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MQA and Devialet - hesi - 09-Sep-2015

The MQA (Meridian) technology (http://www.musicischanging.com/) seems to be very promising.
Roon and Tidal are already on board to support this new technology in the future.
Does anybody know what Devialet has on its mind with MQA?


RE: MQA and Devialet - GuillaumeB - 09-Sep-2015

(09-Sep-2015, 13:27)hesi Wrote: The MQA (Meridian) technology (http://www.musicischanging.com/) seems to be very promising.
Roon and Tidal are already on board to support this new technology in the future.
Does anybody know what Devialet has on its mind with MQA?

Nope why don't you ask them?  Smile

Guillaume


RE: MQA and Devialet - hesi - 11-Sep-2015

(09-Sep-2015, 14:04)GuillaumeB Wrote:
(09-Sep-2015, 13:27)hesi Wrote: The MQA (Meridian) technology (http://www.musicischanging.com/) seems to be very promising.
Roon and Tidal are already on board to support this new technology in the future.
Does anybody know what Devialet has on its mind with MQA?

Nope why don't you ask them?  Smile

Guillaume

I will try.
What Do you think about MQA ?


RE: MQA and Devialet - JohnnySix - 11-Sep-2015

(11-Sep-2015, 10:17)hesi Wrote:
(09-Sep-2015, 14:04)GuillaumeB Wrote:
(09-Sep-2015, 13:27)hesi Wrote: The MQA (Meridian) technology (http://www.musicischanging.com/) seems to be very promising.
Roon and Tidal are already on board to support this new technology in the future.
Does anybody know what Devialet has on its mind with MQA?

Nope why don't you ask them?  Smile

Guillaume

I will try.
What Do you think about MQA ?

It's fantastic that there are still people in the world with the smarts to innovate music signal processing like this, but it needs to be implemented at the recording stage as well, to get the best out of it. Saw an article in a (British) magazine a while back - think it was HiFi News - that was a full technical investigation.


RE: MQA and Devialet - hesi - 11-Sep-2015

(11-Sep-2015, 14:31)JohnnySix Wrote:
(11-Sep-2015, 10:17)hesi Wrote:
(09-Sep-2015, 14:04)GuillaumeB Wrote:
(09-Sep-2015, 13:27)hesi Wrote: The MQA (Meridian) technology (http://www.musicischanging.com/) seems to be very promising.
Roon and Tidal are already on board to support this new technology in the future.
Does anybody know what Devialet has on its mind with MQA?

Nope why don't you ask them?  Smile

Guillaume

I will try.
What Do you think about MQA ?

It's fantastic that there are still people in the world with the smarts to innovate music signal processing like this, but it needs to be implemented at the recording stage as well, to get the best out of it. Saw an article in a (British) magazine a while back - think it was HiFi News - that was a full technical investigation.

Yep, I think thats the only key to get the whole approach (formats, etc.) on another level. I heard, that Meridian is already established in the recording studio sector as well. But I am not sure. Its like the dolby licensing approach, it could work......
I think it will be possible to receive MQA via Tidal (example) in the future, the question is, if e.g. players like Roon or the rest in the chain (Devialet) will "decode" the MQA via Software.
When the HUB (Dialog) will come for the expert line, that could be a good spot to integrate the MQA decoding. We will see. But the technical approach of MQA makes absolutely sense. But the best approaches do not alway win (e.g. VHS v.s. Beta and Vid2000)....


RE: MQA and Devialet - Music or sound - 11-Sep-2015

I am wondering at which level MQA has to be implemented to take full advantage of its sound quality.
If Devialet can decode MQA fully at the processor level just before the DAC it should maintain everything of its promised quality. Considering the problems Devialet has with some digital issue like AIR I doubt we will see that soon but they could surprise us!
The other alternative is that some software like Roon can decode MQA (and not just the 44.1kHz core) on a computer or music sever. The problem will be that decoded stream has to be transmitted to a Devialet and will that preserve all the timing MQA claims to be so essential for prefect digital audio. So will USB etc mess it up?


RE: MQA and Devialet - Jean-Marie - 12-Sep-2015

(11-Sep-2015, 18:53)Music or sound Wrote: I am wondering at which level MQA has to be implemented to take full advantage of its sound quality.
If Devialet can decode MQA fully at the processor level just before the DAC it should maintain everything of its promised quality. Considering the problems Devialet has with some digital issue like AIR I doubt we will see that soon but they could surprise us!
The other alternative is that some software like Roon can decode MQA (and not just the 44.1kHz core) on a computer or music sever. The problem will be that decoded stream has to be transmitted to a Devialet and will that preserve all the timing MQA claims to be so essential for prefect digital audio. So will USB etc mess it up?

I looked at the supporting patent and it appears that MQA is a lossy encoder and clever packaging that is backward compatible with a traditional PCM decoding.

In the patent, the input of the whole process is a 9kKHz PCM stream and the final output is an other 96 KHz PCM stream. So MQA can be decoded anywhere in the chain, the only requirement being to be able to transport the resulting PCM stream losslessly.

What MQA does it splitting the band between 0-24kHz and what is above. It is encoding losslessly the lower band using 13 bits and putting that in the MSB part of a 16 bits stream. They use the 3 remaining bits to encode in lossy manner what is above 24 kHz.

So basically they trade off a higher noise floor (-90 dB instead of -96) to be able to reconstruct approximately the higher band while fitting in the nitrate of 44kHz/16 bits PCM stream. The clever part is that if you take a traditional decoder, it will just take the 3 LSB as noise and will be able to deliver an almost CD quality output. An MQA decoder will be able to interpret the 3 LSBs.

