MQA General Discussion

[anon55914447]

What would be helpful is if Roon could extend the at-a-glance DR indicator introduced into 1.3 to Tidal albums in the library. Then we would have a quick visual indicator that could help us determine if a different master is in play.

[Ronnie]

A different argument from another perspective…but also arriving at the same conclusion that TIMING is important in how our Brain Perceives Music

[anon55914447]

It is, but swamped by speaker and room reflection figures, as outlined here.

Not to mention that these apodising filters are a set of trade-offs with increased aliasing. You pays your money and choose your poison, I guess.

[Henry_McLeod (Henry)]

This chimes in with my experience of MQA. I listen in what is very much a studio like near field environment with high powered amplification into point source speakers. That bypasses the majority of the room effects and that makes differences relatively easy to discern. In a more conventional setup much of what I heard was lost, certainly blind testing amongst a group of people was much less conclusive about the question of “better”. Different, well possibly. Better, not conclusive at all amongst a group of people.

[anon94274355]

Exactly! No real care is taken, I believe all they have done for the major majority is just batch convert their existing hi-res pcm catalog. Nothing wrong with that, but don’t be naive and think WB is doing more than this at the moment. Perfect example is the Gene Clark - No Other album which is a 16/44.1 file, so my guess is they just ran the cd master through their encoder or maybe the original master of an album from 1974 was recorded digitally at 16/44.1.

[rayski]

My comment is not a comment on sound quality (good or bad), but rather in regards to the MQA mantra “Authenticated as the Studio sound approved by the Artist/Copyright owners.” Are artists really approving old catalogs? Maybe some, Neil Young for example, but many are probably looking at this as another opportunity to make a buck, especially the retired ones. As for the copyright owners I find it hard not to believe they’d approve anything so long as there was a promise of more money in the end.

So again, this is not a comment on sound quality, but rather on one of the MQA selling points which has been touted too many times in this forum as the truth.

[WiWavelength (Andrew J Shepherd)]

@anon55914447

@Chrislayeruk

The ‘Master’ in MQA is deemed to be Authenticated as the Studio sound approved by the Artist/Copyright owners.

Do you really believe that these current releases have not been converted en masse by some batch process?

“Master,” “Quality,” and “Authenticated” are marketing terms, not engineering speak or even legalese. That is not a knock against MQA, just a reality check.

AJ

[Chrislayeruk (Chris)]

Yes of course it’s a process, but one that works…

[WiWavelength (Andrew J Shepherd)]

@gmt

I agree with a number of your points. It could be summarised that MQA sounds better than other formats because the mix is superior and therefore more pleasing to the ear. This could account for a large amount of the improvement and as you point out it is hard to compare tracks that aren’t identical. On the other hand you could argue that any improvements that are made is a bonus regardless of the actual claim. I for one would’t want a lower grade mix to be released purely for the purpose of making a comparison when a higher grade mix was an alternative and if this is a bi-product of the new format then I’m happy with that too.

I, along with several others, have hypothesized that the MQA mastering in many cases is different from the HiFi mastering on Tidal. That renders comparison between MQA and HiFi potentially moot, as the comparison becomes muddied by mastering, mix, or level differences.

I wanted to test that aforementioned hypothesis, so with a little computer tinkering, I was able to capture digitally the Tidal streams from tracks on several albums that have both MQA and HiFi equivalents available. I truncated the tracks to matching 30 seconds of music, and ran those clips through the foobar2000 DR meter.

The results supported the hypothesis that some MQA masterings are different from their HiFi equivalents. Other MQA masterings are the same, though none examined are level matched. Five tracks so far are but a small cross section. Still, the consistent mastering or level differences do call into question the claims made here and elsewhere that MQA sounds better than or different from HiFi. In some cases, that superiority or those differences may not be attributable to MQA but to mastering, mix, or level differences.

Regarding those tracks with different MQA and HiFi masterings, I was heartened to see that some MQA tracks (“Landslide”) are higher DR masterings than their HiFi counterparts. That has been a concern – any benefits from MQA might be overshadowed by loudness war dynamically squashed masters. On the other hand, some MQA tracks (“People Are Strange”) are less dynamic than their HiFi equivalents.

