MQA disappointing

Audio Gear Talk MQA
2314

Because they just provide what record labels provide. And record labels are a bit lazy, since current DAW’s don’t have such functionality and they don’t want to bother updating the mastering workflow, except for DRM-style MQA (where reason is likely something else than “saving” bandwidth for another company).

Yes, the reason is clear as I explained, actual audio content versus encrypted noise.

In the end it is not so much different if you compare traditional encryption and compression. If you want to compress a text document, the original text compresses well for example with ZIP, but if you encrypt it first it becomes pretty much uncompressible since the encryption removes any detectable patterns and it looks just like white noise to the compressor.

I’m not going into audibility argument, but then again even if you cut the bandwidth to the same as MQA, you just save even more bandwidth compared to the MQA as I explained above. Point was that even if more bandwidth is preserved than MQA does, it still results in a smaller file.

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2315

this is a somewhat odd question - i wonder if its just how it is worded. Let’s begin with the fact that that vast majority of today’s DACs are in fact 1-bit DACs. In fact no major chip house even makes a PCM ladder DAC for music use - although several firms de-glitch an Analog Devices instrumentation chip and use it, with good results.

so, almost every DAC you can name is specialized to convert 1-bit to analog. That’s what a delta-sigma converter does. I am neither endorsing them nor damning them - just sayin’

But i really don’t think that ascribing characteristics to chips is valid. I can take chip A and make it sound great, or terrible. Warm, or analytical. Most chips are very competent and the magic occurs elsewhere - the devil is in the details.

Now let’s discuss HD. Not MQA specifically since none of us actually know how MQA works, unless one of you is named Bob. HD (meaning to me 24 bits and 96 kcycles per/s or more) has real benefits, but likely not in our systems> It is clearly an advantage when used int he studio and mastering chain, because the errors made and the losses accumulated matter less if at all. Lose three bits along the way? you still have 21 left. And yes, 16 is in fact enough if everything is perfect, problem is, its rarely done well let alone perfectly. And that too is where hgiher sample rates, up sampling, oversampling and dither all can be beneficial.

But in the end the thing that matters most is the recording and mastering. Listen to a 16/44 CD, played on great equipment, of many Mercury recordings, or many Verve recordings done extraordinarily well on 2 or three track tape, tube equipment, and left the heck alone. Glorious! Now let’s listen to the HD (MQA or otherwise) remaster of Velvet underground. 24 bits of perfectly reproduced shrill distortion. Awful - and the better the digital chain the more of that awfulness will be brought forth.

I frankly can not reliably discern between MQA and non-MQA on most pieces, with controlled levels, etc. Not the word reliably. And consistently. Nice wine? That sounds great. Bad day? That sounds awful. Our perceptions are influenced by many things.

So is MQA great? I don’t think so. Is it bad? I don’t think so either. Time will tell, 3 days of having Tidal is not much of a test -s o maybe I’ll see the light. Except i hate Toslink.

G

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2316

Toslink sucks (now there’s an contextless auidophool statement :wink:

Remember when listening to Tidal’s MQA tracks, your more often than not (unless your heavily into the most modern rap/R&B pop) a different mastering than the other 16/44 version of said track/album. So not an apples to apples comparison…

2317

Yep. Now, in the and if the mastering is better and the actual MQA voodoo makes no difference, MQA may still sound better. By and large the first step for many records would be a re-mastering.

2318

Often, but not always, those same masterings MQA uses are available, sometimes in the Hi Res offering. That’s why having access to Qobuz helps - you can do more apples-to-apples MQA vs PCM comparisons.

I am done with all that however. MQA is a pretty transparent superMP3 (but mostly it’s a DRM play), it’s just that the market does not need such a thing.

It’s past its sell date, only audiophools care about it, and even in that niche it is ignored by the majority.

2319

My view is a little different. It is audiophools who continually feel the need to post endlessly and pointlessly about MQA whenever the slightest suggestion of positivity is raised in a post. Audiophiles, on the other hand tend to be on the whole rather ambivalent towards the subject.

I assume that you are using the phrase “DRM play” in a pejorative way. I could easily live without MQA, but I’m certainly not convinced that MQA is “mostly a DRM play”. However, just out of interest, in the event that you are correct, what would it be about DRM that would upset you so much?

2320

That would be the Digital Rights Management of taking PCM and a compression scheme, throwing it into the legal entity of an IP protected black box software package, and then attempting to extract licensing fees from the entire production/mixing/delivery/playback hardware/software chain.

Of course, you already knew all this. Also, it does not matter if you are convinced or not - it is what it is objectively and you can’t get around it.

