Is MQA Worth It?

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[harrybaque]

MQA is more a royalty within a royalty than a format within a format. Great video!

[dasninjastix]

Short answer: No
Long answer:

MQA is more than welcome to demonstrate their claims, and show how the consumer might benefit from a lossy proprietary format that doesn't actually authenticate to any master recording.

Till then it's a convoluted system that asks consumers to pay more for the service, more for the hardware, and then jump through the additional hoops of firmware updates and software playback to correctly unfold the files. That are lossy. But they make the lights on your DAC change so.. there's that.

Best I can tell in comparison to Qobuz or Amazon, a Tidal "Master" Quality recording sounds like it has a V or U equalization applied. That's what I hear myself. And that'd be my guess why it's popular despite the obstacles laid at the feet of the listener.

[WimHulpia]

MQA = what exactly?
1. The origami story. There is no such thing for 44.1/48kHz MQAs. No frequencies were ever captured above 22.05/24kHz (Nyquist theorem!) and so they can also never be reconstructed ever. And remember at least 95% of the music available is 44.1k.
2. When you play a 16bit 44.1kHz MQA it doesn't play as a 16b 44.1kHz MQA, no it first upsamples it to 24bit 88.2kHz (proof : switch on core decoding in Roon and check signal path). Yes I said 'upsamples', and not 'unfolds' for the reason I mentioned in 1. Nothing to reconstruct higher than 22.05kHz. So it's upsampling to 88.2kHz, and maybe even 176.4kHz in the 2nd unfold. Yet, they fool us because they keep showing 44.1k on the display all the time !!! Why? Do the thinking.
(many software players offer upsampling these days because it does make tracks sound better; so if MQA is sounding better, isn't it just because of that?)
3. Neil Youngs MQAs on Tidal were "studio approved" (blue light when playing). Yet he never approved them (see link). MQA is proving what exactly?
4. I compared thousands of PCMs with MQAs (you cannot on Tidal as they removed the original PCMs) The PCMs sound better in almost all cases.
=> conclusion : it's not worth it. You just loose money for a DAC, you can no longer adjust volume with software without losing the MQA decoding, DJs will need at least two MQA decoders, ... and for what? To get a result that still worse than the original PCMs?

[DesignVisStudios]

Someone managed to publish some test tones on Tidal and prove that it's crap.

[colanitower]

Bandwidth increasing all the time. Disk storage increasing up to 18TB apiece now. MQA is a complicating solution for a rapidly vanishing problem.

[davidcache]

This very video is being streamed at a higher bandwidth than lossless audio. We don't need mqa to stream lossless, and mqa is lossy, yet the file come out larger than a flac.. so it doesn't make sense regardless. Mqa truncated your music to 13 bits... anyone pushing mqa is lost

[prp]

If a flac is about 500mb per album you could fit 2000 albums on a terabite, and they sell 18 tb hard drives so flac's are not too big for storage

[ZIMsar]

Excellent Video mate, very informative & a pleasure to watch! I have just started listening to Tidal, Apple Music & I will try qubus as well, using free trials before I commit to a particular one. Your comment at the end if your video was perfect “listen to some music & see if you like it” or similar, that us absolutely bang on! All of this technical talk gets overwhelming, but when push comes to shove, what matters is “Can you hear the difference between a standard MP3 vs a lossless audio file, yes OR no?” Thanks again!

[brandon]

A key point you failed to address is that there's an audible drop in quality on legacy systems going from 16 to 13 bits, resulting in significant audible losses that MQA's dithering only tries to hide from the listener. It's forced to do this in order to free up space for the lossy information that's unfolded during playback. In short, an identical redbook 16bit CD of the same master will be clearly superior and be far closer to the master on legacy equipment that doesn't support MQA.

Point being, MQA is all or nothing. Promoting it to audiophiles (the only people who would bother with MQA) as an acceptable option on legacy players shines light on the fact that it's creators see their own format as snake oil and they're willing to say anything, no matter how clearly false, to promote their product.

