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MQA•Foolish New Algorithm? Vote!

Vote please. Simply yes or no. Let’s get a handle on our collective thinking.
The discussions are getting nauseating. Intelligent(?) People are claiming that they can remove part of the music (digits), encode the result for transport over the net, then decode (reassemble) the digits remaining after transportation (reduced bits-only the unnecessary ones removed) to provide “Better” sound than the original recording.
If you feel this is truly about “better sound” - vote Yes.
If you feel this is just another effort by those involved to make money by helping the music industry milk it’s collection of music - vote no.
Lets know what we ‘goners’ think.
P.S. imho The “bandwidth” problem this is supposed to ‘help’ with will soon be nonexistent. Then this “process” will be a ‘solution’ to a non existing problem. I think it is truly a tempest in a teacup which a desperate industry would like to milk for all its worth, and forget once they can find a new way to dress the Emporer. Just my .02

ptss
jon2020's avatar
jon2020
986 posts
 
Bumping this post from another thread before more votes come in.
Editor’s notes say a lot :-


johndoe21ro38 posts
03-04-2018 10:01pm

On CA:

MQA: A Review of controversies, concerns, and cautions

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r7...

P.S.:

"Editor’s Note 1: MQA ltd was sent a copy of this article several days prior to the scheduled publication date. The company requested a phone conversation, which took place earlier this week. MQA was encouraged to write a response for inclusion with the article below, but it respectfully decline to submit a formal response.

Editor’s Note 2: The author of this article is writing under a pseudonym. While he is unknown to the readers, his identity has been verified by Computer Audiophile. He has no vested interest in the audio business, other than being a consumer of music.

Editor’s Note 3: The technical assertions made in this article have been thoroughly checked by independent engineers, both in and out of the audio industry. To the best of our knowledge everything technical in this article is factually correct and may be duplicated at any time by anyone with the requisite skills."

- Chris Connaker

2psyop's avatar
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2psyop
1,586 posts
 
Yes....for now. MQA seems to fire up alot of people. Many people hate this format because they lose bits. Many people don’t like a flawed format being shoved down their throat, even though Flac, a lossy format and downloads of hi-rez files are easy to do and one does not have to listen to MQA at all. CDs did not push out albums, nor did cassettes or reel to reel tapes or any format, including mp3 files ruin the audio listening experience. MQA has caused a better listening experience for many people who like the convience of easy streaming of high quality music. Nobody is forcing MQA on the audio world. If one likes it, great. If you don’t there are many, many ways to enjoy audio. Soon the ability to stream much faster highest rez files will make MQA obsolete, perhaps. Until then enjoy it.... or something else?????
willemj
1,036 posts
 
Flac is not a lossy format but just a very good data compression algorithm. The decompresed file is identical to the original.
gdnrbob
4,447 posts
 
No, I think it is another 'Dolby'-type of format.
It might sound better to some, but it seems more of a signal alteration than anything else.
B
jon2020's avatar
jon2020
986 posts
 
......MQA has caused a better listening experience for many people who like the convience of easy streaming of high quality music. Nobody is forcing MQA on the audio world. If one likes it, great. If you don’t there are many, many ways to enjoy audio. Soon the ability to stream much faster highest rez files will make MQA obsolete, perhaps. Until then enjoy it.... or something else?????

The vote is not about whether one enjoys MQA or not per se, but rather more about whether MQA actually sounds better.
To verify this, one can simply compare an MQA file played through a high end MQA dac/player like the Meridian 808v6 or UltraDac with a non-MQA hires PCM or DSD version played through a high end non-MQA dac from dCs, Total, Light Harmonic or Esoteric, to name a few.
More to discover