If you’d care to watch before commenting, I only selected a portion of the video that shows what is happening during the folding and unfolding process. It shows the 2 folds and how they are placed with the compressed file. If there is only upsampling in the 2nd unfold then what is folded in during the 2nd folding process during the packing of the file?
Don’t worry about it. The reality is there is lots of speculation about MQA by people a lot less qualified than Hans, but they will swear that the stuff they are regurgitating from the same tired and unsubstantiated sources is somehow more true.
3 Likes
Just trying to find the “truth”. I’ve never seen the actual folding process more distinctly presented as Hans does in this clip. If, as some say, he’s not very qualified, then I wish someone could show me, graphically (like the video), what is actually happening during the folding and unfolding process and what is the information in the 1st and 2nd folds.
Personally, I see the Fervent MQA detractors are set in the a paradigm of thinking that is not compatible with what MQA is about. That’s OK but that doesn’t make me wrong either. I wonder how much un biased listening is done?
For myself, I just get stuck into the music on my very capable MQA system and am blown away by the quality which in all practical terms makes their arguments mute to me.
Perception is all.
2 Likes
Like I said, do the reading and figure it out. I explained to you correctly the outline of what is happening. “Folding” is just an MQA marketing term. They call the second “unfold” an unfold because if they called it upsampling then all of a sudden MQA doesn’t look so special.
Note that my detractors here can’t actually refute the facts I presented, so they resort to ad hominem comments and other generalites that are off topic and meanigless.
2 Likes
The difference between what I wrote and what you wrote is that I stated facts that are in technical papers and not denied by MQA when specifically asked if they are true. Please find me a single reliable source specifically contradicting what I wrote.
You, on the other hand, are just making unsubstantiated speculation without the requisite knowledge.
Do you want to link to those technical papers and the review process that verifies them? Because that is how this actually works. Note that I made no claims about MQA, only about the people who feel qualified to dismiss it with no more knowledge than myself. If you have that knowledge, please share.
3 Likes
It is very easy to verify. 2L has high-res recordings in a number of formats, including MQA. As others have already done, you can download them and open them up in any number of audio analysis or processing programs and see that there is zero information above 48 kHz in any of the MQA files, whereas it still exists in the original high-res versions. You might also observe that the original high-res versions have large amounts of ADC noise above 48kHz, so that can’t be “folded” into any kind of smaller file anyway.
2 Likes
As well you should. The truth is that there is nothing to the MQA marketing speak called “2nd fold” other than upsampling at the DAC with slow rolloff, high IMD “min phase” filters. Even MQA supporters such as John Atkinson (technical editor for Stereophile) and Jim Austin (Editor of Stereophile) admit this is the case. Bob Stuart himself does as well, in a round about way, but you have to read between the lines of his/MQA non-standard use of signal processing terms (e.g., “resolution”, etc.).
2 Likes
I listen to a lot of MQA through my Oppo 203 which is not MQA capable. I also listen to a lot using my Dragonfly Cobalt that is MQA capable. While I enjoy both, the Dragonfly sounds better to me. I think it sounds as good as Qobuz 96 and 192, just a little different. It seems to me to be a little punchier with a little more bass.
It’s all good. Listen to what you like, not what someone else likes.
3 Likes