And they have been right:
DSD is more or less non existent.
Same might happen to MQA, the new MP3.
If you listening mainly Tidal 16/44.1kHz FLAC compared to MQA, yes it is indeed sound more musical. If you listen to Hi-Res PCM and DSD downloads, things get interesting⌠Hi-Res in my opinion tends to sound like master copies, while MQA sits in between studio copies and CD quality.
For digital downloads I prefer studio master copies while for streaming 16/44.1 FLAC lossless and MQA are good for me.
It may be worth you stating also what equipment youâre listening on when you formed your opinion on these. If your kit doesnât fully unfold MQA then youâre obviously not comparing like-for-like versus someone whose kit can.
Iâve listening to a fully hardware MQA decoded using Mytek Brooklyn DAC (borrowed), though the fully decoded sound better, I didnât invest in a MQA DAC. Simply to say, it is still in its infancy. Moreover, I prefer to improve my existing collections by investing on a high-end NOS DAC combined with Roonâs up sampling.
In not too distant, Roon will offer software MQA decoding, so users with existing DACs can continue to take advantage of the improved sound quality offered by this format.
It sounded like Roon was going to add MQA support in the spring. But once 1.3 was released with all the fanfare and applauds it seemed obvious MQA would be held until another major release regardless of their ability to develop the solution and secure licensing.
Strictly speaking out the butt here since I have no clue. 
No MQA isnât bad for music, ITâS BAD FOR MUSICIANS!!!
And so are Spotify, TIDAL and all other music streaming companies!
Record company pays bad for Songs on records!
But the streaming companyâs, well you would laugh if you knew it 
.
I have one Ep and one Album on Spotify, Tidal, Deezer and a few other.
Music Streaming Companyâs, they donât havenât any cost for the recordingâŚ
as the Record Companyâs!
But the Record Companyâs paying the Artist around 10-100 times more than the Music Streaming Companyâs does!
So for the listener isnât MQA bad, except maybe for a new DAC that can decode the MQA but itâs free to choose!
Anyone doesnât forcing you to buying it and thereâs Meridian Explorer 2 and Audioquest Dragonfly, they cost around 150-200⏠or 185-250 USD.
So stop whining, crying and complaining that MQA is BAD for the music!
You canât do anything about it anyway!
You must learn, that you canât change or do something against and the things that you can change or do something about!
And realize the difference 
ď¸.
Otherwise are you only whining, crying and complaining!
Instead of making things that make a difference.
Do you have any idea what I just have wrote?
Or shall you going on with your whining, crying and complaining?
Love & Respect 
Anders
Stop talking about MQA, you canât get now in Roon. Itâs been so many years⌠One can still appreciate music from Tidal lossless and Hi-Res PCM/DSD downloads, all sound equally awesome.
Interesting postâŚon a discussion forumâŚsomeone says âstop discussing Xâ in a thread about X.
The option here is really just donât read or participate in threads that you have no interest in rather than instructing folks to not discuss. Just ignore it.
I play my MQA files through Roon just fine so it is actually perfectly relevant for this section of the forum.
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I like the more analog sound that MQA music gives you.
Especially the drums sounds like the drums are in my room.
If you donât like MQA so is it easy to solve, donât listen on MQA music!
Itâs like all the different music streaming service like, Spotify, Apple Music and DeezerâŚ
No one can force you to pay for listening on them, we have a free will as humans (anyway still).
I donât understand why some of us humans, are so much for complaining over little things like MQA when people are homeless, starving, have no water!
But I guess itâs a welfare problem, but itâs so easy to solve donât listen on MQA harder than that isnât it, itâs easy 
.
3 Likes
Until you can get full MQA decoding inside Roon, playing back undecoded MQA in my listening test is inferior to 16/44.1 FLAC. As I said the above, Iâve listened to fully decoded MQA (using Mytek Brookyn DAC) and it sounded better than a Redbook. All these discussion must be centred around Roon. When Roon releases MQA in the future it would be interesting to discuss on its SQ and benefits. MQA is certainly not bad for music but its licensing and implementation inside Roon was so delay I wasnât hoping for anything now. Besides, Iâm a subscriber of Tidal Hi-Fi, Tidal Master is at my fingertips!
Hi @MusicEar
That is a big difference!
Because itâs not MQAâs fault, that Roon doesnât have so everyone whoâs got Roon! Can listen on MQA music fully decoded, or?
Iâm also a subscriber of Tidal Hi-Fi, even when itâs name was WiMP Hi-Fi 
.
Take care and donât give up your hope that Roon will have it MQA music fully decoded. 
NoâŚThe whole thread and its title are not actually centred around Roon. It was just a re-posting of the dubious rant by Linn. That @wklie added something to this antagonistic topic was entirely appropriate.
