[gimmeheadroom]

I do also recognise MQA as a cheat and an attempt to monopolize the entire music industry. Taxing everyone, from artists producing content to us, listeners. The main supporters of MQA are streaming companies having record of cheating on artists having conflict of interest, they jumped on MQA bandwagon for the same reason - greed.

In this topic my view is that CD format is almost sufficient when listening on R2R DAC like my R2R-11. Absolutely sufficient on the road, there is no reason for MQA. On desktop I can afford to stream or download 24/96kHz (my preference) format or 192k. The last one only beneficial on some selected new recordings, not being a common case.

I agree that lossy compression nowadays is pointless and dumb and I'm not sure why they do this. That said, the MQA albums do sound great. There have been other lossy codecs (Sony ATRAC for minidisc, for example) which sound far better than the numbers would suggest. The discussion is not whether you like MQA without listening to it, or for those people who listened to it and loved it until somebody told them they shouldn't, or other issues. The problem with his attack (and most others) was they failed to compare identical versions of the recording. There were other shortcomings in that "analysis" but I have forgotten, because I don't care to spend time watching people bashing things pointlessly. There is no need for crusades, and no justification for false prophets to save the world. Let your own ears decide

 

[sajunky]

Oh, and I was shocked to see that the coax out connector was nickel (?) plated!?! Unlike the official pictures and manual images...

What you see gold is not a gold, but metal alloy. And for a digital connection irrelevant, IHMO.

 

[GoldenSound]

I agree that lossy compression nowadays is pointless and dumb and I'm not sure why they do this. That said, the MQA albums do sound great. There have been other lossy codecs (Sony ATRAC for minidisc, for example) which sound far better than the numbers would suggest. The discussion is not whether you like MQA without listening to it, or for those people who listened to it and loved it until somebody told them they shouldn't, or other issues. The problem with his attack (and most others) was they failed to compare identical versions of the recording. There were other shortcomings in that "analysis" but I have forgotten, because I don't care to spend time watching people bashing things pointlessly. There is no need for crusades, and no justification for false prophets to save the world. Let your own ears decide

You can't have identical versions of the recording if MQA changes your recording.
That's the whole point

 

[gimmeheadroom]

So the DI-20HE has been playing nicely for a few days and although it's warm to the touch that you can tell it's on, it's not anywhere as warm as I understood from reading the thread. In case anybody is put off by the idea that it runs hot, don't be. It's barely warmer than some of my other gear and runs much cooler than my Brooklyn DAC+ as a comparison.

 

[Jandu]

So the DI-20HE has been playing nicely for a few days and although it's warm to the touch that you can tell it's on, it's not anywhere as warm as I understood from reading the......

Just curious, any hum? That is when you put your ear close to the unit.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Just curious, any hum? That is when you put your ear close to the unit.

Thankfully, no... dead silent. I was afraid to check after it seemed about half the people in the thread reported hum. But it's fine.

My setup is very cramped and my rack (shelving) is jammed with gear due to lack of space. But the Master 19 and DI-20HE sit on the top shelf so they have good ventilation. The Master 19 also runs cool, just a bit warmer than the DI-20HE.

I am so impressed with Kingwa's engineering and the quality of this gear.

 

[slazhx]

You might want to upgrade firmwares as well. Not sure which version comes with yours but yhe latter ones sound nice.

 

[801evan]

You can't have identical versions of the recording if MQA changes your recording.
That's the whole point

But you advocate using HQplayer, which changes the recording...

 

[PeterCraig]

HQplayer allows you to make changes.

 

[sajunky]

HQplayer allows you to make changes.

Yes, it allows bit-perfect mode, but for most users it is just upsampling tool with plenty of options for manipulating sound. For bit-perfect users a freeware Foobar 2000 is the best app.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

For the money HQPlayer is charging, they need a complete and total makeover of the UI. It breaks almost every rule of interface design. I hope the implementation side is better...

 

[GoldenSound]

But you advocate using HQplayer, which changes the recording...

The point of the MQA video wasn't that changing your music is bad. It isn't (or rather, it's situational). Stuff like EQ, higher performance oversampling, crossfeed etc can all be useful tools to make stuff potentially sound better.
But those things do what they say on the tin.

I never said MQA sounds bad, or that you can't subjectively like or prefer it. If you do that's fine.
The point was that their marketing was dishonest and false. And it doesn't do the majority of the things it claims to, and has drawbacks/side-effects that one may well want to avoid.

For the money HQPlayer is charging, they need a complete and total makeover of the UI. It breaks almost every rule of interface design. I hope the implementation side is better...

Yeah the UI is unfortunately pretty clunky to use.
Most people use it with Roon though which solves the problem. You basically just leave HQP running, then use roon as you normally would and don't need to touch HQP again.

Would be nice if the standalone UI was better though.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

But you advocate using HQplayer, which changes the recording...

MQA is at least as bad for people who want to process their music to suit their system as those who don't. MQA changes the music to suit their purposes and doesn't allow any changes afterward. Well, if that worked, DSD would have worked too.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

DSD works fine. I have several hundred SACD rips and I still buy SACDs. And I have a DSD recorder and DSD editing software from TASCAM.

Anyway, this is the DI-20 thread. So DSD-bashing, MQA-bashing, and other unrelated topics should probably move to the audioscientology forums

 

[rsbrsvp]

I need to reinstall my USB driver on the DI and I cant because pressing the button on the back- no matter how long I hold it does not erase the driver in the unit.

Can someone explain to me how to erase the USB driver from the DI so I can do a fresh install?