MQA Controversy

Audio Components DACs
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Any connection generates noise, on average each connection makes tradeoffs as to which noises they minimize. I2S is good in that it’s balanced and has the clocks separated from the data - on the other hand it’s only designed for short connections (i.e. no cables.) That doesn’t mean that I2S with cables is necessarily bad, but different choices might have been made if that were the goal. EMI radiation and pickup (and hence the length of the cable), quality of connectors and interfaces between connector pins and wires, bulk impedance, signal levels, etc. all affect jitter and noise down a cable. With I2S those effects can be more easily handled than, say, S/PDIF, etc. but they are still there.

Possible to do MQA in the DS’s FPGA - possibly, but ignoring all of the IP and company to company logistical issues there’s still the fact that everything in an FPGA affects the noise of the whole and that just the presence of the MQA code in the FPGA, even if it’s not being used, will cause more jitter and noise in the FPGA. With a certain amount of energy and time I can make more of a difference in the quality of the FPGA output doing other features than ameliorating MQA’s negative footprint (especially if the MQA code ever changes). It’s much more logical to put the MQA decoding upstream where it only affects the streaming code. And FWIW we already know that some upstream MQA implementations (including those from MQA itself) won’t make the average DS customer happy. That doesn’t mean that we wont find a good place to decode MQA, it just means that the obvious places don’t work well yet.

I can’t speculate what other people like or don’t like - but I have a good idea what things in an FPGA do to the average feedback about DS releases.

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Ted,

What you are saying makes sense to me from the perspective that MQA is designed to correct the time domain problems in the downstream DAC. But if the downstream DAC does not suffer from the typical issues like a standard ESS Sabre DAC would , then i don’t see a point doing anything extra. In other words, if there is nothing to fix in the FPGA in the DS, wouldn’t it just be counterproductive? Decoding upstream i don’t see an issue.

I don’t have a fancy DAC yet but upstream decoding using the TIDAL app on my DFR still sounds amazing with MQA, so I am a believer that upstream is fine to go especially when we really start increasing the quality of the DAC.

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Ted Smith said Upsampling in software before the DS means you are listening to the sound of that upsampler rather than the upsampler in the DS. You may prefer one over the other (and either may be right for you) but most people would contend that part of the advantage for the DS over MQA is it's upsampling of CDs. Tho you may prefer the sound of HQPlayer at the outset I'm not terribly surprised that you like MQA compared to it. Also there's no such thing as "absolutely no USB noise": all connections have noise, we just pick a noise level that we find acceptable with tweaks. (And at times with different tweaks we are just picking noise with one character compared to noise with a different character.)
I posed the question to Miska on Computeraudiophile.com HQPlayer forum, the developer of HQPlayer. His reply when I asked why doesn't HQPlayer offer a software decoding solution was this,

“The “benefit” of MQA is very questionable, to me it has more adverse effects than helps anything. But you get better results with just software decoding to 2x and then applying better upsampling filter than the MQA’s.”

Sounds like you and Miska are on the same page!

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Hi Ted,

I have Meridian Explorer 2 for MQA right now, this simple device doing the MQA unfolding at XMOS Processor then unfolded PCM stream to PCM5102 DAC directly, so touching FPGA is not really required, maybe you can take a look.

Hercules

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We’ve tried that.

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I checked the Tidal “Masters” the other day, just over 500 albums available. Too soon to see if MQA will have enough titles available for equipment manufacturers to find that, for their potential customer base they will need to offer MQA decoding in their products, for their products to be successful in the marketplace. I suspect that high-end manufacturers had the same dilemma when DSD/SACD was a newly-promoted format and after gaining some traction, high-end customers would expect equipment to decode DSD. So, I think we are “too early” in the life of MQA to know if it’ll enjoy the same “traction” in the marketplace.

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I was at a DC HiFI Group meeting last Saturday and Michal Jurewicz of Mytek was there talking about his companies new DAC’s the Manahttan and the Brooklyn. According to him the MQA process is done first by taking the original recording and doing another digital file with MQA applied to it, which he described when played back there is 2 sets of unfolding done one at the source like Tidal and the other in the DAC being used which his DAC’s have that capability built into them. So to take full advantage of the playback you would need that in the DAC being used, however he said it can be applied to other DAC’s with a software installation.

