This is pure pedantry, I don’t think there’s any doubt that it is “lossy” but the discarded information isn’t audible. So to be clear what do you think the consequences are? Less of the anti MQA mantra that repeats and repeats and a bit more of the… this means that…
Do you agree that it’s inaudibly lossy?
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Again I say, if you can hear information above 45Khz which is I understand what we are talking about then great. The fact that we can’t even record such information shouldn’t get in the way.
But we are all free to choose how we listen and I haven’t seen MQA take over the world just yet.
Whether or not what MQA ‘does’ to the high frequencies during it’s lossy conversion is a matter for debate.
But whether or not MQA is lossy is not debatable. It is ‘lossy’.
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Why are you debating it then?
If you’re saying there’s an audible loss, then fine, debate that but what you’re writing really isn’t very clear. You bring up lossy and then say it’s not debatable.
I don’t think many dispute that MQA involves some loss of information. However, the pejorative use of the term ‘lossy’ by some in respect of their comments about MQA and any comparison to MP3 is in my opinion pedantic at best and deliberately provocative at worst.
I have just returned from holiday and haven’t been following this forum and so am not up to date with comments on the forum. In recent posts, you have repeatedly stated that MQA is ‘lossy’. Fine - but do you actually think that this matters? Would you choose to listen to MQA content if available, or would you choose not to under any circumstance?
Is it your opinion that the availability of MQA Masters on Tidal is a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ thing or something about which you are completely ambivalent? Have your recent posts been made simply to clarify the fact that from a technical perspective MQA is as you say - ‘lossy’.
If you are opposed to MQA in general and the inclusion of MQA Masters on Tidal in particular, then why are you opposed to it? Is it because you believe (as do some others) that MQA is a stealthy way to introduce DRM, is it simply because you are opposed in principal to any format that does not completely conform to so called ‘Redbook’ standard, or is it because you have listened to and compared MQA with standard ‘Redbook’ files and to your ears and on your system(s) the ‘Redbook’ versions sound better.
If you find that for you MQA encoded files simply do not sound good or do not sound as good as ‘Redbook’ equivalents then I completely respect your opinion (as I would expect you and others to respect mine). However, I would point out that if this is the case then you are (in almost all cases) able to make a deliberate choice to listen to a non MQA version.
Those (like myself) who choose to listen to MQA versions of albums on Tidal can do so, and those who don’t can similarly choose not to do so. This is absolutely not directed at you, because I don’t know your stance on the matter, but I simply do not subscribe to the ‘world domination’ conspiracy theories propagated by some anti-MQA ‘zealots’.
I repeat my view of MQA and High Resolution audio in general. Most of my listening is done with standard ‘Redbook’ audio sources, and so the sound quality of these files on my system is of most importance to me, and some of my best sounding albums are standard 16bit 44.1kHz format.
However, I also believe that in some cases (certainly not all), high resolution files (where equivalent masters exist) can sound subtly better and (to my ears) more natural and less fatiguing for long term listening than 16bit 44.1kHz versions. I find this to be the case with both ‘standard’ high resolution files and with MQA ‘high resolution’ files, and so whenever available (and unless I believea different mastering of the high resolution file to be detrimental to the music) then I will normally choose to listen to the high resolution version.
I don’t think that my view is particularly controversial or pedantic. However, I do find the views of some of those who oppose MQA to be both pedantic and overly aggressive.
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My response was to a post from Chris earlier, who maintained that no information is ‘lost’ during MQA conversion. The fact is, is that information is lost, which defines MQA as a ‘lossy’ format.
As I have previously stated, whether or not that ‘loss’ is audible, is indeed debatable. But lets’s get clear what is debatable, and what is fact.
I like MQA, and I like the sound it produces. I don’t generally tend to enagage in A/B comparisons, because I really can’t be bothered. I tend to just listen to the music instead. But your stance got me thinking. So I’ve just done an A/B comparison on the following album:
‘Through The Fire’ is a beautiful track, and show’s Chaka’s vocal talents superbly. I listened to and compared both the MQA stream from Tidal, and the 24/96 stream from Qobuz. And there was indeed a difference between the two streams. The high frequencies on the Qobuz lossless stream were far better portrayed, with more accuracy and ‘headroom’. The MQA stream, by comparison, was dull and lifeless, with muted and smeared high frequencies. So yes, in my system, with these particular streams, the diffference was indeed audible. To me, and me only. Other people might not hear it. But I did.
