Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Can an analogue bypass be added to a G68?

Well, I say again that I am not sure whether I have understood MQA correctly, but what I can say with confidence is that evolutionary processes convince me that it is no accident if humans (as many other animals) are very acutely aware of minute phase differences in sound. Imagine you are in the forest and a Sabre Tooth Tiger (or similar) is creeping up on you. You need your ears and your brain to locate with the highest precision where the predator might be. If you don't then you are dead and you can't pass your insufficiently good genes on.

If MQA is able to preserve/reconstruct these very subtle phase differences (timing) then it really should sound better. My limited personal experience is that it does. And I am a real sceptic. Please don't talk to me about the important effect of super special and super expensive connecting leads, for example. If it makes you feel good then that is absolutely fine (I like David Hockney's pictures, but you may not) but things like similar exotica do nothing for me.

So, if MQA does indeed address the most subtle phase issues in recorded sound (music) humans really should be able to detect it and benefit from it. Super wide frequency response? I don't think so.

Back in 1959 there was a reel to reel tape recorder called a Simon SP4. Expensive for the time it was distinguished by the fact that its specified frequency response was not at all outstanding (about 3dB down at 12kHz). But it sounded magnificent (as a collector I still have two of them). Why? Because it had a really smooth response that tailed off gracefully and it had very low distortion (harmonic and intermodulation) compared with the opposition. It also had a very linear phase/frequency relationship. A subjectively accurate sound experience depends, in my view, far more on phase accuracy and very low distortion (arguably closely linked issues) than on frequency response, for example.

Think again about the forest and the tiger. Foliage, tree trunks, the ground and so on may absorb frequencies in all sorts of different ways, but you still need to detect where the tiger is.