[DarwinOSX]

Archimago is a joke on this subject and many others. He clearly gets off on reaching different conclusions from everyone else then comes up with numbers to “prove” what he has already decided. His so called blind testing was laughable and wouldn’t meet the most basic standards of a high school experiment.

 

[styler]

Can you post any data or testing to show archimago has reached false conclusions?

 

[DarwinOSX]

That’s not required because it’s quite easy to show how his testing and data make no sense.
Have you read it?
Try the so called blind study first.
I lost interest some time ago arguing about MQA. Most of the naysayers haven’t even heard it.

 

[styler]

I’ve heard MQA...

I’d be most interested to hear how his data is incorrect. Set aside a subjective blind test and have a go at how the objective measurements are either inaccurate or reach false conclusions.

 

[Steve Wilcox]

Just listening to the MQA of Joss Stone's latest release, Mama Earth, which sounds very nice indeed.

 

[Capt Yossarian]

I trust my ears. Old and abused as they may be, they have never let me down. I'm not an audio engineer and frankly, scientific testings of
"frequency response" and graphs of sine curves have always made my eyes glaze over in both incomprehension and disinterest. Having
a good deal of free time, I've listened to more than 150 Tidal MQA Master albums, and in every SINGLE case, they have sounded "better".
Is this subjective? You bet it is. But....it's a subjectivity based on hundreds of thousands of hours of music listening, and, yes, appreciation.

I agree with headfry, digitaldodd and oneway23. To me, the improvement in the sound quality of the MQA files is sonically obvious. I began
by listening to Masters of albums I was very familiar with. In terms of genre, these included Rock, Reggae, Folk, Jazz and Classical. I A/B'd
them with the CD equivalents. The MQAs sounded 10-30% "better" than the (standard) CDs. They sounded "as good as" Hi-Res/DSD Cds.
I played them for family and friends. Most heard a substantial improvement. I listened to new releases I was previously unfamiliar with . The
sound quality was impressive and I could hear the difference when I played the non-MQA version. I noticed that, in general, I heard the most
significant differences on albums from the 1960s and early 1970s. Examples would include Blind Faith, Buffalo Springfield "Again", Cream's
catalog, but also applied to such recent releases as Richard Thompson's "Still" and the Staves.

What exactly do I mean by "better"? SUBJECTIVE ADJECTIVE WARNING!!!!! The words that pop into my mind include, presence, clarity,
dynamism, precision, impact and detail. The stereo separation was more distinct, instrumental location more defined, the bass tighter, the
drums clearer. Add it all together and it was just more enjoyable, more musical, easier to listen for longer periods of time. More like what
music sounds like LIVE in a good venue.

Quite a few posters have thrown around the terms "remaster" and "remix" in regard to differences of sound quality. My understanding is that
MQAs are neither remasters NOR remixes. In fact, I think they should be thought of as "de-masters". An artist produces an "original" tape/file.
That original recording must then be "mastered" or "shaped" and often "sonically limited" and musically shoehorned to fit within the technical
limitations and specifications of a particular music format, be it CD, LP, etc. With MQA, the label provides some form of the "original master"
(remastered or not) which is then translated to 24 bit. So, in theory, the listener should be able to hear the music just ans the artist and the
producer/engineer heard it in the recording studio. For the time being, I'll buy that theory.

For an interesting article on MP3, CD, Hi-Res comparison, see https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/21/mp3-cd-24-bit-audio-music-hi-res
Their conclusion is that 1) it really is VERY subjective and that 2) it's more complicated than simply measurements of music and human hearing.
It has to do with levels of concentration, expectations and human preferences. You might be able to prove, scientifically, that people who think that
vinyl sounds "warmer" or "better" simply LIKE the tonal changes brought on by the sound of distortion, but...SO WHAT. If they like it, they like it.
I LIKE my 1991 Toyota MR2 with roll up windows, no power steering, no cup-holder and and one dubious airbag. Who am I to criticize "lo-tech"?

I've also been listening to Neil Young's Archive site where you can, for NOTHING, listen to everything that man has ever recorded in 24 bit - 96/192Hz.
You might want to give it a try.....while it's still free.

 

[DarwinOSX]

Well said and a good example of the difference from those of who have actually listened to MQA extensively and this who are some sort of uninformed diatribe.

