Is Roon supporting MQA? What are the pros and cons of MQA?

Audio Gear Talk MQA
378

So how is MQA any different from when hi res files were first introduced and most DACs available at the time could not play them at all?

I guess the main one is that there is a fee involved somewhere with MQA. Well why Isn’t HQPlayer (for example) available free of charge? Why do I have to pay to use any software?

On the subject of cost why are hires downloads so much more expensive than redbook? Does it really cost so much more to make a hires file available than to press a CD and distribute it? Who is ripping who off there? Makes MQA look like a bargain.

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379

I have Tidal subscription and I’m majorly annoyed about their use of MQA which makes my life harder for no good reason.

I’ve solved it, so MQA doesn’t anymore restrict my DSP processing because it knows nothing about it.

Anybody can make a stereo cartridge, and nobody forces any particular design on it. You can use MM, MI or MC cartridge or one of the many stylus shapes. There are no magic black boxes or hands-waving about it. All the details how it works out are public.

If all cartridge manufacturers go out of business, I can make my own cartridge that is fully capable. And I can even legally sell it to other people.

With digital it is even more important to be able to convert old content to new formats. For example I got hit by HD-DVD becoming obsolete. So I cannot anymore watch the movies I have in that format. But I’m not going to buy those same movies again in Blu-ray or something else. However, I have ripped all my CD’s to FLAC and stored the CD’s away. I never spin those silver discs again. When FLAC becomes obsolete, I know I can convert it to some other file. And since I have full source code and specification for FLAC decoder, I know I can decode those files still 30 years from now.

This is overall a huge problem for culture history in general. Old books and magazines from 100+ years ago can be still read without problem. New books stored with Adobe or Kindle like DRM-equipped proprietary formats are not going to be readable in that format 100+ years from now. Same applies to lot of music too. I have CD rips of content that is simply not available anywhere anymore, in shops, streaming services or as download. And I also have similar LP’s that are not anywhere available in digital format. But I can still listen both. And I can transfer the LP to DSD256.

Yes, I can unfold MQA files to plain standard FLAC for my own use. But this is certainly a hack and not convenient or necessarily accessible for other people.

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380

Let’s not mix content and DACs. First of all, DACs are not supposed to do any format decoding in first place. And they didn’t until MQA was introduced. They were seeing plain raw PCM or DSD data. Not FLAC, MP3 or any other encoded format. (apart from few failed attempts earlier with HDCD decoding)

I was waiting for someone to bring this up, took surprisingly long before it happened.

Let’s separate two things: 1) content and 2) tools to play the content.

You don’t need HQPlayer to play your content at it’s full resolution. I have zero interest establishing monopoly that all content could only be played through licensed copy of HQPlayer. If you play standard FLAC files, you can use one of the many players, even completely free ones for which you also get full source code (VLC, etc). There’s completely zero binding between content and HQPlayer. Content doesn’t require specifically HQPlayer and HQPlayer doesn’t require any particular type of content, it supports number of content formats.

You can play standard FLAC/WAV/AIFF downloads using any player you like, or you can even make your own.

Tools to play content come and go, but content shouldn’t be kept hostage to the tools. Content stands time much much more than tools. People still listen Mozart, although most of the instruments used at his time have got broken or lost. People make new violins still fully capable for playing Mozart. Luckily the musical notes were not DRM protected and encrypted with proprietary technology that only single person would be able to decipher.

MQA is much more what like Sony/Philips tried with SACD. Or HDCD. And neither one never succeeded because of that. DSD only took off when it was freed from the constraints of SACD. Old SACD’s will become unplayable in near future when players capable of playing it go out of market. While DSD downloads are future-proof. You can keep converting those to new file formats (like from DSF to WavPack) at full resolution. And do it again. And switch the player software/hardware over the time without being bound to anything specific.

And I’m not suggesting content should be free. I buy lot of hires downloads and subscribe to Tidal and Spotify.

Or even necessarily codec used to encode the content doesn’t need to be free. For example iTunes music is now DRM free, but encoded using AAC codec which requires patent license. However, AAC codec specification is fully public and ratified by a known standardization body (ISO). Anybody can encode any content or test signals they want using AAC and decode it any way they want too. So the functionality and performance of AAC encoder and decoder can be fully inspected and evaluated by third parties. They can study the specifications and all. There’s no secrecy behind it. And so far, nobody has been trying to push AAC decoders into DACs and enforce people to buy new DACs that have AAC decoder. And AAC is not attempting to put any restrictions on you what kind of DSP you can use after decoding it. Or any particular upsampling filter choices either.

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381

And to be clear, I’m not even particularly concerned about fee associated with MQA codec (if it is available under FRAND basis).

I’m concerned about the restrictions on DSP, filter choices, need for NDA and MQA’s certification requirements. And I’m also concerned about it’s quality degrading performance. I cannot accept any of those.

But first of all, MQA doesn’t serve any particular technical need. There are better free and non-free solutions out there.

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382

20 years ago (maybe), this argument made some sense, but it is irrelevant today. MIPS, bandwidth, storage - all these realities today laugh off the inefficiencies of PCM. Bob’s solution? A DRM, IP “black box” container that fleeces the entire recording, delivery, and consumer chain? The cure is far worse than the disease (not that it is even a disease in the first place).

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383

Very well put.
Clearer and more reasonable than I’ve seen before, here or elsewhere.

385

That was a well thought explanation and certainly get my thumb up! I believe an open standard without much restrictions always win in the end.

