I was hoping Pål could confirm 
Your link above is not working.
Strange works for me. Go to muisicischanging.com scroll down to reviews and you should be able to find it there.
@palbratelund it seems I responded to the question above when they were really asking for your input. Apologies. I would be interested in your view as well.
Yup. Lots of interesting information in the various FAQ sections. Complete re-vamp of the http://www.musicischanging.com website overnight(?).
MQA Takes Off Big Time in 2016
As I mentioned, there’s a lot of processing, changing a recording to “improve” it. Nothing wrong with that, all for it.
Also read some of the papers that you posted (most except for the first are easy to find and free). If you read the commentary on the first - the key paper - you’ll see that it’s not devoid of assumption and claims with very soft proofs. Again not a problem in my book - my problem is with unsubstantiated claims of “lossless lossy compression” and things of the sort.
In my opinion this is not a useful conversation anymore as it is clear that Meridian has changed it’s tune on what MQA actually does - and I am all for it.
Interesting that roon isn’t in their “Our Partners” section.
They are in the image i thought i linked yesterday from Stereophile.
Here is the updated list:
The website is changing hourly at the moment and Roon are not listed in the latest partner list, same with quite a few others such as dCs and Arcam.
After having watched Bob Stuart on MQA video clip at MQA How it Works I have some questions…
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From the graph, why is the lowest noise floor capped at -168dB throughout the frequency range?
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From the graph, if ‘A’ is to hold a 16 bit resolution (since MQA is going to stream at ‘16/44.1’ bit-rate), the lowest theoretical noise level for a 16-bit resolution is -96dB. If it is true where is the additional noise floor in ‘A’ extended all the way down to -168dB so that folding of ‘B’ and ‘C’ can be ‘contained’ inside the noise floor?
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A 24-bit resolution has a theoretical noise floor all the way down to -144dB, why is the noise floor extended all the way down to -168dB on the graph?
Sorry guys, I’m trying hard to understand how MQA works here and hope someone here can share some technical knowledge.
As far as I understand it’s like this:
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MQA will NOT stream at '16/44.1" bit rate, it’s only similar to that bit rate (slightly more as a red book WAV, but NOT as FLAC which can be up to halve less). MQA is an own compressed format (like FLAC is).
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MQA encoding process will evaluate how much of the lastest bits can be used for folding depending on the dynamic range the song/album needs itself. So it can be something between 16 to 20 bit for the content between 20hz-48khz.
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Noise floor of -168db in the graph MIGHT indicate that MQA coding works with 28 bit internally to achieve more space in the ‘noise floor’ to fold all additional resolution there.
MQA may be fantastic but with all this ad speak coming out I’m curious if any studio would throw away their PCM studio master in favour of the “lossy” version encoded with MQA?.. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, but it seems like a fancy MP3 crossed with HDCD… but again, it may sound great, although I do think the hype right now is a little over the top of it’s sonic benefits over hi-res PCM considering there is VERY little content available.
I’m amazed at the level of interest in this MQA thing before we can even listen to it.
It’s even got me reading about it, and I have to say, my conclusion is I don’t fully understand it. But then I’m no expert on any audio encoding.
But if you take their graphs on face value it seems to make sense in terms of ‘diminishing returns’ in sampling rates, but I’m lost at the reduction in ‘smearing’ and what it is and how they can fix it.
I guess the biggest confusion for me is it appears to be able to please everyone - reduce the sample rate / bandwidth required, yet at the same time sound better than anything that went before it. I suppose the more cynical among us just imagine that isn’t possible, but it’s great to think there are clever people out there making breakthroughs in audio, and maybe MQA will stop people continually saying things ‘sound digital’ even on really expensive hifi’s?
Coming from a visual imaging background, it’s still surprising to me that there’s no proper standards in audio for calibration right up to the listeners ears. If MQA does what I think they’re saying, the recording engineers sound will come perfectly out of the DAC but between that and what you hear are speakers, rooms, hearing impairments, etc, etc, all of which will mean you surely won’t be hearing it exactly as intended anyway?
It’s all very interesting, there’s so much going on in digital audio at the moment, hopefully the MP3 will be long forgotten soon, and everything will sound real without £1,000 Ethernet cables and then we can all ponder something else…
FWIW, I have heard MQA - on three separate occasions and through both loudspeakers and headphones. I was sold on the very first track demonstrated when I heard Louis Armstrong singing as if he was in front of me. My jaw did, metaphorically, hit the floor. Subsequently, the standout tracks for me were Metallica’s Enter Sandman (hearing a cymbal reproduced for the first time as it sounds in real life - the sheer visceral impact of this track was staggering through both speakers and headphones) and the Hilary Hahn / Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Bach Violin Concerto #2 which left me feeling oddly relaxed and feeling like I was actually in an auditorium.
The good news is that the benefits are easily audible with the £200/$300 Meridian Explorer2, and the entry level is bound to become a lot cheaper than that.
Edit: I really hope that everyone on this site gets the opportunity to enjoy MQA-encoded music soon; after all, it is all about the music…
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I am interested but nobody has heard anything from the music labels besides 2L on providing content and what albums will be available… On another note is there going to be a personal Mac/PC MQA encoder for people to rip their personal cd or hi-res collection… From what I understand that is what initially Tidal will be using as MQA content and not specifically new MQA mastered albums… Let me know if I’m wrong on this.
@mystic - interesting question on the encoding part and not a side of the subject i have seen broached. It would be nice to encode all of my 24 bit files to save some space, but storage is cheap and i don’t rip anything that isn’t a CD. I do agree on the content side and it is my biggest concern. the labels mentioned thus far are tiny and certainly don’t cater to my or 99.99% of the music buying public’s taste. MQA may be the greatest audio innovation since the CD but if there isn’t stuff available in the medium or the catalog resembles the DSD/SACD catalog it will end up as another niche product catering to the a very small group.
Other things I read mentioned that even a cd or 24bit encoded as MQA will have a SQ improvement over the original (not sure how that’s possible, but worth it to find out if available to customer to make encodes of their own).
I too listened to MQA and was very impressed. It is clearly changing the input signal and producing a better - so far as I’ve heard - version of that signal.
I gather there are two distinct components of MQA:
1- Signal processing whereby the incoming signal is modified to remove artifacts or whatever it is. It’s not obvious this would always be beneficial - think of removing the noise floor or some of the Rubinstein recordings: it generally takes music away as well - but what I’ve heard demoed I liked a lot;
2- A compression mechanism that allows the content to be played even without MQA decoding - but obviously not getting enhanced resolution if you don’t decode it appropriately, much like in the HDCD case.
Deceptive, unnecessary marketing notwithstanding, I am all for MQA improving recordings and allowing me to stream high resolution music.