MQA Discussion

still-one said:
In audio, how it sounds is the main thing that matters. Everything else is just to keep beating the horse.
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For me, it’s more about the music and having access to it. Although MQA sounds better than MP3, I don’t see a significant difference if a piece of music is only offered in MP3 compared to only offered in MQA, except that MP3 is open source, and may be cheaper as well.

Another analogy might be a “limited edition” LP being the only way some music is released.
 
rbbert said:
For me, it’s more about the music and having access to it. Although MQA sounds better than MP3, I don’t see a significant difference if a piece of music is only offered in MP3 compared to only offered in MQA, except that MP3 is open source, and may be cheaper as well.

Another analogy might be a “limited edition” LP being the only way some music is released.
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Except it isn't MP3 quality, it is better than CD quality and mostly equal to hi - Rez versions. Easy to compare and hear it and I have been for over a year now.
 
still-one said:
In audio, how it sounds is the main thing that matters. Everything else is just to keep beating the horse.
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So very true Jim. Its how it sounds in the end. I really don't care how the music is complied what mics or mixers are used or whom the engineer is, just give provide me a good product that sounds good regardless of format or medium used.
 
For intelligent people, there seems to be an astonishing myopia here. We've already been through this, and now (at last?) Stereophile is willing to admit it too. Once MQA, always MQA, and that's pretty much that. No more improvements in digital audio outside of that format. DSD? sorry, toast, no way an MQA signatory record company will bother. Better PCM? Sorry guys, the MQA filter algorithms are what we are using, now and forever.

Nothing in what the MQA principalls have said denies the truth of each of those statements, in fact in some instances they brag about it. I personally think there are plenty of existing digital designers and engineers more talented than those at MQA, and many of them have expressed their dissatisfaction. Kind of lonely voices in the wilderness, though, without the funding and logistical backing of the Big Three music companies.
 
rbbert said:
For intelligent people, there seems to be an astonishing myopia here. We've already been through this, and now (at last?) Stereophile is willing to admit it too. Once MQA, always MQA, and that's pretty much that. No more improvements in digital audio outside of that format. DSD? sorry, toast, no way an MQA signatory record company will bother. Better PCM? Sorry guys, the MQA filter algorithms are what we are using, now and forever.

Nothing in what the MQA principalls have said denies the truth of each of those statements, in fact in some instances they brag about it. I personally think there are plenty of existing digital designers and engineers more talented than those at MQA, and many of them have expressed their dissatisfaction. Kind of lonely voices in the wilderness, though, without the funding and logistical backing of the Big Three music companies.
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This was pretty much the core of the late Charlie Hansen's argument against MQA,
 
rbbert said:
Why these (to me) obvious issues with MQA continue to be essentially ignored by its proponents continues to baffle me.
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+1 on this Rob.

This has been a huge question for me. Why go lossy, especially with massive hard drive sizes, faster Internet connections and better cellular provider's networks? There are two markets MQA claims to be targeting.

1. The mobile market - which seems to be vaporware -- what mobile devices have a hardware DAC in them that can do MQA and is it really going to sound that much better than streamed music since the DAC quality is going to be very cheap? Let's not even get into the dearth of MQA streaming providers for mobile devices.

2. The audiophile market. MQA has been entirely marketing and making their case to the audiophile community. Look at all the effort put into the big audiophile shows (Munich, RMAF, etc.) and into the $3,500 plus DAC segment (in reality it's more like $10K+).

So what happened to this whole raison d'etre that we need MQA because it has smaller file sizes thus streams easier, and sounds better? The only thing that's left is "sounds better". So why not take that and put it into a full lossless FLAC file and forget about the lossy part? They have been doing a lot of research on how to market MQA over the last year. Recall the whole discussion about if you had a FLAC file that was also MQA encoded that it would have the original lossless file AND the MQA unfolding in it? All that means is that at a bare minimum, the file is going to be slightly larger than the original file size. So again, out the window goes this smaller file claim unless you're only streaming.

I will admit that MQA can sound pretty good at times. But that's not always the case. My preference is still for DSD.

Enlighten me as to why it has to be lossy/smaller?
 
radioactive said:
+1 on this Rob.

This has been a huge question for me. Why go lossy, especially with massive hard drive sizes, faster Internet connections and better cellular provider's networks? There are two markets MQA claims to be targeting.

1. The mobile market - which seems to be vaporware -- what mobile devices have a hardware DAC in them that can do MQA and is it really going to sound that much better than streamed music since the DAC quality is going to be very cheap? Let's not even get into the dearth of MQA streaming providers for mobile devices.

I will admit that MQA can sound pretty good at times. But that's not always the case. My preference is still for DSD.

Enlighten me as to why it has to be lossy/smaller?
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The ironic part is Tidal doesn’t support MQA streaming on their mobile apps. As far as I know only Roon will allow MQA through an external DAC via it’s mobile endpoints.
 
rbbert said:
Does it if you have a fully capable MQA DAC?
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No such thing. If you're running Tidal on an app (via an iPhone/iPad/Galaxy/Android device), then you can't exactly plug in a USB DAC. The driver's won't work that way. So you're back to running Tidal on a PC that can support USB 2.0 devices. (maybe raspberry pi's, but I don't think there's a Tidal app for that, I don't know for sure...even then it would be a nightmare to setup.)
 
rbbert said:
Does it if you have a fully capable MQA DAC?
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Yes for roon but they will soon do the first unfold so a renderer will then work.

Not a mobile solution by any means once you have to use an external dac to get the full experience nor can you leave your wifi network.
 
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