An educated view, perhaps?

nomore landings

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here is a youtuber that the 'ALL DaCs sound the same" and "MQA sucks" brigade might find challenges their agendas.

Having now experienced 3 different MQA sources, I conclude that misgivings are the fault of sometimes shoddy output by Universal & Warner Music and not MQA as a delivery system. My new DAC outperforms previous by a significant margin and guess that a Dave or Bartok would do the same again.

Hans B

Bartok and MQA threads have left me in despair of this and other forums. Shame for the genuine majority.

 
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MartinC

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What offends me personally about MQA is that people are being charged a premium for some combination of alleged better sound quality and definitive version approved by the relevant producer/artist/whatever, when it is neither.

For those of us who care about recording quality I think this mis-selling is a big concern.

 
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DomT

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What offends me personally about MQA is that people are being charged a premium for some combination of alleged better sound quality and definitive version approved by the relevant producer/artist/whatever, when it is neither.

For those of us who care about recording quality I think this miss-selling is a big concern.
And that ‘MQA technology must be kept a secret’ - Dolby and others license their technology so that others can do recordings and is also open to third party reviews. It’s also a potential solution to an internet bandwidth problem that existed 20 years ago but not today.

 

MartinC

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To save anyone else hunting, the relevant bit of the video is at the end, starting from where the link below will play from:

 

MartinC

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And that ‘MQA technology must be kept a secret’ - Dolby and others license their technology so that others can do recordings and is also open to third party reviews.
Indeed. Something which only makes it harder to trust that it's really all it claims to be.

It’s also a potential solution to an internet bandwidth problem that existed 20 years ago but not today.
We could make an environmental argument for reducing storage and data transfer being beneficial I suppose but the trouble there is some evidence out there that MQA files aren't notably smaller than FLAC anyway. Not something I've spent ages looking into though.

 
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StingRay

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I have just switched to Tidal because of a cheap offer, I'm a bit confused because I only have the HiFi level, which should just be CD quality and no MQA, but there are plenty of MQA albums on there still and some albums are only in MQA, I suppose it is taking them some time to complete the split between CD and MQA versions. 

Anyway I think this move by Tidal, is a bad thing for MQA, if only the Master level, which is £20 pm,  has MQA then many users will not be playing MQA anymore.

I don't have an external DAC that handles MQA, so I don;t think there is any benefit for me. Most of the MQA albums are Warners and these seem to be batched processed, so some of the claims about going back to the studio recording I think are false, that would not be possible in the time frame and number of albums converted into MQA. It is not surprising that some find Warners to be not so good sound quality. 

One of the advantages of MQA, smaller files sizes is not required on most broadband systems these days. I object to lack of choice, on Tidal before this year, you often only had MQA version of albums such as Warners catalogue. I don't really see the point of MQA, I find HiRez is often better and you don't need special equipment to play that, most DACs can handle it. I can see MQA fading away. 

 
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MartinC

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Confusion and complexity (what software and hardware needed to achieve what) are other unnecessary negatives of MQA for me. 

 

nomore landings

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Thanks for the replies. I subscribed to Tidal @ 3 years ago and via a TEAC NT505 - dual monaural, AKM4497s and dual clocks, - found much of the output an advance over the FLAC or CD version. A year ago I switched to Qobuz as was less than impressed with some of the albums being released on Tidal. Having also tried Amazon, it will be Qobuz when my deal ends. Tidal has been bought by Square Inc, owned by Jack Dromney/Twitter so don't hold out much hope. Will miss Tidal connect as an interface. Consistency a must for exploring new music.

Away from Tidal, I bought two MQA CDs. Here the SQ is excellent and one is also a hybrid SACD so some A/B when I can be bothered. The TEAC ud701 sounds so good upsampling & converting regular red book that this is another format that, as Hans infers, has been superseded by advances in FGPA etc.

The third MQA source is Radio Paradise. Excellent via the Node's own DAC, even better sent to the TEAC. Will remain a big fan at least until RP release a HiRES stream from their music library which is 24/96.

Bought my first CD in 1984 and now, at last, IMHO digital is a triumph. Thanks to great British audio engineers like Rob Watts, Bob Stuart and the guys at dCS.

DACs do not all sound the same and the Bartok threat beggars belief. Another forum has about 150 pages discussing Lyngdorf room correction!

 
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DomT

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Thanks for the replies. I subscribed to Tidal @ 3 years ago and via a TEAC NT505 - dual monaural, AKM4497s and dual clocks, - found much of the output an advance over the FLAC or CD version. A year ago I switched to Qobuz as was less than impressed with some of the albums being released on Tidal. Having also tried Amazon, it will be Qobuz when my deal ends. Tidal has been bought by Square Inc, owned by Jack Dromney/Twitter so don't hold out much hope. Will miss Tidal connect as an interface. Consistency a must for exploring new music.

Away from Tidal, I bought two MQA CDs. Here the SQ is excellent and one is also a hybrid SACD so some A/B when I can be bothered. The TEAC ud701 sounds so good upsampling & converting regular red book that this is another format that, as Hans infers, has been superseded by advances in FGPA etc.

The third MQA source is Radio Paradise. Excellent via the Node's own DAC, even better sent to the TEAC. Will remain a big fan at least until RP release a HiRES stream from their music library which is 24/96.

