COMPARISON: MQA "Authentication" & Sound Quality? (Mytek Brooklyn & Meridian Explorer2)

You've probably heard or read the catch phrases from MQA over the years. "Revolutionary", "TAKE ME THERE"... "To the original performance..." Or how about using phrases like "end-to-end technology"?

As I have said over the last few months, I don't like talking about MQA based on my general impression of what they're trying to do and the way they try to convey supposed "value" to the audiophile world through their advertisements and sponsored articles in the audiophile press. Nonetheless, sometimes it's just necessary to comment and more importantly to put some of the rhetoric to the test. There appears to be a remarkable schism between those who advocate and praise MQA and those who have concerns. I'm pretty sure there are many wishing that MQA would just go away instead of complicating music playback with yet another questionable variant.

Last week, when I wrote about the idea of MQA CD, I brought up the Pono experience as another example of failure in the recent history of the industry. For Pono, the failure was perhaps rather obvious for those of us who have been listening to 24-bit and >44.1kHz music for awhile, especially those of us who have ever bothered to try an A/B-test. It does not take a genius to realise that audible differences are really quite subtle (if even there in most cases of mainstream music) and that differences do not translate to "benefit". Without clear audible benefits, there really was no way that the promise of the Pono music store could ever excite the music-buying public... Certainly not in the way Neil Young portrayed it (sure, the hardware PonoPlayer is unique but with its own quirks of course).

MEASUREMENTS: AudioQuest Dragonfly Black 1.5 - PART 2 (On "MQA Rendering")

AudioQuest Dragonfly Black - "rendering" MQA playback. Dragonfly logo turns purplish...

For those keeping track, the story of MQA has slowly evolved over the last few years. Initially, it was supposed to be just a technology incorporated into DACs that would take an encoded file (typically 24/44 or 24/48) and almost "magically" transform this data into the "original" high resolution (equivalent to 24/192+) sound while maintaining standard PCM playback compatibility. This was the case with the first products like the Meridian Explorer 2. Over the years, it appears that concessions have been made. Software decoding rather suddenly was introduced in early 2017 with TIDAL's support for MQA; branded as "MQA Core". At around the same time, DACs were classified as either "MQA Decoders" for components that can handle these 24/44 or 24/48 files start to finish (Meridian, Mytek DACs), and "MQA Renderers" which require the computer software perform initial "unfolding" to high-res samplerates (88 or 96kHz) followed by some kind of final processing to the sound performed by the DAC presumably to allow the sound to be more "accurate" to the studio production, or "authentic" (whatever that means).

With the recent firmware upgrade to version 1.06, the Dragonfly Black DAC now belongs to this latter category of "Renderer". As far as I am aware, it is the first of these kinds of devices to be released without "Decoding" capability.

COMPARISON: Hardware-Decoded MQA (using Mytek Brooklyn DAC)

As promised in my last blog post about software MQA decoding, I have been wanting to have a peek and listen to hardware decoding. Due to the proprietary nature of the MQA firmware as well as the fact that we don't have access to MQA encoder software, there is only so much we can do to explore the effect on an audio signal. Ideally, encoding a test signal and then decoding would be the best way to explore the effects and limits of how this all works...

I don't have an MQA-capable DAC myself (and honestly owning one is not high on my list of priorities), but a friend does happen to have the Mytek Brooklyn which is fully MQA-native and has the ability to decode all the way to 24/384. Furthermore, he has the use of a professional ADC of fantastic quality - the RME Fireface to make some recordings of the output from the DAC.

Image from Mytek. Obviously very capable DAC!

With the combination of the excellent DAC and ADC, we should be able to examine the output and make some comparisons. The main questions being:

1. Can we show that hardware-decoded MQA is closer to an original signal beyond the 88/96kHz decoding already done in software?

2. Can we compare the hardware decoder with the output from the software decoder? How much difference is there between the two?

MEASUREMENTS: MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) Observations and The Big Picture...

