MQA on Internet Radio

[Ex_Vintage]

Radio Paradise in collaboration with the Lenbrook Group ( think Bluesound, NAD,Peachtree and others) is sending out MQA quality on their 4 different streams starting April 6th. I just updated my BluOS system today on my Node 2i and my SMSL DAC reports 88.2kHz. Sounds wonderful and free!

[vcautokid]

Well if the variety is there, sounds like a win.

[KeithL]

I do have an interesting question there.... and that is: "Exactly what 'MQA' are they using?"

I ask this because MQA is many different things.

An album can actually be RECORDED from the beginning using MQA.

While this is technically lossy, MQA claims to make better choices about what data to carefully preserve, and it supposedly works pretty well.

But there are VERY few of these.

An album can be REMASTERED in MQA.

When you do that you apply "MQA processing" to a digital master of album that was not originally mastered in MQA.

When you do this it changes the sound - sometimes significantly and sometimes not.

It is claimed that these changes bring the result "closer to the analog original" (which may be true - but they are still changes).

This is what has been done to albums that have been "reissued on MQA" - like you get on Tidal.

(You may or may not find the difference pleasing.)

A streaming service can use the MQA streaming CODEC.

This is simply a high quality compression CODEC which is supposed to be better sounding than other LOSSY CODECs.

However, since it does alter the bits, and discard content that is deemed "not worth preserving", it is still technically a LOSSY CODEC.

(If you send an ordinary CD using this CODEC the bits that come out WILL NOT be bit-perfect relative to the bits on the original CD.)

(This may or may not alter the sound in the same way as "MQA remastering" - it sort of depends on exactly how each is processed.)

Please note that this is not necessarily a bad thing - and it may sound very nice.

(And, from the technical description, MQA sounds like it should be a very effective streaming CODEC.)

So it would be useful to know if they're actually offering MQA remastered content...

Or have merely chosen MQA as their streaming CODEC...

Apr 14, 2021 23:17:19 GMT -5 Ex_Vintage said:

Radio Paradise in collaboration with the Lenbrook Group ( think Bluesound, NAD,Peachtree and others) is sending out MQA quality on their 4 different streams starting April 6th. I just updated my BluOS system today on my Node 2i and my SMSL DAC reports 88.2kHz. Sounds wonderful and free!

[Ex_Vintage]

Apr 15, 2021 8:52:31 GMT -5 KeithL said:

I do have an interesting question there.... and that is: "Exactly what 'MQA' are they using?"

I ask this because MQA is many different things.

An album can actually be RECORDED from the beginning using MQA.

While this is technically lossy, MQA claims to make better choices about what data to carefully preserve, and it supposedly works pretty well.

But there are VERY few of these.

An album can be REMASTERED in MQA.

When you do that you apply "MQA processing" to a digital master of album that was not originally mastered in MQA.

When you do this it changes the sound - sometimes significantly and sometimes not.

It is claimed that these changes bring the result "closer to the analog original" (which may be true - but they are still changes).

This is what has been done to albums that have been "reissued on MQA" - like you get on Tidal.

(You may or may not find the difference pleasing.)

A streaming service can use the MQA streaming CODEC.

This is simply a high quality compression CODEC which is supposed to be better sounding than other LOSSY CODECs.

However, since it does alter the bits, and discard content that is deemed "not worth preserving", it is still technically a LOSSY CODEC.

(If you send an ordinary CD using this CODEC the bits that come out WILL NOT be bit-perfect relative to the bits on the original CD.)

(This may or may not alter the sound in the same way as "MQA remastering" - it sort of depends on exactly how each is processed.)

Please note that this is not necessarily a bad thing - and it may sound very nice.

(And, from the technical description, MQA sounds like it should be a very effective streaming CODEC.)

So it would be useful to know if they're actually offering MQA remastered content...

Or have merely chosen MQA as their streaming CODEC...

Apr 14, 2021 23:17:19 GMT -5 Ex_Vintage said:

Radio Paradise in collaboration with the Lenbrook Group ( think Bluesound, NAD,Peachtree and others) is sending out MQA quality on their 4 different streams starting April 6th. I just updated my BluOS system today on my Node 2i and my SMSL DAC reports 88.2kHz. Sounds wonderful and free!

