CES 2017: MQA announces TIDAL Masters, and more

[dglow]

 

Look at this page not needed to go page 34:

"Meridian has gone from cutting edge products to crappy $250 DACS" Can you tell me what are those 250 USD crappy DACs of Meridian? Isn't ME2 in this price level?

every manufacturer needs to extend its market. Only selling a few thousand high end dac's wont make the company run, but selling 100k or even more 250 dollar dacs for mass market to large distributors can make the company atleast fund the next project they are probably working on. Once they have the design of the high end version, they can change parts and make a lower end version for a way cheaper price !

 
Question: what DAC IC does Meridian use in the Explorer? Or the Ultra, for that matter. I cannot find this documented anywhere on their site. The Explorer page mentions an XMOS chip – is that the DAC, or just for DSP and/or USB interface?
 
Does Meridian craft its own custom DAC ICs, like MSB does?

 

[tradyblix]

Although you don't get the complete MQA "unfolding" that way, just first level.

So what does that mean exactly ? 

 

[SpiderNhan]

 
So what does that mean exactly ? 

​This is a super simplified explanation and some of my numbers might be off, but I'll give you the gist of it.
 
Tidal takes the 24/48 MQA file and unfolds it one level, which in most cases will net you 24/88.2 or 24/96 playback. This is done regardless of the DAC you use assuming that your DAC is capable of 24/88.1 and 24/96 playback. So, with the first unfolding you get high-res audio streaming through Tidal without having to spend money on any extra hardware.
 
However, if you have an MQA capable DAC, then you can unfold the MQA file past 88.1 or 96 so it's possible to get 24/192 or even 24/384 playback through streaming the same sized 24/48 MQA file. Either way, with one unfolding or four, Tidal and MQA allow high-res streaming at about the same data draw as streaming CD-quality 16/44.1 files.

 

[RCBinTN]

 
​This is a super simplified explanation and some of my numbers might be off, but I'll give you the gist of it.
 
Tidal takes the 24/48 MQA file and unfolds it one level, which in most cases will net you 24/88.2 or 24/96 playback. This is done regardless of the DAC you use assuming that your DAC is capable of 24/88.1 and 24/96 playback. So, with the first unfolding you get high-res audio streaming through Tidal without having to spend money on any extra hardware.
 
However, if you have an MQA capable DAC, then you can unfold the MQA file past 88.1 or 96 so it's possible to get 24/192 or even 24/384 playback through streaming the same sized 24/48 MQA file. Either way, with one unfolding or four, Tidal and MQA allow high-res streaming at about the same data draw as streaming CD-quality 16/44.1 files.

I don't know anything about it, really, but I was not aware you could make a 24/96 file out of a 24/48 file.

 

[SpiderNhan]

  I don't know anything about it, really, but I was not aware you could make a 24/96 file out of a 24/48 file.

And there you have summed up most of the controversy.
 
This should help you understand the tech behind it.

 

[castleofargh]

 

 
​This is a super simplified explanation and some of my numbers might be off, but I'll give you the gist of it.
 
Tidal takes the 24/48 MQA file and unfolds it one level, which in most cases will net you 24/88.2 or 24/96 playback. This is done regardless of the DAC you use assuming that your DAC is capable of 24/88.1 and 24/96 playback. So, with the first unfolding you get high-res audio streaming through Tidal without having to spend money on any extra hardware.
 
However, if you have an MQA capable DAC, then you can unfold the MQA file past 88.1 or 96 so it's possible to get 24/192 or even 24/384 playback through streaming the same sized 24/48 MQA file. Either way, with one unfolding or four, Tidal and MQA allow high-res streaming at about the same data draw as streaming CD-quality 16/44.1 files.

I don't know anything about it, really, but I was not aware you could make a 24/96 file out of a 24/48 file.

and of course they don't. it's all the fun about the constant confusion between signal range of resolution, and file range of resolutions that leads to people misinterpreting (to MQA's benefit) what is really going on. us having no idea about the factual bit depth resolution of any MQA album we listen to, is just icing on the cake.
 
if the original file is 24/96, the MQA encoding will do let's say a 17/96*** file of it.  in this made up situation the data from 17 to 24bits is forever lost, that's a done deal. then they take that 17/96 signal, and fold it into a 24/48 container with their origami thing. so you have a 24bit PCM file that doesn't contain 24bit of resolution. in a 48khz PCM file that contains more than 24khz of signal. it's obvious that one goes down for the other to go up, data isn't created out of nowhere.
 
 
 
 
 
 
***   to be precise, I make up an example where 7bits are lost, but the patent https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/c9207ae3fbb2bdf725cc/US20150154969A1.pdf seems to imply that the discarded bits can change from 3 to 8bits depending on the signal they need to encode and the resolution they need to encode.

