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MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions

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dmac6419

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As well as being the only reasonable justification... which with 5G is a bit of a stretch even then. Still not appreciably better than FLAC in that regard, but that wasn't your point I presume. ;)

At the very least I would grant that MQA files would definitely sound better than the atrocious bitrates commonly seen in SiriusXM transmissions.
16/44 good enough for me,people always find something to complain about, jeebus
 

digicidal

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16/44 good enough for me,people always find something to complain about, jeebus
Me too... and if SiriusXM was anything close to that I could stand listening to it. Unfortunately ~64kbps AAC is not a viable alternative (and sometimes it's not even that good). :facepalm: Naturally that's not a problem outside of the car where you can select higher levels... but in every car I've ever owned it's an absolute disaster and just sounds significantly worse than FM.
 

RichB

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16/44 good enough for me,people always find something to complain about, jeebus

If you don't have MQA support, tidal gives you less than 16/44 so that is why I use QOBUZ.

MQA provides a fictional benefit. The sample rate is the sample rate. Displaying a new sample-rate after unfolding in not real. Unfolding does not change the sample rate.

MQA consumes potential dynamic range to provide extended and inaudible frequencies. It then flavors with a poor reconstruction filter. What's not to like :p

The issue with recording is master quality and, with popular music, over compression and clipping.
MQA has no interest is actual quality metrics, only royalties.

- Rich
 

dmac6419

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If you don't have MQA support, tidal gives you less than 16/44 so that is why I use QOBUZ.

MQA provides a fictional benefit. The sample rate is the sample rate. Displaying a new sample-rate after unfolding in not real. Unfolding does not change the sample rate.

MQA consumes potential dynamic range to provide extended and inaudible frequencies. It then flavors with a poor reconstruction filter. What's not to like :p

The issue with recording is master quality and, with popular music, over compression and clipping.
MQA has no interest is actual quality metrics, only royalties.

- Rich
No it doesn't,I have Tidal and it's better than Qobuz sonically,give em 16/44, they want 24/96 and so on, also have Amazon and that's just fine as well,schitt I'll listen to 320 and be happy.Oh and MQA is just fine for me too.
 

dmac6419

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Me too... and if SiriusXM was anything close to that I could stand listening to it. Unfortunately ~64kbps AAC is not a viable alternative (and sometimes it's not even that good). :facepalm: Naturally that's not a problem outside of the car where you can select higher levels... but in every car I've ever owned it's an absolute disaster and just sounds significantly worse than FM.
When I drove over the road, I would listen to Sirius all day,had no problems with it.
 

dmac6419

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I heard with confidence how my favorite albums sounded in mqa. Disappointment. I will never use mqa. It's worse than CD. But it is better than some of the other types of compression.
Dude you do know that most music is recorded in redbook cd,you do know that alot of music is upsampled and sold as 24/92 etc.
 

RichB

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No it doesn't,I have Tidal and it's better than Qobuz sonically,give em 16/44, they want 24/96 and so on, also have Amazon and that's just fine as well,schitt I'll listen to 320 and be happy.Oh and MQA is just fine for me too.

I was focusing on technology, it cannot be as good a high-res audio and, when not using MQA it is worse than CD.

Hey, you like what you like but (IMO) MQA is bad for consumers but good for profits.

- Rich
 

Doodski

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I was focusing on technology, it cannot be as good a high-res audio and, when not using MQA it is worse than CD.

Hey, you like what you like but (IMO) MQA is bad for consumers but good for profits.

- Rich
Your attachment pic is not opening. :D
 

dmac6419

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I was focusing on technology, it cannot be as good a high-res audio and, when not using MQA it is worse than CD.

Hey, you like what you like but (IMO) MQA is bad for consumers but good for profits.

- Rich
So you're an expert,if not just say you don't prefer MQA, it's not bad for consumers no more than Streaming is bad for the content creator, artist,writer, studio personal,etc, that's my opinion.
 

Julf

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So you're an expert,if not just say you don't prefer MQA, it's not bad for consumers no more than Streaming is bad for the content creator, artist,writer, studio personal,etc, that's my opinion.

How about FM radio?

Proprietary, locked and lossy formats are bad for the consumer (and the industry), that's my opinion.
 

RichB

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So you're an expert,if not just say you don't prefer MQA, it's not bad for consumers no more than Streaming is bad for the content creator, artist,writer, studio personal,etc, that's my opinion.

Nope, but I have have done some research.
Here is a good read if you are interested:

MQA: Archimago Adds a “Final” Nail to the Coffin! – Real HD-Audio (realhd-audio.com)

Honestly, MQA is not required for streaming. I stream 4K UHD video without issues.
QOBUZ allows you to select your streaming rate and limit to CD quality, that is better than MQA when the consumer does not have a decoder.

Nobody needs MQA, certainly not streaming services, artists, writers, and studio personnel.

- Rich
 

Chrispy

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So you're an expert,if not just say you don't prefer MQA, it's not bad for consumers no more than Streaming is bad for the content creator, artist,writer, studio personal,etc, that's my opinion.

You still here pulling for MQA....devotion! It's still bullshit, tho.
 

firedog

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MQA is not about music or music quality saving bandwidth for streaming.

It's about control of the best content - the high res masters - and preventing them from getting to the public. MQA is a scheme partially owned by the record labels (as are the streaming services), and it's designed to put fake hi-res on the market and charge people the price for hi-res (or even more). MQA principals have even admitted this publicly.

In the recent dump at Tidal of MQA titles, we are seeing "MQA-CD" replace standard Redbook. MQA-CD is actually lower resolution than Redbook, and Tidal is now starting to remove Redbook versions of titles and replace them with MQA-CD. The Redbook versions are no longer available.
Just wait: this is only the first step. Next we will see MQA fake hi-res replacing actual hi-res at Tidal, and at download sites. The real hi-res masters will become unavailable. Even if you think hi-res is meaningless/useless, this is a rip-off of the consumer.
 

abdo123

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If you don't have MQA support, tidal gives you less than 16/44 so that is why I use QOBUZ.

Feel free to use the Hi-Fi quality on Tidal, which is 16/44.

MQA provides a fictional benefit. The sample rate is the sample rate. Displaying a new sample-rate after unfolding in not real. Unfolding does not change the sample rate.

According to the result published by Mark Waldrep HD Audio Challenge (here), people cannot tell the difference between CD quality and higher sample rate. Considering that his participants are 'audio people' I doubt it's because they're not 'trained ears'.

So sample rate does not matter (above CD), it's just a number.

The issue with recording is master quality and, with popular music, over compression and clipping.
MQA has no interest is actual quality metrics, only royalties.

- Rich

There is not a single format in the world that can help with this, if a track is produced poorly, that's the end of it.

MQA consumes potential dynamic range to provide extended and inaudible frequencies.

like you said, potential. there are no mainstream tracks that uses the full dynamic range that the CD format allows.

MQA doesn't take away from that at all, it takes away from the potential dynamic range in the 24 bit format, which no one gets close to anyway.


MQA offers no benefits or consequences when the majority of music released is in CD quality anyway (or worse).
 

abdo123

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It's about control of the best content - the high res masters - and preventing them from getting to the public.

you know you can capture the entire PCM feed of an MQA file with a 150$ Audio interface right?

If they want to control it they wouldn't release it to begin with.
 
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