video because they haven't fully reached the limit of our visual acuity.  That will plateau as well (as it has in portable displays) and why you are now seeing a push to 3D, VR, and other "dimensions."
 
As for the price, an HD or Blue-Ray movie costs about $20.  A DSD download, which is a very high fidelity version of the original master, costs just a bit more.  High resolution versions of that master (better than CD) are easily less than $20.  CD's average about $10.  Streaming, depending on how much you listen to different albums, is much less.  I think the costs are reasonable and I for one get more mileage (many more hours of listening and replaying) out of a single album than I do out of a single movie.

 

[castleofargh]

 

 
so to summarize, MQA is a good thing for people who are obsessed with all the "time smearing" mumbo jumbo but don't want/can't use the actual highres flac file because they need to save some space. in effect the highest resolution and best "time smearing" solution will still be to simply use the high resolution PCM album or the DSD version(even if DSD doesn't add much over PCM highres because of all the stuff it needs to filter to get rid of the monstrous noise born from the stupid idea of making a 1bit format).
it's the glass half full or half empty. a 16/44 MQA could be said to be good compared to the same wave or flac 16/44 because it will help a few crappy low pass filters at such a rate. but compared to the actual PCM record that was used to generate the MQA 16/44, it's definitely a loss in resolution to save some space. so any talk of improved audio is 1337% nonsense as soon as we compare apples to apples.  it should be advertised as yet another streaming format and live it at that IMO. it's the only battle it's not immediately going to lose.
of course I expect a lot of remastered MQA albums, for the same reason it happened with DSD and DVD audio and highres in general. it will confuse the hell out of the average audiophile trusting his ears and failing to get that some sound differences will come from mastering and not from the "revolutionary" format.

 
All the MQA files I've downloaded or streamed seem to be 24 bits so I think they are preserving 16 bits and using the remaining 8 bits to store reconstruction and filter information for the higher resolution data.  The reason why I understand it may not be "exactly" like a CD version of the track (assuming both came from the same master) is because they are stripping high frequency auditory data (above 24 kHz I think) as well which I believe cannot really be perceived anyway.  I'm not sure what you mean by "16/44 MQA."
 
Nothing can beat the original recording if you want perfect fidelity.  However, perfect fidelity does not mean the best sound.  That's why good sound engineers and artists will work together to master the track by mixing the recording in a way that creates the best music.  Engineers and artists will master the music differently to tailor how it sounds once it is played back.  If done right, studios will commission engineers and artists to master music specifically for the medium and audio system it is intended to be played in.  But, there is no single standard for playback (different mediums like CD, digital files, vinyl and different playback systems like phones, computers, radios, dedicated systems, etc.) so studios generally do a single master and perhaps some tweak for each medium and that's it.  The concept of MQA is to "level the playing field" sort of speak by encoding the file with the information used to transmit the studio master to your ears as much as possible and then compensating for it (they don't quite get the entire chain as it doesn't account for differences in analog amplifiers, headphones, and speakers).  That's the concept at least and in practice I'm sure much will be less than ideal but I think it is a step in the right direction.  I see it fundamentally different than just a "blind" compression algorithm.
 
So, I agree MQA does not "improve" the studio master--it merely attempts to preserve it across a variable set of playback systems.  That said, it may be a better way to "package" that master than what we've had before.

well I didn't see that there is a lower limitation to which MQA resolution could be created. so I assume that they can take a highres PCM and make a MQA file at any resolution they want. well less than 16/44 would not only be a problem to code the signal amplitude of some songs, but would also defeat the purpose of calling MQA highres. the wiki talks about 16/48 maybe it's the lowest size they decided to use(that would effectively make all MQA files higher resolution than CD with that simple trick ^_^). so maybe I made up a false example using 16/44 as a resolution? IDK.
 
anyway if I wasn't clear we can take the other extreme as an example to show how there should always be a PCM with objectively superior resolution, even if they remaster something themselves. let's say a song was mastered as 24/192 PCM. you wouldn't make a 24/192 MQA file of it as the file already has the same sample rate as what it's trying to copy, and as such the same ultrasonic content. so there is no extra samples to encode with MQA in such a case. instead they would take the 24/192 PCM master and make... IDK let's say a 24/96 file for the sake of the argument, including MQA code for the remaining samples. so you get a smaller file where you "only" sacrifice a few bits of the file's dynamic range while keeping probably all of the 192khz content. it's not a bad bargain in such a situation, but it's still objectively inferior by a few bits to the master used to create the MQA. so the guy who wish for the very best possible at a measurable level, would wish to have the original master in PCM, not the best MQA. does this make my point clearer?

