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RE: Blind Test

Posted by Charles Hansen (M) on November 11, 2017 at 05:23:18

In Reply to: Blind Test posted by Inmate51 on November 10, 2017 at 12:02:38:

> > Either way, if there's a difference, MQA has changed the sound, and that's not good. < <

Apparently not so, in the opinions of Robert Harley, John Atkinson, and Peter McGrath...

Their position is that it is somehow "better", but in no way that makes any sense at all. It is known that the lower 7 or 8 bits are discarded, it is known that all information above 48kHz is discarded, it is known that the octave from 24kHz to 48kHz is rolled off significantly, it is known that there are massive aliasing artifact for both single- and quad-rate files (double-rate seems to be the least damaged in this regard).

Everything we know about MQA *should* make it sound *worse*. Yet in secret tests, done in underground laboratories, where nobody but Uncle Bob knows what really happened, the files magically become "better". And not by a small amount. JA described it as "the birth of a new world". RH described it as "far better than any previous analog or digital playback" system, and a "revolution" equal to that of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the MQA files released on Tidal are known to have come from different masters. Many people prefer the sounds of these, while some do not. Also mastering engineer Brian Lucey has denounced the entire thing as a fraud, making it very clear that it alters the sound in a way that was *not* intended by the actual team that produced the music.

And three years later, Stereophile is planning to do an "investigation" by a PhD in physics who doesn't understand digital technology and thinks that two different DACs with completely different technologies and varying in price by a factor of 3x sound *exactly* identical.

Should we laugh or cry?

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