MQA was brought up in the General  forum, and I thought I'd drag that over here, our new Digital forum.  I posted about it last year, but all the info then was simply hype with no substance yet.

This is a great, short version of what I'm hearing about MQA from several vendors. When seen in this light, it doesn't look like it's really going to take off.

http://schiit.com/news/news/why-we-wont-be-supporting-mqa

And Paul McGowan's take on it thus far.

http://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/mqa-thoughts/

I literally just installed the Bridge II last week on my newly acquired Directstream DAC. And on Monday when the latest MQA compatible firmware was released, I updated the bridge to allow truly, unfolded MQA.  I am a happy camper streaming true MQA Tidal directly to my DS DAC via the Mconnect Control app on my iPhone.  

I have to say, when considering the features, convenience, and of course sound quality, with this latest MQA capability, I can't see letting this DS go.  I can even control the volume with my phone which is a great ancillary benefit.

LR, are you referring to the Bridge II or Tidal?  

The only issues I am having with streaming Tidal through the Bridge II, and I would consider them more minor/annoying than anything else, is the Mconnect Control app (third party) used to stream Tidal to the Bridge II.  The usability of the app is fine, there are just a couple glitches that need to be ironed out.  

SQ is great and my setup with the DSD (w/ Bridge II) in place has never been better/simpler. And I love the ability to use my phone with the Control app as a volume control to the DSD.

Before this latest Bridge II firmware update, 3.3.3, I was using Roon to stream Tidal to the DSD.  With the latest firmware, I now stream Tidal via the Mconnect, since it is able to fully unfold MQA, which Room is unable to do until PS Audio releases their next firmware which will bring Roon and full MQA unfolding to DSD via Bridge II.  

Anyway, so far the volume control the the Mconnect app has worked flawlessly.

This update was supposed to also allow fully unfolded MQA through Roon as well, but in the 11th hour, something changed in the Roon SDK that wrenched it.  So, PS Audio decided to go ahead and release the new 3.3.3 firmware anyway allowing full MQA through the Mconnect app with plans for a quick follow up to fix the Roon MQA functionality.

Tidal is great if you know what you want, or your preferences happen to align up well with the in-house designed genres or tastes of the playlist creators.  Otherwise, Tidal via Roon to Bridge II is the way to go.  I have to imagine as Tidal exists longer, the genres will evolve and the playlist content will be a lot better.

That is interesting - pretty much clinches what I was thinking about MQA. The benefit will be in bandwidth...but I recall them saying that it also helps with provenance of the high def track - only the studios with the original master tapes are supposed to be able to make MQA files. Which means we won't run into the debacles like where people were buying expensive HDtracks albums that were nothing but software upconverted CD files.

Wow, 45 pages and climbing.

Well, if Stuart gets his way the PS DSD will have to conform to MQA filtering standards otherwise it won't "authenticate" the files.  It's another reason to not like MQA due to the conformity of the process.  Also, MQA will not process if other factors are involved such as additional DSP and room correction so forget any of that.

IMO there is absolutely no need to cure ringing outside of the human hearing zone nor to compact a file into a lossy format in this day and age where you can stream a 1080p movie from Netfilx without even a flinch.

BTW the Audioquest Dragonfly Black @ $99 can completely render MQA throughout the entire process if you are interested in exploring MQA further.  Perhaps everyone who attends CDAPs can chip in a few bucks towards one ... I'd be interested in knowing your results.

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Netflix is heavily compressed and varies the picture quality constantly, being hugely lossy unless everything is perfect. Probably not the best example.

And I've come to learn that everything matters in sound - so even though the ringing is technically outside human hearing, doesn't mean it isn't heard in other ways.

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And the bridge only partially unfolds.

I gave some Fleetwood Mac a listen via Tidal in Roon to DS via Bridge II last night. It did indeed sound really good. Good enough that I'd have to sit down to a very dedicated listening session with the various copies of the same album and scrutinize. And again, that's only partially unfolded.

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On that we agree - I'm wondering if the lossy compression is some pseudo - DRM, or maybe they just started on this so long ago that lossy made sense then.  

