Then what is the point of MQA? I am sorry, I must be missing something.
If MQA sounds worse than CDs on 90% of the products playing it back, what, exactly, is the point?
Problem for me is I actually listen to Tidal - and once their library goes MQA I just got handed a smelly deal. $20 extra a month for something less than CD quality?
Ouch.
Paul, you should be able to do a partial unfold which does improve over, Tidal's non Masters. I doubt you use Tidal for serious listening, so it will still be good for background or auditioning. And it sounds like you are going to offer MQA with the Bridge II upgrade. I'm not sure where you got that 90%. Oh, I reread your post. The first unfold is software based, so it will be available to many, depending on the player they use.
Tidal Masters sound pretty good, I find their other offerings, played back using their desktop player, don’t sound as good as a CD played back using my PWT.
I find it easier to enjoy music on Tidal that I have no reference of comparison.
Good question Jeff. The 90% figure I pulled out was just a WAG. I am trying to think of how many DACs offer full MQA unfolding and I can’t think of many. I know the littler Audioquest Dragonfly for $200 does - but then, it’s not a serious DAC. Of anything serious, there’s only a handful - so that’s where the 90% came from.
An increasing number of software solutions for the first unfolding are appearing, and looks like we may be among them too. But that’s not what I was referring to.
Paul - dunno if you’re planning on releasing the MQA capability as part of the next Mountaintop from Ted (or if they’re entirely separate things), but if they could be separate, that would be good. Wouldn’t want to have to try and sort out one from the other.
If we do add MQA (still uncertain) that will be a Bridge update. The next mountain top (proposed, Huron) includes the little bits needed to make that work. But, it will really be more about all the fine work Ted has put into this new firmware for sound quality. The few housekeeping advances, bug fixes, and MQA enabling will be secondary.
I really do love the way this discussion is proceeding. I’ve been looking for a positive/constructive angle through which to view at least part of MQA, and some of you are making strong arguments in the opposite direction.
The positive story for MQA seems to be getting squeezed into a very narrow space…
IF they really do have something worthwhile to bring in terms of A-to-D filter correction,
AND IF the lossiness of their origami doesn’t detract too much from the quality of unfolded content,
AND IF sufficient unfolding support is made widely available at zero or low cost,
AND IF the market continues to fully support standard lossless high res PCM for those who prefer it
THEN MQA might be bringing a subjective audio quality improvement to the world with minimal downsides. There may be additional upsides for those (like me and billions of others) who suffer from constrained Internet bandwidth. (Actually I can’t reliably stream Tidal Masters today – that increase in bit rate is enough to saturate my link, but that’s beside the main point.)
As for MQA unfolding in the Bridge… I take something I wrote earlier. It’s enough that a future version of Roon will do the first level unfolding, whether of local files or Tidal streams. It shouldn’t make any difference to whether or not I buy a Bridge.
As long as you’re cool with running Roon on your computer and connecting with USB, then once Roon launches their first unfolding for MQA there shouldn’t be much difference. There are those, me among them, that think the Bridge sounds better than USB - but that’s another matter and the differences are subtle.
After reading this thread, I finally decided to give Tidal MQA a listen. Granted, I don’t think I was comparing apples to apples:
MQA (Masters) listening was done with headphones connected directly to laptop running the Tidal desktop app
My comparison was the high res download played from Roon->BrystonBDP->DS->BHK pre headphone out
I listened first to 2L compilation - Mozart violin concerto, and to Duke Ellington’s Afro Bossa - Purple Gazelle.
Out of the laptop, the 2L recording had a fuller sound – reminded me a bit of the electronic sound enhancers popular a while back. On first blush I might have said MQA was better… BUT when I played the Ellington, the sound was distorted, with a distinctive and annoying bass boost that I found unlistenable.
My next experiment will be to usb-connect the laptop to the DS, and see if the MQA sound improves.
…
The USB-connected laptop (through a LANRover) still has the “enhanced” sound effect, but the effect is a bit diminished. Is this enhanced sound an effect of the partially decoded MQA file? Does the end-to-end MQA sound more neutral?
Good question Jeff. The 90% figure I pulled out was just a WAG. I am trying to think of how many DACs offer full MQA unfolding and I can’t think of many. I know the littler Audioquest Dragonfly for $200 does - but then, it’s not a serious DAC. Of anything serious, there’s only a handful - so that’s where the 90% came from.
An increasing number of software solutions for the first unfolding are appearing, and looks like we may be among them too. But that’s not what I was referring to.
Just a note – I picked up a Dragonfly Red for kicks – the firmware update to bring MQA to the Firefly is ‘coming soon’ but hasn’t been released yet.
'The software update will be available to download for free via the Desktop Manager app on our website: http://www.audioquest.com/dragonfly-series/#downloads. The MQA update will not be launched until Tidal has a resolution for their buffering issue. People simply aren’t buying hi res MQA files, they’re streaming them. With so little material to choose from, this delay should not cause any issues. We want to be a good partner to Tidal and not put any additional pressure on them. As soon as they’re ready, we’ll make the update available.
