MQA-CD - Affordable playback, but it's too late*

In 2018 I had the discs but couldn’t get a cheap MQA-CD decoder.
In 2024 I found a decoder for £80, but what happened to the discs?
* For the format itself...and for my old ears to get any benefit from it.
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[@kingyachan]

"I wouldn't recommend any of this" is how I would describe all of my hobbies

[@WatanabeNoTsuna.]

😂 🤣 😂

[@mrb.5610]

I can certainly recommend all of mine.... .. ... .. as an excellent way of wasting money.

[@AdamChristensen]

I feel seen! 😂 Am I playing around with 80s and 90s PC hardware for the authentic experience? It's just a complicated and painful way to do what can be done much more simply with DOSBox.

[@nemesis2264]

@@AdamChristensen Painful indeed. I remember many a happy few hours trying to get a particular combination of 2D and 3D graphics card to play nicely together only to find that they had taken out your sound card that you had also spent many hours trying to get working. Fix that and then go back to fix your graphics again, rinse repeat and give up. Happy times.

[@hyperturbotechnomike]

Same here. I like to work and hoard with random tech, rust bucket cars and travel to less than safe locations.

[@domramsey]

I just wanted to do a quick shout out for CDs in general. With everyone either streaming or going back to vinyl, the cost of CDs - especially second hand - has plummeted. Rather than subscribe to a streaming service, I've started buying a CD a week, ripping it into FLAC and putting it on my own Jellyfin server. It's so much better value, and I own the physical media so it doesn't go away if I stop paying.

[@Sheepy007]

Thing is though, Regular CD always was "only" 16 Bit, 44.8Khz and therefore not a source for High Resolution Audio for those who wanted it. Here lies the advantage in some streaming services, who do offer Audio in those higher resolution formats.

[@allenellisdewitt]

Next step is to set up your jellyfin for external access (safely!!!), and you'll have your own "Spotify" anywhere you are. ;)

[@presterjohn71]

I've been buying a lot of second-hand CDs too. The trouble is though that one in three of mine has had issues. I'm usually only paying £2 or so but it is still annoying.

[@domramsey]

@@allenellisdewitt I use a Tailscale VPN which automatically turns on when I leave my home wifi network, so yeah, it just works anywhere. 🙂

[@domramsey]

@@presterjohn71 That's annoying. I buy a lot from eBay, and the only times I've had problems, I've had no problem getting refunds.

[@JacGoudsmit]

I was wondering how MQA can be encoded on an audio CD and can survive being output through an ordinary 16 bit SPDIF output to a decoder. According to Wikipedia, the answer is that they use the lowest 3 bits of every sample to encode the extra information. They claim that even without the decoder, the MQA-CD sounds better than a regular CD but since they're basically raising the noise floor by 18 dB (20 * log10(2^3) ), I refuse to believe that an MQA encoded CD sounds better than a regular CD on a good CD player. But the use of terms such as "frequency de-blurring" should already be enough of a red flag to tell you that this is just another way to extract money from "audiophiles".

[@TestarossaF110]

Juuuuuuuupppppp, something that is lossy can't ever beat lossless, insane that soo many people support it.

[@CptJistuce]

Same "trick" that HDCD used to use.

[@stuartmcconnachie]

So it sounds better (non-MQA CD compatible version), even though they’ve used 3 bits of every sample to encode extra data, instead of the original sample data that should have been encoded in those 3 bits for an accurate representation of the original signal??? If that was the case, why not replace more than 3 bits!

[@wich1]

One way an MQA CD might sound better is in the sense that they perhaps aren't compressed to all hell and pushed to the max of the envelope like most CDs were from the mid/late 90s through to the 00s. Don't know about CDs from the 10s and nowadays as I basically stopped buying CDs for this reason. I believe this is also the reason why high-res CDs might be better than regular CDs, not so much because of the master, but more so because of the CD mastering process and the market forces involved in that. High-res CDs are a smaller and different market than regular CDs and thus it does not make sense to market to the "louder is better" gut feeling that regular CDs cater to, instead they are marketed more to the discerning listener who understands and appreciates dynamic range. For the same reason earlier CDs from the 80s and early 90s often sound better than later re-releases of the same album, as back then the market for CDs was very, very different. But yes, the MQA-CD technology does in and of itself not produce a better CD, and assuming the lower 3 bits theory is correct, then yes it absolutely raises the noise floor and a regular old CD would absolutely produce better quality *if* that CD would be produced with a sensible mixing and mastering process, but in the vast majority of cases they simply are not, or at least, they weren't. In those kinds of badly mastered CDs the dynamic range of a CD is utterly wasted and those lower 3 bits don't make a lick of difference.

[@Safetytrousers]

A standard CD is 16 bit at 44.1 Khz.@@stuartmcconnachie

[@gpisic]

Normal Audio CD format is perfectly fine it's just that the music industry needs to stop mastering their shit with these insane loudness levels.

[@tookitogo]

This!!!!

[@DigbyOdel-et3xx]

Bingo 😎👍

[@DDramKing]

Yeah! Most digital music released after the 80s has been degraded by the loudness war trend. That is, the dynamics of the sound are very low and everything sounds loud. Only classical music is spared from this. That's why I still buy used CD albums released in the 80s because they simply have better sound quality than streaming services or remastered versions. I've tested services like Tidal, Amazon music, Spotify, etc., but record companies have rarely put dynamic masters on them.

[@Ruinwyn]

Doesn't matter how good the format is, if the problem is the source. If everything is mastered and tuned to death, our home equipment won't solve the problem.

[@mhoppy6639]

Compression is the absolute enemy of dynamics. I blame the Black eyed peas. They were at the forefront of this massively compressed, low dynamic, high master nightmare in which we find ourselves. I think it’s one of the reasons why older LPs are making such a comeback as well.

[@wbfaulk]

Please don't delete your old videos. Even if they're not accurate now, they're a useful view into what existed when they were created. You frequently feature old catalogs and reviews of devices from times past. What if all those had been intentionally destroyed by their creators because they weren't accurate any more?

[@ManchurianHeyoka]

Yes, a better option would be to update the video titled to contain the preface "[Outdated]" or something and link the update in the description.

[@hrothgar014]

A historical audio format from 2018. Who would have seen that coming?

[@pootle5096]

Yet the Japanese remastered and released 6 Huey Lewis albums on MQA just last year!

[@Wren1]

A proprietary, DRM-laden, lossy, placebo audio format? Who wouldn't want that?

[@bluespiritrecords1709]

I know right?

[@inglepropnoosegarm7801]

That you have to pay extra for! A 'mug's ear full' to be sure.

[@Rutherford_Inchworm_III]

It's an opportunity to own Brothers in Arms and Tubular Bells in yet another pretentious and expensive format that nobody knows or cares about. Millions of balding Gen X'ers salivate at such an opportunity.

[@bluespiritrecords1709]

@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III They neglect to research as well that Brothers in Arms was recorded in 16bit digital, since that's all that was available at the time. There literally cannot be more than CD quality to that album since that's how it was captured.

[@nooneinpart]

@@bluespiritrecords1709…b-but muh temporal deblurring???

[@ubezoen]

Finally someone who understands! It's not about the format, but rather about the quality of the master which was used.

[@JPX64Channel]

yup, there is nothing wrong with the current digital formats but for the awful masterization of particular albums.

[@RusticRonnie]

And the speakers that you are playing it from, and in the case of a CD the quality of the laser. And conditioning of the disk

[@tenorman]

For $80 you can turn a light on a box. My 62 year old tinnitus hearing is ok with CDs.

[@Techmoan]

But what about the blue light?

[@CypherAod]

@@Techmoan for £20 I'll make you a box with a blue light that works "wirelessly" with any/all your audio gear 👍

[@lutello3012]

I used to be able to hear CRTs so easily. Told my grandparents when they left the TV on with the cable box putting out a black screen.

