How Is MQA Fareing?

+1 arh

I am enjoying the subtle audible improvements everytime I cue up a MQA recording on Tidal and very excited about MQA prospect. 

Having said that, I believe most major manufacturer of DAC's are still on the fence or lagging behind which is IMO, quite discouraging.  Any new format (software) success or failure largely depends on compatible hardware availability.  

Let's hope we see more MQA compatiable DAC's in second half of the year. 

@bkmaxey,  thanks for sharing the article. Very informative indeed. The article concluded on a very positive (hopeful)  note, 

"In the end I’m confident that the free, readily available, high quality, open-source alternatives will win out. Lock down, centralisation and profiteering has a tendency towards failure".

@ejr1953 

I was thinking about purchasing the Brooklyn DAC to realize the true potential of MQA recordings. 

Would you say, a well recorded MQA recording provides substantial audible upgrade with Brooklyn DAC over their 16bit/44.1kHz counterpart on Tidal HiFi.  One such album is Stepping Out by Diana Krall. The 'Body and Soul' and 'Jimmie' tracks are absolute joy! 

I own a ARC DAC9 and both MQA and Tidal HiFi sounds pretty darn good. I do hear bit more depth and clarity in upsample (384kHz) mode when I am listening to a well recorded album or a track. FYI, DAC9 does not have MQA decoding on board. 

ejr1953, 

That's good to know. But I don't own a headphone or turntable. Like yourself I am very content with spinning my modest and rare collection of SACD's, XRCD's and K2HD's.  

I got into digital streaming couple of year back for the sheer convenience but now more focused on improving that experience.  

ejr1953,

I appreciate your candid feedback. I can totally relate to above as I experience these very same attributes while listening to my 24bit/192kHz downloads vs. Tidal HiFi. I must add, as good as Tidal HiFi is on 16bit/44.1kHz recordings, high res files are just so much better especially when your system is capable of revealing every last ounce of detail.

I don't wanna continue buying high res downloads so I will give Brooklyn a try and hopefully it’s a keeper in my system.

Cheers!

For the benefit of those still unclear about how MQA works, this is a very nice article about demystifying the ambiguity surrounding the MQA, 

https://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-decoding-explained

@shadorne 

I thought the article was pretty self explanatory on how MQA files are being decoded through non-MQA and MQA compatible DAC's. 

If you want to learn more about MQA, there are plenty of articles related to MQA on worldwide web. 

Cheers!

@shadorne

In the words of Peter McGrath, an accomplished recording engineer, A/B comparison between unprocessed hi-rez files of his orchestral recordings, followed by the time-corrected MQA versions, the differences were quite profound. The MQA versions had greater image solidity and three-dimensionality, and wider perceived dynamics.

I am sure you read this not too long ago ~ ’Listening is the only way to judge audio devices’. So do us a favor; beg, borrow or steal a black box and only then report your findings.

For most part all those have access to MQA files, continues to enjoy the enhanced resolution.

Ever since I bought the Vault 2, I have come to appreciate the MQA recordings in direct comparison with their redbook counterparts.

Tidal resolution as is very good, consider MQA files are bonus and taste of what’s about to come in next year or so when HD Tracks and hopefully others starts to stream high resolution files.

We can compare or judge the merits MQA files when we have high resolution streaming available from other resources, until then just enjoy!