MQA

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FeaturesMQAReference
MQA: Questions and Answers
J. Robert Stuart  |  Aug 11, 2016  | 
Author's Note: We are grateful to Stereophile for the opportunity to address some frequently repeated technical questions appearing in comments to articles. Recently this has included misunderstandings about noise calculation, dynamic range, resolution, definition, music spectra, channel capacity, lossless processing and temporal aspects of digital channels.

To simplify this document we have grouped the topics and set them as questions and answers either as response, tutorial or axiom. Some months ago we published a comprehensive Q&A for an online forum and to avoid repetition we occasionally refer to topics already discussed there (see [37] in the "References" sidebar).—J. Robert Stuart

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As We See ItMQA
MQA: Some Claims Examined
John Atkinson  |  Dec 11, 2017  | 
"The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point."—Claude Shannon

Since its announcement at the end of 2014, Master Quality Authenticated, the MQA encoding/decoding system, has spawned outspoken criticism. Some of the more thoughtful negative reactions have come from engineers such as Dan Lavry, Bruno Putzeys, and Daniel Weiss. Others have been expressed by manufacturers of digital products: the late Charley Hansen at Ayre Acoustics, for example, along with Jason Stoddard and Mike Moffat at Schiit Audio, John Siau at Benchmark Media Systems, and Jim Collinson at Linn Products. Some have been audio writers: Doug Schneider, at SoundStage!, and Paul Miller and Jim Lesurf, at Hi-Fi News. Most vociferous have been anonymous website posters. As Jim Austin remarks in his examination of MQA's decoding of impulse-response data elsewhere in this issue, "the nastiness online is unprecedented."

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AXPONA 2017Jana DagdaganMQA
MQA: Yes or No? An AXPONA 2017 Poll
Jana Dagdagan  |  May 05, 2017  | 
With any large gathering of people who share a common passion, one is bound to encounter polarizing issues and the fiercely opinionated standing on either side. In the world, it's politics and religion. In our world, it's tubes vs solid-state, whether cables really matter or not, and, most recently . . . Master Quality Authenticated.
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MQARecording of the Month
Recording of April 2018: Fairytales: Original Master Edition (MQA)
John Atkinson  |  Mar 20, 2018  | 
Radka Toneff & Steve Dobrogosz: Fairytales: Original Master Edition (MQA)
Odin LP03 (original LP, 1982); Odin CD9561 (24-bit/48kHz MQA-encoded FLAC file; Tidal Masters stream; hybrid MQA-CD; original sample rate 192kHz; 2017). Arild Andersen, prod. (1982, 2017); Andreas Risanger Meland, exec. prod. (2017); Tore Skille, Tom Sætre, original engs.; Svein Vatshaug, Rune Sund Nordmark, recorder restoration; Thomas Baårdsen, Geir Iversen, digital transfer of original tapes; Morten Lindberg, Peter Craven, Bob Stuart, digital restoration; Erik Gard Amundsen, technical advisor. DAA (original LP); DDD (MQA). Except: "My Funny Valentine," ADA (LP), ADD (MQA). TT: 40:11
Performance ******
Sonics ******

"See her how she flies . . ." When I first heard that lyric, from Jim Webb's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," sung by a hauntingly fragile woman's voice and supported by a sparse yet lyrical piano accompaniment, at an audio show in 1983, I got chills. Who was this empathetic singer? Back in my cabaret-musician days, more than four decades ago, I backed so many singers with beautiful-sounding pipes but who didn't seem to comprehend the meaning of the words—yet this unknown woman directly communicated the song's emotion.

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InterviewsMQA
Spencer Chrislu: Master Quality Authenticated
Jim Austin  |  Aug 16, 2016  | 
Most people who have heard music recordings encoded with Master Quality Authenticated agree that it sounds really goood (footnote 1)—but even they recognize that at least one major challenge remains: ensuring that listeners can actually get, in MQA format, the music they most love. I spoke with Spencer Chrislu, MQA's director of content services, about the company's efforts to meet this challenge.
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FeaturesMQAReference
Zen & the Art of A/D Conversion
John Atkinson  |  Aug 14, 2018  | 
In a series of recent feature articles for Stereophile, Jim Austin has examined how the controversial MQA codec works: "MQA Tested, Part 1," "MQA Tested Part 2: Into the Fold," "MQA Contextualized," "MQA, DRM, and Other Four-Letter Words," and, most recently, "MQA: Aliasing, B-Splines, Centers of Gravity." I doubt there is a Stereophile reader who is unaware of the fracas associated with MQA, and I have been repeatedly criticized on web forums for describing its underlying concept as "elegant."

But elegant it is, I feel.

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