Schiit Yggdrasil DAC and MQA

Don Hills

Well-Known Member
Jun 20, 2013
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Wellington, New Zealand
... The MQA targeted version of test tracks should be mastered to optimize the signal time-domain, where as the RBCD and High-Rez targeted version of those same test tracks should be mastered to optimize the signal frequency-domain, which is how they are typically mastered for commercial release. ...

Tracks are never "mastered to optimise the signal frequency-domain". They are mastered to sound how the mastering engineer and producer, at a minimum, want them to sound. For previously mastered releases, this means the way they sound through a traditional "frequency domain optimised" chain. Processing them with MQA results in a variation from the released version. The record label doesn't go back for approval to the people who signed off the original though, they just release the MQA version. This won't matter to the vast majority, but a significant proportion of audiophiles won't be happy.
As you point out, and I have also pointed out elsewhere, mastering for MQA requires an MQA chain in the mastering studio. Having to send a mix away for MQA to add the secret sauce, receive and listen to the result, tweak and repeat is too cumbersome a workflow. This also implies that the secret sauce flavour, namely the choice of leaky filters that results in the maximum aliasing and imaging with the minimum of audible damage, should be under mastering engineer control. Of course, it also leads to the likelihood that a mastering engineer will prefer the sound of one of the less than optimum filter sets... :cool:
 

Ken Newton

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Dec 11, 2012
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...actually if the frequency of sampling is twice above the upper frequency of the natural band limited content i.e. of the microphones, then a brick wall filter will exhibit no pre ringing

Hi, awsmone, I want to address your above interesting point a bit deeper.

Any filter with a ringing transient response will exhibit some amount of ringing if subjected to a transient signal. The shorter the transient (the more it approaches an Dirac function) the more readily apparent will be that ringing. Conversely, the longer the transient (the more it approaches a continuous function) the less readily apparent will be that ringing. Below, is an illustrative example utilizing an transient signal of frequency one-quarter the sample rate (essentially, a ten cycle tone burst at only half the Nyquist frequncy), and how a brickwall FIR anti-alias filter still significantly stretches/smears that transient.

Here's the illustration: Take 10 cycles of an Fs/4 digitized tone burst to represent a transient and pass it through an 255 stage linear phase FIR filter. The 10 cycle burst will on average have a duration of 4 samples/cycle = 40 total sample periods. After the burst is passed through the 255 stage filter the 40 sample tone burst will be stretched from 40 sample periods to, 40 + 255 = 295 sample periods. An factor more than 7. This stretching mechanism is absolutely no issue with infinitely continuous signals, which are what the sampling theorem stipulates. However, it does objectively distort transient signal information, which, of course, is what music is complexly composed.
 
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Don Hills

Well-Known Member
Jun 20, 2013
366
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323
Wellington, New Zealand
... Below, is an illustrative example utilizing an transient signal of frequency one-quarter the sample rate (essentially, a ten cycle tone burst at only half the Nyquist frequncy), and how a brickwall FIR anti-alias filter still significantly stretches/smears that transient.
...

That is expected, because that tone burst contains information exceeding the Nyquist frequency.
 

Ken Newton

Well-Known Member
Dec 11, 2012
243
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95
That is expected, because that tone burst contains information exceeding the Nyquist frequency.

An FS/4 tone is at half the Nyquist frequency. The tone does not in itself contain frequency components above the system Nyquist. What it does is reveal the transient handling flaw of band limited sampling. The tone is perfectly sampled so long as it not only continues forever in to the future, but forever back in to past as well. Meaning, not only will it always exist, but HAS always existed. Transients, which defines any real world signal, is not perfectly handled. In a great many DSP applications transient handling simply is inconsequential. For music, however....?
 
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jackson_k

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Jan 19, 2019
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I guess the dCS Vivaldi, the MSB Select II, the Brinkmann Nyquist and the Meridian 808v6, 818v3, Meridian Ultra aren't what you consider "decent high end DAC's. What a joke.
Guys , i have a Meridian 818V3 and its sound great when compared to Totaldac as well, but what do you guys feel about 818V3 when compared to once’s like MSB , playback etc., I know people sometimes don’t wanna take Meridian as an “ audiophile. Hi-end “ product , but It is beautifully built and sounds pretty good too !
 

Kingsrule

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Feb 3, 2011
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I had all versions of 818 up to v3. After several dCS missteps, I settled on MSB SII. The 818 not very good.....
 

microstrip

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I have no experience with the current Meridian 818 series, but owned the 808 CD player and it sounded very good - the friend who got it had a great sound with cj electronics.

Although I appreciated the Meridian sound quality at that time I felt that their products were over priced unless you were using their full capabilities in a Meridian system. The modular approach and extra functionality increased the price considerably and users of simple stereo two channel analog systems were paying for a lot of features they would not use.
 

microstrip

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I had all versions of 818 up to v3. After several dCS missteps, I settled on MSB SII. The 818 not very good.....

I agree, IMHO using a DCS to drive solid state amplfiers directly is a big misstep ...
 
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Al M.

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I agree, IMHO using a DCS to drive solid state amplfiers directly is a big misstep ...

Digital volume controls of DACs are mostly inferior to the configuration fixed out > preamp. Even in the MSB family the MSB Select II seems to be an exception in that reportedly it has such an excellent internal preamp that it does not necessitate the DAC > preamp route.

Comparing MSB Select II with dCS Vivaldi both driving power amps directly is thus probably not a useful comparison indeed.
 

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