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<p>Eelco, Yeah. To my experience I can hear a slight degradation
after dithering a 2496 Down to 2096. It's small but enough to
bother me. I'm on your side about the sample rate, that the bits
are far more important. But I'll keep an open mind and try to
listen. Right now it's very difficult... I wonder if I can get the
Tidal decoder.</p>
<p>You did some excellent comparison tests. Did you have an MQA
digital decoder or just an MQA DAC? Did Alan agree with your
conclusions?</p>
Comparing MQA to HDCD is not a good analogy.... MQA is far more
sophisticated. <br>
<br>
Bob<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/10/16 6:41 PM, Grimm | Eelco
wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:6D94BC82-2986-4EEF-B33B-109AE9DDDB4D@grimmaudio.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hi Bob K,
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear Bob L. I have written to Bob Stuart but not gotten any response yet. Of course I want to audition MQA, but I'm using a digital crossover, and for stereo I have 4 channels of DAC so I need a digital MQA "decoder". Any thoughts on that?
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
The Tidal MQA decoder should take care of that.
I listened to MQA at Alan Silverman's studio last AES. Alan was very enthusiastic, but in my ears MQA was not identical to the original. Compared to a downsampled version you loose some and you gain some. MQA is based on the presumption that high sampling is more important than more bits: the HF info is coded into the bottom 4 bits, which effectively means you have to choose between 48 / 24 versus 384 / 20.
We compared:
1. Original 96/24 file
2. Saracon downsampled 48/24
3. MQA non-decoded ("48/20")
4. MQA decoded ("96/20")
For me personally #2 came closest to #1. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed, but it also confirmed my experience that with real high quality decimation filters 48 kHz tracks are hard to distinguish from the high sampling original (as a delivery format that is - during production high sampling is a must). But bits do count. Of course my experience could also be effected by MQA's "de-blur" algorithm, which claims to undo the ripple of the original AD converter (or subsequent decimation filters), but I have too little information about it to know what it does exactly and how it 'sounds'.
I'd certainly love to do furter testing on MQA. And just out of curiosity I'd love to compare it to HDCD - which was a similar process, though just with 44/16 packing space, which is obviously worse than 48/24.
All the best,
Eelco
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<pre wrap="">
On 5/9/16 11:24 AM, Robert Ludwig wrote:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">Hi Ian,
Just to reiterate, Thomas is 100% right in my opinion, needlessly crushing music is by FAR the #1 item that needs to be fixed for better sound, nothing else matters when you start with unsatisfying music. However, assuming you’ve got great sounding music, then all the rest comes in to play!
The TIDAL MQA material isn’t officially launched yet, but Bob Stuart said there are people who know the URL that would get one to the beta site.
I don’t know how much you know about MQA, but it is several “things” under one MQA name. It is an audio de-blur algorithm, it is a “folding” or data compressing algorithm folding 384 kHz or less into either a 44.1kHz or 48kHz/24 bit file (which can be streamed at 1 - 1.3MB/sec) and it is a digital copy protection scheme where theoretically you could make a one-off DAC that is coded to your converter and only people with the same converter could hear the music!
As far as MQA examples go, without an MQA DAC you can’t hear the whole thing, but one could hear some of the results of the de-blur process using a normal converter. I’m trying to see if I can find you a before and after example. I’ll get back to you.
In the mean time, you can check out Morten Lindberg's 2L label “test bench”. Even though he is recording at 352.8kHz, Morten still finds the MQA to create a superior sound.
It’s a mind blower to see a 44.1kHz/24 bit file feed the MQA converter and the resulting FFT goes right out to 176.4kHz!!
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html">http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html</a>?
Best,
Bob
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<pre wrap="">On May 8, 2016, at 6:20 PM, Ian Shepherd <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ian@mastering-media.co.uk"><ian@mastering-media.co.uk></a> wrote:
Bob L,
Can you recommend a release that really highlights the benefits of MQA ? Is there a way to tell which files on TIDAL are encoded with MQA ? And is there a converter you’d recommend ?
Although I’m afraid Thomas may well be right, I’m curious to give it a try.
