[435279]

USB Audio Player Pro Upgraded to 5.0 on my LG V30 .. here's some good info ...

Version 5 now includes a MQA Core Decoder (in-app purchase required). MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) is an award-winning British technology that delivers the sound of the original master recording. The master MQA file is fully authenticated and is small enough to stream or download, while also being backward compatible. The Tidal streaming service supported by USB Audio Player PRO features many tracks in MQA and offers a great opportunity to experience MQA.

The MQA decoder will unfold the MQA stream from 44.1/48kHz to 88.2/96 kHz and can also be combined with certain USB DACs that feature an MQA renderer (e.g. AudioQuest DragonFly / iFi DACs) for further unfolding to even higher sample rates.
Please visit http://mqa.co.uk for more information about MQA and https://www.extreamsd.com/index.php/mqa to read more about MQA inside the app.

I am going to try download some MQA tracks to the LG V30 from tidal and see whether UAPP can play them as native MQA ... where does the tidal app download the songs to internally on my LG V230?

Didn't UAPP do that on the V30 already? This new MQA feature is for other devices that don't natively decode MQA, I'm going to test it with my XDP-300r right now.

You can't play the encrypted MQA files that the Tidal App downloads but UAPP can stream MQA directly from Tidal if you put in your user-name and password.

 

[fljoe]

Aah .. got it ... I will also try it on my Onkyo DP-X1. Thanks!

 

[csglinux]

Didn't UAPP do that on the V30 already? This new MQA feature is for other devices that don't natively decode MQA.

Steve is correct - if you're a V30 owner, you already had the ability to completely unfold MQA either via the Tidal app or via UAPP's Tidal streaming, or via MQA files you'd purchased and played back via UAPP or the LG Music app.

P.S. I love this part of the description though: "award-winning British technology"! "Award-winning" simply means you have a buddy who works at Stereophile. And is "British" really a net positive? As an ex-Brit, I can guarantee we're able to screw things up big time. Just look at the crapfest known as Brexit

 

[Dannemand]

No doubt previous UAPP versions would already unfold MQA on V30 when streaming from Tidal. But the times I tried testing with David Elias MQA files in previous UAPP versions, it didn't display them as MQA being unfolded (like with Tidal streams). I wonder if V5 is now better at detecting MQA files when not streamed from Tidal. I'll have to test that.

I did notice in V5 that the Now Playing screen no longer shows "(MQA)" when playing Tidal Masters -- although it DOES show MQA logos in the track list, which is nice. These are just cosmetic issues. It's a great app, as always!

Edit: MQA not showing in Now Playing screen is already fixed in 5.02!

 

[waveSounds]

As an ex-Brit,

You can take a man out of Britain...

You're not getting away that easily!

 

[Dannemand]

Just read up on the UAPP thread, which has several pages of discussion about the new version. AND there is already an update to 5.02 on Play Store containing a few fixes.

In that discussion @Davy Wentzler points out how the new MQA decoder in UAPP is still "just" a first level decoder, unfolding 44.1KHz to 88.2KHz. That's all MQA/Stuart/Meridian would allow (as I understood). Since we have a full hardware MQA renderer in our V30, we enjoy 2nd level unfolding to 176.4KHz (as shown on the Now Playing screen in UAPP.)

That was already true with previous UAPP versions, but this new decoder (as impressive and unique as it is for a player app) kind of drives it home, and makes me appreciate my V30 even more.

Of course whether those Tidal Master tracks really come from 176KHz masters is another matter...

 

[Left Channel]

In that discussion @Davy Wentzler points out how the new MQA decoder in UAPP is still "just" a first level decoder, unfolding 44.1KHz to 88.2KHz. That's all MQA/Stuart/Meridian would allow (as I understood). Since we have a full hardware MQA renderer in our V30, we enjoy 2nd level unfolding to 176.4KHz (as shown on the Now Playing screen in UAPP.)

Also software decoding of 48 to 96 kHz, or V30 hardware+firmware decoding to 192 kHz.

Of course whether those Tidal Master tracks really come from 176KHz masters is another matter...

I share your concerns about possible provenance issues. This is a problem for Hi-Res files in general.

 

[Dannemand]

Also software decoding of 48 to 96 kHz, or V30 hardware+firmware decoding to 192 kHz.

Yes, yes, thank you for pointing that out!

Again, we already had this second-level unfolding goodness in hardware. I guess I kind of took it for granted until UAPP included their first-level MQA decoder in software. Hopefully its release is a sign that Meridian/Stuart are waking up to the fact that they DON'T own the world, and they have to allow licensing on broader and less onerous terms if they want this stuff to take on. I truly congratulate UAPP on the win.

