MQA - Music Discussion


This thread is to discuss MQA music currently available, listening impressions, and how they were encoded.

Please keep tech. talk (except provenance) out of this discussion! :) This thread is about finding good music sources, listening impressions, and mastering. There is a lot to be said about the algorithms, hype, and politics but please use other threads for that in the Digital section perhaps. :) 

I'll start.  I know right now of only two big labels offering MQA:

2L.no (maybe only test tracks)

and

https://www.highresaudio.com/studio_master.php?fids=153&cr=MQA

as well as at least one indie label. Thanks to Peter Veth over in the DAR thread here:

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/08/mqa-a-non-hostile-takeover/#comment-135610

I'm particularly interested in talking about works we can find to do A/B comparisons with, as well as any tracks listeners feel are exemplars and say "This is good stuff!"  because so far I've had no luck at all.

As others know, the thing that has so far affected music the most is the mastering choices made by the engineers, as opposed to actual encoding technology, so I welcome details of that along with listening impressions.

Thank you.
erik_squires
Thank you for starting this thread. I am open-minded about MQA yet I totally understand why many audiophiles are skeptical.

In my mind, MQA is like the "Dolby" logo that was found on certain labels of the prerecorded cassette tapes I bought back in the 70's. Those recordings sounded fine - for a cassette - in a non-Dolby player but the sound quality was better when played back in a Dolby equipped cassette player. Some labels offered Dolby, most didn't. The point being that the tape played fine regardless of whether the player was Dolby equipped or not. I vaguely recall the Dolby logo having some small influence over whether I bought the cassette or the LP - which I often would record myself.  

Two download sites offering MQA downloads isn't exactly an auspicious start but I'm hopeful that I won't be completely deaf by the time MQA is ubiquitous. 

I'm giving the 2L downloads another good listen. Though I don't have an MQA decoder, I am going to compare the hi-res versions with the MQA versions.

Will report back.
The problem I had with 2L was I didn't seem to like the music, regardless of the format. :-) Sorry! :)

I may spring for the BV Social Club, but I want to know the provenance first.

Erik
It seems HD Tracks is starting to trickle MQA in.  I may spring for a 2L Mozart violin album.