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+--- Thread: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA (/Thread-Question-to-Devialet-regarding-Roon-and-MQA)
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - GuillaumeB - 15-Jan-2017
(12-Jan-2017, 19:27)Markpd Wrote:(12-Jan-2017, 14:35)AaronG Wrote: I own a Meridian Explorer2 as well and I just assumed the disparity was due to the fact that it's not a world class DAC -- far from it. It's an ok portable DAC but I assume it doesn't reclock etc. Also you will be hearing a lot more USB based rubbish on that DAC unless you've taken care to avoid it.
(12-Jan-2017, 14:00)Markpd Wrote: When I first heard MQA at a Bluesound demo last year in Dublin I loved the natural "LP" like feel to the sound. The imaging was fantastic even though the timbre of instruments changed little. Rhythm was good too.
/ ...................................... /
The improvement is big enough that I think sooner rather than later Devialet will be obliged to include MQA decoding notwithstanding their "Not invented here" stance heretofore.
Bob Stuart is right - MQA is an important step towards perfecting "digital" sound.
What I found encouraging was how much the sound improved on the explorer2 when fed MQA versus even hi-res 24/192 PCM - the output quality jumped up to a much higher level. This suggests to me that lower cost DACs will see an even greater benefit with MQA than the high end stuff.
I had a very similar experience back in 2015 when testing MQA on a mid level Meridian setup (DSP 5200 speakers if I recall, can't remember the rest). When playing MQA material it sounded decent, without it it was pretty poor. I remember thinking exactly the same thing. With MQA it just sounded much more natural.
Guillaume
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - Confused - 15-Jan-2017
I'm not sure what forums Womaz is reading, but World War 3 has broken out over MQA over at 'Computer Audiophile'. It's fair to say it's controversial!
I have to say that I was initially very sceptical about the MQA concept. The whole idea of creating an 'Authenticated' version of a music file, which then required Meridian supplied or licenced hardware to playback is something I find objectionable. After all, we already formats like FLAC & DSD which by all accounts are pretty close to perfection. Essentially this is the basis of the disquiet on Computer Audiophile, the sense that Meridian is performing a 'land grab', which ultimately will prove to be very bad for us consumers of music.
Having said that, there have been very many reports that music that has been MQA'd sounds superb, so this gets my interest. After all, we all spend vast amounts of cash on kit but at the end of the day, badly mastered music sounds bad, irrespective of what you play it on, this is hifi's great leveller.
So why does MQA sound good and what are the issues? I think you need to split MQA into three parts to understand this.
1. It can make corrections relating to the original analogue to digital conversions used during the original mastering or digital transfer of the music.
2. It uses a new method of file compression utilising unused bits below the noise floor and other such cleverness, in MQA speak, this is referred to as 'folding' and 'unfolding'
3. It has a tweak to ensure that your own MQA enabled DAC sounds it's best. This is referred to as 'de-blurring', or in plain English this is something along the lines of improving timing.
Now if I look at this personally, yes, I would like all the good stuff per point 1, assuming it does indeed sound good. (which early reports suggest is the case.)
I simply cannot get excited about point 2. This to me looks like a solution to a problem solved 10 years ago. OK, maybe if you are streaming via a smartphone, then 'folding' the file makes sense to reduce data usage. But if you are streaming via a smartphone, it is unlikely that you will notice the subtle improvements that MQA offers anyway. Or to put this another way, we now live in a world now where an increasingly large number of people can stream 1080i TV without issues, or even 4k, so for domestic streaming from Tidal or whatever, a 24/192 file is not too much of a challenge. Not a clear cut argument I would agree, there are some areas where broadband is slow or unavailable, however, if you are interested in purchasing or downloading music, rather than streaming, then all this folding stuff is utterly irrelevant. Plus, it is irrelevant to sound quality however you look at it. Only points 1 & 2 above have any relevance to sound quality. In fact, the reverse is probably true, MQA's 'folding' is technically a lossy process, so you could easily conclude point 2 here is MQA degrading sound quality.
