I thought MQA - Master Quality Authenticated music, dealt with providing a common standard to streaming and download files, which can range through 256kbps or 320kbps, AAC, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis depending on your source. It is the provider of the source to ensure a common standard of audio reproduction. It also (sneakily) will make sure that the original has been paid for and therefore can be played. sort of what is happening to Blu-Ray standards.
Red Book is comprehensive set of standards relating to digital media such as CDs. (Please correct me if I am wrong). I don't know if it relates to streaming or downloads because it was written over a decade ago.
MQA is trying to standardise these download/streaming files so that the listener gets a common quality of sound. I am not saying that this sound is better or worse than vinyl or CD. It is just a method of reproducing to a common standard (and verifying that is an original or purchased copy).
I realise that you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, but a lot of older vinyl and CDs were mastered on some woeful masters and remastering can exemplify/amplify a lot of original inherent faults.
I have heard a standard stream of tracks I know and then listened to the MQA versions and they do sound cleaner and more even. This is via digital jiggery to sound better. Can you honestly make a common CD sound better than how it has been produced? Having said that, I do not agree with the point that we will need to/ or should pay more for music that
1. We already have but it sounds better as "MQA" so we must pay more for it,
2. We should pay more for MQA via streaming, in which case we wouldn't know what we were being charged,
3. The past music we know and love should not have a premium for MQA placed on it. If MQA is to be an extra charge, do it for music starting from a "date" or all new music or some such.
Sorry for the long diatribe.......
Adrian
