I suggest you look at Ayre DACs: Codex, QX-8 & QX-5.
Ayre have been doing minimum phase apodizing filters for years. Basically MQA before Bob decided to license it.
Ayre DACs have exceptional sounding output stages and the MQA sound Bob Stewart & Jim Austin have sold you.
You sound like you’re accusing them of stealing the ideas. To be fair, Jim did give credit to Ayre for the design. Not sure Bob Stuart should be criticized…
As for the DAC output technology, I’m rather hooked with NOS than MQA. Again, my hypothesis based on the limited understanding is that MQA ADC + NOS DAC seems the best combination. Is it not?
No, I’m saying that MQA is nothing new. De-blurring is just fancy advertising for the digital filters that Merdian has been using for years as well as Ayre.
It’s probably best to stay away from Stereophile for your MQA information.
There is no such thing as a MQA ADC. MQA = regular PCM captured from ADC’s that have been around for years and then DSPed into MQA.
Personally, if I was going to run a NOS DAC I’d do my over sampling in HQPlayer first. Feed HQPlayer with the original unmolested PCM.
So do you own an MQA-compatible DAC and enjoy the MQA sound, or just stick with the 16/44 or hi-res “unmolested” PCM deblurred by an Ayre DAC?
Unmolested PCM. I don’t subscribe to Tidal or buy MQA.
I did enjoy the sound of my Ayre DACs but I attribute it to Charlie’s overall implementation and output stage more than his MQA like custom filters. I’ve moved in a different direction since, as I found later I prefer linear phase filters, they don’t mess with the timing of frequencies and thus improve the precision of the sound stage, instruments and vocals, IMO.
Ironic isn’t it? Minimum phase filters like MQA uses actually mess with the timing of frequencies to deliver the perfect impulse and reduce pre-ringing. I find they actually blur things but advertise the removal of pre ringing as deblurring.
My ignorance. Does your blurring mean broadening of the signal in the frequency domain? Isn’t that somehow necessary to remove the ringing in the time domain?
If you want to be put off MQA, you are in the right place as you may have already gathered.
Personally, I would recommend listening to MQA, with music you like, and then make your own mind up as to how it communicates to you. (That’s the whole point of music for me)
A long home demo of a decent MQA DAC or find a friend who has one and spend time with it would be my advise…You may like it, you may not, but only you can decide.
Here is Mans explanation of Linear and Minimum Phase filters.
Mans is also the one that reverse engineered and revealed certain truths about MQA, and thus debunking some of the marketing.
No, not that I’ve been able to discern.
While I let Roon do the first unfold now, I’ve always preferred to up-convert in HQ Player to 384KHz or DSD256 and not be limited to the Minimum Phase filter in my DAC.
I don’t want to be put off MQA. On the contrary, I prefer MQA tracks as a better sounding option in Tidal. I do find them sound more open and natural (with of course track-to-track variability). I am just wondering how much additional improvement will be achieved by the hardware rendering. Getting a new MQA DAC at comparable quality would mean something like Mytek Manhattan II, which is a big investment, so I am hesitant. I will eventually find out one day…
This is a classic case of where a good Hi Fi dealer can help. Talk to them, get a long demo so you can make up your mind or just not buy at all. That’s what you pay them for and a good dealer should oblige.
I have listened to Tidal masters using Roon for the first unfold into an MQA capable DAC with MQA disabled and a non MQA DAC and find it consistently better than the same track in 16/44. Adding the second unfold by activating MQA on the DAC yielded subtle improvements on some tracks.
Would lack of MQA be a deal breaker on a new DAC? Probably not, but given two with similar performance and price I’d take the one with MQA over one without every time.
I just sat through a couple of seminars on MQA at AXPONA and learned a few things I found interesting.
New releases on all the major labels, Sony, WB, etc are all mastered with MQA. (Tidal doesn’t have a deal with Sony for MQA though.)
