How Is MQA Fareing?

It's true I do not have the technical expertise to bring to the the table but with 40 years earning my living as a performing musician and the last 20 endlessly experimenting with various combinations of high end audiophile equipment, my opinion more than counts, it supercedes. 

Whether MQA 'sounds' better or not will always be a matter of opinion highly reliant on your own equipment and personal mixing preferences for the last particular track you heard. If that kind of jumbled mess is the criteria for progress, you've got me beat. 

note: My audiophile friends mostly agree but there is one hold out - the non musician. 

Love MQA through my ARC system and Blusound Vault 2... When I can find music that I want to listen to...
I Don't like the concept of "renting" music though and find the Tidal music channel appears to be pushing lots of its own musical genre that I don't find interesting. That said, when I dig in and search for music that is to my liking it often is not in the MQA format which makes the $20 monthly fee questionable.  I do feel MQA is an entertaining high quality musical source with audible pleasantries to be sure.  Some recordings sound more intimate and come alive in MQA... I do find myself wishing that there were some quality alternatives to Tidal as a distribution channel.

Bottom line though is regardless of how good it sounds (or potentially can sound given the original master), MQA is a "lossy compression". For those such as myself who primarily listen to bands - such as but not limited to the Grateful Dead - whose live recordings are readily available in "lossless" compression formats such as flac or shn, why would I ever want to stream MQA when I can just download the lossless files and play those?

Meh. I agree. If I own lossless hi-res, I have zero need for MQA. I have Tidal but find I rarely use it. Comparing a hi-res track to its MQA equivalent (like the Warner releases) is something to check out, since most likely the mastering is the same. MQA sounds OK but something is slightly off about it compared to the lossless file. 

I agree with Linn only that the technology should not be a locked-in proprietary format. And to be honest, all of the audiophile press gushing positive about this is somewhat suspect. End users are more split in their opinions. Some see it as a money grab since DVD-Audio sank (some discs used MLP--Meridian Lossless Packing--to shrink the size of the data).

And think about it. Anytime Meridian is asked how it works, they either dodge the question or launch into technobabble. They hide "lossy" under the word "unfolding." Their argument for their brand of lossy is that they are throwing away data for sounds we aren't able to hear. This is EXACTLY what Sony said about their failed ATRAC compression (used for MiniDisc), and I believe even lowly MP3 was also described as such. 

I do think there is a use for a compacted data version of hi-res for streaming, but it needs to be "open." And given Tidal's uncertain future (they are in poor shape financially), another streaming service would be needed to deliver it. And there aren't enough audiophiles to support one at an affordable cost, sadly.

BTW, I think Tidal is a bargain. Think about it. Even without MQA, for the cost of a new CD or two each month, we get access to a lot of lossless CD-quality music. Great way to sample something before buying, or provide music for guests. Owning a $10k+ system and complaining about $20/month seems a bit silly, no?

I did  A , B    Tidal Hifi with MQA  Aurender I won't make any changes.  I really notice my CDP up against Tidal
Hifi. CDP blows it away 
 But the convince edges 
Tidal in first place