MQA is Legit!

PLACEBO DOMINGO!

Placido was crowned, ’King of the Opera’, by Newsweek, in 1982. I vote PLACEBO be crowned, ’King of the Copout’, on these pages.

There is most definitely an audible difference with MQA.

Phase distortion causes the imaging to be less accurate.

Apodizing changes the timbre of transients.

Easiest thing to listen for is the hole in the middle of the soundstage. Second easiest thing to hear is the pluck of acoustic guitar strings. MQA has an unnatural sound. The pitch of the initial pluck of a stringed instrument sounds slightly lower. It is not as easy to hear unless you are trained. Some people can’t hear it - for example if you able to enjoy Michael Buble’s singing then you probably aren’t able to hear autotune pitch altering effects. Pitch sensitivity varies a lot among people but some can easily pick up as little as 5 cents....

From a technical pov MQA is quite some junk, but people like all kinds of distortions so why not make a buck on selling this junk.

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/

I think it sounds pretty good considering it's streaming through my Vault 2i.   Will Tidal replace my CDs, SACDs, DvD-A, and BluRay Audio, 24/96 material ? No way , but as a convenient hifi digital source it's pretty decent.