 

[Ragnar-BY]

I trust my ears. Old and abused as they may be, they have never let me down. I'm not an audio engineer and frankly, scientific testings of
"frequency response" and graphs of sine curves have always made my eyes glaze over in both incomprehension and disinterest. Having
a good deal of free time, I've listened to more than 150 Tidal MQA Master albums, and in every SINGLE case, they have sounded "better".
Is this subjective? You bet it is. But....it's a subjectivity based on hundreds of thousands of hours of music listening, and, yes, appreciation.

I`ll second that. All graphs and other "proofs" make me boring. If it sounds better - it`s better.

P.S. I`ll also second good words about MR2 - real pleasure for skilled driver )))

 

[Left Channel]

@Capt Yossarian you may want to add this to your toolkit: a recent study (which was a bit more more scientifically designed than asking four journalists what they think) has shown that many listeners cannot hear the difference between 320kbps MP3 and 16/44.1 CD tracks, however more of them were able to hear a difference between those two types and 24/192 Hi-Res tracks. Without being told which type they were listening to, some heard the Hi-Res difference rationally and scientifically, while others reported an emotional response they could not explain.

I've seen no experiments of the same caliber comparing MQA to regular Hi-Res tracks, but all things being equal they both sound equally good to me. I therefore wonder whether MQA provides a benefit over Hi-Res now that Qobuz is streaming ten times the number of Hi-Res tracks that Tidal offers in MQA (and Qobuz is launching a US service soon). Certainly it provides a benefit to streaming services, but only one of those trickles down to listeners: watermarking is not used on Tidal MQA streams, though it's used on many other tracks broadcast on radio and the internet.

My largest frustration with Hi-Res and now MQA has been the lack of clear provenance. MQA and Tidal are making this problem worse by proceeding so quickly without posting any documentation. I've lost patience trying to figure out why the same albums seem available in multiple Masters versions. The copyright holder may have signed off on a blue light for all of them, but for example it may be that one was digitized from a master of the original release, while another was made from a remix mastered decades later. In one case I found the remix emphasizes bass frequencies to appeal to the loudness wars generation, and I hated it. But the only way I could figure out which album was which was by listening carefully and researching releases on allmusic.com ...but I'd rather just listen.

 

[castleofargh]

I trust my ears. Old and abused as they may be, they have never let me down. I'm not an audio engineer and frankly, scientific testings of
"frequency response" and graphs of sine curves have always made my eyes glaze over in both incomprehension and disinterest. Having
a good deal of free time, I've listened to more than 150 Tidal MQA Master albums, and in every SINGLE case, they have sounded "better".
Is this subjective? You bet it is. But....it's a subjectivity based on hundreds of thousands of hours of music listening, and, yes, appreciation.

I agree with headfry, digitaldodd and oneway23. To me, the improvement in the sound quality of the MQA files is sonically obvious. I began
by listening to Masters of albums I was very familiar with. In terms of genre, these included Rock, Reggae, Folk, Jazz and Classical. I A/B'd
them with the CD equivalents. The MQAs sounded 10-30% "better" than the (standard) CDs. They sounded "as good as" Hi-Res/DSD Cds.
I played them for family and friends. Most heard a substantial improvement. I listened to new releases I was previously unfamiliar with . The
sound quality was impressive and I could hear the difference when I played the non-MQA version. I noticed that, in general, I heard the most
significant differences on albums from the 1960s and early 1970s. Examples would include Blind Faith, Buffalo Springfield "Again", Cream's
catalog, but also applied to such recent releases as Richard Thompson's "Still" and the Staves.

What exactly do I mean by "better"? SUBJECTIVE ADJECTIVE WARNING!!!!! The words that pop into my mind include, presence, clarity,
dynamism, precision, impact and detail. The stereo separation was more distinct, instrumental location more defined, the bass tighter, the
drums clearer. Add it all together and it was just more enjoyable, more musical, easier to listen for longer periods of time. More like what
music sounds like LIVE in a good venue.

Quite a few posters have thrown around the terms "remaster" and "remix" in regard to differences of sound quality. My understanding is that
MQAs are neither remasters NOR remixes. In fact, I think they should be thought of as "de-masters". An artist produces an "original" tape/file.
That original recording must then be "mastered" or "shaped" and often "sonically limited" and musically shoehorned to fit within the technical
limitations and specifications of a particular music format, be it CD, LP, etc. With MQA, the label provides some form of the "original master"
(remastered or not) which is then translated to 24 bit. So, in theory, the listener should be able to hear the music just ans the artist and the
producer/engineer heard it in the recording studio. For the time being, I'll buy that theory.

