What country?Coming from a location where my streaming options are limited to Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal, I guess my best choice in terms of music resolution is still Tidal Hifi/Master.
In fact, while reading through this somewhat heated debate, I’m still enjoying my MQA music and could not hear anything “nasty” in the songs I played. So from a real life perspective, I can’t really complain. Peace
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MQA Deep Dive - I published music on tidal to test MQA
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Zensō
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Coming from a location where my streaming options are limited to Apple Music, Spotify and Tidal, I guess my best choice in terms of music resolution is still Tidal Hifi/Master.
In fact, while reading through this somewhat heated debate, I’m still enjoying my MQA music and could not hear anything “nasty” in the songs I played. So from a real life perspective, I can’t really complain. Peace
This debate isn’t really about sound quality. Multiple controlled tests have shown that 256 AAC and 320 Ogg Vorbis are perceptually equal to RBCD to a vast majority of people. Any of your three options above will sound the same when streaming music blind at matched volumes.
Digital Delay
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Wow really? I would have thought 16 or 13 bit / 44.1 Tidal Hifi/MQA (equal or close to CD quality) should sound better than Apple Music or Spotify
i could swear i can tell the difference between 256 AAC and LDAC 990 over BT, but that's pretty far from blind. also, between spotify 320 and any of the redbook services, but i definitely can't tell the difference between MQA 13-bit and RB. i've been avoiding MQA out of principle more than anything.
again though, none of this is blind. you're getting your money's worth from almost any of the high quality tiers of music services as long as the masters are good. see: the hi-rez music poll. we're audiophiles and 2/3 of us can't tell the difference between caveman encoded music and spaceman encoded music
again though, none of this is blind. you're getting your money's worth from almost any of the high quality tiers of music services as long as the masters are good. see: the hi-rez music poll. we're audiophiles and 2/3 of us can't tell the difference between caveman encoded music and spaceman encoded music
Zensō
Major Contributor
You can run this test yourself by downloading a “hi-res” file and compressing at various lower levels. Just be sure you’re comparing with precisely matched volumes and blind without knowledge of which you’re listening to. It’s extremely unlikely you’ll be able to pick out high bit rate compressed files from lossless.
You might find this interesting:
http://archimago.blogspot.com/2013/02/high-bitrate-mp3-internet-blind-test_2.html?m=1
and this:
https://cdvsmp3.wordpress.com/cd-vs-itunes-plus-blind-test-results/
Zensō
Major Contributor
Bluetooth codecs are a different subject altogether. I’m not surprised you’re hearing differences there.
you can do an ABX test very conveniently via this link, i stopped streaming lossless a long time ago.
http://abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify-hq.html
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Honest question: Why is Warner (apparently) having its entire HR catalogue on Tidal replaced with MQA? Or are you saying that Warner does not care, and it is likely Tidal's own decision to do this?
guenthi_r
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Blind tests... my ears are not good enough, really.
Recently i done a ABX RedBook CD vs Sharp latest ATRAC (really, no joke) and i never get an consistent detection rate...
Recently i done a ABX RedBook CD vs Sharp latest ATRAC (really, no joke) and i never get an consistent detection rate...
the same reason why would anyone publish anything in MQA, cheap marketing. for the sake of Warner, since they are stake owners, free marketing.
Zensō
Major Contributor
It’s my understanding that Warner Music Group is a shareholder in MQA Ltd.
@GoldenOne
is it possible to publish the same tracks on Spotify and do a similar analysis to see how MQA fares up to other lossy codecs?
is it possible to publish the same tracks on Spotify and do a similar analysis to see how MQA fares up to other lossy codecs?
Tks
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What would be the point? We have access to those encoders. The only reason Tidal was done, is because Meridian refuses even third party audit of the encoder.
Are you insinuating that he is stupid and thus deleted the FLAC files he submitted to Tidal/MQA for publishing?
The MQA plan was simple:
An educated consumer is not a pawn, an uneducated consumer is a pawn.
Thankfully, the consumer has truth is on their side because the MQA sales pitch is riddled with provable falsehoods. Many of which are in direct opposition to the facts.
They should be shunned and laughed out of the room.
The level of the deception is so bad, that MQA deserves the deriding and there has not been nearly enough.
- Rich
- Convince friends in Audiophile press that MQA sounds better (child's play really)
- Convince labels that their technology preserves their "crown jewels" (not too difficult to generate a fear based appeal)
- Obtain a backer with virtually limitless cash (Jack)
- Stuff Bob's pockets with bills so he keeps pressing the flesh (ongoing)
- Begin the process of MQA only releases (it has begun)
An educated consumer is not a pawn, an uneducated consumer is a pawn.
Thankfully, the consumer has truth is on their side because the MQA sales pitch is riddled with provable falsehoods. Many of which are in direct opposition to the facts.
- MQA does not create a single master, streaming needs a compact lossy MP3 type compression for majority of its customers.
- MQA does not deblur, its filter blurs by leaks aliasing into the audible range.
- MQA files are not at the PCM rate advertised.
- MQA does not restore the original master it degrades it.
- MQA is not right-sized it can be larger. In fact, LPCM at 96khz/18 bits FLAC may best it.
- MQA does not make obsolete the terms lossy and lossless.
- Simply put, MQA is not HD-Audio, nor is is branded to be.
They should be shunned and laughed out of the room.
The level of the deception is so bad, that MQA deserves the deriding and there has not been nearly enough.
- Rich
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They actually don't advertise a PCM rate, this is one of the many issues the OP pin pointed.
You're quite late to the party
The files were on Spotify the whole time, and a quick analysis has been done.i was under the impression that he paid the service to encode his flacs into mqa and they uploaded to tidal directly
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