MQA is for people who prefer Tidal to other streaming services. I tried Tidal and for my purposes (mainly classical music listening), I found Qobuz better. That said, I like seeing more devices compatible with more streaming services. Nothing is lost by supporting MQA.
the argument in the minds of the people who understand that it creates a divide is two fold: (two things are lost)-
a) sound quality for the ‘have nots’- the way MQA works, the ‘non MQA version‘ very magically runs at a bitrate that even ‘poorly trained ears’ will detect as ‘less quality’ than what we get with standard playback methods that have been around for decades (this isn’t an accident)..
b) money goes to the people who made this happen…
some are desperately trying to vote with their wallets (/voices) to stymy market tactics like this
whilst this is a hobby, in a sector where people may have money to spend, ie not as evil as affecting peoples air or drinking water…, it still needs be stopped or we get stuff like microsoft does (to gaming and ‘industry’, arguably audio too -they have killed a lot of audio tech from market),but also intel, and nvidia etc etc etc..
(rage against the machine) “settle for nothing” had lyrics covering that the future will have problems if we don’t act in the present - ie the ‘wintel’ consortium are unstoppable (now), and ‘a few fines’ doesn’t/didn’t improve trading practices…
whilst many devices were proud of MQA support (when it launched), some ‘pushback’ now means those companies don’t always slap that MQA label up front/in bold/as a ‘main feature’
anyone in a forum who raises this topic isn’t an enemy of good music or ‘progression’ (quite the opposite)- they want the freedom for future generations..
“if we dont take action now, we will settle for nothing later, if we settle for nothing now…..” (rage against the machine)
I agree that ‘warring’ over hobbies/entertainment is ‘small fries’, but these things happen in little steps/gradually..
(like forcing a web browser as a file explorer to exit a competitor from the market.. eventually becomes ‘forcing ‘fake’ security updates that cripple three year old CPUs (so new ‘budget’ chips can equal/exceed them), and now, security updates are forced/OS platform updates are forced (in the mobile space) to get ‘essential’ (potential) cripplings…
they gotta sell us new chips, and new chips means ‘new products’, new products props up the whole ‘sales‘ industry…
it isn’t evil, until it is….
FiiO are not, btw, FiiO are awesome… I love getting updates for products beyond the sales period etc… the best companies do this!!