Bought my first CD in 1984 and now, at last, IMHO digital is a triumph. Thanks to great British audio engineers like Rob Watts, Bob Stuart and the guys at dCS.

DACs do not all sound the same and the Bartok threat beggars belief. Another forum has about 150 pages discussing Lyngdorf room correction!
Finding digital sound for those of us who grow up with LPs isn’t always easy and it’s great that you are happy with what you are listening to. After buying an Auralic streamer and being impressed with Tidal for the last four months I cancelled my subscription and have just been listening to my ripped CDs with the occasional hit of Spotify. Once I make up my mind about Tidal vs Spotify I will take out a subscription again. FWIW on my Auralic Altair Tidal sounded better than Spotify and Tidal via the Auralic App sounded better than via the Tidal app. MQA was a bit mixed for me not having MQA unfolding as Auralic don’t do lossy formats. 

 

StingRay

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Thanks for the replies. I subscribed to Tidal @ 3 years ago and via a TEAC NT505 - dual monaural, AKM4497s and dual clocks, - found much of the output an advance over the FLAC or CD version. A year ago I switched to Qobuz as was less than impressed with some of the albums being released on Tidal. Having also tried Amazon, it will be Qobuz when my deal ends. Tidal has been bought by Square Inc, owned by Jack Dromney/Twitter so don't hold out much hope. Will miss Tidal connect as an interface. Consistency a must for exploring new music.

Away from Tidal, I bought two MQA CDs. Here the SQ is excellent and one is also a hybrid SACD so some A/B when I can be bothered. The TEAC ud701 sounds so good upsampling & converting regular red book that this is another format that, as Hans infers, has been superseded by advances in FGPA etc.

The third MQA source is Radio Paradise. Excellent via the Node's own DAC, even better sent to the TEAC. Will remain a big fan at least until RP release a HiRES stream from their music library which is 24/96.

Bought my first CD in 1984 and now, at last, IMHO digital is a triumph. Thanks to great British audio engineers like Rob Watts, Bob Stuart and the guys at dCS.

DACs do not all sound the same and the Bartok threat beggars belief. Another forum has about 150 pages discussing Lyngdorf room correction!
What were the MQA cds that you bought. 

After my Tidal 3 months contract is up, I'm going back to Qobuz, I use a Node as well but have a Jolida DAC (non MQA). When I switched from Qobuz to Tidal, I thought the sound quality was not so good, seemed brighter/harsher, some albums were worst than others, I did go through all the settings, just in case it had defaulted to some low res mp3, but everything was in order. I think there are slight differences in EQ settings. Amazon is not good interface on the Node, seem Amazon are not interested in developing it. That's why I would stick to a  specialist streaming service. Tidal I looked at the recommended albums for me and this was after I had selected my favourite artists,  5 out of 6 of the albums were Rap or R&B, none of my chosen artists are in that genre, so it is still going on, this promotion of certain genres. There have been a lot of changes at Tidal recently and some are better such as the CD level for £10pm, £20pm was looking far too expensive compared to their peers. 

 

MartinC

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Finding digital sound for those of us who grow up with LPs isn’t always easy and it’s great that you are happy with what you are listening to. After buying an Auralic streamer and being impressed with Tidal for the last four months I cancelled my subscription and have just been listening to my ripped CDs with the occasional hit of Spotify. Once I make up my mind about Tidal vs Spotify I will take out a subscription again. FWIW on my Auralic Altair Tidal sounded better than Spotify and Tidal via the Auralic App sounded better than via the Tidal app. MQA was a bit mixed for me not having MQA unfolding as Auralic don’t do lossy formats. 
Have you tried and ruled out Qobuz?

 

StingRay

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Doesn’t exist in Portugal and isn’t native to Auralic
Seems a bit odd that it's not in Portugal when you can get it in New Zealand, Ireland and Finland. Qobuz is based in France. 

Not native but you can copy an url over?

 

MartinC

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Doesn’t exist in Portugal and isn’t native to Auralic
That's a shame. Are there any CD quality streaming services that are options?

I only have a choice of Qobuz, Tidal and Spotify on my streamer so I get that there can be restrictions sadly.

 

StingRay

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Qobuz does seem to be on Auralic now, there are some other Auralic videos as well: 


 
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DomT

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Seems a bit odd that it's not in Portugal when you can get it in New Zealand, Ireland and Finland. Qobuz is based in France. 

Not native but you can copy an url over?
Portugal is a poor country and so it makes sense to go to richer countries first. 
 

I have no idea what copy a url means in respect of listening to Qoboz via an Auralic Altair G1.

 

StingRay

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Portugal is a poor country and so it makes sense to go to richer countries first. 
 

I have no idea what copy a url means in respect of listening to Qoboz via an Auralic Altair G1.
The url, is a link, you can copy them over for radio stations such as the BBC, Radio Paradise maybe Qobuz is different as it's  a subscription service. Can you add internet radio stations to your Auralic? I have done it on my Node. But it seems Auralic have added Qobuz anyway. I did see this setup guide: https://hometheaterhifi.com/technical/technical-reviews/setting-up-an-auralic-aries-g1-streamer-and-qobuz-streaming-service-review/

Do you have an ipad or iphone?

 

MartinC

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I'd be very surprised if some sort of VPN wasn't required to stream Qobuz in Portugal.

 

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