I do not have a problem with MQA and think it sounds pretty good to me.
MQA.... Scam or not?
- Thread starter pjones5
- Start date
Cannot believe there was no mention of the deleterious or enhancing effects of custom, expensive vs. inexpensive DAC/headphone cables for listening to MQA. Sorry, I am new and interested in every variable......even the inane....
Did you register here just to troll?
Last edited:
Actually no. Attempt at humor as I thought this was a little overdone. MQA, I do not care for it nor do I care for Cheerios. I assume false marketing claims in every product. Purity is impossible so why the passion to convince others? The discussion becomes circular. Most germane comments were summarized by buke9: "I do not have a problem with MQA and think it sounds pretty good to me." Enough said.
GREQ
Headphoneus Supremus
Ad hominem much?
I'm pretty sure he's just referring to the ridiculously overpriced 'DAC' cable adaptors that supposedly convert whatever audio you're listening to, into the MQA format before reaching your ears.
A perfectly legitimate nod to another scam that's just jumping on the MQA bandwagon for quick profit, although I think it doesn't necessarily belong in this thread as it has nothing to do with the original MQA creators.
It might as well be a dongle that converts FLAC to MP3.
Qualitas
Head-Fier
Can you elaborate on this? This is something I've always wondered about. I only subscribe to the lower "hifi" tier (not "hifi plus"). If I play an album marked "master" or "MQA" then aren't I served a lossless 16/44.1 file instead? Or are you saying that in fact I'm served something different that is neither 16/44.1 nor MQA, but instead a file that has been altered in some way from whatever higher resolution version lives on the Tidal servers?
While I really don't wish to get dragged into the contentious and seemingly never ending debate about MQA, I do think there is an important point that is often left out of the discussion, including this thread. And that is the issue of licensing. Independent of whether MQA sounds better or worse, or whether it's actually lossless as claimed, it has now been well established that MQA is essentially a DRM / licensing scheme. Note that I said "scheme" and not "scam", although I do personally believe it is a scam. MQA generates revenue via licensing fees or royalties that are paid to MQA per stream. It's essentially a way to siphon off revenue generated by music that MQA does not own (the artists and/or record labels do). This is one reason why streaming tiers that include access to MQA tracks cost more. And why I personally refuse to pay for them.
Now, if in fact MQA is making claims about audio quality that are untrue (they are, but again this is not worth debating; you can research, listen, and decide for yourself). And if their business model involves restricting access to, and generating fees from content that is otherwise available elsewhere for less money and at a higher quality....
MQA was created to solve a problem (transmit high quality audio over low bandwidth) which was already solved by the time it came to market. Off course a lot of investments and partnerships were built around this so they had to get some return on that investment and pushed it onto the market as the next great thing.
Without going in detail about what MQA does, if you just look at the end result, I'm getting as good or better SQ from Qobuz. So what is MQA bringing then except latency in decoding the MQA, extra requirements on hardware and more complex setups with first and second unfold. I don't want to give a dollar to every guy who 'thinks' he's doing MQA but in reality is stuck on MQB or even not that...
Without going in detail about what MQA does, if you just look at the end result, I'm getting as good or better SQ from Qobuz. So what is MQA bringing then except latency in decoding the MQA, extra requirements on hardware and more complex setups with first and second unfold. I don't want to give a dollar to every guy who 'thinks' he's doing MQA but in reality is stuck on MQB or even not that...
gimmeheadroom
Headphoneus Supremus
It is lossy, but it can also be high res. So it's something we haven't seen before. But psychoacoustic codecs are not new, for example Sony's ATRAC sounds better than it should.
Tidal Hifi Plus here is cheap, Qobuz is not available. I have MQA hardware and I enjoy Tidal.
Last edited:
GREQ
Headphoneus Supremus
I don't have a problem with high res lossy codecs, I'm perfectly happy to enjoy 320kbps MP3s when there is no alternative ...
... what pisses me off is their bogus marketing claims, which are as follows:
"MQA unlocks every detail of the original master recording."
It does nothing of the sort.
You actually get LESS than the original master recording.
If they just marketed it correctly, it wouldn't be a scam, but they are deliberatley and knowingly misleading people.
When Beats claimed that their headphones let you "hear every detail, the way the artist intended you to hear it", everyone here was laughing their asses off and calling them out on it ... why should that be any different for a piece of software technology?
This thread isn't about whether someone enjoys MQA or not, since there are also people who enjoy Beats and MP3 files.
It's about dishonesty.
Scam.
Different master.
That's all.
Here is an album that sounds better to me - this is of course a subjective statement! - sounds better in MQA than in FLAC.
Why that is, I don't know, but as already written above, I don't care.
Different master.
That's all.
gimmeheadroom
Headphoneus Supremus
I agree, this was really not handled in a transparent (haha) manner. It's hard to understand who needs compression in 2020. If they would just tell it like it is and not turn it into magic sauce I think it would have helped a lot.
It's hard to know what the intention is. Marketing has always been stretching the truth beyond acceptable limits. But I don't think it goes to the level of scam.
So here is a notable difference. Laughing about it is not the same as vitriol, self-righteous indignation, activism, etc. People should buy what they want and spend less time advocating against what they don't like. There, I just did it
I think when it comes to steak or beer, it's steak or it's not and it's beer or it's not. When it comes to music services, people are not buying bits. They're renting the app, the user experience, and the music. If the music sounds good, they met their obligations. If not, you get your money back. I just don't see this as the end of the world. There are plenty of wrong and evil things in the world. MQA is not near the top of the list.
GREQ
Headphoneus Supremus
I agree.So here is a notable difference. Laughing about it is not the same as vitriol, self-righteous indignation, activism, etc. People should buy what they want and spend less time advocating against what they don't like. There, I just did it
I think when it comes to steak or beer, it's steak or it's not and it's beer or it's not. When it comes to music services, people are not buying bits. They're renting the app, the user experience, and the music. If the music sounds good, they met their obligations. If not, you get your money back. I just don't see this as the end of the world. There are plenty of wrong and evil things in the world. MQA is not near the top of the list.
I'm certainly not losing any sleep over this XD
John Lemon
New Head-Fier
Sorry for being late on this topic but, when people buy gears and subscribe to streaming services/adopt new codecs etc, they are doing it on the purpose of listening to music the way THEY like. If they are happy with what they hear, fair enough. If they dislike what they hear, they move away from it. A fact so simple, that objectivists don't understand.
No one listens to ones and zeroes and, most users don't really care if the file is lossy or lossless, as long as they like what they hear. As humans, without direct comparisons using specific equipment and softwares along with 2 or more platforms, we can't really tell the difference, if we're missing something or not in the final mix. Even if we can manage to hear the differences, nothing give the assurance that we'll always pick the file that gave the better results. Sometimes, we like that extra little kick from the lossy file that the lossless one can't reproduce.
I've been using Qobuz and Tidal for years now. I will still pick Tidal in about 70% of my listening sessions. I only keep Qobuz because of the huge variety of classical and jazz albums that can't always be found on Tidal, but to MY EARS, Tidal sounds better and less boring.
tidal masters is MQA files? or just lossless 24/96? do i feel sound difference using MQA renderer vs MQA full decoding DAC from laptop no software added to decode MQA qore?
Users who are viewing this thread
