[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] MEASUREMENTS / IMPRESSIONS: PCM 24/192 vs. Decoded MQA using Meridian Explorer2

[Archimago]

Well... Got hold of some recordings off the Explorer2 DAC with MQA
decoding enabled.

No surprise. Still looks like 16-bit dynamic range limitation as I
suspected. I was able to ABX the difference reasonably well. Check it
out:
'PCM 24/192 vs. Decoded MQA with Meridian Explorer2'
(http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2016/02/measurements-impressions-meridian.html)

Have a great week ahead everyone!



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[Wombat]

Nice!
"...the noise tonally is higher with a rising noise level above 5kHz" <-
especially above 7.5kHz can this be the 'sparkle' itself? Be it added
harmonics, EQ or other DSP?



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[ralphpnj]

Archimago I do have one question:

After you have run all the tests and completed all the measurements what
do you use to clean the snake oil off your hands?



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[Archimago]

Post by ralphpnj
After you have run all the tests and completed all the measurements what
do you use to clean the snake oil off your hands?

You know, that snake oil is nasty stuff... Extremely lipophilic and hard
to remove off the skin. Its target organ is of course the brain with all
that tasty cholesterol that it just loves to covet over. One must be
very cautious about ingesting the stuff (and God forbid if one ever
inhales it!). It has been said that even small amounts may lead to
obsessive neuroses, moderate amounts to severe intractable impotence,
and large amounts to a lifetime of psychosis and poverty.

With that unpleasant introduction, my formula to wash this stuff off
your hands:
- 1L lab grade distilled, demineralized, exactly 7.0 pH water
- 1L denatured 100% isopropyl alcohol
- 10 drops of Kodak Photoflo - no more and no less; remember impotence
is no laughing matter
- 1.5 drops of laboratory grade Triton X-114 - take no chances with
water surface tension! OCD sucks.
- 1.5 drops of Monolan 2000 - did I say surface tension sucks? Don't end
up psychotic!

Soak hands in the mixture for 30 minutes. Rub vigorously until the upper
layers of epidermis leave a residue at the bottom of the mixture. Wash
hands under running tap water thereafter for another 30 minutes.

Make sure to dispose the mixture above at the local CDC due to the
extreme biohazard risk.

As you can see, one must be serious when dealing with snake oil.

BTW: If there's extra handwash liquid left, feel free to wash LPs with
that... I heard it makes those grooves sound as quiet as digital! :-)

Cheers,
Arch



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[ralphpnj]

Post by ralphpnj
After you have run all the tests and completed all the measurements what
do you use to clean the snake oil off your hands?
You know, that snake oil is nasty stuff.....
Cheers,
Arch

Thanks Archimago for the very humorous response. After I read I had a
slight change of heart and now realize, or rather, believe that MQA
isn't snakeoil since it does actually do something. What MQA is just
completely unnecessary. I say this because one very important factor
regarding MQA and it's ability to package "high resolution" audio
content into a smaller file size has been left out of most of the
discussions about MQA. Namely that the benefits of high resolution audio
over standard CD resolution audio have yet to convincingly shown. So
sure a file MQA can be "decoded" to produce a file that is sonically
nearly identical to a much large high resolution file but so what.

For me MQA would only be worthwhile if it is able to produce files which
sound better than a standard CD resolution files, let alone a high
resolution files.

What really fascinates me is how the high end audio community has been
able to build entire sub-industries based on totally unproven beliefs.

Here are few examples off the top of my head:

High end USB cables - there is absolutely no reason why any two properly
functioning USB cables would "sound" any different. NONE.

High end music servers feeding a bit perfect audio data stream to an
external DAC. Just like the whole USB cable nonsense there is absolutely
no reason why any two bit perfect audio data streams would "sound"
different. In other words a Squeezebox Classic feeding an external DAC
will "sound" the same as any other music server feeding the same DAC.

High resolution audio - need I say more?

After market power cords, aka mains - again need I say more?

$50,000 monoblock power amp - WTF?

I'm sure there are lots of other examples.



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[Archimago]

Ralph:
Indeed. The money must flow and profits are needed! Real technological
innovation for sound quality has dropped off years ago even if you
include at best subtle effects like jitter which was "fixed" with
asynchronous technologies like ethernet and USB. This is getting close
to 10 years ago now.

Since then, I appreciate the incorporation of computer technology and
convenience with huge audio libraries, metadata, etc... Streaming is
cool for those who want to subscribe. But the "problem" of sound quality
has been addressed to the satisfaction of human ears at this point. How
else to grow as a hardware industry? How else to innovate as a company
like Meridian which I assume makes good amounts from MLP/Dolby TrueHD
about to go off patent protection?

If one is an honest company, you either bite the bullet and invest $$$
in new R&D like DSP technology products incorporating sophisticated room
correction for all and active speaker technology. OR you gather up
market share in targeting products in the luxury space and "lifestyle"
domain (which in the computer world Apple has done very nicely for
itself!).

