[gto88]

filed a ticket with iFi Support.

 

[gto88]

Got reply from Ifi support.
They re-affirmed that for iDSD nano, it should be white led for MQA.
They also said getting green light means the track is down sampled
by foorbar player, and foobar200 might need MQA plug-in?

Question,
. any one know such mqa plug-in for fooobar
. this setup instruction (http://www.meridian-audio.info/public/foobar_for_mqa[4999].pdf) mentioned
to install bitcompare, which I didn't have, does it matter? (will try it later)
. could find any setup in foobar2000 that will down sampling track, any one know about it?


Thanks.

 

[gto88]

Finally figured it out.
Foobar has no ability to "unfold" MQA, not without a plugin which can
work as software decoder as "Tidal", but it can work with Pro-Ject S2D which is
a licensed MQA decoder.
Here is a link which explain it in detailed.
https://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-decoding-explained
And this
http://audiophileheaven.blogspot.hu/

 

[Currawong]

I can't help but recommend avoiding MQA. It has been shown that they are basically running the tracks through some kind of DSP to make them sound more detailed. I've found albums with dramatic pitch changes and some with overblown and distorting bass. It is also neither lossless nor actually high-res.

 

[MikePid]

I initially had some problems getting Roon/HQPlayer uprezzing Tidal Hifi (44/16) to DSD on my iDSD-BL but it was because I was using DSD256 over DoP on the Mac. 5.3 no longer supports this, so I needed to step down to DSD128. I hadn’t realized that the filter/modulator I normally used (512+fs) is not compatible with DSD128, so once I selected another one, I’m back in business.

From the preliminary listening with some MQA 192/24, I’m very impressed so far. Certainly different, so I’ll have to listen more to see. I’ve listened to 3 albums so far (Joni Mitchell - Blue, Van Morrison - Astral Werks, and Norah Jones) and they sounded so suhweeeet! Lots of space and detail.

Unfortunately, until Roon can do the first MQA unfold, I’m switching to the Tidal app when I want to play MQA through the iDSD.

 

[Arnandsway]

I wonder what the respons is of iFi on the, very well substantiated, critiques about MQA, that have come up recently:
https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/

Wonder if they even want to respond given the fact they already committed to it...

 

[Navodar]

I wonder what the respons is of iFi on the, very well substantiated, critiques about MQA, that have come up recently:
https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/

Wonder if they even want to respond given the fact they already committed to it...

Well I do not believe, they will reply to this article. It is already quoted by the editor, they got a copy of before publishing and they confirmed they are not submitting any reaction.
I read the article already some days ago I do believe the guy is right when it comes to the fact MQA is in reality not lossless. I came to the same conclusion, when I have seen this post by Hans Beekhuyzen
I believe also a MQA package of an original FLAC 192/24 will be certainly less quality than the underlying flac, but one has to bear in the mind, when it comes to streaming, the bandwidth required to stream the original flac makes the streaming not feasible, for now how it seems. SO when talking MQA as a platform to stream hifi audio, one can hardly beat it currently. Base on my listening, what I get in Tidal master (mqa), is certainly better quality when comparing it to CD audio. To compare it to a flac file is almost impossible to me, as one would have to get hands on on the flac files from the original master recordings... I also think the difference would not really be audible unless your really posses very sharp ears...

 

[Arnandsway]

I believe also a MQA package of an original FLAC 192/24 will be certainly less quality than the underlying flac, but one has to bear in the mind, when it comes to streaming, the bandwidth required to stream the original flac makes the streaming not feasible, for now how it seems. SO when talking MQA as a platform to stream hifi audio, one can hardly beat it currently.

Well. The problem with bandwith is non-existing in 2018, assumed you live in a area where at least 25mbps internetconnection is availabe or 3G/4G for cellular connection.

Let's say a 24/96 song in FLAC is 150 MB over 5 minutes. An internetconnection would suffice if it could handle 150 / (5 (min) x 60 (sec)) = 0,5 MB/s. I assume every house/cellphone supports this bandwith
I could not see where an MQA file, which supposedly should be smaller, would offer a solution to this "problem"... Maybe 10 years ago...

