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MQA is Legit!

Ok, there is something special about MQA.  Here is my theory:  MQA=SACD.  What do I mean by this?  I mean that since there might be the "perception" it sounds better, then there is way more care put into the mastering and the recording.   Of course I have Redbook CD's that sound just as good (although they tend to be "HDCD" lol)... Bottom line:  a great recording sounds great.  I wish more labels and artists put more time into this--it's great to hear a song for the 1000th time and discover something new.  

What are your thoughts on MQA and SACD?
waltertexas
waltertexas OP
26 posts
 
@mzkmxcv: I am convinced it is a better master.  It's more than the noise floor--it is the depth and imaging as well.  It's like the remaster of Abbey Road.. say what you will about some of these remasters but I think many of them are great.  I have a few original Abbey Road pressings and IMO they don't compare at all to the latest 180g remaster (at least in my system).  

But hey, it's great that I can stream stuff I would likely never buy and it sounds amazing.  
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headphonedreams
522 posts
 
If someone wants to read more about MQA Stereophile has a long Q&A about it.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers

One interesting part was this:
Many recording and mastering engineers have testified that MQA improves very considerably on the conventional methods, recreating the sound they actually hear or remember from the original session or, in the case of archive material, the sound from an analogue tape recorder.
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/mqa-questions-and-answers-losslessness-questions#ZAbwxAHeHziuCzF...
headphonedreams
522 posts
 
I have read from many sources that MQA is or can be much better than red book. I think the more important parts are around licensing, costs, DRM (does not seem to be a problem) and monopoly about an audio technology.
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
@dweller

MQA is half lossy and half lossless, interior to the quality of CD in my opinion, it also can’t know what happened in the mastering of the track.

A quote from someone more knowledgeable than me:

An input signal is truncated to 17 bits (and the input sample rate), and is then split into a high and low-frequency band. The lossless portion of the LF signal (13/44.1) is added as-is to a 24/44.1 container (FLAC or otherwise), and is nominally compatible with any Flac decoder. The remaining signal is a lossy encoding of the high-frequency content, and lives in the lower 8-11 bits of the FLAC. Somewhere in the encoding process, specific instructions for what reconstruction filters (low-pass filters to prevent aliasing of audio) should be used during decoding
.
Not to mention it prevents digital volume control and DSP.

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