I'm completely sold on MQA. Thank God for the Bob Stuarts of this world

Maybe it’s a matter of taste, I just LOVE MQA!
It doesn’t matter if it’s 48, 96, 196 or 352,8 kHz.
Okay I have spent 40 years in the recording studio, with Studer and Revox Mastertapes machines, I have a Revox B-77 (the studio version).
So I playing old master tapes on, but I haven’t used it since TIDAL started with their Masters and I buy my first MQA Dac!
Just the simple Meridian Explorer 2, it’s cheap and doing it’s work.
Cd or PCM isn’t perfect and have never been, they had to quick to release it. So the faults have never been solved and we have used us to live with it!
(I don’t even remember what the faults are anymore, but for whose who are interested Google it).

I think and hope that MQA is here to stay, if you don’t like it don’t listen to it!
Today is many people in LOVE with mp3, ogg etc…It’s okay for me!

MQA is a wonderful format, I love Led Zeppelin the Remastered Version that their guitarist Jimmy Page made, sounds incredible because you can hear every bass tone John Paul Jones play. Everything John Bonham is playing on the drums.
Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors from 1977, haven’t sound so great since it’s was played on Sound City’ Master tape machine!
Diana Krall’s Albums with piano and bass wow, it’s like they are in my room and playing.

There are a thing that I think, is a huge difference between thinking MQA is okay, or just LOVING It and don’t think it’s especially good at all!

I don’t know how many of you that have heard, music instruments live?
Not being on a concert! But heard a drum set without microphones, just standing or sitting close to it? The same thing with a bass, acoustic guitar, piano, different horns, violin or cello…Because it’s a pretty great difference to know what these music instruments, sound on their own and even more if it’s a great musician that playing!
When it’s get a microphone and played true a PA system with other musician’s! I have heard almost every single instrument, played with good, great and not so good musicians and I think it’s also why I LOVE MQA!

Just as I have heard it in the studio, with microphones and recording it, made a mix and mixed it down to a master tape machine!
After I have pushed play and as I always do, sitting down, laying on the floor, going to another room and listening in the headphones, it’s so I can hear if it sounds good on every different place!

I think or believe it’s why I LOVE MQA :heart:

Love & Respect

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First mention of Myers-Briggs in an Audio Forum award goes to…Akimo!

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I guess that was the definition of “off-topic”

Good discussion! First I would like to second the award to Akimo for bringing Myers-Briggs into this forum. There is probably more insight to be gained into audiophiles using this metric than we care to imagine. And it’s hard to imagine an ENTJ would choose the same system as an ISFP? Well at least Audiophilia hasn’t found its way into the DSM-V! I’m kidding to some degree, but not entirely. Back to seriousness, I am enthralled by some MQA tracks yet find most too similar to redbook to bother. I have yet to read anyone’s explanation of why some files respond and others do not. What are the underlaying characteristics of a recording that would be bettered by MQA vs. those that would not? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Thanks all!

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Good mastering. The difference where one clearly betters the other is good mastering. MQA may then be able to communicate cues Redbook cant but on modern recordings the differences tend to be small.

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WHY IT’S DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MQA ALBUMS AND MQA HAVE LARGER IMPACT ON SOME MUSIC!
By Anders “String” Strengberg

Hi @David_Martin

It’s like @Henry_McLeod is writing pretty much.
But it’s also a great difference between the MQA albums from the 50’s, 60’s. Especially the albums from the 70’s and 80’s, some from the 90’s!
Why it’s that?
They have been recorded on 2” tapes and mixed down on 1/2”-1/4” Analog master-tape’s! Also been mastering on 1/2”-1/4” tapes!
On the 90’s started the big studios using digital recording machine’s, also mixing and mastering on digital tapes, and for the CDs they made glass masters, on the vinyl they made like before!
But the Vinyl albums started to sound different, because the Mastering come from digital Mastering tapes!
On the 90’s had also the digital mixing console made their entry, in the studio’s!

(Important! When “well the real professional Mastering Engineer’s is mastering music, for a Cd they make it in 16/44.1. But when they doing it for a Vinyl so are we making it in 24/48-88.2”!!! And everything under 200HZ is mixed/mastered in Mono! Why? Because the Turntable pickup needle don’t shall jump out of the songs small tracks)!

Did you know that?
The same thing is why, some Vinyl LP not have 33 rpm speed but 45 rpm!
A Studio version of a REVOX B-77 1/4” Real To Real Tape Machine’s, have 7.5” and 15”! A Vinyl Album with 45 rpm sounds much better than a 33 rpm!
So a B-77 rolling on 15” sounds a lot better than, if it’s running on 7.5”.
The reason why I mention this on a discussion about MQA!
If you run the Master Tape Machine, is because the tapes are quite expensive. As well are the 2” recording tapes how also have a slower and faster speed!
A 1/4” Master Tape is around 30 minutes, on 7.5 speed and 15 minutes on 15” speed! It’s the same thing with the 2” recording tapes!
So you can recording around 3-4 songs of course depending on how long the songs are, but twice as many if you recording and mixing down on the slower speed! But it will be on the cost of the sound!
Unfortunately is a lot of Albums made on the slower speed, they sounded crap when they made them!
So if they are made to MQA, so does they still sound like crap against the ones who have been recorded and mixed on the high speed!
I haven’t meet any Mastering Engineer who, can do much about it!