I get that you are frustrated that Roon doesnât yet decode (@danny commented on this recently) and respect that you have a view on the merits of undecoded playback (even if I disagree with it). Iâm glad that you also have listened to fully decoded. For a long time it seemed that many strong opinions were formed with out this key step. Great that we have moved on.
I would rather we spend some energy on moaning at Tidal to make the ~7000 MQA albums a bit easier to find !!
I agreed with you guys, Tidal Master collection is getting bigger by each days⌠Letâs hope Roon can give everyone here a surprise Christmas gift in 2017 otherwise we just have to wait and waitâŚ
If the ~7000 figure is correct, then my methodology of finding MQA album from Tidal is seriously flawed. My latest count today is 3572 albums, or a little over 4000 if duplicate MQA versions of the same album are counted.
1 Like
Anders
As I understand it streaming can work commercially for musicians, the issue is the ages-old one of the record companies not passing on money to the artists. Billy Bragg, that well know left wing musician, has said heâs very happy with Spotify and has made a lot of money from his music being played there (he quoted ÂŁ300k). But then he has a more direct relationship with them, cutting out a record company.
I think the other angle here is that the whole business model for music is changing, and people have to adapt. Which is the same as any other business. And letâs face it, the âmake millions from selling recordsâ model hasnât always been the norm (donât think Bach made any money from it!)
Hi Phil @Phil_Wright
You have both wright and wrong, artist who doesnât get any contract with a record company. Can release there own music on SpotifyâŚ
But one song has to be played around 500.000 times, to get decent money 
. So itâs only the big artist that earns money! But itâs a greater chance to be discovered on the music streaming service and YouTube.
So itâs both good and bad, like the most in the world today .
For me, I help put on live music (I volunteer For Free) see to it our venue is full, I still buy a ticket on the door and I always buy CDâs or other Merch! I also go to other live gigs. This is the life blood of the smaller bands today and I donât mean smaller in talent.
So I think that if we want vital music to survive we have to individualy do something, whatever you can, to support it at the grass roots.
4 Likes
Hi dear Roon Community members,
This âdiscussionâ MQA is bad for music!
Started the 14th of February exactly 8 days after I got sick in double sided pneumonia! Around the same time as they had cut a hole in my back, into my right lung and stuck a hoe into it! After a few days, after 3.5 liters of water had come out!
When I arrived to the hospital was my oxygen settings in the blood and my body +48! (Normally is +96! If you have +93/94 do you get a mask what gives you oxygen)!
When they should remove it, well they accidentally broke a blood vein so I got a so heavy bleeding that they had hard to stop it! One doctor run away to get more âproductsâ the other took the last thin compress, I now that it was it because I felt when he put in one of his fingers in my hole! In my back 
! You have probably seen on TV/Movie then have been shot and someone says put your finger in the hole otherwise he/she will bleed to death, or? Itâs not nice to watching, but I will never forget that feeling of his finger!
And I havenât get any morphine, because itâs was a little thing!
When they had stopped the bleeding so started I feel more bad than I came to the hospital, okay I had lost a lot of blood but I had hard to breath! So when I have been on X-ray said the doctor that my right lung was empty of water, but filled with blood and blood in the lungs arenât good water is not good but blood can you die of! So into a operation room and a 4-5 centimeter cut in my right side all the way through two of my ribs and in to the lung, a special tool to bending apart the ribs and a thick hoe into my lung!
That time I spent 3 weeks on the hospital and was going home on a Friday with antibiotics pills on the Sunday, woke up with high fever! So back to the hospital! I have been on the hospital 5 times and all and all 11 weeks, now have I been home for 3 weeks and shall back next week!
They shall go inside my lungs with a camera to see if there are something that all the different X-rays have missed, it shall be interesting!
So when you have discussed about that MQA is bad for music so have and still are sick in pneumonia 7 months!
Itâs a longtime to back sick, but even longer to discuss MQA 
.
We most fun is on the 50 last years so have human treatment in pneumonia went forward, for 40-50 years ago so had I been dead for awhile now!
But people havenât changed about music, when tv came so was it bad, when CDs came was it bad and now is MQA bad!
We are a strange kind of creatures .
Thanks for me,
I wish all a great weekend
1 Like
Hi Anders! The good news is it wasnât in that other hole! That was a terrible story to read but thank you for sharing. I had severe pneuomonia myself a few years ago and I was in a coma for over 1 week. After a few days things were 50/50 but luckily I woke up!
We donât FULLY know if MQA is bad for music yet but we do know there are more important things in life - our health!
I hope you are recovering well and enjoying some good music along the way, to help your recovery.