New Meridian audio format creating quite a buzz

Actually the core lossless piece is at best 16-bits as far as I can tell based on the patents. If you don't have MQA decoder, it's something like 16/48 (maybe as low as 13-bits depending on how we read the patent!?). And with a decoder, it'll look like 16/96+ probably with some kind of upsampling to 196kHz/384kHz depending on the capability of your DAC.

Seriously, until we see some clarity with the *actual* product, what little info we have save for subjective opinions of how "awesome" it sounds, there's actually much to be suspicious of. First and foremost, it appears to be a clever data compression scheme for reconstitution of ultrasonic components of the original signal.

Will see... Maybe soon?

 

So convenient to use straw man arguments.

 

From Stereophile :

"Already, Arcam, Onkyo Music, 2L, Roon, and Tidal have signed on as MQA supporters, and over 100 potential business partners have been identified. Nonetheless, MQA's launch has been delayed 1–2 months because there's "something" Meridian is adding to increase its flexibility for streaming. Expect MQA 1.0 in June. More than 100 companies have signed up with Meridian to offer MQA decoding in their products, "from the tiniest companies to some of the biggest in the world," Bob said. The next major announcement is scheduled for the IFA show in Berlin in early September."

 

I have heard MQA twice now. The first experience I described in my new video (Click here) and my written article (Click here). The second experience was at High End Munich. That was a very good demo and I was simply blown away. As said before, the proof is in the pudding and this was the best pudding I ever had. The most impressive was the Beethoven Piano concerto where the piano was so clean, so natural it can't be described as analogue or digital, it has to be described as 'concert piano'. Period. Not all recording played there were that convincing and that's nothing new. Bad recordings, bad pressings, we've seen it all before. Not that they used bad material, but to be truly convincing the recording better be good. It's like HDTV. If you really want to enjoy your HDTV, use the best blu-ray you can find. Everything else is less.

 

Thanks for your report.

 

I would need the likes of Steve Hoffman to master a back catalog title such as something from CCR. Will the result crush the AP SACD on my own system but with MQA decoding? That will be the test. Maybe some Miles Davis too.

 

I'm still confused about the sonic benefits of MQA. Is the MQA track supposed to be better than a 24/192 track in listening?

 

The MQA encoder and decoder together have been designed to have a transient response of the same form and order as that of the temporal sensitivity of the ear-brain. And if at the MQA-encoding stage, the temporal effect of the A/D converter can be compensated for, the complete system offers a transparent window into the original musical event. -Stereophile

If there is an inherent flaw in A/D, then even the best engineer can do anything about it. If MQA fixes this claimed flaw, then SH or Kevin Gray, etc could apply this software during their usual A/D and supposedly the result will be like nothing we've heard. Skeptical! Steve could lock this thing down in about a half hour though.

 

It doesn't sound like BS, but you're still getting whatever the studio decides to pump out. If the studio decides to compress the **** out of everything, it's still not going to sound any better IMO. The only way this would sound *amazing* IMO would be to properly master it. If it's not, I question how effective this new format will be. I think it would absolutely cripple the benefits. I've seen no major strides to better audio quality, by either the producers or artists. (and to be clear: I am completely 100% in favor of this format and can't wait to use it)

 

Soon as I can hear a demo, I will. (Is it even in dealerships yet?)

As a technical naif, I can't comment on the asserted particulars; what I can state with some confidence is, the fate of this new process will be decided outside of the Meridian corporation.

 

It's been my experience through the years that most live concerts sound like crap. Way too loud and way too distorted. Possibly the best live sound for a rock show was Pink Floyd.

 

I would like any comparison of quality music at 24/192, directly and through MQA. But they play their cards very close to the chest. I even wonder if Bob liked my videos (he said he loved them but I think he'd rather had them in september this year). He is experienced in getting a codec accepted (like with Dolby HD/MLP), that might have rendered him very cautious.

 

Yep it is (or at least can be) due to the 'repair' of time smearing in AD and DA conversion

 

Time smearing as a result of the anti aliasing filter is just one artifact of a DAC. Jitter is another but I don't think that's 'repaired' by MQA. All forms of distortion will remain destructive too. But serious studios use proper ADC's clocked properly. And bad studios will put out junk, whatever.

 

Yeah, we will never reproduce classical music performance 100% correct, nor will we ever reproduce a rock album live @ 100% perfect;-)

 

I agree with Pink Floyd but would add Grateful Dead. Anyone who was in Chicago last weekend can confirm this! Unreal sound live...the Drumz section produced low tones never heard live before I bet.

 

Mickey in a video they could hit 19 Hz at Fare Thee Well; I'm still trying to figure out what they actually pulled off.

https://www.mickeyhart.net/news/all-about-beam-baby-5211

https://www.mickeyhart.net/news/did-you-feel-it-5281

 

http://www.twice.com/news/audio/pioneer-s-xdp-100r-1st-high-res-portable-mqa/58527

Pioneer XDP-100R first portable device with MQA Technology.
Available November.

 

BlueSound also has MQA on its roadmap.

http://www.twice.com/news/audio/bluesound-takes-second-look-wireless-multizone-audio/58373

 

To me, all these different PCM formats, from DAD, HDAD, HDCD, MLP/DVD-A, BD-A/Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, MQA... are just a means to sell us yet another piece of equipment.

We all know that 99.999% of modern converters use delta sigma modulation for converting analog signals into digital, and thus, if anyone really wants to get true master quality, it today can be achieved only through a direct capture of delta sigma modulator’s output.

 

er, no we don't all know. Some of us have no idea what that means.

 

Today's ADCs convert analog signals into digital ones with delta sigma modulators, which typically operate at low-bit (1 to 6) and a very high sampling speed (2.8224MHz to 11.2896MHz). The 24bit PCM tracks in a vast majority of cases are therefore produced only after an additional conversion step inside an ADC (this step is called PCM decimation). My point is that if one wants to get a true digital master from a delta sigma ADC, a raw output from the delta sigma modulator should be captured.

Here's how the audio path looks like for the standard DSD format.

 

Again, I have no doubt the technology succeeds in its promise. The issue is the source material it's pumping at us that will make or break the experience.