Is MQA in your Future?

[WobblySam]

This is not to start another battle on whether MQA has any merit. I read and followed the various threads here and realize that there are healthy divisions regarding MQA's process and requirements.

It seems there is quite a pro-MQA position among streamers, particularly those who use Tidal.

The question I'm asking is will your future upgrade plans include MQA as a feature that affects your product selection criteria? Is anyone planning on purchasing music downloads that are MQA certified? Will your next DAC have to support MQA as a necessity?

I'm largely indifferent to MQA, so it will not affect any future upgrades/replacements in my system. I'm not an avid streamer - it's just not a significant part of my music listening. MQA or not I don't consider streaming as a hifi medium anyway - but that's just me. I have maybe two dozen Hi-Res downloads (HDTracks/Acoustic Sounds), so downloading is not a significant part of my listening.

So, streamers and downloaders, what say ye?

 

[eizner23]

No no and no

 

[Erik Tracy]

At some point, MQA could be the same as flouride in the water supply - there if you want it or not, because the powers in control have your best interests in mind.

 

[Poinzy]

From Wikipedia, Usual Suspects Department:
'While the technology has received little comment in the general and mainstream press, it has been exalted by the audiophile and hi-fi press. Robert Harley, editor of The Absolute Sound has referred to it as "The most significant audio technology of my lifetime".[13] Editor John Atkinson writing in Stereophile magazine following the UK launch in December 2014 wrote "In almost 40 years of attending audio press events, only rarely have I come away feeling that I was present at the birth of a new world."'

After reading this, I knew it was safe to move on.

 

[Audiofreak71]

I listen to MQA songs through Tidals Master title music, they add new albums daily which is good, the quality is really good. I have noticed some songs sound much better than others but the real eye opener is when I compare the MQA track to the HiFi track of the same song and actually hear a much cleaner rendition of the song.

For the serious listener MQA is great and provides clean music for listening sessions, for those that aren't there's always Spotify, Pandora that works perfectly. The point is were in an age where we have many choices on how we listen to our music and adding MQA to the list is the icing on the cake.

Audiofreak71

 

[Audiofreak71]

Well whatever it does or doesn't do, whether they add this or that, doesn't matter to me, if it sounds good to me then I'm good with it, if it sounds bad then I don't bother with it. I only go by what something sounds like to my ears when I try it and don't get caught up with what people write.

Audiofreak71

 

[Audiofreak71]

Thank goodness we live in a time where we can listen to multiple music formats and make a decision on what sounds best to our ears and continue to enjoy the format we choose.

Audiofreak71

 

[Audiofreak71]

Thank goodness I have both.

Audiofreak71

 

[ben_]

No, there are open formats for lossless files, that are DRM free and works perfectly.

Why would we want another format that include both losses and drm, plus require specific hardware to render properly ?

To me its already in the cemetary of failed audio formats, like DVD Audio in its time

 

[KentTeffeteller]

Problem 1: MQA is lossy. Problem 2: There are open formats for lossless files which work great, and serve our needs. And 3: The MQA hardware needed to render properly this dumbed down lossy format. All MQA does is line the pockets of MQA, Ltd. It does nothing useful or better. Therefore it needs to wither away.

 

[Mamrak1]

I don’t use Tidal so I don’t feel the need to purchase a DAC to process MQA. I am quite happy the way my music sounds at present.

 

[RichPA]

I've listened to MQA from Tidal through the analog outputs of a Bluesound Node 2, from the digital output of a Node 2 into a Benchmark DAC2 HGC, and from the Tidal desktop app through an AQ Dragonfly. It often sounds different, almost always significantly louder, and only occasionally better. I think it's this year's HDCD.

 

[sqlsavior]

No no and no

Me neither.

 

[Decibel_116]

From what I have learned, MQA is a thinly-veiled codec for control of media files. It is absolutely a copyright management (DRM - digital rights management) algorithm along with a lossy compression algorithm. The music industry has taken huge losses over MP3 files and the almost limitless FREE distribution of those files. This is well-known and talked about in industry circles. If you look at which companies are producing audio products with MQA capability, you will see who has joined this push for MQA. Like it or not, MQA will be in everyone's future in digital music retail. The only thing that will stop it, is the cost of implementing it on the production end (where MQA starts). The only winners will be the record producers and the MQA owners (royalty income). Don't think for one second this is aimed as a real advantage for audiophiles. It's only aimed at your wallet. The developers are spending lots of money on marketing hype (to tell you how superior it is to the free codes like FLAC). They intend to recoop this in a huge way. (IMHO of course)

 

[tubeyea]

It's currently in heavy rotation in my system and a significant part my streaming experience of late. That it is technically lossy, proprietary or a form of copyright management, that it requires an MQA compatible DAC and software is of no consequence to me, I have no axe to grind, I simply don't care about that shit.. I have the software, I have the DAC. On my system and to my ears it sounds good/better, more pleasing compared to the non-MQA versions. Will it gain market, don't know, don't care. If it feels good do it, this minute, in my room, it feels good. YRMV and that's fine too...

 

[Hak Foo]

On my system and to my ears it sounds good/better, more pleasing compared to the non-MQA versions.

To me, this screams "Empirically test!".
Start with a corpus of high quality recordings. Run one set through the MQA processing chain.

Then ABX text them against the originals for preference.

And then, importantly, compare them mathematically for accuracy.

We know there are a lot of ways to tickle our "repitie brains"-- things like "the brightest TV/loudest stereo is best" -- is it possible that the MQA processing chain doesn't give us more accurate sound, just sound tweaked in a consistently pleasaint way?

 

[tubeyea]

To me, this screams "Empirically test!".
Start with a corpus of high quality recordings. Run one set through the MQA processing chain.

Then ABX text them against the originals for preference.

And then, importantly, compare them mathematically for accuracy.

We know there are a lot of ways to tickle our "repitie brains"-- things like "the brightest TV/loudest stereo is best" -- is it possible that the MQA processing chain doesn't give us more accurate sound, just sound tweaked in a consistently pleasaint way?

Perhaps you missed "YRMV and that's fine too..." I can only be certain of my opinions in my room on my system, you'll just have to live with that.

 

[restorer-john]

..Zyguist frequency...

Zyguist? What happened to Nyquist? Got crossed with zeitgeist or something.

I like Zyguist, he is the new scroe.

 

[Hak Foo]

Apologies. It wasn't meant as an assault on you or your experience personally. More of a suspicion about "improved" audio as a whole.

In principle, recording technology is expected to go for more and more accuracy. I suspect, on a purely scientific basis, there's little return left to get in many dimensions there. However, even what we've done with current tech, we sometimes lose inaccuracies that have a charm to many listeners. A cool marketing coup would be to find a way to preserve those appealing inaccuracies, yet convince buyers the product as having high fidelity for listeners motivated by that message.

 

[tubeyea]

I’m under no delusions that MQA will have any use beyond HQ audio streaming, it adds to my listening experience and I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. That I can enjoy an increasing amount of MQA content on Tidal to makes these comparisons at a reduced rate due to the military discount make Tidal a no brainer.