[@TheTruthKiwi]

Tinnitus is so freakin annoying. I forget about it until I want to listen to music, especially with headphones, and there it is. Bloody pita!

[@tenorman]

@@TheTruthKiwi mine limits how long I can listen at a reasonable volume.

[@malmbergtube]

FLAC is free (open source), hence it's name - Free Lossless Audio Codec.

[@ASBO_LUTELY]

Whatever happened to ogg?

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

​@@ASBO_LUTELY Ogg Vorbis is a *lossy* codec designed to provide a free open source competitor to MP3, but it turned out that MP3 was open enough for most people/the licensing was cheap enough in most cases that only diehard free software users were using it in the end, and these days storage is so cheap that anyone concerned about codec licensing for their personal collection is probably just using FLAC.

[@christianseibold3369]

@@ASBO_LUTELY Ogg is still used, but it's not lossless, it's lossy.

[@freeculture]

@@ASBO_LUTELY ogg is only a container format, you could theoretically put whatever inside (like the old .avi for video). If you mean audio codecs, there are many, you could even put a flac inside, but this particular (container) format did not gain much adoption. If you want the BEST lossy compressed format, it is called OPUS and made by the same people, it surpassed both vorbis and speex so it works as the universal format from the lowest to the highest levels of average bitrate. Heck, you just listened to it because youtube uses it...

[@josh9673]

@@ASBO_LUTELYSpotify uses ogg

[@RichJT87]

It's pretty amazing that Red Book CD audio is still basically the best you need to bother with 40 odd years later.

[@BrianHall-Oklahoma]

They got it right the first time. Human hearing limits never increase.

[@nmccw3245]

The human ear is only improving at evolutionary speed if at all. 🤣

[@urgay1992]

And it will be until the day comes when some sci-fi tech or evolution causes human hearing to go beyond 20ish kHz.

[@951258tike22]

Exactly! that's what kills me. human biology isn't going to have to worry about anything beyond CD quality for hundreds of thousands of years lmao

[@squelchedotter]

I think the thing that's incredible about this is how little data our ears actually process. We're still decades away from being able to comfortably max out our eyesight or other senses, but all our ears need is 1400 kbps

[@rjy8960]

I dropped Tidal due to their use of MQA. It is a compressed format sold as not being compressed and shrouded in mystery. It attempted to solve a problem that didn't exist to line Bob Stewart's pocket.

[@BaileyMagikz]

Bob Stewart: but but but but we have green discs?? you should try our physicals come on you know you want a cool looking disc... 😂

[@JosephWithaG]

Apparently MQA is now being phased out of Tidal in favour of HiRes FLAC streaming. Not that it's enough for me to switch to Tidal.

[@radry100]

A problem that did exist, if MQA files are smaller than flac. Also if flac is created based on a regular CD it has the same limitations. I don't know what MQA does but if it's supposed to be better than a regular CD the resulting flac will also be better.

[@VEC7ORlt]

Its not compressed! Its folded™ Big difference! /s

[@GareWorks]

@@radry100/videos That's nonsense though. MQA is a closed format so we don't know the specifics of how it works. What we do know is that it's missing data. It's therefore not loseless. If the CD is loseless, FLAC will be better than MQA. I mean, if FLAC is created properly, it's better than MQA either way because it's one-to-one. And as for the size, sometimes (maybe often, I don't remember for sure), MQA files end up _bigger_ than FLAC. So as others have said, MQA tries to solve a problem that didn't exist because money.

[@chrisward000]

That’s a great album by Nina Simone. I just listened to it on horrible compressed (apparently) KZbin Music where it sounded fine to my 55 year-old ears. When you grew up with an Amstrad mini system, everything sounds great these days.

[@grayrabbit2211]

Some of the Bluetooth speakers out there are quite good. I have two of the Anker Motion+ speakers and they truly push above their price. I still like my full-size 2 channel HiFi, but the price to get good audio these days is amazingly low for what you get.

[@HandyAndyTechTips]

All of the so-called 'improvements' to the CD standard over the years - HDCD, SACD, XRCD, MQA-CD - are meaningless. 16-bit/44.1kHz CD quality is pretty much perfect for consumer playback. All you need is some decent mastering on the original CD format (which unfortunately hasn't been the norm over the last 25 years) and it sounds brilliant.

[@CptJistuce]

SACD is really DVD-based, despite the name. The big thing it and DVD-Audio brought was more channels, though the utility of that was debatable.

[@wich1]

Exactly CD mastering has been atrocious since the mid to late 90s

[@DDramKing]

In practice, most digital music released after the 80s has been degraded by the loudness war trend. That is, the dynamics of the sound are very low and everything sounds loud. Only classical music is spared from this. That's why I still buy used CD albums released in the 80s because they simply have better sound quality than streaming services or remastered versions. I've tested services like Tidal, Amazon music, Spotify, etc., but record companies have rarely put dynamic masters on them.

[@meowchin]

​@@CptJistuce No, it isn't, SACD is actually quite unique and can only be played by SACD players because the data is arranged differently on the disc. That's why people go to the lengths of acquiring first-gen modded PS3s to rip them - because that's pretty much the only way to do that (you can't do that in a normal DVD reader). I think you might be confusing it with DVD-Audio - which was also a thing.

[@andrewlittleboy8532]

Thumbs up this comment!

[@thewestwardsky]

Years ago I watched a video basically debunking MQA from a musician who tested how an online music distribution service that does MQA handles his hires files. Mileage may vary, but in his test MQA did absolutely nothing, in fact technically made the delivery-ready files worse. Not that anyone could ever hear that, though ;-)

[@thewestwardsky]

To me the format itself is mostly irrelevant. What really matters is the care that went into production, mixing and mastering of the destination format, be it vinyl, cd, tape, or digital. That last part in particular makes all the difference between some brickwalled version or something that indeed has dynamic range and detail. Or not.

[@michaelmartin9022]

​@@thewestwardskyThe comments on Techmoan's earlier video, as I recall, basically went along the lines of... >CD as it is can theoretically sound "perfect", all the sonic capabilities it has to reproduce every nuance of human hearing is there. >The "Loudness wars" ruined this because everything has the knobs turned up full in mastering. Most people didn't adopt CD's until the loudness wars were in full swing so other than the absence of crackle or tape hiss, they never really heard how good it could be. >Vinyl sounds "better" because if you mastered vinyl the way you mastered a CD, the needle would be physically jumped out of the groove. >Various "HD" CD formats could be acheived by just putting the vinyl master on a normal CD.

[@Blackadder75]

@@michaelmartin9022 that sounds simple and logical, I'll buy that explanation (but not any of the high res audio formats)

[@Sheepy007]

I remember that video but I also remember that the methodology and way he tested was not perfect and imho he tested for the wrong thing. In a way, he wanted to prove that MQA is some sort of snakeoil that does nothing, but he fell for the same problem that many fell for by MQAs marketing, that assumption that MQA is a lossless audio format, which it is not and never was. It always was a lossy format to begin with, just like MP3.

[@alexatkin]

@@Sheepy007 Problem is that site that sold MQA DID claim it was lossless as I recall.

[@jwhite5008]

Oh I've invented a new super format! It's MP3 written to a vinyl record. It works by having a special record played with a precision stylus (otherwise it will cut out), then you have to digitize it to a Windows PC running a custom Java software via a fiddly $1000 licensed decoder, and then you get the original MP3 file that you could have just downloaded off any service, but with maximum inconvenience. Ain't I a genius.

[@NotATube]

You're joking, but from what I've read- and I'm not an audiophile myself- many viewed MQA as little more than an excuse to lock down and control the entire audio chain and to coerce existing manufacturers into paying royalties and going along with its rules.

[@Koutsie]

​@@NotATubeyep, thats why tidal stopped offering flacs (iirc?)

