Hey Colin,

The situation is IMO more vague and therefore more complex to explain / reason out;

A CD will never upsample in a normal CD Player. And if it is MQA adaptive, I think it still will not do that. If I am correct in this, there will also be no unfold.
Additionally I already know there is no unfold. Why ? because it is known that it is a 16 bit original. So what could happen is that it can be upsampled, but THAT is only fake and in the end the very same as most software these days do - including XXHE. One thing : this upsampling is for a very good reason : digital (reconstruction) filtering.

Combine this with the new rules for all MQA adaptive software (like Roon) : it will upsample by default. This - as how I see is - was literally sneaked in 3-4 years ago, and only later MQA & Bob claimed to have 16 bit MQA. I say : BS. But the nasty thing is : you can not see this any more when the software (like Roon) is dictated to upsample 2x by standard (read : it is not allowed under the MQA regime to bypass that).

And so you are fooled.
But not by me.

I have no doubt that you, Colin, are able to tweak the MQA 16 bits in your current version of XXHE (I can't do that any more) so you have it "unfolded". OK, now ask for a Spectogram of it. Show us that Spectrogram (after trying a few albums/tracks) and/or give your judgment of what you see.
One thing : I can show you numerous (if not about all) Spectrograms of MQA 24 bit unfolding to 88.2 or 96, which all show proper HiRes (while these ever back were very hard to find on e.g. HDTracks).

Best regards,
Peter

It has only be this Christmas time that the configuration from Roberto excelled even more than I already knew. This is because no matter how old the recording (OK, skip the cylinders) it just sounds like new from today with the advantage that back then they did not know about compression really. :-)
I screamed about old recordings (old hits from the 60s - begin 70s) more often, but now it is sooo profound.

It is and remains unbelievable what a USB cable can do. And that it is able to change sound in the first place ...

Roberto, I am just thanking you again. And I can't even imagine on behalf of how many more people that is.

Regards,
Peter

Hi Colin and all - Happy New Year !


It is a technical thing; You can't "unfold" to double the rate without adding a bit (I am referring to the bits in bytes). Thus would you do that, then level information is chopped off. This is not easy to grasp ...

When the 16/44.1 is transferred to 24/88.2 (sorry about using my own bits/sampling rate language), then you'd say that a sufficient amount of bits have been added (namely . But this has to be approached from the other side : how can the 16 bits contain information about MQA while not FIRST consuming bits for that.
This is how a 24/44.1 is different, because the required headroom for level information is still only 2x for 2x more sampling rate. Very indirectly I am now saying that a 88.2 native file, only needs to be 17 bits and not 24 as how it is presented to us. But *that* is because how bits and bytes and converters work - they jump by the 8 (one byte) although 4 would also be possible. But not 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 etc.

From MQA which really unfolds it is known that only 17 bits real data are used. Maybe mr. MQA / Bob Stuart was not really stupid, and he apparently knows a few things.

Now to the conclusion :
When 16/44.1 would be liable to fold, then first at least one bit has to be removed from the 16 bits, if not three or whatever the reality is.
When 16/.44.1 would be encoded as MQA, in those original 16 bits (from the orginal album) at least one bit is not original any more. And since it is encoded MQA and since this is not only obtained in the FLAC file any more (as you discovered, like me - something like over a year ago), then it *has* to be the file itself which is molested. And since 16 bits is not already all that much it is, well, molested.
Apart from these more vague conclusions, the main conclusion is that when 16/44.1 MQA is transferred to 24.88.2, nothing unfolds as such - it is upsampled only.

Maybe now it is clear better why I simply avoid these 16/44.1 - they are fake as fake can be, plus technically worse.

Additionally to all there's this :
The official MQA decoding standard as of the last 2 years (don't pin me down on that period of time) is that no MQA denoted album will ever play at 44.1 or 48. It will only play at double the base rate (the rate in the file). The only player which does not comply to that is XXHE. So the only player where you can still see the truth (whatever that's worth) is XXHE. You could also say that from the start I did my stinking best to show all the various truths within MQA (try that with Roon or the Tidal app etc. and you will get nowhere).
The kind of verdict of this little story is that nobody is able to see any more what's 16/44.1 because ALL is upsampled to begin with, whether it is justified or not. Thus, whether you let "unfold" your 16/44.1 MQA to 24/88.2 or let e.g. XXHighEnd do that, it is no less than upsampling - and it is up to you whether you apply that or not (sampling rate slider). However, what happens with MQA now, is that good 16/44.1 albums are transferred to (processed with) MQA fake stuff, and next they are upsampled. A more worse situation does not exist. Better would be your beloved 16/44.1 being upsampled by good means to 24/88.2, or what we are used to : to 24/705.6.

---

Last thing : *Because* XXHighEnd's MQA does not contain an unfold from 16/44.1 to 24/88.2 (it really hasn't), all what would be happening is that by the means of your tweaking of the .MTT file, XXHighEnd sets the sampling rate to 2x the original, and it will upsample herself to that, prior to your sampling rate slider being involved and upsampling further (like to 705.6).

Maybe it starts to be clear somewhat how it virtually has become impossible to make something out of all this mess, with Tidal in the background also changing things (and a next dimension being that FLAC file which *was* some last resort which its header data - but which got killed).
It is not undoable (for me), but it requires reasoning around false logic and untruths, coincidentally Bob S. in the front row with that again.

