Hmmm I may have to do my own analysis. There are so many strong opinions out there, it’s hard to trust anyone’s opinion. Better off seeing these differences with my own eyes lol
This album is on Tidal, only in MQA 353kHz. The master file is available for purchase at 353kHZ (DXD) and 24/96kHz and CD quality.
I can then compare vs the output of Roon’s 1st unfold.
By compare, I don’t mean with my ears - I mean using something like Audio Hijack and Spek on MacOS, to compare the music content in the file.
I don’t know where he got the information to say “Yes the unfolded MQA can have more information than CD quality”
But I’ve just seen it with my own eyes. Roon’s 1st unfold looks pretty close to the 24/96kHz version I purchased. Unless I’m missing something or doing something very wrong - a high possibility, this is not my area of expertise.
All come from the same DXD (353kHz) master.
All you need is 20 minutes and a credit card to prove to yourself.
‘Should’ because MQA Ltd (or any other company that may have a conflict of interest) says so is different to seeing it with one’s own eyes.
But yes, the 1st MQA unfold looks to me better than CD quality, all other things being equal (same master) and putting aside file size and all the other well known discussions (all valid but not part of my questions here).
An interesting exercise for myself. I encourage everyone else to convince themselves. Use the 3 steps I used above (for MacOS).
I said it should because an in-depth study carried out by a prominent author in the anti-MQA camp actually supported what you’ve found. It’s the other aspects they criticize it for.
For completeness, just found Archi’s comments (that confirms what Peter said above) that are relevant to my questions (we all know about all the extra stuff that is also important to consider but not part of my questions):
"Objectively with the songs I examined, the software decoder works well to reconstruct what looks like the equivalent 24/96 download."
and
"Bottom line: TIDAL/MQA streaming does sound like the equivalent 24/96 downloads based on what I have heard and the test results"
Bob himself in an interview said it’s close to 18/96 unfolded and the CA guys like @jussi_laako have measured closer to 17/96. Those are the 2 resources I used to make my comment.
You stand by your principles and that is fine. But I was streaming long before MQA came along as well as buying music in various formats and occasional excursions out to watch live performances. I make my contributions and am comfortable with some of that going to places like MQA if Roon and Tidal get their cut too. I know how MQA are getting their product out there. As I have already said, we were never the ones they had to convince.
Just chiming in with a reminder to keep things civil. I’ve deleted a few posts/responses that delved into the inappropriate territory. Please try and stick to the technical discussion at hand here, and do not make assumptions or accusations on someones tastes or morals based on someone stance about how they like their 1’s and 0’s delivered to them.
Sean, to your original question about MQA first unfold only vs. Redbook:
The technical description is quite simple.
MQA unfolded includes frequencies from 22k to 48k (roughly) that are not included in Redbook.
To fit that in, it sacrifices some of the 24 bits, and it is selective about how much of the high frequency material is included.
Noted. I respectfully ignored what MQA Ltd have said (slight conflict of interest) and just wanted to see with my own eyes.
While I share a lot of the valid long term concerns, I’m quite impressed with the 1st unfold.
And that’s with music with a much higher dynamic range than I normally listen to.
And to go back to my own questions that I answered myself, the 1st unfold offers more music content than CD quality streaming (when the same master is compared).
Unless you’re not a fan of the actual master it came from and unless your music itself has greater than 16bit dynamic range, having Roon do the 1st unfold of a Tidal stream is essentially like streaming the 24/96 FLAC file that you’d buy from HDTracks or 2L or wherever (assuming same master of course).
Important note: all of this is only relevant to the 1st unfold that Roon now does. None of my questions (and my own answers) relate to any MQA stuff beyond the 1st unfold. There’s enough of that info out there.
I think I’m done with this little experiment. Back to listening to some music.
You have take into consideration that ‘de-blurring’ filters are applied during encoding stage. This one helps to reducing ‘ringing’ effects. Test has shown different type of digital filters applied during recording can significantly affect the tonal quality of the music contents. Most studios uses sharp FIR filters while MQA uses minimum phase slow roll off similar to Ayre implementation.
MQA is not about hearing more music contents but the effect of ‘de-blurring’ make up the most significant part of the SQ. If ‘de-blurring’ is to apply on a standard Hi-Res PCM, it will definitely sound like one or even better coz it is lossless.
To fully complete the ‘de-blurring’ process one need a renderer to do it; this ultimately translates the best SQ MQA has to offer.
In my critical listening, MQA tends to sound ‘raw’ with a touch of ‘organic’ feeling; one can hear more clearly the intimate details. CD on the other hand, tends to ‘flatten’ out most of time.
Another area is the ‘brightness’ or ‘glare’ in the recording. CD tends to sound like that while MQA has significant reduction of the bright energy in the music contents, making less ‘fatigue’ to hear. All these has to do with the digital filters applied during recording and playback. Given a Redbook recording vs MQA, I will go for the later one. However if I were given a choice hi-res contents especially DSD then my ultimate preference is this. DSD sounds just like a analog master and still my number one choice since SACD was launched 17 years back.
From my understanding, most Hi-Res contents recorded from A/D converters (digital copies) have already applied a standard FIR filters. MQA takes this contents and applied a ‘de-blurring’ filters + ‘compression’ using their DSP. This is normally called digitalre-mastered.
If the same ‘de-blurring’ filter is used instead of standard FIR filter after the A/D conversion for a standard hi-res PCM music content then it will behave the same way but now with no lossy compression. Now, at the playback side, you apply another ‘de-blurring’ filter at the DAC, this effectively complete the whole process of ‘de-blurring’ effects.
In an analog re-mastering, the analog goes to a custom designed MQA A/D converter with ‘de-blurring’ applied then it goes to lossy compression. This stage combined the A/D + de-blurring + lossy compression in one, sometimes it is also called ‘MQA.encoder’. This type of re-mastering is the closest to the analog source because it is NOT subject to standard FIR filter in the first place. You can hear for yourself that those analog re-mastered MQA tracks sounds better compared to the MQA digital re-mastered version, if you can find one.
Add: may be many of you may ask why the recording studios didn’t want to apply this type of ‘de-blurring’ filter in the first place instead of using standard FIR filters? I can only see is this type of de-blurring’ filter is extreme weak when it comes to reject ultrasonic noise and aliasing. All modern digital recording to date has virtually no aliasing issues except MQA.
In total agreement with you here, but at least for now I am hoping that MQA brings the excitement back to quality recordings - I was hoping SACD/ DSD would do that but the format did not capture the imagination sufficiently and died as economics was also tied to a CD form that died in the same (remember “Tower” records simply disappeared ) so both the artists missed out on royalties and innovations in sound engineering stopped until now - the streaming format has triggered interest and I hope to see more development here for benefit of us all including artist royalties being protected.
