MQA, Worse than FLAC?

[Gregadd]

Hardly. I’m always padding my statements ver carefully to never dismiss actually hearing something different. What is important is the attribution of that difference to a specific effect. In this case it is just wrong. We know that of all of the moving pieces in this process, compression is not the one to introduce a difference, by the very way in how it works for this specific case. It’s just barking up the wrong tree, unnecessary. IMO if you will…

It sort of reminds me of te movie the fly. He actually had perfected the process. He just needed to keep the fly out.

 

[audioisnobiggie]

The fly is the flac compression.
Qobuz's default player sounds better than Tidal's, btw. Just mentioning, as I listen. Someone else probably thinks all players sound the same, though.

 

[RnRmf]

I accept that FLAC and AIFF/WAV are identical files on playback.

About 8 years ago I had a service rip my very large compact disc collection to hard drives and my plan was to use a Macintosh Mac Mini as an audio server. There weren't nearly as many audio specific devices at the time I started investigating doing this.
I was encouraged to choose FLAC but before I did so I decided to listen to various files as either AIFF or FLAC on my Mac laptop with headphones.

The FLAC files irrefutably had a noticably louder noise floor than the AIFF files that I could only attribute to the processor decoding the FLAC files.
So I chose to rip my cd library to AIFF.

Given that the Macintosh is not an audio-specific device, it's probably why there was a difference in sound. I assume that audio companies engineer ways to avoid hearing noise upon playback but at that time of my comparison there was no way I'd pick FLAC since that I was going to use a computer as a server.

 

[audioisnobiggie]

I accept that FLAC and AIFF/WAV are identical files on playback.

About 8 years ago I had a service rip my very large compact disc collection to hard drives and my plan was to use a Macintosh Mac Mini as an audio server. There weren't nearly as many audio specific devices at the time I started investigating doing this.
I was encouraged to choose FLAC but before I did so I decided to listen to various files as either AIFF or FLAC on my Mac laptop with headphones.

The FLAC files irrefutably had a noticably louder noise floor than the AIFF files that I could only attribute to the processor decoding the FLAC files.
So I chose to rip my cd library to AIFF.

Given that the Macintosh is not an audio-specific device, it's probably why there was a difference in sound. I assume that audio companies engineer ways to avoid hearing noise upon playback but at that time of my comparison there was no way I'd pick FLAC since that I was going to use a computer as a server.

Glad you noticed a difference, too. I find, instead of a noise floor, it's more of a noise edge to every sound that happens. It's pretty small, but when I switch back to wav, it's gone, and relaxing.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

The FLAC files irrefutably had a noticably louder noise floor than the AIFF files that I could only attribute to the processor decoding the FLAC files.
So I chose to rip my cd library to AIFF.

Glad you noticed a difference, too. I find, instead of a noise floor, it's more of a noise edge to every sound that happens. It's pretty small, but when I switch back to wav, it's gone, and relaxing

Is it a noise floor?
Is it a noise edge?
No it's Superman!

I'm glad you both hear something that's not there. But, wait, you are actually are NOT hearing the same thing.

 

[audioisnobiggie]

Is it a noise floor?
Is it a noise edge?
No it's Superman!

I'm glad you both hear something that's not there. But, wait, you are actually are NOT hearing the same thing.

We'll try not to make too much fun of you for it.
Did you like the 128kbps cd-quality mp3 option, ripped at 42x, too?

 

[RnRmf]

Is it a noise floor?
Is it a noise edge?
No it's Superman!

I'm glad you both hear something that's not there. But, wait, you are actually are NOT hearing the same thing.

For some reason you're presumptuous enough to think that the device doing the decoding may not contribute to the noise level.
In my case there was some interference on display with the computer decoding FLAC vs playing AIFF files.

 

[InfigoAudio]

There will definitely be something audible that shouldn't be there, but in my experience these things usually disappear when adding isolation and precise reclocking.

Cheers, Hans.

 

[audioisnobiggie]

There will definitely be something audible that shouldn't be there, but in my experience these things usually disappear when adding isolation and precise reclocking.

Cheers, Hans.

It's not vibrations or a bad clock, there is a noise edge to flac playback. With wav, no noise.

 

[InfigoAudio]

It's not vibrations or a bad clock, there is a noise edge to flac playback. With wav, no noise.

I meant electrical isolation, not physical from vibrations.
If the player is a PC, then the clock is almost never an ultra low jitter precision clock. Those things all matter in this.
FLAC playback might have more or different jitter in your case, which sometimes translates as the types of noise you describe.
Every situation is different.

Cheers, Hans.