 

[tradyblix]

I would just say use your ears. Even partially unfolded MQA sounds great to me via Tidal. But I'm not gonna stress about having it on hardware or not

 

[jwbrent]

I would just say use your ears. Even partially unfolded MQA sounds great to me via Tidal. But I'm not gonna stress about having it on hardware or not

Agreed.

 

[erich6]

I would just say use your ears. Even partially unfolded MQA sounds great to me via Tidal. But I'm not gonna stress about having it on hardware or not

​Yes, to a point.
 
I agree the MQA debate when framed in terms of just bits and sampling frequency is flawed because these two parameters (bit resolution and sampling frequency) DO NOT fully represent audio quality.  In this point I agree with Meridian--the digital age has done a disservice by focusing the discussion on these parameters at the expense of a more holistic perspective rooted in the quality of the analog reproduction of the music as the end objective.  That said, for us geeks that like to dissect the MQA methodology it is worth diving in to these silly details.
 
The real debate is whether the MQA scheme (both the digital packaging and filtering which does involve compromising certain bits and frequencies) is helpful or not to audio quality (I'm ignoring the business debate for now which is a valid one also).  Unfortunately, "just using your ears" may not be adequate.  As some have correctly pointed out, the improvement you hear may simply be the fact that the MQA versions of albums on Tidal are better masters to begin with...it's very difficult to tell if the improvement comes from the MQA scheme or from the quality of the mastering.  The only way to get at this is by setting up a scientifically sound comparative psychoacoustic experiment with good controls to differentiate from the mastering and MQA scheme (such as requiring blind tests, playback of the same master in a "lossless" FLAC vs. MQA, etc.).  Your average consumer, or even home audiophile, does not have the time or resource to do this kind of test so the debate will rage on until someone commissions such a test and publishes those results.

 

[jwbrent]

Whatever the reason why MQA albums sound better, better masters, deblurring, observer bias, etc., the end experience is what matters to me—a deeper connection to my favorite music.

 

[chaturanga]

Whatever the reason why MQA albums sound better, better masters, deblurring, observer bias, etc., the end experience is what matters to me—a deeper connection to my favorite music.

I agree. Let's think if the heard improvement is just because of mastering and MQA has zero effect and it was just a zipping encoder. So, why any other company or person did not ask the question to themselves why they were using worse mastered versions before? May be is it because they were already earning money from us with less quality music? And no one challenged them?

If to use better mastered music came to the Stuart's and Meridian guys' mind, and they even just zipped those into small file sizes and called the algorithm "MQA", so why someone blaming them to make money from this.

Even MQA has no effect on the SQ, we should thank those people who caused us to know we can get better quality in some way.

 

[headfry]

If what you are saying is true -  then let a competitor come out with a competing format,
with equal sq and streamable file size with either open-source or very low licensing fee. That would undercut
MQA and should find wide adoption.

 

[chaturanga]

If what you are saying is true -  then let a competitor come out with a competing format,
with equal sq and streamable file size with either open-source or very low licensing fee. That would undercut
MQA and should find wide adoption.

Who is stopping them? Let those competitors show us, if that is so much easy. What was the motivation stopped those competitors before Meridian released MQA, why they did not use better master versions of the tracks to give us a better quality. Why they waited till now?

 

[Left Channel]

I think I have a decent enough setup, and should be able to hear a difference in Tidal 1x unfolding. But so far I've only found a few examples of what seem to be albums of the same provenance, in both HiFi and MQA, and I cannot hear any difference between them. Maybe I just need to find the right albums? I have a nice little Schitt stack with a range of cans, IEMs, and speakers. I have looked at the Brooklyn DAC and other MQA boxes above and below that price point, but I need to be convinced it will be worth time and money.

It should not be so difficult to find tracks to compare. Mostly I've found MQA files processed from a higher-quality quality masters than the reproductions that were already on Tidal. Those are not useful comparisons. I do believe that I've found a few Jethro Tull albums that are a match: the Steve Wilson mixes in both HiFi and MQA. But although I hear a clear step-up in quality from older versions to the Wilson remixes, I hear no difference between the HiFi and MQA Wilsons.

Maybe jazz would be a better choice for my ears. The way Tidal is organized I can't easily find albums to compare, but even armed with the Google Sheet of MQA albums on Tidal, I'm not finding useful matches. For example, the Modern Jazz Quartet is listed as having albums in both formats, like European Concert Vols. 1 & 2, and Lonely Woman. But those are clearly of different provenance, with tracks of different lengths, and even different album art. This is getting tedious, and I have better things to do with my time.
 
Can anyone suggest albums for me to compare on Tidal? Albums you know are from the same source? Maybe some jazz? I know about the free downloads on the 2L Test Bench page, but for now this needs to all happen on Tidal here.

 

[AxelCloris]

I've gone through and cleaned up the thread. Please keep posts on topic and about MQA, not one another.