Archimago Musings: "Final" comments... Simply put, why I don't like MQA

Jeremy, reread your first sentence – of which I quoted a portion verbatim.

A Tidal Masters album may use a new, different, or the same mastering as that of the Tidal HiFi album.

Of course, if the masterings are different, then they will sound different, MQA or not. MQA is not the driving cause of difference in that case.

You seemed to assume that the different MQA mastering automatically would sound better. If that was not what you intended, please clarify.

AJ

Thanks for the clarification, Jeremy. It’s a shame you don’t have the choice to enable/ disable MQA in your DAC and have to use volume levelling to break the bit perfect stream.

Regardless of the efficacy of this approach I’m inclined to think that the TIDAL Masters use broadly better mastering … perhaps with streaming services normalising music we’re hearing greater dynamic range?

Anyway, I’m enjoying TIDAL Masters through my Chord 2Qute and that’s all that matters. I was never one to think about what I may or may not be missing.

No, that is not true. As I have posted with numerical evidence, Tidal Masters are a mix of old, new, and loudness war damaged masterings. MQA is no assurance of the best mastering or even a good mastering.

AJ

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Okay, I should have qualified that as I had before. Some are better, some are not. Also, I prefer to use the term TIDAL Master since I’m only interested in the undecoded flac file; I care very little for MQA. Indeed I have no way of “enjoying” MQA! :slightly_smiling_face:

You misquoted me, my post said ‘the masters would likely sound better’ (by comparison to standard red book CD’s that have been downsampled).

It is a shame, it’s not a definitive test, just the closest I can get.

Jeremy, I cannot misquote you when I quote your words verbatim.

AJ

But you didn’t quote me verbatim.

You used some of my wording in quote marks and then substituted one of my words with one of your own choosing (more precisely, you changed the word ‘masters’ to ‘mqa’).

This is what I said in full: ‘Yes, I can see that a different version of the same album would sound different and that the masters would likely sound better’.

Yes, I did quote you verbatim – as long as I did not change any quoted words. I do not have to quote all of your words. Otherwise, there could be no end. But that is beside the point.

MQA is a better, more precise term than masters – because “masters” is ambiguous. It could mean a master tape or mastering. It even could refer to the golf tournament that ended yesterday.

As for your sentence in full, you need to elaborate. That sentence is not self explanatory if you are not referring to different masterings between Masters/MQA and HiFi/non MQA. Martin, to whom you were responding, was referring to different masterings between albums of the same title. See again a quote from his post: “This is an important point because I think some TIDAL Masters are better than earlier releases without the extra definition from unfolding. And some not so good.”

AJ

You selectively took three words from my sentence and then changed the meaning completely by altering the word outside of the quote marks.

Ok, I think you’re misinterpreting what I’m trying to say. I don’t think a master is the same as MQA. I view MQA as derived from the master.

Rightly or wrongly, I view the master as the original recording (after mixing). MQA is one form of output that follows that stage. Red book is another.

I think you’re being excessively concerned with detail here. My listening experience to date has found that TIDAL Masters are usually an improvement on earlier releases. That’s not always the case, but as a general rule it’s a reasonable supposition.

What matters to me, and from what I’ve read this evening, for Jeremy too is that we are likely to enjoy TIDAL Masters more than other recordings. For me sans MQA and for Jeremy with the full experience through his Meridian kit.

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For what? MQA is simply a way of delivering the TIDAL Master (a specific MQA encoded release or remaster of the original mix.) It seems that all this misunderstanding comes from the following sentence. My emphasis and interpretation.

It is 100% flawed. The MQA file played without any unwrapping is not the “real” non-MQA version. Even if the same mastered copy was used the MQA version has been altered. Just turning off MQA doesn’t give you the original Redbook version.
Personally I don’t really care if MQA exists or not but I don’t want to have to buy MQA CD’s (or downloads) as they are inferior to unaltered Redbook when played back without any MQA unwrapping. I just want to have that choice.

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Give me a better way that compares a guaranteed identical comparison that isn’t skewed by other factors that we can try and I’ll happily try it…

I believe you still have that choice (and I advocate that choice). Similarly, I should be able to appreciate MQA (or any other format I like) without being considered evil. I’m not quite sure what you’re railing against here.

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You have to compare with a same MQA DAC (make sure MQA filter is disengaged when playing back PCM), example Mytek Brooklyn DAC. A good place to start is 2L test bench, these are mastered in DXD format; 24/352.8kHz and converted to various formats including DSD.

The inability to easily compare like vs like has been a big issue; and one of the early “red flag” warnings that started setting people off. The 2L stuff stands as an outlier in that we have access to the exact same master in various formats.

Interesting. I’ll take a look at 2L…

My comparisons have been with TIDAL app playing the single-unfolded MQA to my non-MQA DAC and then playing from Roon a high-resolution version of the same master/mix. Not quite a good setup for A/B testing & volume matching but to first order I can’t tell the difference in the few cases I’ve tested.