So to point 3, the 'de-blurring' of your own DAC. The short answer to this is that I have no idea if MQA 'de-blurring' of a Devialet DAC would help sound quality. I do know that with some DAC's you can play around with filters, which is usually a compromise between 'de-blurring' and 'anti-aliasing', depending on listener preference. (Compromise between timing and accuracy of frequency, in plain English) However, my gut feeling is that there is not much to be gained 'de-blurring' a Devialet DAC, I might be wrong, maybe MQA is capable of doing something very special to a Devialet DAC, but I strongly suspect that in reality the Devialet DAC does not have much room for improvement in this regard, so the actual improvement will be miniscule to nothing. I'm certainly not noticing any blurry timing issues with my Pro, quite the reverse in fact!
So in conclusion, point 1 potentially offers some good stuff. Point 2 is irrelevant to sound quality, in fact because MQA's 'folding' is a 'lossy' process, you could argue that point 2 is bad.
Point 3 is unclear at this time. Indeed, unless MQA and Devialet 'do the deal', and assuming an Expert or Phantom ADH can be MQA'd, then we may never know! Although from what I suspect currently, this de-blurring is unlikely to offer much of an improvement to a Devialet user anyway.
So if you are simply interested in hearing good music beautifully reproduced, then the stuff per point 1 is what you want. Now here is the ironic point, the stuff per point 1 is done before all this MQA folding unfolding and decoding lark. So you could get all the goodness of point 1 and transfer it as a 24/192 FLAC file or similar, and play this back as you would normally. No need to worry about compatibility with your DAC, music player or anything else.
The good news here is that now we have the prospect of software decoding via Tidal, Roon and others soon, I think this will give us all 99% of the benefit of MQA, without worrying if Devialet adopt it or not. Indeed, if the original file was 24/96 prior to MQA'ing, software decoding gives you the full MQA conversion, with only the 'de-blurring' of your own DAC missing.
So why are Meridian making this so complicated? With partial unfolding only via software, full unfolding in the DAC, and so on. I suspect this is simply their business strategy, making an MQA compatible DAC with it's little MQA light coming on seem desirable, hence driving licensing revenues. This is where the 'land grab' worries come in. To be honest, I am reasonably relaxed about this point, after all, Meridian are not a charity, they need to make cash. Personally, I would have preferred it if Meridian were simply making re-mastered versions with all the cleaver A/D conversion corrections, and we could choose to buy them or not. (or choose a streaming subscription that offers them). I think Meridian have overcomplicated this whole thing, with a view to make lots of cash. But it is what it is!
Meanwhile, if you have access to MQA with software decoding, then enjoy! And don't worry to much about whether or not Devialet get fully MQA'd, it probably wont happen anytime soon, and I reckon it wont make much difference if it ever does.
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - Womaz - 15-Jan-2017
Hi Confused. It was the Audioshark forum, and from what i remember there were a few links to other forums/reviews on their.
I agree it will be a long time before Devialet incorporate it......and like you this hardly worries me ;-)
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - Hifi_swlon - 15-Jan-2017
@Confused, I think the idea behind MQA (at least as far as Meridian peddled it) was that it was aimed at high quality streaming rather than anything else, and that streaming providers weren't likely to ever stream higher than CD quality (say 192 or DSD) because of bandwidth - both server side and user side. They then argued that there's minimal gain from highres files or DSD - not that they aren't better than cd - but that they are huge files for the additional small benefit, since the actual issue allegedly isn't primarily bit depth and sample rate, but the other artifacts in digital music which will never go regardless of how big you make the files. So the idea is MQA tackles the issues we didn't know were issues, while also keeping the file size to that of a CD. The result - a CD sized file that sounds better than highres or DSD.
The folding 'origami' is alleged to be light years ahead of all the genuinely lossy codecs used previously - who's aims were to make the file smaller at some known loss of quality for convenience.
I'm not sure how much I buy of it, but won't know until there's enough out there to listen to, and DACs all have MQA. This situation may never happen of course. I think the intention behind it's good, but having read Bob Stuart's Q&A I wasn't entirely convinced. The fact that it's really Meridian technology - more recently spun off into its 'own' company, is obviously not ideal - all good intentions aside there are business interests at stake here.