I was initially too inspired by mr. Beekhuysen of MQA. But in the forum beneath the article, his opinions and "analyses" of MQA are pretty much invalidated.

In my opinion, he wants to believe. I do too... However, It looks to good to be true... Untill objective evidence proves the critics wrong, ofcourse.

 

[Navodar]

Well. The problem with bandwith is non-existing in 2018, assumed you live in a area where at least 25mbps internetconnection is availabe or 3G/4G for cellular connection.

Let's say a 24/96 song in FLAC is 150 MB over 5 minutes. An internetconnection would suffice if it could handle 150 / (5 (min) x 60 (sec)) = 0,5 MB/s. I assume every house/cellphone supports this bandwith
I could not see where an MQA file, which supposedly should be smaller, would offer a solution to this "problem"... Maybe 10 years ago...

I was initially too inspired by mr. Beekhuysen of MQA. But in the forum beneath the article, his opinions and "analyses" of MQA are pretty much invalidated.

In my opinion, he wants to believe. I do too... However, It looks to good to be true... Untill objective evidence proves the critics wrong, ofcourse.

Well if you're right, then why nobody streams flac high res as a service? So far I am aware, tidal and qobuz are the best options currently....

 

[Arnandsway]

I would not know the exact answer, ofcourse.

But my guess is, it has something to do with the lack of demand for hi-res music. I think we, "audiophiles", are a niche and the mainstream suffices with 320 kbp/s music.
And I guess there is a lack of hi-res music that is available/recorded. Most mainstream music is probably recorded at 16/44.1. Jazz and classical music is probably mostly recorded in hi-res.
And so, because of a lack of hi-res music and demand for hi-res music, there logically wouldn't be many hi-res streaming services.

 

[iFi audio]

I wonder what the respons is of iFi on the, very well substantiated, critiques about MQA, that have come up recently:
https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/

Wonder if they even want to respond given the fact they already committed to it...

As a company, we're always about giving people options. As numerous and reasonable in as many products as possible. This is iFi audio since day one and with MQA (two firmwares, one with MQA enabled and one without) we did just that.

Instead of being vocal about stuff that's going on in the thread you've mentioned, we're very much into doing our thing and giving people options.

 

[Arnandsway]

As a company, we're always about giving people options. As numerous and reasonable in as many products as possible. This is iFi audio since day one and with MQA (two firmwares, one with MQA enabled and one without) we did just that.

Instead of being vocal about stuff that's going on in the thread you've mentioned, we're very much into doing our thing and giving people options.

Thank you for the response. The fact that you do give me options, gives me hope that iFi will do its best to stay striving for the good audio products withou controversies.

 

[MikePid]

These are great times for people serious about audio, with so many great choices, largely due to advances in technology! Whether MQA is better than 192/24 or not is not something I can comment about, not having any 192/24 (or anything about CD quality) myself. What I can say is that MQA sounds better to me than CD quality, so MQA is giving me affordable access to hi-res (through Tidal). One disadvantage I can see with MQA is that we are not given the opportunity to tailor the sound (such as with HQPlayer) if we want to experience the "studio" sound (i.e. end-to-end MQA). Audiophiles like to tweak things and tinker with sound, although there is certainly opportunity to do that in the analog domain after the DAC. I guess the philosophy with MQA is that the music should sound like the recording engineer intended.

 

[Navodar]

Finally figured it out.
Foobar has no ability to "unfold" MQA, not without a plugin which can
work as software decoder as "Tidal", but it can work with Pro-Ject S2D which is
a licensed MQA decoder.
Here is a link which explain it in detailed.
https://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-decoding-explained
And this
http://audiophileheaven.blogspot.hu/

I think there is a solution for you now. I have started to use Audirvana. It does MQA unfolding now on local mqa files as well as on streamed ones over Tidal. You just set it up correctly in preferences and it works perfectly with the ifi! You can specify playback preferences for each device then so you can leave unfolding on Proj-Ject if you like to do so. And there is a fully functional 15 day trial you can use to test it.

 

[Navodar]

And here is a review of the nano by Hans Beekhuyzen
Seems he is really impressed by the unit.