I didn’t claim perfect hearing forever.
I didn’t say you did. I’m just pointing out that as vinyl wears out so does our hearing. It was a light hearted comment.
You have a great system there btw.
Definitive answers:
No, eh, yes,
P.S. I kinda like MQA. Is there a support group?
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Some harsh truths there, Tim, but I think Dr Dre may survive; sbr, we hope they pull through.
Welcome to the support group.
Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say; But nothing comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish…
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'S a good thing we only move our fingers then.
Yup! Whatever you think MQA is a form of DRM. You pays your money and takes your choice. Hopefully there is always an option for and one for no thank you.
I’m with you on this Richard. When I first started listening to MQA I was stunned by the improvement, however I discounted MQA 44/48khz as I thought that these would be just “CD” quality. However now that I have listen more closely to these MQA recordings I find that generally they are better than the FLAC @96khz and equal to the FLAC @ 192khz versions. How can that be I’ve asked myself. It can only be put down to the time smearing ringing distortion, which is largely eliminated in the MQA 44/48khz format, and not on FLAC where it has far more audio impact than previously given credit. What I find is that I do not suffer from Audio listening fatigue when listening to MQA - I can listen with enjoyment for many hours which I generally cannot say the same for FLAC even at 24/96. My systems for listening are Devialet, Focal, and HiFi Man plus Lotoo DAC’s (when not using the DAC in the Devialet).
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Yes - CD’s are so last Century
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Check this.
[Moderator edit, replaced YouTube link with forum discussion topic link.]
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Thanks for sharing
Thanks for sharing! I really don’t know how I could have found the video. It’s really powerful. I cannot imagine what I was thinking when I actually trusted my own ears, and tried to think about my experiences - this video changes everything. I hope the guy who produced does more on key global issues and injustices…this is investigative journalism of global significance.
I have just been listening to a classic account of ‘Lohengrin’, with the recently deceased Christa Ludwig sounding amazing, indeed peerless as Ortrud. Thanks to the video, I dodged a bullet, and listened to the pure gold of PCM via Qobuz…not.
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Haha. That was funny.
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And it’s a telling description of how far off things are with that video. If you read MQA’s letter to the author of the video, you get a good sense of what went wrong in the measurements.
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I have read it and that’s even funnier. What “went wrong” is lossy, sub-standard encoding that we’re prevented from discussing objectively. “Trust Bob, it’s better” really doesn’t cut it for me and isn’t a persuasive argument to give up my PCM freedoms for MQA’s (poorly) guilded cage.
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Trying to avoid any more tit for tat sessions on MQA. But answering the above: the encoder assumes the signal is music and analyzes the track based on known properties of music signals, then sets up processing accordingly. It’s not built for discrete test signals with amusical properties and flags them as questionable, and flags any resulting encoding as suspect or a fail. The operator is supposed to intervene. I can’t see why that’s hard to understand; it sounds like good audio practice to me.
In a nutshell, and as I said on previous occasions - MQA is a lossy format with a fixed DSP applied to the music file; nothing else - in other words, music with a pre-applied EQ setting. For some it may sound “great”; for others it is terrible.
At the very least, true lossless files allow people to do whatever they want DSP-wise.
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Since details of the encoder aren’t released, it’s pointless to speculate how restrictive or unrestrictive the coding is. My understanding is that it’s highly flexible and based on years of study of the properties of signals, as summarized in the company’s published journal papers. And it’s been tested extensively with mastering engineers.
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I have had a re think… I read a lot of the anti MQA flaming by what seems to me to be mainly ill informed enthusiasts with an agenda, and then I just play some MQA music and relax as all the debate evaporates.
It happens every time, funny that…
Let the music do the talking I say.
P.S. I class my self as an un informed enthusiast too…
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Never mind, I see it is mqa, I have the regular version