Ok, there is something special about MQA. Here is my theory: MQA=SACD. What do I mean by this? I mean that since there might be the "perception" it sounds better, then there is way more care put into the mastering and the recording. Of course I have Redbook CD's that sound just as good (although they tend to be "HDCD" lol)... Bottom line: a great recording sounds great. I wish more labels and artists put more time into this--it's great to hear a song for the 1000th time and discover something new.
In fact, the only reason I have Tidal and Roon is exactly because "I wanted to stream high fidelity recordings over the internet" --it seems the author clearly didn't consider me when he made the claim that no one wants that.
He can just go back to his MP3s and winamp blasting his altec lansings in the dorm room--i will in the meantime enjoy discovering new tracks on my evolving digital rig with great sounding MQA...
I think it sounds pretty good considering it's streaming through my Vault 2i. Will Tidal replace my CDs, SACDs, DvD-A, and BluRay Audio, 24/96 material ? No way , but as a convenient hifi digital source it's pretty decent.
There is most definitely an audible difference with MQA.
Phase distortion causes the imaging to be less accurate.
Apodizing changes the timbre of transients.
Easiest thing to listen for is the hole in the middle of the soundstage. Second easiest thing to hear is the pluck of acoustic guitar strings. MQA has an unnatural sound. The pitch of the initial pluck of a stringed instrument sounds slightly lower. It is not as easy to hear unless you are trained. Some people can’t hear it - for example if you able to enjoy Michael Buble’s singing then you probably aren’t able to hear autotune pitch altering effects. Pitch sensitivity varies a lot among people but some can easily pick up as little as 5 cents....
If you don’t have good ears or a good quality system, then you probably won’t hear a difference.
The most common and cop-out response in this area of discussion. So you are totally dismissing any fault on your end? If you hear a difference, there has to be one? Maybe you’d also recommend essential oils and ginger root over chemotherapy.
16Bit vs 8Bit test, if you can get >70% confidence with 25+ trials (I can random guess and get >70% if only say 10 trials), I’d love if you could screenshot it and link to it.
Even if you can get >70%, now imagine 16Bit vs 24Bit.
Lots of claims which can be attributed simply to placebo.
Overall, I think Tidal's MQA Masters series recordings sound great and better than CD or traditional 44.1 Tidal hi-resolution downloads. I don't have experience with MQA in any other format than Tidal's Masters.
I haven't made many direct comparisons between an actual physical CD and MQA.
I'm not hearing any increase in distortion, loss of information, noise or anything. What I am hearing is a general overall improvement. I agree with others who think there is more body to MQA and a seemingly lower noise floor. Everything sounds more defined without added harshness to me
I get the OP's point that maybe Tidal's MQA Masters sound better just because there's attention given to making them sound better, as opposed to an improvement being solely due to the MQA format.
For now, I'm just happy that a digital format sounds great. I simply cannot buy to try everything I'm exploring on vinyl. Tidal and a good DAC allow me to explore to no end. I'm living in a world with great vinyl and great digital so--to me--it's a new golden age.
I spent an afternoon at my friendly dealer (Martins in Norwich) switching in Tidal between all available sources, using DCS and Vitus kit. We came to a view that maybe 1/3rd were better to us with MQA, vs other formats. In my view therefore not amazingly reliable as "it all depends on the track" which is not amazingly helpful in playing a range of tracks at home at leisure. Also what is true MQA? - the source is not usually identified - we need transparency before I personally would be that bothered.
The MQA ney-sayers sound exactly like the cable ney-sayers. If you compare these groups, they put down the people that can hear a difference. They state so-called facts, charts, expert comments, and whatever else they can find to support their cause. I don’t give a sh$# about so called experts opinions, charts, etc..., listen with your own 2 ears! If you don’t have good ears or a good quality system, then you probably won’t hear a difference.Hey, some people don’t think computers improve performance either! Redbook SQ is ok, but hi-res/SACD/MQA done right surpasses it by a large margin. MQA has sounded better than my vinyl music when I compared both. I can’t say that all hi-res/SACD/MQA cuts sound better than redbook, but I can say than neither of these formats have sounded worse.
MQA is half lossy and half lossless, interior to the quality of CD in my opinion, it also can’t know what happened in the mastering of the track.
A quote from someone more knowledgeable than me:
An input signal is truncated to 17 bits (and the input sample rate), and is then split into a high and low-frequency band. The lossless portion of the LF signal (13/44.1) is added as-is to a 24/44.1 container (FLAC or otherwise), and is nominally compatible with any Flac decoder. The remaining signal is a lossy encoding of the high-frequency content, and lives in the lower 8-11 bits of the FLAC. Somewhere in the encoding process, specific instructions for what reconstruction filters (low-pass filters to prevent aliasing of audio) should be used during decoding
. Not to mention it prevents digital volume control and DSP.
I have read from many sources that MQA is or can be much better than red book. I think the more important parts are around licensing, costs, DRM (does not seem to be a problem) and monopoly about an audio technology.
Many recording and mastering engineers have testified that MQA improves very considerably on the conventional methods, recreating the sound they actually hear or remember from the original session or, in the case of archive material, the sound from an analogue tape recorder.
@mzkmxcv: I am convinced it is a better master. It's more than the noise floor--it is the depth and imaging as well. It's like the remaster of Abbey Road.. say what you will about some of these remasters but I think many of them are great. I have a few original Abbey Road pressings and IMO they don't compare at all to the latest 180g remaster (at least in my system).
