As promised in my last blog post about software MQA decoding, I have been wanting to have a peek and listen to hardware decoding. Due to the proprietary nature of the MQA firmware as well as the fact that we don't have access to MQA encoder software, there is only so much we can do to explore the effect on an audio signal. Ideally, encoding a test signal and then decoding would be the best way
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COMPARISON: Hardware-Decoded MQA (using Mytek Brooklyn DAC)
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MUSINGS: Discussion on the MQA filter (and filters in general)...
Here's an interesting comment from the post last week...
CBee 7 February 2017 at 04:47
Excellent
article but I have one query. On Sound on Sound they say "MQA claim
that the total impulse-response duration is reduced to about 50µs (from
around 500µs for a standard 24/192 system), and that the leading-edge
uncertainty of transients comes down to just 4µs (from roughly 250µs in a
24/
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MEASUREMENTS: Roon 1.2 (with Intel NUC 6i5SYH)
NOTE: I know that just a couple weeks ago, version 1.3 of Roon has been released and
I'll perhaps look into that a bit later once some of the initial bugs are stamped out and the system matures a little. Clearly 1.3 has a few new
interesting features but the basic bit-perfect playback function I trust would be
the same which is what I'm aiming at exploring in this article.
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MEASUREMENTS: A look & listen to Roon Bridge - Raspberry Pi 3 Streaming (HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro & USB DAC)
Last time, I talked about Roon and discussed my experience with it using the NUC as the primary installation and playback. No doubt, you are aware that many people will use inexpensive devices like the Raspberry Pi 3 to handle playback distributed around one's home... And no doubt you've also come across much hyping about more expensive, low power devices when for around $100 and a little
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MUSINGS: Computer Audio Part I: Demystifying "Computer Audio Demystified"
It's nice to see that some of the seminars at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) 2016 have been posted on YouTube. It gives all of us who may have wanted to visit a chance to review the "latest and greatest" tips and updates...
Although the RMAF is hosted by the Colorado Audio Society, remember that much of the material comes from Industry; with of course the potential for vested
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MUSINGS: Computer Audio Part II: The Basics & Suggestions
For many readers, I'm sure what I'm about to write here is relatively "old hat" by now... However, in the spirit of "Computer Audio Demystified" last week, let's talk about this powerful way of storing, categorizing, and playing our music by exploring some aspects of the foundation of computer audio in a way I hope newcomers will find reasonably accessible. I do make some assumptions in the
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HOWTO: Building and Installing the Raspberry Pi 3 "Touch" Audio Streamer.
Raspberry Pi 3 + 7" Touchscreen (left) and Squeezebox Touch (right): for the Pi device, I still had the plastic screen protector on in the picture, hence
the bottom left tab...
I showed you guys this picture last time of the Raspberry Pi 3-based Streamer device with official 7" touchscreen and HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro. As you can see from the image, it's very much capable of being a "clone" of the
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MUSINGS: Do we "need" those >20kHz ultrasonic frequencies for high-fidelity audio?
Recently I received this excellent question and link about ultrasonic frequencies from the Computer Audiophile site:
Hi, Archimago. Visit your blog frequently and find your posts
enlightening and entertaining at times without the usual smoke and
mirrors.
What caught my eye in the musings on MQA utilizing the Mytek Brooklyn DAC
was the selection of a musical reference which had
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MEASUREMENTS: Oppo BDP-105 RCA, XLR, HDMI, and other stuff for the record (like MQA CDs?!)...
Recently, I was looking at my directory of audio measurement data and realized that I forgot to put up the measurements I had collected on the Oppo BDP-105 Blu-Ray player that I borrowed from a friend in late 2016. I believe the BDP-105 has been discontinued in anticipation of the next generation flagship. The last version of the 105 was the BDP-105D which added DarbeeVision DSP video processing.
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COMPARISON: MQA "Authentication" & Sound Quality? (Mytek Brooklyn & Meridian Explorer2)
You've probably heard or read the catch phrases from MQA over the years. "Revolutionary", "TAKE ME THERE"... "To the original performance..." Or how about using phrases like "end-to-end technology"?
As I have said over the last few months, I don't like talking about MQA based on my general impression of what they're trying to do and the way they try to convey supposed "value" to the
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RETRO-MEASURE: 2002 Lynx L22 PCI audio card in a ~2008 Intel Q6600 Computer! (On "computers are noisy!" for audio)
As many of you probably know, Mitch "Mitchco" Barnett is a regular contributor to the Computer Audiophile website with his articles. He's also the author of the book Accurate Sound Reproduction Using DSP (now available in paperback). A great guy who has logged many hours back in the day in the audio production world!