 

[audioisnobiggie]

I meant electrical isolation, not physical from vibrations.
If the player is a PC, then the clock is almost never an ultra low jitter precision clock. Those things all matter in this.
FLAC playback might have more or different jitter in your case, which sometimes translates as the types of noise you describe.
Every situation is different.

Cheers, Hans.

Oh, my electrical is ok, dac and amp straight into the wall, pc in good distributor. My dac reclocks with really nice (for internal) clocks. When I switch to wav, no noise, relaxing. Switching to flac, the slight noise edge.

 

[RikkiPoo]

My server is an Innuos Statement. It has a very good clock and PS and a very low noise processor. I notice the difference in FLAC and WAV more since the Next-Gen upgrade. The Next-Gen lowered the Statement's noise level and FLAC sounds better but WAV sounds more better.

I have two CAD grounding units, three Akiko Corelli's, a Shunyata Denali, PS 10 Powerplant and 3 dedicated lines and a dozen PS Audio Noise Harvesters.

WAV files sound better from my Statement than FLAC, its not hard to hear the difference.

 

[Alrainbow]

Does Mqa plan to or has used making vinyl from there mqa files
?

 

[audioisnobiggie]

Does Mqa plan to or has used making vinyl from there mqa files
?

Why would they do that? MQA is further from bitperfect than flac. You are speaking as though mqa were better than higher res. If mqa works perfectly, it will only match the original higher res. Working perfectly is impossible.

 

[Alrainbow]

Why would they do that? MQA is further from bitperfect than flac. You are speaking as though mqa were better than higher res. If mqa works perfectly, it will only match the original higher res. Working perfectly is impossible.

Here is my point
I live analog tape or vinyl but to me many loved old rock as an example have no really great vinyl or tape I have
So while some feel mqa is yet another try and fail at selling music yet again
atleast there reissues might be better then past ones not worth to buy again.
im wondering maybe they had access to masters or just remastered in a better way

 

[audioisnobiggie]

Here is my point
I live analog tape or vinyl but to me many loved old rock as an example have no really great vinyl or tape I have
So while some feel mqa is yet another try and fail at selling music yet again
atleast there reissues might be better then past ones not worth to buy again.
im wondering maybe they had access to masters or just remastered in a better way

mqa claims to 'fold' higher bitrates into a more packed 44.1khz. If you use the original higher res file, it will sound more original to the source. MQA is not better, it's more compressed. You're not even getting any more bandwidth from Tidal, while still paying double.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

The original title "MQA, Worse than FLAC?" has been a bit sidetracked by FLAC quality discussions. To get back to the query about MQA, does anybody think MQA is better than WAV or DSD? I guess the strongest positive was the signed guarantee of the release being the best master available, but has anyone experienced the benefit of this, and is it solving a genuine issue?

 

[audioisnobiggie]

The original title "MQA, Worse than FLAC?" has been a bit sidetracked by FLAC quality discussions. To get back to the query about MQA, does anybody think MQA is better than WAV or DSD? I guess the strongest positive was the signed guarantee of the release being the best master available, but has anyone experienced the benefit of this, and is it solving a genuine issue?

MQA can not be better than the original. It is claimed to be another compression on top of compression. If the original was the best master, it has been compressed (folded), and needs to be uncompressed on top of being flac.
Qobuz is cheap, cheaper than TIdal. You could always try not needing mqa on qobuz in higher res and compare. Qobuz hosts the original unaltered master copies, and streams them directly to you, without needing mqa.

 

[audiobomber]

MQA is further from bitperfect than flac.

FLAC is bit-perfect, it will playback exactly as recorded. MQA is not bit-perfect, it will play back in various ways, depending on the decoding capabilities of the streamer and DAC. FLAC is lossless, as the processing can be reversed and you will have the original file. MQA is not lossless, it cannot revert to the original format.

 

[audioisnobiggie]

FLAC is bit-perfect, MQA is not. FLAC is lossless, as the processing can be reversed and you will have the original file. MQA is not lossless, it cannot revert to the original format.

Bit-perfect refers to the theoretical process of streaming from disc to dac, directly and unaltered. Flac has had a process done to it where it needs to be sent through a processor for the calculation of the bits it will send. I believe the problem is that the ones and zeroes that get sent to ram, which will be the same as the original wav would have been, only the ones and zeroes are stored in ram with some noise from having gone through the processor. Remember that tubes sounded better than transistors, and your cpu is designed to be packed full of non-audio transistors. Tons of them. There seems to be an irregularity sent out of my usb port after flac, the bits are no longer simple, some are more pronounced, as compared to wav.
If you want to hear the original higher res masters, Qobuz will do it for less money than Tidal, and you don't need an extra chip you hope you won't hear.