Music is Changing - MQA

[Crion]

Hopefully soon there is a closer demo.

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by g997

Actually all the comments are very much expected as most come from Hitchhikers most of whom are M fanboys of the highest order. For most of them, Bob walks on top of the digital stream........

Whether they are M fanboys or not I would expect them to be honest about wha they are "hearing". As far a bowing at the feet of Bob you are probably correct so it must have been difficult for them to swallow that 24/96 was the end game.

[Kingsrule]

Yes, swallowing that crow must be hard but they will rationalize it somehow....

I've been telling them over at HH that 96/24 and the apodizing filter wasn't nearly good enough since I joined 4 years ago or so. After being ridiculed over and over by them you'd think they would say something regarding my position.....like I am right.

[Crion]

24/96 was good enough with digital in the MLP DVD-Audio era. With the lower tolerances in analog, DAC refinement and Beryllium tweeters we can now go into the 384kHz or whatever they have in store for us.

When someone says something is enough I add in mind, - for the moment with what we have now at disposal.

Unless you have something that can encompass true infinity I don't think you can ever be right.

[Crion]

Originally Posted by Bob Stuart (with permission)

The graph in the background is an information plot (Shannon diagram). One thing it shows is that the peak information content of the music is about 1/6 of the 4.6Mbps single channel capacity at 192/24.

That fact speaks to efficiency, not to quality improvement. It illustrates that the channel moves much more 'data' than '(relevant) information'. Resolving that conundrum is a matter of lossless compression, which MQA achieves between encoder and decoder.

The headline to emphasise the result is not about efficiency, it's about the system end-to-end (i.e. analogue-through-digital-through-analogue) temporal blur or time-smear.

The inset upper right shows the impulse response of the entire chain (not just a converter), comparing MQA to a high-performance studio ADC/DAC at 192/24 delivering the output of a microphone feed. We can quantify this in a number of ways:

• Uncertainty of leading edge: MQA = 4us compared to 250us
• Total impulse duration: MQA = 50us compared to 500us
• MQA has no post-ring
• Perceptual smear (relating to the perceived envelope and loudness) MQA at under 10us is at least 10x better.
  

This is a quality improvement in temporal resolution; the headline of 10x is conservative and we hear the result.

And it can be transmitted at a lower data rate, but that's efficiency gain in part from the end-end nature of the coding and the other innovations.

The problem comes if the graph is taken out of context without the words I was using the the time.

Bob

[Kingsrule]

Originally Posted by Crion

24/96 was good enough with digital in the MLP DVD-Audio era. With the lower tolerances in analog, DAC refinement and Beryllium tweeters we can now go into the 384kHz or whatever they have in store for us.

When someone says something is enough I add in mind, - for the moment with what we have now at disposal.

Unless you have something that can encompass true infinity I don't think you can ever be right.

Crion,

I really thought you were understanding there was more out there to be had from our systems. "Good enough" regarding 24/96 perfectly surmises the thoughts regarding M's position here. There has been much more resolution at our disposal for years, not now just because Bob says so. And there never will be "true fidelity" only fidelity that gets us all closer to the truth.
Oh and thanks for the favor over at Hitchhikers..........

[Crion]

From what I understand the original DSP8000 was designed for 24/196. But something kept them back. The Be tweeter system in the SE's is vastly improved. It deserves the best highres recordings and hopefully MQA could deliver a couple of soundgems to us.

I do regularly visit my uberdealer with DCS vivaldi, MSB stack together with excellent speakers like MBL Extreme, Focal Utopia, YG, Wilson etc. Fantastic stuff with silver disc, but when it comes to streaming they have fell short IMHO. This is where I hope MQA can bring the best highres experience to streaming.

It seems to have few if any drawbacks compared to DSD and manageble filesizes.

And what favor are you referring to?

[Crion]

Good article in Stereophile explaining MQA by John Atkinson.

I've Heard the Future of Streaming: Meridian's MQA | Stereophile.com

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by Crion

Good article in Stereophile explaining MQA by John Atkinson.

I've Heard the Future of Streaming: Meridian's MQA | Stereophile.com

Thanks for posting.

[Kingsrule]

Atkinson does a great job of explaining MQA in this article.
A must read to get a clear picture of what MQA is about

Thanks for the link..