 

[obobskivich]

​The L2 label has published a "test bench" to do precisely the comparison you'd like to do.  You have the master in very high resolution (DSD and 352.8 kHz PCM), 24/96 FLACs, 16/44 CD, and MQA files for comparison.  You can download the files here: http://www.2l.no/hires/

I've seen that, but call me skeptical - the person creating the standard, selling the standard to mfgrs, and hawking the standard to the general public, also being the only source of supposedly critical information about the standard...:rolleyes:

Transport of audio signals got to quality levels that surpass our auditory senses much sooner than video signals.  We are still literally seeing improvements in video because they haven't fully reached the limit of our visual acuity. 

Let's leave that one alone.

That will plateau as well (as it has in portable displays) and why you are now seeing a push to 3D, VR, and other "dimensions."

And that one.

As for the price, an HD or Blue-Ray movie costs about $20.  A DSD download, which is a very high fidelity version of the original master, costs just a bit more.  High resolution versions of that master (better than CD) are easily less than $20.  CD's average about $10.  Streaming, depending on how much you listen to different albums, is much less.  I think the costs are reasonable and I for one get more mileage (many more hours of listening and replaying) out of a single album than I do out of a single movie.

Anecdotally, most Blu-ray discs I buy are around $6, and most DVDs around $4. The actual per-disc cost for the media is significantly lower than that. And my point is/was, "high res downloads" (and you have all the icky-sticky questions over provenance and so forth) are relatively more expensive for something that, quite frankly, should've been standardized nearly twenty years ago. Whether or not its "better" in terms of some subjective sense is largely irrelevant to this point - the technology and infrastructure exists to do it, so it should be done, and done cheaply. Yes I really mean something like "DVD replaced every other format in every other venue, except the CD, and there's no good reason it didn't replace the CD too, and why we aren't all looking at 24/96 PCM off the disc whether or not its really "better" but simply because we can."

Streaming services I've seen range from like $10-20 a month, but that's far below CD quality (and remember the 600 lb pink gorilla in the room here: FM is still alive and kicking), to absolutely hilarious multi-hundred dollar packages where we can arrive at the debate we're having now over MQA or whatever other "can I get near or above CD quality." Honestly I don't see the value-add there, when they could be (and quite frankly are) doing physical distribution on a cheaper scale, and the infrastructure/gear exists to do physical distribution with orders of magnitude "more" than whatever strangled streaming service, and that's before we get into the icky-sticky questions of provenance and so forth.

And I get it - they're two different industries, that have taken entirely different approaches to how to address the information age, mediated largely by how they view their customers. On one hand, customers are regarded as repeat sales and good business, and on the other, as nothing but a pack of guilty, thieving criminals that just haven't been caught yet.

 

[headfry]

Please explain how Tidal HIFI is far below CD quality.

 

[obobskivich]

Please explain how Tidal HIFI is far below CD quality.

I'm not just talking about Tidal here, I'm talking about the broader state of streaming services, and then you get "premium" services that try to do better and cost quite a lot in many cases (Roon probably being the worst). And MQA fits into that "pay more for premium branding."

 

[erich6]

I've seen that, but call me skeptical - the person creating the standard, selling the standard to mfgrs, and hawking the standard to the general public, also being the only source of supposedly critical information about the standard...

That's fair and I understand the skepticism.  I'm sure it won't be long before an independent reviewer corroborates.
 

 Anecdotally, most Blu-ray discs I buy are around $6, and most DVDs around $4. The actual per-disc cost for the media is significantly lower than that. And my point is/was, "high res downloads" (and you have all the icky-sticky questions over provenance and so forth) are relatively more expensive for something that, quite frankly, should've been standardized nearly twenty years ago. Whether or not its "better" in terms of some subjective sense is largely irrelevant to this point - the technology and infrastructure exists to do it, so it should be done, and done cheaply. Yes I really mean something like "DVD replaced every other format in every other venue, except the CD, and there's no good reason it didn't replace the CD too, and why we aren't all looking at 24/96 PCM off the disc whether or not its really "better" but simply because we can."

