More MQA Controversy

[Sal1950]

So the evidence offered there is MQA is no different. Not exactly inspiring for MQA.

Maybe a bit of "temporal blurschitt" ?

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

So the evidence offered there is MQA is no different. Not exactly inspiring for MQA.

Well, yes, if true, because MQA makes a big claim about the reduction in temporal blur via their end-to-end process, even improving on hi rez masters. As stated, though, others have reported hearing this improvement, on a better DAC and system I believe, though the author did not hear an improvement in this case via the $300 Meridian Explorer2.

Also, it appears from what I see that he used the same MQA DAC with and without MQA encoded material. My understanding is that an MQA DAC would deliver half - the playback side of sonic benefits - with any material, including non-MQA encoded. Possibly, that might have influenced things in his demo, bringing the sound closer together. I do not think that any MQA DAC yet has the ability to turn MQA off completely. That, and there may never be such a thing as two DACs for comparison which are identical except one is MQA and the other is not. John Atkinson in Stereophile recently measured a Meridian Explorer vs. an Explorer2, but I doubt that the only singular difference between them is that the 2 has MQA. The Explorer2 was slightly better, by the way, but he is not yet ready to declare total victory for MQA.

Maybe these are the issues, or maybe MQA, despite heroic efforts, is just unable to deliver on their promise as to sonics. But, one sighted observation does not cement the case, one way or the other.

I still believe that Tidal loves MQA because of the significant bandwidth reduction it provides on hi rez files with apparently no reduction in quality, as this author concludes. I believe it does that in a better way from an administration and marketing perspective than traditional FLAC or DSD files do, albeit with the need for the user to upgrade to an MQA DAC to have access to the hi rez "layers" of the program. Still, it would give Tidal the competitive advantage of being the only hi rez streaming service and delivering that efficiently. Would others follow? It might take a long while.

The frequent complaint I have seen in forums is that prior demos did not compare the same material with/without MQA. At least, that was not the case here. But, I think there are still many unanswered questions and the jury is still out on any definite sonic improvements.

 

[Thomas savage]

Maybe a bit of "temporal blurschitt" ?

Good one sal, gold star!

 

[Ken Newton]

So the evidence offered there is MQA is no different. Not exactly inspiring for MQA.

There are two ways to look at those reported results. One way is that MQA does not sound any better than HD-LPCM. The other way is that MQA sounds exactly the same as HD-LPCM, but at 30% the bandwidth and storage space. Of course, as audiophiles, our primary interest is in advancing playback sound quality.

 

[Sal1950]

Of course, as audiophiles, our primary interest is in advancing playback sound quality.

SQ is foremost in our concerns, but NOT at the price of our freedom. It still remains IMHO, that the DRM like, proprietary, closed loop, design will forever make it unacceptable to me. I don't care if a band of Spanish Angels flies out of my speakers when decoded. It surely is only a matter of a (very short) time that the same or better can be accomplished with open source flac like code.
Don't put handcuffs on our most brilliant digital gear designers and lock out progress for the foreseeable future.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

Sal - I feel your pain, and you are free to boycott this technology, assuming it succeeds, which is not assured. And, remember, it is only closed loop for hi rez. The 44/48k sampling of the core is compatible with just about everything. Possibly, there might be PC software to free up decoding/"unfolding" of the hi rez eventually, much as there is now for Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio.

But, that is not a sure thing, although I suspect Tidal will want to have hi rez decoding and playback capability available to users even without MQA DACs. My guess is Tidal hi rez with/without MQA would carry a higher subscription price either way. That scenario seems fair to me. But, like you, I would worry if MQA said no to that idea and insisted that everybody who wanted hi rez from MQA files or streams had to purchase an MQA DAC. First, I think that would be foolish. The old Marketing 101 razors and blades idea suggests the best business model is to give away the razors essentially at cost and derive profits from the repeat sales of every blade.

Licensed, proprietary stuff with fees/royalties flowing to the developers of the intellectual property is a fact of life. Without that, developers would stop developing new stuff for lack of incentive. The cost of that is something you have already been paying for every time you bought a CD or CD player, for example. Digital audio would not have come into existence without it. It was just hidden in the price you paid as the end user/consumer. But, manufacturers of the discs and stuff you bought paid those fees to Sony/Philips and passed it along to you, buried in the price you paid. There are many other things you use outside audio in daily life where that is also true.