When MQA was launched it offered two main promises. The first was to deliver high-resolution audio in a manner that was compact and easy to transmit. It therefore bypassed, by means of its "origami", traditional high-resolution files which used a lot of space but did not include much musical information in that space. The second promise was to do with authentication. "Artists" authenticated the MQA file as being identical to the master created and heard in the studio. I realise that much of the above is a simplification but is sufficient to make my point.

When using Tidal I am finding more and more examples of 16/44 MQA. How does this count as high resolution? It appears the same specification as red book CD and inferior to SACD. At the very least I would have expected greater bit depth. I think that a bit depth of at least 20 is required for better resolution; increased sampling is perhaps less important. So, what have I misunderstood. What is the point of 16/44 MQA?

Asa Post