Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music MQA : How to experience MQA through my 861v8 processor.

Put it this way... Bob and Co. measured a state-of-the-art studio microphone --> ADC --> DAC chain as having 10x the temporal smearing as MQA achieves.

@ Ian : good analogy - skimmed milk with added lard !
Question is, are we talking about 10,000 litres of skimmed milk + 1 teaspoon-full of lard...?

@ Joel : I think I understand what you're trying to say, but for clarification, MQA doesn't "achieve" temporal smearing (end of pedantic correction / comment !) does it ?
Do you mean that a "Studio or White Glove" MQA end-to-end chain has 10* less smearing, or do you mean that applying MQA to an already existing recording reduces the "damage" in the chain by 10* ?

Getting a little off-topic here, but I'm just trying to quantify what we're talking about - in other words - is the expectation of using Roon/SBT/Explorer2 a complete waste of time, or mildly beneficial, or quite beneficial, or exceptionally beneficial (very close to full-fat MQA) ? I'm beginning to suspect no-one apart from MQA / Meridian really knows, although the actual answer must be simple.

The context, again, is whether to bother (with "building" this chain) - while waiting patiently for :-

i) The promised MQA firmware / hardware upgrade to the 861v8 and
ii) More software - Music. Of which there's hardly any yet. With little information regarding release dates / availability. Which makes everything moot !

However, this is also a discussion about a first-world problem, which most people didn't know we had until recently !!!!
Utilising some other wonders of modern technology, I'm going to sit back & watch another footy match on telly, with a warm beverage, after which I'm going to Enjoy The Music... Happy Sunday everyone !

Strictly, MQA "achieves" a temporal smearing in the end-to-end recording/reproduction chain equivalent to the smearing introduced by about 10m of air.

As I understand it, MQA can undo the damage to pretty much any recording, as long as the equipment used in the recording chain is known; in most cases this is true as studios keep meticulous records.


My point – pertaining to using an Explorer2 as an MQA source for playback via 861v8 – is simply that the *simplest* ADC/DAC system introduces 10x the smearing that MQA delivers. Consequently, I feel that feeding the analogue output from an Explorer2 (which is a "cheap", but won't be the best, analogue MQA source) into a DSP speaker system is going to introduce a lot of time smearing.

My suggestion is that listening to the un-decoded MQA may well be better as these files are "pre-apodized". So far, we've only had a handful of MQA releases and mainly in the same genre. I suspect we're not going to have to wait long for other, more mainstream, material. And I'm willing to bet that it will sound pretty "HiRes" in its un-decoded form, when fed *digitally* into high end Meridian DSP speaker systems.

Moot, indeed. I've heard MQA several times at the last 2 CEA shows as well as in between and I want it. However, I am sitting tight on this until there is a solution for the 861 (and it included multichannel) or until it becomes certain that there will not be one.

Some (very limited) experiences of MQA into Explorer2 DACs on this forum suggest there maybe not be a significant difference between HiRes and MQA but more subtle differences. This then means your idea of "cloudy" MQA may well fit inbetween?

Using an Explorer2 to feed an 861 via analog:

MQA is suposed to give you sound 'exactly as per the source'

Old method: before MQA

Studio converts the analog to digital under controlled circumstances (gain and dynamic range controlled).

Your proposed way:

Using Explorer2 + MQA to get you 'as close to original source as the Explorer2 can manage' - then do the former studio A-D conversion yourself at the 861 input.

Surely if the Explorer2 method sounded better than the original studio A-D, then this means that for years we could have had better sound quality without having MQA since the final 861 A-D step will just replicate the old method?

Matt.

Hi Matt,
Not sure that I understand your question entirely.

My understanding of the benefits of MQA, from the information available, is that time-smearing (as well as other artifacts) are either "prevented from occurring" (on new recordings which include a MQA encoder) or are retrospectively compensated-for by their very clever clean-up algorithm.

The magnitude of the "damage" to the audio signal - the purest / original state of which I imagine is what comes out of the speakers @ the mixing desk - has been sold to us as significant where digital audio / processing is concerned.
A 44.1/16 CD (WAV ?) file that you either play through your system, or is streamed, is then (for example) further "damaged" by your own playback system by the various filters & DAC processing etc etc etc.

What comes out of a MQA endpoint - my interpretation - is as close to what was heard in the studio as possible, because the actual "damage" done to the audio has been "repaired" and there's also some pre-compensation for the "damage" that your equipment adds-in later - but only if the details of that equipment are known to MQA (or in our case, Meridian).

So yes, if you take the analogue out from an Explorer2 and then send it through another ADC-DAC cycle, albeit a 96/24 or 192/24 cycle (in comparison to a CD-level 44.1/16 cycle) then you'll potentially "do damage".
However, remember that when you pass the Explorer2 output through - let's say - an analogue pre & power-amp & some unknown speakers, you'll also degrade the signal to some extent. And that's even before we talk about room acoustics & physiological factors, which can far outweigh all of the rest we're talking about anyway !

As I've noted before, the question is, while we're - or at least some of us are - waiting for an 861v8 hardware / software upgrade, what's the least-worst option available to us to allow us to join the party ?

Yes, the output from the Explorer2 will be damaged, and yes, I'd be re-applying one of the processes that MQA was specifically created to negate.
But no-one, apart from Meridian / MQA, knows by how much the audio is damaged & repaired. If the audio wave is inherently damaged by (let's say for the sake of argument) 10% from the Master Mix, does MQA recover 8%, 9%, 10% ? Theoretically, it should be possible to recover to a level of 100%, but there are always losses.

So, to return to the topic (!) and to try to address your point (I think), through the understanding that I have, which might end up being wishful thinking, I think I'm getting a 99% repaired signal out of my Explorer2, and then sending it through a Meridian flagship processor - admittedly with losses - which will only lose me another couple of %.
So, until I'm able to "join the club", and as the tsunami of MQA releases (tee-hee !) starts to hit us, I'm quite pleased to be able to enjoy 95% of the available signal purity as a pose to the 90% I had "yesterday" !

Again, bear in mind this is largely based on logic, speculation and the publicly available information : I may be completely wasting my time and in the wrong ball-park entirely.

But isn't it fun to use your brain, think about these things, and try....?!

This raises some interesting questions:

How good is the ADC in the 861v8?

Does Meridian's flagship processor do a better job than many studio ADC's?

How good are the DACs in the DSP8000.2 speakers?

Does the 861v8 process of ADC - DSP8000.2 DAC produce less errors to the "MQA studio" rendered analog signal from the Explorer2?

Exactly !

I am a big fan of the 861v8 ADC process. I have been since it came out and I hooked my Marantz UD player to it. I hooked up my Prime HA to it the other day and played the 2L sample files and found the experience to be rewarding, knowing full well that I wasn't getting true MQA. The music isn't really my preference but I was really happy with the strings, voices, low end and especially piano.

I won't go through the exercise again until Tidal starts streaming MQA.

- an interesting experiment to be done.

MQA file into 861/8000+ versus MQA file into Explorer2/861/8000+

or

HiRes (non-MQA) file into 861/8000+ versus MQA file into Explorer2/861/8000+

Both can be done with the 2L samples.

Very interesting. What do you think the order of SQ would be if:

A = undecoded MQA via 861v8/8000
B = decoded MQA via Explorer2/861v8/8000
C = Standard Hi Res into 861v8/8000

Also, would the order be different for an 861v4 rather than a v8? Or if the 8Ks were SE, SL or non SL models?

Endless possibilities!