castleofargh
Sound Science Forum Moderator
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as the top bits are basic PCM, you can of course read those with any typical DAC, and operate on the file like on any other wave file, including encoding it to flac. but you have to consider that used in such a way, all the lower bits of the file are read as non dithered noise. you end up with lower resolution in a bigger file. so what you say is true, but it's really a last resort choice to use MQA as if it's only PCM....I also personally like the fact that MQA files can be played everywhere that supports FLAC, so it isn't as if you are locked in to a format and can't play it on most devices (Remember Sony ATRAC?) ...
also if playing the file that way does sound great, it suggests that the difference in sound, if any, doesn't come from several steps of MQA(extended sample rate, dither, special low pass). and lean more toward pure mastering differences which never required a special format in the first place.
so it would be pretty significant to be able to clearly tell what makes a file sound good or not in the MQA library.
agreed ^_^But itunes charges per track, and a high price. So far MQA is no cost on per track on Tidal. Why defend Apple and attack MQA?