For those who enjoy heavier music, Pantera's catalog in MQA, via Tidal, sounds really great as well. They aren't listed in the section on Tidal, you need to click into the "Pantera: The Complete Albums" collection to hear the "Masters" versions. The individual albums are the regular releases.
Tidal Masters & MQA Thread!
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gregorio
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Quote:
Two obvious responses to this question:
1. Those people questioning the validity of this thread ARE showing the OP exactly the SAME RESPECT that he has shown those people! The OP posted several times to a thread on MQA in the science forum arguing with the science, based on his subjective appreciation/comparison of factors which most likely have nothing whatsoever to do with MQA but which he insisted on attributing to MQA.
2. This thread is based on an obvious fallacy. The thread title indicates, and the first line of the OP states this thread is about appreciating the SQ of MQA but as has been explained, this thread is in reality more about appreciating different masters and likely has nothing to do with MQA. Normally, I and many others simply ignore such fallacy based threads, not so much out of respect but because it's not worth the effort/insults. If those audiophiles want to be suckered by endorsements and other standard marketing tactics and scammed out of their money without ever even realising it, it's no skin off my nose, they're not hurting anyone else and they're getting exactly they deserve. However, that's not the case here! As I explained in post #7 of this thread, because of the pricing/cost structure of this particular audiophile product, "appreciating" or otherwise promoting it could indeed lead to skin off my nose and hurting everyone else. With potentially high stakes to the entire industry, rather than just the pockets of a relatively few gullible audiophiles, it should be important to anyone, who cares about the quality of available music, whether the stated "appreciation" is actually due to this new audiophile product or some completely unrelated variable!!
In practice that's a poor analogy. A digital camera can perform those certain corrections only if a number of assumptions are true, for example; that the lens and it's physical faults are known and consistent, that there's only one lens, that the light only passes through that lens once. These are pretty reasonable assumptions for a modern digital camera but not so for digital audio, where for many years more than one ADC was typically employed in the recording/mixing/mastering chain and commonly, more than one trip through those ADCs. Additionally, there were usually a number of other extremely relevant variables at play (use of an external clock and/or plugin processors which internally decimate/upsample for example) and typically little or none of this was ever documented.
Quote:
To be honest, it wasn't fuzzy at all. A lossless format/codec has to produce an output (after encoding and decoding) which is bit perfect identical to it's input. If it doesn't then it's not lossless, it's lossy. As a HD audiophile product, MQA/Meridian obviously decided that being lossy was bad for marketing and therefore decided to obfuscate the meaning of the term lossy. They've done this by confusing digital audio resolutions with digital audio formats, two different, independent, unrelated things. Given an input of 192/24 how does MQA compare to another audio format, such as FLAC or WAV? Given an input of 16/44, how does MQA compare to FLAC or WAV? If we're going to use any resolution against any other, then no rational comparison of the formats is possible. According to the obfuscation of MQA, if we feed 24bit/96kHz into say AAC, the result would be far less "lossy" than feeding 8bit/22kHz into MQA. Would this example prove that AAC is far less lossy (audibly lossless) and far superior to MQA?
You have to admire this and a number of other similar examples in MQA's marketing. It not a new audiophile marketing strategy by any means, it's been around for several decades but it has been particularly well/cleverly considered and implemented in this instance and is apparently very effective. As demonstrated by the fact that there are a number of people vehemently arguing that MQA is lossless even though that's only a marketing implication and the creator himself has stated that MQA is lossy, as do the published papers supporting the product and even the filed patent!
Quote:
You're free to reject anything you like of course but then if you're going to publicly post your rejection be prepared to take criticism, especially if that rejection can be considered particularly irrational or naive. What you're calling "a conspiracy view" is in fact completely standard, well established marketing! Have you never heard of expert or celebrity endorsements? Have you never heard of (or don't understand) what is meant by the term "marketing campaign"? Admittedly, MQA's marketing campaign is much more sophisticated than that of most other audiophile products but then it needs to be, because the scope of this product is far larger/wider!
G
Two obvious responses to this question:
1. Those people questioning the validity of this thread ARE showing the OP exactly the SAME RESPECT that he has shown those people! The OP posted several times to a thread on MQA in the science forum arguing with the science, based on his subjective appreciation/comparison of factors which most likely have nothing whatsoever to do with MQA but which he insisted on attributing to MQA.
