Similar to the fellow who posted before me -- I'm here by way of downloading REW but have also been drawn into / enjoyed surfing some of the discussions from the weekly summary I've begun to receive.
I've been an audio enthusiast since my late teen years and have dabbled in a little of everything from car audio to home theater. I was around when digital emerged, that is, when CD's offered a welcome break from having to record vinyl on cassette tape so we could take our favorite music with us. No more clicks/pops and tape hiss! Fast forward several decades and over the past few years I've come full circle, back to analog, adding a turntable and phono preamp back into my listening equipment, along with a tube headphone amplifier. I still embrace digital and thoroughly enjoy my outboard DAC and DAC/headphone amplifier and the ability to listen to my CD library (FLAC), hi-res audio files and streaming services - Tidal and Roon.
Coming back to recent discussions, I find the discussion around MQA to be pretty interesting -- seems to be a pretty polarized topic. Perhaps I shouldn't admit this, but I continue to have many great listening experiences using MQA. Using my own listening experiences as reference, I can't fully buy into the over-the-top arguments against MQA. Relative to previous technologies (Dolby Noise Reduction, ferric/chrome/metal tape equalization, audio expansion hardware, Carver's "Sonic Holography"), MQA seems to be pretty benign. I've used a couple of different decoders from both the US and UK - with quite satisfying results.
While I enjoy the empirical and scientific aspects of audio (that's why I'm using REW) I also fall back to using my ears to guide what sounds good. After all, it seems that's what this is really all about... enjoying music and movies. What fun to be able to listen and enjoy an analog recording made before I was born -- or a well-executed DSD version. It's all good.
I've been an audio enthusiast since my late teen years and have dabbled in a little of everything from car audio to home theater. I was around when digital emerged, that is, when CD's offered a welcome break from having to record vinyl on cassette tape so we could take our favorite music with us. No more clicks/pops and tape hiss! Fast forward several decades and over the past few years I've come full circle, back to analog, adding a turntable and phono preamp back into my listening equipment, along with a tube headphone amplifier. I still embrace digital and thoroughly enjoy my outboard DAC and DAC/headphone amplifier and the ability to listen to my CD library (FLAC), hi-res audio files and streaming services - Tidal and Roon.
Coming back to recent discussions, I find the discussion around MQA to be pretty interesting -- seems to be a pretty polarized topic. Perhaps I shouldn't admit this, but I continue to have many great listening experiences using MQA. Using my own listening experiences as reference, I can't fully buy into the over-the-top arguments against MQA. Relative to previous technologies (Dolby Noise Reduction, ferric/chrome/metal tape equalization, audio expansion hardware, Carver's "Sonic Holography"), MQA seems to be pretty benign. I've used a couple of different decoders from both the US and UK - with quite satisfying results.
While I enjoy the empirical and scientific aspects of audio (that's why I'm using REW) I also fall back to using my ears to guide what sounds good. After all, it seems that's what this is really all about... enjoying music and movies. What fun to be able to listen and enjoy an analog recording made before I was born -- or a well-executed DSD version. It's all good.