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That sounds right up Palomino's alley. I've already got a Belden cable ABX to do. LOL. But yeah, I agree with you. MQA did sound good, but not sure it sounded "better".  I'm leaning towards "different" right now, till we do a proper scrutinizing - just my cursory listen reminded me of hearing a different remaster of a familiar album.

JRiver will not be supporting MQA (no real shock there as they don't even support Tidal after it being out for a couple years now).  They basically don't support $hit anymore and that's why I've stopped supporting them as well and have given up on buying any new iterations of their software since 2 years ago or so.

Audirvana plays back MQA files, but it's expensive @ $74 ... it also integrates with Tidal and Qobuz.  Of course then we need a DAC with high enough resolution so we can really try to hear the differences.  Michael Lavorgna said the Meridian Explorer was not up to snuff (not capable of the needed resolution to hear anything) and that the Mytek Brooklyn was better (it should be at 11 times the cost for $2195), but that is way too expensive to experiment with IMO +  I'm not a fan of any Sabre chips (they use the 9028) and so I would not even consider buying a Mytek anyways.

It was announced at CES that Roon will eventually be supporting MQA, but no firm dates on when they will implement it.

Of course, unless you have a DAC that will unfold it completely you're not going to get the end product and/or the most out of it ... and the only things cheap enough to experiment with like the AQ Dragonfly and M Explorer are in no way going to best your PS Audio DSD ~ I don't really know what else someone could do to get the full MQA experience other than basing a purchase purely on faith and jumping into a $1000 or more DAC which that aint going to happen for me.

I remembered that 2L recordings has MQA samples for free download - so while not my favorite tracks, I have about a dozen 2L MQA recordings, as well as the matching DSD and PCM files. Roon itself does send the files to the DirectStream via the Bridge II and the display reports them as such (to the highest resolution the Bridge II can muster). So maybe this will be our blind ABX test.

Again, still not fully unfolded.  

I'm thinking about pre-ordering the new Teac NT-505 and putting my NT-503 up for sale, but I am really happy with the 503, so I'm hard pressed to pass it on for what I assume would be equal to or possibly better sounding DAC, just to get Roon and Full unfolding.

So as an experiment ...

I was listening to The Doors' "Riders on the Storm" off the LA Women album last night.  I listened to it as a Tidal Master and I also have it as a hi-res 96/24 file from HDTracks.  As a little kid living in SoCal in the 60's I grew up with the Doors in my household as I had two teenage sisters who were into Jim big time and I have probably heard this song and album 1000's (perhaps even 10's of 1000's) of times.

It's been a while since I really listened to it and if I didn't have a Decware kit I may have not even noticed that when I was listening to it last night Jim's voice is overdubbed in a whisper over his main vocals in the song.  Perhaps I did notice it before, but it was not as pronounced/noticeable like this until I had Decware/Omega kit and 96/24 file from HDTracks as mentioned above.

So after countless plays of this song (unless my memory has gone wonky ) this is really the first time that I felt it was really noticeable was when listening to the HDTrack 96/24 version.  In comparison the MQA version there is barely a noticeable whisper as if the information is missing and someone laid a blanket over it.  

So it peaked my interest and I googled "MQA + Doors Riders on the Storm" and found out that I am not the only person to notice this occurrence as I found it in the comments section of a Stereophile MQA article where someone mentioned that this is caused by a reduction of bit rate and the MQA algorithm removed some parts of the file in order to compensate for file size streaming (similar to how the lossy MP3 removes portions of a file that "it thinks" we don't need).  Well, this became distracting of my enjoyment of the song because I knew that the info was missing from the file.

But before you think this is a total dis on MQA there were some things I liked about the MQA version and that was that it was not "in your face" as much as the hi-res version and seemed slightly smoother in its presentation ... that said I am a details freak and want to hear as much as I can into the recording without it causing listener fatigue.

So yeah the MQA sounded good, but at the cost of resolution and details.  That s not my cup of tea, but to others they may like a smoother presentation so to each his own I guess.