The demonstration using Kieth Jarret’s Koln Concert recording did sound better with MQA applied during playback. I agree with Ted that if the DirectStream is already improving the original source as in my case when playing back disc media then why mess it up with a software application. Granted if I was to start streaming alot of music and wanted the ability to use MQA I would have to think about my choice if I was buying a new DAC.

In regards to traction or further use of MQA it is known that Sprint just made a 200 million dollar investment in Tidal which leads me to believe that it might be included in future phone hardware. We will see.

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Explanation of the MQA unfolds, note ‘a hardware decoder + DAC will always give superior performance.’

http://bobtalks.co.uk/blog/science-mqa/mqa-playback/

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ejr1953 said I checked the Tidal "Masters" the other day, just over 500 albums available.
Over 1300 Tidal "Masters" available and they keep coming.
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Tidal just brought MQA to its desktop product which allowed me to try it out (although I usually use Roon on my MacBook as the controller for a Musicvault M2 server connected to the PSAudio Dircetstream DAC). I would agree with Paul that AB listening test didn’t prove any better sound than streaming direct from Tidal or compared to HIRes downloads on the Musicvault.

But I think as a music consumer, all advancements need to be embraced and encouraged. I don’t want to get involved in the control wars between DAC manufacturers and music providers that inevitably influence these developments. I just want the best possible sound. Perhaps a “pay for feature” approach would be best for PSAudio.

You want MQA even though we don’t think it is the best? OK, we will sell you the software or hardware that will do it to recoup our cost.

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If it doesn’t sound any better, per your comment why on earth would you embrace it??

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Embrace it is probably a strong expression. “Support it” would be a better description just as I support all efforts to improve the quality of recorded audio. I don’t know that we have heard the last word on MQA as they claim that many “unfoldings” are required to get to the ultimate result. So I would answer your question with a question as a consumer, options are always good, so why not?

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I am not certain options are always good for any worthwhile pursuit. As an over the top example, the quality of food we eat would be much better without the invention of fast food, processed food, and the like.

With respect to audio, the ease of iTunes, the proliferation of eMPty3 files, etc. has greatly diminished the quality of music reproduction experienced by most. As with fast food, I appreciate the convenience but in a broader sense compressed files has damaged our hobby. It also transformed listening to music from a primary activity to background wallpaper.

While have substantial reservations as to MQA, particularly in its marketing and implementation, I am not against its development or assert it is inherently bad. Rather, I posit in a broader sense options are far from “always good.”

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This new article from Chris at computeraudiophile does a terrific job of explaining how MQA packing and unpacking works.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/748-mqa-civilians/

It is interesting to read the purist audiophile perspectives here (mainly from those that have listened to MQA in various forms of unpacking/rendering). Whether or not PS audio will choose to go with hardware rendering, if you listen to Tidal, my take-away is that the master files will sound better than their alternatives even if just rendered in the desktop software. They do in my system, though I’m on a McIntosh C47 DAC so PSaudio may be different.

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MegaHz said
ejr1953 said I checked the Tidal "Masters" the other day, just over 500 albums available.

Over 1300 Tidal “Masters” available and they keep coming.


I’ve spent a little time comparing Tidal MQA & CD quality FLAC streaming comparing the sound of my Meridian Explorer2 DAC and my PS Audio DirectStream DAC (with Torreys), and here are my observations:

Best sound:

MQA from the Tidal desktop app, in “pass thru mode” to the Meridian DAC

Next Best sound:

Tidal CD quality (non-MQA) from the Tidal desktop app, to the PS Audio DirectStream DAC

Next Best sound:

Toss up between setting the Tidal desktop app to “pass thru mode” or doing the MQA pre-processing in Tidal, to the DirectStream DAC.

I thought when Paul obtained some early MQA samples he observed that they sounded “worse” than “regular” CD quality FLAC files, and I would concur with that assessment.

One thing which I should also mention is that some of the MQA albums on Tidal sound like they have been “re-mixed” in addition to being prepared for MQA, i.e. some of the voices have more reverb, some of the guitar tracks sound noticeably louder than the original, etc. So, my comparison isn’t exactly “apples to apples”, but I am getting the sense that there is “something” to this MQA and doing all the work in hardware.

