MQA Users & Discussion Thread

[DJQ]

Must be something there....people who hates MQA are actually buying these MQA CDs....    :)

 

(Audio)

So can play on their preferred CD players. This better than SACD? Or just different.

[Guest AndrewC]

So inferior a format but still can have people buying the discs.  And then seeing them vigorously defending their purchase.

 

LOL, well that's good enough for me.  :)

 

(Audio)

 

Hahaha... Audio... aiyo, so desperate for little victories?... Come on man, don't be so lame (like that ccb fella ;) ) In any case, don't worry, I have a lot of patience; when MQA finally takes it's last gasping breadth, I'll be right here waiting to remind you... ;D

 

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[Guest AndrewC]

that's what I suspected too....

 

It's mostly bogus... MQA conversions have been an automated process based on whatever existing digital source is supplied to them by the Studios. For the mainstream releases there's no attempt to re-start from master tapes except for a couple of key ones they’ve been using to demonstrate to (and hoodwink) the high-end media. At the end of the day, it’s just yet another proprietary format to make money selling literally crippled content - that final rendering of the MQA stream involves injecting completely bogus noise in the upper octaves... like WTF?!  (and some people think it's sound good?!?!!... ::) )

[Audio]

OK, I have not tried playing the MQA CD on the Oppo players yet.  I only ripped the MQA CD and playback via the Oppo USB input.

 

The results are mixed and there are no clear winners.

 

(1) Dires Straits - Brothers in Arms.  I can hardly make out the differences between the normal CD, the DSD and the MQA CDs.  Very slight difference.

 

(2) Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life.  Surprisingly close between the Japanese SACD and the MQA CD.  The DSD one has an edge, just a little bit more refined.

 

(3) Carpenters- The Singles -  Totally different masters.  The MQA CD sounds like having vocals boasts up totally.  Very obviously during "Top of The world" chorus with Karen and Richard harmonising.  The Japanese SACD DSD version is still OK, without Karen vocal thickening up the overall sound.  I also tested with the same track from the Mobile Fidelity SACD, the one with the funny Karen face.  This version is the most superior.

 

Mind you, the fidelity of the various versions are still OK, it's only up to your preference.  No, I won't be rushing out to buy more.

 

(Audio)

[Audio]

Seems to me, it doesn't matter MQA sounds good or bad.....

 

The trick is they tried to make you part with your money.....and they succeeded!!    :)

 

(Audio)

[Guest AndrewC]

OK, I have not tried playing the MQA CD on the Oppo players yet.  I only ripped the MQA CD and playback via the Oppo USB input.

 

The results are mixed and there are no clear winners.

 

(1) Dires Straits - Brothers in Arms.  I can hardly make out the differences between the normal CD, the DSD and the MQA CDs.  Very slight difference.

 

...

(Audio)

 

 

Like Rebecca Pidgeon’s “The Raven”, “Brothers in Arms” was originally recorded in 44.1k/16bits, which was upsampled for all high-res releases, so, it shouldn’t surprise anyone when the formats are not that different.

 

That said, the (2013) MOFI SACD is the best and has the widest dynamic-range among all the high-res digital versions, while the Japan SHM-SACD is audibly the worse by a big margin.

 

 

Seems to me, it doesn't matter MQA sounds good or bad.....

 

The trick is they tried to make you part with your money.....and they succeeded!!    :)

 

(Audio)

 

Seriously Audio?? That’s the point you’re happy about; Me buying a few sample MQA discs to play with?? Hahaha ;D

 

[Audio]

Seriously Audio?? That’s the point you’re happy about; Me buying a few sample MQA discs to play with?? Hahaha ;D

 

 

Yes, I am a man of simple pleasures.  Yes, having you actually bought MQA CDs and starting a collection really make my day.  :)    Thank you.

 

(Audio)

[Guest AndrewC]

Yes, I am a man of simple pleasures.  Yes, having you actually bought MQA CDs and starting a collection really make my day.  :)    Thank you.

 

(Audio)

 

Starting a collection?  ;D ;D ;D... You (and Bob Stuart) can only wish!

[Audio]

Starting a collection?  ;D ;D ;D... You (and Bob Stuart) can only wish!

 

"Raven" is the first MQA disc you acquired.....followed by a couple of Japanese Universal ones you will receive this week as you had confessed...seems like a legitimate collection to me.  :)

 

(Audio)

[InnocentBlood]

OK, I have not tried playing the MQA CD on the Oppo players yet.  I only ripped the MQA CD and playback via the Oppo USB input.

 

it would be good to hear your follow-up thoughts once you've had a chance to spin the MQA CDs the old-fashioned way :)

[MusicEar]

Please note MQA CDs are 16 bit 44.1k MQA (this ensures Redbook backward compatibility) not 24 bit/44.1/48k as in Tidal Master. It means 16 bit 44.1k MQA only unfold the first 16 bit from 0-22.05k bandwidth. 22.05-44.1k bandwidth is NOT encoded at all coz the lower 8 bit is not used when compared to 24 bit MQA in Tidal Master.

