New Meridian audio format creating quite a buzz

On the basis that the market is already full of audio formats but it seems that this is better off geared as a pipeline for efficient data transfer than any beneficial audio gain (that SACD, FLAC, DVD-A, etc, etc, etc...) doesn't already give us. To that end, those on tight data streaming budgets will reap rewards. The rest of us will get on with SACD, etc, etc, etc...

 

Well, as one definitely on a "tight streaming budget", I think's it's probably a good idea. Can't see why anybody would complain about it.

 

From a pipeline perspective, none at all.

 

Meridian were originally to design the Pono but dropped out for whatever reason. Ayre came in then. Meridian are a very reputable company in the high end and were very involved in PCM and its design. They very much advocated DVD-A over SACD in the beginning. their speakers and electronics are top notch. I have had a Meridian CD player which I bought in 1989 and the laser only started to fail in 2010. It was built like a battleship. I still have it and I am tempted to get the laser replaced. I think Bob Stuart is very highly regarded in the industry and their design for a new format should be treated seriously. I would think they learnt a lot out of the failure of DVD-A. They have of course been vindicated since through the rise of interest in hi-res audio. I would take this announcement seriously.

 

I do wonder if Pono was planning on supporting this format. Meridian was involved with the early PonoPlayer design. I assumed they were just involved in helping Pono do the hardware (amp and DAC) circuitry designs. But maybe they were involved because Pono wanted to support this new format? Then something happened and Pono switched to Ayre to help design the hardware.

I'll have to wait for more technical info about this new format to find out what it might offer. Is it a format that would be beneficial for a portable player? Is it a format that offers something better than standards 24/96 or 24/192 PCM? What are the benefits that it offers compared to standard PCM?

 

Meridian has done a lot of things but designing PCM wasn't one of them. PCM predates Meridian by 50 years.

 

1: Yes, for two reasons: (a) It takes up less storage space than uncompressed hi-res, and (b) it will play on portable players that don't have an MQA decoder (although at typically CD quality instead of "hi-res").
2: No. It adds no quality over standard "hi-res" of whatever rate.
3: Reduced storage and bandwidth requirements.

 

If lossy compression is employed, it can't truly have the same quality as an uncompressed hi-res file, right? The differences could be negligible, but upon decompression, it would not be a bit-perfect copy of the original hi-res file.

 

re: 2. Their marketing says otherwise.

 

From what I have read, what they are doing is making choices (based on psychoacoustics) about what is encoded from analog. They are not just compressing high res PCM files. So this isn't lossy per se. (Or is it?). Too much marketing and not enough technical details I suppose.

 

Sure sounds lossy to me. And MP3 works on the same psychoacoustic principles doesn't it? I.e. Throws away informations 'it' thinks we cannot hear.

 

The Emotive ERC-3 and the Sherbourn CD-1-both recent and current offerings-Fully Decode HDCD-and i've heard a couple of HDCD'S on the Sherbourn and what I heard DID INDEED SOUND LIKE MASTER TAPE QUALITY.
Whew, sorry about the caps, I was about to sneeze right there.
the beave

Oh and the two HDCD'S: Steves DCC deep purple 'who do we think we are' and the beach boys smiley smile.

 

There are some players that still can decode HDCD. I don't know how they're doing it. Pacific Microsonics is no longer around. How are they getting the decoder licensed and all legal-like that is necessary to decode HDCD? I know the decoder has been reverse engineered of sorts. I don't know if there is anything reverse engineered clean-room style that is all legal-like. Those are the kinds of questions I don't want to have to be asking 10 years after a format has been abandoned wondering if manufacturers will still be able to legally support the format. That's the risk with a closed patent and license encumbered format.

As for the DCC titles. They don't make use of the HDCD features for peak extend or gain. So there is actually nothing to decode. You can play then on a player that does not support HDCD and they will sound the same.

 

I'm a little confused; this apparently offers no better sound than existing hi-resolution audio (I understand there is file-size advantage), and according to the quality/convenience graph on their website, existing hi-res (SACD/DVD-A) falls short of vinyl... then shouldn't we all just be using turntables and vinyl?

Sometimes it's hard to see the mirrors for the smoke...

 

Really? Wow. So all of the effort I went through with dBpoweramp getting the HDCD decoder to do its magic and the resulting 24/44.1kHz files is for naught?

Then why bother?

I mean, why did Audio Fidelity bother with HDCD?

 

Not for naught. It depends on the title and which HDCD features it used. If the title made use of peak extend or gain then decoding will sound better.

Here's a post where I list out the HDCD titles I have and the HDCD features each made use of:
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/hdcds-with-peak-extend.283784/page-2#post-7647224

The joys of dealing with an obsolete format...

 

Thanks for that, and sorry for my ambiguity. I was talking exclusively about Audio Fidelity HDCDs.

 

As for why AF did HDCD. Steve liked the sound of the Pacific Microsonics converter. Even if you're not taking advantage of the peak extend or gain, the converter still could do some tricky filter switching as part of the HDCD encoding. And it was a good AD converter.

 

So I can do a straight rip (no HDCD decode) of the AF HDCDs and suffer no loss of fidelity?

 

Yes. But I'm not sure if the decoded and un-decoded versions will sound *exactly* the same since the decoded version gets converted to 24-bit. You can do a listening test to see if you hear a difference.

 

I'm afraid any Meridian product I've heard in the last 20 years has left me cold so I am not getting excited.

 

Would they lie to us? Surely not... wanna buy a bridge?

 

According to their patent description, they are processing already digitised material, not processing at A-to-D time. They describe several implementations, some (slightly) lossy based on psychoacoustic principles, some lossless. They all depend on there not being much information above 22/24 KHz and below the 16th bit.

 

Properly mastered CD quality FLAC or ALAC files are already perfectly acceptable.

 

It's pretty confusing. Read this article for example:

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/robert-harley-listens-to-meridian-mqa/

which says:

Sounds like it would (or could) be applied at the ADC statge?

I will avoid further speculation.