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2321

Hoo boy. There’s a lot of speculation there. And a lot of resentment against fees that are paid either a) voluntarily for adoption of an optional format or b) to a copyright holding artist (or their asignee).

But i’m rally not interested in speculation. I am, somewhat, interested in whether MQA sounds better, and at the moment, i don’t really know. I thought your observation on remastering was fair. I’m not quite sure where you were going w/r/t “MP3 play”. As someone who participated in mpeg back in the day, maybe i’m being too technical, but the differences are ginomous. Adn the objectives are nearly polar opposites.

I think you need to be far more clear and specific - i’m unsure if i agree or disagree!

2323

I also have 3 DACs, one of which is MQA capable (Mytek Brooklyn DAC+) and two that are not (Linn Klimax DS/1 and Marantz NA7004), although they of course can benefit from Roon’s 1st ‘unfold’.

My view is that Tidal albums encoded using MQA can (but not always) sound slightly better than Tidal’s 16 bit equivalent offerings where Masters appear to be the same. However, I have never found MQA encoded albums to sound ‘better’ than equivalent 24bit/96 or 192 files available from Qobuz or elsewhere. As good as or very nearly as good as, but not ‘better’.

My decision to subscribe to Tidal rather than Qobuz is largely due to the absence in the Qobuz catalogue of a fairly large number of albums in my Roon music library. I would be quite happy to move from Tidal to Qobuz (and save some money) if that was not the case. For me, the specific master used for recordings is more important most of the time than the issue of whether or not the recording is hi-res (MQA or not).

2324

While I have a Tidal account along with my Qobuz, I rarely sample the MQA offering. It is largely due to me liking to hear something I can purchase. But there are some MQA albums I preferred, such as INXS The Swing. It is no longer offered, but it sounded the closest to my early vinyl pressing. Another I felt sounded good (but not necessarily better) was The Who - Who’s Next. It sounded different—different enough to search it out when I want to hear that album.

I don’t have a skin in the MQA game, and I understand the folks who raise their pitchforks due to the proprietary aspect of it, but come on. The flames are largely silly with this format. Some folks like tubes, some like vinyl, some like MQA, some like 24/192, some like SACD/DSD, and some like 16/44. I happen to like upsampling to DSD512. It works in my room because it smoothes out some peaks in room modes. But then I wake up on the other side of the bed and just don’t give a Schitt. YMMV

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2325

So even though The Swing isn’t in 24/44 in Qobuz you can still get it in that format with a better master within the INXS Collection 1980-1993.

Strange I now see that album on its own in 24/44.

2326

I mainly use a rather old DAC, that only supports 44,1 / 48 kHz - 24Bit. with this DAC, I just like the original Music files better than the MQA. If I open an Album on Tidal, something new and never looked at by me, and I hit the play button, Tidal always wants to play the MQA Album. And I have to stop and yell, no. don’t. Is there a setting somewhere, that I can change so Roon will not preselect always the MQA version?

Thanks!

2327

You can select the steam quality in Tidal I think. I have seen others with the opposite problem and they hadn’t ticked masters.

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2328

For a moment I thought I was in the coffee thread…

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2329

I had no idea what MQA was until I bought my Audiolab 8300cdq. I bought it for one reason: I had previous had the M-Dac+ and liked it. (I have owned others, hated Chord tho have been tempted by the Qutest). I digress as usual. I bought it because of the cd player included which auto upgrades to 32bit every cd. I don’t play cd’s because it’s too painful and frankly dangerous as I am likely to fall in the process. I bought it for my husband because he is a technophobe and assumed he’d have no problem with it. I was wrong. Now tho I think he gets it. I know he enjoys it. And does play all his classical, opera etc on it and Streisand whom I can’t stomach. I also bought him a record deck for loads for his huge collection. He played a Brahms the other day which was almost 60yrs old and in Mono! I didn’t notice. What I did notice was how clean it was, pop free.

Anyway, this machine plays MQA. I of course jumped at it and bought the albums I could by Joni Mitchell and Cary Simon and anyone else I like.

I stopped buying them because I can’t tell any difference but I continue to buy 192khz because I can hear the difference. Tho am not sure there is a difference between 96khz and 192khz.

BUT it all seems pointless now as I use Roon and my Zone of choice is Daniel(HQP), set to play back at DSD128, poly-sinc-short-mp and DSD5. Anything like xtr or DSD7 and my machine gets too hot and the fan comes on. However we both like this sound and to our ears it sounds clearer. Listening without Daniel and the music sounds muddy. To us. (If ti matters, John is classically trained pianist and bass Opera singer tho became a world renowned Historian instead!)