But hey, it's great that I can stream stuff I would likely never buy and it sounds amazing.
To my knowledge, MQA does not have a lower noise floor than 16Bit when talking <15kHz. So either your DAC performs better with MQA (highly likely) and/or it is using a different master.
I'm saying that it appears to me the tracks that are in the "masters" quality selection (i.e. the MQA versions) are better than the ones that aren't. It seems Tidal has a bit more of a quality standard for these versions of a track. The noise floor is lower, the sound has groove (sounds "deeper" as if a really deep clean pressing on vinyl). I wouldnt say warm, but certainly more body to the song. So combine that with the great rendering and timing and it is delicious.
BTW I am using the PS Audio DirectStream DAC with the Snowmass software.
Measurements do show us frequency response, and every DAC that supports MQA that I know of has degredated PCM performance, in terms of their slow-sloping filter that introduces aliasing. Get a Benchmark DAC3 or Chord Qutest and compare PCM on those versus a MQA-compatable DAC (make sure they are level matched).
Please pardon my ignorance on the subject...Trying to learn as a DAC and Tidal are in the near future for me..... "... I think that tracks that are offered up via Tidal in MQA have more to give as they tend to be better mastered"
So are you saying that all tracks offered in MQA have been remastered for MQA and not simply converted to the Format?
Exactly! I only subscribe to Tidal for MQA :) I hear a big (positive) difference.
My point is that MQA and Redbook CD will sound identical for a given recording when played back through equivalent gear... I think that tracks that are offered up via Tidal in MQA have more to give as they tend to be better mastered and delivered via streaming in a very high quality (timing-wise and resolution) way. In other words, i dont care much to stream non-MQA as it tends to sound too "thin".
Bottom line: MQA=lossless reproduction @ smaller footprint + more quality (from an audiophile perspective) in production.
It is interesting how passionate this discussion has become though :)
Im not sure I have ever heard the MQA people say that it actually sounds better then CD.....Is not the primary function of MQA to deliver CD quality at a lower file size than other formats? Just wondering as my understanding of it is quite limited....
Mofimadness, most MQAs are from different masters than the equivalent CDs. When I have heard both from what I know to be the same master, CD always sounds substantially better. In addition to having to be from the same master, the levels have to both be within .1dB, or the louder files tends to be perceived as better.
@
mzkmxcv...how many MQA DACs have you actually HEARD? Looking at specs and listening are two different things. I learned many, many years ago, that just because a unit tests a certain way, does NOT mean it sounds that way. You mentioned the DACs you've "seen", but how about hearing?
I get from your posts above that you are anti-MQA and I have no problem with that as long as you have practical application, (have actually heard) these units.
I had at least, half a dozen MQA DACs here and they all have excellent PCM performance, so...
I find "almost" without fault that the MQA tracks sound better than their standard CD counterparts. Not all the time, but pretty much. Is MQA perfect, hells no, but I sure do hear an improvement.
Every MQA-compatible DAC I have seen has degredated PCM performance. It’s not the manufacturers playing a trick, one stating it simply is a drawback of merely having the capability. So it’s no wonder you hear PCM as worse if using an MQA-compatible DAC. Look at the Stereophile measurements of the Mytek Liberty when fed a 44.1kHz PCM signal, it’s filter response is absolute garbage and causes aliasing (here’s the filter response of the Chord DAVE as a reference).
Big fan of mqa. I compare with the same artist on disc v. Mqa and mqa wins everyone. Even my 16 yr old son agrees and I’m sure his hearing is better than mine.
I have been listening to MQA tracks since the first day they were available on Tidal. So my only exposure has been on the streaming side of things, but I've spent A LOT of time listening and evaluating MQA. Since Tidal has many tracks (well, of the music I listen to anyway) available as both regular Redbook CD and MQA, it's pretty easy to compare.
I have also had several different MQA DACs through here during this time.
I find "almost" without fault that the MQA tracks sound better than their standard CD counterparts. Not all the time, but pretty much. Is MQA perfect, hells no, but I sure do hear an improvement.
So for me, and as always, just my opinion, I like MQA...
MQA is half lossy, half high-res lossless, and since I believe 16/44.1 is all we need (before the DAC), I agree that CD is better than MQA, and nothing is stopping you getting a CD copy of an album that’s offered in MQA.
I am not sure that I understand the original point here. Is the OP saying that MQA files tend to sound better because they have been carefully remastered, and not necessarily due to any technological improvement? If that is the case, I don’t know how to assess the merits of that claim, although I haven’t been overly impressed by the MQA that I’ve heard
@shadorne interesting... i haven't compared MQA to hi-res directly, but the latest tracks released on MQA native are really well done. One album I have, the Doors, does not sound good on ANY digital format, period. Maybe my claim is only valid for tracks and remasters over the last few years... perhaps a hi-fi Renaissance??
MQA introduces a bunch of distortion. I have not heard a single MQA file that is an improvement on the original file. Phase distortion from minimum phase filtering is one issue. The second issue is apodizing filtering (loss of resolution).
Not to be the first to comment on my own post, but MJ's "Thriller" and Daft Punk Random Access Memories are great examples. Every time I hear these on digital or vinyl, I somehow come across something new.
Yes, the system has a role to play, but it's the original recording and artistry that makes it.
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