Comparison of PCM and MQA

I did as well. Although, I think I got both the CD and SACD together.

I think the 450+ posts from @chrislayeruk proselytizing MQA in that thread counts as more than a “few” interventions.

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I have every right to join the debate and don’t see the need for people to call me out for my participation. For the record, in case anyone is unsure. I really enjoy what MQA can do for the music.

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Of course you have the right to post in any thread you want but the purpose of my post was to rebut the statement by another forum member that the MQA Disappointing thread had limited posts from Pro MQA forum members in it. I countered their statement by pointing out how active you’ve been in that thread. As is your right.

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Yeah, Chris is great, but I sometimes wish he would leave you all to shout into your echo chamber.

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Here is a good comparison that shows that MQA is very lossy.
It creates a fog band in the higher frequencies, that was not there during recording.
Why is it there ?

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All I can say is listen to the cymbals on Deep Purple Made in Japan, Track Child in Time.
You can visualise the sticks bouncing on the surface. If this is foggy high end, then bring it on… :joy:

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Yes with all that MQA marketing quack some people start to see things. That’s normal.

Btw. Back to reality. That track sounds way more detailed and natural in the original PCM version.
I don’t understand why people are still listening to the [Moderated] MQA version. Oh well…

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[Moderated] One thing I know about MQA through extensive listening on a decent system is that high end clarity really stands out. Cymbals Tambourines etc show so much detail as does everything else.

I am reminded of the time I had a sound engineer around to listen to my system (he knew nothing of MQA and we didn’t discuss it) But when the music started, “Now that’s a Kick Drum” were the first words out of his mouth… He was gobsmacked.

Kick drum frequencies are way down the range at 200hz and below… The anecdotal subjective reaction of your sound engineer would not really make a case for your claimed high frequency superiority of the format.

When we look at what is recorded from cymbals etc and what is eq’d out (hi-hat freq starts at around 500hz and goes up beyond 10khz, but normally the lower ends are eq’d out), then what you’re hearing is below the fog band on the objective spectrum analysis outputs.

It’s all starting to look a little like emporer’s new clothes.

In conclusion, we’re happy for those of you who believe in it and like it, but the rest of us would be awfully grateful if we could be excused from it and left with the choice to take another path; a path which Tidal and some other commercial music organisations seem to want to block.

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Is there a chance you listened to this album?
If so, I’ve got bad new for you as track 2 “Child in Time” - and tracks 6 and 7 as well - are labeled as “master”, BUT it’s regular 16/44 PCM and not 24/96 MQA like all the others.

So if the cymbals seemed so good in that particular track, then it’s because that track
was not downgraded to mqa, and all the details are still there. No fog here. :slight_smile:

Glad you selected a 16/44 PCM over a 24/96 MQA.

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Hmm… a picture is worth a thousand words…

Here is a screenshot of that track playing in Tidal (Europe) from the link I provided:

I see a golden “master” when playing tracks 1 3 4 5 (24/96) but not with
tracks 2 6 7, then it turns into a cyan “hifi” = 16/44 PCM
And yes those 3 tracks sound much better.

Maybe this albums is all mqa in the US, but it’s not here (Europe) and our friend who started about this track is from the UK so…

It actually made me realize mqa is very bad when music gets complicated (lots of frequencies happening at the same time). This is the same problem mp3 files have. When it gets complicated they mess up. The compression (“mqa-encoding”) can’t handle it.

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What I don’t understand is mqa is supposed to be from the original, and the version we have here is a studio mqa file that is a remastered version from 2014.

So the original recording was actually a remaster? :thinking:

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If you don’t support MQA, simply move to Qobuz, or soon Spotify Lossless.
That’s what I’ll be doing. Voting with my money.

Qobuz is just about to launch in Oz:

I suspect when Spotify launches lossless, there will be a significant market shift away from Tidal/MQA and Qobuz. Roon or no Roon integration.

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I am not taking any sides here or trying to pile it on, but you see, like you have a good sense of humor.

I though your story was funny because it sounded just like all those “I didn’t tell me wife I had changed anything and she came in the room and said the music sounded much better, more clarity, she was really impressed”. lol :rofl: Thats how you know you made the right decision.
My second question is what kind of sound engineer didn’t know about MQA? :thinking:
Ok, just though it was funny. at least you have held on tightly to your beliefs about all this!

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This is complete and utter garbage, sorry to say.

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I can only give you my experience, it is what it is… it’s not scientific, it’s not meant to be, it’s an anecdote of a real life event by a real person listening to real music. It is what it is and if MQA was as bad as detractors profess, it would never have happened.
Also I know Kick Drums are not high frequency Doh! They sound like Kick drums via MQA… funny that :joy:

Independent Sound engineers running small studios or touring with live bands may well not know about MQA, certainly in the early days. Would you believe it, they know bugger all about Hi Fi and certainly rarely own systems like many of us here. Why not you ask? Well they get their fix with Live Music…

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A remaster is an artistic decision and it can be presented in MQA as easily as the original mastering.
I cannot see how that is confusing at all. They are two different pieces of work as much as two entirely separate albums are in this regard.