Don't want to derail this thread too much, but does anyone else find it a bit ridiculous that Stereophile attacked Schiit's press release by claiming they're trying to get other manufacturers to boycott MQA?
Whatever grandiose (read: petty) press chicken-fights, I have to say Schiit is certainly making some noise in 2-channel, and just in time for a hinted at imminent release of Analog 2-channel stuff. Brilliant marketing Jason : )
It's not really much of a commentary on the part of Stereophile, and I don't see how the Schiit press release is saying anything to whit other manufacturers, but it's pretty daft nonetheless. But then rags like Stereophile, TAS and so on are largely built on hyperbole, exaggeration, the presumption of golden-ears, unlimited budgets (maybe advertising budgets more than those of prospective buyers) and nonsense in my opinion anyway. Very hard to take much of what they say seriously.
From my own perspective, MQA is technically
interesting and currently, musically, completely irrelevant.
It might become musically interesting if it bears out all it's promises AND the DRM angle turns out to be misconception (not likely) AND there is, almost overnight, a large available catalog of readily accessible, non-premium-priced, music available that
I actually want to listen to.
I was a late comer to experimenting with DSD (bear with me, this will come back around to MQA), which came about as I started to look for a high-end DAC to source an additional system I've put together. Those experiments have been way less than impressive. Getting it to work, reliably, at more than the default single-rate (DSD64) has proven to be incredibly frustrating with drop-out issues being common even on massively overpowered hardware (possibly an OS X/USB issue, but an issue nonetheless). And, more importantly, sound quality wise it's rare I can tell a difference between DSD and standard 16/44.1 Redbook files anyway!
When I can, the difference is by no means consistently positive. And when it is positive, it's almost always due to the master being different. Doing something as simple as converting DSD to Redbook, to ensure the same master, generally yields no difference I can discern. This issue has, so far, been true with everything from the Chord Mojo all the way "up" to the Merging NADAC.
Of course, much the same is true with high-resolution PCM files, though again sometimes the native master results in a better outcome than the existing Redbook version I already owned. But unless I
know that the master is significantly better for a high-resolution file than it's 16/44.1 equivalent (either due to a remaster, or just an only-available-recently re-release), I don't even bother with high-resolution PCM material anymore (and that's curtailed my HD Tracks etc. spending, since they are invariably more expensive for the standard-rate downloads than just ordering the physical CD from Amazon and ripping it).
Given how far DSD
hasn't come, and bear in mind it's been around in one form or another for 17 years now, I have very little hope, and no expectation, that MQA is going to be anything more than a distraction and any sales are going to be driven from a fear-of-missing-out perspective.
I'm not going to hold off on my pending DAC purchase to see what happens with MQA, since I expect that, even if it IS successful, that's something that is going to take
years to actually happen.
MQA was supposed to be on TIDAL as of the first half of this year. Well, boys, you've got 34 days left on that one. Not that, even if you made it, there's much of anything to actually showcase it with. I can count the number of ways to actually play it on the fingers of one hand (don't even need the thumb). None of them are compelling ... because beyond MQA they need to be competitive when playing the music I already have, not some possible future catalog.
If it works out, and does all it claims, it'll be wonderful I'm sure.
But I don't buy on "futures" and "promises".
Get it clarified, especially on the DRM potential. Get it done. Get it shipping broadly. Get a varied, interesting, substantial, catalog out there at sensible prices. Get it plugged into the streaming options.
Get it to a point where it is unequivocally, demonstrably, consistently BETTER than what's currently available. And, while you're at it, get the industry at large to quit their abortionate trend in massively compressed mixes that sound lousy out of the gate (because if you don't address that it's all pretty much moot anyway). And
then, when you've done
ALL of those, come back and talk to me about it, because before that happens it's not even a footnote.
Content is king.
MQA could sound like a choir of angels personally serenading me ... but if the music I enjoy is not available there then why on Earth would I give a damn?