That’s not to say I don’t prefer the MQA ‘version’ with other recordings. I do. For example, I prefer to MQA stream of Paramore’s new(ish) album ‘After Laughter’ to the High-Res stream from Qobuz. I listened to both versions a few months ago, and the MQA version sounded more ‘holographic’, and got my foot tapping quicker!
But in this particular instance, with the Chaka Khan streams, I can discern a difference, and the MQA version loses IMO.
So I can state, that in this particular instance I can hear the truncating effect MQA has on the music. Others may ‘hear’ differently. And that’s OK. It’s completely debatable 
And if you’re interested, the comparison was made using a Lumin A1, which is an authenticated MQA DAC/network player.
The term ‘lossy’ is not perjorative at all. It is a factual description. Nothing more. Nothing less.
As to whether it ‘matters’ or not is completely up to the individual listener. Everyone is different. To some it will ‘matter’, to others it will not.
And I completely agree with you that some who obviously oppose MQA do indeed portray their bias in overtly aggressive and pedantic ways, in many cases without even listening to it.
However, I think that in a thread such as this, it’s important to get the facts right. Whether or not you ‘like’ or ‘prefer’ MQA is very much debatable.
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I’ve had some streams (two specifically) from Tidal where there was awful distortion from the tweeters, I didn’t look to see if it was MQA, I thought it may have been a DSP effect. I didn’t investigate further. I can’t think it was MQA, it was too bad. I will try to recreate and further investigate. It does however open the possibility that there may be other factors involved in distortion. I’m not being disingenuous…
I do agree that the term ‘lossy’ in itself is not pejorative. However, the way it is used by some to dismiss MQA as worthless most certainly is.
To be pedantic, this particular thread is entitled ‘MQA disappointing’ and relates to the subjective sound quality of MQA sources rather than the factual technical details of MQA. I believe that an off-shoot of this thread relates to the question of ‘what constitutes high resolution audio’.
My main point is that I do not wish to dictate or restrict the listening options of others, but some of those who vigorously campaign (there really is no other way to describe their posts) against MQA and the inclusion of MQA Masters in Tidal certainly do want to restrict my listening options. This I find objectionable.
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There are many factors associated with ‘distortion’ (speaking about it in an all-encompassing, generic way).
I tend to think that MQA and/or any other type of source file doesn’t have a great deal to do with it, and in my own experience at least, it tends to be more ‘hardware’ related.
I don’t disagree with you, on any of the points you have made.
There are many differing, often opposing opinions about MQA. Personally, I’m quite ambivalent towards it. I like what I hear with MQA. Sometimes. And that’s the key thrust of this thread - how MQA sounds.
However, I also think that it’s important to get our facts right about MQA. Otherwise it just becomes another exercise in ‘Fake News’.
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I also don’t disagree with your position. Most of my MQA comparisons have been in respect of MQA vs standard 16bit 44.1 files on Tidal, and I find that in most cases the MQA versions sound subtly ‘better’ to my ears and on my systems.
My main interest has been in respect of the availability of ‘high resolution’ (my view but completely open to debate) music via the MQA Masters within Tidal and so haven’t carried out many comparisons of MQA vs ‘standard’ high definition files, but the small number of tests I have carried out lead to a similar conclusion to your own. I only possess 3 MQA album downloads, and have come to the conclusion that for a number of reasons whenever I decide to purchase a high resolution version of an album I will almost certainly choose to purchase the non MQA version.
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Something to throw into the debate of the last 20 posts or so. If the argument is that anything over say 20hz is inaudible, and therefore lossy compression above that does not matter (is itself “inaudible”), well then that begs the question, why hi res in the first place? Is not 16/44 all you need - anything more (rather lossy or not) is superfluous?