Remember that this is with JRiver, the Tidal app and a DAC that cannot unfold MQA so that me be part of the problem as well.  But I'm still going to try this test with more familiar songs to see of it leads me to the same conclusion that MQA'd file with it's reduced bit depth removes details from a song.

Martindfletcher wrote on 01/27/18 at 04:12:00:


Thanks Martin ... the Doors on 45 is absolutely on my wish list of music purchases!  A SoCal listening tour would be awesome indeed!  Heading to the Qualcomm Brewfest this March and really looking forward to that  ... all the local beer you can drink and food you can eat for $35 (if you buy your tickets far enough in advance) is quite the deal IMO!

That's such a can-o-worms with the Doors track. Just daydreaming about it I see a few variables that can account for the differences.

In no particular order:

IMHO - PCM has a harder leading edge to is caused by that pre/post ringing we hear about. This could accentuate some sounds and/or textures and make some things pop out more than others.  MQA, like DSD, doesn't have that and sounds "softer" or "smoother", which gives the same tracks a slightly different presentation.

MQA Unfolding - As mentioned, it could simply be a result of the unfolding. MQA has two folds - the first can be done in software, which gives you high-rez, but not the full resolution the file was encoded in. To get full unfolding, you need a DAC that supports MQA and everything in the chain needs to be sending those MQA encoded files to the DAC correctly.

MQA Mastering - One of the MQA benefits is we know the provenance of the files since it has to be "Mastered" by the record company after they jump through the hoops MQA requires to be licensed. I've read that when they master the MQA file they could choose different filters during the processing according to the sound they like/want.  This is good because in theory, you know exactly what the file is your getting because it can only come from the record company. Whereas (and you may have read my diatribes in the past about this) with HDTracks and the like you have NO FRIGGEN IDEA where the file comes from or what the source is. HDTracks got called out because they were selling 192/24 files that when spectral analyzed were *exactly* like the CD with 18kHz cutoff and everything...simply upsampled and sold for a huge premium.  When they were cornered on it, they simply shrugged and said "this is what we were given by the record company".


To summarize, it could be the file format, it could be the unfolding, or is could even be the "mastering" and/or source files used.


Speaking of which, one thing that concerns me about MQA, is how do I know the record company went back to the original master tapes (or files if done in the digital era) to process their MQA masters? For all I know, they are just taking existing digital files and running it through a process and sending it back out to us - same stuff, different format with a little bit of filtering baked in. (shrug)

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Gents...  I'm in!  I have two conferences to attend in March, but if I'm in town, then I'm down for this Qualcomm event.  Do you have the date?

Regardless, if it doesn't work for me and you guys are down for a SoCal get together to support our local craft breweries, then just say the word.  

Excellent!  I will be in town that day.  

Thanks for the deets Beowulf.  I am in.  

Martin, are you able to make it that day?

The VIP is nice to get an hour to cruise the fest before the mass mob of people are let loose!  And they generally bring out special brews not available to the general admission folks.  Did you already purchase your ticket Beo?

McIntosh passes on MQA …

"About the only standard digital format the C52 doesn’t support is Master Quality Authenticated (MQA, about which McIntosh’s engineers prefer to take a wait-and-see position, finding the format too lossy, with distortion that doesn’t meet the company’s high standards)."

Found on page 3 of McIntosh C52 Solid-State PreamplifierIntegration, Convenience, and State-Of-The-Art Performance

Yeah, the authentication part was kind of cool, but it comes with a lot of baggage and I don't fall for that pseudo science study on post ringing … I feel it's just another answer to a problem that doesn't exist or even the slightest concern in the first place.

If someone really wants to straighten out music the real culprits and the loudness compression wars and fricking millennial whoop that is pretty much prevalent everywhere in modern pop … I mean even bands that I like such as Muse and Kings of Leon have started doing that stupid whoop.

I'm glad you're liking Roon...I enjoyed the ease of use so much I bought a lifetime license.

They are releasing a new version this week I think.

This is some profound information about MQA that I found suggesting it's bullcrap.

https://youtu.be/pRjsu9-Vznc