If you registered your Dragonfly, you will receive an email when it’s available.’
Elk, on the track, a very high powered RWD vehicle without traction control in the wrong hands is just an expensive mistake…but with the traction/stability control enabled, you can have newbies driving McLaren’s like their Andretti (in fact, most tracks make a nice business out of the ‘drive an exotic’ model).
Any car, anywhere, in the wrong hands is an expensive mistake. And it is a common misnomer that traction and stability control makes a good driver. Many students make this mistake on the track and crash. Leave the nannies on. If your driving invokes them, you are screwing up.
These features, like ABS, can help in an emergency but that is it. Unfortunately, they are advertised as taking over for an inattentive/stupid driver - automated braking, lane change avoidance, stability control, etc. does not a good driver make. I have a Z06. The wrong driver will crash driving the car just as quickly with the nannies on - probably faster as he thinks he can rely on them. Any powerful car will bite you quick.
Okay, back to audio; I like the analogy of digital photography. ... Today, The 5D Mark IV is way more effective than film....not even close across the board.....in fact, is there even a working photo professional (outside of artsie traditionalists) using film?
Is digital truly objectively superior, or simply so much cheaper, and easier to take and manipulate that it enjoys acceptance? For the consumer and the typical enthusiast, digital is so much easier that it dominated quickly. I do not know photography well enough to judge whether at the pinnacle film or digital is objetively better.
MQA is just another step. It's not the final step. SACD was better than CD, but ultimately, streaming is better than both (in terms of convenience and cost).
Which is precisely the issue. MQA may well be better for streaming if bandwidth is limited. But it is being marketed as always objectively better. It is this second claim many of us question.
So can anyone say that they use tidal for serious listening? If not … I mean then doesn’t that defeat the purpose other than bandwidth ?
Here is the frustrating part. Many of us have been thru the format wars of years past and were frustrated by them. we now have a DAC that will play these lossless hires formats and here comes MQA. It seriously feels like snake oil. I’m sorry…‘unfolding…origami…’ … forced compliance … with the promise of ‘these bits don’t matter …don’t worry about them’ … what? For a compromised media source like tidal? We saw all these promises with other formats - oh the big labels are signing up … I’m sorry.
So can anyone say that they use tidal for serious listening? If not … I mean then doesn’t that defeat the purpose other than bandwidth ?
Here is the frustrating part. Many of us have been thru the format wars of years past and were frustrated by them. we now have a DAC that will play these lossless hires formats and here comes MQA. It seriously feels like snake oil. I’m sorry…‘unfolding…origami…’ … forced compliance … with the promise of ‘these bits don’t matter …don’t worry about them’ … what? For a compromised media source like tidal? We saw all these promises with other formats - oh the big labels are signing up … I’m sorry.
But is this a "format war"? Where is the evidence that MQA will replace high-resolution PCM-based and DSD downloads? I think people are forgetting that all of this is on the internet. There's practically no physical media being manufacturers for digital music anymore and those that are have next to zero influence on where the market will head to over the next few years. The only influencing digital formats are downloadable and stream-able. This makes for a completely different "war" and in my opinion, a war that doesn't need to happen. A physical format war necessitates one clear winner. That's because companies want only to manufacture and base their hardware products around one type of standardized hardware. It's not economical to design and manufacture hardware for more than one format. But everything we're talking about is essentially in the software domain. The hardware aspect of this is kind of trivial because digital audio formats are easily decoded and rendered which means you don't need a processing solution with high IPC capabilities. Decoding and rendering can be done cheaply and most definitely on legacy hardware if need be. My point here is that a war isn't necessary because the hardware marketplace doesn't need to change, like it was needed in the past, which means the market can bear more than one audio format. We can have our cake and eat it too. We can have both a convenient streaming service ala Tidal, which offers better than CD quality AND high resolution downloads for the ultimate in lossless audio quality. I don't really see where all of this hesitation and fear is coming from?
To answer your first question; yes. Plenty of people use Tidal for serious listening. It allows for at least CD quality. Comparatively speaking, there are far fewer high resolution downloadable albums versus CD releases. That means that Tidal’s 25+ million song catalog (and 3000+ current MQA album catalog) greatly out numbers the number of high resolution album downloads. As we know from experience, the Directstream DAC does a marvelous job with Redbook source quality music. Also factor in that Tidal supports an exclusive audio output mode that is bit-perfect on most operation system versions, there’s no reason not to think it can’t match the audio quality you get from a Redbook CD played through a reference CD player or transport.
I heartily agree with Seegs108 in comments about lack of a need for war and a winner that it implies. I subscribed to Tidal early on and it has changed my music consumption - I rarely buy music but use Tidal as I would a CD or download etc. I stopped worrying about comparisons between Tidal and the same CD because I could not find a meaningful difference) - so yes I listen to Tidal “seriously” e.g. concentrating on only the music with my eyes closed. Roon + Bridge 2 works great and I would never want to go back. If we can add MQA, even better.