So there you have another Huge Factor, why some MQA Music Sounds Better or Different!

(For woes who’s interested! So did I use around 3 of the 1/4” tapes to mix down on and 3 of the 2” recording tapes, to a Album! I was blessed to work in a huge and great studio, it got two 1/4” Master Tape Machine’s!
So when I listen to the mix with headphones, so there wasn’t any dropouts.
Made I a listening copy on the other machine (zero losing in quality)!
Why, wonder you maybe, because a tape and tape machine is built on magnetic so you can recording on the tapes! Exactly as the cassette tape machine you had at home and in the car! I’m sure that you have been trough the tape sound like the high register, losing the edge and the tape have just been a mess right?
So I only played the master tape one time, so it was perfectly, when I took it to the Mastering Studio! The copy I made could be played, stopped, pause and rewind forward/back over and over again by myself or the band members “especially the guitar player/players who just wanted to hear their solos, over and over again” and I could leave them take a nap…without being worried about the Master!

So listen to Led Zeppelin Remastered versions, Fleetwood Mac Rumors and Deep Purple Made In Japan (live) on MQA.
And compare them with Albums from the later part of the 90’s and newer on MQA! So will you hear a big difference on the sound!

So my conclusion is:
MQA Albums is made of Master Tapes of there different kinds of quality and some of the Masters, are Analog some Digital! The Analog Masters is in different shape but they can be restored (the Tapes have to lay in a owe at special temperature up to a week, because the magnetic recording surface has started to losses from the Tapes, unfortunately can’t all be restored. They who can have to be played over to new and better Tapes). Sadly have some Analog Master Tape been transferred to Digital, that’s also change the sound. So it’s a quite lots of different kinds of factors who’s, depending on how the MQA Albums becomes in the sounds!
I don’t have any degree in MQA, I have only worked as a studio producer/engineer and mastering engineer for 40th years.
So I have heard that happens to a Albums sounds when it’s been transferred, from it’s original Analog Master Tape to Digital it’s losing the sound, it going from the warm acoustic dynamic sound to a cold flat sound!
I’m sure that not every single MQA Album, regarding the ones who is made from the Analog Master is made from it and it’s the ones, that we are not like the sound or the MQA format of!
It’s different if it’s a Digital Master from the beginning, because it’s different to mix a Digital Albums as well as it’s to Mastering!
So it’s shouldn’t sound different to make MQA Albums from a Digital Master!
When the got the human faults, because we all make mistakes, right?
So how good/great studio producers and engineers, make Albums with a sound they want to have on Albums, but it’s not wrong just because we don’t like the sound and it’s also a factor the Album becomes sounding different on MQA some of whose badly sounding Albums, becomes sounding better and some even worse!
I don’t know!
But one thing does I know it’s that I LOVE MQA.

Love & Respect

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Thanks Henry and Anders! Between your responses and some additional homework, I get it. And I’m liking it too. Best, D

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+1 this mirrors my own experience closely.

The only exceptions are recordings where MQA reveals more of how nasty the original master is. That’s not really MQA’s fault, but as with system upgrades sometimes increased transparency is a double-edged sword!

I’d say so far about 80% of the time I prefer the MQA version of recordings where I’ve been able to compare the red-book or hi-res recording directly.

Also, as I have directly experienced purchasing “hi-res” albums from legitimate sources in the past, only to subsequently discover they were simply upsampled red-book, or worse, I personally find MQA’s authentication a great plus.

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I haven’t made any “A-B” testing!
Because I love the sound of MQA, but it’s in it’s cradle still.
So when the giants among the company’s who make the best DAC’s, understand that they can’t stop the MQA!
It’s going to be even better and they have to lay down before it’s maker, so instead of saying no, they have to work together.
When will MQA becoming that many have been talking about for awhile now.

Love & Respect

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I have tried to do extensive MQA listening tests a couple of times but it’s always fallen flat (maybe because of the choice of DACs). I compare MQA on Meridian Explorer and Audioquest Dragonfly Red to non-MQA on Chord DAVE.

Sometimes it’s really easy to tell – when using Tidal – that the red-book version is lousy quality and the MQA is better. But every time I’ve been able to compare similar versions the DAVE simply blows the other DACs and the MQA away. We tried to blind test it but it was so obvious that it almost became a joke. :grin:

One day I might jump on the MQA train but considering doing so will be yet another expensive affair :sweat_smile:

To expect MQA to make a $200 DAC sound better than a $10,000 DAC is not reasonable. Have you compared MQA with the first unfold done in Roon sent to the Chord DAVE vs the Redbook version? That would be a more reasonable comparison.

Chord attempts to solve some of the same problems that MQA does using a different route so may not be the right DAC to get the best out of MQA. See this Stereophile review for more background.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/chord-electronics-dave-da-processor

Also in this review there is a comparison between the DAVE and the Meridian Ultra ($23,000) with MQA and even then only “a subtle difference” was noted.

