Best MQA Desktop DAC - preferably ~$500 though up to $1K

[staticV3]

Clearly the mqa discussion is not as black and white as ASR wants to think it is, because science is truly not black and white

Either you stream to your customers the exact master that was uploaded by the artist, or you mess with the audio before streaming to your customers.
MQA messes with the audio. It's that black and white.

What's worse, Meridian first claimed that their process doesn't mess with the audio, then after they got caught lying, changed their stance to "our processing improves on the original". Both are insulting to artists and customers alike, which is why many have pulled out of the whole MQA fiasco already.

 

[trevintheaudioboy]

Either you stream to your customers the exact master that was uploaded by the artist, or you mess with the audio before streaming to your customers.
MQA messes with the audio. It's that black and white.

What's worse, Meridian first claimed that their process doesn't mess with the audio, then after they got caught lying, changed their stance to "our processing improves on the original". Both are insulting to artists and customers alike, which is why many have pulled out of the whole MQA fiasco already.

Okay.

All I’m saying is that OP simply asked for advice and people were turning this into an MQA-bashing thread without helping OP at all.

Many audiophiles make MQA out to be the bogeyman. These same audiophiles have provided graphs and evidence that MQA is lossy- and I’m not saying that it’s “lossless.” However, some people like MQA despite this factual information.

Some continue to attack MQA whenever they can, because they see MQA as a forceful proprietary thing and bad for digital music or artist rights. These audiophiles often see MQA as a scam of some sort with MQA compatibility being added as a feature or “upgrade” to DACs. All of these opinions are valid.

However, the cult-like attitude of the anti-MQA club is just as bad as they are claiming MQA is for the consumer/artist music industry. So if it is factual and obvious that MQA is objectively worse, then let that speak for itself. Some people like it, and being open to others opinions and perspectives will go a long way towards making this community come together closer. It’s not black and white.

No intent to offend anyone with this post. It’s ok if you disagree with my perspective

 

[Willem]

It’s ok if you disagree with my perspective

However, science is not a matter of opinions.

 

[IAtaman]

MQA is demonstrably bad for listeners, for creators, for equipment manufacturers and for the overall music industry. In fact they are bad for everyone except for their owners and executives and they have been lying at different levels to make people think it is good for everyone. What is your perspective, you think MQA is good , or you mean to say yeah sure, its whole a bunch of BS but people like it, so let it be?

 

[Anderlfs]

MQA is demonstrably bad for listeners, for creators, for equipment manufacturers and for the overall music industry. In fact they are bad for everyone except for their owners and executives

I do not intend to extend myself in this offtopic discussion because I believe that every format has Its own potential and I enjoy CDs, records, tapes, digital files and alternate the use between various streaming platforms. I think the discussion and pressure is valid and today It is clear that It should be named MLQA "Master-like Quality Audio". But in my research I've always seen Tidal as one of the services that pays the most to artists. So how bad is It for them? They are not obliged to keep their art there, they leave there because they must have some return from it. And many albums are only available there.

 

[trevintheaudioboy]

MQA is demonstrably bad for listeners, for creators, for equipment manufacturers and for the overall music industry. In fact they are bad for everyone except for their owners and executives

If this is the case then why are no creators or artists complaining or voicing their experience with mqa? As far as I know, MQA criticism is mostly just in this community. The music industry has had a lot of problems for a lot of years, MQA isn’t really one of them.

But how is it “demonstrably bad for creators”? Im interested on the “facts” on that statement.

 

[trevintheaudioboy]

However, science is not a matter of opinions.

Facts are not a matter of opinions. Life is much more complicated than that…

 

[unpluggged]

If this is the case then why are no creators or artists complaining or voicing their experience with mqa?

You are twisting facts. Do you work for Meridian?

Neil Young pulls music from Tidal, because of MQA

I expected this to have been be posted already, but here: https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/1

www.audiosciencereview.com

And if you are so enthusiastic about MQA, why don't you explain us the objective benefits it allegedly brings? Or at least tell us why you like it personally? Is it because you make profit from it?

 

[Mnyb]

The world did not need yet another proprietary format with licensing. Further it’s also an unnecessary formats as it solves no problem and there are several other formats that makes it redundant to begin with.

The conundrum is more that some remasters where made due to the MQA hype and may be a good representation of that music . It may exist an even bettter one somewhere but it’s not available to you.
So what so you do if your streaming service offers this ? This is the only complicated part.
You may like content that’s exclusively aviable only in this format. Then you migth feel thatyou have to make the best out of it somehow ?
Constructive advice here try to get a DAC where the MQA implementation did not mess it’s performance with other formats to much ie it’s possible to select decent filters for normal pcm content.
The MQA hype may have been the economic incentive for some remasters to begin with . Just like the launch of so many other formats.

