[obobskivich]

Crooner also nailed it in that the MQA was designed because of the problems streaming Hi Def music.  From an article in hometheater.com they discuss the compressions designed to enable streaming of hI def via MQA and how it solves the issues in streaming 192/24.  So if you don't stream audio via tidal or the music services, MQA is irrelevant. 

Which takes me back to my original question: what is so wrong with CD quality, or a lightly compressed variant thereof? Like why the need for 24/192 or whatever else? I'll admit that I don't use Tidal or any of the other "hip" streaming services, but I've used Pandora, Amazon Music, iTunes, etc over the years and never found the quality objectionable for what it is - a convenience feature. If I'm after higher quality I'm looking for lossless downloads or ripping a CD, which then of course I can load on whatever device I want. Am I just missing some great big thing here?

 

[LajostheHun]

Yes you would according to those who think DACs makes a huge difference or better yet wires. This "technology" fits right into a mythology that was invented to satisfy a niche market long ago.

 

[Currawong]

I've read everything I could find about MQA, and what killed it completely for me was two things. Firstly, the MQA tracks that wowed people were very likely modified as part of the MQA processing. Secondly, any magic they can do could easily be accomplished with PCM. I reckon that the technology is an outstanding bit of engineering, but the encoding is as completely unnecessary as DSD is.

 

[John2e]

 those who think DACs makes a huge difference or better yet wires. 

Personally I do not hear a huge difference in wires (Power and interconnectiors) but DACs....  I just purchased a DAC with R2R technology and the difference from my previous MSB DAC was huge anyone who would attempt to argue about it has never heard one.  The R2R technology was previously only available in 5 off the worlds best DACs some costing over $100K.  It is starting to show up in a couple DACs less than 5K and eventually will tickle down to more affordable DACs.  I suggest anyone who feels DACs don't matter to go an audition an R2R one. The difference is not subtle.

 

 

[John2e]

  I've read everything I could find about MQA, and what killed it completely for me was two things. Firstly, the MQA tracks that wowed people were very likely modified as part of the MQA processing. Secondly, any magic they can do could easily be accomplished with PCM. I reckon that the technology is an outstanding bit of engineering, but the encoding is as completely unnecessary as DSD is.

The most noticeable difference I hear between Cd's( PCM) and SACD's (DSD) is the ability of the later to play louder without sounding thin or fatiguing on my speaker system (non headphone) this also goes with Vinyl over Cd's.....YMMV   

 

[LajostheHun]

Personally I do not hear a huge difference in wires (Power and interconnectiors) but DACs....  I just purchased a DAC with R2R technology and the difference from my previous MSB DAC was huge anyone who would attempt to argue about it has never heard one.  The R2R technology was previously only available in 5 off the worlds best DACs some costing over $100K.  It is starting to show up in a couple DACs less than 5K and eventually will tickle down to more affordable DACs.  I suggest anyone who feels DACs don't matter to go an audition an R2R one. The difference is not subtle.:wink_face:  

Aha thanks for proving my point..........

 

[obobskivich]

Personally I do not hear a huge difference in wires (Power and interconnectiors) but DACs....  I just purchased a DAC with R2R technology and the difference from my previous MSB DAC was huge anyone who would attempt to argue about it has never heard one.  The R2R technology was previously only available in 5 off the worlds best DACs some costing over $100K.  It is starting to show up in a couple DACs less than 5K and eventually will tickle down to more affordable DACs.  I suggest anyone who feels DACs don't matter to go an audition an R2R one. The difference is not subtle.:wink_face:  

Just to clarify, "R2R technology" has been around since the 1980s, and was pretty much de facto in many devices (none of which cost over $100k) until the development of 1-bit (delta sigma) which offered a simpler/cheaper chip (this is kind of an over-simplification of history, but R2R is "first" of the two schemes) - it isn't some new innovation or new technology that's been magically discovered after painstaking research into "better sound" involving unnamed scientists from RAND corporation or MIT or whatever other organization engaging in the audiophile equivalent of the Manhattan Project or whatever other lunacy that advertisers can dream up; its been around for a long time. And it has never been very expensive (the whole mega-buck DAC thing is a more recent phenomenon in general). Some of the more popular R2R chips from yesteryear include the Philips TDA15xx family, the Burr-Brown PCM5x and PCM6x family, and the TI/BB PCM170x family (which are more recent). There is no "trickle down" that needs to happen either - its been available in very affordable devices (you can buy such a device today, new, for under $50 if you like) since the late 1980s, ranging from CD players, stand-alone decoders, to other devices that need D/A conversion - these aren't hyper exotic ICs that have been washed in anointed oil and hand assembled by elves under the close supervision of a sorcerer; they're commodity parts. It's also been available in a variety of more expensive components over the years too, but it's never been the sole domain of "over $100k" components or so exclusive (and quite frankly any advert, dealer, etc that tells you otherwise is lying through their teeth and/or is incompetent).

As far as the sound goes, having owned a number of various devices over the years that offer 1-bit DS, multi-bit DS, or R2R, imho there are subtle differences but being able to directly attribute it to the specific DAC chip's method of operation is a bit of a stretch given that there's a lot of other supporting circuitry involved (generally speaking) and I'd agree with the reasoning that differences between DACs (or things with DACs in them, like CD players) are more attributive to overall differences, than coming down to a single component piece of the larger whole. I would not say, in my experience, that "R2R" is going to be unilaterally better than anything else (and more accurately, it simply represents a different set of pros and cons to other D/A conversion principles) - fit me into your worldview however you want, it's really no skin off my nose.