[@lutello3012]

I would use that tech to press computer games on vinyl. I figure you could get Doom II on a 90 or 60 minute cassette if they used modern encoding methods.

[@jwhite5008]

@@lutello3012 Actually games for some 8-bit computers could just be recorded from a cassette to a record, and loaded from one. I.e. albums "Electric Eye" and "Heartware" contained a C64 program You can order any game (or indeed any audio) custom-recorded onto a vinyl record as long as it's short enough, although I would recommend using a fastloader, ideally with some CRC recovery data.

[@lutello3012]

@@jwhite5008 Yeah but it you want 7mb for Doom II you'll need faster encoding. Daniel Faradey is working on software for streaming mp3s off of analog audio and cassette that looks promising.

[@petromaxskavholm9779]

DON'T ever delete your videos. Rather update them with a disclaimer. Don't delete Techmoan history.

[@martytoo]

Rather than delete, can't they be retitled with the date of release as part of the title? I think I've changed my youtube video descriptions but I'm not sure if I've ever changed the title.

[@rocketman221projects]

@@martytoo Yes, the titles can be changed. You could put something like [Outdated Info] at the beginning of the title rather than deleting the video.

[@Techmoan]

I’m the Captain now.

[@NebachadnezzaR]

​@@Techmoanlmao

[@WildBluntHickok]

@@c.james1The date now says "4 years ago" (or however long it's been) but if you hover the mouse over it you get the exact date. No idea if that info is visible to people on consoles, and on computers it might vary depending on how zoomed out you are. I'm on a 50 inch screen, and someone using a 70 inch screen could be more zoomed out while having the same size text as I'm seeing.

[@dbag407]

It's wonderful to listen to someone with a purely academic interest in this and someone so concerned with not misleading the views. Thanks for your work.

[@james_chatman]

I see you watched any KZbin video featuring a DAC. There are no well-designed double-blind studies verifying the claims of any DAC. If anyone knows of one, please let us know.

[@dnswuk]

There appears to be a mistake in this video. We all know HiRes audio needs 'diamond encrusted audio cables that have been kissed by the Pope'.

[@CarrotConsumer]

Make sure it's Paul VI, the newer stuff is garbage.

[@dieseldragon6756]

I have a bit of string that was once used as an emergency shoelace by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Does that count? 🙃

[@Mattsavage69]

My mate bought some high end av cable for £120. It picked up the local police😂

[@video99couk]

21:30 And you know what set the sampling frequency of CD? It was video tape! When CD was developed, there was no practical way to store so much data on computers of the time. So it was recorded on U-matic video tape, using PCM adaptors of the models PCM1600, 1610 and 1630. The limits of the U-matic tape were pushed as far as they could go (pushed too hard to be honest, the format was always a bit marginal). The last iteration, the PCM1630 tried hard to overcome the error problems by reading the data twice with a special video head drum on the DMR4000 U-matic machine. I have working examples of all this kit and use it to digitally recover PCM16xx tapes for recording studios. These tapes were used to back up CD masters, to deliver them to CD manufacture, and to deliver CD quality audio from one recording studio to another. Cheaper Betamax based solutions came along later, they use a similar principle but not the same encoding because there wasn't quite as much bandwidth available on a domestic format. Models included PCM-F1, 501, 601, 701, Techmoan has demonstrated this as have I.

[@dieseldragon6756]

As both a technology fan and a *massive* lover of German metro systems, 🆄-Matic keeps making me think of a future of driverless trains on the Hamburger Hochbahn... 😇 Though more on-topic; Someone (Tech Connections, perhaps?) did a video on a home data archival solution which stored and retrieved computer data from VHS, using a customised video I/O device and any standard VCR. Can't remember the capacity per tape, but I _think_ it might've been about 1-2GB SP (Obviously ~4GB LP and perhaps 5,5GB at SLP) for a standard quality 180-min cassette. 😇

[@drfsupercenter]

Yeah, while that's true they actually rounded up a bit. If most people can't hear above 20kHz, then 40kHz sampling rate would have been fine per Nyquist-Shannon. They added extra bandwidth to make it 44.1, they didn't reduce it because of U-Matic. I'm curious why DVD and Blu-ray went with 48kHz, though. I think the PCM tracks on laserdiscs were CD spec.

[@nickwallette6201]

@@drfsupercenter They are. LD is 44kHz, and so close to CD format, I think that Domesday project actually decodes both LD digital and CD audio with the same code. (IIRC.) I've always heard that the choice of 44.1kHz instead of 40kHz was a combination of using timing based on existing commodity crystals for video use, and a little bit of leeway so the reconstruction filters didn't have to be quite as steep for the same bandwidth. I've heard the explanation of why 44.1 and 48kHz both exist more times than I could count, and I never remember exactly why. Without looking it up again, I want to say one is based off the horizontal scan frequency and the other is the color burst frequency. But I'm probably wrong.

[@garethonthetube]

@@drfsupercenter The sample rate was chosen because somewhere in the colour video circuits there was a convenient source of 44.1 kHz which just happened to be about right for the fledgling CD format. By the time DVD came out, the pro audio studios had moved to 48kHz with the next generation of recorders.

[@absalomdraconis]

​@@nickwallette6201 : 44.1 kHz vs 48 kHz was because of differing source formats- though I think that both were _technically_ from the same tape format, with the two of them coming from a slightly different encoding choice or something.

[@andromedaturnbull3512]

Hopefully Tidal won't take too much FLAC for dropping MQA.

[@andriealinsangao613]

YOU BASTARD 🤣🤣🤣

[@JasonHewkins]

I see what you did there :D

[@imgladnotu9527]

punny.

[@Bloke-in-Stoke]

Lovely... well done sir. 🤣🤣🤣

[@ZacabebOTG]

MQA-CD reminds me of HDCD. It's the same fundamental concept; sacrifice one or more of the least significant bits to store parametric reconstruction data and let those bits function as dither when the audio is played back without decoding. HDCD came and went too (Microsoft bought the company behind it; Pacific Microsonics, and eventually discontinued licensing of HDCD.)

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

And the unfortunate fallacy is that those lower bits were already tactically dithered with shaped noise. Throwing them away and filling them with non-shaped non-applicable noise is not going to make your dithering any less obvious. :')

[@tomenza]

HDCDs are fun to collect, I don't see the same for MQA

[@PileOfEmptyTapes]

HDCD basically gave you 15 bits undecoded and something approaching 16 bits with peak extension turned on, with shaped dither being used to get more mileage out of the bits you had either way. So basically releases could be made louder for the general public while discerning listeners would spring for an HDCD decoder. Sort of a "have your cake and eat it too" scenario. In practice, the undecoded part doesn't sound pretty whenever peak extension would be needed, so it isn't something you would have wanted in peak loudness war era releases. The best quality option would have been just mastering a regular 16-bit CD with all the dithering bells and whistles on just like the HDCD peak-extended version would have been, which I assume did probably happen as well (the Pacific Microsonics converters were excellent pieces of kit and would have seen use at some mastering studios; their Model Two would reportedly do over 120 dB of dynamic range in a loopback test, which back in the '90s would have been astounding).

[@arturomonterroso8277]

This kind of reminds me of the musepack audio codec. That one could go full lossless, lossy, or a hybrid with reconstruction data, interesting stuff :)

[@silphershadow]

​@@arturomonterroso8277you mean wavpack?

[@n_n_n_n_n_n]

One thing I've found with certain high resolution audio releases over the years, is that they actually use entirely different masters when compared to their CD counterparts. So it's not that the listener is hearing the extra bits and khz in the recording, they are instead hearing a master that is tuned more for an audio enthusiasts sensibilities, which typically meant less compression and limiting, resulting in a higher dynamic range. :Edit: I hadn't finished the video yet when I left this comment, I see Techmoan brought up this same point.

