MQA is a lossy format, as acknowledged by Bob Stewart, it’s inventor. Whether you hear a difference of not depends on your ears, and how your brain processes the incoming information. Some people will hear MQA as significantly inferior to regular Hi Res (myself included), some will hear MQA as significantly better (Apparently you being included), and most people somewhere in between. That is the reality of it all. Your preferences are your reality based on YOUR ears and brain. My preferences are based on MY ears and brain. As with most facets of life, we each have different realities. I really wish we would ALL accept that and stop trying to convince anyone that one format is better than the other. I am just glad there is MQA for those who prefer that, and non-MQA for people like me. Hopefully both will peacefully coexist until something better than both comes along.
The Hi-Res Audio logo Is meant for any lossless codecs that can deliver better than CD quality. Hi-Res WAV/FLAC(PCM) and DSD are just a few of them. There’s no mention of MQA, my take is, it is lossy codec.
Mostly manufacturers in Japan will have the logo affixed on their Hi-Res components. I don’t see it much in EU and US audio equipment manufacturers.
Looks like I’m not crazy saying that the higher the sampling rate, the better it sounds. Even at 68, I swear I can hear the difference. The higher the frequency, the better you capture attack and delay, which to me has always been so important to getting the essence of music as faithfully reproduced as possible.
To me I already enjoy Hi-Res audio when I brought my first SACD player more than a decade ago. Now with world going for streaming, Hi-Res lossless streaming is already here (Qobuz). I don’t see we need another third party codecs to blurr the line. Hi-Res PCM and DSD will satisfy many of us who have already invested a lot of money in our audio equipment. We can continue to enjoy the music for many years to come.
I was viewing this from a marketing point of view. People buy cheap headphones with the Hi-Res Audio logo, so let’s sell them something else with the latest sticker.
When people say MQA is Lossy they seem to imply it’s like MP3 that throws INFORMATION away. Well the news is, it does not do this. No musical information is lost, making the file only the size it needs to be to deliver the analog sound that went in at the front end of the MQA delivery system.
What goes in to the ADC and what comes out of an MQA DAC are identical.
Yes, the amps, speakers cables etc can all affect the final result.
I have nothing against people not liking it, that’s a personal preference
Given the same master, the higher sample rate could cause a DAC to perform less aggressive filtering. That alone could cause the hi-res version to sound better. It’s not voodoo.
Wow just wow!
That’s quite an absolute statement. Would you care to elaborate on how you arrived at this conclusion?
Because Bob the allmighty has said so
That’s how it works. It’s the whole point of an end to end system.
Information most definitely is thrown away, per Bob Stewart. But he contends the information thrown away is inaudible. And I disagree. I an convinced that I can hear the loss.
You must have golden ears because I cannot hear anything missing. I had a friend around the other day and we played Child in Time, Deep Purple Made in Japan 1972 mix MQA. All he could say afterwards was “Wow, That was a visceral experience”. And it was. Neighbours were out and we turned it up.
What he didn’t say was “Hmmm, I think something is missing” lol
We marvelled at the clarity of the Cymbals and percussion the power of the organ and the superb guitar solos and thought that the rock rule book was written right there…
We had a great time, two old friends enjoying music as never before…
The point is, the system is not end to end.
During the recording session, the sound passes through the A/D converter, then goes through mixing and mastering.
THEN and only then does it get sent to MQA for the Origami bit.
So clearly what comes out of an MQA DAC is not what went into the A/D. Unless you know of an MQA capable A/D.
I repeat what I said further up. MQA was designed to carry a “like hires” signal over a bandwidth constrained pipe and then unfold it to something as close as possible to the original hires. But it is lossy nevertheless. Well done, but still lossy, like any other good perceptual codec (opus, mp3, aac).
All (incl. MQA) are fine pieces of engineering and do their job well, if used as intended.
No problem. You are free to enjoy music as you would like. And I am really happy if you do, because I also enjoy my music.
But I would be a bit careful attributing the positive experience exclusively to the properties of MQA.
Why should I be careful? I know I have never had recorded sound this good all my life and then people say, in a derogatory way, it’s lossy. Well, if it is… so what; the sound is amazing here on my system.
Yes the sound going into the MQA end to end system is the same as the sound coming out of an MQA DAC and after that, it’s up to your system. That is the point.
Thanks for clarifying your first statement. I think now I understand what you meant.
Derogatory?
It wasn’t your last quote that was derogatory, apologies if you thought I was referring to it. So many are derogatory in other posts. The tired old line MQA is Lossy as if it’s MP3.
Lossy is not per se a bad thing. Videos are usually compressed using lossy codecs, even 4k video.
A 128kbit/s mp3 stream and a 1,152Mbit/s MQA stream are not really comparable, except for the fact that they are both lossy approximations of a higher bandwidth original. Each is intended for a different purpose.
On the other hand, neither can be a true representation of the original, as both are lossy. Whether the difference between the original and the lossy representation can be heard is very subjective (and influenced by many factors).
In that regard, everything is Lossy. As you say, that’s not a bad thing, it just is. The upshot is, audio and video has never been so good. We live in a golden age…