IMO in audio, too many companies have taken the "less than honest"
route. Hyped up "research" into material sciences for so-called
high-tech cables for example. People coming out of cars claiming 24/192
"sounds like God". Bizarre claims bordering on psychotic beliefs (eg.
Mpingo disks, Synergistic Research). All without regulation and a
"journalistic" industry for the most part unable to educate the public
and without critical ability.

Lest I ever come across as angry or emotional about this, I'm actually
not :-). The debate is a fun pastime and I find it a fascinating case
study in what happens to an industry (ie. high-end audio) that has
surpassed its economic growth cycle and grasping at straws as it tries
to hang on to whatever small base it has left. Until some kind of
disruptive technology comes along, it'll just be a grind going forward.

And MQA is just another step in that "grind"; looking to open up a
market and grab some market share whether there's a "need" or not.



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[ralphpnj]

Right after finishing my prior post I looked at my email and what did I
find? Why the latest "PCMag Buying Guide" email containing these two
items:

Best soundbars: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418338,00.asp

Best bluetooth speakers:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417433,00.asp



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[Archimago]

Hey guys, for a good kick check out Robert Harley's recent editorial on
MQA in the forthcoming TAS... Sponsored content indeed!
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/master-quality-authenticated-mqa-the-view-from-30000-feet/

But check out the comments... The People get just how ridiculous this
all sounds...



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[ralphpnj]

Hey guys, for a "good" kick check out Robert Harley's recent editorial
on MQA in the forthcoming TAS... Sponsored content indeed!
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/master-quality-authenticated-mqa-the-view-from-30000-feet/
But check out the comments... The People get just how ridiculous this
all sounds...

So I ask: was I wrong to call the high ed audio gatekeepers like Robert
Harley "clowns"?

Just about everything Harley writes in his editorial is WRONG. My
favorite comment:

Shel243 • 16 hours ago

If it walks like a shill, and talks like a shill....

I must say that Shel243 completely nailed it.



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[kipeta]

Hey guys, for a "good" kick check out Robert Harley's recent editorial
on MQA in the forthcoming TAS... Sponsored content indeed!
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/master-quality-authenticated-mqa-the-view-from-30000-feet/
But check out the comments... The People get just how ridiculous this
all sounds...

All MQA hype is so sad to read. In general some people may of course
like processed sound more than the original, e.g. tone control vs. no
tone control. So we can't really argue if someone prefers MQA, it's a
matter of taste.
Unfortunately many people don't actually even have their own taste (i.e.
are half deaf) and are just hype followers. Sad, sad, sad,... MQA is
such a wrong direction, especially if it takes place at the expense of
real lossless music distribution channels (using license free formats).



Kimmo
www.daphile.com
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[Wombat]

There is even more strange reasoning. Mixing, micing and voicing a
record is the work of people that hopefully know their stuff. If MQA now
changes the sound by correcting the faults of the hardware it destroys
the sound the mastering engineer decided to leave the studio. It simply
makes no sense.



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[ralphpnj]

Post by kipeta
All MQA hype is so sad to read. In general some people may of course
like processed sound more than the original, e.g. tone control vs. no
tone control. So we can't really argue if someone prefers MQA, it's a
matter of taste.
Unfortunately many people don't actually even have their own taste (i.e.
are half deaf) and are just hype followers. Sad, sad, sad,... MQA is
such a wrong direction, especially if it takes place at the expense of
real lossless music distribution channels (using license free formats).
There is even more strange reasoning. Mixing, micing and voicing a
record is the work of people that hopefully know their stuff. If MQA now
changes the sound by correcting the faults of the hardware it destroys
the sound the mastering engineer decided to leave the studio. It simply
makes no sense.

All of this just points to the fact that MQA, like so many other
"revolutionary" processes that came before it, will in the end just turn
out to be yet another form of well hidden equalization. Think of the
REVOLUTIONARY Red Rose Music from about 10 years ago that was supposed
to make mp3s sound better than the original wav files, turned out all it
was an equalizer. Guess what? Almost all smart phones, tablets and
bluetooth speakers employ some form of DSP, aka equalizer, except that
all these devices are very up front about the fact that they use DSP. If
the high end would be so honest.



Living Rm: Transporter-SimAudio pre/power amps-Vandersteen 3A Sign. &
sub
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Computer Rm: Touch-Headroom Desktop w/DAC-Aragon amp-Energy Veritas 2.1
& Energy sub
Bedroom: Touch-HR Desktop w/DAC-Audio Refinement amp-Energy Veritas 2.0
Guest Rm: Duet-Sony soundbar
Garage: SB3-JVC compact system
Controls: iPeng; SB Controller; Moose & Muso
Server: LMS 7.9 on dedicated windows 10 computer w/2 Drobos
'Last.fm' (http://www.last.fm/user/jazzfann/)
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