Reference

MQA: Aliasing, B-Splines, Centers of Gravity On Karlheinz Brandenburg and MP3

Sidebar 2: On Karlheinz Brandenburg and MP3

In the March 2018 issue of Stereophile, in my account of the involvement of Karlheinz Brandenburg and the Fraunhofer Institute's facilitation of MP3 and file sharing, I inadvertently aped Brandenburg's own sanitized account. In interviews, Brandenburg has claimed that, in 1997, an Austrian graduate student bought a copy of the MP3 encoder and shared it online via an FTP site; that's the account I repeated last month. But in his excellent book How Music Got Free: A Story of Obsession and Invention (Viking Penguin, 2015), Stephen Witt makes a strong case that Brandenburg and his team of engineers had begun giving away encoders at audio shows several years before that, in an ultimately successful effort to win the race against MP2 and other competing technologies. Brandenburg has often stated his opposition to file sharing. But if Witt's account is correct, Brandenburg's business decisions—intentional and shrewd—contributed directly to the creation of the file-sharing ecosystem that decimated the record industry ca 2000.—Jim Austin

COMMENTS
dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on May 26, 2018 - 8:42am

Adding to the above, a good tube/valve amp needs more power than the solid state types, so extra accomodation is required there. Sometimes the sound makes it very beneficial.

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on May 26, 2018 - 10:01am

You can use external power conditioners for cleaning up electricity ........ AQ makes several of these power conditioners ........ Also PS audio makes them ....... At least dozen other companies make these power conditioners .......... Many of these including AQ and PS audio are very favorably reviewed in Stereophile ....... RH-5 can put out a lot of "juice" ....... RH-5 has 3 different gain settings ......... It can drive any 'phone ....... I use Hugo2 which is battery powered (internal supply) ........ It can easily drive a lot of high efficiency low impedance 'phones including my Lcd-x and Lcd-MX4 ....... It has problem driving low efficiency high impedance 'phones like my Lcd-4 ...... Hugo2 sounds great with my high efficiency low impedance 'phones ....... Hugo2 is very favorably reviewed by many (and many "golden ear") audio reviewers ........

dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on May 26, 2018 - 11:58am

I like AudioQuest products a lot, so I wouldn't hesitate to buy their power solution for a small amp that puts out maybe 5-10 watts of power. If you do have the power, chances are you'll like the lower efficiency headphones best. A lot of people read headphone specs and get "just enough" power, then they find out that a lot of the amps do a kind of "soft" clipping where the sound isn't too harsh, but some of the dynamics get squished.

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on May 26, 2018 - 12:24pm

Agreed ......... RH-5 puts out enough power, it can drive any 'phone ......... Like I mentioned, it has 3 gain level settings as well ........... Check out AQ Niagara power conditioners .......... They have several of them ......... They are very favorably reviewed by many audio reviewers ..........

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on May 27, 2018 - 7:43am

Speaking about EQ, are you familiar with Sonarworks? ........Are you already using their EQ? ......... If not, check them out .......... They have several different EQs for several different 'phones ........ I saw Elear in the list but not Clear (yet) ........... Regarding Rogue RH-5, there are many reviews listed on Rogue Audio website including Stereophile review ........... R.A website also has all the specifications of RH-5 ........

dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on May 27, 2018 - 7:51am

On this page you'll see Audioforge pages 1-10, with thumbnails and full photos of the curves I've created for nearly 200 headphones.

http://dalethorn.com/Photos.html

On this page, among other things, you'll see item 3 Headphone EQ with Audioforge Equalizer, which has the intro and precise settings for the images as noted above. Frequency, 'Q', and amplitude. Below that is item 4, Headphone EQ with Audioforge Tutorial. The tutorial is very brief, but helps a person understand what's involved and what's the goal (i.e. natural sound, NOT correction for individual hearing.)

http://dalethorn.com/Hifi2.html

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on May 27, 2018 - 9:41am

Thanks for your info ......... I will check those websites as you recommended ............ The poor impulse response of any transducer (mics, headphones, loudspeakers) can cause IMD and TDD (time domain distortion) ......... None of these transducers (so far) have perfect impulse response ...... Ehrlund says their triangular diaphragm (in the mics) has the best impulse response, hence the least amount of IMD and TDD ........... The MQA description of "blurring" could be IMD ...... Of course they also talk about TDD ....... My thinking is ...... are these distortions originating from the microphone? They may not be originating from the digital recording ......... The old computer saying "garbage in garbage out" may apply here ........ THD is different, although the origin of THD could be from the microphone ........ People measure THD+N ......... Is the "noise" originating from the microphone? ......... As I said before, I was trying to connect all the dots ........ Poor impulse response could also cause high Q factor .......... This could be the "ringing" Ehrlund describes ..........

dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on May 27, 2018 - 12:08pm

This is such a huge topic it will have multiple answers. First, the ehrlund mic reviews make it pretty clear that they are less a factor in distortions than most anything else. If you have time, check out the IsoMike site and maybe follow its logic to see how the left-right isolation reduces phase and other similar problems. Note that this is NOT specific to a particular microphone - it's a technique, and the Chopin Last Waltz recording is a great example.

http://isomike.com/he2004.html

One of the reasons a parametric equalizer is vital is because of strong narrow peaks and dips in the response, and you need a good continuous tone sweep to be sure where such narrow deviations occur. So even if you have a ringing problem, you may be able to suppress a particular peak in the response where the ringing is worst, enough to make your music listenable and enjoyable without losing that frequency entirely.

I can't guess exactly what MQA is doing, but as long as I have a good parametric equalizer I can make partial corrections for nearly anything, at least until a problem is so bad that a loss of detail in the area of that problem or distortion becomes so obvious that it can't be ignored - and then it's time to replace some hardware.

I like to find good gear at a reasonable price, but I respect the fact that the higher priced gear usually sounds better - not because it's always more neutral and detailed, but because it usually fixes a lot of the issues that cheaper gear can't.

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on May 26, 2018 - 9:15am

You can use external power conditioners for cleaning up electricity ........ AQ makes several of these power conditioners ........ Also PS audio makes them ....... At least dozen other companies make these power conditioners .......... Many of these including AQ and PS audio are very favorably reviewed in Stereophile ....... RH-5 can put out a lot of "juice" ........ It can drive any 'phone ....... I use Hugo2 which is battery powered (internal supply) ........ It can easily drive a lot of high efficiency low impedance 'phones including my Lcd-x and Lcd-MX4 ....... It has problem driving low efficiency high impedance 'phones like my Lcd-4 ...... Hugo2 sounds great with my high efficiency low impedance 'phones ....... Hugo2 is very favorably reviewed by many (and many "golden ear") audio reviewers ........

Bogolu Haranath's picture
Submitted by Bogolu Haranath on May 24, 2018 - 12:02pm

Visit the website before you make up your mind, please ....... It is free ....... There are several videos, reviews and comments by several artists and recoding engineers, you can find on Google search ....... You can ask dalethorn above for further information ......... He posted some comments above about these microphones as well .........

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