[turbomustang]

Hate that Tidal constantly thinks I suddenly love Hip Hop but MQA sounds great

[marchaberberger]

I love the sound of Qobuz and Hires more than Tidal MQA. And I don't like the Tidal app. Everywhere I am pushed to Hip Hop and Pop. I don't even listen to this kind of music. But in Germany Tidal is cheaper than Qobuz... sadly.

[MichaelBeeny]

Most people really don't care about sound or picture quality. They watch films on a telephone and listen to MP3 and are very happy. The odd few left are quite happy to pay silly amounts of money on streaming services year after year. One day they will stop paying and find they don't own a single piece of music. MQA is a money maker for the music and retail business. FLAC on the other hand is FREE to use, no one makes money so MQA gotta be better right? The first part of an MQA folder is basically a free FLAC decoder that you pay for. Wish I thought of that. To get the, so called better sound, you need to pay licence fees to many people. So it's NEVER going to be the choice of the mobile public, one of it's selling points. Too expensive. As I've said before, few care, MP3 is fine to most! So what's left, yes you got it FLAC..but no one makes any money. MQA is NOT lossless, FLAC is. MQA is expensive so it's got to be better, RIGHT?

[paolovolante]

Whether MQA is lossy or not is now irrelevant. MQA is good for Tidal incomes only in my humble opinion.
With Qobuz e Amazon HD offering actual lossless flac files up to 192KHz 24 for the same price who wants Tidal and MQA anymore? Just waiting for Roon integration with Amazon Music HD....
Bandwidth ? 192K 24bit is equivalent to 192000 samples * 3 bytes (24 bit) * 2 (channels) = 192000*3*2 = 1, 1 Mbps max requirement. If someone has a bandwidth lower than that, he has much worse problems than listening HR audio streams....

[geoffs]

Hopefully, MQa will be dead in a few years. The Red Book standard for the CD is a no compromise system capable of amazing fidelity. The limiting factor is the quality of the original recording and mastering, not the file format.
A poorly recorded performance will forever sound poor, regardless of bit depth, transfer rate etc.

The sad truth is that about 95% of CD albums are very poorly recorded. A well recorded CD can sound stunning, re-mastering to hi-res, MQA etc. will not improve audio quality. For example, Back To black by Amy Winehouse sounds like crap. The re-mastered and MQA versions still sound like crap. In comparison, the 35 year old CD Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits sounds fantastic. Proving that it can be done with care and skill.

Tidal claim to have many MQa versions of vintage albums originally recorded and mastered to reel to reel magnetic tape, very good for the day but highly compromised compared to a modern digital recording. Re-mastering to another digital format cannot recover detail lost in the original analog recording. This is really deceptive marketing.

[kaycewilson]

I don’t have an opinion on MQA but my favorite part of this video is 6:05

[tedmingolla]

We don't need a proprietary codec like MQA? MQA is lossy and you require hardware decoding/licensing $ to take full advantage. Streaming bandwidth for hi res audio is not the problem it was years ago. 24 bits at 192 kHz, requires only a bitrate = 9, 216 kbps.

[dannymarsh]

On the fence. I think my cans (Bose ANC 700) aren't really up to the job but I think I prefer non-MQA. Can tell there's a difference but it's not as warm and not as much fun, I'm kind of sat there listening to my equipment rather than listening to the music

[SlyNine]

Some people buying into placebo (with zero evidence backing up their claims) and marketing while other people are not.

[ExiledQ]

I love me some digital artifacts. In this age, I’m proud and excited to discover any deformities born of compression and unpacking processes.

[SummerH]

Does hi res music only applied on high end headphones? Because i cannot hear the big difference from spotify premium, deezer hifi and tidal mqa.. i’m using iphone with dragonfly cobalt to hear them and i haven’t try with high end headphones, only with at-mh50x, koss portapro, mee planamic, vsonic gr07. I only hear tidal mqa sounds softer than the other two. Or should i just give up and buy new ears instead?