Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music MQA listening impressions (with a MQA decoder)

Jaap,

I'm a die hard Meridian fan and anything that will improve sonics is welcomed.
However when the potential end user... who is all that counts, is so confused, it's not a good thing.

Thanks for your replies so far. The comments accompanying the TAS report that I had in mind are:
and

I agree with your sentiments but at least it is now possible to make extensive comparisons via 2L.

Do you have anything specific in mind that has led you to this position?

I'm not sure the above is realistic. Free demonstrations I would consider a given, (I interpreting the first part of the statement literally), but to expect a relatively small company to spend years developing a new technology and give it away? I personally don't see that happening.

Surely it's all down to if the consumer is prepared to pay what is being asked, as you will still be able to pursue your audio hobby without buying in to the new tech just as no one had to buy into SACD

Just musing on a lazy Sunday morning 🤔

Yes, I have already posted extensively on the subject - see previous posts in the various MQA threads.

@Asa Link?

The model for MQA is fairly simple. Streaming free (Spotify) results in paltry royalty payments; the studios are looking to drive premium streaming subscriptions for which the royalty payments will be bigger; and the incentive is higher quality.

We'll find out soon enough whether this will be handled as two different subscription tiers (CD quality and >CD quality). Technically, I think it would be straightforward for the likes of TIDAL to "nobble" the MQA trivially at source (e.g. remove critical MQA metadata from the streamed FLAC container whilst leaving the (pre-apodized) PCM intact).

Yes, I have already posted extensively on the subject - see previous posts in the variuos MQA threads. [/quote]Sorry, yes, re Kate Rusby etc. What prompted my question is my experience of listening to unencoded MQA where the distinct superiority of MQA to CD that you report was not apparent to me. Though I know that MQA should bring benefits of vastly superior mastering that ought to be clearly present in undecoded listening.

Pardon?
TAS link.

If MQA is to escape the yet another audio niche format label it has to be freeware and available easily to users...

And the real question is, do the majority of potential end users care about MQA quality?... Not my 19 yr old daughter and her pals, they wont even pay for DL/streaming type music (tho her hipster pals will pay thru the nose for vinyl).

I care about source SQ, but I'm just a niche minority.

@Asa Post

I have the Marianne Thorson Mozart album in 24/192 FLAC and the Dena Piano Duo in 16/44 FLAC as well as the Kate Rusby in 16/44 FLAC and based on listening to all of these on an 818v3 and a dCS Vivaldi I feel the MQA album versions beat the 16/44 fairly clearly and get close to the 24/192 version.

These comparisons were made through analogue systems rather than DSPs. In the case of the 818v3 the output is either upsampled or downsampled to 2X rate via ID41 and Sooloos.

With the Vivaldi I upsample everything to DXD or DSD as, to my ears, this improves the sound (personal preference) but I have also tried the various albums without upsampling.

I am listening to complete albums in MQA and FLAC rather than just the isolated test tracks. I guess we're all going to have different listening experiences as this technology emerges.

Hope this helps.

Asa, I asked for the link to the "analysis" done at CA.

Edit: Not to worry, found it: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/b...flac-vs-normal-optimized-hires-flac-674/

The comments in that TAS piece are breathtaking. Whoever Christian Anderson is, he needs help: I've never encountered that degree of bigoted, uncompromising, conspiracy-theorist, irrational, and vitriolic posting on the Internet before. Quite staggering and very very sad. Can't believe that Richard Elen engaged for so long.