I had the exact opposite experience, I have 5.1 sound system based around Klipshorns. I base my personal experience on using real 24/96 THX approved AIX Bluerays. AIX records’s Mark Walrep has a new every thing Streaming soon to be on Kickstarter. I cannot tell the difference between the two except for the MQA content that makes me go Tidal HiFi
Chris – if being anti-MQA is a “troll”, then I guess you are a pro-MQA troll…
I wish we could agree on the following facts:
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MQA is lossy. You can’t take away high order bits and use them for other purposes without there being lost information. This has been proven over and over again. Whether this matters or not depends on #6.
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There is no DRM in current MQA. I can take a MQA file that I buy and give it to someone else who can decode/render and play on their MQA enabled device. Thus there is no DRM. Could it be added in the future is a matter of speculation.
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It does require licensing $s by everyone in the MQA chain that goes to a party who is not the device manufacturer or artist. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion.
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MQA can take less bandwidth to deliver than a fully decoded/rendered file or HD alternative so has some advantages in mobile or data capped environments.
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Whether MQA is really “as the artist intended” is speculation because there is no published info available on who has blessed a specific MQA release.
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Whether it sounds better or worse than other HD alternatives is a matter of opinion. THIS IS REALLY THE ONLY THING THAT SHOULD MATTER. This of course is the topic of this discussion.
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#6 is not the only thing that matters if DRM is implemented down the road or MQA becomes the only option and other HD alternatives are removed.
There’s nothing new to say about MQA, I wish we could agree on that…
This topic is “What sounds better…”, it’s a matter of opinion (6) rather than an opportunity to do the anti MQA troll thing.
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Great to see the Mehta ‘Turandot’ getting some visibility (I think it remains one of the best produced classical recordings of all time).
I have been doing some testing myself following the recent upsurge in MQA albums on Tidal. I should add that I too have Qobuz as well as Tidal, and Qobuz certainly has the better classical catalogue.
Up until last year, having tested this a great deal, I had thought Qobuz was superior on standard/Redbook files, but last year I found that Tidal was sounding superior. I also harboured a suspicion that MQA might not sound quite as good on non-MQA equipment.
Recently I have had the opportunity to do some testing of MQA vs Qobuz using non-MQA equipment (Devialet Expert 1000Pro Amps and also a Hugo 2) and MQA Equipment (a Meridian Ultradac and 818 &DSPs). I approach these tests not with any expectation bias; I just want the best I can get.
Back to ‘Turandot’…I tend to use the music of Act 2; the procession music up until the arrival of the Emperor. Puccini clearly had Russian influences on his mind by this time, as the propulsion of the music has elements of the menace and terror of the coronation scene from ‘Boris’. He also had been following Stravinsky, as the orchestration is stunning; like a cousin of ‘Petrushka’.
What I am finding is that the MQA version is both rhythmically more compelling (and grips, more than the Qobuz version) and is more tuneful. It reminds me of Ivor Tiefenbrun’s mantra for Linn in the early eighties (?) - does it play tunes? Whilst I think there is greater smoothness and better detail with MQA, it is the drive of the rhythms and the tunefulness that impress. What I am more surprised by is that these are apparent with the Devialet Amps/Hugo 2 as much as with the Ultradac, with just Roon decoding. If I let the the reported maths enter my head for a moment, I also cannot fathom why 16 bit/44.1khz MQA sounds so great…listening to Goldfrapp’s ‘Felt Mountain’ yesterday was revelatory.
If I have any discomforts, it is these…is MQA evolving as a coding process? Is it better now than a few years ago? Is the decoding in Roon superior to what it once was?
I won’t stop using Qobuz, but Tidal and MQA would be my choice, if available. For now.
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How did you use the Ultra DAC with DSP’s I’m puzzled as with DSP’s you don’t need a DAC at all. I’m sure I am missing something here.
I was conflating too much, as the DSPs were connected with an 818…it is there, but perhaps too linked with the Ultra Dac in the text. I was just wanting to convey that I checked MQA enabled equipment in an analogue set-up (Ultra Dac) and a completely digital set-up (818/DSPs).
