MQA - Music Discussion

Alright avid readers. For those of you who have kept your subscription up-to-date (chuckle) I will be doing a self-made double blind test.  Well, single blind, because I'm only one person.... but I won't know the order I experience the tracks until after I have taken my notes.

The way it works is like this:

I will listen to the same track in 4 different formats:

CD
96/24
DSD
MQA

I will click on shuffle, so while I am listening I will have no idea which order they play in.  I will also hide my DAC display and any other visual cues.

I will jot down listening notes, and impressions for each.  Afterwards I will examine the play log to determine the sequence the files were played in.

Britten is all I have to go on that isn't otherwise painful to listen to. I encourage anyone else to go to 2L.no/hires/ and find their own sets of tracks.

Complaining without contributing is NOT allowed. :) If you think the tests should use other tracks, then go get them yourself first and listen, or point me to free sources.

Excellent idea.

Does your player allow for volume normalization? Are you able to measure the SPL of each version to see if different mixes/masters have different levels? 

I wrote earlier about there being so many variables in audio. SPL gives me the most trouble when doing an AB test. 

 

Hi dbtom,

I could do something to equalize the volumes, but I don’t wan to.

I’ve just done an A/B comparison between the 44.1 and MQA tracks. What differences are there are, to my ear more indicative of different re-mastering than MQA itself.

In particular, there are some obvious level changes happening in the first 30 seconds of the piece and they don’t seem to be matching across versions.

Also, the double bass has a larger piece to play in the MQA version. I don’t think this is from an MQA superiority so much as deliberate mixing choices. I think the bass sounds a little smoother and decays more slowly as a result. I think most would call this a "fuller" sound. It's nothing to be impressed by in comparison to PCM or DSD however. It's just a mixing choice.

In each of these two tracks the level changes are pretty horrible. It’s like listening to some guy at the stereo shop who is constantly changing  the volume.

Call me cynical, but I thought the MQA version was kind of pumped up for maximum dynamic range effect, and it was pretty nice, but again, past the "wow" moment, it's just volume.

If MQA does anything positive at all, I could not tell from these tracks.

I am however becoming less and less impressed with the recordings from 2L.

In terms of sonic quality, if I had to vote, I’d put DSD 64 as the best of the three formats I spent listening to. I didn’t A/B it so much as I seemed to prefer listening to it.

Best,


Erik

I feel I'm done for now by the way. I've heard it, I'm not impressed by it. I won't hunt around for benefits like looking for Bigfoot. If anyone has specific free tracks they can point me to to compare, please let me know.

Thanks Eric. I will keep plugging away. Working on improving my listening skills.

But the bottom line is that you're right. We need more recordings to compare.