MQA 3rd unfolding
Mar 14, 2023 at 3:16 AM Post #31 of 91
It isn't the same as a Flac. It's lossy.
 
Mar 14, 2023 at 4:20 AM Post #33 of 91
Lossless means that when a compressed file unpacks, it is exactly the same as it was before it was compressed.
Lossy means that when a compressed file unpacks, it may sound as good to human ears, but some information was altered.

MQA is not lossless. It attempts to shift super audible frequencies down into the audible range to allow the file to compress down small enough to stream. On playback it decodes those frequencies and puts them back in the super audible range, but the byproduct of that is added noise.

Essentially MQA reduces fidelity to preserve frequencies we can't even hear. It sounds OK I guess, but it isn't any better than a regular old CD to human ears, in fact, it's a little worse when it comes to noise. And lossy codecs like AAC and MP3 at high data rates will sound just as good as anything.
 
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Mar 14, 2023 at 5:00 AM Post #34 of 91
bigshot said:
Lossless means that when a compressed file unpacks, it is exactly the same as it was before it was compressed.
Lossy means that when a compressed file unpacks, it may sound as good to human ears, but some information was altered.

MQA is not lossless. It attempts to shift super audible frequencies down into the audible range to allow the file to compress down small enough to stream. On playback it decodes those frequencies and puts them back in the super audible range, but the byproduct of that is added noise.

Essentially MQA reduces fidelity to preserve frequencies we can't even hear. It sounds OK I guess, but it isn't any better than a regular old CD to human ears, in fact, it's a little worse when it comes to noise. And lossy codecs like AAC and MP3 at high data rates will sound just as good as anything.
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ok helped. here.thanks. but tidal not unfolding me first time mqa. im listen music with my dac mqa renderer only 8x. how activate tidal to unfold 2x first time?
 
Mar 14, 2023 at 5:49 AM Post #35 of 91
bigshot said:
It isn't the same as a Flac. It's lossy.
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People with low literacy skills may struggle interpreting this. A better way to say the same thing without confusion would be:

"MQA isn't the same as a FLAC. MQA is lossy while FLAC is lossless."
 
Mar 14, 2023 at 6:07 AM Post #36 of 91
bigshot said:
MQA is reduced fidelity, even compared to CD quality sound.
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Yes. It is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist in order to sell snake oil to gullible audiophools.

bigshot said:
There's another thread where a guy did some testing and found that the process introduces noise.
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Of course the process introduces noise/distortion, because the whole idea of encoding inaudible ultrasonic frequencies together with audible frequencies is crazy. NTSC and PAL television standards (remember the old times?) mixed modulated colour information with the high frequency black and white picture information that caused colour-modulated interferences to the picture, but the trickery was at least well justified, because adding colour to the tv picture was a big deal and the method had to be backward compatible for those watching colour transmissions on B&W television sets.
 
Mar 14, 2023 at 2:14 PM Post #38 of 91
You don't really need MQA at all. Just use the regular Tidal streaming format.
 
Mar 14, 2023 at 3:41 PM Post #40 of 91
It has nothing to do with the quality of the headphones. MQA as a format offers nothing that improves sound that humans can hear, and all it does is add noise from error in unpacking the inaudible sound it compresses.

Frequencies above 20kHz are inaudible and add nothing to how good music sounds. The quality of sound depends on the mastering, not the digital format. The primary purpose of MQA is to create a proprietary format so they can charge you more for it.
 
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Mar 15, 2023 at 3:40 AM Post #41 of 91
bigshot said:
It has nothing to do with the quality of the headphones. MQA as a format offers nothing that improves sound that humans can hear, and all it does is add noise from error in unpacking the inaudible sound it compresses.

Frequencies above 20kHz are inaudible and add nothing to how good music sounds. The quality of sound depends on the mastering, not the digital format. The primary purpose of MQA is to create a proprietary format so they can charge you more for it.
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regular Tidal streaming is 24bit/44.1khz master MQA has 24/96khz.
 
Mar 15, 2023 at 3:59 AM Post #42 of 91
16/44.1 is perfect sound for human ears. See the link in my sig called CD Sound Is All You Need.

MQA isn't an improvement over 16/44.1.
 
Mar 15, 2023 at 10:00 AM Post #44 of 91
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