That was a good write up which chimes with my view of listening to MQA through DSP 5200 SEs
I don’t have any critically comparable non MQA zones to test. OK I have an F80/MS 200 in the bedroom which sounds great but I couldn’t do a realistic test there.
#1 is misleading. MQA uses lossless & lossy compression.
Hey Craig- i may have missed it earlier in the thread, but what are your thoughts on #6?
No. You didn’t miss it @woodford … I’ve hesitated to weigh in but here goes…I will eventually answer the question posed but until then…TLDR
Prior to ending up with the gear I currently have, I spent an obscene amount of time comparing formats: CD to Remastered CD, CD to HD, CD Rip to HD, Remastered HD to CD, MQA to CD, SACD to HD, MQA to HD, etc, etc, etc. The combinations are endless and it is actually almost impossible to do this well because you can’t compare apples to to apples ensuring each option came from the same master and do it in a way that eliminates bias. Often I was surprised – sometimes I thought the a Redbook file (CD or CD rip) was better than HD, sometimes the HD was better, sometimes the remix was better, sometimes MQA was better, etc, etc, etc. The only thing that I felt was most consistently better was the SACD.
This led me to believe that at the end of the day, it’s much more likely that that the format doesn’t matter that much, what is most important is provenance of the master the release came from and extreme skill and care in the transfer/transcode to the final release format. SACDs are almost always very good because in order to get people to shell out the big bucks for them, you have to create a superior product. But in the age of overcooked releases and remasters, shady vendors upscaling redbook files and selling them as HD, and yes, MQA being offered as the be all end all delivering music “as the artist intended” direct from the master it makes no sense to declare one format as superior IMHO.
While MQA releases can be very very good, for those who believe MQA always represents the best let me pose a question. Take a read of the excellent article from the NY Times “The Day The Music Burned” which covers the fire that destroyed a chunk of universal music’s archive. From this excellent article:
Among the incinerated Decca masters were recordings by titanic figures in American music: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland. The tape masters for Billie Holiday’s Decca catalog were most likely lost in total. The Decca masters also included recordings by such greats as Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five and Patsy Cline.
The fire most likely claimed most of Chuck Berry’s Chess masters and multitrack masters, a body of work that constitutes Berry’s greatest recordings. The destroyed Chess masters encompassed nearly everything else recorded for the label and its subsidiaries, including most of the Chess output of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Bo Diddley, Etta James, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy and Little Walter. Also very likely lost were master tapes of the first commercially released material by Aretha Franklin, recorded when she was a young teenager performing in the church services of her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, who made dozens of albums for Chess and its sublabels.
Virtually all of Buddy Holly’s masters were lost in the fire. Most of John Coltrane’s Impulse masters were lost, as were masters for treasured Impulse releases by Ellington, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders and other jazz greats. Also apparently destroyed were the masters for dozens of canonical hit singles, including Bill Haley and His Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock,” Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats’ “Rocket 88,” Bo Diddley’s “Bo Diddley/I’m A Man,” Etta James’s “At Last,” the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” and the Impressions’ “People Get Ready.”
Given this, how is it possible that a MQA release for any of these artists’ releases coming from who knows what generation of transfer are likely better than original releases on CD/LP/SACD and represents “what the artist intended.” I have no doubt that universal music will eventually release MQAs for everything in the above list and it will be marketed as the best possible to unsuspecting buyers/streamers.
Having said all this, I don’t dislike MQA per se, I just wish they focused on fulfilling the promise of it versus trying to get it adopted everywhere by everyone just to make the most money. If I could buy or stream a MQA release where I could read about the provenance of where the release came from, who did the transfer/transcode, how they did it, what made it special, etc – I would be all in on MQA. That would really be a game changer. Unfortunately, that is not what is happening. You have no idea where the MQA came from, who did the work and how it was done. So in the black box of how music is released anyone can frankly take anything and make a MQA release. Is this a bit cynical – yes – I’ve spent too much time working with the music industry to not be cynical. Without facts, there is only conjecture. Maybe this will change at some point but this is the current state of affairs.