2. This thread is based on an obvious fallacy. The thread title indicates, and the first line of the OP states this thread is about appreciating the SQ of MQA but as has been explained, this thread is in reality more about appreciating different masters and likely has nothing to do with MQA. Normally, I and many others simply ignore such fallacy based threads, not so much out of respect but because it's not worth the effort/insults. If those audiophiles want to be suckered by endorsements and other standard marketing tactics and scammed out of their money without ever even realising it, it's no skin off my nose, they're not hurting anyone else and they're getting exactly they deserve. However, that's not the case here! As I explained in post #7 of this thread, because of the pricing/cost structure of this particular audiophile product, "appreciating" or otherwise promoting it could indeed lead to skin off my nose and hurting everyone else. With potentially high stakes to the entire industry, rather than just the pockets of a relatively few gullible audiophiles, it should be important to anyone, who cares about the quality of available music, whether the stated "appreciation" is actually due to this new audiophile product or some completely unrelated variable!!
In practice that's a poor analogy. A digital camera can perform those certain corrections only if a number of assumptions are true, for example; that the lens and it's physical faults are known and consistent, that there's only one lens, that the light only passes through that lens once. These are pretty reasonable assumptions for a modern digital camera but not so for digital audio, where for many years more than one ADC was typically employed in the recording/mixing/mastering chain and commonly, more than one trip through those ADCs. Additionally, there were usually a number of other extremely relevant variables at play (use of an external clock and/or plugin processors which internally decimate/upsample for example) and typically little or none of this was ever documented.
Quote:
To be honest, it wasn't fuzzy at all. A lossless format/codec has to produce an output (after encoding and decoding) which is bit perfect identical to it's input. If it doesn't then it's not lossless, it's lossy. As a HD audiophile product, MQA/Meridian obviously decided that being lossy was bad for marketing and therefore decided to obfuscate the meaning of the term lossy. They've done this by confusing digital audio resolutions with digital audio formats, two different, independent, unrelated things. Given an input of 192/24 how does MQA compare to another audio format, such as FLAC or WAV? Given an input of 16/44, how does MQA compare to FLAC or WAV? If we're going to use any resolution against any other, then no rational comparison of the formats is possible. According to the obfuscation of MQA, if we feed 24bit/96kHz into say AAC, the result would be far less "lossy" than feeding 8bit/22kHz into MQA. Would this example prove that AAC is far less lossy (audibly lossless) and far superior to MQA?
You have to admire this and a number of other similar examples in MQA's marketing. It not a new audiophile marketing strategy by any means, it's been around for several decades but it has been particularly well/cleverly considered and implemented in this instance and is apparently very effective. As demonstrated by the fact that there are a number of people vehemently arguing that MQA is lossless even though that's only a marketing implication and the creator himself has stated that MQA is lossy, as do the published papers supporting the product and even the filed patent!
Quote:
You're free to reject anything you like of course but then if you're going to publicly post your rejection be prepared to take criticism, especially if that rejection can be considered particularly irrational or naive. What you're calling "a conspiracy view" is in fact completely standard, well established marketing! Have you never heard of expert or celebrity endorsements? Have you never heard of (or don't understand) what is meant by the term "marketing campaign"? Admittedly, MQA's marketing campaign is much more sophisticated than that of most other audiophile products but then it needs to be, because the scope of this product is far larger/wider!
G
Thank goodness the moral crusaders have arrived to salvage the integrity of the audio industry and rescue us mere plebeians from our own ignorance! Bless you, kind sir!
Please, respectfully, get over yourself. Again, this isn't the science forum. Feel free to post your investigations there. I'm not sure why some people feel compelled to make sure this thread gets removed.
Please, respectfully, get over yourself. Again, this isn't the science forum. Feel free to post your investigations there. I'm not sure why some people feel compelled to make sure this thread gets removed.
saddleup
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This thread really should have been called "The Tidal Streaming Service Appreciation Thread".
canthearyou
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Here's my take. I DO hear a difference in MQA files. It sounds a bit clearer and smoother. In most instances it has a blacker background than the non-MQA file.