The cool thing is that Mitch doesn't live far from where I am and last year,
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MEASUREMENTS: Windows 10 Creators Update USB Audio Class 2 Driver. (And a request of Neil Young / XStream.)
It has arrived... Finally... Microsoft's USB Audio Class 2 (UAC2) native Windows driver has been released with the recent Windows 10 Creators Update ("CU", version 1703, build 15063.138). I updated my home theater PC and when I plugged in my TEAC UD-501 DAC to the USB port (with no TEAC driver installed), Windows detected it and proceeded with the device set-up automatically.
Considering
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PREVIEW: Oppo Sonica DAC (Thanks Oppo for making it right... On the rationale for technical perfection.)
Usually, I don't post many "preview" type articles, preferring to give you guys "the goods" when I've had an adequate amount of time with a device (usually at least a month or so) including measurements and such. I'll discuss why I'm posting this earlier as we go along...
Well, this is what showed up at my door last week:
That's of course the recently released Oppo Sonica DAC. A "hi-fi" USB,
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MUSINGS: On Being an Audiophile, Rationality, and Respectability (Thoughts on the Hardware Audiophile Hobby)
For the post today, I thought it would be interesting to take a step back from my usual measurements and various objective explorations and spend some time thinking about the "audiophile" hobby; you know - the big picture.
For some, the idea of "rational audiophilia" as suggested in the image above might sound oxymoronic. After all, anyone who spends thousands of dollars and hours upon
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MEASUREMENTS: Raspberry Pi 3 "Touch" music streamer
The music being played is the soundtrack from Japanese anime Your Name (Kimi No Na Wa). Saw it with the family last week - great flick!
A few weeks ago when I described the building of the Raspberry Pi 3-based music streamer with touchscreen (I'll just call it "Pi Touch" in this post), I promised that I was going to publish some measurement results.
Well... Let's have a look at those results!
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MEASUREMENTS: SMSL iDEA USB DAC / Headphone Amp (ESS Sabre ES9018Q2C + XMOS XU208)
In 2015, ESS revealed its latest generation of DACs at the CES show. One of the interesting new products revealed was the SABRE9018Q2C, a tiny 5mm x 5mm SoC claiming very high audio quality out of an integrated DAC/headphone amp operating with low power along with the ability to decode a wide range of sample rates.
I was contacted by ZugZugOrc on Computer Audiophile to have a look at a recently
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MUSINGS / MEASUREMENTS: Thoughts on Vinyl LP Fidelity... (And thoughts on Sgt. Pepper's 50th Anniversary Remix.)
Alright... Let's not get worked up about the cartoon :-).
I know, the debate between vinyl and CD (digital) remains one of the greatest "wars" of the audio world; not that it should be a big deal IMO... As usual in most audiophile conflicts, there are many words spilled about the topic, but it is rare to see "data" or actual direct comparisons. For example, look at Wikipedia's entry for "
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MEASUREMENTS: Oppo Sonica DAC (ESS Sabre ES9038Pro based device)
My Raspberry Pi 3 "Touch" on top of the Oppo Sonica DAC - notice the DAC can handle up to PCM 768kHz (and DSD512 / 22.4MHz).
A few weeks ago, I published the preview of the new Oppo Sonica DAC and noted some issues I ran into with unusual jitter and digital filter measurements. Thankfully, Oppo was able to correct the issues within a week with the beta firmware and I see that the official
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MEASUREMENTS: Audioquest Dragonfly Black 1.5 - PART 1 (General)
Four USB mini-DAC's (back to front): Light Harmonic Geek Out V2, Audioquest Dragonfly Black, SMSL iDEA, AudioEngine D3.
As I showed a couple weeks ago, I have in my possession one of the Audioquest Dragonfly Black DACs for testing. I'm actually borrowing it from a friend so it's not going to be in my possession for long... Long enough for me to listen and run some objective testing to see what
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MEASUREMENTS: AudioQuest Dragonfly Black 1.5 - PART 2 (On "MQA Rendering")
AudioQuest Dragonfly Black - "rendering" MQA playback. Dragonfly logo turns purplish...
For those keeping track, the story of MQA has slowly evolved over the last few years. Initially, it was supposed to be just a technology incorporated into DACs that would take an encoded file (typically 24/44 or 24/48) and almost "magically" transform this data into the "original" high resolution (
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