The “problem “ with MQA

The Audiophiliac gets an insight why MQA isn’t getting a lot of love from mastering engineers.

[chpsk]

Neil Young dropped his music files off Tidal. Stating "MQA is not my master". He says the MQA did not sound the same as how he mastered them.

[sudd]

its a lossy format when we have enough bandwidth to use lossless audio. biggest mqa problem. it might however work better than other lossy formats. i still don't want loss

[kesamek]

Will be funny watching all these audio industry 'experts' backtracking when their scam is busted XD now we know who is real and who is not.

[bobsykes]

Amazing how relevant this still is today. I have used Tidal for three years or so, and more and more I noticed issues with MQA playback, specifically compared to uncompressed files I have purchased from HD Tracks. MQA is definitely worst that the sound of uncompressed files.

[ToadStool]

Good video and completely agree. It's seems everything about MQA from the technology to the sound and everything in between doesn't make sense. What is worse is that MQA is trying to monopolize the music industry. For what purpose I ask, other than money?

[PDCRed]

Proprietary formats that lock you in to limited hardware options. No thanks. Each to their own though.

[johnbradshaw]

At best MQA is a solution looking for a problem, at worst it is a scam. I have no skin in this one as I have no MQA equipment and am perfectly happy with FLAC but in this case even a lot of people in the industry who usually jump on opportunities to create demand for new gear sales are luke warm or openly negative.

[siliconnubian]

Have been directly comparing MQA tracks with FLAC files of the same tracks I created myself. The difference is discernable. MQA comes of as softer with respect to transients, and less precise detailing. Air and definitely space are negatively affected. Is it still enjoyable, sure but the marketing of MQA has a lot to blame for it's criticism. I'd personally rather listen to FLAC as the quality is definitely better, all else being equal of course.

[superpeca]

Cancer of the industry, money grab and a shameful attempt to abuse all of us in the chain from the artist to us consumers and enthusiasts! My hard earned money will never go to a single device or service where MQA makes a profit.

[RicktheRecorder]

Surely MQA is now pretty much a dead duck? It's only yet another fancy compression method that's increasingly less and less needed.

[matthewweflen]

It's times like these that I'm glad I purchase all my Hi-Res music outright and make FLAC rips from CDs for my own collection. What a mess.

[krancan]

We can stream 4K movies with 5.1 or more and implementing 5G but we can’t stream lossless music? Give me free lossless codec (FLAC or any other) and be done with it... MQA should be dead within a couple of years when 5 G finally rolls out and people won’t care if the file is 10MB or 500MB as long as it is the best quality...

[jamiemcneil]

Everyone has an opinion from the people who master the recordings all the way down to the man who collects my trash .. in the end none of them will matter. The future of MQA, if it has not already been decided, will be the availability of quality affordable MQA DAC's. To this day there is no such DAC being made by anyone. How many folks will shell out between 7K and 35K for an MQA DAC? That's right, not any where enough to make MQA a viable format.

[ThinkingBetter]

The problem with MQA is that it is lossy and nowadays we can stream lossless audio so why bother?

[Magnulus]

If so, MQA is not transparent. I honestly don't see the point in MQA. Vorbis will encode up to 192 KHz at over 500 kbps. If one wants high resolution, lossy encoding, obviously it already exists in open standards. The filter of MQA is nothing special, and nothing you couldn't do with a software resampler like SoX.

[Borednlonely]

Ok I’m confused. I thought MQA was meant to be as the band suggests. Exactly what the artist intended? Master quality authenticated.

[markrosenthal]

If you can stream high def videos on YouTube, then you have no bandwidth shortage for streaming audio.
As to MQA sounding "better", the issue is that it sounds different from what the recording engineer mastered. If the effect is good, it should be added on the playback side as a DSP OPTION like "all-channel stereo mode", or "concert hall", or tone controls if you prefer. The key word is option. Don't force "MQA improvements" on the consumer.

[juliaset]

From what I have read in the last couple of years, people are not so concerned about the sound quality, which most agree is somewhat better. The real issue is that MQA will become a format monopoly. The system is closed, proprietary, and licensed. This will lock out anybody that doesn’t want to play by MQA’s rules, especially the little guys without the deep pockets. It will crush innovation, and there will no longer be any thinking outside the box; MQA will be the only box in town.

[rohanjd]

MQA is a way for corporations to save on bandwidth costs. I for one am very skeptical of their claims. There is an alternative to MQA that is tried and tested…Apple Lossless and FLAC…at least they don’t adulterate my music…when I pay for I single malt, I don’t appreciate being served blended scotch on the rocks….

[mvv]

Red book CD is fine for me. Maybe we've just reached the point of perfection with some technologies long ago. The Philips and Sony engineers weren't idiots, they knew what they were doing. In an average living room, even the softest background noises are way above -96 dbFS . And no one can hear above 20k, so 16/44.1 PCM should be enough. Really.