But what I have started to notice is the MQA files seem to have a narrower soundstage.
Edit:Using Tidal Masters with both a MQA and standard DAC.
But what I have started to notice is the MQA files seem to have a narrower soundstage.
Edit:Using Tidal Masters with both a MQA and standard DAC.
I'm also listening to Tidal Masters with a non-MQA DAC, though I hope to soon have a Bluesound Node 2 at the compound to do some testing.
headfry
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the clean, natural sounding smoothness is something I heard right away - along with the blacker
background and seeming removal of "haze" or "grain" - which allows the music to come through
with greater density, textural detail and overall enjoyment. On well done MQA albums, which in my case often although not
always seems to be the older albums e.g. from the 70's. David Crosby's "Croz' is a recent album
that really shines in MQA - esp. love his track "Holding on To Nothing" - genius.
...all of this with the non-MQA dac Mojo!
....thanks for sharing! << =============
smartin
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The MQA remasters that sound better, would not exist were it not for MQA... Just saying.
pinnahertz
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Why on earth not? There's a substantial market for remasters, and there has been for decades.
pinnahertz
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THAT is for sure!
It's more like a "don't bother me with scientific facts, I'm in love with my delusion" thread.
For those unaware, there are numerous MQA Tidal Masters albums which aren't listed in the designated section. Oftentimes, if the section lists one album by an artist or band and you click in, you'll usually see the rest of their catalog available as Masters as well. Don't know if that was obvious, but, I've seen it for Rush, Yes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, ZZ Top, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, etc.
pinnahertz
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...and, more for "those unaware"...
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/03/highresaudio-com-calls-for-a-deeper-technical-analysis-of-mqa/
This excerpt proves "you don't know what you don't know":
"I have asked MQA weeks ago to correct the marketing communication towards the end user and media. As long as MQA is not prepared to straighten the facts, we will not offer MQA any more. The customer needs to know what he pays for, and we have to be able to check technically what we offer and sell to our customers."
--Lothar Kerestedjian, highresaudio.com
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/03/highresaudio-com-calls-for-a-deeper-technical-analysis-of-mqa/
This excerpt proves "you don't know what you don't know":
"I have asked MQA weeks ago to correct the marketing communication towards the end user and media. As long as MQA is not prepared to straighten the facts, we will not offer MQA any more. The customer needs to know what he pays for, and we have to be able to check technically what we offer and sell to our customers."
--Lothar Kerestedjian, highresaudio.com
headfry
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That goes both ways, you have no way of proving that
our appreciating the better SQ of Tidal Masters & MQA files ISN'T real.
....my ears says that it is.
Science cannot explain everything, and the ear is much more time domain sensitive
than was previously believed and than modern measuring instruments - hence the main reason why Chord DACs such as
the Mojo sound so good - much more accurate in the time domain than the competition -
as well as great engineering, low distortion and noise, better coherence, ease, musicality.
As was said a few posts back.... these improved masters wouldn't exist without MQA -
reason is that hires has been here formany years but no easily streamable format
has come ou "till MQA did it.
This isn't a science thread. Sure, not everyone needs or wants MQA, no argument there....
As I've said there are different paths to musical playback satisfaction - none of them have a monopoly.
our appreciating the better SQ of Tidal Masters & MQA files ISN'T real.
....my ears says that it is.
Science cannot explain everything, and the ear is much more time domain sensitive
than was previously believed and than modern measuring instruments - hence the main reason why Chord DACs such as
the Mojo sound so good - much more accurate in the time domain than the competition -
as well as great engineering, low distortion and noise, better coherence, ease, musicality.
As was said a few posts back.... these improved masters wouldn't exist without MQA -
reason is that hires has been here formany years but no easily streamable format
has come ou "till MQA did it.
This isn't a science thread. Sure, not everyone needs or wants MQA, no argument there....
As I've said there are different paths to musical playback satisfaction - none of them have a monopoly.
smartin
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Future of industry lies in monitizing streaming. There is zero incentive to remaster in this scenario. Labels won't be able to charge more/stream for a remaster that is encoded at Redbook or below. They can only charge more for something different. MQA is something different.
Perfectly fine to argue MQA's other qualities, but I have no doubt more remasters will be done if MQA is successful in the market.
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