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Any News on MQA Lately?

Earlier in the year there was lots of "buzz" about MQA, especially when it was reported that Tidal would be streaming the format.

Since then it seems like Tidal might be shopping itself for a possible sale, maybe to Apple?

I'm not seeing much MQA "buzz" on the web lately.
ejr1953
erik_squires
16,924 posts
 
I’m sorry Tomcy, your mixing up a few things.

MQA does in fact require the use the apodizing filter. What MQA adds is decoding of the high resolution data as well as their claims to time domain fixes. MQA attempts to compress 384k data (in a lossy way) into a 48kHz signal.

Think of MQA more like FLAC vs. MP3 sort of kind of. :)

The best independent critique I know if how it works is at Benchmark media’s site.

In the case of the Brooklyn, when you have MQA detection and decoding enabled it will force you to use the apodizing filter. If you disable MQA you can pick from 3 different filter types.

Best,


Erik
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erik_squires
16,924 posts
 
Well, I know the answer about sound quality already. :)

If I have to look for an "improvement" with a microscope and tweezers it's not worth it to me. :)

Remember Dolby A, B and C? That was worth paying money for. Differences were clear to anyone. MQA.... meh. I can't see myself on my deathbed going "OH, if only MQA had survived, my audio life would have been so much better."

Best,

Erik
bradf's avatar
bradf
329 posts
 
Hi @ eric_squires.

Even though the news/info is disappointing with regards to hopes for  improved fidelity; thank you for passing along the info you learned from your observations.


Brad
ohlala
1,252 posts
 

There is some recent MQA discussion on audio asylum.  They did do an hi-rez/MQA demo of the same song at RMAF with an emphasis on reducing temporal distortion.  The result of the demo was, of course, forgone, and the difference was quite large.  

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