 

[Left Channel]

MQA will license to anyone, but this is still a niche market. On the software side, Roon and Audirvana do the same 1x decoding. Sonore started to work on it but dropped the idea. The developer of UAPP had to sign an NDA prohibiting him from talking about this until it was ready for release, and protecting the exchange of proprietary information: MQA got a look at some of his code, and he got some of theirs. The licensing agreement requires payments to MQA, and he now charges $3.99 to cover that plus his development time and costs.

 

[Dannemand]

MQA will license to anyone, but this is still a niche market. On the software side, Roon and Audirvana do the same 1x decoding. Sonore started to work on it but dropped the idea. The developer of UAPP had to sign an NDA prohibiting him from talking about this until it was ready for release, and protecting the exchange of proprietary information: MQA got a look at some of his code, and he got some of theirs. The licensing agreement requires payments to MQA, and he now charges $3.99 to cover that plus his development time and costs.

I am sure MQA Ltd will license to anyone who wants to commit enough cash or volume upfront, or who has a sufficiently large existing customer base from whom they can extract per-unit royalty payments. But UAPP is just a small Android app developer: 50,000+ downloads is great, but it's still a niche market -- as you said. And to my understanding they are the first general Android music player app with MQA decoder (I could be wrong).

While I have no illusions that MQA is technically perfect, or that MQA tracks are guaranteed to contain more detail than redbook tracks, I still think they had a great premise (or promise, if you will): Squeezing HiRes 24/176 or 24/192 PCM into 16/44 bandwidth -- AND in a backwards compatible 16/44 PCM envelope. It was an opportunity for the first broad and significant lift in music quality in decades, and a chance to recover from the sins of redbook. With all the excitement and praise MQA received from various experts (not to mention "experts") they should have become ubiqutious by now, 4+ years later. Yet it's still only a niche market. I believe because they were too greedy: They wanted niche market/audiophile level royalties while still aiming for broad market ubiquity. Wouldn't be the first time this happened to a new media standard...

The fact that UAPP now released a $3.99 first-level decoder -- of which MQA gets a slice, but not all, and I cannot imagine that they get royalties from the base UAPP app -- seems to me an indication that MQA may finally have come to realize that getting a lot of little pieces is better long term. Or maybe they're just realizing that their window is closing fast, with bandwidth becoming increasingly affordable (particularly in markets outside the cozy, lobbyist sponsored, FCC protected wireless oligopoly of USA).

I am guessing we will see more MQA releases from smaller players now, as they try to get it out there. So maybe now is the time to spend on those HiRes tracks I've been too cheap to buy so far, before they all turn into MQA at the same price

@csglinux: I have no desire to turn this thread into an MQA slugfest. If this is too far off-topic, just let me know.

 

[Left Channel]

I am sure MQA Ltd will license to anyone who wants to commit enough cash or volume upfront, or who has a sufficiently large existing customer base from whom they can extract per-unit royalty payments. But UAPP is just a small Android app developer: 50,000+ downloads is great, but it's still a niche market -- as you said. And to my understanding they are the first general Android music player app with MQA decoder (I could be wrong).

While I have no illusions that MQA is technically perfect, or that MQA tracks are guaranteed to contain more detail than redbook tracks, I still think they had a great premise (or promise, if you will): Squeezing HiRes 24/176 or 24/192 PCM into 16/44 bandwidth -- AND in a backwards compatible 16/44 PCM envelope. It was an opportunity for the first broad and significant lift in music quality in decades, and a chance to recover from the sins of redbook. With all the excitement and praise MQA received from various experts (not to mention "experts") they should have become ubiqutious by now, 4+ years later. Yet it's still only a niche market. I believe because they were too greedy: They wanted niche market/audiophile level royalties while still aiming for broad market ubiquity. Wouldn't be the first time this happened to a new media standard...

The fact that UAPP now released a $3.99 first-level decoder -- of which MQA gets a slice, but not all, and I cannot imagine that they get royalties from the base UAPP app -- seems to me an indication that MQA may finally have come to realize that getting a lot of little pieces is better long term. Or maybe they're just realizing that their window is closing fast, with bandwidth becoming increasingly affordable (particularly in markets outside the cozy, lobbyist sponsored, FCC protected wireless oligopoly of USA).

