[EElegances]

interesting development. This was put up at the highresaudio.com twitter and facebook pages. Then taken down:

"From highresaudio.com


Breaking News: HIGHRESAUDIO to stop offering MQA. Proprietary system solutions and licensing models aren't what customers want. MQA is NOT lossless, the original signal is never recovered, estimate to recover at most 17bits (reduces the sampling rate), reduces the frequency range, SNR reduced by 3bit, aliasing with artifacts at 18kHz. MQA encoding filters manipulate drastically the original source. No analysis tools are available to verify the encoded MQA content. Therefore no quality control is possible. highresaudio.com stands for offering purity, original mastering source, none manipulated, tweaked or up-sampled content and codecs that are widely supported and offer use of freedom.


We hope that MQA will adjust all the above issues. We are truly disappointed, the way MQA has progressed in the past year. We have been mislead and blinded by trust and promises."      

Wow, that puts all the MQA crap in it's proper perspective.

 

[saddleup]

  I have been an enthusiastic participant (or perhaps occasional instigator) of sidebars on this thread, but this MQA one seems to be getting a bit vitriolic.
 
Is there somewhere else on Head-fi it can be taken?
 
I feel like Schiit has been pretty forthright on their stance regarding MQA and there's no real need to beat this horse quite so relentlessly here.
 
Thanks.
.

 
 

I agree, I've scrolled through the past 4 or 5 pages skipping every reply I see that isn't from Jason or Mike. It's getting to be ridiculous.

This has been the most educational info I've got from head-fi.  Don't mean to offend but if you don't like how about you take it somewhere else?

 

[saddleup]

  remote-controlled headphone amps, some people like useless things.

To you maybe.  My listening position is from my couch not at a desk.  If Schitt made a head amp with remote control volume I'd own it.

 

[Byronb]

 
Does she have a pocketful of horses?

I was going to finish the verse, then I thought better of it! 

 

[TonyNewman]

  To you maybe.  My listening position is from my couch not at a desk.  If Schitt made a head amp with remote control volume I'd own it.

 
Use a preamp with your headamp. Freya, for example, has a remote. This has the benefit of providing remote control AND improving the SQ (at least for me and other folks that have been advocating preamping headamps).
 
I am currently using a Hegel P20 to preamp my AGD Master 9. I am finding the convenience of having a remote almost as nice as the improvement in SQ from the preamping. No getting up from the comfy couch for me.

 

[34th Street]

   
 

This has been the most educational info I've got from head-fi.  Don't mean to offend but if you don't like how about you take it somewhere else?

A suggestion for a separate thread on MQA is perfectly reasonable and not a judgement about its value. 

 

[saddleup]

@TonyNewman.  That's what I was thinking of doing but was unsure just how well it would work.  Freya is a little out of my price range currently but the Saga is doable and also has a remote.
 
Cheers.
 
EDIT: Upon further thought it's probably exactly what I need to do.  I have 3 analog sources that I want to listen to through headphones.  I need the switching capabilities of a preamp.  Sources to preamp, preamp to headamp.

 

[saddleup]

 
A suggestion for a separate thread on MQA is perfectly reasonable and not a judgement about its value. 

You are absolutely right.  My bad.

 

[Left Channel]

 

 
A suggestion for a separate thread on MQA is perfectly reasonable and not a judgement about its value. 

You are absolutely right.  My bad.

 
There's certainly a lively discussion going on here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more

 

[watchnerd]

  *WARNING*
Long,  probably pointless, post follows. Read further on your own responsibility. Your time cannot be refunded.
 
Magic eye tubes have a significance for me. At a long-ago garage sale, I scored a Fisher tuner/preamp. It was many pounds of mid-50s all-American luxury, complete with deluxe plastic knobs and of course the magic eye to help home in on your FM station with jet-age precision. And it worked! Used to run it into the power amp every so often just for fun. Sounded wonderfully tubey - like martinis and tiki torches and Deano, or maybe I'm just being nostalgic.
 
Back then I was a newspaper reporter. Got assigned to profile a local who'd donated some fantastically significant piece of electronica to the Smithsonian Institution and been awarded a Certificate of Appreciation or some such. Can't recall exactly what he provided - might have been a NOS dashboard radio for a Tucker. Or maybe that was just one of the treasures in his collection. Much of his house was an Aladdin's Cave of vintage gear. His particular passion was amateur radios, with perhaps two dozen working sets including some 1930s German units. As you might expect of a ham radio guy, he was more than a little strange. Friendly enough, even jovial. Good interview. But I don't think I would have had him look after my kids. In his library, he even had the owner's manual for my Fisher find. Later, I gifted the thing to him - figured he'd enjoy it more than me.
 
Months went by. Got a call to the newsroom. Someone had committed a rather spectacular suicide on one of our major commercial streets. Seems a man had laid down with his head just in front of the right rear tires of a parked semi truck. So when the driver eased away...
 
When me and the photog got there, all that could be seen was a blanket with two running shoe-clad feet sticking out from one end. The other end was flat where it should not have been. And no shortage of blood. Next day local law enforcement released his identity; it was that same radio collector. Guess the static in his head finally got to be too much. Or could he have spent too long staring into that unblinking magic eye tube that I'd put in his home?
 
Now, I wonder what happened to his collection. Could imagine his wife trashing the lot in a fit or grief and rage. Or maybe his kids have been selling it off on Ebay. Some of those pieces would be worth real money these days.
 
Hopefully, this tale won't discourage anyone from collecting old equipment, or reviving the magic eye tube. After all, it's the magic eye - not the evil eye.
 
Or is it? 

 
Jeeze....

 

[RCBinTN]

Finally!  Caught Up!  Whew!!

 

[captkirk]

   
Use a preamp with your headamp. Freya, for example, has a remote. This has the benefit of providing remote control AND improving the SQ (at least for me and other folks that have been advocating preamping headamps).
 
I am currently using a Hegel P20 to preamp my AGD Master 9. I am finding the convenience of having a remote almost as nice as the improvement in SQ from the preamping. No getting up from the comfy couch for me.

 
I've had thoughts on this as well....anyone with experience with the Jotunheim AND Freya and could speculate on the combo?

 

[saddleup]

   
There's certainly a lively discussion going on here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more

I didn't go through the complete thread but I'm glad I found this thread first.  They all seem to have been drinking the Kool Aid on the other one. 

 

[Left Channel]

 

   
There's certainly a lively discussion going on here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more

I didn't go through the complete thread but I'm glad I found this thread first.  They all seem to have been drinking the Kool Aid on the other one. 

Dude. We can't even agree on the Kool-Aid flavor over there. 

 

[Leo-]

I have a question about the Vidars as monoblocks for 4ohm single coil speakers. If I decide to go the Schiity way and get me 2 Vidars, I cannot use the XLR connection right? In other words, Vidar monos + Freya pre although may be a sweet combination would only make sense for biwired speakers?

That's quite sad, I am torn between two excellent options of speakers - Dynaudios and Harbeths. Unfortunately neither of them seem to benefit of the Vidars - it's too much power for the Harbeths, and the Dynaudios can't make use the balanced connectors which defeat the purpose of the monoblocks.

Or have I overlooked something?