Getting one’s knickers in a twist over MQA has been a very interesting read, if the subject is pointless. The cynic in me tends to side with it being bulldust and designed for idiots like me who bought it because it was the new miracle sound file.

I dropped my Tidal sub because the customer service was bad, not because of MQA. I wrote several times and got non sensical or not replies. I wanted to know if th4e difference in price between the same album was because one version was MQA. They never answered. I bought the most expensive version and it was bog standard 16/44.1khz. No extra tracks either.

Qobuz I like.

I enjoy reading about the artists but after listening to Annie Keating it started to play Sniff n Tears which I find enjoyable. I was rather surprised to read them described as New Wave. To me I assumed i was listening to Americana, somewhere along the lines of John Ritter.

BTW a woman I really like, and I have all their work, is Mary Gauthier. You might too.

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2330

A post was merged into an existing topic: What MQA are we listening to [2020]

2331

Hello dear Chris.

@Chrislayeruk

It’s been a long, longtime since I wrote anything on Roon!

I needed the rest from all writing, but I haven’t had any resting from Music…

I have worked with a Record Company CULT METAL CLASSICS.

CMC is Releasing almost only Hard Rock/Metal, NWOBHM how many Roon Users Knows what NWOBHM stands for?
It’s a name for the British Heavy Metal who started in the beginning of the 80’s,

NWOBHM = New Wave Of British Heavy Metal :love_you_gesture:.

Back In 1985 Sweden was I Working in a Recording Studio, as a Producer, Mixing and Mastering Engineer.

Except everything above, did I Singing The Lead Vocal on a project Sacrifice and we recorded 3 songs we’re 2 of them become Side A and B on a 7”Vinyl Single!

Please check our Website Page for more information. http://sacrificeproject.com/

Collectors paying between 400-600 Euro for the 7” Vinyl Single from 1985 (depending on the condition), but it’s not only in Sweden it’s in the hole world :love_you_gesture:.

Okay what have this MQA to do you may thinking?

The Record Company CULT METAL CLASSICS will release a 12” EP Vinyl, CD, and a 35TH Anniversary Edition Box including The 12” EP Vinyl, CD and a reissue of The 7” Vinyl Single from 1985 (Not Remastered) a T-shirt…

The Vinyl EP and CD is 3 Remastered Songs from 1985 also 2 New Recorded Songs from 2015 New Mixed 2020.

Also released on The Digital Music Streaming Service Platforms, Spotify, iTunes, Qobuz, TIDAL and many more…

Since I’m a huge fan and love MQA so did I contact them to ask if they could encoding, our Hi-Res Masters (48KHz 24bit ).

After a great mail conversation :grinning:.

So is our Hi-Res Masters now becomes MQA Music Files, I can hardly wait to listening on my own Music In MQA :love_you_gesture:
Of course are you all welcome to listen as well.

Some of you may wonder, if The Music only will come out as FLAC 44.1KHz 16bit 2ch and FLAC 48KHz 24bit 2ch MQA?
Well it’s mp3, ogg…
But I think that you mean Qobuz Hi-Res, Right!
I shall contact Qobuz and I hope that they will make it, because it’s already decided that The Music is gonna be on we’re Service!

But I don’t understand why so many people have been so negative against MQA “it’s only about money and so on…”?
We don’t have to pay anything for the encoding, any % of the Money we earning on TIDAL!
Give them any of our “Different Credits” to our Music or something like that!

The people who makes the encoding is sending me, encoded MQA files so I can listen and approve “The MQA Sound”!
Exactly like when our Vinyl is “Test Pressed” and “The CD” so I can listen and approve or maybe want to have something changed, before they goes to mass production!

Love & Respect

Anders Strenberg

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2332

Thank you Anders for sharing your story. Heavy Metal is not my normal listening, but I look forward to hearing your Music, especially in MQA with your stamp of approval.

Like you, I thoroughly enjoy the MQA I have heard, it sounds just natural and correct to me. Some people just don’t like, don’t want and won’t accept change, they will do all they can to justify this in a discussion, and that’s OK too. I hear what they say and then listen with my ears and cannot accept their arguments and hostility.
I also respect Bob Stuart and his track record of achievement over the years, I believe him to be an honourable man with a passion for music and it’s authenticity.

Please let us know when your MQA re releases arrive.
Chris

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2333

I agree. I usually listen to MQA when using an MQA DAC. Otherwise, I listen to 24/96 or 24/192 when available.

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2334

I have never heard an MQA file that, to MY ears, sounds as good ad 44.1/16 flac. Part of that may be attributable to Tidal itself, as in general, their 44.1/14 files don’t sound as good as Qobuz’s. And I have heard several others make the same comment, so it’s not just my ears.