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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
erik_squires
16,484 posts
 

Speaking of a solution in search of a problem, one oddball thing that has gotten much better over the past 15 years is Redbook playback.  The truly great DACs have narrowed the field a great deal between Redbook and 96/24 or better.   If yo have a DAC that only plays hi rez well switch.

This also means, again, MQA isn't that great if your DAC is already really good at low res.

jhconnor's avatar
jhconnor
68 posts
 

Personally, I love MQA. My system is about as revealing as any out there, and there is such a clear and obvious difference between MQA and standard 44.1 that I’m surprised by the debate. No debate in this house. I use the Aurender W20Se and Berkeley Ref Alpha 3. Sure, most of the time my high res files may be a little more nuanced but compared to standard, MQA is preferred 8/10 times.

ghdprentice
7,424 posts
 

@jhconnor 

+1 Like many of these discussions, it depends on the equipment you own.

 

 

dvddesigner
78 posts
 

Is MQA still a thing? Have not heard much about it in several years. Like most, bandwidth for streaming is not an issue and if one downloads "hi-res" tracks then transmission is not an issue either. 

Agree it tries to sole a problem than does not exist. MQA did seem to be a stealth form of copy protection and this whole concept of being "tuned" to individual DACs where manufactures had to submit their products to be "officially" MQA compatible was pure silliness. In some ways, similar to HDCD and to some extent SACD. I will l say the original Pacific Microsonics HDCD encoder / ADC/ DAC used in mastering studios was a very nice sounding bit of kit in it's day.

MQA is a not something I would ever consider for my music playback. 

pedroeb
493 posts
 

Is MQA still a thing? 

Absolutely.

MQA-CDs are still being released and Radio Paradise has MQA, so I'm not at all sure where that statement came from or if it is something that should even be taken seriously.

The beauty is any CD player will do and all you need is a DAC that does MQA.

 

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