I. Preamble:

As expected, MQA articles are popping up at the usual audiophile sites. So far, what has been disseminated to the public about the technology remains rather nebulous beyond the basic core ideas. Probably the best technical descriptions come from John Atkinson's article back in Dec 2014. It focuses on the "encapsulation" process of reconstructing high-frequency content. Then there's the Robert Harley articles from May/June 2015 where there seems to be more attention paid to supposedly important time-domain factors and MQA's role (alas, the PDF link I referenced in this post got taken down!).

Since CES2016, I see that articles continue to focus on subjective experience, and there's a chorus of testimony about the greatness of MQA (see here, here, here...). Notice the vacuousness of interviews like this. Testimony is fine and is what it is. I'm sure the MQA folks are smart... And I'm sure Mr. Stuart is a great guy... Yes, clearly Mr. McGrath can show off some well recorded material... But it was perhaps surprising how there remains so little spoken further about what the algorithm is doing or even better yet, providing technical clarification on simple questions. In sum, there's little to suggest that the science makes sense in the way it's supposed to make the music sound "much" better despite vague claims like how research in neuroscience is supposed to support the benefits of this technology (Meridian/MQA, care to reveal which neuroscience papers you're talking about?!).

MUSINGS: On Michael Fremer's "How Best to Hear Patricia Barber's 'Clique!'" - selective hearing and more MQA nonsense. [Extended Edition!]

A little bit of dramatics for effect. ;-)

Like many audiophiles, I've been well aware of Patricia Barber's recordings over the years. Her discography of "reference"-sounding quality albums have already had decades of influence among hi-fi enthusiasts with increased exposure beginning in the 1990's (her first album was Split in 1989). Personally, I was introduced to her music with Café Blue released in 1994.

I think Barber is an interesting contrast to the other well-known female jazz vocalist we all know well - Diana Krall. Barber's material tends to be more original (less of the standards), more edgy, compared to Krall's accessibility and mainstream appeal.

Already, on this blog, I've mentioned the most recent album Clique! (2021, DR14 hi-res, DR13 MQA-CD) but we're not going to be mainly talking about the music on the album in this post. Rather, I want to explore the opinions and beliefs of Michael Fremer in his article "How Best to Hear Patricia Barber's Clique!" recently posted on Tracking Angle.

MQA Core vs. Hi-Res Blind Test Part I: Procedure

Introduction:

As you are probably aware, through the last 2 months on this blog, I've been collecting data to determine the audibility of decoded MQA versus the same piece of music originating from the "master" high resolution source. Please refer to the Test Invite article from mid July 2017.

Over the last couple of years, I have been curious about the MQA technique and followed the evolution of the "technology" as it has been touted as being the next step in digital music playback. Throughout the last 2 years, I have tried to develop an understanding of what it's doing beyond simply the superficial talk around being "revolutionary", "fundamentally changing the way we all enjoy music", nebulous claimed links to "neuroscience", or talk of bringing the "studio sound" to the consumer. If you look back, I have written articles looking at:

- Initial musings... 

- The undecoded MQA file. 

- Decoded vs. undecoded Explorer2 output. 

- Dicussions of MQA's partially lossy nature. 

- Comparison of TIDAL / MQA Decoding with "studio master" tracks. 

- Mytek Brooklyn hardware MQA decoding. 

- Discussion of digital filters and relevance to MQA. 

- Comparison between Meridian Explorer2 vs. Mytek Brooklyn ("Authentication?"). 

- Dragonfly Black MQA "Rendering" and filter. 

- Mytek Brooklyn MQA filters. 

- The "full monty" of MQA filters from the Dragonfly Black MQA-enabled DAC.

RIP MQA codec? (Yeah. On Lenbrook Group's acquisition of bankrupt MQA Ltd., and SCL6.)

Hey folks, it looks like the saga around MQA never ends, but I think they're just scraping the bottom of the barrel with one last crank of the hype machine with hopes that this is somehow face-saving as well. :-|

So as of yesterday (September 19, 2023) it appears that Canadian brand Lenbrook Group of Companies - NAD, PSB, Bluesound - has acquired the intellectual property for MQA. Let's talk about this.