The world is filled with licensed proprietary formats that did bring something useful to the table like DVD and various Dolby products over the years . The common theme here is that these brought something to market that fulfilled some need or addressed real technical issues and improvements for everyone. Or older obvious ones like compact cassette or CD . I likeable thing with older proprietary formats is that they are well documented it’s good for archives no secret sauce to be lost to history.

But in modern file formats for storage or streaming of music it’s hard to improve on perfection thats been free for decades now ? Why change that.

 

[droid2000]

Why would you intentionally want to play flawed sound?

 

[Mnyb]

Why would you intentionally want to play flawed sound?

If that's the only option you have to listen to that version of the recording . And it's not that mqa is horrible sounding it's just not as good as the original file.
But in the end mastering and recording trumps formats all the time.

 

[antcollinet]

If this is the case then why are no creators or artists complaining or voicing their experience with mqa? As far as I know, MQA criticism is mostly just in this community. The music industry has had a lot of problems for a lot of years, MQA isn’t really one of them.

But how is it “demonstrably bad for creators”? Im interested on the “facts” on that statement.

MQA brings no benefits to the table for anyone. It is not easier to use, it doesn't bring imporved quality. It makes equipment which can decode it more complicated and more expensive. It is secret and closed source so no-one can easily find out what other disiadvantages it might have. It ties titles using it up in more legal restrictions.

MQA exists for one reason only and that is to make money for the people that own it. More money for them means either less for content creators (and equipment manufacturers), or less for you, or both. In reality it means less money for you because manufacturers and content creators will have to pass on the costs to stay in business. Less money for you means less to spend on kit and less to spend on music. Owners of MQA are simply sucking money out of the industry, and giving negative value in return.

That is how it is demonstrably bad.

 

[TonyJZX]

i dont think the people here arguing the case for MQA are honest actors - waste of time even dealing with them

BUT the reality is that if the avg. audiophile consumer thinks there's MQA streaming, MQA music sources and MQA dacs then there's no way that this isnt a legitimate business given there's no way that the streaming services, the copyright holders AND the electronics manufacturers are all into this scam.

But you know this is a top to bottom scam that has garnered legitmacy by being relatively prevalent.

Again I make the comparison that the people selling leaded gasoline and tobacco and fossil fuels are all in on this elaborate deception.

And if my income is derived from pushing MQA then I will push MQA.

If you purport to be audio SCIENCE review then you cannot be behind MQA in any shape or form.

 

[trevintheaudioboy]

If you purport to be audio SCIENCE review then you cannot be behind MQA in any shape or form.

it’s this exclusionary and cult-like attitude is more concerning to me than mqa

 

[staticV3]

it’s this exclusionary and cult-like attitude is more concerning to me than mqa

Yes, we tend to get cranky when corporations exploit weaknesses in the human psyche for money.
If you want to call this "no tolerance for BS" mentality cult-like, then I'm all in.

 

[TonyJZX]

this is the paradox of tolerance of the intolerable

this is already well worn territory, especially in the events of the last few years

you cannot expect people who are into graphs and numbers and objective conclusion to tolerate any positive discussion of something like MQA

it is beyond the expectation of reasonable folk here

if you want to do that realistically, go somewhere else

if you still want to come here and push this anti science marketing, then expect to reap the whirlwind

in the same way i cannot tolerate a lot of anti science face to face, i cannot tolerate it on a forum with the above masthead... i can actually tolerate in on the lesser audio forums... because they do not tend to lean into the science as hard... and i know what level of 'discourse' to expect there

you can readily blame the proprietor and the 'raison d'etre' of this place, unfortunately they set a very high standard

i am happy to exclude anti intellectualism... i am proud of that... and i consider myself very very under educated compared to some of the luminaries here

 

[Anderlfs]

I've been learning more about this site over the last few days and now I understand better about Its purpose. I believe that the initiative and the data that you have here are very useful. But mathematics is just one field of science. There are others equally important to music, such as fluid chemistry, hormonal science and studies of the senses. My recommendation today for newbies would be not to mix other sciences here, just stick to graphs and numbers and associate this information with that of other sites.

 

[unpluggged]

But mathematics is just one field of science.

OK, which problem exactly MQA is intended to solve?

 

[TonyJZX]

"fluid chemistry, hormonal science and studies of the senses"

yeah i stopped reading here, and you should too

hormones??? really?

 

[Anderlfs]

I don't want to get in trouble here. Maybe I'll argue about these things in another topic, IF it's reopened by some renowned member. I have already been informed that this is a "well worn territory, especially in the events of the last few years". I’m fine with that and enjoying the reviews made by Amirm. Even thinking to become a donor. If someone wants to expand their knowledge, there are official scientific sites available talking about hormones and such, as the one below:

The neurochemistry of music, National Library of Medicine

If someone likes the way mqa with some gear distorts sound, there’s nothing you and science can do about that. What science can do is try to understand why this distortion present in many music formats may be sounding more pleasant to some ears. And that's beyond math.