My guess is it is the latter, I believe they are using MQA as their streaming CODEC. In any case, this is a certain improvement over many internet music streams which are as poor as 96kb/s, but may be 128, 256 or at best 320kb/s.

[KeithL]

I suspect you are correct...

And, if so, then there is something well worth pointing out...

You WILL be able to play their content WITHOUT having to specifically "support MQA".

(Most users don't even know that Spotify is using the Ogg Vorbis CODEC... )

The MQA CODEC is both single and double ended... so you can play it with or without "an MQA decoder".

And you may or may not hear an improvement in quality when you play it on software or hardware that "supports" MQA.

(But this does mean that you should expect some variations in the quality of the audio depending on what you play it on.)

In general playing MQA encoded content on non-MQA enabled software or hardware results in a slight LOSS of audio quality...

The MQA decoder then recovers this quality when it decodes the MQA information - supposedly resulting in a net improvement overall.

The basic principle of the MQA CODEC is that it sacrifices less important information to make room for more important information...

(In the case of a streaming CODEC that means they get to deliver a higher quality stream using less bandwidth.)

Here's how the MQA process works...

They basically start by discarding some information that they consider totally unimportant and inaudible...

They then use the space they recover to encode and store some other information that they consider more important...

When you play the resulting data stream through an MQA decoder it extracts this extra information and puts it all back together...

The result is a high resolution data stream that is pretty close to the entire original. 

(And, if you play that data stream without an MQA decoder, the extra information is simply ignored or discarded... )

(But, in the context of Internet Radio in general, the result still isn't bad compared to the alternatives, and the NET result may be better.)

I personally suspect that the most important factor will be that they're at least TRYING to deliver good quality audio via Internet Radio.

The simple reality is that most Internet Radio Stations seem to prioritize low bandwidth... and place audio quality far down their list of priorities.

(And we should never underestimate the benefit of simply paying attention and putting that effort into getting things right. )

Apr 15, 2021 9:55:16 GMT -5 Ex_Vintage said:

Apr 15, 2021 8:52:31 GMT -5 KeithL said:

I do have an interesting question there.... and that is: "Exactly what 'MQA' are they using?"

I ask this because MQA is many different things.

An album can actually be RECORDED from the beginning using MQA.

While this is technically lossy, MQA claims to make better choices about what data to carefully preserve, and it supposedly works pretty well.

But there are VERY few of these.

An album can be REMASTERED in MQA.

When you do that you apply "MQA processing" to a digital master of album that was not originally mastered in MQA.

When you do this it changes the sound - sometimes significantly and sometimes not.

It is claimed that these changes bring the result "closer to the analog original" (which may be true - but they are still changes).

This is what has been done to albums that have been "reissued on MQA" - like you get on Tidal.

(You may or may not find the difference pleasing.)

A streaming service can use the MQA streaming CODEC.

This is simply a high quality compression CODEC which is supposed to be better sounding than other LOSSY CODECs.

However, since it does alter the bits, and discard content that is deemed "not worth preserving", it is still technically a LOSSY CODEC.

(If you send an ordinary CD using this CODEC the bits that come out WILL NOT be bit-perfect relative to the bits on the original CD.)

(This may or may not alter the sound in the same way as "MQA remastering" - it sort of depends on exactly how each is processed.)

Please note that this is not necessarily a bad thing - and it may sound very nice.

(And, from the technical description, MQA sounds like it should be a very effective streaming CODEC.)

So it would be useful to know if they're actually offering MQA remastered content...

Or have merely chosen MQA as their streaming CODEC...

My guess is it is the latter, I believe they are using MQA as their streaming CODEC. In any case, this is a certain improvement over many internet music streams which are as poor as 96kb/s, but may be 128, 256 or at best 320kb/s.

[Ex_Vintage]

Upon further critical listening, I find that streams at 320kb/s sound better than the MQA encoded material from RP.