A Response RE: MQA, "blocking" of Meridian's responses, and A/B Tests...

Just a quick note (remember... I'm on summer holiday and all!). Someone passed along to me this article from Hi-Fi+. It's an interview with Bob Stuart and Morten Lindberg (2L) apparently conducted in May. I'm bringing this up because the first Q&A is about "detractors" and there's this curious response:

BS: We’ve had some detractors, but frankly where we sit, we’ve been actually rather pleased how few. We’ve come in with an inconvenient truth – digital audio hasn’t been done right – so we thought the community might attack us. And one person put up a long blog about MQA that was just inaccurate, but blocked all our replies. As we say in England, “That’s not cricket!”

Now I don't know if this is definitely in reference to this blog and specifically to posts here and here but over the last few months I have heard this claimed... That somehow Meridian tried to post a response but the message was "blocked" (presumably by me) and that presumably the message would have contained corrections and answers to the issues raised.

MEASUREMENTS: Focusrite Forte USB Audio Interface (ADC & DAC) + Summer Musings

Product shot from here.

A few weeks back, I mentioned that I grabbed one of these Focusrite Forte USB2 audio interface units for some home recording projects I wanted to do. Beyond using it as a measurement device, my old Creative E-MU 0404USB was being used for some of these recordings and I figured it was time to upgrade to something new since a couple of the analogue pots were getting a little scratchy and I figured an all-digital device like this would allow me to more accurately adjust the volume on the microphone pre-amps (indeed it has worked out very well!).

A size comparison.

MUSINGS: Digital Interpolation Filters and Ringing (plus other Nyquist discussions and "proof" of High-Resolution Audio audibility)

A couple weeks ago, Whackamus posed this interesting comment and question which I thought would be a good topic to discuss and explore in greater detail and with some examples/samples:

"I've been reading your blog for years. Or for almost four years, at any rate. I have to thank you for doing what you do. I've likewise always wanted to ask you a question, too, but I don't know how the bleep to to contact you. In any case, since I've been fretting over it afresh, I thought I'd just post it here. If you ever do decide to get to/address it, that'd be great. If not -- hey, no sweat. :)

In any case, I read the following (tonight) on the Stereophile forums:

"I personally think that MQA has some noble goals, in terms of getting as close to the original master as possible, but I think that is far less important than the elimination of the damaging pre-ringing distortion. This has been the bane of digital playback for 30 years, and over-sampling and various filter techniques have tried to deal with it, with limited success."

I won't say that I've never heard ringing -- because I probably have -- but I will say that I've never explicitly said: "Aha! Eureka! Thar be ringing!" Because -- outside of maybe a blurring during transients? -- I have no idea what it sounds like. But my question is less about MY having heard ringing than about the AUDIBILITY of ringing -- pre, post, or otherwise. In a quality DAC (which I've got to assume most of the folks posting on Stereophile.com have access to), how audible are ringing effects? Or, rather, how COMMON are they? I kind of imagine that the Meitners, Lavrys, Levinsons, Stuarts, etc. of the audio world take great care to minimize (pre-/post-)ringing effects and to eliminate ringing in the audible realm. I likewise imagine that both such things are doable, inasmuch as most of us have been enjoying digital audio for decades now. But the Stereophile poster makes it seem as if ringing is the apodeictic bane of digital audio. What am I missing?"