"The blind test that I linked to suggests that there is little or on sonic difference between high resolution pcm and MQA"
@willemj ~ The above assessment would be true if you’re comparing a audio file that has a higher sampling frequency and bit depth rate than CD - 16bit/44.1kHz.
Before we dismiss MQA, we need to understand why MQA success is important to many of us who cares for high resolution audio.
For many, including you, the CD quality streaming (Tidal, Quboz) is fine. MQA makes no such claims that each and every file is going to sound better than its CD counterparts. Technically they are supposed to sound better, but as we learned that’s not the case and there are many variables as to why (I won’t get into those here).
MQA is simply affording us an opportunity to stream high resolution files with a sampling frequency of 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.kHz or 192kHz at 24 bit depth rate. Whether they sound better than 16bit/44.1kHz that has been left up to the user to decide.
There is also debate going on the available MQA content but selection is growing steadily albeit not as fast as some of us had hoped for or like to see.
Personally, I don’t want to pay $15-$35 for each high resolution album downloads. With MQA success, it will force other giants like HDTracks to stream high resolution files which are currently available as pricey downloads only.
Of course, there are those with deep pockets that prefers to own their music than stream. For them, there are still plenty of choices to buy music.
In near future, I would like to see more choices with high resolution streaming so we can cherry pick our high resolution music provider and let them compete for our hard money.
High resolution streaming is here whether you like it or not.
@willemj ~ The above assessment would be true if you’re comparing a audio file that has a higher sampling frequency and bit depth rate than CD - 16bit/44.1kHz.
Before we dismiss MQA, we need to understand why MQA success is important to many of us who cares for high resolution audio.
For many, including you, the CD quality streaming (Tidal, Quboz) is fine. MQA makes no such claims that each and every file is going to sound better than its CD counterparts. Technically they are supposed to sound better, but as we learned that’s not the case and there are many variables as to why (I won’t get into those here).
MQA is simply affording us an opportunity to stream high resolution files with a sampling frequency of 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.kHz or 192kHz at 24 bit depth rate. Whether they sound better than 16bit/44.1kHz that has been left up to the user to decide.
There is also debate going on the available MQA content but selection is growing steadily albeit not as fast as some of us had hoped for or like to see.
Personally, I don’t want to pay $15-$35 for each high resolution album downloads. With MQA success, it will force other giants like HDTracks to stream high resolution files which are currently available as pricey downloads only.
Of course, there are those with deep pockets that prefers to own their music than stream. For them, there are still plenty of choices to buy music.
In near future, I would like to see more choices with high resolution streaming so we can cherry pick our high resolution music provider and let them compete for our hard money.
High resolution streaming is here whether you like it or not.