“MQA is a philosophy”..John Stuart

To Brian Lucy. Your input, as a professional in the Audio industry, is much appreciated. I believe your ,kernels of truth, will evolve into a positive influence on this discussion. 

It’s Mindboggling to me that Bob Stuart could say MQA, which places -noise- in the 3 lsb’s,could provide sound that is ‘better than the original’. Scoundrel.

MQA is a psyop. When $300,000 speakers failed to establish "Audiophilia" as a clinical definition of insane, the Audio industry had to work up a new test.

I would agree it’s a philosophy in that it comes down to whether it sounds more realistic rather than some sort of scientific comparison.  Have you haters actually listened to MQA content?  It does sound more realistic, it does correct lots of artifacts and the artist agrees, or it wouldn’t be authenticated.  And it takes up much less space and data for streaming.  So what if the industry makes money?  Why should it all be for free?

without profit, nothing would ever improve. What makes some of you believe that you’re entitled to the hi-res digital file sampled from the master?  And, why do you think it’s better?

MQA is a clever way to efficiently use bits so as not to include unnecessary “white space” found in your hi-res (ie 96k/24) files in the MQA data.  It’s not using “perceptual coding”, like that awful MP3.  

If youve not listened to MQA, don’t let a thread like this discourage you.  Have a listen.  An MQA of 192/24 content sounds more realistic than the straight up, original. 

MQA is included with Tidal HiFI for $20. I am streaming from my iMac to Oppo205 now. It does't sound better than 44.1k/16bit. MQA is a compressed 192k/24bit format. No complaint.