[@nickvickers3486]

I love the way he summarised it too, 'basically hi-res means somebody has made an effort to get it to sound good'.

[@filanfyretracker]

they likely used the master intended for making the plates for vinyl pressing. LPs are due to the physical limitations of record grooves far less capable of handling the loudness wars BS that blew out the dynamics on a lot of CDs from the late 1980s and a bunch of the 1990s. I suspect this is part of where the myths of Analog is superior to CD as a format came from, Masters for vinyl simply by the nature of the final product had to be done with actual care given. Probably does not help that the industry saw CDs as something to shovel out to the mall music store, throw a video on MTV, and collect the winnings. While the LPs were seen as a higher tier market segment.

[@thomosburn8740]

I think that's why people are spending crazy money on Japanese blue-spec discs, for the unique tape transfers and mastering of classic titles.

[@lambertax]

Only audiophiles will hear a difference, like they hear a difference with £200 mains cables!

[@BrianHall-Oklahoma]

You are referring to audiophools, not audiophiles.

[@technoman9000]

The problem with this video is that he used coax. You need a gold-plated optical cable to get the fully experience.

[@RCAvhstape]

I used to think that was just a joke but then I met a guy who actually believed that his gold-plated power cord made his music system sound better. I pissed him off because I honestly thought he was joking and I was mocking the idea. Oops, guess I didn't make any new friends that day. Not losing sleep over it lol.

[@rhodaborrocks1654]

Not to mention exotic fuses, these things sell for a fortune claiming all manner of sonic benefits, a "new model" came out recently I believe, often wondered how many they sell.

[@lucymorrison]

@@BrianHall-Oklahoma audiophiles are fools, same difference

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

@Techmoan >>> *_"... Indisputably inconclusive..."_* And THAT is one reason why we love your vids, Mat...😊

[@JDoawp]

Something to note about the comparison of MQA vs FLAC is that FLAC is a lossless codec. Meanwhile MQA is a lossy but the people behind it claim that it can be "packed" and "unpacked" restoring it to it's original form. That's not really quite true though. GoldenSound has done a great video about it.

[@robot_madness3164]

True. FLAC is even lossless enough that some people use it for the raw rf capture from laserdiscs, I don't think people can say the same for MQA lol

[@urgay1992]

​@@robot_madness3164lossless is binary. If the data/signal can be perfectly recovered from the compressed format it is lossless, otherwise it is lossy. There is no difference in the data recovered from different lossless formats per definition.

[@Turak_64]

The funny thing is, MQA can be delivered in FLAC. If you didn't know the music was encoded in MQA and just saw the file as a .FLAC, I reckon 99% of people wouldn't even be able to tell. When it comes to audiophiles from my experience, it's mostly clueless keyword warriors fighting over nonsense. Judge with your own ears, not some random graph someone online with no credibility shows you.

[@JDoawp]

​@@Turak_64But that would defeat the point of MQA, as it's supposed to be a 'lossless' lossy codec. That's like saying you can hide a JPG in a PNG. Like yeah you could. But why? You're already losing out on the benefit of a small file.

[@IlBiggo]

@@JDoawp People with "golden eyes" would still insist that the PNG version is better :D

[@Parlogram]

Great video as always. Many thanks for the shout out!

[@RaccoonHenry]

I think I'm the only one still buying CDs in my immediate circle... and I love them!

[@ptonpc]

I still do.

[@JessicaGorehamPenney]

I'm the only one in my circle too.

[@markalestra4558]

People look at me like I'm nuts when I tell them I'm buying CD's. After listening to streaming for so long, these things just POP! Bought more used CDs just today. Also, rediscovering my collection that just sat in a room for 18 years. They're alive again!!!

[@BaileyMagikz]

if MQA Tribal Members actually watched Techmoans back catalogue of media types/formats they know techmoan and subscribers are interested in unique formats and how they work thats all nothing more we don't care about how it sounds (within reason)

[@jsc315]

This! The tech behind MQA players personally I find far more interesting anyways then the sound quality debate

[@technoman9000]

It's funny that the most interesting music formats for Techmoan fans usually sound like crap

[@christeuma]

The sound quality debate is interesting! It's interesting that it's a debate! I thought I just cared about the music, then just about the interesting ways we're trying to make recorded music playback. The difference between things became obvious. If I wanna dub a tape to a tape I lose half the volume and power. That's obvious to everyone right? And that generational loss SOUNDS interesting, and is an intersting phenomena. I dunno why people who are interested in different formats and equipment stop their interest at the differences between how they sound. You don't need special ears, you can already probably hear what happens when you dub a cassette to a cassette, what it looked like when you recorded TV to VHS and maybe then what it looked like recording TV to DVR or the way digitial TV looks compared to the old antenna and the way DAB+ sounds compared to antenna (within range)... it's ALL interesting, why make tribes if some of us find the sound of SACD different? The whole debate would be ended if the crowds understood that, for example, a 2xDSD digitized copy of a 1/4" tape is gonna be pretty much as good as 1/4" tape, so it's smarter to keep the master at 2xDSD digital than to keep relying on the 1/4" tape BUT it's safer to go 4xDSD, 2 more octaves. If the audience was more informed, they could advertise "Disc printed from 2xDSD Digital" and people would go OOOOOOHHH not "yuck it's not analogue". The half quality, twice quality thing is OCTAVES, like on a Piano. We can hear between 20-20,000hz but not really, but that's 10 octaves. The numbers are beautiful, halves and doubles and it results in complex harmonics really quickly. But the simple stuff is A in the 4th Octave is 440hz, A3 is 220hz, A5 is 880hz, A2 is 110hz and that's now Subwoofer range, A6 is 1760hz, A1 is 55hz so we've got 1 octave in that Subwoofer range, A7 is 3520hz, A0 is half of 55hz so that's 27.5hz, see how all these numbers give the concepts their actual scale and shape?, A8 is 7040hz , go another octave higher, A9 is now 14,080hz, about where most people's hearing tops out BUT YOU CAN FEEL IT, all of those shakings, those frequencies, the thing that's shaking, the powered speaker, if any of the notes hit any of those A's then it resonates everything else that's happening giving the sound Timbre. Timbre is the result of Harmonic Resonance. It doesn't matter if you can hear the top notes harmonics of a Viola or a Violin, once you can identify the difference of a Viola or a Violin then you're there, it's intellectual not "talent" or biology. If you like music you can't be tone deaf, you're ability to recognise that your note isn't hitting the note is developed Relative Pitch. It isn't a talent, you developed it out of an interest. The devil's in the details here but I think we need to all keep learning from each other's experience and try and find the ways to teach each other the mix of Physics, Electronics, Music Theory, Acoustics that are happening with these gadgets. As a community we mightn't be learned, but the details can give us all the grounding to at whatever age still be able to get a proper start on learning those things.

[@BaileyMagikz]

Yes @christeuma but again this channel isn't about quality we don't care within reason as long as it sounds good. this channel is about exploring unique and lesser-known formats across different types of media and how they work not their quality. There are other channels, websites and platforms like reddit if you're specifically interested in audio and quality discussions.

[@evansdm2008]

@@christeumamost tech people know everything you’ve just said, it’s all basics. You don’t go in to brain chemistry and developmental factors when discussing some failed tape format. Also you can’t tell people what they’re interested in. If they’re not, they’re not.

[@smith952]

TECHMOAN SATURDAY = HAPPINESS

[@darrenerickson1288]

Well said!

[@marcberm]

Back to the topic of "hires audio!" (I still miss the puppets). 😀

[@nrgspike]

I know Amazon's search results are terrible by design but lumping CD's and Vinyl together and refusing to separate them even when you check the specific format filter is still maddening.

[@Spearca]

I recall Amazon being better when books and recorded media was its core business.

