Qobuz Hi-Rez Not Necessarily the Best Sound

I am curious if those trashing MQA’s sound quality have a streamer/DAC that performs the full three step MQA unfold? Reason I ask is I have such a combo that is also able to play maximum resolution HiRez Qobuz files (up to 24/352) and I find that my preference for one over the other on a given track or album is about 50/50. Both have their turds but also many outstanding sounding remasters and I find the ratio to be about equal between the two formats.

I suspect that MQA (Tidal) is at a distinct disadvantage when one’s streamer/DAC does not fully unfold MQA files. Choosing not to invest in full MQA unfold capability is understandable, but to continually trash it without hearing it at its full potential is a bit misleading IMO.

Though again, it wasn’t doing that say, 3-4 months ago or thereabouts, so I’m still convinced that Qobuz did do something to enable the capability

@hankeson, You know computers have a mind of their own at times. It’s hard to explain why they do things sometimes, but they do them, and then they stop. Let us know if your DAC is set up to upsample x4.

@redlenses03 

Thanks for the comment! I too just finished auditioning catalog titles making notes of which to buy a physical copy of (CD). Ironically on Spotify no less!

@dlcockrum 

Thanks for jumping in. It seems this conversation has melded down to “hi-res” streaming service offerings vs the real thing, whether that source be a physical copy or a file of the original.

I’ve never been a believer in MQA- read a lot about it and decided not to participate but since you’ve brought it up what are your thoughts on how it compares (in ideal conditions) to that of the real deal? 

@designsfx I am agnostic to the debate about the virtue of MQA other than I think it is getting an undeserved bad rap on Audiogon regarding sound quality. IME relative sound quality is always determined by the quality of implementation regardless of format.

Assuming the “real thing” is live music, my thoughts are that MQA can provide a listening experience as close to that of live music as can reproduced music on any playback format. They all fall short of providing a perfect suspension-of-disbelief listening experience, yet the best implementation of each can get in the “spooky real” zone. How close each comes to being a convincing replication of the source event has much more to do with the recording and mastering quality of the media than the format and, of course, the quality of the reproduction chain is important. As the latter becomes increasing more accurate and revealing, the limitations of the former become the obvious ceiling for achieving truly convincing and satisfying reproduction of recorded music.