The most noticeable difference I hear between Cd's( PCM) and SACD's (DSD) is the ability of the later to play louder without sounding thin or fatiguing on my speaker system (non headphone) this also goes with Vinyl over Cd's.....YMMV   

Interesting. I'm wondering if this may be attributable to differences in mastering/production, at least in part, where the CD release has been ruined (or at least damaged) by the loudness war.

 

[John2e]

Thanks for clarifying.
 
My position is still the same . There is a difference in DACS, they influence sound weather hugely or marginally is in the eye of the beholder. Mine has made a vast improvement to my system. To say a DAC has no influence on sound on a HI FI forum is a tough sell...
 
Respectfully,
 
John 

 

[OldRoadToad]

​MQA is just another example of ENC (Emperor's New Clothes) "engineering"  perpetrated by FrAudiophiles for their own personal gain. 
 
ORT

 

[obobskivich]

Thanks for clarifying.

My position is still the same . There is a difference in DACS, they influence sound weather hugely or marginally is in the eye of the beholder. Mine has made a vast improvement to my system. To say a DAC has no influence on sound on a HI FI forum is a tough sell...

Respectfully,

John 

I didn't say "no influence" but I also didn't say "huge" either. There's lots of room in-between such polarized extremes, and (likely) lots of other context needed in the discussion wrt "does a system sound good and why" other than reducing everything to some singular, and relatively abstract, variable. I've heard good sound from a variety of setups representing a lot of different philosophies or ideas, and ultimately it leads me to the conclusion that there is no one-size-fits-all answer here. I think this discussion can just as easily be applied to "is MQA a good thing?" - I'm sure good quality recordings on good quality gear using MQA will sound good, but I'm also sure it's possible to have an MQA-tagged system that sounds bad, or bad quality recordings using MQA, or any other variety of permutations. And it's for that reason that I'm a bit skeptical of such branding - what is it actually guaranteeing, and is it guaranteeing something that I/we can't already get?

 

[John2e]

Obobskivich, 
 
BTW Here is where I got my R2R info from :
 
https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2016/09/03/review-lampizator-atlantic-dac/
 
I should have said it has been implemented in the top 5 DACS (correction)

 

[OldRoadToad]

 

 I just read a fraudiophile reviewer state that MQA gets rid of whatever the poo "temporal smearing" is and sans what is apparently an awful task of having to "unfold" hi-res content, this savant states  "...the improvements to  inner spaciousness and finer textures within the mix" mirror those of his own experience at his home.
 
Silly is the word that comes to mind.  These people look everywhere but ​in a mirror to fault what they whine are faults within the playback of digital recordings.  Silly is not strong enough a word.  Ridiculous is better.   Delusional better still.
 
ORT

 

[Currawong]

I think there may be some validity in the idea of making profiles of common ADCs used to record music and using that to better shape the digital playback, but the rest I consider at best unnecessary and at worst a format lock-in.

 

[OldRoadToad]

​I am most definitely not an "audiophile".
 
ORT

 

[obobskivich]

Obobskivich, 

BTW Here is where I got my R2R info from :

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2016/09/03/review-lampizator-atlantic-dac/

I should have said it has been implemented in the top 5 DACS (correction)

Like I said - advertising trying to sell something, and it has no credibility behind it if you just logically push against it a bit: Who, specifically, do they believe are "the top 5 DACs" in the world? How is this established? What is their evidence? How does their device compare? Where can see this evidence (e.g. "show your work")? [just to throw some more fire on this - nothing on Stereophile's Recommended Components for 2014 costs that much (you can actually buy the entire Class A+ list (15 products) for right around $100,000 US), it is not exclusively R2R products, etc - of course someone else could have another "top 5" but without actually disclosing that, what's the point in talking about it without disclosing it or how it was arrived at?]


There's nothing that "needs to be brought down in price point" either, because this isn't some revolutionary new idea that's never been attempted before - go look at DACs from Pro-Ject, Schiit, MHDT, Audio-GD, Zanden, 47 Lab, Valab/Teradak etc all of which use R2R technology (** Schiit may not have been part of this in 2014, but the others absolutely were) and none of which were $100,000+ (in fact, I can't actually even think of a single DAC unit that costs that much, then or now - even the absolute tip-top from dCS and Esoteric don't have pricetags like that). Or you can go look at CD players (and associated external D/A converters) from the late 1980s into the early 1990s (e.g. Technics, Marantz, Philips, JVC, Pioneer, Yamaha, etc) and find equally cheap (cost-wise) R2R implementations. It's really sad that Lampizator has apparently stooped this low - his website used to be about uncovering frauds or lunacy in "high end" audio, and yet here he is - spouting off vague nonsense and spinning mystical yarns to hawk expensive product. Let me guess, next-up we're going to see the "Lampizator transport" and it will cost five figures and be based on a Pioneer DVD player... h34r:

I agree with Currawong's most recent post too, but without some sort of "test" whereby [someone] compares the two (and what I mean here is, let's take this out of Meridian/MQA's hands and let someone else evaluate their claims) I agree with it being dubious at best in terms of "will this actually work well" since it's probably reasonable to assume that the engineers at TI, AKM, ESS etc probably already think about those kinds of things when building their converters, filters, etc (and to further this line of reasoning: they're also generally the ones designing the A/D bits too). And even if it *would* help, why does it need to be implemented as a proprietary, DRM-locked, pay-to-play feature from a third-party that's demanding everyone to start singing their tune?