[@Silanda]

Amazon's search has really turned to garbage over the last few years. It says something when I have to Google an item on Amazon because it refuses to show up in Amazon's own search.

[@BICIeCOMPUTERconGabriele]

Generally I think search in Amazon is really bad. If you search for a specific brand,let's say "Sony led Tv" it will put some sony TVs on top but then millions of other brands products you didn't want to look at.

[@dschult3]

I have noticed that a lot of Amazon's business practices have gone down the drain lately.

[@rocketman221projects]

@@dschult3 Amazon is just as bad, if not worse than Aliexpress and Banggood now. There's hardly any brand name products left and they do their best to hide them in the search results.

[@jtsotherone]

I really like Matt's honesty about his experience with hi-res audio formats, and his argument is exactly the same when applied to vinyl - it's all in the mastering. A lot of people kid themselves into hearing differences between formats, but they rarely actually compare like with like.

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

Vinyl is a bit different because it's a substantially *lower* fidelity format than CD and some people like the particular pattern of degradation imposed by that quality ceiling from a direct analogue format (even if they don't realise that's what's actually going on).

[@jtsotherone]

@@bosstowndynamics5488 nope, it's mastered completely differently to a digital master, it can't be limited in the same way as a digital delivery as the needle would actually jump out of the groove. This has the insane effect of actually giving greater dynamic range on some recordings because it isn't brick-walled for loudness in the same way as digital masters. Humans are strange creatures!

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

@@jtsotherone Brickwall limiting isn't an inherent effect of digital mastering though, it's just a popular effect that winds up applied to them

[@mechadeka]

@@jtsotherone No.

[@jtsotherone]

@@mechadeka how many records have you mastered?

[@michaelfrench3396]

I'll never forget going into a high-end audio visual shop right outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I had a nice stereo that I had put in my truck. And I bought all of my eclipse components from them. But they had this room completely soundproofed and inside of this room they had all the craziest most expensive everything that they sold or could get their hands on. And I used to go in and this one time they had a pair of floor speakers and now this was probably 1999 or 2000, but these speakers were like 12 grand! I'm pretty sure they had others that were more expensive. It was just the first time actually looked at the price tag of anything in that room. And I was talking to the salesman and he said yeah. It's kind of sad that the people that can hear the difference in these speakers and a $50 set of speakers won't be able to afford these speakers until they can no longer hear the difference between these speakers and a $50 set of speakers. 😂😂 I'm convinced that man has saved me tens of thousands of dollars. And he's right. All the years working on boat decks with diesel exhaust close to my head. My left ear definitely has hearing loss that's measurable and my right ear though it's my good ear is not great lol. I can finally afford some speakers that cost as much as a car but I would never waste the money because I'm not going to know any difference in them anyway. Other than the fact they look super neat when they're standing up

[@michaelfrench3396]

And in my opinion you can pay far less money to look at bar prettier things while they're standing up.

[@deathleopardsmusic]

I wonder if that's the same shop just outside of Philly that was on Baltimore Pike in Delco. Small world if true.

[@michaelfrench3396]

@@deathleopardsmusicIt was by montgomeryville Mall. I can't remember the name though to save my life. Lol

[@technoman9000]

Sounds like a rare honest salesman!

[@filanfyretracker]

@@michaelfrench3396 It wasn't "World Wide Stereo" was it? I sometimes hear them advertised on WMMR.

[@BICIeCOMPUTERconGabriele]

Don't worry Matt. The whole hi res audio thing is pure sneak oil. No need for more than 16bit 44.1khz for audio PLAYBACK to fulfill any human ear requirements.

[@katho8472]

As an audio engineer, I can't even tell most times between a WAV file and and ('good') 320kbit mp3...

[@urgay1992]

​@@katho8472Yeah, cd-quality is the upper bound, any individual's level of what format is perceptually indistinguishable from the source is practically guaranteed to be lower than that.

[@katho8472]

@@urgay1992 Indeed! The only "better quality" you can achieve is higher dynamics because of less dynamic compression added in the mastering. Metallica's Death Magnetic vs its Guitar Hero version for example - and strangely, also Black Sabbath's 13 album, which has more(!) dynamics on vinyl than on CD. All the "hi res" music online shops are only interesting to me since I can be guaranteed to not get some butchered low-res mp3, but thats about it. Whenever I see 96kHz or even 192kHz, I can't help but laugh. Same goes for the whole hardware. Any decent speaker system with a 8" woofer will usually do for the living room, even if it is cheap(er). The rest is just some basic EQing, like turning up the bass... Of course, 10 or 12" will give more lower end, but who can afford that when you have neighbors?

[@Goodmanperson55]

​@@urgay1992 CD quality is not exactly the upper limit. It's actually just below the upper limit. 16 bit still has an audible noise floor that is mainly solved by dither. But if we're talking about full information fidelity, the upper limit would have a precision of 20 bits with no dithering needed. That is the lowest bit depth you can theoretically have before quantization noise becomes audible.

[@bitrot42]

MQA-CD takes the green marker trick to a whole new level.

[@siberx4]

Your point about better masters is very well taken. I'm of the opinion that the 16-bit 44.1kHz format used on CDs is sufficient to produce indistinguishable audio from anything higher to even the most discerning ears _assuming perfect mastering,_ but with very little margin. The higher-resolution formats both provide additional depth to allow somebody to "screw up" in the audio processing chain and not lose detail (resampling something the wrong way, applying a brick-wall filter inappropriately and causing phase distortion, mastering to a level 3-6dB below peak, etc). On top of this extra technical margin, more _care_ is often taken in the mastering process; the engineers are given more time to ensure the resulting tracks are mixed and mastered well, and so it's entirely possible to get a high-resolution track that "sounds better" than the commercially available CD "equivalent". You could, of course, then take this high-res copy and downconvert it (properly) to 16-bit 44.1kHz and you wouldn't be able to hear the difference between it and the higher-resolution source. For a bit of slightly related context, I have actually run blind A/B tests on myself with a variety of MP3 compression levels. I consider myself to have a fairly good ear and equipment but I'm by no means an "audiophile", and 128kbps is easy to distinguish, with 192kbps being _very_ difficult but possible (to high confidence) to distinguish from lossless. 256kbps is basically the point where I can't tell it's any different from an uncompressed 16bit 44.1kHz stream, and higher resolution lossless formats (24-bit/96kHz) above this also sound the same. I'd love to see trustworthy evidence of a properly administered blind A/B test on anybody confirming they can actually tell the difference between 16-bit 44.1kHz and 24-bit 96kHz audio for example, but I have yet to come across any such thing and I don't personally believe it's possible. Even the very best human hearing can't hear frequencies that high or dynamic ranges that wide (without damage, much less being able to discriminate them) and most people are well below that "very best" target anyway.

[@EdU-od5ec]

i can tell the difference between 16/24. But it all depends on orignal master. IMO Miicheal J albums sound so crips and clear at 16-48 than alot of more modern tracks at 24-96, because they took the time to master them. I would say any sample rate past 24-192 is a bit pointless. I also think 16-48 foramt for CD was chosen due to the limitations of DAC decoders at the time. 16-48 ensures 99.9% of DAC chips from thye 80's can play it.

[@robertgaines-tulsa]

It's like when people think vinyl is a hi-res format. If you think that, then you've never been treated to a CD authored in the 1980s back when they were actually trying to impress you with the performance of CD. I'm sure audiophiles will be like, but a record can have a frequency response greater than a CD. Yeah, they can, but the stylus you need for that resolution isn't going to be affordable. The first system that took advantage of that was quadraphonic, and that required a special stylus that I doubt is even being made anymore. The system didn't even make it out of the 70s. Without such a stylus, the upper frequencies that a CD can handle would be distorted giving vinyl that characteristic warm tone. You probably could get that warm tone from a CD by passing the audio through a low pass filter, but that's not hi-res audio. I'd say that people think vinyl is superior is purely psychological. There's a good reason why people in the '80s thought that cassettes were superior to records. Tape offered a sound free of snaps, crackles, and pops that plagues vinyl. It had a noticeable hiss when in quite parts of the recording, but even with various noise reduction systems available, most people just didn't care. It was like that until CD came out, and we were all blown away.