For an interesting article on MP3, CD, Hi-Res comparison, see https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/21/mp3-cd-24-bit-audio-music-hi-res
Their conclusion is that 1) it really is VERY subjective and that 2) it's more complicated than simply measurements of music and human hearing.
It has to do with levels of concentration, expectations and human preferences. You might be able to prove, scientifically, that people who think that
vinyl sounds "warmer" or "better" simply LIKE the tonal changes brought on by the sound of distortion, but...SO WHAT. If they like it, they like it.
I LIKE my 1991 Toyota MR2 with roll up windows, no power steering, no cup-holder and and one dubious airbag. Who am I to criticize "lo-tech"?

I've also been listening to Neil Young's Archive site where you can, for NOTHING, listen to everything that man has ever recorded in 24 bit - 96/192Hz.
You might want to give it a try.....while it's still free.

if there is remastering sometimes, it's a different take on a song. in no way is it "de-mastered" like you hypothesized. a remastering is simply doing the same job with a different artist(the sound engineer) setting up stuff and deciding what he prefers or what will come closer to whatever he was asked to do. you like it better, or you don't, but that comes down to the same personal preference as saying you like one song better than another different song. if the result always feels better to you, I'd be tempted to assume that you're really incredibly lucky, or the reason why you always prefer MQA is different in nature.
otherwise, I want to applaud your vinyl and car analogies, and how if you like something that's your reason to want it. it should be super obvious, but I've seen a great deal of people about MQA, vinyls, or anything else really, who get nasty and frustrated because not everybody recognizes some sort of objective greatness in the stuff they prefer. as if all of a sudden personal taste was how you measured objective fidelity.
you enjoy MQA, keep using and enjoying it, that's how it should always be. pleasure is it's own reward.

I`ll second that. All graphs and other "proofs" make me boring. If it sounds better - it`s better.

P.S. I`ll also second good words about MR2 - real pleasure for skilled driver )))

if you specify that you mean better "to you", then I'll always agree.
if you specify nothing, I'm a little annoyed because it might imply some false statement to some of the readers.
if you mean it's objectively of higher fidelity when you feel that it is or when you like it better, then I'd have a bunch of counter examples in audio, and paradoxes coming anytime 2 people disagree on what sounds better. and it happens alllll the time. ^_^

@Capt Yossarian you may want to add this to your toolkit: a recent study (which was a bit more more scientifically designed than asking four journalists what they think) has shown that many listeners cannot hear the difference between 320kbps MP3 and 16/44.1 CD tracks, however more of them were able to hear a difference between those two types and 24/192 Hi-Res tracks. Without being told which type they were listening to, some heard the Hi-Res difference rationally and scientifically, while others reported an emotional response they could not explain.

I've seen no experiments of the same caliber comparing MQA to regular Hi-Res tracks, but all things being equal they both sound equally good to me. I therefore wonder whether MQA provides a benefit over Hi-Res now that Qobuz is streaming ten times the number of Hi-Res tracks that Tidal offers in MQA (and Qobuz is launching a US service soon). Certainly it provides a benefit to streaming services, but only one of those trickles down to listeners: watermarking is not used on Tidal streams, though it's used on many other tracks broadcast on radio and the internet.

My largest frustration with Hi-Res and now MQA has been the lack of clear provenance. MQA and Tidal are making this problem worse by proceeding so quickly without posting any documentation. I've lost patience trying to figure out why the same albums seem available in multiple Masters versions. The copyright holder may have signed off on a blue light for all of them, but for example it may be that one was digitized from a master of the original release, while another was made from a remixed mastered decades later. In one case I found the remix emphasizes bass frequencies to appeal to the loudness wars generation, and I hated it. But the only way I could figure out which album was which was by listening carefully and researching releases on allmusic.com ...but I'd rather just listen.

+1 the very concept of high fidelity means to get something very close from the reference, yet they sell use formats and fat numbers but don't even bother to disclose what was the damn reference. this has been a frustration of mine for a long time and indeed MQA makes things even worst because for most tracks we don't know the origin of the master, or which type of operations were performed within the somehow diverse and dynamic MQA toolkit.

 

[BobSmith8901]

@Capt Yossarian you may want to add this to your toolkit: a recent study (which was a bit more more scientifically designed than asking four journalists what they think) has shown that many listeners cannot hear the difference between 320kbps MP3 and 16/44.1 CD tracks, however more of them were able to hear a difference between those two types and 24/192 Hi-Res tracks. Without being told which type they were listening to, some heard the Hi-Res difference rationally and scientifically, while others reported an emotional response they could not explain.

