New Meridian audio format creating quite a buzz

By that reckoning that would make SACD DRM as well then.

 

I don't think anyone would argue with that. SACD has about the strongest DRM out there, only crackable with a early model hacked PS3 as far as I know. But the format itself, DSD is now being sold on digital download sites with no DRM, so that is an SACD thing, not a DSD thing.

 

Guys, please read my short post 24 with two links to the article and review at the tread:

Tidal streaming service making the move to HI RES audio with MQA files

Tidal streaming service making the move to HI RES audio with MQA files »

 

Yeah, what I would have said.

Not to say that DACs and such can't sound different (thinking back to one vivid long-ago demo), but those differences have fewer dimensions that changes in the speakers. Each speaker changes the frequency response by at least several decibels at a bunch of frequencies, likely injects multiple sound arrivals from different drivers, and THEN changes the whole polar pattern of energy output which then changes the reflected energy in the room. So any properly working electronics nowadays are orders of magnitude more accurate than even the best speakers.

Which is why it drives me nuts when I see people spending a bunch of money to upgrade electronics when their speakers are far from tip-top. It' s a kind of misplaced priority driven by some kind of deep psychology that makes changing electronics more sexy or fun or...I don't know. There's a good Master's thesis waiting to be researched and written.

 

Well, but they DON'T always. Satellite radio? Ugh. I *think* even normal people can notice it doesn't sound good. OR highly compressed streaming services, like 128kbps or 96. But once you get up around 200 and above, I would venture to say that most folks, even audiophiles, would say the music starts to sound normal. Not indistinguishable from lossless in a direct A/B comparison on a good system, but few people ever do such a thing.

The scary part is that anyone raised listening to compressed streams doesn't know any better, so may not have any interest at all in "better sound."

Now if Apple or Spotify or T-Mobile or some other MAJOR brand incorporated "Better sound" for their streaming, that might have some impact. I don't think Tidal has any impact to speak of.

 

I believe that MQA should team up with Pono because they have VERY similar goals. Pono, MQA, Roon, and Tidal all have the makings of different parts of a hi-res streaming ecosystem. If they would work together (I know that MQA and Tidal, and Roon and Tidal are already), something transformative could happen.

 

Warner Music Group becomes the first big label to adopt MQA

Warner Music Group becomes the first big label to adopt MQA | What Hi-Fi? »

 

Any idea as to when the announced MQA decoding app for iOS will be available?

 

The DRM appears to be the only motivation. Encrypt and lock up the content, prevent independent unlicensed non-corporate music, while selling consumers on the "this is better" line - so you can suck it if you still want unlocked digital files from the record companies in non-lossy format. Also, the encryption wrests control away from the digital distributors like Apple and defeats marketplace's own DRM that might be tied to a customer.

Q1. Clearly, artists using larger recording studios will benefit from MQA. Given the need to keep sensitive cryptographic keys secure, will MQA be available to smaller (even home) recording artists who cannot afford expensive studio time, either directly, or via an "MQA encapsulation" service?

A1. There are several parts to this answer, technical and policy.

1. The MQA syntax supports a hierarchy of authentication keys using strong encryption. The encryption protects the encoding/decoding instructions, various metadata and verification of both lossless digital transmission from studio to decoder and 'beyond digital lossless', it authenticates the analogue-to-analogue path -- which is a major step forward in sound quality.

2. At the lowest level the keys verify that the stream is genuinely MQA. This is important for the full benefit of Authentication to be realised and we hope that facility will ignite new and enriched ways for artists to communicate with fans and for listeners to appreciate 'the real thing'. MQA is neither a DRM nor conditional-access system; listeners can still enjoy the music without a decoder in a variety of legacy playback scenarios, in actual CD quality. However the keys protect the ecosystem.

3. The hierarchy of keys, in principle allow us to have streams which are verifiable for different things, ranging from, e.g. genuine MQA in a local ecosystem, to a fully-authenticated path from artist/studio to the listener. This highest level we call 'MQA Studio'. In principle these levels can be displayed on a UI and licensed decoders are required to indicate this. In the middle are levels of authentication that can be applied by a distribution house, mastering studio, broadcast, etc.

4. How intermediate keys will be used is not fully settled and we are in consultation with music industry partners.

5. We fully expect to have a variety of options available for smaller-scale encoding requirements but can't comment just yet. Suffice it to say that the MQA initiative is supported by music companies and it is our intention to make access very inclusive and convenient.

Lots of marketing doublespeak. Reviews from those who are typically on the payola like Stereophile. No white papers. Nothing for an engineer to read and qualify. Listening tests that test nothing. How do you A/B something, when the real test you need is an A/B/C:

• A: properly dithered and shaped 44.1/16 played back on modern delta-sigma DACs, vs
  
• B: their MQA, vs
  
• C: the 192/24 that is being encoded

- and when the real test would reveal that in statistically extensive and significant double-blind trials among the most critical listeners, A and C are the same thing.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this. Yes, I do believe it all starts with the speakers but depending on what you own you get to a point with speakers where you'd have to spend significantly more money to move up to the next level of improvement. The Monitor Audio Rx8's that I own are phenomenal for the $2000 or so I spent. I've listened to stuff in the 3-3500 range and didn't hear enough of a difference but at 4000 plus I have. However upgrading my DAC and amp where the additional costs were around $500 and $1000 respectively offered night and day improvement. Hope this post makes sense it's still early and I'm clearing out the cobwebs.

