MQA according to new Stereophile "loudness button" and "tweaking EQ in presence region"

Interesting, @Brianlucey.My MQA experience was limited to a free week of Tidal, using my Bluesound.  I have the Mytek Manhatten I but haven't shelled out for the MQA upgrade.  I only listen to Classical.  I streamed a few albums in my collection that were available in MQA and burned those 2 albums into Bluesound so that I was using the same DAC.  I did hear a slight difference but I wasn't really bowled over.  It wasn't anything like the purple prose that Robert Harley uses to describe his perceptions.  I definitely prefered
 the sound of the Mytek vs either the MQA or the red book via the
Bluesound DAC.  

Dear Timstella,

Looking at your comment "As a professional musician and conductor, I am exposed to the sound of top notch New York musicians playing their instruments on an everyday basis. I listen to MQA on the top of the line Meridian DSP- 8000/ 818V3 DAC. I also use the same source in my serious all analog tube setups. Without trying to insult anyone, if you know what you’re hearing, there is no doubt about the quality of MQA. If you play a well recorded, high quality track such as on the 2L label, and then repeat the same selection with MQA, the improvements are easily heard. There is no EQ change! Only more air, separation, dynamics, and transparency."

You said: "The improvements are easily heard. There is no EQ change! Only more air, separation, dynamics, and transparency." This is where you lose cred. So many people here post "sounds great", or something similar. What matters is how it sounds, with less data, versus the master file. Full Stop. If it sounds better to you, that’s fine, yet if it’s not super close to the source, it’s not better. There is no "better" possible, there is the source, with less data. To say it’s better is to say that it fails and has a subjective appeal to some people.

Understand?

Factually, there cannot be anything "better" than the master. If I want to put more air and separation and dynamics and transparency into a master, then I would have done that in the first place. A master has many cooks and we are happy with it in every way when you get it. (Hard as that is to believe in some cases, which just proves that people hear things differently and from a different frame of reference. We focus on different elements)

What you are hearing is the Aphex Aural Exciter effect from the 80s, also used by AfterMaster in it’s robot mastering, also called here "loudness", or the presence peak of a SM57, it’s older brother the 545SD or a Telefunken 251. There is more in the high mids, and that to 99% of the population sounds "better", like air and separation. People also choose mp3s over 24 bits, for the distortion they think is "better".

What you are missing is the forward MID, and the recessed SIDE with the thinner low mids and the overall change to the harmonic distortion. I don’t want a cleaner harmonic distortion or a more dirty change, I want the same thing harmonically. This is very hard to reproduce with less data, maybe impossible.  No one has done it yet.

What matters in music to me, is the humanity, which lives majorly in the low mids, and the way the low end moves drivers, the Africa, the groove. High mids is easy. Many amps etc sound good up there. More "air and separation" is also easy with distortion (see: those mp3 vs 24 bit tests). I use NOS tubes in a Fairman TMEQ and a class A A to D for that purpose. More dynamics is also easy, I use a Mytek DA that’s punchy to feed my desk. More "transparency" is not happening with MQA however, you are confused there by the other elements. Less data = more transparent would make a rational person pause, a long pause.

MQA fails on low mids, low end and keeping the MID/SIDE in tact EXACTLY BECAUSE of the effect you are enamored by. No offense yet your listening skill could be better, which is good news if you can see it. The excitement that comes when people are wowed by these sonic tricks is evident in the style of posts I often read.

A mastering engineer could do that with PCM, and then he/she//they/I would be upset with MQA for taking it too far.

The only way to test this is an A/B on material you personally have engineered. The rest is subjective, and very subject to marketing and concept sales from the team trying to feed their family, or those looking to get on board with the new corporate tech chuck wagon.

If a label, artist or consumer want this, no problem for me. But it’s not better or equal to the source files. Full stop. Facts matter.

And they are looking to control the conversation, which I find rude given the sales pitch. If they said "here’s an interesting alternative" I would have no problem with it. They say it’s better. On it’s face not possible in principle, or in practice. Buyer beware.

Mahler123, get the Manhattan II, 100% new thing. The one that you have is just lacking. Lifeless on the transient punch, and not linear at all.  Or get the Bricasti M1 SE.  Again for those who have not heard it since Feb 2016, the filtering is upgraded and it's a beauty that's also accurate.

To reply as best I can ...

Everything we do in mastering is approved by a team of people with a ton of experience, and although fear can ruin the dynamic potential resulting in super limiting, musicians, producers, label presidents etc are not deaf. They are making the choices, or picking from the options we offer, and they can hear the changes. My job is to improve on some very great mixes (usually limited as a hot ref), and so anything that goes backwards in the tone from my processing is a no no.