I am guessing we will see more MQA releases from smaller players now, as they try to get it out there. So maybe now is the time to spend on those HiRes tracks I've been too cheap to buy so far, before they all turn into MQA at the same price

@csglinux: I have no desire to turn this thread into an MQA slugfest. If this is too far off-topic, just let me know.

I agree, there are better threads for this. I'll just mention a few more data points for research.

I'm sure the MQA folks are still hoping to make an MQA version of everything, but last I checked there were less than 150,000 MQA tracks on Tidal. This really is still a niche of a niche.

You'll find 2,000,000 Hi-Res tracks on Qobuz, to which I also subscribe via roaming from the UK, and which is launching in the USA soon. And as both services each offer over 40,000,000 tracks of all kinds, this clearly shows Hi-Res overall is still just a niche market. This also shows that, in this day and age of Netflix, perhaps the bandwidth argument may not be all that important anymore.

The MQA people would counter that their format also offers an advance in the "time domain", not just the frequency domain. Writers at Stereophile and elsewhere have discussed this concept this extensively.

And my last point re MQA and Hi-Res in general: it bothers me how varied the quality of the original masters are, and how shady some areas of the Hi-Res business can be.

Apologies to all for getting off-topic. We should take this to an MQA or Tidal or Qobuz thread, or PM.

 

[Dannemand]

@Left Channel: Unfortunately I cannot date you avatar -- being already married.

But I'll say this: Nice post!

 

[csglinux]

Some more thoughts on comparing the V30 with the V40. It's a bit tricky to do this properly, because you can't SPL match by just setting the volume level to the same number on both phones. Well, actually, you can, as long as that number is 28

Please forgive the slightly wobbly graphs - that's just the precision of my SPL meter.
It seems the SPL just increases linearly with volume-step on the V40. It doesn't do that on the V30 - the V30 has a more nuanced control at low levels. This is a win for the V30, IMHO. I find that using my SE846, the V40 can already be too loud even at volume level 1. The above was measured from UAPP on both phones using a single 1 kHz sine tone ->ER4XR->711 coupler. Be aware that these dB levels won't match what you'd hear unless you're also using ER4XR headphones and are playing back a 1kHz sine wave with the same level gain as my particular test tone. But I think there still are some useful observations here.

1) Both phones offer the same maximum power output - at least in normal device mode (I've not yet tried measuring SPLs in either of the other two modes). The V30 starts lower, they both meet at step 28 with the same output power, then V30 gets louder, but they both meet again at volume step 75.
2) If you want to SPL-match to do a proper A/B listening test, volume step 28 on both phones would work for any headphone in normal device mode. So would step 75, but I don't recommend that for obvious reasons.
3) If you want to set the V30 to volume step x and need to SPL-match that with the V40, you can simply read off the SPL level from the V30 at volume step x, and then find the volume step number for the V40 that matches that SPL. This should work for any headphone in normal device mode, because we'd just be making a linear scaling of the graph of sensitivity_of_your_headphone(in dB/mW)/sensitivity_of_ER4XR(in dB/mW), which would be a constant. For example, level 10 on the V30 should closely match level 3 on the V40.

P.S. Regarding discussions of MQA - I have no objections at all. It's kind of you folks to ask, but I don't feel any particular ownership of this thread just because I started it. It's a headfi forum and I think MQA is a very valid topic to discuss here since (at least for now) full unfolding of MQA on a smartphone seems to be something quite unique to the V-series LG devices. Also, @Dannemand and @Left Channel - you both have had lots of useful input to these threads, so don't feel like you need to hold back on my account

 

[archy121]

I have an issue related to MQA on v30 reference to setting up LDAC via Dev options.

I’m finding that the settings don’t stick after I make a change and revisit the page. For example setting streaming to 24bit instead of 32bit and LDAC playback quality set to Optimized 990kbps instead of Best Effort. They revert back.

Is this normal and working as should be ?

Could it be they are sticking but not displaying in correct state when revisiting Dev options??

 

[VI001101106]

I have an issue related to MQA on v30 reference to setting up LDAC via Dev options.

I’m finding that the settings don’t stick after I make a change and revisit the page. For example setting streaming to 24bit instead of 32bit and LDAC playback quality set to Optimized 990kbps instead of Best Effort. They revert back.

Is this normal and working as should be ?

Could it be they are sticking but not displaying in correct state when revisiting Dev options??

Have you checked in BT settings on the phone for your headphone that the connection type is set to 'best quality' and not 'most stable'

Also, what headphones are you using? Sony's XM3's can let you change the connection type via the Connect app as well.