[gregorio]

[1] It should. [2] But when new observations come a good scientist does not dismiss them as impossible. ... [3] They can be kept open as ideas. [4] Exploring them can lead to discovery.

 
1. Hallelujah, welcome to the community brother!
 
2. What new observations? We're not talking about new observations but exactly the same observations we've been seeing for decades, observations which have been have been studied, explored and demonstrated by science to be false. Also, 1. By definition a good scientist would obviously not be a good scientist if they refused to believe in science and logic. 2. A good scientist would never dream of refuting already accepted science without some pretty exceptional evidence. 3. A good scientist knows that accepted science which has also been proven mathematically requires even more extraordinary evidence. 4. A good scientist knows that sighted tests are highly unreliable and do not even constitute the most basic level of acceptable evidence, let alone "exceptional evidence" and are even further away from "even more extraordinary evidence"!
 
3. If science has already debunked the idea, then it should not be kept open as an idea, or are you going back on your opening statement (#1)?
 
4. The discovery of what, that Joseph Fourier, Claude Shannon and a host of other scientists were all wrong? That the mathematically proven foundation upon which digital audio is based is wrong, that more than a century of electrical engineering is all wrong, that nearly a century of studying the limits of human hearing is all wrong? As I mentioned previously, there are discoveries/innovations still being made but not discoveries which disprove decades or centuries of accepted science, accepted science which goes well beyond a few misinformed audiophiles and is directly used by or affects the vast majority of the entire human population every single day!
 
G

 

[tmarshl]

This thread is getting boring. Cynicism and bickering don't interest me.  I was hoping to learn something.  Unsubscribed. 

 

[castleofargh]

 

   
What has that got to do with anything? I'm sure many here have never measured or jumped off a skyscraper to test gravity, measured, tested and applied snake oil to see if it really does relieve joint pain, etc. We don't need to do these and countless other things because we have science, that's why science was invented! The only reason we may choose to do our own audio tests/measurements is if we wish to confirm the science or if the science indicates a result at or very close to audibility.
 
G

this argument is discredited 100% to me...with all due respect.
 
Similar argument is that the 1's and 0's people used to laugh at those 
looking at improving SQ with upmarket USB or ethernet cables....
the laughing continues by armchair critics yet enthusiasts and
professional reviewers alike have heard the difference that certain 
high priced digital cables make in a resolving system - and most
importantly, I've heard and appreciated the differences
 
so that laughing has been revealed to full of it
 
the 1's and 0's arguments often go too far, sure it's fine to be sceptical
of marketing claims and sure there are bad values out there 
 
but do you not agree that an Audioquest Vodka ethernet cable could outperform
and very much improve Musical SQ vs a well made, reasonably priced Belkin in a high quality system?
 
do you not agree that certain high calibre USB cables such as
Wireworld Platinum, Siltech Anniversary or Curious Cable can
sound MUCH better than a Belkin Gold USB or Blue Jeans/generic USB
in a resolving system?
 
in short, science and logic may say one thing, but nothing that I've heard and enjoyed 
has made me question the SQ of MQA - on a quality MQA master the MUSICAL
quality is so much better!
 
Your argument ain't going to harsh my mellow
 
it's not going to dampen my enthusiasm

so now we're back to:
roses are red
violets are blue
everything I say is true.
 
I'm sorry but you clearly are very bad at making a point. if you need to reassure yourself about cable expenses so badly, do it in a proper topic about cables. and if said topic is in the sound science section, do it with objective evidence and verified knowledge instead of strawman arguments, or better yet, go do it in another section. there is an entire dedicated sub section for cables, it's not that hard to find it and post about your cable love over there.
and same thing for MQA. this topic is about MQA but it's still very much in the sound science section. it's a simple matter of posting in the proper sections of the forum and showing a little respect for the theme of the section. if you don't care nor trust controlled tests and measurements, and prefer to rely on your own feelings from sighted experience, maybe don't post in the sound science section.
 
 

Ah, another well reasoned argument from you. Why can't the others here be as forthcoming, and not come across as patronising and dismissive. It may be too late and he has already unsubscribed.

I don't disagree with most of what you say as possibilities, except that there cannot be an improvement on RedBook. It smacks of earlier predictions like "there will never be a need for more than five computers worldwide" or that denying "satellites would improve phone telegraph and TV" or that anyone would "need more than 637kB of memory". Smart people said these things.