[@turokforever007]

Some 80s CD's are better

[@MichaelEdelman1954]

Vinyl fans often note that CDs only encode frequencies up to 21kHz, but ignore the fact that only infants and young children have hearing that extends that high. If you’re over 50, it’s likely that your hearing falls off very rapidly above 10-12KHz. Same goes if you’re in your 30s and spent a lot of time in loud clubs or concerts,

[@AaronOfMpls]

Meanwhile, all of my classic rock CDs have a slight background hiss ... from the analog master tapes those albums were recorded on back in the day. 🙂 (It disappears noticeably in the gaps between tracks.) And yah, a properly-mastered CD is still _more_ than good enough. I doubt my own 40-year-old ears can hear much difference in high-res audio, beyond _maybe_ a better master like Matt said. Most of what I listen to sounds decent enough anyway through KZbin's compression and my PC's old, non-spectacular speakers, let alone on CD or lossless files played through my good headphones.

[@thomosburn8740]

I'll stack up my early seventies German vinyl pressing of Sgt Pepper against the 1987 worldwide cd of same any day of the week - the vinyl is much more relaxed and open sounding. There are a handful of amazing sounding eighties cds, but they were not necessarily an improvement on the discs that preceded them.

[@dashcamandy2242]

I have a FLAC rip of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album in quadraphonic, it sounds AMAZING when I set my receiver to Dolby ProLogic II and turn off the center channel! I'm not a huge fan of surround sound, but I think if quad equipment had been at a better price point for the consumer, it very well may have changed audio recordings as we know them.

[@utp216]

MQA-CD, vinyl, CD, SACD, whatever… What I love about all of these formats is people can buy the media and actually own the content and it not be on a stream service that can shut you down or remove it. Last few years I personally got back n to vinyl and I’m loving it! Even bought some CD’s too! 🤗

[@atahacko]

I really didn’t expect to hear a statement like “MQA is a hi-res codec similar to FLAC” on this particular channel. FLAC is a lossless codec and whether or not it’s hi-res depends on what was encoded with it. It literally supports sample rates from 1Hz to 600+KHz. MQA is a lossy codec and is much more similar to something like LDAC than FLAC.

[@WCiacho]

Good to see another interesting video! I hope you're well and in good health. Thanks for your effort!

[@AG-bp3ll]

That SU1 is a tremendous DAC and for its price is an incredible value. It is essential transparent and is all the DAC anyone would need. MQA like most hi-res stuff seems pointless. Mastering is what matters. A well mastered CD from the 80s and early 90s was the pinacle of audio.

[@AndRewUK24]

Before that loudness war got out hand. I have just collected some late 80s and early 90s, sounds fantastic through my portable CD player and Austrian audio Hi-X15 headphones. But when listening to late 90s early 2000s albums I need to put the volume lower and not as good mix. For my phone and laptop I use HIBY FC1 DAC which cost me about £39. No need for expensive DAC. More expensive one in the Range but I don't need MQA or higher sound quality DSD. I'm happy with CD quality or just above CD quality in Lossless sound from my phone as well as my portable CD player. No need for the very high end Hi-Res Lossless audio. But what really matters is the different mixes and different remastering versions.

[@--BiZ--]

hope you feel better soon sir!! ive loved your vids for years, keep em comin!

[@grahamstrahle4010]

I saw the likes rocket upwards from 648 to 1.2K while watching this video. It shows how much interest there is in MQA--and how much admiration there is for this very excellent channel.

[@markmarkofkane8167]

About CD vs. Vinyl: I have heard vinyl that sounded better than CD. And CD's that sounded better. I believe it is because of the way they were mixed and or mastered from the original source. But it's not because of the media, it's because of how it was processed before being transferred to physical media.

[@wich1]

This, so many CDs are compressed to all hell utterly wasting the fantastic dynamic range of CDs. 90% if not more of the difference between regular CDs and high-res CDs comes from the mastering process, not from the format.

[@sprint955st]

Garbage in; garbage out.

[@FriedlichChiller]

It's also that different genres lend themselves to different media. I think Steven Wilson once said that he prefers buying classical and jazz records on CD, because of their ability to put out nothing but silence, while there's always some level of noise with vinyl.

[@krzysztofwaclawski9002]

Yeah, it's all mix, eq and mastering I think. Recently started making bootlegs on cdrs in favour of annoying vinyls and it makes me happy. Too bad 24 and 32 bit CD players are not a thing

[@DDramKing]

People always forget that it doesn't matter if the music is 16-bit or 24-bit, for example. The most important thing is how it is recorded and mastered. Unfortunately, since the 90s, record companies have been mastering digital music loud (loudness war trend), so the dynamics of the sound is very low and everything plays loud. Only classical music is spared from this. I've tested services like Tidal, Amazon music, Spotify, etc., but record companies have rarely put dynamic masters on them.

[@petercarter9034]

My weekends aren't the same without a Techmoan video..thank you for the post Mat

[@Elektronijaenis]

I think you are totally correct on the high res formats. Another way too look at it is, the CD format itself is rarely if ever the limiting factor in the audio quality.

[@ronpat13]

Thanks, I always enjoy your honest critique of new technology. Take care.

[@kaszaniarz]

MQA played on normal CD is just played as 13bit (and 3 bit of extra noise) Also one time Ive bought 192khz/24bit recording just for a test and... it was scam, just upsampled 44khz/16bit, there was nothing above 22khz in spectrum analyzer.... and probably 99% of MQAs are the same

[@drfphone]

MQA itself is a scam, but some high-res audio is legit. I've downloaded FLACs from Qobuz and they usually do have frequencies there when looking at FFT. Qobuz is also good about not overselling things, e.g. if it's digitally mastered at 24-bit 48kHz, the highest quality you can choose is 24-bit 48kHz, not 192kHz.

[@R0n8urgundy]

I suppose the most important thing is whether an album was well recorded to begin with, Carole Kings Tapestry (while a great album) was badly recorded and nothing can change what was on the master tapes.

[@dashcamandy2242]

Like the song "Go Now" from Moody Blues. Every time I hear the song I feel as if it was recorded with a desktop tape recorder set in front of a TV set whose volume is too loud for the cheap condenser microphone.

[@toaster1138]

Always coming through at 5am here in the states when I can’t sleep. You’re the best techmoan ❤

[@MikusMusik]

You're a legend...I love the realism of your reviews, thank you

[@jamesjross]

My god was that 2018! I remember this clearly.

[@roybal1975]

I still love your outro tune😁👍

[@andrewleyden2752]

Just when you were worried Techmoan would run out of material, here is Techmoan talking about MQA-CD in excruciating detail. God bless you, Mat.

[@punksci6879]

Small pedantic point but FLAC does have a licence, an open source licence so there aren't fee's but they still have obligations under those licences. That's the power of open source it doesn't cost anything but you have to share if you improve it.

[@sasha-fe2bl]

Only copyleft like the GPL you have to share your changes, BSD licence has minimal restrictions. The library part Tidal would use is BSD.

[@ericthemauve]

They don't use apostrophes for plurals either.

[@punksci6879]

@@ericthemauve I bet you get laid all the time.

