MQA

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Tim 2, Nov 13, 2020.

  1. Galactus2

    Galactus2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia
    Yeah, 'interesting' is one way to put it. That graphic could easily be misconstrued as providing some type of surround sound, when it isn't that at all.
     
    vwestlife likes this.
  2. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    Doesn't Apple do the same thing?
     
    SonicCzar likes this.
  3. Stereosound

    Stereosound Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Sadly yes to your first question they have been batch converting lots of titles. As to your second question it’s looking that way if they can remain in business after Spotify’s HiFi announcement. And yes not the wisest choice and it wasn’t even to begin with.
     
  4. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

  5. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    Not really. Apple aren’t claiming to have a premium offering that matches / surpasses Hi Res quality.
     
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  6. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    I meant as far as changing masters to fit their "standards" but your point is well taken
     
    Sevoflurane likes this.
  7. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    I'm doing the free Qobuz thing for about two more weeks. If not I'm gonna be spending $$ very quickly
     
  8. Stereosound

    Stereosound Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Not really as they just think music is something else for them to sell in their store. At least they helped to make the other holdouts offer it (at least one of them anyway (Spotify) and hopefully Apple in the near future) and lower the prices of two of them (Qobuz, Deezer). Yes Amazon has the money, manpower and cloud to do it with but they don’t seem to care to utilize it properly or they really are that stupid. Take your pick. Qobuz is a really small company but they are more focused and willing to listen to feedback but are slow to change because they just don’t have enough manpower to work that fast currently. Deezer is the one I don’t get it’s like they are just sitting in park not knowing or even caring of doing anything to improve. They are lacking in a couple of features. No one seems to talk about them, even less so than Pandora.
     
  9. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    I'm more interested in the download end of it. I only stream in the car, there's no need for anything as high as 16/44.1 streaming AFAIC. As a dedicated prime user, I'd be really interested in them offering CD quality or higher downloads.
     
  10. elvisizer

    elvisizer Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Jose
    mastered for itunes is very different than MQA- mastering for itunes just means that the audio is tweaked to optimize how it encodes using AAC.
    i still find it amusing that neil only objects to mqa on tidal because of the word 'master' heh
     
  11. Stereosound

    Stereosound Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I don’t really see Amazon selling high resolution downloads in the future. Qobuz is safe with that for as long as they can afford it or make enough money to justify it. Apple might not bother with it either if they do end up with a HiFi streaming tier themselves. I would like to see what Apple would allow for uploading one’s own content in high resolution if/when that happens.
     
  12. Detroit Rock Citizen

    Detroit Rock Citizen RetroDawg Digital

    I'm not holding my breath for Apple to do it.
     
  13. SonicCzar

    SonicCzar Forum Resident

    Location:
    New England
    I'm late to the thread, but....... I've been happily using my Bluesound Node 2i to stream Tidal MQA for about a year now, and I'm quite happy with the sound quality from each. However, at the moment I'm listening to MQA Dire Straits, which I also happen to have on SACD. The SACD version is easily better, not that the streaming is bad. There are other MQA streams that sound even better, like Candace Springs, but I don't have a physical disk for comparison.
     
    Khorn likes this.
  14. dlb99

    dlb99 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    Tidal is a minnow, yet it tries to pass itself off as a music streaming big boy.

    Spotify has 155 million paid subscribers. The free tier sees that more than double.

    Tidal hasn't reported subscriber count in a while, but rough estimates have it at between 3 - 5 million. About 1/20th the size. Spotify is Netflix and Tidal is Shudder.

    For comparison, Deezer has about 7 million subscribers and it is still considered a smaller player.

    Spotify going CD-quality lossless without MQA is yet another nail in the coffin for MQA. It is today's equivalent to HDCD from the early 1990s.

    Who uses MQA these days? Tidal and a few niche CDs?

    MQA fundamentally is a market failure.
     
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  15. dlb99

    dlb99 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    Technology does not really effect sound quality that much.

    90%+ comes down to the recording and mastering; not whether something is MQA or high-resolution.

    The Mofi Dire Straits SACDs are absolutely outstanding, primarily because they were mastered with care (and the original recording were superb).
     
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  16. Steve356

    Steve356 Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Have to agree 100% with your comments on mastering. Agree also on the MoFi Dire Straits SACDs, they really are very well mastered.
     
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  17. -Sphinx-

    -Sphinx- OM - Ordinary Man

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    Let's hope that this audio format coup is dying indeed, some (mainly Warner and Tidal) are still pushing though.

    I (un.?)fortunately can clearly hear the difference even on systems not exactly matching the quality of mine.

    BTW - so called hi-res MQA is 17bit max.. let's call it ..reverse progress.. :winkgrin: in comparison to lossless hi-res..

    .
     
    Khorn likes this.
  18. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    This thread’s costing me money. I’ve just ordered the Love Over Gold SACD. The dangers of having an iPhone and a PayPal account. I’ll get the DSD layer ripped...
     
    Kyhl likes this.
  19. -Sphinx-

    -Sphinx- OM - Ordinary Man

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    I guess it's not the worst idea for spending some money :)
    BTW all Analogue Productions Stevie Ray Vaughan SACDs sound just great, as usual in case of AP :winkgrin:
     
  20. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    I'd actively avoid an MQA release of SRV or Dire Straits material, but i've no problem chasing after a well regarded remaster of something that sounded good to start with; if Qobuz had a Hi Res stream of it i'd go for that, but i'll settle for an SACD.
     
    -Sphinx- likes this.
  21. -Sphinx-

    -Sphinx- OM - Ordinary Man

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    I have a strong preference for hi-res over redbook (I don't stream music for serious listening) and a slight preference for DSD over PCM. Everybody's mileage...
     
  22. Dr Tone

    Dr Tone Forum Resident

    Location:
    Calgary, AB
    Let’s hope Spotify didn’t leave MQA off the front of their CD quality announcement. If the labels give MQA-CD quality to them they really don’t have a choice.

    I wouldn’t count the virus out just yet.
     
  23. fish

    fish Senior Member

    Location:
    NYS, USA
  24. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    I'll save you 14 minutes of watching: The answer is no.
     
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  25. Kyhl

    Kyhl On break

    Location:
    Savage
    The video redefines lossless as, you can make a copy of the file without losing fidelity in the file? :rolleyes:
    It's a joke.

    What is funny he goes on to say that sample rates above 48khz don't contain much if any musical information. He may be right however that goes against any argument for MQA. MQA trades bits (increasing the noise floor) in exchange for a higher sample rate. His own argument is that there is nothing to be gained with the higher sample rates. :laugh:

    I turned it off at that point for his lack of logic.
     
    toddrhodes likes this.

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