There are many things that aren’t MQA. But I’m interested in things that are MQA.
Intresting artical on the MQA-CD according to the artical it plays on standerd cd player better then a normal CD. Is it marketing or what ?. Read for yourself. Thoughts?
With the studio de blurring it is in effect a better master and therefore should sound better.
With the same conditions that needs to be seen. I am going to listen if i get the chance and decide for myself for now i dont have a opinion.
Just read a very interesting geeky article on MQA by XIVERO. It’s more a white paper than an article. It’s technically compelling, but note that they do have a bias - proving that XiFEO compression is truer than MQA. But with that in mind they do present some very interesting analysis. Their conclusion:
MQA is in fact “lossy” because it alters the bit-depth and frequency response (magnitude & phase) and therefore time domain appearance of the original high resolution audio file by applying none-linear-phase filters impacting the critical audio spectrum (e.g. 4dB attenuation at 40kHz).
and
As long as streaming is not able to provide larger bandwidth more cost efficient, MQA could be a solution to stream audio better than Compact Disk, MP3 or AAC quality.
As we all know, in a couple of years the bandwidth provided, even in mobile networks, will be large enough to distribute the real native high resolution content, satisfying the audiophiles demands.
For downloads there is no need to go for MQA because the channel allows us to get native high resolution audio files in FLAC format, with the highest temporal resolution achievable that are not altered in any way by applying technologies like MQA.
Here is the entire paper:
Hypothesis Paper to support a deeper Technical Analysis of MQA
If this paper has already been discussed here, then sorry for the repeat.
This type of info makes me feel even better for getting my new Yggy that does not decode MQA. But what it does for my entire collection is more than MQA could accomplish with me! Jason and Mike are right Music for the collection you already own. How many times have we bought certain favorites when another high res tech is introduced?
A sample size is (video I know) How many times I have bought Caddy Shack…VHS, SVHS, Laser Disc, DVD and now Blu-Ray…5 times the same movie (only cause I still laugh at the same jokes)…so I got that going for me! 
Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh?
[looks at Judge Smails, who’s wearing the same hat] Al Czervik: Oh, it looks good on you though.
1 Like
Went to the MQA demo at Innovative Audio in NYC last night. Spent more time listening to conversation than the A/B demos (Winner: MQA, in case you’re wondering).
Some pretty direct questioning of the MQA rep (didn’t catch his name) present prompted a couple of interesting statements regarding hardware vs. software decoding. One was “we’re focusing on mobile, I’m spending a lot of time in Japan and S. Korea”). That was offered as an consideration that might limit a software only unpacking ('we don’t want to blow up any phones"), an explanation that doesn’t really make sense to me, but I’m no engineer. The interesting bit was his saying that originally they were going to go hardware only, then added the two levels of software decoding, and that “you can expect we’ll go further in that direction”.
Hope for owners of DACs from MQA refusenicks?
The comment about blowing up phones: since battery life is critical for phones, they always move long-running functions into hardware. Audio playback is already in hardware, MQA must be too.
I’ll go with Schiit’s approach…Made for the Music you have, not the Music you have to buy…again!
1 Like
Hopefully they continue increasing capabilities on the software side and reducing dependencies on the hardware side.
We should remember that we are approximately 0.0000 % of the music listening market. The rest use hardware.
Another article from SoundStage Hi-Fi, a must read
http://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/opinion/1057-mqa-one-year-later-suddenly-more-questions
4 Likes
An inconvenient truth for the poster of the above opinions is that [despite all his protestations to the contrary, and for a period of 3 whole months BEFORE he published his April 2016 blog] he had the ability to test MQA Tracks from the same masters, but for some reason choose not to do so
And if one now reads the above April 2017 blog post, it appears that despite all his protestations of subterfuge, he still has not done this comparison
Available to everyone, since January 10th and CES of 2016, are at least 20 Tracks from the 2L Test Bench that as the graphic below shows, allows the user to compare MQA tracks versus Redbook 16/44…high res PCM…and various DSD…with all the tracks deriving from the same original DXD master files
This allows ALL users to decide for themselves if the emperor has any clothes…and more importantly, allows the tests to be carried out in the users own room and on their own system…thereby eliminating the important important variable of Demo’s heard in unfamiliar rooms and systems
I wonder why this important fact is missing from the link above??
2 Likes
You make a reasonable point. I have done no comparisons because I have no MQA hardware. If MQA sounds different, then I will have a difficulty deciding whether the MQA process is getting back to the reality of the recording (high fidelity) or is it sweetening the reality with its alterations (not high fidelity).
Which is an argument that has been made in relation to the 1980’s transition from Analog LP to CD
And in the noughties, when the same argument was being made with the introduction of DVD-A and SACD formats
i.e. “how do I know that this new format is not “sweetening the reality” by doing something in the encoding process”
In the end, it comes down each listeners ears…and will be up to him to decide
However, it is worth looking at the costs associated with the user making such a choice with past formats
In the '80’s for CD…and in the 2000’s for DVD-A and SACD…a user needed to spend £1,000 on a new Disc Player…and another 10 by £20 = £200 for ten albums to perform a decent cross-sectional test…meaning a user needed to spend approx £1,200 to decide if that new format had any clothes on
For MQA in 2017, the costs are £130 for an Explorer 2…and £20 to test a cross section of up to 2,700 MQA albums…[if the user likes what MQA brings, he can then look at more permanent MQA decoders to fit into their “big rigs”]
If the user doesn’t like what MQA does, then he can resell his Explorer 2 for at least half the original cost…meaning the total cost to see if MQA has any clothes on is approx £80…a cost many here have spent on various audiophool trinkets down thru the years 
3 Likes
Again you make good points. I jumped wholeheartedly into the CD format and was never sad to leave the LP format behind. At that time there were just too many advantages of CD over LP (as I saw it). I also tested the water with SACD and I wish that format had taken off. The big advantage of SACD for me was multi-channel audio. All the SACDs I bought were hybrid. For some reason I am more sceptical of MQA and just do not see the big and obvious advantages as I did in those earlier decades newer formats.
I never gave it a thought that CD or SACD may be sweetening reality, but I do with MQA. The ‘mystery’ which still surrounds MQA may have something to do with it. Maybe it is irrational that I am sceptical about MQA, but I cannot deny that the scepticism is present.
I agreed with that, I compared a similar 2L recordings, one MQA 24/96 playback in Tidal app, and the other from 2L 24/96 PCM in Roon, both are playback on a same DAC, to be honest, both sound difference.
MQA has a tendency to sound sweeter and more europhonic while the original master 24/96 PCM master sound more dynamic, cleaner and a bit more extension in the highs. I still prefer the original PCM master because it sounds ‘uncolored’ and ‘unprocessed’ sound and more of the original recording.
Which begs the question of…How do you know what the original DXD recording sounds like, and therefore which version sounds more like the original??..[question assumes you only tested the two file variants listed above]
1 Like