MQA ?

[Deuce]

Would like to know if anyone else has heard MQA demo to date ? I have in the UK and was impressed. Sounded way closer to CD quality than iTunes. I think this going to enter marketplace soon on AV equipment, esp hi end , as long as licensing fees don’t strangle it in its infancy.

 

[JStewart]

I read somewhere ESS is releasing DAC chips with MQA decoding. If so that may help keep MQA moving forward.
Tidal streaming has a growing number of titles you can listen to with MQA decoding. Requires using their PC based program though.
My NAD 7.4 channel processor has BlueSound and it decodes MQA streamed files from Tidal.
MQA was designed for hi-res file streaming in less bandwidth so for it to become mainstream enough of us must to be willing to pay for a high-res streaming service vs what's also now avail less or free. That seems a challenge at this point.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I read somewhere ESS is releasing DAC chips with MQA decoding. If so that may help keep MQA moving forward.
Tidal streaming has a growing number of titles you can listen to with MQA decoding. Requires using their PC based program though.
My NAD 7.4 channel processor has BlueSound and it decodes MQA streamed files from Tidal.
MQA was designed for hi-res file streaming in less bandwidth so for it to become mainstream enough of us must to be willing to pay for a high-res streaming service vs what's also now avail less or free. That seems a challenge at this point.

Not everyone shares your opinion of the need to support MQA.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Would like to know if anyone else has heard MQA demo to date ? I have in the UK and was impressed. Sounded way closer to CD quality than iTunes. I think this going to enter marketplace soon on AV equipment, esp hi end , as long as licensing fees don’t strangle it in its infancy.

I think a lot of people are upset over the development of a proprietary encoding system that requires licensing fees, special decoding, and provides questionable benefit. It’s been argued that it can’t and doesn’t provide 24bit or 96khz+ resolution. It has also been noted that its files are no smaller than a 20bit/96khz flac file. That even a true 24 bit file is marginally larger at best. That makes the lossy encoding harder to swallow if true lossless is available.

Having said all that, I have Tidal and listen to Master streams decoded by MQA. I find it sounds great. If your point of reference is iTunes though, that isn’t saying a lot for the format. I think it is undisputed that it sounds better than lossy compression algorithms like mp3. The two bigger issues to contend with are if it’s better than red book CD (which it clearly should be) and if it is as good as it better than lossless high res files (which it is claimed to be). I can’t and haven’t done such testing myself. I love having access to the Tidal Master streams, many of them are great, but the Hi-Fi streams (red book cd quality) are more plentiful and sound fantastic as well.

There is some research supporting the audibility or high sampling rate music, but there is plenty of practical evidence that the available content doesn’t contain it. If the audible benefit is just moving the reconstruction filter that doesn’t require or benefit from MQA. My view has long been and remains that storage and bandwidth are plentiful and cheap. Music should be high resolution. I’m not as concerned with if it might sound better as much as I see no reason to chance it. For that reason (and the fact I haven’t had to pay anything extra) I support MQA.

 

[leecreek]

IMO MQA is just another money machine. Just like all the remastered cd's.

 

[ddude003]

MQA vs iTunes CD sounding quality is an interesting question as there are many music file formats that iTunes supports like MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC and Apple Lossless (.m4a). If you are comparing MQA with iTunes Apple Lossless that may be a close match with source material being the same... From what I understand MQA is remastered while Apple Lossless is basically a red book CD copy for the most part... The other issue is what the iTunes player and the hardware it is playing on doing to the signal (think AirPlay for instance)... iPhone or Mac internal DAC or an external DAC... There a lot of things to take into consideration from the source to the destination in the signal chain...

Perceived quality will be a mixed bag when comparing apples and bananas... ;^)

I run Audirvana Plus, Tidal HiFi MQA and DSD128 from a MacBook Pro over local wifi (DLNA/UPnP) to a BurrBrown based DAC into a Tube Pre, a McIntosh SS Amp and MartinLogan ESL speakers...

 

[JStewart]

Not everyone shares your opinion of the need to support MQA.

For the record that's not my opinion. And I'd appreciate hearing your take on why some might not want MQA or want to support MQA.

Having said all that, I have Tidal and listen to Master streams decoded by MQA. I find it sounds great. If your point of reference is iTunes though, that isn’t saying a lot for the format. I think it is undisputed that it sounds better than lossy compression algorithms like mp3. The two bigger issues to contend with are if it’s better than red book CD (which it clearly should be) and if it is as good as it better than lossless high res files (which it is claimed to be). I can’t and haven’t done such testing myself. I love having access to the Tidal Master streams, many of them are great, but the Hi-Fi streams (red book cd quality) are more plentiful and sound fantastic as well.

Agree 100%