After 50 years of listening and owning many different systems IMO the most important variable is the quality of the recording. For the past ten years I have focussed on music that is well recorded and in the process have significantly expanded my tastes there are great recordings in all playback options along with aweful stuff. I listen mostly to vinyl however I will take a well recorded Redbook CD all day long over a poorly recorded LP. After all this hobby is a about enjoying listening to music.
MQA is Legit!
Ok, there is something special about MQA. Here is my theory: MQA=SACD. What do I mean by this? I mean that since there might be the "perception" it sounds better, then there is way more care put into the mastering and the recording. Of course I have Redbook CD's that sound just as good (although they tend to be "HDCD" lol)... Bottom line: a great recording sounds great. I wish more labels and artists put more time into this--it's great to hear a song for the 1000th time and discover something new.
What are your thoughts on MQA and SACD?
What are your thoughts on MQA and SACD?
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One perspective, uniquely my own, is that MQA is very very late to the Audio world. Two things are true now that were not true before 2000: 1 - Network bandwidth is MUCH cheaper. 2 - A lot of DAC's are much better at playing Redbook than they were before, significantly closing the gap between it and high resolution playback. If we were still in that era, MQA would probably seem like a divine gift, and would be better in all respects. Almost 20 years into the 21st century however, MQA seems like a solution for the wrong era. Best, E |
erik_squires I heard it more as a softening of transients and removing of space. I agree with Erik. I more recently have my Bluesound Vault 2 (with HiFi Tidal subscription) connected to an external, non-MQA, DAC. However, prior to that I had been using the MQA compatible internal DAC for some time. I compared quite a few of the same tunes in CD vs MQA quality. Consistently I found that the MQA versions deflated the soundstage. Less air and less space between images. I also found that the dynamics suffered as well. Less "pop" with MQA. The music kinda lost its moxie. Occasionally I preferred the MQA version of a song if the recording was especially hard/harsh. MQA seemed to be more forgiving with these recordings and "smoothed" them out somewhat. However, of course, much of this is dependent upon individual systems. Synergy is king. And also, the sound that one person finds "good" may not be exactly the same as the next listener. I’m a bit disappointed that many posters are using generic terms like "good", "better", "worse", etc. to make their points without being more specific about the actual sonic differences that they are hearing between MQA and other formats.... Happy listening all! |
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