From the front lines of the (probably) last great format war:
LOL Tim… from the ‘other Tim’ … I’ll see if I can fix that.- change my name to my login (timm) …
I guess my point was - if you need to have special stuff decoding/encoding to make the magic work… it is indeed a new format… If designers have to create new code etc… to make it work… it is a new format… If a special light comes on saying - it is ‘on’ - it is a new format.The fact that it works in a lesser state - just makes it backwards compatible with the existing format… So - in my opinion - it is a new format…
Now - my intent was to not say that this was a ‘war’ per se… but it reminded me of the flip flopping of us - the consumer - buy dvd a … buy sacd… reminds me of Men in Black … ‘Guess I’ll have to buy another copy of the White Album’… but first I must get out my special MQA decoder ring so I get all of the special benefits…
LOL Tim… from the ‘other Tim’ … I’ll see if I can fix that.- change my name to my login (timm) …
I guess my point was - if you need to have special stuff decoding/encoding to make the magic work… it is indeed a new format… If designers have to create new code etc… to make it work… it is a new format… If a special light comes on saying - it is ‘on’ - it is a new format.The fact that it works in a lesser state - just makes it backwards compatible with the existing format… So - in my opinion - it is a new format…
Now - my intent was to not say that this was a ‘war’ per se… but it reminded me of the flip flopping of us - the consumer - buy dvd a … buy sacd… reminds me of Men in Black … ‘Guess I’ll have to buy another copy of the White Album’… but first I must get out my special MQA decoder ring so I get all of the special benefits…
It is indeed a new format, but not a physical one. That means that there doesn't have to be any specification specific hardware manufacturers need to implement to support the format. MQA can have hardware based decoding/unfolding, but as we've seen with Tidal, there's also a way to do it in software. This distinction is important because it means that you don't need to make (or buy) new hardware to support MQA. This is the beauty in software-based audio decoding. There doesn't need to be a war because there's no new hardware format that needs to be chosen by manufacturers. It can simply be retroactively supported as long as the hardware has enough processing power to do all the necessary functions. Just look at the proposed Bridge II update to support MQA. That is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
This is wholly different than VHS/Betamax and blu-ray/hd-dvd, ect which necessitated completely different hardware to be used. Manufacturers don’t need to chose MQA or high-res lossless downloads because the same hardware can used to support both formats. This is why I don’t think there’s going to be a war.
I believe we’re irrelevant, we being the audiophile community. We need to face it, we’re a bunch of dinosaurs on the fringe that the record labels only bother with because they already have the masters in HIRES format and if they can make a few extra bucks selling to us they’ll oblige.
But when it comes to the masses who have been listening to MP3 on their iPhones with their freebie iBuds stuffed in their ears or their mass marketed Beats headphones, the record companies are all ears. It’s a HUGE market - unlike us. The comparison here is not MQA verses HIRES PCM or DSD, but it is MP3. If the masses can be convinced to pay a few extra bucks a month to stream MQA instead of MP3, then it is a home run for the record industry. And it will only take a quick listen (even with their crappy ear buds) to hear a significant difference over MP3. It is possible these people can be convinced to spend a little money to take a step beyond MP3.
But when you listen to the numerous forum debates on audiophile sites, there is no debate in that there is tremendous debate which is better. Which tells me it is pretty darn subtle, unlike the MQA vs MP3 debate - there is none.
MQA has a real good chance to make it purely because it is a serious upgrade over MP3, enough so that it can move the needle in the non-audiophile market. And because there will always be this small group of dinosaurs roaming the music world to which the labels can still sell their hires formats to for $20 per title, we’ll survive this.
I think most of the kids have moved on from MP3 to streaming services such as Spotify, Tidal (non-HiFi), Soundcloud, YouTube Red ect. All of which use lossy encoders far superior to MP3. They all use Ogg Vorbis or AAC which offer huge improvements to compression at similar bit-rates compared to MP3. They’re simply much more efficient and I’d say the comparison to MQA on relatively cheap headphones and speakers (especially when a low quality DAC or DAC implementation is used) might actually surprise you. I’d wager a large bet that most people would claim to hear no difference. I would cite specifically the Pono Player here. It is a high resolution mobile player and it got “terrible” reviews simply because most people, using relatively bad headphones and/or other equipment with it, could not discern much of a difference between it and the services I just listed. And that was with lossless high resolution files. How do you think MQA will be reviewed, which as we know, isn’t up to the objective caliber of lossless high resolution downloaded files. If you’re interested in some of these comparative reviews from mostly well known publications, all you have to do is google search “Pono player review” and I’m sure you’ll see a ton of them.
I think it really takes “good” equipment to hear a noticeable difference between these more modern lossy encoded music formats to their lossless high resolution counterpart.