What is important to keep in mind is that the output of MQA will always be lossy compared to the input PCM stream, but it will be much lower nitrate than the raw PCM. So it is a clever streaming container but nothing else, meaning that if your software on your PC or MAC or Dialog implements MQA in software and is feeding the Devialet using 96/24 or 192/24, you will get all the benefits of MQA.

Best regards,

Jean-Marie


RE: MQA and Devialet - NickB - 12-Sep-2015

(12-Sep-2015, 10:14)Jean-Marie Wrote:
(11-Sep-2015, 18:53)Music or sound Wrote: I am wondering at which level MQA has to be implemented to take full advantage of its sound quality.
If Devialet can decode MQA fully at the processor level just before the DAC it should maintain everything of its promised quality. Considering the problems Devialet has with some digital issue like AIR I doubt we will see that soon but they could surprise us!
The other alternative is that some software like Roon can decode MQA (and not just the 44.1kHz core) on a computer or music sever. The problem will be that decoded stream has to be transmitted to a Devialet and will that preserve all the timing MQA claims to be so essential for prefect digital audio. So will USB etc mess it up?

I looked at the supporting patent and it appears that MQA is a lossy encoder and clever packaging that is backward compatible with a traditional PCM decoding.

In the patent, the input of the whole process is a 9kKHz PCM stream and the final output is an other 96 KHz PCM stream. So MQA can be decoded anywhere in the chain, the only requirement being to be able to transport the resulting PCM stream losslessly.

What MQA does it splitting the band between 0-24kHz and what is above. It is encoding losslessly the lower band using 13 bits and putting that in the MSB part of a 16 bits stream. They use the 3 remaining bits to encode in lossy manner what is above 24 kHz.

So basically they trade off a higher noise floor (-90 dB instead of -96) to be able to reconstruct approximately the higher band while fitting in the nitrate of 44kHz/16 bits PCM stream. The clever part is that if you take a traditional decoder, it will just take the 3 LSB as noise and will be able to deliver an almost CD quality output. An MQA decoder will be able to interpret the 3 LSBs.

What is important to keep in mind is that the output of MQA will always be lossy compared to the input PCM stream, but it will be much lower nitrate than the raw PCM. So it is a clever streaming container but nothing else, meaning that if your software on your PC or MAC or Dialog implements MQA in software and is feeding the Devialet using 96/24 or 192/24, you will get all the benefits of MQA.

Best regards,

Jean-Marie

Yes I had come to this conclusion after reading as well, so was quite surprised to see many people claiming it improved SQ over the original PCM stream.


RE: MQA and Devialet - GuillaumeB - 12-Sep-2015

(12-Sep-2015, 10:45)NickB Wrote:
(12-Sep-2015, 10:14)Jean-Marie Wrote:
(11-Sep-2015, 18:53)Music or sound Wrote: I am wondering at which level MQA has to be implemented to take full advantage of its sound quality.
If Devialet can decode MQA fully at the processor level just before the DAC it should maintain everything of its promised quality. Considering the problems Devialet has with some digital issue like AIR I doubt we will see that soon but they could surprise us!
The other alternative is that some software like Roon can decode MQA (and not just the 44.1kHz core) on a computer or music sever. The problem will be that decoded stream has to be transmitted to a Devialet and will that preserve all the timing MQA claims to be so essential for prefect digital audio. So will USB etc mess it up?

I looked at the supporting patent and it appears that MQA is a lossy encoder and clever packaging that is backward compatible with a traditional PCM decoding.

In the patent, the input of the whole process is a 9kKHz PCM stream and the final output is an other 96 KHz PCM stream. So MQA can be decoded anywhere in the chain, the only requirement being to be able to transport the resulting PCM stream losslessly.

What MQA does it splitting the band between 0-24kHz and what is above. It is encoding losslessly the lower band using 13 bits and putting that in the MSB part of a 16 bits stream. They use the 3 remaining bits to encode in lossy manner what is above 24 kHz.

So basically they trade off a higher noise floor (-90 dB instead of -96) to be able to reconstruct approximately the higher band while fitting in the nitrate of 44kHz/16 bits PCM stream. The clever part is that if you take a traditional decoder, it will just take the 3 LSB as noise and will be able to deliver an almost CD quality output. An MQA decoder will be able to interpret the 3 LSBs.

What is important to keep in mind is that the output of MQA will always be lossy compared to the input PCM stream, but it will be much lower nitrate than the raw PCM. So it is a clever streaming container but nothing else, meaning that if your software on your PC or MAC or Dialog implements MQA in software and is feeding the Devialet using 96/24 or 192/24, you will get all the benefits of MQA.

Best regards,

Jean-Marie

Yes I had come to this conclusion after reading as well, so was quite surprised to see many people claiming it improved SQ over the original PCM stream.

In virtually all the MQA demos I have attended (including Munich) MQA high res files were compared to the their MP3 equivalents. The only exception being a Meridian demo I attended a few months ago where MQA files being played did seem to have a slightly more natural presentation but I can't remember if these were compared to their non-MQA versions, I don't think so! 

I think the interesting application of MQA is clearly online streaming since storage is hardly an issue these days...

Guillaume


RE: MQA and Devialet - Jean-Marie - 12-Sep-2015

(12-Sep-2015, 10:56)GuillaumeB Wrote: [...]

I think the interesting application of MQA is clearly online streaming since storage is hardly an issue these days...

Guillaume

I fully agree. It also has the very interesting characteristic of allowing the same single stream to be used for 'regular quality' and 'high rez quality', thus reducing the cost for the industry to release high rez material and therefore increasing the willingness of the content industry.

Jean-Marie