 

I tried to do some ABX-ing using several original 24/352 DXD recordings (downsampled on-the-fly to 24/176) & 24/44 MQA Studio-encoded tracks on MQA-enabled Meridian Explorer2 DAC & failed to detect which one was which reliably...

 

Which speaks well to MQA since the files are way smaller!

 

Seems like you would have agreed with me if I had specified that yeah, there is some kind of a % more you need to spend on speakers. From $200 to $500 can be a big difference, but from $2000 you *might* need to go to $5000 to hear the same magnitude of improvement.

The main thing I always say about speakers is nothing else makes such a big DIFFERENCE. For example, only the speakers affect the dispersion, the early/late reflections, delayed energy,* etc etc


*well, a cartridge could have the same phenomena but less and differently I think. In speakers I'm thinking of cabinet resonances, and rear cone waves bouncing around inside and coming back out through the cones, port, and enclosure walls. Electronics and digital can of course have delayed energy but far less.

 

Yes. Completely agree.

 

I am waiting for computer and mobile apps to come out to do the MQA unpacking so that we can utilize non-MQA enabled DACs for playback.

 

Unlikely, IMO... Currently MQA-enabled DAC needs to receive bit-perfect audio from a transport to be able to detect & decode MQA material.

 

MQA Controversy | DirectStream DAC | ForumsPS Audio »

 

An inconvenient truth: MQA sounds better! | DAR__KO »

 

Playing company-provided "original" 96k vs company-provided "encoded" product, through a DAC that can have audio "enhancing" filters turned on by codes in the encoded container? Of course it can sound "better" than the source, instead of indistinguishable like it should be. I can provide you two files that are 96k and 44k and make the 44k sound better also.

They have to play these tricks, because whether a 96/24 source or "352kbps that sounds even better", you can downsample to 44.1/16 with quality algorithms and there will be very few listeners who could distinguish the difference and very few audio samples or sound systems they could use to do so.

The proper demonstration would be for MQA Ltd to specify high sample rate source material that they feel cannot be transparently downsampled to 44.1k by mastering technicians through double-blind tests. Then provide the tools to allow a third-party lab to attempt to demonstrate through similar field trials that, with statistical and repeatable certainty, that 44.1/24 is not transparent but their VQA 44.1 is. This is a double-edged sword - I could as easily produce material needing all 24 bits that they can't encode (the sound of a heartbeat vs crickets vs a rocket launch).

There will be no open specification or software, all of the decoding has to be done by their locked-down licensed chips, and the encoding requires licensing and encryption keys signed by the gatekeepers.

Just a reminder - their product is nominally 44.1kHz/24 bit, with the file size to match. They just fill the last few bits with their own digital noise so there can also be a non-enhanced playback equivalent to CD with a bloated bitrate. If I was making everybody buy my DAC anyway, I would throw out the bathwater and just encode 56000kHz at 18 bits (or pack audio frames with dynamic rates via perceptual encoder) with that bitrate.

High bit depth and original sampling rate is essential to preserve integrity through multistage processing in the studio, but not in the content delivery method.

It is also likely that the encrypted information they are encoding as "noise" will make for larger 44.1 files when using lossless audio compression like flac, due to lack of correlation. If there is actually more audio information, we would expect this. Not that you get to choose your own format...

their quote:

MP3 brings you just 10% of what was recorded in the studio. Everything else is lost to fit the music into a conveniently small file. MQA brings you the missing 90%​

LAME developers struggle to improve their MP3 encoder because it takes specially discovered problem samples and good ears to even A/B MP3 these days. What is "lost" is stuff you can't hear, you know, like the last few bits of that 24 bit MQA file. So there's a "bugger off" moment right there.

Here's a Q&A with the company, see if it answers your questions: Computer Audiophile - A Comprehensive Q&A With MQA's Bob Stuart »

 

MQA® Now Available on Bluesound : Bluesound »

 

New Meridian Ultra DAC »

 

More like a murmur than a buzz.

 

Very interesting reading here--this appears to be the patent on MQA's compression scheme (but not the de-blurring or authentication components). According to these documents, when the hi-res "secondary" signal is decompressed from the 24/44.1 or 24/48 "primary" signal, the resulting 24/96 file (or 24/192, etc.) file is indeed lossless. The 24/44.1 or 24/48 file (the one that can be played by any DAC) is described as the lossy compression component. That's the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I would have expected (and a good thing, IMHO).

GB2013051548 DOUBLY COMPATIBLE LOSSLESS AUDIO BANDWIDTH EXTENSION »

 

Is this still around? Any music released in this format?

 

A little bit is trickling out.