Streaming services I've seen range from like $10-20 a month, but that's far below CD quality (and remember the 600 lb pink gorilla in the room here: FM is still alive and kicking), to absolutely hilarious multi-hundred dollar packages where we can arrive at the debate we're having now over MQA or whatever other "can I get near or above CD quality." Honestly I don't see the value-add there, when they could be (and quite frankly are) doing physical distribution on a cheaper scale, and the infrastructure/gear exists to do physical distribution with orders of magnitude "more" than whatever strangled streaming service, and that's before we get into the icky-sticky questions of provenance and so forth.

And I get it - they're two different industries, that have taken entirely different approaches to how to address the information age, mediated largely by how they view their customers. On one hand, customers are regarded as repeat sales and good business, and on the other, as nothing but a pack of guilty, thieving criminals that just haven't been caught yet.

 
OK, if I understand you correctly you are really talking about the cost and standards for the distribution system, not the music itself.  From that perspective, it makes sense to question why something like DVD-Audio hasn't become the standard instead of streaming at "near-CD quality."  I think with video, the average consumer saw the improvement in Blue-Ray vs. DVD vs. broadcast quality quite readily whereas the improvement between DVD-audio and streaming wasn't as evident.  Also, it was easier to make music mobile than video (less bandwidth requirements).  Convenience trumped quality with music.  Since convenience wasn't as practical with video, standards such as HD-DVD and Blue-Ray advanced.  I think things are changing in video though...I see a lot more growth in streaming distribution systems than physical (as Netflix and Amazon figured out long ago.)  Also, home internet bandwidths have increased enough to make streaming much more viable.
 
It seems you are assuming the cost structure of the distribution system drives the price of music/video.  I think it is really the inherent market value of music/video and the quality of the products that are the drivers. 

 

[erich6]

Originally Posted by castleofargh /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
anyway if I wasn't clear we can take the other extreme as an example to show how there should always be a PCM with objectively superior resolution, even if they remaster something themselves. let's say a song was mastered as 24/192 PCM. you wouldn't make a 24/192 MQA file of it as the file already has the same sample rate as what it's trying to copy, and as such the same ultrasonic content. so there is no extra samples to encode with MQA in such a case. instead they would take the 24/192 PCM master and make... IDK let's say a 24/96 file for the sake of the argument, including MQA code for the remaining samples. so you get a smaller file where you "only" sacrifice a few bits of the file's dynamic range while keeping probably all of the 192khz content. it's not a bad bargain in such a situation, but it's still objectively inferior by a few bits to the master used to create the MQA. so the guy who wish for the very best possible at a measurable level, would wish to have the original master in PCM, not the best MQA. does this make my point clearer?

 
This definitely makes your point clearer and I would 100% agree with you if MQA was just a compression algorithm.  However, MQA does more than that.  In addition to encoding the higher resolution data, MQA also encodes a "recipe" in the file.  The "recipe" provides instructions to the decoder to do two things: 1) unpack the high resolution data (so far this is just like any other compression algorithm); and, more importantly 2) apply the right "correction" to the signal to remove artifacts, distortions, etc. introduced by the signal chain used to send the original PCM through the final DAC stage just before it goes to your amp and speakers/headphones.   If the signal chain was perfectly transparent then MQA *WOULD* be nothing more than just a compression algorithm.  However, we know that's not true so MQA is doing more than just compression. 
 
While I remain somewhat skeptical that the effects of #2 are really that pronounced, so far I'm impressed with the quality I'm hearing in the first wave of released MQA music.  As others have argued, this could be primarily because the studio finally released better masters and not necessarily because of the MQA standard.  That said, it seems whatever approach MQA developed for the studios to encode their masters is making it easier and more reliable for the studios to consistently and quickly release better masters of their entire catalog.  That in it of itself is a huge win for us.

 

[OldRoadToad]

   

 
No worries ORT.  Just enjoy the music and let others spend their money as they wish. 

​Thanks and yes, I do enjoy music.  It is very difficult to under stand how in this day and age, adults fall for crap like MQA.  It is some thing like that old saying about how do you tell who the Atheist is in a crowd.  Do not worry, they will tell you.
 
