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MQA is Vaporware


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Ah, but the end user has paid for the DRM "directly" (if indirectly) by paying Tidal. This month, Tidal has already sapped $30 or so from me (i.e. my "HIFI" and now MQA, as well as family add ons) , so I have paid for my use of DRM software through Tidal. Apparently Tidal is not a successful business and supposedly could run out of $funding$ on the whims of its investors who are propping it up, so I suppose one could argue that Tidal's consumers are not really paying for DRM, but that does not really add up IMO...

 

What did you pay for Tidal in November and December of 2016? If you paid the same as January and pay the same in February then you have paid indirectly for MQA.

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Ok, indirectly. What is the material consequences in your opinion? Do you think the "average" consumer is "ok" with DRM as long as he indirectly (as opposed to seeing a direct cost increase) pays for it?

 

The average consumer has proven they are not okay with DRM. The average consumer loses a few battles though.

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I am late in the party because we Europeans need also to sleep. :D

IMO the big players Pandora and Rhapsody will not use MQA for streaming hires content because MQA requires specific hardware to fully access the hires content. That's IMO the weakest point of MQA.

 

I found somehow missing in this thread (I wrote it on the beginning) that usual DSP like room acoustic treatment, headphone crossfeed or simple equalization is not possible with hires MQA content above 24/96. Once DSP is done, resulting digital stream will not be 'authenticated' and no further unfolding occurs in MQA capable DAC. People who are inetrested in hires > 96k are those who own dedicated DACs and who possible use room equalization DSP etc. I see that as weak point of the MQA concept.

 

So ... IMO MQA company did their hires solution too complicated and IMO that's the reason why the big streaming players are coming to stream pure hires.

 

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if someone comes with a different DRM scheme which will not restrict hires to dedicated HW and which will allow DSP on hires content.

 

The question is: How much are audiophiles important for the market to get special treatment for hires? That's the point where I am feeling myself uncertain.

 

Welcome you are bit late this party started at T.H.E. Show 2016 in June of 2016. When I told MQA representatives that the amount music converted to MQA was not enough and I going to declare it vaporware on January 2, 2017. I told John Atkinson (editor of Stereophile) the same thing on Friday of RMAF 2016 in October. I gathered data including the 15,000 number of hi-res albums announced at CES 2017 on January 5, 2017 and that Tidal was going to start streaming a small number of MQA files in 2017 decoding the MQA in their software. I wrote the post December 31, 2016 edited and fact checked it January 1, 2017 to make sure MQA was going to meet my definition of vaporware (.25% of the population) then I posted it January 2, 2017 inviting everyone. A small party became bigger than I imagined. I expected the response to be maybe 50 comments and 1,000 views.

 

You made some good points that are important to this discussion thanks.

 

As to your question in the United States I’m not sure audiophiles matter to the market not enough of them. Considering the number of why do they hate us columns audiophiles may actually hurt the market.

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I would have thought that Tintinabulum's post was de facto evidence that MQA is not vaporware: "software or hardware that has been advertised but is not yet available to buy, either because it is only a concept or because it is still being written or designed."

 

Norton

I love posts like yours. Bottom up thinkers who think if a few can be bought it must be real. Look at Tidal from the top down. They have 46.2 million tracks, 30,000 tracks converted to MQA is irrelevant. If every currently available hi-res track was converted to MQA and put on Tidal you would still have less than 200,000 tracks to choose from (15,000 x 12).

I consider any process, proposed standard or format less than .25% of the population to be vaporware. When it gets to 1 % of the population then let’s talk about whether the format is commercially viable.

I would like you to do something for me. Tell me what you project the royalty revenue to be for the MQA songs on Tidal for January 2017 to MQA LTD. Then convince me that number has any value other than MQA can now say they have a revenue stream.

 

I have no interest in MQA but the premise of this thread is absurd bearing in mind I can buy an MQA DAC on the high street of my small English town and download or stream MQA titles today. Therefore MQA is by definition not vaporware. Does anything more need to be said?

Norton

 

I love posts like yours. Bottom up thinkers who think if a few can be bought it must be real. Look at Tidal from the top down. They have 46.2 million tracks, 30,000 tracks converted to MQA is irrelevant. If every currently available hi-res track was converted to MQA and put on Tidal you would still have less than 200,000 tracks to choose from (15,000 x 12).

 

I consider any process, proposed standard or format less than .25% of the population to be vaporware. When it gets to 1 % of the population then let’s talk about whether the format is commercially viable.

 

I would like you to do something for me. Tell me what you project the royalty revenue to be for the MQA songs on Tidal for January 2017 to MQA LTD. Then convince me that number has any value other than MQA can now say they have a revenue stream.

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I'm as guilty as anyone else for steering this thread off topic. Mea culpa.

 

Let's get back on track with MQA discussions.

