OK, put those rotten tomatoes down........
When I first heard MQA streaming on Tidal, I was smitten, so smitten that I purchased a Mytek Brooklyn DAC just for MQA (I also have a PS Audio DirectStream DAC).
I find that many of the MQA remasters to me do sound better than the prior masters, but certainly not all of them. I would not attribute the improved sound quality only to being MQA, as comparing some albums to their "traditional" FLAC versions, it seems that some of them have the bass or midrange accentuated, in some cases I find more compression of the dynamic range, sometimes less compression, etc. But I must say, some albums like the first four Led Zeppelin albums, the Crime of the Century, Excitable Boy, and several others (to me) do sound better.
But when I compare some of my classical favorites which are also available on either CD or SACD, I'm finding those older masters to sound better on my DirectStream setup, especially those on SACD.
Having said all of that, I think that the news that ESS will incorporate MQA rendering to their hardware is good news for the industry, especially since so many of our manufacturers are not large companies with lots of cash for R&D, ones which might use the ESS chipset in their future designs without having to provide their DACs to the MQA company for their review.
I think competition is a good thing! And just about every DAC you will see advertised will decode DSD, which is another "esoteric" file type, but one that doesn't ruffle as many feathers.
When I first heard MQA streaming on Tidal, I was smitten, so smitten that I purchased a Mytek Brooklyn DAC just for MQA (I also have a PS Audio DirectStream DAC).
I find that many of the MQA remasters to me do sound better than the prior masters, but certainly not all of them. I would not attribute the improved sound quality only to being MQA, as comparing some albums to their "traditional" FLAC versions, it seems that some of them have the bass or midrange accentuated, in some cases I find more compression of the dynamic range, sometimes less compression, etc. But I must say, some albums like the first four Led Zeppelin albums, the Crime of the Century, Excitable Boy, and several others (to me) do sound better.
But when I compare some of my classical favorites which are also available on either CD or SACD, I'm finding those older masters to sound better on my DirectStream setup, especially those on SACD.
Having said all of that, I think that the news that ESS will incorporate MQA rendering to their hardware is good news for the industry, especially since so many of our manufacturers are not large companies with lots of cash for R&D, ones which might use the ESS chipset in their future designs without having to provide their DACs to the MQA company for their review.
I think competition is a good thing! And just about every DAC you will see advertised will decode DSD, which is another "esoteric" file type, but one that doesn't ruffle as many feathers.