COMPARISON: TIDAL / MQA stream & high-resolution downloads; impressions & thoughts...

As I mentioned last week, and I'm sure you've seen all over the audiophile news, TIDAL has started streaming MQA audio and has embedded a software decoder into the Windows/Mac desktop player. It will basically take a 24-bit 44kHz or 48kHz stream that's encoded by MQA and spit out an 88kHz or 96kHz data stream to send out to your DAC; whether the internal one in your laptop, or a fancy external DAC with options for "Exclusive" mode which allows changes to the appropriate samplerate (I know this works well on the PC, have not tried the Mac).

If you're not using "Exclusive" mode, you can tick "Force volume" to set it to 100% volume so the internal mixer/dither routine hopefully doesn't mess with it. "Passthrough MQA" should be ticked only if you have an MQA enabled DAC or want to purposely hear MQA undecoded (I'll say it now that this is not recommended). My assumption is that if you do have one of these MQA DACs and passthrough is on, you should either make sure "Exclusive" mode is ticked or if not, manually make sure the OS samplerate is correct (ie. 44kHz or 48kHz at 24-bit depth) and that the volume is 100% (either with "Force volume" or making sure the computer volume slider is 100%). Otherwise, it will not be "bit-perfect" and the DAC will not recognize the MQA encoding. I suspect this could be confusing for some.

As We Hear It 2021 (I): Maurizio C on MQA, some ideas about TIDAL, and a few words about audio journalistic legacy...

Generation 1 earphones! For distant aircraft detection apparently...

As you might recall, over the years I have incorporated contribution posts from readers here on the blog. The article that follows was something I wrote back in the summer (2021) but since I was sick and tired of more MQA talk, I held on to it from publication a few months ago. Well, I think the time has come now that a few of the thoughts I wrote about TIDAL have actually come to pass - TIDAL just announced today that the price is down to $10/month, with the lossless 16/44.1 tier, pushing MQA into the "HiFi+" tier for $20/month. We're not sure if the lossless 16/44.1 tier has dumped the worthless MQA-encoded "MQA-CD" content though.

Here's the article with some modifications in light of the recent news...

A comment about MQA leading into 2021; some thoughts about the future of TIDAL and on journalistic legacy...

Here's an E-mail I received in late 2020 from Italy.

December 27, 2020 

To: Schiit Audio, Linn Audio
CC: Archimago

Dear Alls,
I'm an Italian, 60 years old, music lover and Older Analog Hi-Fi Fan and only recently I have converted to digital music, listening almost exclusively through the streaming services (Spotify, Tidal, QoBuz, Amazon, etc.).

Among hi-res listeners, Tidal is the most famous and expanding but they are "Forcing" the exclusive use of MQA format, with large investments, marketing campaigns, reviews from important audiophile magazines etc ..

Unfortunately this Campaign is gaining the upper hand, so much so that MQA Logo is now coveted by both manufacturers and sellers...

MUSINGS/MEASUREMENTS: On "blurring" and why MQA probably worsens transient smearing.

Yes, I know. The last time I specifically addressed MQA was supposed to be "FINAL final" :-). But I got curious again. This is especially after the exploration of various filters recently suggesting to me that there actually is a case to be made that "blurring" can be seen with minimum phase filters. The question is, what do we "know" or "believe" MQA is able to do, and can we demonstrate that MQA even "de-blurs"?

Let's talk and think about this for a bit...

MQA Core vs. Hi-Res Blind Test Part III: Subgroup Analysis

This is Part III of the summary and results of the MQA Core decode vs. standard PCM Hi-Res blind test following from the "core" results last week.

At this point, we know that if we look at the "big picture", evidence suggests that there are minimal audible differences. So if we dig into the data set a bit further, let's see if we can ask questions based on the subgroups identified. I'm sure many of you have been curious about some of these questions for awhile but until having access to a large enough database such as this, it's difficult to obtain answers.

Let's then ask a few questions and interrogate the database for hints...

MQA: FINAL "Final" comments... Simply put, why I don't like MQA.

Looks like an interesting art exhibit :-).