Do you really believe that in 50 - 100 years we won't have a better audio format, which is more efficient and sounds better? Maybe it encodes specific parts of the audio in a lossy fasion to enhance perception, while keeping the audio band hi res...?

well audibility levels are unlikely to make giant leaps unless we start feeding radioactive stuff to babies again. that part is very much limited by human hearing thresholds. while not everybody has the same, the order of magnitude is known for many variables and few humans are likely to escape those by a significant margin.
as for objective improvement, of course we can and will. as long as there is somebody willing to pay for it, progress will be made and applied. but PCM isn't limited in resolution, right now exists DXD that's just PCM at a crazy sample rate. and people do mastering with that. PCM doesn't have to mean 16/44. why I find that it's enough is not based on technology but on how I and so many others fail to pass a blind test against higher resolutions(as long as the DAC doesn't mess up the low pass too much). so just like I don't feel the need for a 50 megapixel camera or a 1200dpi printer, my own body limitations tell me that I don't have a use for crazy sample rates as a passive music consumer.
it's not that we cannot improve, it's that there is no clear need to do it, and if there was one, it could be done with PCM as far as basic signal resolution is concerned. DACs get a beneficial trick from oversampling/upsampling, it's nice for very basic reclocking that can end up reducing jitter, and it's nice because the designer doesn't have to spend much on the low pass filter. we could have gone for a MQA kind of ratio with more samples in 16bits or even less if replay gain was implemented in the DAC instead of the player(did I just invent a new format?). and we'd get the same benefits for the filters without the DAC having to oversample much if at all. but would that be progress?
it's a practical options, like going for 48khz as we talked about before to match video. there are plenty of stuff we could do, it's amplitude over time and sine waves, even something as dumb as DSD ends up working just fine, so we can imagine any play around amplitude and time and make whatever file format we wish to make. adding code inside every sample of the format like MQA does allows for even more fun, but also clearly limits what we can do with the file and how much errors we can accept while streaming. if I start reducing the digital gain or use some EQ before the data is extracted and turned back to actual PCM, then it's all ruined and lost. we can work around such problem by doing the extraction first, so we'll most likely end up with a flac file to extract to MQA, to extract to PCM before we can fool around with DSPs and send that as PCM to the DAC. but it's still a restriction if we want to apply whatever salsa MQA claims to do at the DAC level. in the end if we're going to end up with PCM anyway, they should have called that a compression format like flac, not a revolution. 
but if something better/more practical than PCM was to come, it would need to allow for at least the same potential to work on it without having to convert back to PCM. if like DSD they have to sacrifice so much to avoid using PCM, it's not a progress, it's just an inconvenient sidetrack IMO.

 

[ThomasHK]

I'm interested in your criticism about MQA. I also wrote mine and shared it in another community which is not here because I don't have evidence to backup my assumptions. Can you share the link again in case I missed yours?

By the way, comparing to another failure and raise conjunction that this one should also fail without proper tests and measurements is one kind of fallacy that every true objectivist should avoid, no matter how obvious it seems.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/345#post_13204243

This was in response to questions about this previous statement.

--> http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/330#post_13203995


My take on temporal deblurring

http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/255#post_13175525

http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/300#post_13180262

 

[WindowsX]

http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/345#post_13204243

This was in response to questions about this previous statement.

--> http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/330#post_13203995


My take on temporal deblurring

http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/255#post_13175525

http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/300#post_13180262

 
Thank you. While I do agree that de-blurring doesn't contribute to major audio improvement. However, it's not like there's no audible difference with MQA comparing to redbook format. I also found other information like phase alignment, hardware decoding with analog process, oversampling filter to upsample 44.1/48khz to 2x software/4x hardware with respective filters.
 
It looks like MQA has ability to setup different digitial filter environment for each track so it can benefit some audiophiles. Going as far as no audible difference to redbook is like there's no audible different between different digital filters in DAC too which is unlikely.

 

[limpidglitch]

  …it's not like there's no audible difference with MQA comparing to redbook format.

 
You state that like it's a fact.

 

[ThomasHK]

   
However, it's not like there's no audible difference with MQA comparing to redbook format.
 
 
==> What? where's the proof? Show me the study using A/B/x the same track in MQA and redbook. The key words are same track and study.
 
 
I also found other information like phase alignment, hardware decoding with analog process, oversampling filter to upsample 44.1/48khz to 2x software/4x hardware with respective filters.
 
==> Links please. All the info I've read have been focussed on the oversampling and A/D D/A kernels. 
 
 
It looks like MQA has ability to setup different digitial filter environment for each track so it can benefit some audiophiles. Going as far as no audible difference to redbook is like there's no audible different between different digital filters in DAC too which is unlikely.
 
