So, Mani ...
Some people say, ‘I can do a better filter than MQA’, but I say, well actually, you can’t because the encoder and the decoder together make the perfect match… and it’s not the same on every recording. The filter that’s chosen on a 2L recording will be different from one on a jazz recording.
Please keep in mind that this is strictly my own viewpoint (and finding / judgment / reasoning / truth) :
There's a small thinking error in this, and this is the fact that if the DAC isn't doing anything, there also does not need to be a match. And now we're right into the reason of the existence of the NOS1 : it is doing nothing BUT all
needs to be done in software now.
And when talking to the MQA guys, I don't think they ever understood what I was telling them - explaining about the "perfect match" with what our XXHighEnd software does and with what our NOS1 D/A converter does
not.
So it is one big trick which is applied now ...
1. Use the MQA encoded file (or stream);
2. Decode that to 24/96 (or any rate which is put in there for the first unfold and which can be 16/44 up to 24/96);
3. Apply a filter which suits the MQA deblurred data best;
4. Do nothing further (NOS DAC).
Of course it is about #3 in combination with #4 (which latter is "nothing" but totally crucial).
Of course it is also about what #3 is contentual, which should be a filter which not blurs the data again (no ringing).
So sure I can (at least theoretically) make a better filter, if I only use a DAC which does not destroy it;
The only match required is the match between the MQA's mastering console output (which is a computer program) and my software which I can make myself in ONE version only (but several *unlimited) to try) and which in itself does not need to match anything any more.
It would even be so that where we output to say 24/352.8 the least (assumed all DAC's will be doing that shortly), no filter in that DAC will have a chance of being destructive and we're set with any DAC. This is no different from people using XXHighEnd, some filter setting and like it for the better. So there too, the DAC's filter is overruled (at least to some extent and only when NOS *and* "analog filterless" it is by guarantee.
Solved.
There is way, way more of importance in the small paragraph above, because we can have a normal digital volume control, we can use DSP and we can, yep, have our own filtering. All of this is not really possible with MQA hardware involved, or it must have been made on a DAC (brand) per DAC basis. This is idiot of course and the sheer reason why I set it up like this. Well, sort of, because I wasn't given the opportunity to solve the problem of the
requirement (I put to MQA) to control all this from software as we are used to, which requirement was not met, so it appeared.
Then a few more things from that interview :
Lossy means : can't reconstruct the original.
Here is where Mr Stuart has it all wrong (and the reason for the solution above) :
-
A DAC is lossy. No, not when it is NOS/Filterless.
-
A volume control is lossy. No, not the one in XXHighEnd.
-
Filter in FAC chip is lossy. No, not when we have no filter.
-
Each time you play it back it is different because of the filter. Funny, because my own invention/claim (9 years or so ago). But no, because you first must have a "rolling" filter for that but we use a genuine interpolator.
So you see, based on a few thinking errors we can achieve the same, or better. And if we'd see that
virtually the NOS1 is our MQA renderer, then of course we made a specially matching filter for that (hey, I created Arc Prediction because any DAC hardware was in sight and only was in the drawing board -
in NOS form).
So what needs to match ?
The deblurred file with a not-blurring DAC but WITH decent filter.
As I said, I told them, but they never understood (or they thought I wouldn't get there - also fine).
There's also this :
Nobody that I can see anywhere knows that the deblurring is in the file when we obtain it from Tidal, thus before decoding. I reasoned that out a 100 times because it couldn't be elsewhere. Now, I watched ONE video where Bob Stuart is interviewed (I really never looked at a single one before) and he mentions it in there at least two times.
"
... deblurring in the studio ..."
"
Without decoder MQA is already better than CD, because it has been deblurred already."
And this is exactly why I already know the benefit of "just 44.1 (or 48)" in MQA being better then CD or even more better because no possibility for fake upsampling etc., which was promised to me to be there, and which by now IS there (for a longer time, but not when I put the question back in March or April, 2017).
Try this one :
https://listen.tidal.com/album/80896952And promise yourself to only try this one after 20 minutes or so, if you can stop listening to the first one anyway :
https://listen.tidal.com/album/80430588(copy paste in the General field in Search).
One more new-ish hint : Select 8x Sampling Rate in XXHighEnd and the High Custom filter for 352800.
This sounds good if not better to me, but merely is related to MQA's I found failing at 16x (768000) but with a little hint that more could be going on as more fails. This is a different subject for now.
Have fun !
Peter
PS: Thank you very much, Mani.
