Thank you for your apology, I appreciate it is easy to get drawn in here. Especialy when we see things differently. Try discussing Brexit in the UK
There will always be a choice of music formats so I agree that people should not be forced into MQA.
Interestingly Bob Stuart said this in the recent interviews with John Darko.
How the music is presented is the choice of the artists and if they choose MQA then so be it.
Interestingly he talks about masters that cannot be released in MQA until they find a ‘Responsible Adult’ to sign them off.
The authentication is so often overlooked. With an MQA file, you get what was intended at all levels of playback. No upsampled MP3 or CD to call it High Res.
From a personal viewpoint from extended listening to MQA material, it has a natural soundstage that I miss with non MQA files. Certainly not Lossy…
This does not stop me enjoying non MQA music as it will be a very long time, if ever that all my music is MQA, but I can notice the sound is lacking now. Great mastering certainly helps though. Also with MQA I notice that the sample rate bares little equivalence to the sound. It seems it is not relevant. MQA is MQA be it 48k or 382k.
I am sure this matters technically to achieve the level playing field but from a user POV it’s not relevant any more. My thoughts and I know you may not agree. That is ok.
The issue here is the definition of “responsible adult” - I’d contend some bloke in a suit doesn’t fit that when it comes to works of art, yet it looks like that’s what we’re sometimes getting, and there’s no way to know who made the little light turn blue.
The same applies with forcing format choices: it’s the old truism that the difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there’s no difference. From where I’m sitting, Stuart can say all he wants, but in practice, his company has hegemonic aims, and it is working towards that by either being mendacious, or allowing others to be.
I’m not saying this to be an asshole, or snarky or anything, but if you haven’t tried that yet, maybe there’s a way to approximate the parts of MQA processing you like, on your non-MQA files, with @jussi_laako’s help.
Why? It’ll cost more to use his products! If you like MQA and get it as part of your outlay on hardware and software, why on earth would you then hand over more cash to approximate that in a third party program? That line is a classic example of not being able to be objective about something you don’t agree with!
I’m specifically talking about non-MQA files, and all I’m saying is that everything won’t necessarily be released as MQA, that some might find MQA’s filtering euphonic, and that for them, using HQPlayer to get there for non-MQA’d files could be something to explore.
You are still not being objective. Either MQA is euphonic or it isn’t. That characteristic isn’t subjective so your comments appear speculative.
The problem with much of the MQA rhetoric, be it pro or anti, is most is based on people’s predisposition to MQA and not to any repeatable evidence that it is better (despite the marketing) or worse (despite the best efforts of those who oppose it). And by far the biggest problem is the lack of opposition by anybody in a position of influence in the industry. No one big has emerged to say no, this is wrong. Nor would they because if they have to, they will adopt it regardless.
That some people might like some types of distortion isn’t speculative, but it is subjective: I, personally, tend to not prefer tube amps, which are euphonic to others.
Whatever’s going on with MQA has been examined (by Archimago right here, for one). This is stuff that seems to have exactly jack to do with “temporal de-blurring of DAC distortion”, or whatever it is the MQA folks are claiming at this point. Assuming it’s audible, it might be worth it for people who like the way MQA files sound to try it.
@Xekomi While I personally like (some) MQA files, I couldn’t agree more about the use of sound engineering practices. As an example, I discovered this album (not available on any streaming service) through an interesting article (here ) on 6 Moons. To summarize the article, Tony Minasian at Tonian Labs has managed to record a CD at 16/44 that sounds spectacular. No need for 24/96. I contacted Tony (info@tonianlabs.com) and purchased files for this CD and another one that he did with the same recording techniques. They both sound spectacular. I asked Tony whether I could post one of his tracks so people on the Roon community site could test it. He agreed and you’ll find the track “Argisht” from Hang Aroundhere . Let me know what you think! I sure wish other recording companies would adopt his techniques for non-compressed music. BTW, this is a cross-post from the Roon music section.
Yes the sample rate doesn’t matter at all - that is just smoke and mirrors “origami” to distract the user from what is really going on. The primary distortion induced by MQA will affect everything including the first unfold. You have first phase distortion and second apodizing distortion. The first affects the sound by delaying high frequencies with respect to low frequencies. The second lowers the frequency and flattens transients. The second effect is the euphonic affect (fatter transients or punchy sound and lower pitch on transients).
To loosely paraphrase Bob Stuart’s first video clip (okay, the first six minutes as I was bored after that) he says that music reproduction goes through all kinds of processing so it is inevitable that the consumer won’t experience precisely what was recorded.
The solution to this problem is to use all kinds of processing so the consumer experiences something that MQA believe is closer to the original recording.
