Here we will have to agree to differ… I am loving the jaw dropping natural sound I get to enjoy on My SE Meridian DSP speakers with MQA. If there is better sound quality out there, I’d like to hear it.
Child in Time, Deep Purple Made in Japan. You can almost see the sticks bounce on the cymbals, I have never heard it so well defined. Amazing…
Just looked on Tidal, that album is available in CD as well as MQA there.
You can use a tag editor and see two parameters; ‘MQAEncode’ and ‘OriginalSampleRate’. If you see them, then this is a MQA encoded file.
I can only see the files as flac files. After importing to Roon it shows me flac 24/48 and within 10 seconds Roon says mixed track formats.
If you do not want the MQA version, I would go back to the source and complain. Maybe they would let you re-download the version you wanted.
Part of your confusion may be that MQA files are distributed in the FLAC container format, with no way of telling unless you are using a player like Roon, or, as MusiFidelity suggested, are able to examine the track’s metadata tags for traces of MQA.
Agree.
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I will check that out, thanks for the recommendation. I wonder if MQA somehow sounds best on Meridian gear?
That I don’t know but the Meridian SE DSP range are their top of the range speakers. Which has to help. Even with MQA, it’s ultimatly down to the final capability of any system. Berillium Tweeters and Enhanced Base alignment has to help…
Your system?
To me, that would explain why MQA often described as softer is preferred by you.
If it ain’t on the file, it ain’t coming out of the speakers…
the beryllium tweeters on my Focal 1007BE’s definitely sparkle a lot, maybe too much at times. I had to take off my Levinson amp and add something more understated. So yeah, it could be the tweeters are a good mix with MQA. I’ll have to try that.
The Berillium tweeters on Meridian DSP speakers are part of a system. They sound great with everything I throw at them. I am never tempted to adjust tone controls.
I was just listening to a Vinyl Transfer of The Faces, Coast to Coast live album 192/16 (Not available in digital form) and the very very loose ragged performance sounded great to me. Those were the days…
I don’t only listen to MQA but I do like the albums I have access to…
They definately need good room treatment, in a hard room they will be rather over bearing in the treble region. Eventually I ditched my 1028BEs.
Sorry for the OT.
That’s been a bit of my experience. For some music I really love them, but for others I am “turning it down” and that is not good. That’s in a carpeted room with a bunch of crap on the back wall (i.e. not exactly room treatment, but should not highlight the tweeters). I find they sound best on an old McIntosh amp or my Musical Design amp, both of which are on the warm sound side. Not so good with Krell or Levinson.
A post was split to a new topic: MQA capabilities - which setting should I choose and what are the differences
I love this “Not Musically lossy in any meaningful way” Where did you learn this? Do you know how MQA encoding works?
What is developinghere is MQA English. In MQA English lossy protocol is not musically lossy. I get it.
Glad you Get It. Happy Christmas 
Andrew,
where do I find “Device Setup/Advanced Settings”?
My Roon app menu only includes “Settings” (containing a “Setup” submenu, which does not include anything pointing to MQA Core Decoder settings.
I’m running Server Software 1.5-build 363
You find Device Setup here:
Settings > Audio then click the gears icon next to your device. From there click Device Setup and Advanced Settings will be accessed at the bottom.
Cheers, Greg