Same with MQA apologists/frAudiophiles.  They will tell (or even yell) they can hear  a difference but can not prove it.  The topic of this thread  is about will MQA influence one's decision to purchase an expensive DAC today. 
 
Not today or ever.  If all the author desired was a bunch of frAudio acolytes , they should have said so.
 
ORT

 

[obobskivich]

That's fair and I understand the skepticism.  I'm sure it won't be long before an independent reviewer corroborates.

It would be nice, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting, if you get what I mean.

OK, if I understand you correctly you are really talking about the cost and standards for the distribution system, not the music itself. 

Yes, that's basically how I'm interpreting "why we care about MQA" and so forth as well. The content exists out there at relatively high quality "in the studio" or wherever - they aren't tracking this stuff on their TOTL DAWs directly to 128k mp3 or whatever, they're using high quality gear and so forth. So why are they strangling the distribution so heavily, and charging so much for the "slow trickle of progress" which they're of course selling as "revolutionary new and improved" time and time again.

From that perspective, it makes sense to question why something like DVD-Audio hasn't become the standard instead of streaming at "near-CD quality."  I think with video, the average consumer saw the improvement in Blue-Ray vs. DVD vs. broadcast quality quite readily whereas the improvement between DVD-audio and streaming wasn't as evident.  Also, it was easier to make music mobile than video (less bandwidth requirements).  Convenience trumped quality with music.  Since convenience wasn't as practical with video, standards such as HD-DVD and Blue-Ray advanced.  I think things are changing in video though...I see a lot more growth in streaming distribution systems than physical (as Netflix and Amazon figured out long ago.)  Also, home internet bandwidths have increased enough to make streaming much more viable.

Yeah you're probably right, more or less, that consumer uptake is the biggest factor here. Then again, Blu-ray hasn't really overtaken DVD, but "digital video" as a broader category has entirely displaced lower quality analog formats (and no I'm not trying to segue into some vinyl vs digital thing here; I have no axe to grind with vinyl), and the overall quality is better than its ever been. Whereas digital audio distribution honestly feels pretty stagnant - something approximating 256k mp3 quality is pretty bog-standard for streaming services, which has basically been the state of "digital distribution" for music since the days of Napster.

It seems you are assuming the cost structure of the distribution system drives the price of music/video.  I think it is really the inherent market value of music/video and the quality of the products that are the drivers. 

Yes and no. I don't think it can be painted so black and white. The distribution system does impact cost, and the "market value" (I'm using that to conflate lots of things for the sake of discussion) does as well, but I think there is a degree of "price inflation" taking place as well - are all albums unilaterally in equal demand to justify an equal price (as HD Tracks does)? Now an argument could be made that they have a price floor that their distribution infrastructure can't sustain operating lower than, but my feeling is that probably isn't a very high bar, given what movie and software digital distribution can do in terms of bandwidth usage vs pricing. I appreciate the idea of MQA trying to push "high rez audio" in a more concrete way for content providers and distributors, but all of the strings that come attached to it that make it less appealing (and may impact its ability to successful; this is basically lifting Schiit Audio's points but I think they're valid and bear consideration). I also don't see why we really "need" to be buying new gear and re-buying digital music and all this and that instead of just using existing infrastructure on a broader scale, which goes back to the "slow trickle of development" argument.

 

[headfry]

The audiophile streamed music market is tiny compared with that of streamed video
and so doesn't share in the same economies of scale.
 
Since the PC/Mac Tidal decodes MQA very nicely and sounds as good as it does,
and assuming that decoding will come to the mobile versions as well (which allow
downloading of content) then I see nothing compelling users to buy new hardware.
 
A lot will depend on how streamed MQA is handled going forward, whether it continues
in its current promising quality and pricing.

 

[obobskivich]

The audiophile streamed music market is tiny compared with that of streamed video
and so doesn't share in the same economies of scale.

Like most anything else labeled "audiophile" I dont buy it - reasonable quality shouldn't be some sort of exclusive upmarket feature, and it geneally isn't until you throw the word "audiophile" at it.

Since the PC/Mac Tidal decodes MQA very nicely and sounds as good as it does,
and assuming that decoding will come to the mobile versions as well (which allow
downloading of content) then I see nothing compelling users to buy new hardware.

