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Why is everyone so down on MQA?

Ok. MQA is a little bit complicated to understand without doing a little research. First of all: MQA is not technically a lossy format. The way it works is very unique. The original master tape (Holy grail of SQ) is folded or compressed into a smaller format. It is later unfolded through a process I don’t claim to understand. The fully processed final version is lossless! It is the song version from the original master tape. FYI, original master tapes are usually the best sounding, they are also the truest version of any song- they are painstakingly produced along with the artist in the studio during the recording process. Ask anyone, they are the real deal. For some reason most people hate the sound quality! One caveat, the folding/unfolding process is usually carried out at one time by a dac. But some dacs only compress and do not unfold….I think Meridian should explain dac/ streamer compatibility issue. When your hardware supports the single step the sound quality is pretty amazing. They should have explained in more detail what the format is all about.

128x128walkenfan2013
pedroeb
493 posts
 

I'm not so sure about that. A good example is the video tape format war. Betamax was the vastly superior format yet it lost of the inferior VHS. WFT? Maybe it was only superior with the PAL system and there was very little benefit with NTSC. Years ago I was informed it really stood for Never The Same Colour twice. LOL. NTSC was forced upon you and there was never an option of going with PAL.

 

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toro3
301 posts
 

MQA is confusing when it comes to the software and hardware needed to process the unfolds - 1st unfold, 2nd unfold, all-in-one unfold and then we have decoder, renderer, and full decoder. Curious if everyone is/had been using a full decoder to come to their conclusions about MQA? I had mixed results with MQA; some albums and tracks sounded really great, while others not so much. Personally, I find the technology a little fascinating, but still over my head.

OP: I know you haven’t stepped into streaming yet, but from your post hx it seems like you have a good handle on how it all works. The Node is what brought me back into music/audio. I think a good portion of us on this thread probably started out with the Node.

moonwatcher
349 posts
 

Engineering wunderkind Bob Carver was not impressed. That's enough for me. He says only a bat might hear a slight difference now. That MQA was changed from its demonstration algorithm when it first rolled out to how it is being currently implemented. 

More damning to me is that once the purveyors of it convinced some labels of its value, they took the licensing money and ran off into the sunset. 

Bob's engineering white paper is at this URL here:
 

 

blackbag20
407 posts
 

@walkenfan2013 

It was a legit question!!  

jonwatches1
125 posts
 

For me, the decision wound up being made by my choice of DAC (I use Tidal).  I fell in love with the Benchmark DAC3 (no MQA) - the improvement in sound was just amazing.  Figured that difference in DAC was larger than the difference in MQA, so went with a good DAC that lacked MQA support

Just an explanation of the path I took and my own finding that the DAC made more difference for me than MQA (and Benchmark readily supports Hi-Rez downloads for music that I particularly enjoy - digital equivalent of buying LPs just for particularly beloved music. Perhaps if I had better ears or more expensive equipment I’d have a finer point of view on MQA vs redbook stream)

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