Will Roon ever be supporting MQA? [Answered - Now Live Roon 1.5]

There’s plenty of info out there on both sides of the issue, just do some digging and make up your own mind. I’m just trying to save you some time :wink:

I’ve read plenty about it and discussed more, plus I actually use it.
A blanket statement with no reasons from you or anyone else is useless and silly…
Most of of the negative comments are wrong by people who have never used it.

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And this statement would be along the same vein, unless you have actually validated that most of the comments are by people who have never used it. I have used it, and it sounds great at times and average at others. Mostly it just sounds…louder.

And, in fact, using it is not required to see the DRM danger it presents.

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In practice, these bit-split ratios don’t seem to be static, but decided within certain bounds by the encoder depending on how much information there is in the 22.05/24 - 44.1/48k band. A bit like “bit budget allocation” in lossy encoders.

This is possibly why they like to demonstrate MQA with classical music which typically contains less ultrasonic energy. Using piano music is best, because it doesn’t have any! :wink:

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It may be prudent to make this decision when you see MQA and Roon. I agree that if Roon is anything but fully functional with MQA (DSP, volume control, levelling etc), then an either/or scenario will see MQA lose out. But I don’t imagine for a moment that is something anyone in their right mind would force. In fact proving it can be done if executed the right way would be a big deal.

The ONLY way to use DAC-based MQA is to feed the DAC completely bit perfect data. Nothing can happen on Roon’s end to alter the music data. So no DSP functions, including volume leveling, can be used. Roon will not be allowed to do a full unfold. Part of the problem is that the full unfold is DAC specific.

So, since Roon will not be doing a full unfold AND I will be using volume leveling, whatever DAC I use will never get an unmolested bit perfect MQA music file. This makes MQA in a DAC useless to me.

The bottomline is that MQA is too restrictive to be useable by a large population of the audio community. MQA should be killed off!

Roon can still apply DSP function after the first decoding, which includes volume levelling, after all, when one apply DSP function, it is no longer bit perfect. If you are just interested in the decoding (1st unfold).

The only issue I can see is any form of DSP applied after the decoding, the ‘rendering’ (up-sampling + de-blurring filters) no longer works; example of ‘renderers’ like dragonfly and Berkeley DAC. This unaltered information needs to pass after the decoding stage so that it can properly select the different types of up-sampling + de-blurring filters (there are 16 of them).

Yes, I assume that Roon will be able to apply DSP functions after the first decoding. But there is no real benefit to MQA if all you do is the first unfold. The only way MQA gets interesting is if you get the full unfold all with all the associated filters.

All of this is why I say MQA is worthless to me and those that want to use any DSP functions of Roon. Those that use HQPlayer would also find MQA worthless.

MQA should die!

Not exactly true, first unfold or decoding unpack all the available information. The subsequent ‘unfold’ is just up-sampling with de-blurring filters which usually refer as ‘renderer’. Take away the renderer, you only get MQA core at 88.2/96kHz, which is good enough. Users can do further up-sampling and choose the digital filters they like. In some ways this may comes as a blessing; one can avoid the use of leaky MQA filters.

In some ways I agreed with you.

Good enough for whom? Not good enough for me…

But, in practice you will never experience bit perfect sound, whatever the original format? So, why does it matter if you wont see the blue led light up on your DAC?

Seriously, i am getting pretty fed up with all the hot air surrounding this stuff. If i want to hear something sounding like they heard it in the studio, i’ll do what i’ve always done;
Play the vinyl pressing… :wink:

I’m a complete wannabe techie, so don’t get me wrong… but I think that any new attempt to improve what we can get streamed is worth having AVAILABLE. No one is going to force you to buy/listen/choose MQA. Personally I want the option. To each his own. If you think it’s big brother, fine, don’t support it. You’ll have other options. But if you listen, and like, then what’s wrong with the entity providing it getting rewarded. This will come as shock to some here, but music is not a completely free service. Shocking, I know.

The mind(s) behind MQA have pushed us forward for a few decades now. I personally can’t wait to see how/what the minds behind Roon do to interface with it.

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Yet. But this quote made me nervous:

As Spencer Chrislu, MQA’s director of content services, told me in an interview in 2016, “It’s important . . . to protect the interests of studios. If a studio does their archive at 24-bit/192kHz and then uses that same file as something to sell on a hi-rez site, that is basically giving away the crown jewels upon which their entire business is based.”

Stereophile Feb 2018

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Andrew

Excellent piece on MQA and accords with my view. I love the streaming aspect of this format and hopefully the economics works so the music industry can support hi fidelity sound in the streaming format.

My teenage kids are the spotfy / Bluetooth boom boxes type - now with my DAC / Amp (Devialet) I get them to listen to spotfy via my family room hi-fi setup and then show them the Roon option (metadata etc) - I noticed my daughter who is 15 years old was listening to the Roon setup and stated " actually that sounds good on your old speakers" - the challenge for the industry is to capture the imagination of the younger generation for audiophile quality music - Last few years with the innovations in software development in audio with likes of Roon, Tidal, Devialet, MQA - I am hopeful and all for MQA being economically viable as a hi res streaming source so we have an another option, I rather take the streaming option as a source then listen to my old collection of SACDs and DVD-A.

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Andybob,

Your entire post makes my point. No one does all this for their health. It is well within their rights to make (and protect) a profit. God knows that the current environment makes it “tough out there for a pimp!”. I am happy to exchange $ for a service. We can continue down the dumbing down for free AM radio-ification of music. Or we can support innovation and improvement. As I said, check into the minds behind MQA and tell me digital audio would exist today without their influence.

From what I understand of the process, yes it may create some semblance of copy protection (given the thievery of file sharing that has become commonplace can you fault them??) but more significant is the attempt to get back to the original bits and recreate and compensate for all the distortions that occurred between the artists (and recording engineers) original performance and what is available to actually hear. Anything that goes back and reassembles those bits correctly? That should be supported.

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As soon as I see improvement over what we have now I’ll certainly support it. I won’t necessarily say MQA isn’t innovative, it is in some ways, but not for the right reasons for a consumer.

Digital audio would exist just fine without Bob and Peter.

Checked and I tell you: yes, digital audio would exist today without their influence.
And no, I will never support it, because the promises you recite in your second paragraph are simply not true.
“original bits … between the artists original performance” - WTF
In any studio I know the artists delivers analog music not bits - what bits should be reassembled?
Such unscientific esoteric statements are my reason to never support MQA!

But all the originals bits are there until MQA take some away. Personally I would prefer the studios to go back and remaster their old catalogues as this would be more beneficial (to the consumer) than mass production of the MQA versions (easy money for them though).

It’s remarkable how many studios are covered with pops and clicks :grinning:

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In the Stereophile May 2018, Jim Austin acknowledged that MQA is a lossy codec. ‘The critics are right: MQA is, in fact, a lossy codec-that is, not all of the data in the original recording are recovered when you playback via MQA…’

People are so easy to fall into ‘claims’ without doing much technical testing and can take this literally marketed as ‘Studio Sound’. Even Bob Stuart agreed as Jim Austin quote ‘… MQA files or streams could in the future be delivered via copy-protected media or transmission modes, that is beyond MQA’s control and has nothing to do with MQA perse.’

Probably music companies are the one who want to advocate DRM in the first place. However how sure are we that MQA has already provides a platform ready to incorporate DRM anytime in the future when it is commercially successful?