Someone asked about the name, and yes, "Master Quality Authenticated" is the greatest PR slogan ever invented. In a market where, no offense, there are many people who want to believe in the next big tech thing, it’s an exciting name. Yet is it really that great of a benefit to be at 16 44.1 or 16 48k? Really not that small of a file is it? Simple test for someone. Try the free dbPoweramp SRC with a file that’s 24 96k, take it down to 16 48k vs MQA 16 48k. So much more simple, so much less hype and money changing hands. Follow the money.

In digital audio there is no free lunch. That’s just hope in science, hope in mankind, misplaced.

The direction MQA folks are headed is actually playing on that hope for their global domination of the 32 bit AD and DA and mastering markets, where we would be auditioning through the MQA plug in and DA and then making adjustments to the work to compensate. I find this beyond troubling on many fronts.

1. They demand serious license money from DA makers and eventually AD companies, and then turn around and make money on every sale and stream. What a monopoly they are going for! I’m all for an honest living, but it’s not honest, it’s manipulative and exploiting human weakness in the audiophile. They create nothing, so they should be respectful, don’t exploit things.

2. As a ME we make one digital master (sample rate not the issue, don’t get me started!) and one analog with the vinyl ...the digital is then compressed in various ways for sale. This is still the right way to see it. Tech will only change for the better in time, and diluting the artistry and confusing the market with 5 versions of a master on day one is long term stupidity. (MFiT, for example, could upgrade that codec at any time, and get things closer to the source. Yet they asked people to tweak for the codec so they’re stuck (P. S. It’s impossible to compensate for the codec, cold, and thin and shortens the groove). Some MEs like MQA and MFiT as it’s more money for them. My interest is music, artists, and clients. I serve. I don’t exploit.


3. The proper and right job for those making these compressed audio formats, is to make what we create marketable and sounding as close to the source as possible, not pretend it’s better than the source and sell that to people who cant hear the source or are excited by the exciter effect, and then invent a market. Fear of missing out, and that blue light! Fear based market creation. Cynical brilliance. It’s oligarchy, and I’m 100% opposed. Anti creative, anti democratic, etc, etc, etc. Really just backwards.

4. We are in a nether land where the mp3 sucks and a corporate mechanism is not set up for proper master file streaming and sales. MQA is jumping in to seize a moment that is passing by. QOBUS is about there with full file streaming. End of story if that works. Or someone like them if they are quashed by a big $ player. Asia has killer transfer speeds and soon the world will all be able to stream. It’s coming, just a matter of time. If you care to hear the master files today, download the full files, doesn’t take long. Or Qobus, (which I can’t pronounce and am not affiliated with in any way, nor do I endorse) coming soon with others I would imagine. SO this is a short term reality and they are making everyone jump through hoops to pay them and implement based on exploiting you all, and your lack of objective listening or source material.

The labels are lining up as they have relations with the team from Meridian and it’s a $$$ maker with no risk to them. They all want to bolster Q3 reports, ok. Musical quality is not really important. Sad but true. Universal for years left their pre release watermark used to catch leakers on digital music, post release. It’s an audible watermark. Classical, jazz, pop of course. Recently they stopped. Years of that, no one cared.

Hope that covers it

Everyone hears differently and some people, like the Apple guy who designed MFiT, don’t value harmonic content and low end as much as they look at the screen for the best null test figures and say "print it!"


P.S. As far as those folks commenting on auditioning vinyl vs digital vs MQA ... the vinyl pass it more dynamic by physical necessity and often choice, so it’s not a fair comparison. The only fair comparison is the master file vs. X Y or Z compression scheme. MQA has this tech registered as a lossless scheme, but it’s compressed. More marketing.

P.P.S. MQA is like a new amp, or new DA, it’s a chance for the listener to be part of the creative process. That’s what being an audiophile is all about, creating with gear. It’s that, and not as claimed. Yet the momentum for people who want to be fooled and want to feel creative through gear, is a strong force to resist with little ol’ common sense. There is no free lunch. There is no better.

If the mastering is bad, and that’s the MOST LIKELY fact, well ok. Mess with it, filter it, use an amp, speakers DA, what have you. But you are not making my work better with MQA. Feel free to forward my comments in partial or whole to anyone you like.



Enjoy !

@brianlucey

+1 Harmonic content and low mids

As a listener that is what I care most about in the work that you professionals do.

ATC 150ASL are nice and clean in the lower mids and my preferred choice. I find almost all other speaker designs sacrifice harmonic content or "timbre" in order to juice things up for the listener in some exciting way - usually over emphasis on bass and treble or some non musical resonances. I am not familiar with Sonic Allegras but a friend of mine had Audio Physics and they sounded great and imaged extremely well.