I've seen no experiments of the same caliber comparing MQA to regular Hi-Res tracks, but all things being equal they both sound equally good to me. I therefore wonder whether MQA provides a benefit over Hi-Res now that Qobuz is streaming ten times the number of Hi-Res tracks that Tidal offers in MQA (and Qobuz is launching a US service soon). Certainly it provides a benefit to streaming services, but only one of those trickles down to listeners: watermarking is not used on Tidal streams, though it's used on many other tracks broadcast on radio and the internet.

My largest frustration with Hi-Res and now MQA has been the lack of clear provenance. MQA and Tidal are making this problem worse by proceeding so quickly without posting any documentation. I've lost patience trying to figure out why the same albums seem available in multiple Masters versions. The copyright holder may have signed off on a blue light for all of them, but for example it may be that one was digitized from a master of the original release, while another was made from a remixed mastered decades later. In one case I found the remix emphasizes bass frequencies to appeal to the loudness wars generation, and I hated it. But the only way I could figure out which album was which was by listening carefully and researching releases on allmusic.com ...but I'd rather just listen.

You commented that "watermarking is not used on Tidal streams, though it's used on many other tracks broadcast on radio and the internet."

I was under the impression that any Universal Music Group digital content (which includes a lot of the digital content out there) for download (presumably including a Tidal or Spotify stream) has the watermark embedded. Were you saying a Tidal MQA album wouldn't have the watermark ? It makes sense that Tidal wouldn't add any Tidal proprietary watermark to their streams (other than a token/encryption of some kind but not a watermark, per se) but I have assumed, so far, that a UMG MQA track streamed by Tidal would still have the UMG watermark embedded in it.

Maybe I'm wrong? I'd like to be wrong and Tidal MQA is as pure as the driven snow but it would seem that to license a UMG track to Tidal, the watermark is going to be in the product UMG sends Tidal, MQA or not. Would it possibly be less detectable in the MQA version? That would be a nice selling point. I don't know much about this subject as is probably in evidence!

 

[Left Channel]

Were you saying a Tidal MQA album wouldn't have the watermark ? It makes sense that Tidal wouldn't add any Tidal proprietary watermark to their streams (other than a token/encryption of some kind but not a watermark, per se) but I have assumed, so far, that a UMG MQA track streamed by Tidal would still have the UMG watermark embedded in it.

Yes, sorry, I meant to type "Tidal MQA". I've gone back and changed that for posterity. I love the editing feature on this forum.

I believe if it's MQA there is no watermark, even on a UMG track. For other formats, based on a Microsoft patent I've seen watermarking does not have to be audible. But apparently the labels don't care.

 

[BobSmith8901]

Yes, sorry, I meant to type "Tidal MQA". I've gone back and changed that for posterity. I love the editing feature on this forum.

I believe if it's MQA there is no watermark, even on a UMG track. For other formats, based on a Microsoft patent I've seen watermarking does not have to be audible. But apparently the labels don't care.

I did some further searching on the subject and it does seem that the watermark on Tidal MQA tracks (if it's there at all) is inaudible compared to regular Tidal HiFi. Pretty cool. I'll have to do some one-on-one comparisons on some ECM (UMG distro'd) piano stuff, as it seems the decay of piano notes is one place where you can hear the difference.

 

[Left Channel]

I did some further searching on the subject and it does seem that the watermark on Tidal MQA tracks (if it's there at all) is inaudible compared to regular Tidal HiFi. Pretty cool. I'll have to do some one-on-one comparisons on some ECM (UMG distro'd) piano stuff, as it seems the decay of piano notes is one place where you can hear the difference.

Whatever criticism anyone wants to lay on MQA as a company, I do not believe they will ever allow watermarking on any MQA track.

 

[BobSmith8901]

Whatever criticism anyone wants to lay on MQA as a company, I do not believe they will ever allow watermarking on any MQA track.

This is slightly off-topic but if anyone wants to hear what Tidal MQA can do check out Bill Frisell/Thomas Morgan "Small Town" (the masters version). It's one of the most gorgeously-recorded live albums I've ever heard. Get into a quiet space and put this on. I have a pair of humble, quarter-modded Sennheiser PX-100's and the ambience of this recording is at times startling. At one point I thought I was hearing people talking in low voices outside my window and I took off the headphones only to realize it was coming from the recording. Musically, even at lower bitrates, this is a great record in its own right. They do an amazing version of Goldfinger.