MQA is Legit!

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.

@seigen   wow...  this was a very cocky and bitter article: 
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/mqa-a-review-of-controversies-concerns-and-cautions-r701/

In fact, the only reason I have Tidal and Roon is exactly because "I wanted to stream high fidelity recordings over the internet" --it seems the author clearly didn't consider me when he made the claim that no one wants that.

He can just go back to his MP3s and winamp blasting his altec lansings in the dorm room--i will in the meantime enjoy discovering new tracks on my evolving digital rig with great sounding MQA...

The MQA ney-sayers sound exactly like the cable ney-sayers. If you compare these groups, they put down the people that can hear a difference. They state so-called facts, charts, expert comments, and whatever else they can find to support their cause. I don’t give a sh$# about so called experts opinions, charts, etc..., listen with your own 2 ears! If you don’t have good ears or a good quality system, then you probably won’t hear a difference.

Well, in my case I tried it, and can't hear a difference. What's more, the consensus of the SF Audiophile society that I talked to was the same. No one could hear anything.

The glowing positive press aside, it didn't make things better in such a way I'd shell out a single dollar for.

Further, at least with the Mytek Brooklyn DAC I used, the apodizing filter removed a lot of air and sparkle from the music, so I switched to a different one which forced me to disable MQA. Never regretted it.

Best,
E