Tidal had pcm. Qobuz still has pcm. Download stores have had pcm for years.
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Iâd agree with that, which is why Iâm left baffled by claims of âanalogue losslessnessâ as thereâs nothing to compare the claim against. So my next question is fairly obvious, what SHOULD an MQA rendering be compared to in order to verify the claims made around âwhat the studio/artist intendedâ?
In the case of audiophile sites thatâs true. But the vast part of label releases are heard on the standard streaming sites (Spotify, Apple, Amazon) and theyâve always been lossy. The drive to upgrade has been surfacing in the recent changes to those sites.
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Well, their encoder processing analyzes dynamic range, envelope shape, aliasing and noise levels at least, and corrects for A/D issues. I expect the only answer is that in a minimalist setting, there will be little processing (which is one reason 2L sounds so good), but in a setting with heavy mixing/mastering, the âreferenceâ necessarily has to be at a late stage, because a reference taken at an earlier stage wouldnât represent the final version anyway. This seems to me less about MQA than it is about the different way recordings are done.
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I donât consider there is any loss of fidelity with MQA, rather there are significant gains to be enjoyed. Of course, the more compromised the final analog system is, the less they will be perceived and enjoyed.
I am lucky with Meridian DSP SE speakers as all this was considered in the design giving me the shortest possible lossy analog stage.
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The losses are in the analog stages and any poor digital transfers in ones system. The file delivered is pristine at the output of your DAC and thatâs as end to end as you can get. If people choose to introduce losses at that stage, then there is nothing more anyone can do. This is the reason I personally prefer the DSP approach with minimal analog stages to mess things up.
So this is where I struggle, not to understand that concepts, just what the claims mean and how they are verified. Thereâs the basic issues trying to establish what to compare against, and then MQA throws in a bunch of âcorrectionsâ for equipment used in the studio. In an ideal world (for me) itâd be possible to carry out a âlevel playing fieldâ evaluation of MQA vs. standard PCM, using a set of reference analogue sources for comparison. Setting up such a test feels like trying to nail fog to a wall, but without them Iâm forced to conclude that MQA is little more than an âapprovedâ DSP that may, or may not, be to your liking.
I believe the 2L website has the same recordings in various formats to listen to for free.
Then Iâm sure you have your own definition of âfidelityâ.
If by fidelity you mean that you can hear and perceive instruments clearly in their own space and are able to focus on any part of the music and follow it through without it being obscured unintentionally by others. Then we agree. I find MQA delivers this experience in a fatigue free way. Thatâs not to say standard CD files are terrible either. I enjoy the music I like in the format I can get, and often, sadly, it is not in MQA, but MQA gives me the most satisfying experience of fidelity on my DSP system. YMMWV
Right, then I suppose we agree MQA is a somewhat competently designed lossy codec.
Does it matter if whatâs lost is empty data and not musical information
It matters if they insist itâs lossless when itâs not. Though they appear to have seen the errors of their ways:
In other words: No, MQA is not lossless.
What matters is that MQA is not honest about what MQA is or does.
The lack of transparancy is the biggest concern with the format.
MQA is a filter, a black box filter, with parameters unknown, that you happen to like.
Me myself, see MQA as a scam, a money machine.
Tidal gave me no choice, so i left, not looking back 
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@PeterD
Algorithms other than open source are NEVER published. Patents exist for a reason. Nothing about that system is a scam, and no designer would ever agree with you.
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I managed to work out exactly what MQA achieves and chose not to get lost in semantics⌠After reading up and listening to explanations of the philosophy It wasnât difficult, I just opened my ears and listened. The results speak for themselves and the argument over lossy and lossless become meaningless⌠Better than Lossless is a great way of putting it I thinkâŚ
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What is it that MQA do not want you to be discovered, what do they fear?
It is not allowed to criticise MQA for not being open on what it does to the content.
That is the problem.
Fanboys can love MQA all they want, but it still is a filter that we do not the parameters of AND are not allowed to test the result of.
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I think that one of the primary points in the GS video/s is being purposely (orchestrated) obfuscated. Itâs lossy and thatâs without doubt. Better or worse, or sounds better is subjective and frankly I donât care.
My frustration is that a lot of on line reviewers Hans Beekhuyzen and others have defended MQA as superior and that if folks donât like MQA they can vote with their wallets while pursposely ignoring the substantive content of the GS video.
Thatâs simply a way to side step the MAIN problem IMO which is entire catalogues converted to MQA which we KNOW didnât have approval of artists and digital encoding information and whatever other white glove services says it does. This wasnât done overnight to an entire catalogue. GS, proves and artists have confirmed that theyâve either not approved the final âmasterâ or in the case of GS that he was never asked for a master and encoding equipment used and then asked for approval before the content being posted. So theyâre saying they do something to reinforce the illusion of superiority, but they are NOT actually doing it. Thatâs a misrepresentation of their own model and it adds zero value. Again completely separate of whether it sounds better or not because thatâs subjective.
I did vote with my wallet, because I didnât have to have only MQA encoded versions of tracks and a large number of tracks on Tidal are now only available with the MQA encoding, great if they do that for hi-res files, but there is no justifiable sonic difference to do it to 16/44 files. They are choosing to make non encoded content unavailable. Yet they are doing just that, why? Control and watermarking are the only two things I can think of.
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This is pretty close to a tautology at one level, if youâre restricting your definition to code. Algorithms as a term covers far more ground and mathematical algorithms are routinely published.
The black box approach bothers me as well, it requires trust in the implementor. The MQA marketing language, use of legalese and made up terms represents a pretty formidable barrier to trust for me.
Whatâs meaningless is that last sentence, and itâs the sort of nonsense that erodes trustâŚ
@Johnny_Too_Bad welcome to the forum, Iâm a big fan of the handle, itâs one of my favourite songs, whoeverâs singing itâŚ
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