==> OK, but that's just making changes to the interpolation and/or anti-aliasing filters. Sure, they can make a difference in sound, but what does that have to do with MQA? Any AD/DA C maker can decide to use these types of settings or not.

 

[watchnerd]

 

==> OK, but that's just making changes to the interpolation and/or anti-aliasing filters. Sure, they can make a difference in sound, but what does that have to do with MQA? Any AD/DA C maker can decide to use these types of settings or not.

 
Hell, my Raspberry Pi, <$100, has different multiple DAC filter choices.
 
I guess that makes it high end.

 

[WindowsX]

Looks like I word it wrongly. My apologies. I mean there's no evidence showing MQA and redbook has no audible difference right now so let's not be hasty to judge MQA before you can evaluate it properly. For oversampling filter, I mean oversampling AD/DA kernel with MQA digital filter.

 

[watchnerd]

 

I mean there's no evidence showing MQA and redbook has no audible difference right now

 
No, the burden of proof is on the inventors to show that it is audibly different, not the other way around.
 
The person making the claim is the one that needs to show the evidence.

 

[WindowsX]

   
No, the burden of proof is on the inventors to show that it is audibly different, not the other way around.
 
The person making the claim is the one that needs to show the evidence.

 
Who made the claim? and what claim? I only answered ThomasHK statement about not finding any claim and proof about MQA and redbook stuff.

 

[watchnerd]

   
Who made the claim? and what claim? I only answered ThomasHK statement about not finding any claim and proof about MQA and redbook stuff.

 
You just said...
 

I mean there's no evidence showing MQA and redbook has no audible difference right

 
You're saving that there is no evidence that they're not different.
 
The burden of proof isn't to prove that they're different.
 
The burden of proof is to prove that they are.
 
Based on prior studies and evidence, it is more correct to say, "There is no evidence yet that MQA is audibly different from Redbook."

 

[WindowsX]

I've just corrected my sentence in previous post.
 

 Looks like I word it wrongly. My apologies. I mean there's no evidence showing MQA and redbook has no audible difference right now so let's not be hasty to judge MQA before you can evaluate it properly.

 
I didn't meant to make any claim.

 

[castleofargh]

 if I may, your recurrent problem is that you systematically want us to study/disprove empty claims. and that's just like disproving there is a tea pot in orbit around Saturn, it's leading nowhere and wasting everybody's time. first get evidence of something. and only after that is done, we can study it, we can perhaps try to replicate the experiment, confront it to other possible findings... and if we fail to disprove the evidence, then we use it to advance in our knowledge and revise our position on the subject. 
proper things in the proper order. half the topics getting you in trouble those days and making you think of us as closed minded idiots are because of this. you seem to feel that we should be open to what other people claims without proof. but we can't and don't want to do that. the simple act of making a challenging claim without anything to back it up is in itself the necessary and sufficient condition for everybody else to distrust the claim and whoever made it.
 
 the MQA guys come with a new format and some claim that it has superior sound, it's their job to prove it and the burden is 100% on them.  it doesn't matter what you or I believe to be the truth, the objective truth doesn't care about personal belief. only strong evidence will determine a proper conclusion and we don't have any so far.
 
 
 I go one step further only because I'm a curious guy, I do not need to:
the added noise should be too low to be audible. and most tests about the audibility of increased sample rate failed to clearly demonstrate audible improvement. so based on what we already know about digital audio, no reason to think this will be a revolution, be it in MQA or anything else.
filters could end up doing something audible(if well done it shouldn't though), but as mentioned by Thomas, nobody needs MQA to fool around with some special filtering sauce in DACs, and many manufacturers do just that already.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

In HIS mind the evidence for his claims (subjective impressions) are overwhelming, when such a type of evidence has been discredited by formal studies over and over again.

He starts topics with the express intention of proving somethig unprovable rather than to find out the truth of the matter. (Even stating this in as many words in the middle of one of his threads). He throws anything and everything at the wall hoping it would stick. And when the evidence points toward something he doesn't believe in, he states things like "but we know this is wrong so (the evidence) cannot be right" as though anything he believes in is incontrovertible truth. When I proved the bit-perfectness of digital transmission of audio data on an even more challenging setup than his (physical output to USB audio device, physically looping back to S/PDIF audio input, as opposed to pure software loopback), he continues on his merry way citing positive user impressions as if they were more important than anything I posted. Why do we continue to entertain him in this subforum?