[@ZGryphon]

The bit at the end, about the original provenance of the recordings and the theoretical quality of the CD standard, reminds me of when CDs first came out, and they all had that long paragraph somewhere in the booklet explaining how the audio quality was so good it would... what was the phrase? "Reveal the limitations of the source recording," or something along those lines. (And the little box with the three letters disclosing whether the source, mix, and master were done on analog or digital media. I remember I had one CD that said "DAD" in that box. Who did that? Some eccentric producer with Ideas about these things, no doubt. :)

[@Longplay_Games]

I've got so many discs that were in that great mix of formats :D

[@ZGryphon]

@@Longplay_Games I got curious and looked it up, and it turns out that of the nine DAD albums they list on Wikipedia, I had* at _least_ four. Which was a little unexpected! * well, technically still have, they're all in a box somewhere

[@Safetytrousers]

When I was young a friend of mine's parents had a first gen CD player and they didn't like it. They had a Simon & Garfunkel best of CD album. They said it sounded 'brittle'. That would have been down to an inaccurate sample clock in the process.

[@julesccf6380]

The three letters in the box was to tell the listener the recording, mixing and mastering process. A was for analogue and D was for digital so a DAD disc was recorded digitally, converted to analogue in the mixing process and then remastered digitally for CD. I believe this was the norm at the time due to there no way to mix digitally cheaply at the time. My Erasure The Innocents was such a disc. The first DDD disc released I believe was Dire Straits Brothers In Arms as it had DDD on the back however I did read that it was actually a DAD disc as it wasn't mixed digitally but the cover did say "A Digital Recording" so they weren't strictly fibbing.... The SACD stereo/multichannel remaster that was released in 2005 was remixed digitally I believe so it was eventually a full "Digital Recording".

[@esmerylan]

@@Safetytrousers I remember those early Simon and Garfunkel CDs and also the original CD releases of Fleetwood Mac's 1975 self-titled album and Rumours didn't sound good at all, but I've always seen it explained by "the labels didn't know how to master to CD properly yet" and never a more detailed technical explanation.

[@markjamesmeli2520]

You and Parlogram - my "must-see" viewing for the last eight years!! Thank you again.

[@junqueboi387]

"Indisputably inconclusive" -- this is why we love your channel :)

[@bluesplayer59]

Some people really are incredibly passionate over sound quality. They strive for something that probably doesn't actually exist . I love music ,recording and listening, but for me I love nothing better than listening to media on a MW radio or a scratchy old 45 on a 60s juke box . I guess we're all different. 🎉

[@paulmurgatroyd6372]

This sounds like people who spend years and £££'s trying to brew the perfect cup of coffee...

[@Dungeonseeker1uk]

As someone who grew up in raves around the UK and even did a bit of DJing I 100% used to be able to tell the difference between say a FLAC and a 320Kbps MP3. I think the nightclub scene was just about the only place it really made sense though, sure at home through my very mid speakers there was a tiny difference but hardly worth the cost of all the gear to do it properly but trust me, when you're in a nightclub with gigantic speakers running through filters and gates and the volume at 11 the difference between an MP3 and a FLAC is very noticeable to even the most tone deaf of people. I actually used to pay the 50p per track tax to get the WAV file for the absolute best quality possible. Of course now I'm in my early 40s and my ears have been through 15 years of solid abuse I can barely tell the difference between anything anymore, permanent tinnitus is pretty bad.

[@woldemunster9244]

Yeah, didn't DJ myself but recorded gigs on MD and it was "exciting" to hear differences between vinyl, cd and "mp3". Maybe that's why i "hate" anything under 280kbps, even with tinnitus.

[@zaidranger666]

Ur still young bruddah

[@Ikbenhenk82]

I just saw a video where a dj (cannot find it now) claims 320Kbps mp3 sounds better in a club compared to cd if you play electronic music. A lot to debate over I think 😁

[@Alabaster335]

MP3 just sucks at filling up the room with sound.

[@allenellisdewitt]

If you're archiving/saving/collecting, it's always worth compressing in FLAC instead: Since it's truly lossless, you have the complete file and it can always be converted into any other format you'd like - as well as being there for others when the younger ears can listen to it ;P

[@fmphotooffice5513]

...an addition to the extraordinary Techmoan archive. The future thanks you. (no joke)

[@BenShengOw]

Great video. Very interesting and informative.

[@padawanmage71]

Nice to wake in the morning to a Moan. :D Seriously, how many audio formats came and went and I never heard of them…pun intended 😂

[@aeiouxs]

My 2p after reading some of the comments here that - after a few years of all my physical formats in storage and relying on software playback of MP3 / Flac / WAV etc... coming back to physical formats (which is a nuanced phrase on its own) - regular vanilla CD is the one that genuinely surprised me, the clarity and presence of CD was notable - even compared with my Vinyl collection.

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

It's no surprise that CD's can sound better than records. It was very much a successor and rapidly took its place. It was an upgrade in every technical aspect.

[@jerryspann8713]

​@@AnnaVannieuwenhuyseUntil the music industry said NO.

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

​@@jerryspann8713 I specifically said technical aspect because of this. What you put on the CD is unrelated to the CD's capabilities.

[@gregx5096]

But isn't FLAC supposed to losslessly reproduce the data that was compressed into it, bit-exact to the raw data extracted from the CD (one would hope)?

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

@@gregx5096 it absolutely is! That's why it's lossless.

[@jxchamb]

A fairly new technology thet I've never heard of. I assumed this was the 90's before I started playing the video. Thanks for a great video to enjoy with my Sunday morning coffee.

[@TranscendentalAirwaves]

Man you sound sick as heck in this vid, hopefully you're feeling better!

[@IncognitoChild]

You hit the nail on the head for me the reason for me buying Blu-ray audio is the original masters have been revisited and hopefully have had The "loudness" removed. Or another words I've got as close to the original masters as possible before the deficiencies in my hi-fi system and ears take over 🤣

[@ozzymandius666]

There is software that can tell you the dynamic range of a given file, called "Spek", and other software called "Lossless audio checker" to see if a given .flac has been upsampled, etc. With it, you will find that mp3s chop off everything over around 15kHz, regular 44.1/16 bit at about 20, and nice 192/24 bit include everything up to and often exceeding 30kHz.

[@harrisoncorey282]

another bumpin video. thanks matt!

[@Tech_and_AI75]

Interesting video! In the 90s and 2000s I was a big audiophile spending hundreds on speakers, amps and players etc… I recently dusted off my minidisc recorder plugged a Bluetooth transmitter and connected it to my Alexa for the nostalgia aspect of this format! Nowadays I listen to music mainly from my Alexa from Spotify and feel I enjoy music more these days rather than scrutinising the quality of my equipment!

[@aerobolt256]

Techmoan mentioning Parlogram? small world, huh

[@Haydos]

you know that thing that shows youtubers what other channels people watch. i would be surprised if Parlogram wasn't at the top

[@manfredfritz6068]

Here in the US it shows how many years ago it was uploaded, not the actual date

[@PixelatedH2O]

You can tap/click on that to see the actual date though

[@T.E.S.S.]

in the uk too

[@tookitogo]

KZbin’s interface is the same everywhere. It varies by device, not by location.

[@Supersyncopation]

@@PixelatedH2O Thanks , I didn't know that

[@jxchamb]

The "years ago" isn't accurate. I checked today on my phone and videos from October 2022 are labeled as 1 year ago. So annoying. Luckily on my TV I get the real upload date instead of that years ago nonsense.

[@mar4kl]

"...'cause I've got silly old ears." - I have this feeling in my gut that somebody's going to write a song about that someday. As always, very informative and entertaining, and I appreciate the effort you put into these videos.

[@StevieBlack2112]

Great to hear Andrew from Parlogram getting a shout out. His Beatles channel is amazing and deserves way more attention than it gets

[@gotai8]

Odd, I just bought a Huey Lewis and the News MQA CD Box-Set in late 2023. (For "Sports" 40th Anniversary i guess). They are all DSD transfers and include some live concerts and special mixes, even a DVD with all the music videos.

[@Techmoan]

Yes the Huey Lewis MQA-CDs seem to be the most recent (last?) pop releases from June 2023.