I may buy an Explorer 2, as Id like a headphone amp/DAC where I'm working right now, and it's on sale. If so I'll use it with Tidal and see how the difference is under full MQA. It's interesting that the device is two years old and only now is there any real MQA material available. I'd say the next six months are critical to its success. I think they're allowing software decoding simply because practically zero hardware vendors have taken it up. Two years in and there are about 4 MQA DACs - two of them Meridians! So it's not looking hopeful based on that.
Of course being a closed system we've no concrete idea what this DAC side decoding or de-blurring is - it could just be marketing for something incredibly simple. Then again it could be pioneering? In fact we don't really have independent consensus on what any of it is. Are these albums being remastered, or just run through an MQA box? How the hell does it detect every ADC used in the chain? What about electronic music where samples are hacked together on laptops at 44.1 and processed umpteen times? I mean, I imagine a modern mastering of non-classical music has thousands of hardware and software filters and processing going on. How could that possibly be 'fixed' afterwards? I'm sure all will become clear over the coming years, that is if MQA hire a decent PR person. It's been very 'Devialet' so far
I'd never by anything in MQA format. Who knows one day the licensing could change and suddenly new players would be region specific or something. It's not implausible. Start soft then tighten up the rules over the years, probably from music industry pressure.
But right now I have Tidal hifi and it's a free thing to try so if I get an explorer I'll get a chance to find out as a headphone streaming customer, which is allegedly who it's aimed at.
Meanwhile I do wish forums could ban discussion about it!
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - Hifi_swlon - 15-Jan-2017
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned here but Chris Connaker had a section on MQA in his CES article. I just read it.
The post is here.
Here's a couple of his quotes pertinent to the above:
Quote:When MQA launched, we were told publicly that MQA would only be decoded in hardware (unless played on a mobile device). This meant that people would be required to purchase new MQA enabled DACs to get the full benefit of the technology. The announcement of software decoding means that people only need an app that decodes MQA rather than hardware
Quote:I asked a very high end DAC manufacturer what it saw as the differences between hardware decoding in its DACs and software decoding in an app like Roon (before outputting to its DACs). The answer was a refreshing, "there should be no difference"
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - Dr Tone - 15-Jan-2017
Phase 1) I still think this part is only applicable to converting an analog source direct to mqa or direct to pcm and then to mqa. Impossible to do to a multi track digital recording or analog sources remixed in the digital domain such as Steven Wilson's rereleases. A mix of A/D converters or digitally rendered music tosses a monkey wrench in this phase.
Phase 2) Agreed phase 2 can only be considered a lossy process.
Phase 3) A good dac design will already have a form of filtering in place to try to deal with digital to analog conversion issues. Is meridians method always better is the question?
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - Confused - 15-Jan-2017
(15-Jan-2017, 15:10)Hifi_swlon Wrote: @Confused, I think the idea behind MQA (at least as far as Meridian peddled it) was that it was aimed at high quality streaming rather than anything else, and that streaming providers weren't likely to ever stream higher than CD quality (say 192 or DSD) because of bandwidth - both server side and user side. They then argued that there's minimal gain from highres files or DSD - not that they aren't better than cd - but that they are huge files for the additional small benefit, since the actual issue allegedly isn't primarily bit depth and sample rate, but the other artifacts in digital music which will never go regardless of how big you make the files. So the idea is MQA tackles the issues we didn't know were issues, while also keeping the file size to that of a CD. The result - a CD sized file that sounds better than highres or DSD.Yes, I agree MQA is aimed at high quality streaming, I just don't buy the argument that streaming at 24/96 or similar is in anyway problematic. In this regard it is interesting that Rhapsody/Napster and Pandora announced plans for 'hi-res streaming' at CES. Quite what this will be in terms of content and quality is yet to be seen, but it will be interesting to see how this develops.
The folding 'origami' is alleged to be light years ahead of all the genuinely lossy codecs used previously - who's aims were to make the file smaller at some known loss of quality for convenience.
I'm not sure how much I buy of it, but won't know until there's enough out there to listen to, and DACs all have MQA. This situation may never happen of course. I think the intention behind it's good, but having read Bob Stuart's Q&A I wasn't entirely convinced. The fact that it's really Meridian technology - more recently spun off into its 'own' company, is obviously not ideal - all good intentions aside there are business interests at stake here.