 

The rest is just up-sampling with appropriate filters. I would prefer the 24 bit MQA coz it is closer to the original hi-res masters.

[malsound]

I’ve got a couple of these Universal disc arriving this week, including ones I’ve already got on SACD, should be an interesting comparison. I’ve already got Chesky’s Rebecca Pidgone’s “Raven” on MQA … But I'm still waiting for the firmware update to unfold and render these disc natively on my dCS deck though, no point having to rip them as they're already available as MQA streams on Tidal.

 

No doubt in my mind these discs will be “collectables” like my HDCD, DAD, and DVD-Audio discs ;D

 

It is creeping back again.  ;D

 

http://www.highfidelity.pl

 

 

 

 

[MusicEar]

Another reviewer post a youtube on MQA CD:

 

 

Apparently, the reviewer actually makes a AB comparison when compared to drop-out version(44.1k, which he assumed it switched back to CD version) then to MQA version. However, the drop-out version is NOT actually the CD version but undecoded MQA version!

 

if there’s a manufacturing defect on the disc itself. The error correction in Redbook CD can compensate errors to a certain limit(bit perfect correction), If the errors are too great to be bit prefect corrected, the next step it uses ‘masking’ effect to reduce audible drop-out(not bit perfect correction). When this happens, MQA decoding is interrupted.

 

 

As I said in my previous post, there's a great different between 16 bit and 24 bit MQA versions, the later one, which is found in Tidal masters are better off than the 16 bit MQA CD.

 

[Guest AndrewC]

"Raven" is the first MQA disc you acquired.....followed by a couple of Japanese Universal ones you will receive this week as you had confessed...seems like a legitimate collection to me.  :)

 

(Audio)

 

Rebecca's album was released by Chesky, and the new discs I just bought are by Universal; the point being, I'm keen to explore samples of the different MQA renderings adopted by the different main Music Studios. Likewise, I will acquire MQA samplers discs released by Sony and Warner as well when available.

 

Coincidentally, I just received the first couple of discs this morning in the office ;D

 

 

Sure, you can call it a "collection"; same as my samples of  DVD-Audio discs, DualDiscs, HDCD, HDAD discs, and Sony Mini-Discs... i.e. all the dead formats ;D

 

Speaking of DualDiscs, one of the MQA discs I ordered thats yet to be delivered is a Limited Edition SACD-MQA Hybrid disc - SACD layer on one side, and MQA encoded Redbook on the other - it's the first of it's kind that I've seen. Should make SACD-vs-MQA sonic comparisons significantly easier on MQA-capable transport/players :)

 

If anyone's interested, its this disc, which seems to only be available on Amazon Japan. Grab it while stocks last ;)

 

[Audio]

As as Bob received his MQA commisions through your purchases.....he's happy.  :)

 

(Audio)

[Guest AndrewC]

Please note MQA CDs are 16 bit 44.1k MQA (this ensures Redbook backward compatibility) not 24 bit/44.1/48k as in Tidal Master. It means 16 bit 44.1k MQA only unfold the first 16 bit from 0-22.05k bandwidth. 22.05-44.1k bandwidth is NOT encoded at all coz the lower 8 bit is not used when compared to 24 bit MQA in Tidal Master.

 

The rest is just up-sampling with appropriate filters. I would prefer the 24 bit MQA coz it is closer to the original hi-res masters.

 

Sorry, you're mistaken.

 

Pretty much all of the MQA streams on Tidal Master are 24/88.2 or 24/96 high-res encoded into 16/44.1 -  Thats the whole point about MQA Streaming... keeping the bandwidth consumption down to standard redbook streams, i.e. around 1.411Mbps for "high-res equivalent" playback.

 

You don't have to take my word for it;

 

Set your Tidal to Passthrough so that Tidal does NOT decode the MQA stream... Then take a Coax or TOSlink output from your PC/Mac into a DAC that clearly shows you the input bit-rate. Playback a Tidal "Masters" track and you'll see it's a 16/44.1 stream. I just verified it on my system this morning - TOSLink off my Macbook Pro into my DAC;

 

 

 

[Guest AndrewC]

As as Bob received his MQA commisions through your purchases.....he's happy.  :)

 

(Audio)

 

As are you no doubt, for little victories  ;D ;D ;D

[Audio]

Sorry, you're mistaken.

 

Pretty much all of the MQA streams on Tidal Master are 24/88.2 or 24/96 high-res encoded into 16/44.1 -  Thats the whole point about MQA Streaming... keeping the bandwidth consumption down to standard redbook streams, i.e. around 1.411Mbps for "high-res equivalent" playback.

