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

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Rusty Shackleford said:
The majority of people likely cannot hear the difference between the worst measuring DAC reviewed on this site and the best measuring one. Why should what the average person thinks matter to audiophiles?
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Those blind tests included audiophiles, who didn’t fare any better than the “average person”. We like to think we have golden ears, but objective tests have proven otherwise over and over again.
 
Sineira said:
Roon is an add-on software player not necessary to play MQA files and it also plays any other file just fine. How on earth is paying for Roon paying for MQA?

Tidal Hi-Fi tier is not just for MQA.

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so you think MQA is free?

Just have a look at the Topping D90 with and without MQA prices and tell me whether the customer pays for decoding or not.
 
abdo123 said:
it's at -50 dB at the inaudible band so no.
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-43.5 dB ;)
Inaudible for tweeter and amps?
My AMT´s go easy over 30khz, and i am often playing very(!) loud music, so that seems dangerous for my equipment.
 
Sineira said:
Let me be clear; I don't pay anything extra for the MQA music file.

So now you'll go to war over HDMI, Dolby, Blu-ray etc because they cost license money for the equipment manufacturers?
You're being silly.
Click to expand...

these formats serve a valuable function or they provide advantages otherwise they wouldn't be widely adopted.

MQA has no real valuable advatnage to the user and has barely any adoption.

Qobuz offers 0.04$ per stream to the artist, Tidal offers 0.01$. You're paying for MQA, whether you like it or not.
 
So, we have fake hi res MQA, >20kHz high frequencies synthesized from the <20Khz in band audio.
They then started changing "lossless" files by stealing the 3 bottom bits to fill with aliasing noise of these fake high frequencies.

Given how good the AAC coder is, it's possible Tidal's Premium tier 320 AAC may now be perceptibly as good or better than Tidal's "lossless" for files with a "Master" version.

But perhaps even that is naïve. Is their next step to build the 320 AAC files from the 13 bit + alias noise "lossless master"? It's seems the logical thing to do from their position. How far down the rabbit hole will this contagion go?

The record labels are investing in MQA. If anyone thinks this demolition of the audio isn't to just add watermarking, swampland in Florida awaits your signature on the deed.
 
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:D "adding in things" :D actually made me laugh. Maybe first time I laughed on an MQA thread. [And I haven't had a smoke break.]

How much further does it go, all this? MQA claims lossy-compression "masters", now someone claims their encoding adds things in - is that something to do with "what the artist intended." :D
 
I dunno about Roon paying for MQA, but Tidal - no way, they are in partnership...Corporate gangsters, probably somehow investing in each other's companies.

At least Pablo Escobar and the cartels are more honest, and they provide a real product. Even a means for poor people to support themselves.
 
Sineira said:
Roon is an add-on software player not necessary to play MQA files and it also plays any other file just fine. How on earth is paying for Roon paying for MQA?

Tidal Hi-Fi tier is not just for MQA.

Click to expand...

So Tidal costs more than QOBUZ, good to know.

I actually think that a format that was truly lossless that added Dolby Atmos is intriguing if people could get it stuffed up the DACs snoot.

Dolby has the technology to offer lossless base with lossy surround metadata, this format is actually interesting.
Folks with multi-channel Atmos decoding in the AVR/AVP get more use out of their systems.

- Rich
 
Pricing data point: I just got Tidal for a year in March. Paid for one year through BestBuy, and was closer to $15/ month with that deal.
 
Sineira said:
Roon is an add-on software player not necessary to play MQA files and it also plays any other file just fine. How on earth is paying for Roon paying for MQA?

Tidal Hi-Fi tier is not just for MQA.

Click to expand...

You still haven't responded to the question:

Which of MQA claims do you support and do you have evidence supporting them?
 
bambadoo said:
Roon is paying MQA for their service. So you are actually paying MQA with a Roon subscription.
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/why-do-manufacturers-support-mqa/155965/21
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For folks not following the link, here is the Roon COO:
Sometimes the money leads to a dead end. We pay MQA to let you “Core Decode” in Roon. We don’t make money directly on MQA, we lose it! However, we do gain customer satisfaction for those who wanted MQA, which is in itself a form of being paid.

It’s crazy how hard we try to stay “Switzerland” when it comes to audio religion, but it’s near impossible sometimes. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

I love the business dynamics of how the “masters” tier is free for TIDAL HiFi users. It’s brilliant. TIDAL gets to provide something other than CD quality for the same price (to the subscriber) and the subscriber can’t really complain about free, eh? Our vocal niche here is tiny. TIDAL is gigantic compared to Roon and the audiophile community. There are probably more people on TIDAL that wanted Beyonce’s Lemonade than there are people who know what a DAC is.

I wonder why TIDAL cares. Who were they competing with?
Click to expand...

The audiophile press forced this issue with their fawning coverage.
For the record, Roon pricing did increase last year so new subscribers get to pay for the old ones (like me :)).

- Rich
 
guenthi_r said:
Maybe someone can answer my question:
Is unfolded MQA´s high frequency hump dangerous for tweeters, amps or human ears?

BLUE = original 88.2 khz
WHITE = Unfolded MQA 88.2 khz
View attachment 125659
Click to expand...

I don't know the provenance of this file but some systems could modulate this information into the audible band.
It's better not have the 21.5 to 30kHz distortion added during playback.

- Rich
 
oHdLzwK.jpg
 
Sineira said:
Roon is an add-on software player not necessary to play MQA files and it also plays any other file just fine. How on earth is paying for Roon paying for MQA?

Tidal Hi-Fi tier is not just for MQA.

Click to expand...

Somebody has to pay. Roon COO says it's them: 'We pay MQA to let you “Core Decode” in Roon. We don’t make money directly on MQA, we lose it!'

So they see it as a cost of doing business to attract customers. You wonder, though, how much it affects their profitability and whether the money could be better spent on developing other features. It also means that if you pay for roon you are paying MQA Ltd. indirectly, whether you use their technology or not.
 
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