Thanks for the responses so far.... To be clear.... this thread is not about proving that the MQA process
itself is responsible for what we're hearing and appreciating.... there's another thread for that.
But you've titled the thread the MQA Appreciation Thread. How can you express appreciation for something you don't know?
A couple who met on the Internet has been email and text-dating for a few weeks. She says, "I just spent $300 at the hairdresser for their new Miraculous Quality Application...it makes your hair much more beautiful!" He says, "Wow, that was expensive. How did it turn out?" She says, "It's the most beautiful hair now! Here's a picture..." and she sends him a picture the back of a head of beautiful hair. He doesn't know what her hair looked like before, so he can't evaluate the improvement, or if there even is any. Worse, he doesn't even know if that's really her hair.
That's what you've got here.
Let's say that the improvements made could be had with a standard, good hirez master -
and that MQA's only benefit is to get the hirez quality in a smaller, streamable package.
I don't think that's all there is to it... but let's postulate that for now.
Those are all huge assumptions based on what you've been fed. There may be more to it, there may be nothing to it. That's really all we know. What are you actually appreciating?
That would be good enough for me.... as we're benefitting from higher quality Tidal streams.... assuming the quality continues.
Then retitle your thread, The Tidal Stream Appreciation Thread, and don't attribute the difference to anything in particular other than the choices Tidal has made in presenting their product.
Again....this is a subjective thread about the perceived enjoyment of
MQA recordings... regardless of the scientific or engineering reasons AND regardless
whether all of MQA's claims are true.
....anyone else want to share enthusiasm for the better sound of MQA albums???
Sorry, you've still got nothing here.
"Better sound of MQA albums"? Better than what? What's your reference? And is that the same reference the MQA version was made from? Is the non-MQA version the best it could be?
What are you appreciating?
Let me point out, the "process" of gaining "appreciation" in this thread seems to be listening to a Tidal-streamed track or album, then playing some other version. That's a fully sighted, fully biased A/B comparison, and the result is fully biased opinion, with nothing whatever to do with reality.
You want to appreciate the Tidal stream vs some other version?? You've got this task: Find a way to play the Tidal stream AND the other version in perfect sync, and via identical hardware. Find a way to instantly switch between them. That's instantly, with no gap. Find a way to remove the sighted bias and introduce a blind control (X). Collect a few hundred trials, compile, and publish. Otherwise, you're stating your appreciation based on expectation. What if someone else has heard that MQA throws away a lot of data then resynthesizes it? How does that sound? So they listen to an up-sampled 24/96 version of 16/44 master of a 1970s analog tape master, and think it's better because there's no "missing data" and no "resynthesis". See what I mean? How's that for spin? And yet, with at least several of your suggestions, that's exactly what's going on.
You cannot appreciate what you don't know.
And so far, you don't even know what you don't know.