 

You don't have to take my word for it;

 

Set your Tidal to Passthrough so that Tidal does NOT decode the MQA stream... Then take a Coax or TOSlink output from your PC/Mac into a DAC that clearly shows you the input bit-rate. Playback a Tidal "Masters" track and you'll see it's a 16/44.1 stream. I just verified it on my system this morning - TOSLink off my Macbook Pro into my DAC;

 

 

 

 

 

Wow!!  So expert and involved in a format you hated so much!!

 

(Audio) 

[Guest AndrewC]

 

Wow!!  So expert and involved in a format you hated so much!!

 

(Audio)

 

Of course! I can only hate something once I've understood it intimately. Obviously you don't really care one bit about the technology (pun unintended)  ;D

[audionoob1624705779]

Maybe this article can help clarify:

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/mqa-explained-everything-you-need-to-know-about-high-res-audio/4/

[MusicEar]

Sorry, you're mistaken.

 

Pretty much all of the MQA streams on Tidal Master are 24/88.2 or 24/96 high-res encoded into 16/44.1 -  Thats the whole point about MQA Streaming... keeping the bandwidth consumption down to standard redbook streams, i.e. around 1.411Mbps for "high-res equivalent" playback.

 

You don't have to take my word for it;

 

Set your Tidal to Passthrough so that Tidal does NOT decode the MQA stream... Then take a Coax or TOSlink output from your PC/Mac into a DAC that clearly shows you the input bit-rate. Playback a Tidal "Masters" track and you'll see it's a 16/44.1 stream. I just verified it on my system this morning - TOSLink off my Macbook Pro into my DAC;

 

 

 

I'm Roon user and Roon reports two versions of 16 bit and 24 bit MQA via Tidal master.

 

 

This 16 bit 44.1k MQA version which is authenticated at 44.1kHz. The MQA decoder 'up-sampled' to 24bit 88.2k (first decoding)

 

 

This is 24 bit 44.1k MQA version and is authenticated to 352.8k. The MQA decoder 'unfold' to 88.2k (first decoding), if one have a renderer, it will unfold to 352.8k.

 

There's not many 16 bit MQA version in Tidal masters, majority are 24 bit MQA version. Obviously the 24 bit MQA version has a higher bit rate. This higher bit-rate is fine for streaming but it will not fit into MQA CD. The only benefit of MQA CD is one will get the 'de-blurring' effects.

 

 

[wklie]

Pretty much all of the MQA streams on Tidal Master are 24/88.2 or 24/96 high-res encoded into 16/44.1

 

Tidal Masters are indeed 24-bit.  If you get 16/44.1, something is wrong in the setup.  (If you use a computer, it may require exclusive setting and USB output for 24-bit Tidal output instead of SPDIF, regardless of the hardware capability of the latter.)  If you use Roon, check the signal path when playing a Tidal Master album.

 

In case you can test a Lumin, you'd also see Lumin plays Tidal Master in 24-bit natively.

[Audio]

Wah, today playback on the Lumin S1 and yes, the MQA indeed is sounding great!!  Now I know why someone is building his collection.

 

(Audio)

[Guest AndrewC]

I'm Roon user and Roon reports two versions of 16 bit and 24 bit MQA via Tidal master.

...

There's not many 16 bit MQA version in Tidal masters, majority are 24 bit MQA version. Obviously the 24 bit MQA version has a higher bit rate. This higher bit-rate is fine for streaming but it will not fit into MQA CD. The only benefit of MQA CD is one will get the 'de-blurring' effects.

 

Tidal Masters are indeed 24-bit.  If you get 16/44.1, something is wrong in the setup.

...

 

Alright guys, I stand corrected :)

 

Took a look this morning, through Roon, I tested a couple of random new albums from Tidal’s current Masters list, they do show-up as 44.1/24.

 

 

 

Just to be sure it’s not just a Roon Tidal MQA stream thing, I verified directly via my dCS client into the dCS Network Bridge with hardware MQA decoding… Shows the same. Interestingly enough though, the actual bit-rate of the stream was not 2.12Mbps as might be expected of a 44.1/24 stream, it was just 1.445Mbps, almost that of redbook - definitely requires more exploration.

 

 

 

All that said, Tidal set to “Passthrough” and out via TOSLInk on old my Macbook still shows up as 44.1/16 for any MQA 96k source tracks. I tested my DAC’s TOSLink separately, nothing wrong.  Assuming the Tidal App itself is not doing something funky, it could be the Macbook TOSLink outputs is wonky - will have to track this down separately (not that I use it much though).

[Guest AndrewC]

Wah, today playback on the Lumin S1 and yes, the MQA indeed is sounding great!!  Now I know why someone is building his collection.

...

 

Listen to original high-res versions, the MQA tracks sound flat and more like Redbook in comparison... I think you need to listen properly :)