I know... I said the previous post was "final". But I just had to kick the horse one more time. :-) Seriously, if you're sick of MQA chatter already, don't bother reading this - you've been warned!

This past week, I added my views to this thread on Computer Audiophile (from about page 198 in an epic thread with >5000 comments!). I know that forums can get pretty heated and ugly, but it is good fun sometimes so long as you don't let it get personal - it never has to, we're talking audiophile stuff after all - first-world problems, nothing life or death. Since forum threads and comments tend to get lost easily, I thought it would be reasonable to just enumerate some main talking points in the hopes of furthering clear debate (if still necessary)...

MUSINGS: On DRM, MQA, the (supposed) Techno-Libertarian opposition, and Honesty... [Plus a quick look at MQA-CD]

Eugène Delacroix - "La Liberté guidant le peuple" (Liberty Leading the People).

Looking around the audiophile press this past couple of weeks, we see the next installment of Jim Austin's exploration into MQA - "MQA, DRM, and Other Four-Letter Words" in the pages of Stereophile.

I asked myself after reading the article, do I and others who share my views on MQA fit the description of being "in a state" about the threat of DRM? And am I and others who oppose MQA the kind of person he generalizes about when he said this?

Because they are a certain kind of person: advocates of open-source, open-standard software. We meet them at the intersection of audiophilia and information technology. These are the Internet libertarians I mentioned earlier: audiophiles whose sensibilities were nourished in the software industry.

For this post, let's think about comments like those above, and consider some peripheral yet important aspects around freedom in audio data file formats, DRM, MQA, and more...

MEASUREMENTS / IMPRESSIONS: Meridian Explorer2 Analogue Output - 24/192 PCM vs. Decoded MQA.

Image from here.

Well folks, the new Meridian firmware has been released, allowing for MQA decoding. And thanks to a friend who has an Explorer2 with the recent update, he was able to record the analogue output of the DAC playing a standard 24/192 PCM track and the same song as a decoded MQA (24/44)! This is the obvious next step in evaluating MQA after my previous post listening to and evaluating the undecoded MQA file.

The song selected for testing/listening was from 2L (of course) - the track "Blågutten" from the Hoff Ensemble's album Quiet Winter Nights (2011, MQA downloadable here). The recording ADC device is the excellent professional quality RME Fireface 802.

Of course re-digitizing degrades the signal very slightly but the Fireface is an excellent ADC so whatever slight change is likely very minimal though arguably it'll add some "blurring" to the signal if we accept Meridian's claims.

MUSINGS: "Democratization", "Doublethink", MQA, and the Audiophile. Becoming "Post Hi-Res Audio". And some issues with vinyl...

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” 

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." 

“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?” 

"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy."

--- George Orwell, selections from 1984 (1949)

It's sad sometimes reading how some (many?) in the audiophile press present products to consumers. Apparently, they'll stop at nothing to push a product even to the point of destroying their own credibility. It was bad enough a few years ago in 2017 when Robert Harley called for a "revolution" and that MQA represented a "paradigm shift"; making a mockery of the idea of paradigm shifts. And now recently he's "doubling down" to bring disservice to the idea of "democratization", linking it with the likes of MQA, in the article "From The Editor: Hi-Res Democratization" (The Absolute Sound, online September 6, 2019). Specifically, he seems to believe that those who oppose MQA is somehow fighting against the democratization of high-resolution audio for audiophiles! Really?

An opinion about Audio & MQA by "Agitater"... (And a few words on DACs sounding similar.)

I suspect many of you hang out at the usual audio/audiophile message forum "watering holes" as I do. Among the chatter, every once awhile though, I run across something that a thoughtful poster obviously took time to compose and express such that I cannot but wish the message could be shared in a broader context beyond the individuals visiting the thread.

Last weekend, as I was reading the latest on Steve Hoffman's forum, I came across this opinion piece by "Agitater", a fellow Canadian out east in Toronto (I'm here in Vancouver on the west coast). Therefore, with permission to reproduce here, a comment from a fellow audiophile taken from a discussion on MQA (see page 12), but clearly going beyond into his views of the audiophile hobby and current state of affairs. So, in response to a comment about a recent article in The Absolute Sound and someone saying that Robert Harley (Editor-in-chief) is "one of the best in the industry", Agitater had this to add...

