If MQA was all it is hyped to be, then why have Naim/Linn/etc not adopted it?
They have adopted DSD, and for good reasons. I had an MQA DAC for a while, it sounded artificatal, the nearest thing I would describe it as is a “wide” button" that you would get on a 1980’s getho blaster.
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Audiophile fuses…you forgot to mention them!
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Regarding MQA, weird things are happening at Tidal - I have noticed that some albums are now available only as MQA; even if you have a hifi subscription, the FLAC file that is served is a MQA FLAC. Interestingly, some such albums are obscure independent/underground records which I am 100% sure have not been remastered in any meaningful way.
I think that there are in fact several tiers of MQA files at Tidal - with no clear way to differentiate:
- “Proper” MQA files that try to emulate hi-res experience - “first batch”, available for several years
- Major label MQA files uploaded ‘en masse’ approximately 1-1.5 years back
- Files marked as MQA which are normal FLACs with MQA flags; question is if the quality is better or worse than standard CD flac
In addition to the above, some files, when played, are marked as MQA Studio, some just as MQA. To net this out, “MQA” as such is a meaningless term - it only means the file has MQA flags, but doesn’t really guarantee or imply a specific quality.
P.S. to moderators: At which point will my posts not require approval before publishing?
There are certainly far more MQA tracks in 16/44 now then there uesd to be however MQA tracks are still being released in 24/48 and 24/96 and 24/192 so hi-res is still being well supported.
What I am saying is that they are in no way visibly differentiated in Tidal’s interface. Also, what’s a 16/44 MQA? Identical to CD but compressed differently? Or is it lossy? Or is it meant to be ‘better’ than CD?
Lastly, how does a 16/44 MQA FLAC play without MQA unfolding (since it’s being served to lower tier Tidal subscribers)? It’s just a giant pile of confusion.
Maybe Tidal is coming to realise the negative aspects of MQA? Or maybe this shows it all to be a con?
On my first streamer a NAD C658 there was only a status light on the front display to show when an MQA track was playing and neither the display or BluOS App told you what bit rate and sample frequency was.
My new streamer a Lumin P1 both the Lumin App and the P1 display shows the tracks bit rate and sample frequency.
The technical aspects of how MQA works is not my area of expertise, however, Im sure a Google search will be able to provide information on this.
Comparing Qobuz Hi-Res against Tidal MQA Hi-Res on MQA enabled Streamer/Dacs, many of which I have demoed, i found no difference in sound quality, where as there was a diffrence between CD 16/44 and Hi-Res on both Qobuz and Tidal MQA tracks.
People who can tell the difference between Qobuz and Tidal MQA must have very special hearing in my experience.
Which raises the question: what is the point of MQA? Other than collection of lots of license fee money for MQA Ltd, of course.
Roger
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I agree Roger.
My understanding is that MQAs main original benefit was the smaller track file size when the price of data use was high, which is not an issue anymore.
I use Tidal because they also stream music videos and songs from concerts and hopefully in the future they will stream full concerts and for my musical tastes I much prefer Tidals music library to Qobuz and I can navigate around Tidal much easier than Qobuz but thats probably because of being more familar wifh Tidal.
See
“WHAT IS 16-BIT MQA?”
and
One of many forum discussions on the subject, this on the Roon forum, where the Roon Core makes the 1st unfold of the MQA encoded material and presents MQA 44.1 as a 24/88.2 stream
Those articles are from a long way back (end 2020). I can share examples of obscure local underground metal bands which are listed Tidal as MQA, but I am 99% certain no sophisticated remastering has been done - and the MQA encoding has been done ‘en masse’ by their publishing label.
Again, my only point is that MQA (or, whatever Tidal presents as Master) appears to be a mish-mash with possibly greatly varying quality, all under the questionable “Master Quality Authenticated” umbrella.
In 2020 the story was different with MQA releases being the ‘pick of the crop’, rightly or wrongly.
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My understanding of MQA is that it’s Bob Stuart’s pension plan.
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No that’s the MLP which helped develop Dolby True HD, Meridians done ok to. Can’t see his pension disappearing like lots are at the moment.
Here’s a test of a few Tidal files showing the varying range of “Master” file quality:
- Without unfolding: 16/44.1; Unfolded: 44.1 (MQA)
- Without unfolding: 16/44.1; Unfolded: 44.1 (MQA Studio)
- Without unfolding: 24/44.1; Unfolded: 44.1 (MQA)
- Without unfolding: 24/44.1; Unfolded: 44.1 (MQA Studio)
- Without unfolding: 24/48.0; Unfolded: 48.0 (MQA)
- Without unfolding: 24/48.0; Unfolded: 96.0 (MQA)
- Without unfolding: 24/48.0; Unfolded: 96.0 (MQA Studio)
- Without unfolding: 24/48.0; Unfolded: 192.0 (MQA Studio)
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If those tests were all the same album, how do they compare to you soundwise?
And going back to the opening post, I presume your comparisons of sound quality of Tidal MQA vs Qobuz equivalent resolution were for the same music, but can you clarify if both were through the same DAC (i.e. the Bluesound)? If not that would be very significant, DACs having a big effect on sound quality.
No, not the same album. I was merely adding to the thread that the Tidal (MQA) vs Qobuz compare in general is meaningless as Tidal (and seemingly Qobuz, too) are hiding files with varying quality under the same “Master”/Hi-res label.
One more factor: I ran the MQA files of a really obscure (meaning: I am sure it wasn’t officially remastered) album that I own on CD through Dynamic Range Meter and while the original CD has DR value of 9, the “MQA master” version on Tidal has DR value of 7.
So in addition to the whole concept of “master quality” being quite shady, the loudness seems to be adjusted, which naturally impacts the sound.
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None of that is actually a true showing of what your actually get. What you see there is only showing the ORFs (Original Sampling Frequency ) that is in no way what your get out of the DAC as each MQA renderer offers different rendering abilities but none render at 44.1 or 48khz.
All first unfold decodes go to 88.2 or 96/24 dependant on the if the base is 44.1 or 48 kHz. The second MQA rendering stage is a black box per device and often goes way higher than the ORFs. Some manufacturers actually state what it does others don’t. Some only show the ORFs for MQA on their display and not what it is actually rendering and upsampling to. Some show both.
I have three devices that both state the perform MQA rendering at 8x which means they can decode an ORFs up to 384/24. They all render MQA material to the highest rate possible even though the ORFs may be only 44.1/88.2/96/192 it will always be 352.8 or 384 to the DAC. Most are 8x MQA base rendering but some can be less and more recently some are at 16x. MQA is not a case of what you see is what you get unfortunately.
On my daps I can see MQA in the player software shows ORFs at 44.1 but on the sample rate readout of the dap it shows it playing at 352.8/24.
I wish I could send you some of the MQA files to check. My renderer does only 4x unfolding but displays different frequencies for different files. Also the file sizes of different MQA tracks are very different (normalised for track length, of course). Lastly, here’s an output from a MQA identifier tool for a couple of MQA tracks I have access to.
(These frequencies are not the ORFs - the track that’s labeled MQA 192K shows as 48k in non-MQA players.)
It will show as 48k in non MQA players ORFs is the original sample rate the MQA file was made from not the container it’s in. Non MQA players will just see the container freq which is 44.1 /16 or 24 or 48/24. What you see there is ORFs as the encoding freq.