MQA disappointing

There are a couple of interesting videos from John Darko interviewing Bob Stuart.

As you mentioned tuning:

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I have sent that to the guy who runs our Guitar Club lol The regime looks like it will tighten up soon :joy:

It is the still the same old thing 4 years back; may be the ‘tone’ has changed a bit over time. I guess many has already grew tired of it (The sound).

I love the sound, I love the smoothness, the space. It just seems effortless to me on my system.

I feel Bob has covered many of the criticisms here and the recent article in Computer Audio goes into some depth (Deeper than I can swim) to refute all the technical miss information laid before MQA.

We all get to choose and listen to what we want.

Unfortunately the only thing I see are ‘claims’ with no reference on technical grounds. I guessed they did a good marketing to get you onboard (mesmerised by their sound but not the actual ones)?

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I laugh whenever I read the posts from the anti MQA crowd thinking they will be able to stop MQA from being accepted going forward. The so called audiophile community doesn’t have sufficient leverage to impact whether or not labels release music in any format. MQA, DSD and hi-res PCM aren’t a drop in the music bucket. The debate is as futile as analog vs digital, solid state vs tube …

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Judging by the reaction of some of the manufacturers it seemed the MQA chaps were also demanding more IP than the manufacturers were willing to give. I was caught up in the hype at first, but am now not seeking out MQA. My long (very long) DAC search has opened up considerably since dumping MQA (and DSD) as a requirement.

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You get IP costs with all formats. That’s the way the world works and more MQA DACs and upgrades seem to be happening all the time.
It’s is a free market though, so not all will join in with MQA and that is fine. It goes to prove that MQA are not after nor ever will achieve world domination.

I wonder whether a format designed to reduce streaming bandwidth really has a long future, though?
It’s possible to stream 24/192 now via Qobuz and bandwidth is only going to increase.
In terms of sound, I can of course only go by my own ears, but MQA for me doesn’t sound any better than 24/192 without the folding/ unfolding.

Who knows, but people have small mobile data caps and MQA will surely help here.

I had a friend around to listen to some music and especialy MQA. I played him tracks he knew well and he confessed that this was the best he had ever heard them.
Lady Grinning Soul, David bowie. Riders on the Storm The Doors. Plus many more. We also played a lot of modern MQA in 48K as well. Gregory Porter. Michael Bublé Ashley McBride, Shelby Lynn etc.

I display the sample rate on my Master speaker, Meridian DSP 5200se and he made the observation that the MQA rate seemed to be irrelevant when you compare sound quality. A 48 K file sounds equally as good as a 382 file. It is just MQA.

Mobile, sure…for now at least.
As for sound - I guess it’s all personal. Friends, family and I don’t hear any benefit for MQA vs a non MQA high res. file. Maybe we all have cloth ears and can’t quite hear the sorcery at play.

It’s great that you don’t hear a difference as this shows just what MQA is able to do. The industry case for lower bandwidth is a sound one. Also the authentication is important. It ensures you are getting the genuine file. Not something upsampled from who knows what.

The recent videos with Bob Stuart from John Darko cover these issues in more depth…

I’d certainly say that authentication of the source material is a positive. Too much of a temptation for unscrupulous sellers to upscale content and pass it off as genuine.

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Oh yea. These upsamplers at Qobuz, HD Tracks etc…
Well at least they dont hack the original files into pieces and then try to glue them together in a lossy way… and sell their “work” at a premium price.

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All hail bob, he’s going to save the world from problems nobody cared about till he invented them. Like anyone who cares needs mqa to determine whether a file is upsampled :star_struck:

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Clearly, you know best… :joy: All I can say is the more I hear MQA on my system the more I want. I can hear a more natural sound that I Like. CD files can be very very good, and I really mean this as can High Res files. But most, to my ears don’t match up for quality. I am not alone in this observation but in the end, it’s all about choice.

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No it isn’t: it’s irrelevant going forward, as has been repeated again, and again, and that’s assuming that MQA is actually a true improvement over existing, open formats like FLAC, a questionable claim in itself.

If your fascination with BS makes you, or anyone in “the industry”, incapable of getting your heads around the historical reality that standards have gone from less bandwidth commonly available to consumers to more bandwidth available to consumers, in a relatively short amount of time, and not the other way around, then, quite frankly, you’re so far gone I doubt there’s much that can be done for you.

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MQA is not a Format Like FLAC. MQA is an end to end system and uses a FLAC wrapper for delivery.
Also, why is your tone so hostile to me?
I like MQA, you don’t see the need… That’s it.

Chris, please accept my apologies for the hostility. I’m a bit fed up with what I see as a breach of public trust by Stuart and MQA, inc. is all, and feel like being being blunt about ways in which I see them misleading the public is the best course of action at this point: I of course don’t want to prevent your enjoyment of MQA-encoded files, but I’d appreciate it, as I’m sure you can understand, if that remained a choice going forward.

You’re of course right about FLAC as one of the possible wrappers for MQA-encoded files, but please don’t make the same mistake of brevity I did, and don’t forget MQA CD :wink: .

I’d personally much rather have the public discussion on improvements to sound quality being where it matters, which is sound (ha!) engineering practices well before a choice of format, system or wrapper for delivery is made: call me heretic, but I’ll take a well recorded and mastered, non bit-starved MP3 over a crappily recorded and mastered DSD256 file any day. Under the guise of “fixing” the chain, which it doesn’t do since it’s been established that the “master” part is mendacious, and the “authentication” part is already being done by suits and not the creative forces behind the recordings, MQA is shifting the discourse away from where, in my mind, the goal should be, in a way that’s completely counter-productive to the consumer, hence my hostility towards it.

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