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MQA Deep Dive - I published music on tidal to test MQA

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Racheski

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No wiggle room on this one...

Tidal.JPG
 

Oukkidoukki

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Haven't I seen you someplace before?
:)...I don’t think so.....I am on the other side of the world.....I was a year in Los Angeles in 2001 but thats all....maybe its some movie actor that remotely has the same look:p
 

symphara

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I think the strongest argument against MQA is the Dolby-fication of plain old audio reproduction. We don’t need that. Even if MQA were to provide some advantage, unless the advantage were very large (there’s no indication of that), we should reject it because it makes music reproduction more expensive and beholden to a proprietary format.

But what’s conspicuously missing in this thread, among all the MQA bashing, is some research into listener perception of MQA. Does MQA actually sound bad? Does it sound worse than FLAC? Is there anyone who can do a test?

For me personally Tidal MQA doesn’t sound bad at all. It’s not better nor worse than Qobuz. But Tidal does have nicer apps, better recommendations, possibly a larger catalog, and doesn’t force a German website on me. So I wouldn’t recommend Qobuz either. It’s just not a good product for the price, in my opinion, despite the real high-res audio files.
 

laurelkurt

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:)...I don’t think so.....I am on the other side of the world.....I was a year in Los Angeles in 2001 but thats all....maybe its some movie actor that remotely has the same look:p
It was a rhetorical question. I'm not bright enough to comment on any of this. I'm not even able to figure out how to turn on notifications for this thread other than by replying to someone's comment. Yours seemed the easiest to respond to.

BTW. I did live in Los Angeles in 2001. It's all a blur though. Did you hang out in any seedy places? We may have even met, or worse.

No need to respond. Thanks. Good to see I get notifications now.
 

SKBubba

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I am 100% opposed to MQA. Not because of sound. It doesn't sound "bad" on my setup. Not because I'm a scientist who understands all the math. I'm not.

Instead, I oppose MQA because of the control they dream of imposing on the entire music ecosystem, with royalties and fees being paid to one company at every step of the way from production to packaging to delivery to playback, for no apparent benefit to anyone other than the one company.

Moreover, if they are successful in their schemes of world domination, decades of open, industry standard, cross-platform compatible, high quality music playback science is obsolete, taking away consumer choice. For what? A little blue light?

However, I am starting to be less concerned. So far, MQA adoption is limited to one streaming service and mostly one major record label. And that label still offers their files to every other outlet in industry-standard formats. Further, consumer access to MQA is limited to somewhere around 0.7% to 1% of the market, and we don't know how many of those actually use it or even care about it.

(By the way, if MQA is so superior, why don't Denon, Marantz, Yamaha, et. al. support it natively? Why didn't Amazon include it in their Music HD rollout?)

Anyway, this means that, after all these years, 99% of the market is unmoved by their claims of superiorty. This suggests that MQA is a massive failure, and isn't really worth worrying about any more. It appears they are a niche within a niche, and the market's natural antibodies are preventing it from going viral.
 

RichB

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symphara

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Anyway, this means that, after all these years, 99% of the market is unmoved by their claims of superiorty. This suggests that MQA is a massive failure, and isn't really worth worrying about any more. It appears they are a niche within a niche, and the market's natural antibodies are preventing it from going viral.
It’s not the antibodies. It’s just a niche of a very small niche, unsuccessfully fighting to take over that very small niche.

The “market” just doesn’t care, is by and large unmoved even by the desire to have CD-quality tracks. The “market” is happy with a smart speaker and, in the upper echelon, a sound bar, and at the very top end, a couple of Sonos speakers and a sound bar with an “Atmos“ sticker on it.
 

Mountain Goat

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Don't subscribe,use Qobuz should solve your problem am I right

You're right. I unsubbed after comparing the Steel Pulse "True Democracy" album "Master" on Tidal to the 24/192 high-def Qobuz version. The percussion instruments in this favorite album are cleaner on Qobuz.

Also, I can listen to Qobuz high-res in a browser, important on my work computer that I can't install 3rd party apps on.

https://open.qobuz.com/track/28879703
 
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AdamG

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dmac6419

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You're right. I unsubbed after comparing the Steel Pulse "True Democracy" album "Master" on Tidal to the 24/192 high-def Qobuz version. The percussion instruments in this favorite album are cleaner on Qobuz.

Also, I can listen to Qobuz high-res in a browser, important on my work computer that I can't install 3rd party apps on.

https://open.qobuz.com/track/28879703
I like that,enjoy your music.
 
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