When Tidal first started streaming MQA, I must say, I was “smitten”. I liked what I heard so much that I purchased a Mytek Brooklyn DAC just for MQA.
Now that more MQA is available on Tidal, I must say, it’s a “mixed bag”. Some of the MQA titles have been remastered well and (to me), do sound better than the original CD quality versions…but certainly not “all”. In some cases, when I have the same title on CD or SACD, those versions sound appreciably better than the MQA versions.
Next I treated myself to a DirectStream memory player and paired it with my DirectStream DAC and since then I’d say that most of the CDs and SACDs I play using that pair DO sound more natural (to me) than the MQA versions. Some of the MQA masters seem to have things like the bass or upper midrange accentuated in a way that (to me) just sounds un-natural.
I’d say the best sounding digital I’ve ever heard are the SACDs played on that DirectStream pair with the I2S interface. Having said that, I do find some of the MQA masters to be well done, but not “most” and certainly not “all”.
I wonder if those “accentuated” or “dull” sounding MQA masters have been done with some sort of algorithm? When I got me DirectStream memory player, one of the SACDs I bought was the Steely Dan “Aja” album. The SACD version I own sounds WORSE than the CD version I own, significantly worse. One of my buddies thought it was probably not “remastered” in DSD, but rather that it was run thru some sort of “up convert” algorithm and placed on the SACD.
I was in the same boat, I bought a Mytek Brooklyn for the MQA capability last year. On the early recordings that were MQA releases, I liked what I heard. Lately with the DSD the same recorded music sounds exaggerated in the upper range and is almost harsh. My system is is very resolving. Whether through Utopia headphones and Woo WA5-LE or through the BHK 300’s and KEF reference speakers it verges on unpleasant. I’m not loving this and I hope that it doesn’t become a default standard until the exaggerated response is addressed.
So I haven’t been paying attention to MQA after switching to Qobuz but, using the TIDAL app on a friend’s laptop, I was surprised how little orchestral music from major labels is available in MQA. Also, so many new releases don’t seem to be MQA as well.
A few years ago, we heard announcements about how vast the offering would be but it’s still not vast.
If you are interested in a raw list of MQA albums on TIDAL. It is a csv file so can be downloaded and manipulated in excel or numbers. It seems to be updated regularly. Sorry if it has been posted before: http://www.meridianunplugged.com/downloads/MQA_List.csv
@frank7036 - Thanks, very good article and the Linn article was good; the forum digested that when it first came out. They are right: a solution in search of a problem. I surely don’t want to invest heavily and find out MQA went by the wayside. Look at SACDs. I like hi res, DSD, and all the other lossless formats. We seem to have done fine up till now… we live in interesting times…
An interesting footnote for you, a year and a half later…
At AXPONA 2019, I did not see mqa mentioned much, if at all, beyond the occasional placard in just a small number of rooms. Tidal, likewise, seemed to manage only a banner strung across a balcony, and while I didn’t specifically look, I did not see them in the Marketplace. Now, this could have been partly due to my not visiting all of the rooms (which would have been impossible), but there certainly was no buzz about it anywhere I visited. Apparently the mqa crew were doing some sort of Master Class Theater presentation under the dubious moniker “Achieving Authentic Studio Quality Sound.” Beyond that, Meridian and mqa weren’t even shown in the exhibitor list for 2019. If they were so confident, they would have been pimping their products and processes heavily.
Qobuz, on the other hand, was the star of the show–many rooms had a Qobuz placard, they had a table in the Marketplace, and David Solomon was working the rooms with his “flash DJ” sessions, one of which I attended.
I kind of want to say mqa is dead. I know it isn’t but, honestly, I can’t think of anyone in my personal sphere of friends/audiophiles who mention it or use it all that often, if at all, and the lack of a “buzz” at AXPONA makes me think it’s already on the way out. It’d be interesting to hear from others who attend audio shows throughout the rest of 2019 and see what kind of presence mqa has.
MQA is actually all over the place in the TIDAL offering and more titles (new tunes and remastering of old ones) are made available at an impressive rate. I believe the discussion on whether MQA is better or worse than DSD (as Paul was alluding to before) is pointless. MQA is way better than CD and way more available and way cheaper to obtain than DSD (Have you looked at prices of SACD lately?). This makes it a market winner and relegates the debate on what is better to a bar discussion over a beer, for guys left out from discussion ladies general outlook
FWIW - I didn’t get a chance to comb thru the entire show during set-up volunteer duties at RMAF, but I saw a lot of presence for Qobuz. MQA and Tidal look to be MIA, as far as I could tell . .
I subscribe to both services, and I see that if there’s a HI-RES version in Qobuz, there will be a HI-RES version in Tidal – and the Tidal version will have MQA encoding (obviously).
I honestly cannot hear the difference between a 24/192 Qobuz file and a 24/192 Tidal file.
In Roon, I’m trying to “ignore” the MQA encoding, but not sure it’s really doing anything different to the output.
Watch the levels. It’s been reported that MQA (through TIDAL) is, depending on the recording, between 6 & 12db SPL higher when switching input from CD to streaming on the same track, on units that do both CD & streaming. Louder almost always sounds better.
When Tidal first started streaming MQA, I bought one of those Meridian Explorer2 DAC’s and was impressed with the first few titles I heard, remastered on MQA.
I later snagged a Mytek Brooklyn DAC (mostly because I needed more “umph” to drive my headphones, MQA was a “bonus”) and continued to enjoy the MQA mastered tunes on Tidal.
Fast forward to a few months ago, when I purchased a Roon Nucleus Plus server. When I compare those MQA masters, they definitely sound louder and the bass on many if not most tunes sound “accentuated”. Since I had both Tidal and Qobuz accounts on the Roon machine, one weekend I did a lot of comparison, “regular” 44.1/16 FLAC files from both Tidal and Qobuz, and I’m not sure why, as the signal is coming from the same source, same port on the server, same cable, into my DirectStream DAC, but much of the time the clarity and soundstage seems just a tad bit better, streaming from Qobuz. It’s not a “night and day” difference, but it’s definitely noticeable, especially for some of my favorite classical recordings.
So, call me “Swiss” on the MQA vs. regular PCM argument. If I had to chose, I’d say “regular” PCM. Both sound so good, I’m not a customer for vinyl!
@ejr1953 - I have N+ w/ Matrix into DSD (I2R) and I love the Qobuz sound. I never liked MQA (thin) from the jump. I am so fortunate Tidal double billed me a few months and wife ripped that service out and I went Qobuz Sublime… Love Qobuz now… however, caught them trying to steal money from my Paypal account so next year, may be looking at another alternative to both… see how it plays out… no TIDAL for me… probably stay Qobuz… so, never Swiss, never like MQA from the second I heard it…
