MQA is Legit!

I spent an afternoon at my friendly dealer (Martins in Norwich) switching in Tidal between all available sources, using DCS and Vitus kit. We came to a view that maybe 1/3rd were better to us with MQA, vs other formats. In my view therefore not amazingly reliable as "it all depends on the track" which is not amazingly helpful in playing a range of tracks at home at leisure. Also what is true MQA? - the source is not usually identified - we need transparency before I personally would be that bothered. 

Overall, I think Tidal's MQA Masters series recordings sound great and better than CD or traditional 44.1 Tidal hi-resolution downloads.  I don't have experience with MQA in any other format than Tidal's Masters. 

I haven't made many direct comparisons between an actual physical CD and MQA.

I'm not hearing any increase in distortion, loss of information, noise or anything. What I am hearing is a general overall improvement.  I agree with others who think there is more body to MQA and a seemingly lower noise floor.  Everything sounds more defined without added harshness to me

I get the OP's point that maybe Tidal's MQA Masters sound better just because there's attention given to making them sound better, as opposed to an improvement being solely due to the MQA format. 

For now, I'm just happy that a digital format sounds great. I simply cannot buy to try everything I'm exploring on vinyl. Tidal and a good DAC allow me to explore to no end.  I'm living in a world with great vinyl and great digital so--to me--it's a new golden age.    

@rbstehno

If you don’t have good ears or a good quality system, then you probably won’t hear a difference.

The most common and cop-out response in this area of discussion. So you are totally dismissing any fault on your end? If you hear a difference, there has to be one? Maybe you’d also recommend essential oils and ginger root over chemotherapy.

16Bit vs 8Bit test, if you can get >70% confidence with 25+ trials (I can random guess and get >70% if only say 10 trials), I’d love if you could screenshot it and link to it.

Even if you can get >70%, now imagine 16Bit vs 24Bit. 
 
Lots of claims which can be attributed simply to placebo.

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