[@nevets5891]

​@@TechmoanHave you ever listened to DTS audio CDs? There are some great 5.1 mixes of albums out there.

[@ellipticalsoul]

The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost

[@Techmoan]

of course.

[@DGTelevsionNetwork]

If you're getting dsd masters, I don't see the point in degrading it down to mqa instead of just having a bit for bit carbon copy on sacd.

[@lettucefire]

“Silly old ears..” 😂 i have some of those as well!

[@MarkSynthesis]

The outcome was more or less what I expected (though it's nice that at least the price of the required hardware dropped substantially), but I do think you made a pretty compelling argument from the aspect of quality of the disc masters; yes, it's probably pretty hard to argue that the MQA-CD actually meets its requirements of definitely sounding better, but on the other hand, it only seems harder to argue that it would sound WORSE, so at the same price point, why not? I'm glad I was able catch the proceeding video back when, even if I don't particularly remember it, so thanks for another great video Mat!

[@me3333]

That's one of the many things I love about this channel, most others will tell you what to buy or that this is better than that etc. but Matt comes right out of the gate saying I've got no dog in this fight, can't hear a difference and wouldn't tell you what to buy even if I could.

It was a long time ago I've watched that MQA video you shown for a brief moment in this video about a mastering person doing analysis on what MQA is doing with the audio to hide the extra data. Based on that it seemed way worse than even what HDCD was doing back in the 90s, sacrificing 2bits from the 16bit precision of CD (with some dithering to hide the extra added noise on a non-compatible player) to be able to decode up to 20bit of dynamic range.

[@VEC7ORlt]

Cute, but in a room with 20-30dB of background noise and 80-90dB listening level - ultimately useless, funny how math works out...

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

​@@VEC7ORltBut the number is bigger! Seriously, it's mostly about marketing stats, it's the same as how manufacturers are bragging about 108+MP sensors in phones when even high end medium format cameras are only just in the triple digit territory - a bigger number means more money please and thanks! (Technically those larger smartphone sensors to produce better images, but they don't perform anywhere near as well as the MP count might fool a consumer into thinking they should).

[@christianseibold3369]

@@VEC7ORlt I wonder if greater dynamic ranges could matter more if we are moving toward active noise cancelling in most headphones. Just a thought.

[@VEC7ORlt]

@@christianseibold3369 does it matter if most program material cant do more than around 25-35dB?

@@VEC7ORlt agree. Also with "vanilla" PCM you can apply dithering during mastering to increase the dynamic range, soo..

[@dw_2005]

Techmoan, please can you reupload the original video for historical record. Despite the fact its outdated its still nice to have it (put 'outdated' in the beginning of the title)

[@neonquixote5278]

I believe your comments regarding high-res are correct. I have a number of SACDs by BIS, and the CD layer sounds incredible. I think that’s because the engineers have upped their game in the original master recordings, and every release benefits from that extra attention.

[@sonijam]

Great video. Very informative.

[@martin_emrich]

Just wondering: Does this MQA-Voodoo technically violate the Red Book Compact Disc Digital Audio standard? On that "Simone" CDs, I cannot see the official CDDA Logo anywhere. (IMHO it does, instead of 16 bit samples, I only get 13 bits of audio and 3 bits of mumbojumbo).

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

Yesn't. The audio put onto the disc is a Redbook/CDDA compatible signal. But the requirement for decoding hardware and the contents of the file being partially encoded does violate many of the principles on which the Redbook/CDDA standard was built. While it is a Redbook or CDDA compliant signal, it doesn't effectively pan out as one (as you stated). I can imagine whoever releases these MQA-CD's is not interested in a legal battle over semantics.

[@Goodmanperson55]

It's not like anyone would care. The rainbow books have been fully finalized and every single possible technology around them has since matured and deprecated. There is no consortium anymore that will control the prevalence of these weird and unconventional implementations of the red book. Normal CD PCM keeps winning just by being very good.

[@BaileyMagikz]

The Tubular Bells album in the video background is probs the best album for testing any audio format 🔔

[@MarkTheMorose]

"Two slightly distorted guitars..."

[@BaileyMagikz]

@@MarkTheMorose lol, there more to it then just that section though 🤣

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video, Mat...👍

[@TheAntibozo]

Another excellent and engaging video as always. It saddens me a bit to know you've deleted old videos; they are all so well made. For my part, i can see the upload date on everything, and if there is any doubt, would it not suffice for establishing temporal context to add a date to the title or description? After all, it can be interesting to know how things were priced at release time.

[@chinnyvision]

You couldn't hear the difference as you needed to use snake oil filled cables at £1300 a set. Or so someone will post shortly.

[@durmphoto]

Don't forget $400 stones to place on each speaker which expands the dynamic resonance. If you can't hear the difference then YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

[@technoman9000]

It's because he was using coax instead of the recommended gold-plated optical cable.

[@apricebcd]

Just wondering if you have seen some of the Dolby Atmos discs coming out. The latest Peter Gabriel includes an Atmos mix in a bluray and I think Moon Safari by Air is releasing in a similar way soon.

[@JessicaGorehamPenney]

That's very interesting. I have an Apple music subscription and see it supports dolby Atmos on devices that are capable of it (my phone is) but I don't have Dolby Atmos headphones to try it out with. 🤔

[@apricebcd]

I'm the same, interesting though is that Peter Gabriel released the Atmos Mix on Apple Music@@JessicaGorehamPenney

[@Signature2une]

Спасибо. Не болейте!

[@Perun42]

Thank you, as always!

[@Longplay_Games]

I'd love to hear a short recap on another historical audio format flop - Plays4Sure, one of the MS DRM attempts.

[@rubeusvombatus]

PlaysForSure wasn't really a format by itself, it was just a certification that meant that a device is able to playback WMA and WMV formats encoded with the Windows Media DRM

[@Longplay_Games]

@@rubeusvombatus That's a very good point, well taken.

[@generikz]

Same here, my OPPO UDP-205 "MQA compatible" wouldn't read MQA CDs so I sold all the 3 MQA test discs. Turns out it would only decode over streaming, which I didn't have as TIDAL was not available in Japan without a VPN back then! MQA = Many Questions, no Answers

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

And answers you may never get. The original company behind MQA went belly-up and their assets were sold off not too long after.

[@fosterb247]

Thanks Mat - Splendid 'Low Res' info on yet another 'Hi Res' audio format 🤓

[@RealThorwegian]

Guy from Norway here. Good channel you're running.

[@zachwhitbeck7618]

Would it be possible to see the spectrograms of the three different recordings you made? Visibly seeing the sampling frequency might yield more discernable differences

[@petrushka1611]

I second this. The spectrograms should reveal a lot more.

[@joeclayton2875]

Good point. That would be the final available test to determine objective difference I'm sure should there be any

[@vink6163]

The problem is if it's analogue, then you're ultimately limited by the DAC they're using, and the ADC in your recording device. So unless you're using lab-grade equipment it's going to struggle to pick up the differences. You could avoid this by doing a completely digital recording, but then you'd have to make sure it's above 16-bit/44kHz because that's what you get off a CD anyway. So if you did a 24-bit/192kHz digital capture then you may just be able to see the differences.

[@peterlarkin762]

It's been done - Goldensound channel: published music on tidal to test mqa video. He started all the backlash against Tidal.

[@Neil_Hanson]

Is that a pair of Fidelio X2 headphones? Out of all the headphones I've owned those will be forever my favourites.

[@MBeeching]

The X2's were good value and very entertaining, no longer my daily driver but kept hold of them as a spare.

[@WelkySchullin]

thx for the objective view... It really depends if the affort ends up with better result than in 80s.

[@mwk1]

I really appreciate that you - being the only yt channel I know - turned off this STUPID "for you" section that pops up right on the top, so I don't have to double-click in order to go to new videos! THANK YOU ❤