I may buy an Explorer 2, as Id like a headphone amp/DAC where I'm working right now, and it's on sale. If so I'll use it with Tidal and see how the difference is under full MQA. It's interesting that the device is two years old and only now is there any real MQA material available. I'd say the next six months are critical to its success. I think they're allowing software decoding simply because practically zero hardware vendors have taken it up. Two years in and there are about 4 MQA DACs - two of them Meridians! So it's not looking hopeful based on that.
Of course being a closed system we've no concrete idea what this DAC side decoding or de-blurring is - it could just be marketing for something incredibly simple. Then again it could be pioneering? In fact we don't really have independent consensus on what any of it is. Are these albums being remastered, or just run through an MQA box? How the hell does it detect every ADC used in the chain? What about electronic music where samples are hacked together on laptops at 44.1 and processed umpteen times? I mean, I imagine a modern mastering of non-classical music has thousands of hardware and software filters and processing going on. How could that possibly be 'fixed' afterwards? I'm sure all will become clear over the coming years, that is if MQA hire a decent PR person. It's been very 'Devialet' so far
I'd never by anything in MQA format. Who knows one day the licensing could change and suddenly new players would be region specific or something. It's not implausible. Start soft then tighten up the rules over the years, probably from music industry pressure.
But right now I have Tidal hifi and it's a free thing to try so if I get an explorer I'll get a chance to find out as a headphone streaming customer, which is allegedly who it's aimed at.
Meanwhile I do wish forums could ban discussion about it!
As for the multiple A/D conversion issue, this is case specific. With some remastering, there will only be one A/D conversion, so nice and easy. Even with some later material, all A/D conversion will be done in one mixing desk, with one type of A/D conversion. But I agree, some music will have been through all kinds of digital processing and conversions, so how can MQA help here? Having said that, if you take something that has been processed to death, say for example something produced by the Orb, who by their own admission process samples so much that it would be impossible to determine the original source, then the digital hash is part of the 'studio master', it is what it is. Plus a lot of electronic processing in music is actually analogue, I'm certain MQA can't fix anything here, and neither should it. Plus why should MQA fix digital processing, this is part of the master, I think MQA themselves have only referred to A/D conversion? Fair to say that this MQA magic will work much better with some source material than others, but I think with a lot of material there will be far less actual A/D conversions than you might think.
There is a lot of 'smoke and mirrors' stuff surrounding MQA at the moment though, I'm genuinely happy to sit back as a spectator at the moment and see what happens.
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - Hifi_swlon - 15-Jan-2017
True. I just skip-read some of the 'MQA is vapourware' thread at CA - is that the one you were referred no to? Loads of stuff I didn't know. Still more things I don't understand. It's honestly hard to imagine this is a completely 'honest, aimed at the end user for their benefit' technology.
Still, if I get the Explorer I can find out for myself. Except now I'm conflicted about adding an MQA hardware sale to the stats....
I saw some pointers on that ca topic about PS audio saying DAC makers that use FOGAs or whatever, software/firmware Da algorithms and that kind of thing (ala Devialet I guess), MQA could be a burden to incremental firmware development/improvement and also tricky with their own IP. I guess this would apply to Devialet - well, at least in the days when they did incremental firmware updates with any improvements.
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - Dr Tone - 15-Jan-2017
(15-Jan-2017, 17:28)Hifi_swlon Wrote: Still, if I get the Explorer I can find out for myself. Except now I'm conflicted about adding an MQA hardware sale to the stats....
I'll go out on a limb and say that software decoded MQA fed to the Devialet will sound better than putting the Explorer 2 in front of the Devialet. Call me crazy!
RE: Question to Devialet regarding Roon and MQA - Hifi_swlon - 15-Jan-2017
(15-Jan-2017, 17:31)Dr Tone Wrote:(15-Jan-2017, 17:28)Hifi_swlon Wrote: Still, if I get the Explorer I can find out for myself. Except now I'm conflicted about adding an MQA hardware sale to the stats....
I'll go out on a limb and say that software decoded MQA fed to the Devialet will sound better than putting the Explorer 2 in front of the Devialet. Call me crazy!
It's not for that!
It's for headphones / Tidal while working.....