MQA definitely sounds better than redbook 16/44 rips. I hear improvement in:
Instrument separation and image stability. No smearing of images.
Delineating the acoustic of the room in which the music was recorded
Digititis and fatigue. The music is just more inviting; you want to listen in, to put yourself deeper into it.
Most importantly, if you listen in for the envelope of a musical event, the impulse – say the beat of a rock piece in which you have a kick drum, a bass note and a number of other instruments playing at once – you realize that you’re hearing a rightness to the leading edge that you never knew you were getting wrong before. The rise and fall in the groove of a tight band in the studio is just right in a new way, to my ears and in my system.
Redbook on Roon on SonicTransporter i5 > PS Audio PWDII with Bridge II > Tube integrated > B&W Matrix 800. MQA on Macbook Air > Tidal App > USB > PWDII
I’d like to state that I was flagged by the moderator for not sticking to subject and by no means was I flagged for saying anything disparaging to or about Bob_Worley. I believe my comments were adult and not aggressive.
Sometimes getting censored can leave people the wrong opinion - he was an out-of-control lunatic that needed to be blocked. In the future it would be fair to the censored if the censoror noted why.
This does not look like a moderation, but flagging by community members. After a certain number of flags, the post is hidden automatically.
I read anything offensive in it either, but the good news is that once flagged, it will get a @moderators attention sooner or later – and either be moderated or unfledged.
Uriah Heep Very 'Eavy Very 'Umble sounded great undecoded in Tidal MQA. (24/48) The best I have heard it to date. The depth and detail was great. Lovely bass lines to follow. The organ/Guitar Solo section on ‘Gypsy’ just made sense and I could distinguish the instrument easily. Certainly an ‘Outside the Speakers’ sound here.
Yes, I find a definite improvement on many of the albums that I know really well, As a photographer the analogy that immediately comes to mind is the same effect as when you take the same image with a mid-range ‘kit’ lens and then as it snaps into focus when you’ve fitted a ‘Pro’ lens. Everything gets more defined, the dynamic range expands and the detail resolution improves considerably. Detail becomes suddenly apparent in both the shadows and the highlights. I’ve now had time to compare MQA on three different systems in my home that I know very well, my av system with Anthony Gallo Reference AV speakers fed via Denon AVR-2300, my work studio system is iMac feeding Dynaudio BM6a active studio near-field monitors via either the MF M1-DAC or my Meridian Explorer2 if I want the full MQA and finally my main system of Meridian 861 into DSP7000 that takes Roon and Tidal from a dedicated Mac Mini. However, the difference MQA can add is very different across the systems with the biggest improvement coming on my studio system where some albums have literally made me stop and listen again to the extra resolution and with the majority of the rest I find myself more ‘involved’ in the music, being drawn in by the music. The av system however seems much less able to resolve these differences and if this was my only experience of MQA my impression would be less enthusiastic. Some albums can still impress but far fewer and the difference is much less. My Meridian system has the hardest time to impress with MQA, probably because it’s already doing some of what MQA does and the Room Correction in the 861 makes a big difference to both clarity and timing so the MQA encoded albums have to work harder to impress. Some still manage to bring improvements, as if someone has turned up the lighting on the sound stage, bringing that extra bit of clarity and information to the music, but it’s nowhere near the difference I hear on my studio system. For clarity, all direct comparisons were of my CD album ripped to FLAC, against Tidal non MQA versions and then the Tidal MQA encoded version, with care being taken to ensure as far as possible that the same original mastering version was used for each. When listening I’ve also compared the same equipment path with Tidal MQA decoding pass through on and off.
I would have said “No” until I cranked up the volume.
I often listen at a moderate level, birth on speakers and headphones.
But at a higher volume, I noticed that Miles Davis’s Tutu is clearer in MQA, Redbook is blurrier.
I’ve found that this is critical to get the best out of MQA (vs. other formats at the same volume). MQA is about the studio experience, which appears to translate as “listen at studio volumes”; and if you think about it, this makes perfect sense: a piano or voice reproduced unrealistically quietly (in the literal sense) isn’t how it sounded in the studio.
Yes, it is. I have only done some listening through my laptop on Tidal with a Meridian Explorer 2. I have not hooked it up to my main system yet for serious listening, but so far I did compare a few tracks that I have on “regular” hi-rez and the MQA tracks sounded better than CD sound and very close to hi-rez. If you are going to use a Meridian Ex 2, make SURE you download and install the newest firmware - it makes a HUGE difference. Without the firmware upgrade, it basically sounded like I was listening to a weak, cheap DAC. But, after the firmware upgrade, it sounds great. I have a very nice main system that I am going to try with the ME2 this weekend. Currently I have the Marantz HD-DAC1, with Fidelizer and HQ Player upsampling to DSD 5.6. It will be very interesting when I hook up the ME2 in place of the Marantz.
So far, with the little that I have listened to MQA, it certainly has my attention. The MQA files that I listened to sounded more detailed and full-bodied than 16/44, but we will see. I have a LOT of hi-rez files, so I should be able to tell the difference, if there is one.
Mytek Brooklyn DAC, Audeze LCD-XC headphones. Brooklyn lets you toggle MQA back and forth. Not every MQA album is a huge improvement over non. But some are totally obvious. Fleetwood Mac “Rumors” in MQA, for instance, is absolutely transcendant, and the sparkle goes away immediately when MQA is turned off.
I’m a huge fan of upsampling to DSD256 for anything not MQA. But I will choose MQA everytime if available.
It has been worth every penny. And omg Herbie Hancock in MQA… spectacular!
I tend to agree. We all know Rumours inside out, but playing on my Brooklyn into my main rig i was transfixed, what were once just rhythmic elements popped to the fore to be identified as prominent rim shots or woodblocks.
i agree that it varies but MQA sounds better. Now i’m not sure why this is, even unfolded some of the albums sound great. Are they just using better masters, is the time smear process that effective (maybe !?) but MQA both unfolded and folded can sound better
@joel, I think this is true of all playback formats. There is a sweet-spot or range where the SQ pops and does it’s best. Listening to a full vocal scream at really low volumes isn’t going to sound real. Same for any instrument.