A lot will depend on how streamed MQA is handled going forward, whether it continues
in its current promising quality and pricing.

And content availability and user uptake will be big factors here, which makes exclusivity the enemy. Time will ultimately tell but I still think Schiit's answer is probably the most metered at this point.

 

[erich6]

Yes, that's basically how I'm interpreting "why we care about MQA" and so forth as well. The content exists out there at relatively high quality "in the studio" or wherever - they aren't tracking this stuff on their TOTL DAWs directly to 128k mp3 or whatever, they're using high quality gear and so forth. So why are they strangling the distribution so heavily, and charging so much for the "slow trickle of progress" which they're of course selling as "revolutionary new and improved" time and time again.

Yeah you're probably right, more or less, that consumer uptake is the biggest factor here. Then again, Blu-ray hasn't really overtaken DVD, but "digital video" as a broader category has entirely displaced lower quality analog formats (and no I'm not trying to segue into some vinyl vs digital thing here; I have no axe to grind with vinyl), and the overall quality is better than its ever been. Whereas digital audio distribution honestly feels pretty stagnant - something approximating 256k mp3 quality is pretty bog-standard for streaming services, which has basically been the state of "digital distribution" for music since the days of Napster.

Yes and no. I don't think it can be painted so black and white. The distribution system does impact cost, and the "market value" (I'm using that to conflate lots of things for the sake of discussion) does as well, but I think there is a degree of "price inflation" taking place as well - are all albums unilaterally in equal demand to justify an equal price (as HD Tracks does)? Now an argument could be made that they have a price floor that their distribution infrastructure can't sustain operating lower than, but my feeling is that probably isn't a very high bar, given what movie and software digital distribution can do in terms of bandwidth usage vs pricing. I appreciate the idea of MQA trying to push "high rez audio" in a more concrete way for content providers and distributors, but all of the strings that come attached to it that make it less appealing (and may impact its ability to successful; this is basically lifting Schiit Audio's points but I think they're valid and bear consideration). I also don't see why we really "need" to be buying new gear and re-buying digital music and all this and that instead of just using existing infrastructure on a broader scale, which goes back to the "slow trickle of development" argument.

 
Many good points here.  
 
Maybe there is something inherent in the record label business model that has limited advancement in distribution systems.  Then again, the dynamics have been very different between video and audio.  With video/movies, the idea of copyright and piracy were never questioned whereas with music, people felt like it should be freely available DRM free.  A lot of time and money was wasted trying to figure that out. 
 
That said, I really do think consumer uptake is the biggest factor.  Before I had a decent pair of headphones, DAC and amp, I thought a $20 a month subscription to Tidal was not worth it...the quality just wasn't that different than what I was getting from Spotify or Rhapsody.  Now I think it is a fair price for a full library of CD-quality music (and with MQA getting much better and we will see if this changes the price).  But, it took some self-prodding for me to put some money down to get decent music playback equipment; most people don't think twice about spending a lot money on a good TV.  People still think it strange to spend a total of $1,000 on good headphones, DAC, and amp (you might be called weird things like "audiophile") but spending the same amount for a good TV and a basic "home theater system" seems "reasonable."  We are arguing $10-$20 streaming subscription is costly, but that's not much different than Netflix or HBO GO.  Your point is the music we get should be high-resolution/high quality just like the HD quality we get with streaming...maybe so.  But, as you pointed out in a previous post: "they're two different industries."

 

[OldRoadToad]

Like most anything else labeled "audiophile" I dont buy it - reasonable quality shouldn't be some sort of exclusive upmarket feature, and it geneally isn't until you throw the word "audiophile" at it.



And content availability and user uptake will be big factors here, which makes exclusivity the enemy. Time will ultimately tell but I still think Schiit's answer is probably the most metered at this point.

​Most audiophiles are frAudiophiles when it comes to tweeks and the like and MQA is a BS tweek.  That sort of stuff caters to the ego at the expense of, quite frankly, the wallet.  I do not care if they want to spend the money what I find ridiculous is their assertion that doing so makes a difference outside the diminutive matrix that is their ego.
 
I like audio equipment that works well and to my eyes, looks great. 
 
ORT

 

[castleofargh]

and I thought I had a strong opinion about this.

I like fraudiophile though, I might steal it and start calling myself that from now on, adding the FR-audiophile twist to it.