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MQA and classical music

While I still had an active Tidal subscription a few weeks ago I was able to A/B Tidal's MQA vs Qobuz's 24/96 on a great new recording of Diana Tishchenko "Strangers in Paradise." About 2:54 into the 1st piece the difference can be heard when concentrating on the piano part. The HiRes sounds clean and sharp while the MQA becomes "watery" as if a slight pedal was used. This reminded me about an earlier experience with mp3, which I had used to rip some piano music to conserve disk space a few years back. I had no idea at the time that a lossy format like mp3 would affect piano music negatively. I have since re-ripped all my piano CDs to FLAC. 5 times more space taken, but hey, I happen to really care about sonic nuances. 
The recent experience reminded me that MQA, like mp3, is lossy. Quoting from TechRadar: "In hi-res competitor format DSD is 306MB while the MQA file is just 40MB. This compares with 73MB for the 24-bit/96kHz FLAC file and 142MB for the 24-bit/192kHz version."  Thus MQA file size is just about 54% of HiRes FLAC size; there is no going around information theory: less information is less information. And for some music, definitely not all, it can be heard.
Initially, when I started comparing streaming services in October 2019, I thought MQA was some great new music format; "Master Quality Authenticated" is a great name! It invokes associations with master tapes and mastering, and "authenticated" I took to mean something like "guaranteed." That's an effectively misleading naming. Wikipedia has a good article on MQA. I can now understand why some DAC companies like Chord, RME, Schiit, and likely more, will not support MQA. More popular brands like Bluesound and Fiio, do support MQA, as there is popular demand for native decoding of the format. If we spend thousands on dacs/amps/speakers/cables and discuss the tiniest sonic nuances that upgrades of them make, then digital format differences should not be overlooked either.
ghjuvanni
tuberist
951 posts
 
I did A-B listening also and found I could hear a difference between MQA and hi-res flac files. I preferred the FLAC also. YMMV.
ghjuvanni OP
92 posts
 
I would like to stress the fact that I heard the lossy nature of MQA only when critically comparing a modern classical recording involving the piano, an instrument particularly sensitive to reproduction imperfections. When listening to rock or electronic music I didn't hear any problems w/ MQA. It's like a lower resolution photo with some HDR, resulting in the ultimately pleasing experience. Good mp3 doesn't sound all that bad either... Lossy formats are good for the streaming services in lowering their bandwidth costs. What annoys me is how misleading the name "Master Quality" is -- for a lossy format.  
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
MQA is all about a marketing push by the riaa and associated interests, re the idea of control of the data. TOTAL control of the data and the erasure/end of all hardcopy.

MQA is all about the embedded DRM, and nothing else. audio signals use trivial amounts of internet bandwidth compared to video or any other signal.

it is about keeping everyone out in the cold, on the use or storage of the music and playback at a later date. It’s about making you pay for every single breath of audio signal you may have. Forever.  

With a degraded low quality signal. it is about non access of high quality signals.
It’s about corporate fascist slavery of the listener. Forever. Nothing else.

Stay away from MQA. It’s an anti-humanity corporate parasite.
clearthink
1,421 posts
 

teo_audio"MQA is all about a marketing push by the riaa"

This is "news to me" how is the RIAA involved please explain.
edcyn
1,876 posts
 
If MQA had worked for me I'd have been an avid supporter. The thing is, my ears told me otherwise.  In any case, I'm getting sick of the slug fest it's currently generating. If you like MQA, go for it.
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