386

Open does not necessarily win.
One interesting counter-example:
In the early 90s, Unix variants owned close to 100 % of the server market, using specialized processors.
Then servers based on commodity Intel processors appeared, and two new operating systems:
Linus was a Unix variant, started with 100 % share, had an open model, it inherited the robust reputation of Unix, had an operating and management model familiar to IT guys, was easily compatible with all server software, and it was free.
Windows Server (NT) was related to a comparatively childish desktop operating system, it was closed and proprietary, had no reputation, it had a totally different, GUI-based management model, it was compatible with no server software, and it cost money.
Sounds like a walkover, no?
And yet, after 10 years, Windows Server had around 75 % market share in the corporate server market.
(It eventually lost out to Linux in the cloud datacenter Market, with very different requirements.)

The reasons for this story are specific to these products and the various markets, not relevant here.
But it’s educational: open is a valuable attribute, but there are others, not always obvious what will win.

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387

Don’t forget MAC from Apple didn’t flare well due to closed standard, an end to end proprietary standard. Apple can manufacture the hardware and the OS, nobody else.

Microsoft and IBM partnership in the early 80’s saw open standard on both hardware and software that extended to third parties and the whole computing age for consumers finally began, the rest is just history. If you don’t like Microsoft OS, choose Linux OS which run very well on current Intel, AMD processors and mobos.

391

Remember, Archimago, is a internet blogger, that does some quite credible objective testing, on his own home equipment that he details. Too bad other news worthy publications, would hot hire 3rd party Academics, for this testing. He has no agenda other than curiosity, and his learned opinion, is just that, a opinion. Mark Waldrep’s new text: Music and Audio: A User Guide to Better Sound. Similarly, has some significant objective testing, but many of those testers have conflicts of interest, that have to be taken into considerations. Like all science, it is open for peer review, evaluation and speculation. That is why we are on these forums?

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392

Yes, the PC’s openness was key to its success, if for economic rather than ideological reasons. And the closed Mac failed — in the previous century.

But today, Mac has leveraged the brand cachet of the iPhone into a better market share — and it absolutely dominates the premium market, creating greater profits. And the closed iPhone has smallish unit share but massive profit share. Exactly in line with Apple’s goals, methinks.

All to remind us that there are many factors, and many goals.

393
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394

Well, it just go on and on and It seems to me it never ends… (Yeah sometimes it makes me sick!) The funny thing was all these have been debated long time ago and we already have CD quality plus high res downloads and streaming, so enjoy your music.

395

From the article: “Those militantly opposed to MQA think it sounds bad.”

This is not entirely accurate. I for one, feel that MQA can sound quite good. I still don’t like it’s being locked up like it is.

“And Spencer Chrislu’s remarks surely imply that if MQA succeeds, the “crown jewels”—open, high-rate PCM files—will be withdrawn from the market. Buy those 24/192 downloads while you can.”

This is my main concern. The idea that an industry should feed consumers an adulterated product to keep from providing the best quality (unless it is within a wrapper that people object to like MQA) is problematic to me.

“It is too complicated. It isn’t satisfying. There are other things to do. Audiophiles still survive on the dregs and niche releases.”

I agree with this. Slowly more hi res titles have become available but there is still a huge amount of music that would benefit from being released in higher resolutions. There being an audiophile copy of a title is still the exception rather than the rule.

One thing I do not understand is why the time domain “problems” cannot be fixed without locking up the files. Just fix it and release as PCM. I mean, there is a dearth of remastered box sets out there, so this could be a good reason for the studios to finally start releasing remasters of the classics. :thinking:

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396

Without that first step being done at the source, it can’t be locked and licensed. It’s about making money, MQA is a company, that’s their main goal.

397

I have no issues with a company innovating and making money. But they could license their de-blurring tech to the studios etc. and just de-blur, then release in a standard format.

The blue light just seems like such a gimmick. Instead of deciding if something sounds good by listening, I am looking at a blue light to determine if something sounds good.

398

But then they would be missing the income from licensing at the hardware end as well.

399

Technically, I think they could still do that. It would just decouple the de-blurred source file from whatever value that MQA thinks it offers at the DAC endpoint. It would just make the license at the DAC endpoint optional, and decoupled from the deblurring that can be included in the source file.

I understand what you are saying - they have tied it all together to maximize their profit. I get it. I really wouldn’t care if this didn’t represent some danger to the distribution of unlocked hi resolution files.

400

Problem is, [zips flame-retardant suit] the existence of the whole blurring thing is questionable, and, more importantly and assuming it exists in the way MQA affects it in mammals that aren’t gerbils or owls, so is MQA’s ability to fix it, most obviously when it comes to the existing catalogue. MQA’s specific filtering (and artifacting…) is something you can already add to existing files, as @Jim_Austin’s piece pointed out. So there inn’t much left to sell, other than “we’ll give you maybe-better-than-redbook-but-less-than-master-quality-with-added-DRM, if you allow us to hinder, or at the very least get a cut of, computational audio”.

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401

You’re right. That remains to be demonstrated–the problem and the solution. And it’s important to establish that they’re doing something meaningful. That is on my list of things to write about. It will require cooperation from Stuart and the MQA folks, because I’ll need encoded test signals. I’m hopeful.

Well, it appears to me that this is something that benefits from MQA’s end-to-end approach. You can’t just evaluate the reconstruction filter and draw firm conclusions. It also remains to be decided (for/to me at least) whether MQA is audibly inferior to the master–and I am aware of the if-it’s-different-then-it’s worse arguments. I think it’s more complicated than that.

Best,
Jim