The back catalogues are being remastered with MQA slowly and sporadically so MQA may mean more to you if you listen to more current music now and going forward.
An MQA file played with no decoding is 48khz, one unfold is 96 and full decoding is 192, hence their statement that the first unfold gets you 80% of the full decode.
I have a couple of MQA DACs as well as non-MQA DACs. I suggest you give MQA a listen and judge for yourself. There are some nice albums done in MQA. I use both Tidal and Qobuz. Both make great hi-res music.
Sort of but not really. It seems to be just a DSP module. This is from their site:
MQA Kernel™
Built in (MQA compliant filters and dithering)
If capturing an analog master on this ADC, DSD256 would be the way to go. Avoid the 2 additional steps of converting to PCM and then MQA.
You just have to listen through your own gear. I say that because I have several different listening setups. There’s the big family room setup, which is reasonably good - everything all in if I bought it all at once today, probably $12K. (although acquired over a decade…) Yes, MQA DAC makes a difference versus MQA without the MQA turned on. I have a second rig in my studio, and it’s about the same quality, and yes, it matters there, although not as much. Note I had to move my one MQA DAC around to do that test… which brings me to my next point.
The systems in my bedroom, living room, and garage are nice but not fancy. Two happen to have MQA capability. And it doesn’t matter whether I’m using the MQA or not. Why not? Because the rest of the system also matters. To hear fine distinctions, you need systems that can produce fine distinctions. My fun to listen to open baffle speakers in the bedroom sound really great, good enough to make it hard to go to sleep sometimes, but they’re not super high performing in a lot of ways. With my two better systems, listening to well recorded (ah, another factor) classical music I can tell you whether they sat the first trumpet on the right or the left of the trumpet section. My other systems… sound really good and I enjoy listening to them.
Another factor is the human one. Everybody has different abilities, and some people have a lot of training and learning to maximize those abilities. I have friends who can’t tell the difference between compressed Apple Music and 24/96. MQA wouldn’t change that - it may be their hearing isn’t as sensitive, or that they haven’t listened with intent and tried to train their hearing. I was a professional musician for many years so I have a lot of practice at listening for nuance, and was blessed/cursed with very sensitive hearing. On the other hand, while my wine tasting skills can tell cabernet from pinot noir, one of my “compressed is fine” friends can take a sip and tell me what grape, country, region, and year, and much of the time, which vineyard.
He saves money on his music and audio gear. I save it by drinking box wine.
So, the real answer to your question is very likely to be different for each person. “The average person” doesn’t actually exist.
So pardon me for not reading the thousand previous replies. I just thought I’d pile on my $.02 
Easy answer is: NO
You don’t need it. I have a dCS Rossini with clock and I can tell you that MQA is not much better than 24/44 and when it comes to 24/96 or DSD, to my ears (on my Boulder 2000’ series preamp, amp, and Wilson Alexias MQA is “meh”. It’s a gimmick in sound if you ask me. It sounds pretty good at times. But that’s very rare and seldom does is consistently perform. Whereas 24Bit 96Khz audio consistently performs. Same with DSD. “Higher resolutions than 96Khz?”, you may ask? It’s a very slight difference, but it doesn’t always sound better than 96K, and never sounds better than DSD.
MQA is not a show stopper like everyone thought it was going to be. I should have snatched up a bunch of great non-mqa dacs that people were dumping back then. Because now everyone knows that dac is worth more. And it is.
Just my $.02
Bryan
And I think (as people know) MQA brings a huge amount to the party down my phone line. That doesn’t make CD files bad because they are not. But MQA, for me, is the real icing on the cake… You do need a system cable of delivering it though and luckily I have.
What is your current DAC? I have an Ayre QX-5 Twenty, and I have yet to find another DAC at around $10,000 price point that beats it.
I had a QB-9 back in the day and was at the Codex recently, going QX-5 wasn’t an option. I went to the Mirus Pro which was a definate step up from the Codex and then went back down the price ladder the Yggdrasil A2.