Ian
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<pre wrap="">On 8 May 2016, at 14:27, Bob Katz <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:bobkatz@digido.com"><bobkatz@digido.com></a> wrote:
Guys:
It's a good thing I buy my music either on CD or from HD tracks or similar vendors. I only buy the AAC from the iTunes store when one of my clients wants me to reference a CD that I don't have and I have to listen to it "now". If then I like that music, then I go out and buy it, usually on CD. Amazon has become my major vendor, I pity the brick and mortar stores, though Best Buy seems to be hanging on, they don't have the CD collection I can get online from Amazon. I can then transfer the CD into iTunes and use on my iPhone if I like.
For my highest-sonic-quality personal entertainment on my iPhone I use an incredible app called HFPlayer from Onkyo..... in conjunction with an Oppo DAC that connects via Lightning directly to the iPhone and plays any high res. flac files I have on the iPhone up to 384 kHz/24 bit (and also plays DSD directly into the ESS Sabre DAC in the Oppo DAC).... It beats the crap out of the Astel and Kearn stuff that is so unreliable and uber-expensive.
Bob L., I tried the Astel and Kearn player and got it to crash in 15 minutes, three times before I called it flakey. And their communication with their dealers and reps is exremely shakey. I do not like this company. If they wanted to make a dependable music player, why did they pick the Android operating system?
Also, sorry, Neil Young, this Oppo/iPhone combination beats the Pono because I can also take phone calls :-(. If I'm jogging or don't want to carry the DAC, the HF Player will downsample the high res material so it will work out of the iPhone's regular headphone jack.
Tip: the Oppo PM-3 headphones are killers! Maybe the most accurate and impacting headphones you can get and carry with you to play music.
If you want to salivate about the best portable playback on earth, in my opinion, read my review of the Oppo pieces and the HF plyaer: visit <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/katzs-corner-episode-11-oppo-explosion#RiXt3ToxveQ4BMf5.97">http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/katzs-corner-episode-11-oppo-explosion#RiXt3ToxveQ4BMf5.97</a> These PM-3 headphones have bass that goes down to the center of the earth, are extremely accurate and tonally neutral.... With a little of the 64-bit EQ in the HF-player you can get even more accurate playback.... and the Oppo DAC/headphone amp is clean and punchy and open....
I have tons of high res flacs that fit in a 64 GB iPhone. If Apple lost for me the purchased AAC music that I have from the iTunes store I'd be pissed, but not that pissed because I just don't have that much money invested in AAC material I bought from the iTunes store. It seems to me that music must be in the iPhone backup that's on my Mac, though, isn't it???? I'm only semi-attached to the cloud. I use icloud for Notes, Calendar, etc., but not for music (I think). I share my iTunes library with a few OSX computers.... maybe that's through iCloud? Yuk....
Bob K.
On 5/7/16 2:39 PM, Thomas Lund wrote:
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<pre wrap="">Hi Bob,
This casual treatment of tracks fits with what I'm seeing in iTunes. One has to actively disable cloud replacement time after time so iTunes doesn’t steal your known-good tracks. From Tidal I’ve heard how record companies require them to carry only the newest (crappiest) version of a track, and make sure originals aren’t available.
Compared to such demolishment, I’m afraid MQA is a sheer marketing detail which is bound to disappoint consumers just like the myriad of previous attempts at promising “hidef". 24 bit, 16 bit, 14 bit, 12 bit resolution: Doesn’t matter. Dither or not: Doesn’t matter. Sample rate DSD, 192k, 96, 48, 44.1k: Doesn’t matter. Lossless, 320k, 256k, 128k: Doesn’t matter. The version of a track/squashing is what generally matters.
cheers,
Thomas
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<pre wrap="">On 07/05/2016, at 00.20, Robert Ludwig <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:gatewaybob@mac.com"><gatewaybob@mac.com></a> wrote:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.iphonehacks.com/2016/05/apple-music-isnt-deleting-music-libraries.html">http://www.iphonehacks.com/2016/05/apple-music-isnt-deleting-music-libraries.html</a>
I think this article explains it pretty well. It isn’t as horrible as the blog describes, but it is still taking way too much control for me to ever want to use their service.
BTW, Tidal has 300 albums with MQA so with an MQA converter you can hear streaming 96kHz or even 352.8kHz music!
MQA is really revolutionary.
Best,
Bob L.
On 5/6/16 5:01 PM, Grimm | Eelco wrote:
Dear friends,
If this story is true it is unimaginably horrific.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/">https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/</a>
Can anyone please tell me it is not true?
Cheers,
Eelco
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Bob Katz 407-831-0233
DIGITAL DOMAIN MASTERING STUDIO
Author:
Mastering Audio
Digital Domain Website
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