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MQA according to new Stereophile "loudness button" and "tweaking EQ in presence region"

Stereophile’s May 2017 review of the Mytek Brooklyn DAC (Herb Reichert) states that "in every comparison, MQA made the original recording sound more dynamic and transparent, but only sometimes more temporaly precise."

Seems positive, right? But the next sentence reads....

"After a while the MQA versions began to remind me of those old Loudness Contour buttons on 1960’s receivers, which used equalization to compensate for loss of treble and bass at low listening levels."

Now for the bombshell.....


"Consistently, MQA sounded as though it was tweaking the EQ in the presence region."

"I also noticed that most of the MQA versions sounded rounded off and smoother than the originals."

My opinion is that we gullible audiophiles have been fooled in the past by supposed new technologies, similar to what supposedly early mobile fidelity pressings did with EQ to make listeners think they were hearing an improvement.

In my mind, an alteration of the source is distortion.

Just as TV’S in stores set to torch mode are often preferred on first glance, and speakers that at first grab you with some spectacular aspect can become tiresome over time, as accuracy and neutrality become preferred as one's ear becomes more refined.

The frightening thing is that 2 major music entities have signed on, seemingly to make MQA the defacto standard of how music will made available.


While I haven’t been able to do this comparison myself, reading a highly regarded golden ear admit this in print is warning enough for me.


Just like the sugary drink that tastes so good on first experience, our advanced society knows that consuming it regularly leads to diabetes, heart disease and worse.

Does this revelation reveal MQA to be the parlor trick that it appears to be?
emailists
melm
1,082 posts
 
And some heavy hitters are not (yet?) offering MQA:  Ayre Acoustics, Benchmark Media Systems, Boulder Amplifiers, Bryston, Chord Electronics, dCS, EMM Labs, Hegel Music Systems, Marantz, Meitner, PS Audio, Schiit Audio, Simaudio, and Soulution, for example.

In fact, many, if not most, DAC manufacturers on the MQA partner list do not YET offer MQA in their devices. That includes the heavier hitters among them.  My guess is that they have signed on, but have their fingers to the wind before they commit to hardware.

IMO MQA may have some limited positive application where the deficiencies of an original recording ADC are known and can be compensated for.  But general application across the board is a crap shoot.  What MQA does is take the original digital file, changes it, and charges a royalty, .That cannot generally be good.

When comparing MQA files to a non-MQA file, it must first be known that the original files were identical.  Often, what has happened is that the MQA file has been prepared from a high res file and is being compared to red book.  Also MQA compression is not lossless, though it does, of course speed up downloads.  That's why Tidal loves it.
erik_squires
16,159 posts
 
My unpopular opinion: Most older DAC’s sounded significantly better with high resolution files.

There are a lot of DAC’s introduced in the last 5 years which sound great regardless of sourse, from Redbook to DSD.

My need for high resolution files is just not there anymore with the Mytek. All resolutions sound really good, and if I can save the hard disk space, that is a good thing.

The Mytek plays MQA as well and I simply don’t hear a benefit. Everything I hear that is allegedly better with MQA is also attributable to better mastering.

Best,

E
ejr1953
916 posts
 
OK, I have a PS Audio DirectStream DAC...and a Mytek Brooklyn DAC as well, the latter just for MQA streaming from Tidal, the former for everything else.
To Erik's point, I think that the MQA I enjoy more is likely the result of the remastering, not just the MQA, but I must say, some albums (to me) sound much better...and the DirectStream DAC is no "slouch".
wtf's avatar
wtf
307 posts
 
All the gnashing of teeth over MQA seems much ado about nothing for those of us who have moved past music acquisition and into streaming. For folks who still want to acquire a library of music beyond what they already own, yes, it may be a concern. Maybe. No doubt most music labels couldn't care less about audiophile wants/needs and see their future in streaming. MQA allows for them to produce 1 file for distribution (streaming, downloading, and MQA CDs) for all types of music lovers from audiophiles to casual listeners. Seems to be a good business decision for them and plenty of audiophiles seem to like what they hear. Like it or not I think it's here to stay.
emailists OP
923 posts
 
No one’s debating music streaming vs. Owning.

The issue for me is that MQA Maybe doing something other than just providing hires music in a smaller file and correcting d/a Flaws, but playing a sonic trick on us by basterdizing the master files, not being a better delivery system.

Anyone can goose the bass and treble of a file and have people prefer it over the original. That’s not the objective for me. I prefer raw food to junk food and my palette has adapted to crave that. I often like the sound of unmastered (uncompressed) recordings, rough mixes, etc because I find they sound better than the homogenized version. But that’s just my taste.

Personally the idea of a ubiquitous file delivery system that changes the sound and could be the only way every one eventually gets their music digitally (because that the only way it’s being offered) to be abhorrent and the very antithesis of the audiophile experience.

And it seems indeed like the audiophile press is responsible for the adoption of this new format before it went mainstream, by giving mqa it’s blessing.
If Stereophile noticed right away and wrote that MQA wasn’t the master it was proported to be, but a fructose enhanced version of it, i think things might have played out differently. 

MQA has waffled back and forth saying it can be unpackeed outside the dac, then no it can’t, then yes It can but only partially, etc.
It may have well indeed been public outcry in forums like these, that forced their hand to have a more open architecture.

So you can imagine why I'm skeptical of  the powers behind this new format and their motivations for the future of music.  
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