And yet VHS became the main thing and Video 2000 was gone.
Comparison to DSD and MQA may technologically be correct, but in my experience from a cost point of view DSD tops everything.
It is probably undisputed that the DS DAC, Mola Mola Tambaqui, Esoteric FPGA DACs playing DSD files generally sound better than MQA.
But we are talking DAC stand alone equipment from US$ 6000 upwards. I tried to get into this DSD world with the Stellar Gain Cell DAC felt that I got fried by the fact that a DSD source for its I2S input is simply not available in the Stellar price category.
Now EUR 2000 is a lot of money, but it is not enough. Paul Mc Gowan talks about Octave Music, while the couple of albums there are pieces of art in many perspective, there are no DSD streamers available to stream DSD to a DAC. PS Audio may or may not have those in the pipeline, but even in the US$ 6000 + Perfect Wave Category there is no player available. And when we as Stellar customer begged for a Stellar price category DSD / Octave streamer as the response was rather mixed, but the general tone set was, that like it seems to be impossible to produce a SACD transport in that price category it is also likely not going to happen with Octave streamers.
Now MQA availability for consumers is of a scale comparable to VHS vs. Video2000 but the bricking of MQA is for consumers even more attractive.
Just about every brand that utilizes of the shelf DAC chips offers MQA with it. That are a huge amount of brands in a very brought and much more adorable price category. At least MQA has a better availability as Octave. Where DSD is very much limited to unknown (yet extremely good) artists MQA is a transport file format for any kind of music including much more popular artists.
Now nearly 2 years after I have invested in the SGCD, my 30 years old Technics CD player still plays pleasant sound quality, the 40 years old Thorens is still playing my vinyl while “audiophiles” are complaining that the USB and Ethernet inputs of their US$ 6000 equipment is still not good enough and that you need additional boxes like Matrix, “audiophile” switches and not to forget external clicking devices and linear pier supplies and sinfully expensive cables.
You can not blame the brought audience to not set aside or even have such budgets.
Get real:
The beating and bitching against a affordable file format and broadly available equipment that a brought audience has proudly been able (hard working) to afford feels for that audience as a kick in their face. It is absolutely counter productive to new people wanting to get started with audio equipment and you scare them away.
But hang on:
The brought audience knows what affordable MQA certified streamers (native MQA) and DACS to buy and where to find MQA high definition (yes it’s lossy) music. Please show us Octave streamers, or affordable streamers of other brands that stream native DSD! Please let me know from where I can stream the Dire Straits or Pink Floyd in DSD format!
And every CD player with digital output like my 30 years old Technics can play (extract) native MQA from MQA CD’s that is natively converted by affordable (not cheap) and very good sounding DAC’s like my NAD C658 streamer-DAC.
