After some tests I have just been doing with precisely aligning levels (within 0.01dB) - I am wondering if it has more to with subtle level differences than anything else.
I’m not disappointed with MQA as an approach for mastering and music content delivery but I am disappointed with the mass-produced re-encoding of label catalogs resulting in an uneven production of MQA albums. Some sound fantastic and others not so much. In some cases, you can actually hear a garbled reel!
At first I was glad to see major labels move out quickly to provide MQA but now I wish they had taken longer and done more considerate work (like the white-glove treatment Led Zeppelin got). As others have said, it is the quality of the mastering that matters most and I was hoping MQA would at least motivate undoing some of the bad that came with loudness wars and modern mass-produced music.
That said, there are many MQA releases that sound better to me than the previous streams on Tidal so I’m generally pleased with this new offering.
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I’m not sure what’s happening, but I hear a noticeable difference between the 48kHz 24bit , MQA 96kHz version of Broken Record by Van Morrison (from Versatile) and the 44.1kHz 16bit release. Both released December 2017.
I don’t care to argue the points if MQA sounds better, to me it does. I’m so glad Roon added the feature. It’s why I’m still using Roon and Tidal.
I’ll be the first to say the Carpenters new release with the Royal Philharmonic on MQA is a nice Christmas present.
My mouth is just ignorant to translate what my ears hear and believe to be satisfying.
I will play MQA everytime for family and friends if I want them to be “impressed” by the system.
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No. Simply, no. Biology. You are believer, that’s it. When you 60, you hear different, and less than you were younger.
MQA losse package, with potential DRM, with paid licence, with many, many “?” (where we have technical compendium about MQA? Independent technical tests, verification?) So, yes, you believe that MQA sounds better, and believe you hear that better also. No more.
And?
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MQA is all about time smear and normal age related hearing loss has nothing to do with it. We all lose some high frequency reception.
There is no DRM in MQA and that has been officially stated.
I know what I hear and I am loving well produced music delivered in MQA. I also enjoy well produced music in CD although MQA to me sounds a lot better.
I even enjoy some poorly produce albums Try Wizzard Wizzard Brew… it’s a wonderful mess. Lol
Ehmm… no, you hear different, and less, not only h-freq… sorry, you miss the point.
Well, I think you are missing the point. My hearing is very good (I am lucky) I have a very good system and I enjoy music very much. I play guitar and assist in hosting high quality live music. I know some very fine sound engineers and artist and know what good sound is like.
I like things to sound real and MQA certainly delivers that for me.
Ok, you believe or you are “lucky” (btw biology is science not religion), but for real: MQA is black box (from technical point) and for many of us sounds not so good (you know, MQA is not bit-perfect, is far form restricted high-fidelity, its lossy and for some reasons (commercial?) optimised). You believe that this is better SQ, I’m not.
For me many tracks from Tidal sounds much more natural in CDA version than MQA variant. Many.
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MQA is not musically Lossy. No Musical information is lost. The issue is Time Smear. Frequency loss is a minor issue and does not prevent the enjoyment and perception of music in normal circumstances. (I cannot comment on serious medical conditions that may affect hearing)
You seem to not appreciate the paradigm shift that needs to be considered with MQA. This argument has been done to death here before so I apologise for repeating my view.
If you don’t like MQA, that’s ok. Don’t play it, but for me, as I have stated many times, I very much enjoy the quality I am hearing in the music I listen to on my systems, that is MQA encoded. I personally wish I had more of it to enjoy but that will come to me in time I hope.
Please to continue to enjoy CD and High Res music as it can sound really great also.
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Correct, messing with certain frequency timing to reduce pre ringing by all analysis I’ve read.
That is because you have good ears! Unfortunately a lot of folks don’t know what is “more natural” and can’t tell that MQA is detrimental and rather believe the “claimed improvements” made by the proponents of the lossy time smeared MQA format.
So your basically saying because some of us happen to like MQA we don’t have good ears? Are you a specialist in hearing that can determine someone has poor hearing based on personal preferrence? Never new science had made such leaps and bounds. I must have missed this in the press somehow.
I think he is saying that some people find distortion in the MQA file pleasing whilst other do not. Not that this is easy to discern with casual listening.
We can debate personal preference ad infinitum. But the one thing we should be clear on is that the MQA format does alter the original material.
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How do you quantify this if the data is already lossy in nature? Listening is very subjective and it vary for people to people. As long we can quantify that data has not change we can be assured there’s a consistent sound quality delivered to the listeners.
In many listening test there’s a consistent differences between Hi-Res vs MQA and that boils down to the typical sound signature MQA has to offer. I’m not saying MQA doesn’t sound good but when MQA advertised as ‘MQA Studio’ it does means it should sound very close to the Hi-Res counterparts but in this case it doesn’t.
If like the sound signature of MQA so be it but bare in mind MQA is not Hi-Res master. By the way, MQA is always derived from Hi-Res masters so obviously it is termed as ‘second hand’ sound.
How do you know? What kind of tests are you talking about?
Yes, but that’s only true because the kind of age-related hearing loss you’re talking about is a very slow process that takes decades. Our brain simply gets used to the fact that our hearing is deteriorating. If it all happened in a couple of hours, it would certainly be a “serious medical condition”.
I’ve done numerous A/B tests in the past and I can consistently able to differentiate between MQA vs Hi-Res contents. If you read in this thread and elsewhere people have reported they do hear the difference.
And that difference is significant enough and in some cases it actually alter the characteristics of the recording. Some artists have actually voiced up theirs concerns. That’s the fact.
Could you elaborate on that? How did you do those tests? How did you find out that you can reliably hear the differences you are referring to?
In your opinion, you state opinions like facts. Plenty 0f people disagree with you.