Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music Re: MQA status?

Chris - your experience coincides with mine - see previous posting from a few days ago below:The MQA album referred to is the Dena Piano Duo album from the 2L website - I would say the effect is very easy to hear on relatively simple piano music such as this. Much less mush around the leading edges and generally much better defined reproduction.

Nic, have you tried a classical MQA album yet? I'd be interested in your views.

Kevin

Looking at the relative file sizes of MQA versus plain vanilla 16/44 FLAC got me wondering about the MQA encoding process.

Below is a screenshot of the files for the Dena Piano Duo MQA album:

This shows that the MQA album files are considerably larger than the plain vanilla 16/44 FLAC files - suggesting to me that in this case the MQA file is based on a 24/96 underlying PCM file. [Edit: based on the 2L test bench files sizes this could be a 24/192 underlying PCM file][2nd edit: it is actually 24/352 in original resolution per album booklet, which is very informative]

However, the Kate Rusby album files look like this:

In the Kate Rusby case the two sets of files are about the same size, suggesting that the MQA files are based on a 16/44 underlying PCM file - ie not high resolution at all. Sooloos identifies the Kate Rusby MQA album as "CD" quality, whereas it identifies the Dena Piano Duo album as "high resolution". [Edit: based on the 2L test bench file sizes, the Kate Rusby MQA album could be based on a 24/96 underlying PCM file - but then why does Sooloos classify it as "CD" quality? I'm confused]

Which got me wondering how the download sites are producing the MQA files. Is it possible (or indeed likely) that the Kate Rusby MQA album is simply a plain vanilla 16/44 album that has been run through an MQA encoder? Has Kate really "signed off" on the sound?

It also begs the question of how the buying public will know what it is buying. The 2L website is better than the Onkyo website in this respect in that it places the MQA album in between plain 16/44 and 24/96 PCM but it still does not indicate the underlying sample rate.

To me this undermines the confidence in the cradle to grave nature of MQA but it also suggests another possibility. If the Kate Rusby MQA album really does sound better than standard 16/44 FLAC on non MQA equipment, is there scope to offer a bulk conversion of existing standard 16/44 FLAC libraries into 16/44 MQA via a batch conversion process? In other words, are we likely to see the likes of Foobar and dBpoweramp buying a MQA encoding license, and then offering a conversion routine to convert standard FLAC into MQA FLAC, rather like to do for say WAV to FLAC etc.

Wouldn't it all be simpler if everything was in MQA!

This is where the Authentication comes into play, you get what they signed off, whatever that was and your decoder will verify this as an authentication light/symbol.

We can't expect more from an un-decoded file beyond the knowledge that it will be better than CD due to the MQA process.

So much is still down to the care taken in production of the music though.

Chris

Update via 2L post on Facebook:
Annoncement from CES today:

7 digital just added MQA files for download to their test bench.

The ones I have sound great. Can't really say more until the MQA firmware is released, obviously.

Re Update via 2L post on Facebook.
That's helpful information for Meridian owners - well done 2L and Mytek.
Thanks for posting.

Even though we don't yet have MQA decoding, I would encourage everyone to take a look at the test bench referred to above and compare the various formats. All downloads are free and there are plenty of MQA examples.

On the Kate Rusby album the comparison between standard FLAC and un-decoded MQA is quite obvious - it's most easily heard by listening to the tail end of her vocals before she draws breath for the next line. Almost all of the "lispiness" has disappeared, making the music sound much crisper.

I'd be interested to hear views on un-decoded MQA versus high res FLAC on the same tracks from the test bench - my guess is that the un-decoded MQA will get very close to plain vanilla high res PCM.

Just listening to Allegro, Violin Concerto No 4 in D major K.218 in MQA. I also have 192/24 version of this and on first quick listen I think the MQA sounds just more 'correct' to me.
Certainly not worse, I want to settle on the MQA version but that could be expectation bias.
Back/ Forth Back/forth... Sod it, let's just enjoy the music. Chris 😎

[quote=ChrisLayerUK]Sod it, let's just enjoy the music. Chris 😎 [/quoteCouldn't agree more Chris, but this forum and its members have a very useful role in spreading the word and converting the doubters out there...

Yes, I very much agree. It would be good if a few more people could have a play and post Honest thoughts now we have the files.
Somthing else I have noticed is the graininess, for want of a better word, as I stream from Tidal that had previously gone un-noticed by me.
This is with a complete change of genre, but I hear it all the same.
Grace Love and The True Loves.

Chris 😎

There IS a tiny bit of general information about remastering, decoding and MQA on the Nielsen Piano Music I downloaded at 2L a few days ago. Of course, me not having Sooloos or Roon, means that I don't have an clue how to play and compare.