MQA disappointing

Thanks for the link, I will buy the CD at a gig, preferably at one of our gigs. If you like Annie, check out Steve Mayone as he toured with her in the UK last year. A great musician.

Wow, July 2017

This has been a question of mine as well.

What’s the best way to identify blurring in non-MQA content?

It’s just about definition like a high res photograph… You can zoom in and see the detail. I find with MQA things are so much more relaxed and the instruments are more separated, space around them and I miss this extra resolution (in an analog sense) with normal CD quality. That doesn’t mean CD doesn’t sound very good when played through a great system, because it does. But like a good camera, you know there is a better lens…

Again, it’s great it sounds good to you.
How do you know what you are hearing isn’t a euphonic (to your ears) form of distortion induced by the MQA process? Answer: you don’t, because they won’t tell us what blurring is and what they are correcting.
Again, it’s been shown that the MQA processing and playback can ADD aliasing and distortion into the played back result that wasn’t there previously.
It’s been established multiple times that these types of effects are heard by some people as "air, “detail”, and “resolution”.
If MQA was so clearly superior sounding, almost everyone would hear it. Many don’t. So far no one has run a non-sighted test showing MQA to be considered superior. There has been an academic test done showing no preference for it in a blind test. Doesn’t make you wonder?

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Your appeals to authority are illogical and meaningless. Not every bit of knowledge in the world comes from peer reviewed papers. Some comes from investigative type journalism. That information has been out in the open for quite a while now. No one, including MQA has disproved it or even shown it to be conceptually incorrect. Multiple independent people in the recording field with the technical knowledge necessary have confirmed it. Don’t think MQA would publish a “peer reviewed paper” to prove the detractors wrong if they could?

As far as batch converting files: MQA has said they have an “automated” process for quickly converting files.
Two, testimony from record company employees and people such as mastering engineers confirms it.

Also, if a company releases hundreds or thousands of MQA titles over very short time intervals, you can be sure they weren’t giving each album the “white glove” treatment. It ain’t possible.

Fourth, virtually every MQA DAC on the market is using the same set of reconstruction filters for the so-called second unfold. There is no “special” set of filters for each model of DAC or chip (as MQA originally claimed there would be). Conclusion: non individual batch conversion to MQA. Or MQA DACs are being licensed that mistakenly playback all those specially converted MQA albums with non-optimal filters that don’t match the MQA encoding process. Take your pick which is more likely.

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My god, how I love CD’s, Blu-ray audio , SACD and DVD audio :wink:.

What is the reason that tidal will degrade quality and make the requirements to get the most out of the music so much more difficult? (replacing PCM with MQA?)

That’s an opinion… one man’s degrade is another man’s upgrade…

One man’s degrade/upgrade is another man’s “same difference”…:joy:

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I just listen to a lot of music, live and otherwise. I know what good sounds like thank you…

I’ll never argue over sound quality. That’s in the ears of the beholder.

But keep in mind that you’re arguing for taking music in its native quality, removing content that can’t be recovered, then adding content that was never there, and forcing the DAC to play it a specific way.

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That’s just not what is happening but round and round we go.

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It is 100% what’s happening when you use MQA. Just analyze the data once and you’ll see.

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That’s an opinion…

No actually there are numerous members of Chris’s site that have analyzed and posted the before and after data analysis with MQA files. Only yours is an opinion.

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You should take it up with MQA Ltd, nothing I can do about it yet enjoy the wonderful music along with many many others.
As has been said before… If it measures well but sounds bad or measures bad but sounds good… you are measuring the wrong thing.

No argument from me about how you think it sounds. I’m happy you enjoy it. What more could you ask for.

But, facts are facts. MQA is lossy (data removed and unrecoverable), MQA adds data that was never there, and mandates use of leaky filters.

Here’s a third party video you may find interesting.

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If the removed data is inaudible, no matter? Added data, leaky filters- if that offends you in some way, fair enough. Most people listen to music rather than analyse it- that’s probably a fact…

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I just don’t like paying extra for something less than the original.

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Then don’t?? When did it become compulsory (get’s ready for pat answer-taking over the world usw)?

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Try streaming the new Black Keys album from Tidal without MQA. It’s compulsory.

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