So back to the original question… Given all this, and given that vast preponderance of music I listen to is still redbook quality (or 44k/24bit), I went all in on Chord which is fabulous for these formats. I have a Lumin U1/Chord Dave/Chord Blu combo in my main listening room and a Sonore Signature Rendu SE (Optical) / Chord Hugo TT / Chord mScaler in my office for my Meze Empyrean headphones. I primarily use Qobuz (although I also have a Tidal subscription to give me the most coverage) and take HD files vs MQA unless I have no option. If I only have the choice of a MQA file I let Roon decode and call it a day (Chord doesn’t support MQA rendering). I couldn’t be happier with this setup. In my opinion quality releases, quality gear optimized for them and room correction matters much more than file format.
Having said that I have no doubt those that those that have optimized their systems for MQA get great results and passionately believe their approach is superior and it may be and I’m perfectly fine with that. At the end of the day, that’s the beauty of life – to each their own. The only thing I don’t respect is the obsessive belief that one file format is always better – reality is always more complicated and has many tradeoffs than simple conclusions like this. I would also rue the day that MQA became the only choice and hope that never happens.
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You can only deliver what you have and if the original has been destroyed then the next best will have to be the master. What is lost is lost and cannot be regained. So, you work with what you have…
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and its counterpart, that one format is always inferior, which seems to be the position of many in this thread, including some who have never heard MQA, except via software encode.
but thank you for the detailed response. i’ve come to the conclusion that if one is only comparing Qobuz/Tidal, FLAC/MQA via Roon, and only using software encoding (ie, no MQA DAC), then there might be very little to choose between the two.
but properly understood, MQA is an end-to-end system, mic-to-speaker. i’m not sure one can make a direct comparison to other formats.
i no longer have a CD player, but I have thousands of CD rips, and in almost all cases, I prefer the local file to its equivalent streamed from Tidal ro Qobuz, no matter the resolution.
I used to have an SACD player, and now I have one system that has a DSD capable dac. alas, no DSD files. I’ve experimented with upsampling to DSD in that system, and while it sounds very good, it was too much for my Core to manage.
but the Core is getting updated this weekend, so might be fun to play around with again.
Properly understood?
I think there is an ADC that captures MQA but it’s practical uses are limited similar to capturing to DSD. Post processing wise.
So MQA is really just a post recording DSP and delivery mechanism. Regular PCM rules on digital capture at the DAW.
MQA certainly isn’t end to end, MIC to speaker.
You make a direct comparison by listening. Like you do with everything in music and audio.
Go to the home page of MQA Ltd (https://www.mqa.co.uk/). It says:
Take Me There. To The Original Performance. Wherever You Listen.
It doesn’t say:
Take Me There. To The Original Performance. Or To The Next Best Thing. We Work With Whatever We Have. Wherever You Listen
In my post I’ve proven that in many cases they can’t get anywhere near the original performance. If they could pay off the statement on their home page and prove it by providing written info on provenance, etc, for MQA releases I would be all in as I’ve previously said. They can’t or won’t (who knows which) and in many cases aren’t paying off their stated vision of MQA. That doesn’t mean some MQA releases aren’t very very good. I just go back to my original point which is format is not the end determiner on what is best. And some honesty in the way MQA is marketed would be very helpful.
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I’ve posted this link in another thread but does show they’ll take whatever’s best available and convert to MQA. For me personally I like to have choice between MQA and the cd file and Tidal no longer makes that possible on a huge selection so I’m with Qobuz. At least with Mscaler/Dave, cd and hires sound better than MQA.
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Does it really matter where it came from or the format?
What really matters is if you enjoyed listening to it…
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It kind of matters if paying more for master or hires streaming. For hires, you don’t want to find out files are just upsampled cd versions. The master files, you’d hope quality is better than just a cd transfer. I can enjoy a song off the radio but doesn’t mean I don’t a want a much better version for my high end setup.
The output bits should have remained the same from MQA Core decoding (first unfold) in Roon and the same as any other implementation. It is a decompression.
This is 100% correct (aside from any possible legal implications), and is a crucial difference from SACD (which is not easy to rip) in terms of copying.
Phone-home license check cannot be added without invaliding many existing MQA hardware. Many MQA DAC do not have a network port for phoning home.
There are new MQA CD players which do not have network ports either.