MQA General Discussion

Sure - it’s even on the main page, and shows “Master” upon playback.

Ok thanks…different options in different countries I guess…Licensing etc.

Anyone non-US seeing Buena Vista Social Club so far??

I have a hi res version of Buena Vista from HD tracks and the MQA version from High Resoultion. The MQA version is significantly better. True, I’m not sure of the provenance of the HD Tracks download other than it’s 96/24.

I have the same versions, and same conclusions.
Plus the Tidal MQA which I think is the same mastering as the MQA download.

Sorry Anders
Are you saying that you prefer the MQA to the 24/96 download??..as you appear to be saying differently above??

Tidal must have several versions, they had BVSC prior to the MQA release.
I knew when I as comparing MQA to MQA because my Meridian DAC says so.

Tidal has at least one 16/44 version of every Album that is available in MQA…and sometime more, with Expanded / Deluxe etc versions available

Just wanting to be clear…maybe I’m misreading your posts…but you seem to have two conflicting posts above about how you perceive the MQA version of BVSC…one comment seems to say 'no difference to 24/96 download"…while another in agreement with Ken saying that MQA sounds better to him than 24/96 download…[and I think we all know that Mastering caveats need to be remembered]

Can you clear up just for the sake of academia??..Thanks

To add some insight, “Buena Vista Social Club” has had at least two different masterings from at least two different mixes. Yes, different mixes. The CD mix from 1997 and one or more later remixes. So, that variable almost certainly is in play here to account for large audible differences with the MQA release.

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/86670

AJ

Sorry, but I find your claim to be spurious and misleading

Until one KNOWS which Master and Mix that the MQA of BVSC version comes from…and not guessing…then any such claim needs that caveat added

Until one KNOWS what Master and Mix that ANY MQA Album comes from, then all people can do is to match levels as best they can and decide for themselves

Mastering and Provenance are well understood by most here…as are the immense difficulties in TRULY determining which Master Tape / Security Tape and which Generation was used for the creating the version being listened to

Stridently claiming that the differences are solely down to mastering is patronising and doesn’t need continuous repeating IMHO

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Woah there, we’re just trying to bring balance to the force. Equally all the claims about MQA could be placed in the “spurious and misleading” (your words) bracket for the exact same reasons. :rolling_eyes:

I’ve synced like that several times with no luck.

Thanks, not dismissive nor embracing of MQA just yet. As for Dirac within Tidal, not able to get Dirac to operate when playing MQA tracks (may need to re-do Dirac Calibration Tool with higher rates). With Roon, the difference between 16/44 and 24/48 is certainly not obvious. Once higher rates available in Roon, more listening and evaluations can be made.

Right, without an MQA-enabled DAC, all you’re hearing right now through Roon is the first 16 bits (or so) of the MQA encoded track; i.e., Redbook-equivalent, with a little extra content folded into the noise floor. So it should sound pretty much the same as the normal stream, + / - a little noise here and there, which they claim is inaudible.

Bit strong fella - all opinions welcome and equal in this place

I have A/B’d the 96/24 DVDA rip with the MQA download. It wasn’t blind but I can say that they sounded very much like the same mix. There was no obvious difference in intended prominence of any vocal or instrumentation. My guess is that they used the DVDA/hi-res master rather than and CD master.

What was obvious to us was the change in clarity and overall separation of everything that was going on. Soundstage got wider and much, much deeper. Ability to follow and place in space individual percussion or guitar lines, multiple vocal harmonies etc. It was all just massively much easier to hear and follow with the MQA cut. These recordings are actually very busy. Lots going on with many live instrumentals as well as over dubs. Check out the film for more on this. Chan Chan is a great intro but other gentler gems include Dos Gardenias with a lovely Ferrer vocal. Beautiful.

Both local files and I don’t recall any change in levels. Can’t comment about the Tidal stream as I haven’t tested that.

MQA was fully decoded on my system and came out at 96/24.

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This Dirac thing v interested I have a large v noisy loft listening room with all hard surfaces, weird angles and sloping ceilings. Good sound with my setup but something is wrong. Will stick around for Roon room correction efforts first

I agree about Dirac. It’s been the best SQ investment for me in years.

I was not able to use Dirac with Tidal Desktop app and MQA (Windows) because the Tidal app demanded that I set my soundcard settings to 16/44.1 when using exclusive mode. Maybe there is a workaround that I haven’t discovered and hopefully it will differently in Roon.

See this:

http://audiophilereview.com/cd-dac-digital/mqa-master-streaming-on-tidal-rules.html

The last sentence…

Tomorrow, I will run Dirac Live Calabration again with resolutions up to 192
Hopefully, that will resolve the conflict between Tidal MQA offerings and Dirac.
Initially, I only checked boxes for 44 and 48 in Dirac, as that was what the output of Tidal and Tidal via Roon. With Tidal now providing 88 and 96- Tidal may “reject” Dirac DSP, as Dirac is limited to lower resolution as per my initial Calibration settings.

Very interested to hear those results. On the Meridian Unplugged forum Rodney Gold ran a comparison using Tidal MQA with Dirac Live, getting good results. He said Dirac didn’t affect anything because it was at the “tail end”. Not sure what that means or how it affects MQA.