Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveJ
I know there is quite a bit of discussion one way and the other regarding MQA. I am looking for listening experience please.
If you have listened to MQA, especially on Tidal, what are your impressions with respect to sound quality?
Were you listening on a DAC that can perform the final rendering?
I am using Tidal and am looking for a low end MQA DAC, Pro-ject Pre Box S2, Mytek Liberty or Brooklyn DAC + for my office computer system.
|
I've listened to MQA files (mostly from Tidal) with several different products/systems. I've used various Aurender, MOON by Simaudio, Innuos, and Roon products to get both full and partial "unfoldings."
The two main takeaways for me have been (1) classical via MQA is uniformly improved and (2) everything else is hit and miss. For non-classical files, I've heard MQA sound really good and I've heard it sound worse than redbook, typically due to problems in the lower frequencies (bloated or ill-defined bass).
I now view MQA capability as a nice thing to have but not at all essential. When MQA first came out, I thought that its real promise lay in hi-res via streaming. But with Qobuz now available in the US we can now get hi-res via streaming without all of the technical manipulation. So....
Last thing: I've recently found that I prefer MQA files unfolded once and fed to a Chord Electronics DAC using a Hugo M Scaler much more than MQA files fully unfolded and rendered with an MQA-capable DAC. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but there you go. (Disclaimer: I'm an authorized dealer for Chord Electronics.)