MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by Dr Tone

Your comment is wrong, and this is all confirmed by Bob Stuart himself. You get 13-14bits of actual music information in the folded 24/48 file. Remember the folding has to throw away musical data to make room for the "extra 96KHz content" to fit into a 24/48 file.

When unfolded you restore about 17bits of the original data. This is in a 24/96 container of course. Again this is confirmed by Bob Stuart.

The folded 24/48 or 24/44.1 MQA file does not contain more musical information than a regular 16 bit CD.

Just better sound!!

[Dr Tone]

Originally Posted by Still-One

Just better sound!!

Nothing wrong with preferring the .5 db volume boost in all MQA content and Bob's upsampling filters.

Better is subjective. Hopefully the labels will give us a choice down the road.

[Formerly YB-2]

Originally Posted by Still-One

Just better sound!!

Maybe for you. How about the rest of listening world who do not necessarily agree with you?

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

Maybe for you. How about the rest of listening world who do not necessarily agree with you?

I guess you just ignore all those who use it regularly that post and agree. Typical.

[vintage_tube]

Originally Posted by crwilli

Any business, at least public businesses, are constantly working for a competitive advantage:
- To lower their costs.
- To raise their prices and grow their ‘volumes’ eg Drive revenues.
- To beat their competition (into submission) by protecting and expanding their competitive advantage.

I have zero doubt the music labels, the MQA folks and even the equipment companies are trying to achieve all of that. If not, they should be. I would be.

Which is why several of the majors labels have purchased upwards of a 20% stake in MQA. Let's see, to get a chunk of the:

a. MQA certified DAC fees
b. MQA licensing fees
c. MQA fees from streaming companies

What does the artist get? Nada.

Best Sirs,

Bob

[bart]

Originally Posted by Levitator

I suspect MQA will end up as just another option for music lovers and while their desire might be to 'take over the world', through competition and other forces at play it is highly unlikely that this will happen.

My view is it just gives us more options to consider and perhaps more money to spend for those that wish to update their DAC to accommodate the full MQA experience, whatever that may be...

I hope this will happen.
And again, I'm not talking about sound quality here.

[PHC1]

Another fresh Stereophile article on MQA. https://www.stereophile.com/content/...fits-and-costs

[Still-One]

Here are just a few quotes from posts. I tried not to duplicate comments from the same poster. I didn't need to spend much time finding these.

All installed now. MQA files via Tidal Masters, fully unfolded sound great to me. I may never purchase another SACD.

IT’S SOMETHING
Such a quality for 10 euros a month

I also find music with MQA first unfold through Aurender generally sounds better than standard version and previous MQA without unfolding. It’s not night and day difference but also not negligible. I’d say it’s still somewhat obvious.

So far to me, the unfolded MQA does sound better than unprocessed in most if not all cases. Certainly worth the cost of admission.

Same observation here: MQA provides an audible difference for streaming, mostly to the better, but high-res files from a local drive still sound better.

i have been listening tonight to many Master tracks and what i hear sounds so much better then the same track on Roon.....every track...

I find the difference between MQA and HD albums of the same album varies between not much difference and significant improvement with the MQA version. Most are improved in my opinion.It certainly is wonderful with the albums that are improved. It is not difficult to hear the improvement.

I finally got to sit down last night and do some listening. It is very pleasant sounding. Easy to listen to and I feel is an improvement vs the non mqa versions on tidal.

You beat me to the Shangri-la album by Mark Knopfler. I am listening to the MQA version using digital feed out of LUMIN T1 to Resolution audio Cantata DAC. Absolutely spellbinding is all I can say!! MQA is the real deal!

For this album, I prefer the regular, non-MQA version. Much more dynamic and alive compared to the MQA version. The MQA version sounds smooth but it is as if they sucked the life out of the music. Truly a surprise as for most other stuff, I tend to prefer the MQA version.

the MQA version is also much superior to the cd version.thanks

Tidal Masters
Stone Temple Pilots "Core"
I've heard this CD a thousand times, but NEVER like this!!!
Absolutely amazing sound.

[Dr Tone]

Originally Posted by Still-One

I guess you just ignore all those who use it regularly that post and agree. Typical.

Were you happy with your system before MQA came along? Would you be happy with MQA being the last jump in sound quality for digital audio in your system?

The latest Stereophile article addresses this point.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/...fits-and-costs

This post from Danny from Roon also states it pretty well.

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/is-...0/336?u=drtone

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by Dr Tone

Were you happy with your system before MQA came along? Would you be happy with MQA being the last jump in sound quality for digital audio in your system?

The latest Stereophile article addresses this point.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/...fits-and-costs

This post from Danny from Roon also states it pretty well.

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/is-...0/336?u=drtone

If you re asking whether I would be happy without hi-rez (24/96-24/192 or DSD). Hell yes.

16/44.1 with the right DAC is outstanding.