Dear Erik or @Quaerit just so I get this right!
Have you like @philr also points out compared two $200 MQA DACs with a $10,000 DAC? The two $200 DAC’s doesn’t have MQA! They could be any kinds of $200 DAC’s that you would make this testing/comparing with, your $10.000 DAC and get the same results :wink:!!!

Buy or make the same test/compares with a dCS Network Bridge - Streamer and the dCS Rossini DAC for around 250.000SEK :smile:
But it’s enough with the PS Audio DS + their new Roon Ready Network Card or MYTEK Manhattan II with their Roon Ready Network Streaming built in!
PS Audio and MYTEK Manhattan II with the network streaming, costs around your Chord DAVE!!!

Please write and tell about that test/comparing if it’s also became a joke :smile:

Love & Respect

The late Charles Hansen of Ayre Acoustics had a great post about the most important features of a DAC (his respected opinion). The digital filters aspect were down on the list. Power supply and analogue sections were the most the most important by far. If you have a chance to chat to other respected DAC designers you may find they agree.

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/35106-how-does-a-perfect-dac-analog-signal-look-different-than-a-cheap-dac/?page=7&tab=comments#comment-713189

So taking Charles points, even putting aside price, I think a Mojo is a fairer comparison to the AQ DragonFly and Explorer2 but you’re still comparing different analogue section and power supply section designs here too.

Dave’s power supply and analogue sections are quite a bit more involved so it doesn’t make it a fair comparison, even if you put aside price.

Actually, considering what Charles and other great designers have taught me, the exercise of comparing Dave with a DragonFly and Explorer2 is mostly a learning exercise on the importance of analogue and power supply sections more than anything else…

I have been doing comparisons for an upgrade off the headphone rig.
I found I could plug the Geek Pulse DAC output into my Bryston headphone amp, and completely bypass the Geek headphone amp, and found a big improvement.
Which supports that view.

Also allowed me to plug the Meridian 818 into that Bryston, and compare those two DACs, and HW/SW MQA decoding, through the same amp.

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It’s always nice when our ears are in agreement with what some of the most respected designers have to say :wink:

Sorry if I came off a bit rude in my comparison. :sweat: I have done the first unfold on Roon and sent to Dave and both listened normally and with more testing without any significant benefit towards MQA, if any at all. Only with the Meridian we caught some positive difference, but it was more of a difference where non-MQA sounded slightly bad rather than the MQA sounding great. Kind of like my experience with the headphones that make a sound signature from your ear channels (forgot the name, a friend owns a pair) where they sound good with “your” signature activated and surprisingly bad when it’s not. Almost if it was “by design”, though not as much as with the headphones example. I’m not in any “against MQA” camp though, as I have not enough experience to take a stance. If I had the chance to demo the Meridian Ultra against my DAVE it would be really interesting.

My first experience of a MQA demo at a hifi event was a disappointment and the times I’ve tried it at home have been disappointments. But this is probably because of the hype having me believe this was the new benchmark of hifi audio. And to get to the level of me hearing benefits to my system requires more money and effort than affordable DACs can offer.

As a comparison I upgraded from a mRendu with LPS-1 to Auralic Aries G2 in January – that difference was night and day and really surprised me. I had never imagined it would or should change the perceived sound quality that much. And I kind of think I hoped for something similar with MQA, and with the right equipment maybe it’s possible.

Right now I’ll pass to wait and see. And maybe Chord one day jumps on the MQA train. That would be interesting because I have not heard a better sounding DAC, to my taste, and I’ve demoed quite a few, cheaper and more expensive, before picking the DAVE as the clear winner. I then upgraded from MSB Analogue DAC with the better PSU and heard a significant increase what I would best describe as more musicality.

(Maybe I should demo my old HUGO against the Explorer2) :thinking:

Their filters are a key selling/marketing point, I would hope they don’t compromise their brand and customers to pay Bob just to use his filters.

All Chord DAC’S, Dave and so on will never be able to get the best from MQA:
MQA’s and Rob Watts’s ideas on filter design are incompatible. So lets see who gives in first?

I don’t think that’s “Bob or MQA” have to give up :wink:
Because they have the Meridian products, MYTEK Manhattan II and the company who sells a lots of high-end DAC’s today!
PS Audio DS and with a extra network card makes them Roon Ready and MQA!
Also the giant dCS, with their dCS Network Bridge - Streamer
Their dCS Rossini DAC have MQA and some other dCS Dac is coming with MQA!
That covers the MQA DAC’s more than well, from cheaper to high quality and to the highest quality!
And the record company is already on the MQA train, so it’s not going to disappear perhaps change but it’s easy!
If you don’t like it it’s okay and it’s only to listen to the format that suits you as before MQA!

Love & Respect

To be accurate, John Franks has no issue with the 1st unfold… Like Ted Smith’s DirectStream DAC, there probably won’t EVER be any MQA decoding by Rob’s FPGA. But a Poly/2Go/future streamer MAY eventually do the 1st unfold.

See the end of this video:
https://youtu.be/-amqHQAdmkU