Anyone know the answer?
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Harmonic content?
From what I understand higher sample rates allow for easier/cleaner analog construction. The other advantage from what I’ve read is lack of ringing on A/D conversion or at least really moving it out of audible range.
The question really becomes: why take all the advantages hi-res gives us and move backwards by putting it through MQA processing.
Right. However, why do you need hi res (anything more than 16/44) for that? Do not almost ALL dacs on the market today upsample internally to accomplish the same thing? True, one can debate the finer points of upsampling strategery, but almost all admit your really arguing over the very last stretch of quality there.
True. As far a strategy for better SQ, MQA makes almost no sense at all. Even if you like out of phase filtering, it’s too-much-of-a-good-thing (and thus very very leaky, and thus high IM filters) is, well, one of if not THE worst product on the market for such an implementation. From the distortion from the folding process to the end users DAC applying high IM filters, it simply is a very eccentric take - even if you grant MQA’s central philosophy that “ringing” (for which they invented a new name - “blurring”) is something you should go to such lenghts to mitigate, damn the consequences in other areas such as intermodulation distortion and the like.
Here is a suggestion. The labels and “the industry” have had a hard time $selling$ hi res, or for that matter just 16/44 (because for the vast majority of music lovers, 256kb mp3 is all their playback chains and ears need). MQA is several things, but one of those things is an attempt to package and monitize > 256kb music. Thankfully, MQA like hi res, has failed to do this.
Well there is a whole market of upsampling hardware and software to deal with the lower sample rates. Seems like higher sample rate content would be the proper solution.
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Ideally, however the upsampling of 99.9% of the DAC’s on the market is pretty good. So good in fact, whatever is left to be gained in most cases is for the “audiophile” - guys like you and me who have HQPlayer, expensive dacs and playback chains, etc. If for the 99%, 320kbs MP3 is indistinguishable from 16/44, then what is the percentage who can benefit from hi res? 1%? I think that is too high. .01%? Probably something like that. Which brings us back to the market - how can hi res ever catch on, or 16/44 continue hanging on, if so few are in any way interested in the ideal?
My point in saying all this is to simply point out that hi res, even 16/44 as a mass market sell is tough - so few can even begin to take advantage of the quality.
Into this market reality walks MQA, trying to sell itself as sound quality product. Even if this were true (of course it is not) it would be a bit of a fool’s errand it seems to me…unless of course the sound quality speak is just a marketing angle.
That said, it is interesting to see the inconsistencies. On the one hand, the loss of information is “inaudible”. On the other, MQA is ostensibly a “hi res” product and hi res is a benefit…for some reason. As usual, MQA wants to have it both ways. Also of course, those who end up defending it both ways never seem to have a grasp of the background - why hi res in the first place, the understanding of the contradiction, etc.
Like the guy said, who are you to say whether it matters or not? Stop deflecting.
There is a debate whether the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96 is audible.
This article goes right to the heart of this thread. It cites two studies:
The well known Meyer / Moran saying that the difference cannot be heard.
And a treatise by Bob Stuart which says, the CD cannot reproduce everything that is audible.
Then there is the view by Dan Lavry that the optimal sample rate for audio reproduction is around 60kHz.
Take your pick.
I tend not to worry too much. The variability of different masterings is so much greater that the maybe audible difference between formats, that I will chose the better mastering over the format.
The Shelby Lynne CD I mentioned further up blows away the SACD.
I find the Jackson Browne MQA Masters on Tidal (slightly) better than the hires on Qobuz.
Now that’s about listening preferences.
Whether MQA produces (measurable) distortions is a completely different (technical / objective) discussion. I think that one has been answered.
Whether some folks actually prefer those distortions (as some people prefer the crosstalk and distortions of vinyl to digital) is yet again another (subjective) question.
It would be nice if we could keep the different questions apart and not answer a question with the answer to a different question, which is what is constantly happening in this thread
- “MQA sounds terrific”
- “But MQA is lossy and produces distortions”
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I really don’t understand the point you are trying to make.
My opinion is as valid as that of anyone else - no more than that. From what do you think I am deflecting?