@gmt

I liked you usage of data and found it interesting. Would you be able to do the same for any high definition tracks that are also available on MQA? This might make a more useful comparison as I’m pretty sure that one of the claims is that MQA should trump all available formats.

I have gotten my workflow down to a minimum, able to capture, truncate, and analyze a pair of Tidal tracks in just a few minutes. On request, I am willing to run this test on other tracks.

AJ

[Ronnie]

A Summary of where things stand

1. There are a minimum of 26 people in the “MQA Listening” thread who have expressed a strong preference for how MQA titles sound…and 1 user who expressed “impartiality” to how MQA sounds

2. A different user posts that 3 of 5 [60%] of the MQA albums tested were “Remasters” and thus could not be compared versus the 16/44 versions

3. And then two others, who maintain that the MQA versions have simply been mass / batch converted with little care being taken…and thus are the same masters as used on previous non-MQA releases

[anon55914447]

I definitely see that we have different masters to play with as a Good Thing™, by the way.

[anon55914447]

@Ronnie

And then two others, who maintain that the MQA versions have simply been mass / batch converted with little care being taken…and thus are the same masters as used on previous non-MQA releases

No, that’s the wrong conclusion to draw. You can still have different masters and a batch convertion process.

What I think is far-fetched is the implication that there is some kind of hand-crafted curation of the “authentication” process whereby the artists and original production team all get together over drinks and decide what to use.

[WiWavelength (Andrew J Shepherd)]

What would Tidal MQA be without some Beyonce? Here is another pair of equivalent tracks analyzed:

---

Statistics for: PrayYouCatchMe_HiFi
Number of samples: 1440000
Duration: 0:30

             Left              Right

Peak Value: -11.24 dB — -11.08 dB
Avg RMS: -22.09 dB — -22.28 dB
DR channel: 10.00 dB — 10.12 dB

---

Statistics for: PrayYouCatchMe_MQA
Number of samples: 1440000
Duration: 0:30

             Left              Right

Peak Value: -11.24 dB — -11.10 dB
Avg RMS: -22.09 dB — -22.28 dB
DR channel: 10.01 dB — 10.13 dB

Same mastering, level matched. Apples to apples comparison possible.

AJ

[Chrislayeruk (Chris)]

Edd Sheeran in MQA

[Carl]

What does that mean Chris? I think you need to elaborate a little.

[WiWavelength (Andrew J Shepherd)]

@Ronnie

1. There are a minimum of 26 people in the “MQA Listening” thread who have expressed a strong preference for how MQA titles sound…and 1 user who expressed “impartiality” to how MQA sounds

And, unfortunately, those 26 people may have expressed some strong preferences for what they interpreted/perceived were MQA characteristics but were certain mastering, mix, or level differences.

AJ

[WiWavelength (Andrew J Shepherd)]

@Chrislayeruk

Edd Sheeran in MQA

Capture and run analysis on Ed Sheeran? You got it.

AJ

[Ronnie]

Even if one accepts the premise that ALL perceived differences are ONLY down to new Masterings [worth noting is that one of the positive referrals relates to Bowie’s Young Americans above, which is the same master]

Then if the ONLY thing that MQA brought to the party is the use of a better sounding Master, then that on its own would still be a more than worthwhile benefit

[anon55914447]

@Ronnie

Then if the ONLY thing that MQA brought to the party is the use of a better sounding Master, then that on its own would still be a more than worthwhile benefit

100% agree.

[WiWavelength (Andrew J Shepherd)]

@Ronnie

Then if the ONLY thing that MQA brought to the party is the use of a better sounding Master, then that on its own would still be a more than worthwhile benefit

Perhaps. However, some MQA tracks, as shown, use measurably worse masterings. Now, those tracks still may be adjudged to be “better sounding.” And that may be fair and honest assessment. It also, though, may be influenced subliminally in a circular logic fashion by the known fact that it is MQA. “Hey, this is MQA. It sounds different, and that difference must be better – because it is MQA.”

AJ