I will (kind of) repeat : there is no logic in what to do with a 16/44.1 (or 16/48) because whatever the logic, it is a lie. And thus in my version over here I just don't present them for search result. That avoids the problem, right ? ehh ... Yes. But because Tidal is changing about all (or at least a LOT) to 16/44.1 MQA, the albums now become unavailable. And it is me who decides that for you. :-( Understand ? this does not feel good at all and it implies infinite postponing of an update (of XXHE) I sure could have.
But one day I will do it anyway ...

Kind regards,
Peter

Colin, man, invaluable !

I wish I could check it thoroughly, but I can't anymore because it was solved for myself. That is, "half" or so, because what I see from Tidal can't be trusted any more. Explanation :

Say half (if not more) of MQA albums are now totally fake. This means that they don't have an unfold at all, but are still denoted MQA. This is not what I see back in your workflow, so I can't see how that must be dealt with (by you, by your scripts, by us users who (apparently ?) must deal with this by eye. ... I hope I make sense so far ?

I recall that the last thing I did - 4 months or so ago - was skipping the MSQ 44.1 (or 48 would they exist) which don't unfold, at all. This is because a. it is too vague to deal with and b. it is literally useless. With the later I mean : I am not enthusiastic about a changed album (processed by whatever means) which does not even have a higher sampling rate than how it is presented at "download". Thus, I avoid those as the plague. XXHighEnd thus avoids those (I forgot for this moment how this shows - probably not at all (the album does not appear in the Library area).

Coincidentally I started to explicitly play MQA's again, lately. What I should do now, is obtain MQA's again, because I stopped with that, say 4 months ago (this is because XXHighEnd was half-finished for them). That way I can see better what is and what is not good - but probably that job is finished already.
On a side note : that leaves the selection (Search) for the albums in general, which is finished for Artists (and works more than great) but must still be done for the other means (Album Name, Track, Album ID). This is because Tidal changed things (a year or so ago) without even telling about it.

Anyway Colin, what you did looks great. Maybe you can elaborate a little on the 44.1 albums which don't unfold anyway, and how you deal with those then.

Cheers,
Peter

So then the question is why the same albums work with me ...
Maybe the base of your OS (the Music Server PC) is Norwegian while mine is English and that makes a difference ?

I would not be surprised if it is the disk "format". I use normal SATA internal disks for storage (previously it included USB connected disks without issues). You ?

Peter

Hi Colin,

I think we saw this maybe 6 months ago already. Or I saw it myself - not sure any more. So I solved this for myself (due for public upgrade of course) but things keep changing out there and I never get around to finalize it. And Yes, the other day I really worked to get it done finally, but something else was the matter again which didn't motivate me to now sort *that* out again. Anyway I recall that the MQARATE was not obtained in the FLAC file any more, so I had to change half of the code to get that to work again.

Meanwhile ...

Meanwhile I am not motivated into MQA much any more because Tidal is changing more and more to even fake MQA with as key element that the originals disappear, which in the end leads to losing interest in Tidal as a whole.  Now *that* in itself did not happen yet, but I had to revamp the whole Tidal searching because *that* changed over there and finishing that part seems to be something which is too much for me.

Summarized, these external "cloud tools" just do not work out for me, because they change things when they like it and don't even tell about it (we, the user, just run into it and must Google to find out what the h*ck happened).

From a very long time ago, people may recall that one could buy albums from Amazon. But the same thing : they kept on changing the interface (or API if you will) and each time caused many days of work. In the end I eliminated the functionality.

And so I keep adding new or corrected stuff and never create an upgrade for you guys, because each time something else is working "half" (can be avoided when I am faster - haha).

Regards and thanks a lot for sharing, as always !
Peter

Maybe others can try it. It works with me (already sorted out with Tore by email).

Tore, do you still have only examples from Sweden with this issue ?

Peter

Dave, is your problem solved now ?
(apologies for a late response due to vacation)

Anyway, always check for the green led you can see in the left leg (practice in the dark to see where it is once it is OK - later you will be able to spot it in the light just the same).
Without that led shining, the connection is not decently established. Switch Off/On the DAC indeed may help and otherwise the USB cable may not be seated properly (this is quite fragile, especially on the DAC side - btw this is due to the galvanic isolation (Phisolator)).

Peter

Via email we determined a failing HDD (the PC to RDC into didn't boot).

Hey Dave,

Is the PC with XXHE also not connected to the internet - hence is it also guaranteed free from updates ?
Did you try to reboot the PC with XXHE ?
What's the OS of the PC with XXHE ?

Kind regards,
Peter

Juan and all,

After the help of George (nik.d) I could indeed determine an issue with the downloading of XXHighEnd.rar (and others). The stupid thing is : for me this goes fine and I don't have a real means to test it like "you" do. So ... working on a solution !

Peter

Hey Juan !!
Very nice to see you again.

I don't know what can be bugging you. Apart from the forum being down since yesterday indeed (but now OK again).

The download is in this topic :
http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=4218.msg44532#msg44532
I just tried it and it just works.

Maybe check your antivirus software because it may trip on registry adjustments which XXHighEnd.exe does and may be reported as a trojan.

Let me know how you fare,
Peter

Hello all,

The past weeks we suffer from some new Google rule which makes bounce a forwarded email. It is this forwarded email you receive a message upon - not the normal email. In other words, I just receive the emails while you think it bounced.

Working on it ...

Peter

:-)

Hey you both ... great stuff !