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Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree Elk. Nobody is forcing you to eat the Big Macs. I like options and also realize the a big part of the MQA issue is a “control” struggle (like all format wars) between hardware mfg’s and music content providers. Ultimately, consumers should (and in the end will) get to make the decision here - not you, not me and not any one company.

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The issue has nothing to do with being forced to eat inferior food, or listen to dreadful sounding music.

Instead, I am challenging your statement “options are always good” and provided examples were options did harm. Do you have a response?

It is perfect OK if you do not; I am merely curious how you reached your conclusion.

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Just an unsolicited thought here: blanket statements are rarely true when applied universally. Yet, we all make such statements as a shorthand for something that is true to our own life experiences. For example, I can imagine saying that “Options are always good” as a shorthand for the view that I prefer to have the widest range of choices as opposed to a narrower range. More options in the hands of some people will inevitibably lead to a bad outcome, while in the hands of others, more options result in a better decision. It’s all relative and circumstantial.

As to the view that the option of using MP3 files has hurt our hobby, I have my doubts about whether that is true. IMHO, it wasn’t the option of compressed files that hurt our hobby; it was the lack of equally convenient and efficiently storable better quality music files, the lack of insightful journalistic coverage of sound quality and a host of other issues that have hurt our hobby. One could even argue that MP3 files exposed more people to more types of music and that such exposure created more music lovers.

How about this: Options are neither good nor bad.They just are. 4_gif

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I don’t have a good reference handy, but psychological tests indicate that too many options lead to less happiness than a more constrained life (fewer regrets?, less time worrying about what could have been done differently?, I don’t remember all of the reasons.) We can only make so many considered decisions a day and the more decisions we make, the fewer cognitive resources we have left for the more consequential decisions. That’s what our “guts” are for - to save us from worrying about options that (probably) don’t really matter.

Also, we can’t do a good job of balancing too many choices for a given situation. We make more mistakes and, at times, get analysis paralysis.

Then there’s the whole FOMO thing (Fear of Missing Out). The only thing that FOMO is good for are marketing campaigns :slight_smile:

We are used to thinking that more options are always good, but too many are a waste of time and energy.

I’ve even learned that this is true for designing UI’s (and other software.) As a software guy I used to think nothing of adding options for this, that and the other thing. I’ve since learned that good design is making good decisions so the customer doesn’t have to: to design things so that the user doesn’t even notice that certain possible options are missing. In so far as possible, it should just work. To borrow a phrase “Things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

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Elk, my comments were really directed to PSAudio. As a repeat customer (a power unit, memory player, and 2 DACs as well as other accessories), I wanted to let them know that I would vote for having MQA as an option at some reasonable price so I could judge for myself its benefits. Companies generally want to know their customer likes and wants.

I understand this forum is more for public debate and you do not represent PSAudio, so perhaps I should have sent my comments to PSAudio directly.

I would agree that saying options are “always” good can be debated in so much as saying ANYTHING is always true exposes you to having someone search out the one exception.

Generally, more options are better. Actually I liked your fast food example as it make me think that how I choose to consume food and music are very much the same.

If I find myself in a strange city with a choice to make between several local restaurants and McDonalds, sometimes I will opt for McD’s. I know that at the local joints I can either have a very good experience or a very bad one and it will take considerable effort to select the right one. (Read each menu, evaluate the “atmosphere”, ask about the service or do research on Yelp etc.). But I know exactly what to expect from McD’s and sometimes predictability is what I am interested in buying as opposed to working hard at finding quality.

For similar reasons, I sometimes opt to listen to Pandora over my downloaded high res files. I know the sound quality is not the best I could have but I don’t need to think hard about what music to listen to. I just pick an artist and let Pandora make the choices from there. Other times I have a very specific DSD file I want to listen to and sound quality is my utmost concern. So in this example, having options is good for me.

Finally, Vhiner, I agree with you concerning the impacts of MP3. Most innovations (and streaming or downloadable music is a huge innovation) start with technologies that are “not good enough” (in the words of Clayton Christiansen - Harvard Prof and writer on innovation). This gets them started and adopted by enough consumers to disrupt the existing technology. Then they move up the quality ladder and replace it.

This is what is happening in music today. But for it to work, there cannot be “artificial” constrains on the consumer’s ability to make choices. If somehow the music industry had managed to make MP3 illegal, it’s very unlikely we would have gotten to the High Rez options we have today.

Thanks for the comments - Cheers!