MUSINGS: On the RMAF 2018 MQA talk, pseudonyms, and the right to anonymity.

“A desire for privacy does not imply shameful secrets; Moglen argues, again and again, that without anonymity in discourse, free speech is impossible, and hence also democracy. The right to speak the truth to power does not shield the speaker from the consequences of doing so; only comparable power or anonymity can do that.”

--- Nick Harkaway, The Blind Giant

Boo!

Well, Halloween's coming up and it looks like we're about to talk about some scary, dramatic stuff involving emotional incontinence and anonymity :-).

MQA Core vs. Hi-Res Blind Test Part IV: Subjective Results & The Wrap Up...

After having gone through the "core" results and subgroup analysis from the MQA Core vs. Hi-Res PCM Blind Test, let's review and post some subjective comments gathered in the survey. This provides an opportunity for us to see how people described what they heard and since we know what the preferences were, put them in the context of whether the descriptions referred to a bias towards the MQA decode or standard PCM...

"MQA-CD x UHQCD" Listening Test by Agitater.

[Editor's Note: As you may have read in the last few months, there is a new variety of "MQA-CDs" released into the wild. Here in the West, we have seen the new release by Steve Reich Pulse/Quartet contain MQA encoding (playback FFT commented on here). In Japan, a series of MQA-CDs have made their way into public hands from Warner, called "MQA x UHQCD" (UHQCD stands for Ultimate HiQuality CD) which is basically a combination of MQA encoding + "better material" on what is still basically a standard "compatible" CD with 16/44.1 PCM data at premium prices. I guess this kind of thing still interests Japanese audiophiles!?

Techmoan did a review of these which IMO missed the mark as the reviewer clearly does not understand the limitations of MQA itself and believes it really is a "high resolution format" which is IMO false as previously discussed. He also used a glitching portion of Brothers In Arms as a gauge that the MQA-CD sounds "better" through the Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 rather than normal playback (clearly the MQA decoding and filtering changed the output amplitude on the Box - the MQA playback sounded louder).

Techmoan's video did not really compare actual CDs already on sale for years with these new MQA/UHQCDs using higher quality equipment - he just used a computer setup and headphones, obviously having trouble getting things working. To "fix" this situation, here's Agitater and his buddies on Steve Hoffman's Forum! With his permission, I've posted in full his detailed listening sessions conducted with audiophile friends on very high quality systems. Slight editing with headings added for the blog format. A beautiful write-up that just had to be shared and not get lost within a message forum!]

-------------------------------

Asked and answered . . . Here are my music listening group's listening notes and conclusions about the following four UHQ/MQA-CD releases. The albums are, in order below Moanin' by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Blind Faith the eponymous album by the early supergroup Blind Faith, Getz/Gilberto by the studio trio of Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Aja by Steely Dan.

Here's the DAC. It's a MyTek Brooklyn DAC+ with fully switchable MQA filter. Note the little, blue MQA indicator light. It was used in all of the listening sessions in a variety of systems, and acquitted itself brilliantly. Note that one of many peeves related to MQA DAC implementations is that the MQA filter can't be turned off and is applied to all streams including non-MQA (standard?) CDs. MyTek made its licensing deal with MQA, obviously, but in the process has retained its own superb filters. That's my Benchmark DAC3 HGC (unused in these listening sessions) below the Brooklyn DAC+.

MQA: "Final" thoughts... On Politics & Paradigms.

Cartoon looks about right and reflective of MQA... From article here.

In the last few weeks as I was preparing the series of posts discussing the MQA blind test, I noticed The Absolute Sound (TAS) ramping up the hype again in September with two articles in defense of the value of MQA. Let's use those articles to close off discussions about MQA among other ideas at least for a bit here at The Musings...

Sure, I'll be around to add my two bits and answer questions where I can, but to be honest, I'm a little tired of MQA by this stage and how much of a big deal it isn't, IMO.