 

Back to MQA Then

 

I think it is safe to say many of you disagree with my calling MQA vaporware. I’d also like to think I’ve made it clear I don’t believe in the concept of Master Quality Authenticated.

 

Driving back home from T.H.E. Show in Irvine California I had time to think how can this be stopped? These were my thoughts. Number one find documentation that the scheme used to encode decode MQA is DRM. This was done in the original post. Second poke enough holes in the “master” definition that they would have to admit they were using the best “master” they could get rights to. This a far cry from their marketing pitches in 2015. Third I read about the announcement of MQA in December of 2014. It was a you should wait for this pitch. This is a predatory marketing practice designed to hurt competitors and force them into licensing agreements. So I started talking with DAC manufactures and quelling fears that MQA was the next big thing. By reminding them how small the number of high resolution albums actually is and MQA will not be able to get past that number easily. And of course remind them Apple is going to steamroll MQA anyway. Fourth when I am around bands I tell them to get money upfront and not in the form of an advance on royalties if your record company want the rights to make digital versions of their music not covered by your existing contracts. Fifth plant the notion on audiophile sites that until you have 10,000 albums available for me to download in the United States the format might as well not exist.

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Enough of the sophomoric comments. You're now on a forced timeout from CA for 30 days.

 

Chris,

 

Every post on this thread advances an agenda. There is notion that the audio market should be split into music lovers, professionals and audiophiles like it was in the seventies as a way forward for the industry. The best way to advance this notion is to let audiophiles be bat **** crazy.

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FYI

 

At a press conference, the Digital Entertainment Group announced that several other streaming services would offer “hi-res” streaming (including Pandora, HDtracks, Napster/Rhapsody). High-level executives from major record labels also stated their support for hi-res streaming, but inexplicably there was no mention of MQA and no opportunity for Q&A. I later learned that all these services will offer MQA streaming later this year. The MQA floodgates appear to have opened.

 

Quick question where did you learn Pandora and Rhapsody were going steam MQA? Since you're on line.

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As of now the business day has ended on the West Coast and its early evening in the Valley of the Sun. There is no rock, pop, r&b/hip hop or country music to download in the United States. MQA is still vaporware since I can’t buy it.

 

Similar to gamer's I consider the Tidal release on MQA to be a teaser release. Something that won’t get me to say it is available for sale to and no longer vaporware.

 

It is a bit frustrating to know that albums I would like to buy are available on Germany’s HiResAudio and I can’t buy them.

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Maybe the studios see the sun rising on streaming and the sun setting on downloads. Maybe they like the fact that MQA albums they released on tidal can't be downloaded on piratebay

 

The most restrictive definition of vaporware is the product is not available for sale. I'm just being consistent with people who didn't like my insider definition of vaporware (I was there when the term was coined about a computer operating system Xenix) that is a little broader.

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I think you misunderstand my point. Whether MQA is commercially viable is an entirely reasonable matter for debate, on which I have no view and less interest. But to discuss whether something which is freely available to buy today is vaporware is ridiculous and ultimately pointless. I'm sure we could all generate similar long and pointless threads on any topic if we too chose to egocentrically redefine common English usage.

 

Norton,

 

Thank you again for an interesting and teachable point. You are using the gamer’s definition of vaporware which is fine. There are no downloads available in the genera I listed in the original post available in the United States. So music is not freely available to me. I live in a town with 231,000 other people where the average household income of $134,500. Saturday I visited one of the best audio establishments in the world. They did not have an MQA DAC in the store and they are a Median dealer. So I disagree with your statement that MQA is freely available because in the United States it is not. And agree or not I consider the Tidal release to be the gamer equivalent of a teaser release. So under your definition MQA is vaporware in the United States. I can’t buy it.

 

You claimed I was using a definition of vaporware I made up. The definition I use was coined by two Microsoft engineers to describe Microsoft Xenix (UNIX) running on personal computers in 1982. They were saying Xenix was an insignificant part of the market even though other versions would be released and in the late eighties Xenix was the largest licensee of UNIX in the United States. So Xenix was available and still considered vaporware. Common usage in the eighties was we only sold X (a four digit number of a PC program) its vaporware. Using the original definition of vaporware and using data about PC operating systems in the eighties still covered by my current NDAs I converted Xenix licenses to a percentage of the population of PC operating systems in 1982 and rounded it. This is where my 10,000 album number came from for MQA not be vaporware.

 

A long as we’re doing a history of the term vaporware the first time it was referred to in print was by Esther Dyson “good ideas incompletely implemented” when I said I wouldn’t test MQA until eight of my nine reference albums are released in MQA versions, I was saying I need Universal and Sony records for MQA to be completely implemented. Since neither Sony nor Universal has announced they are licenses I’m saying MQA is incompletely implemented and vaporware by her definition.

 

My original post had a specific purpose and was telegraphed in June of 2016 at T.H.E. Show. I told the MQA representatives that I was going to say on January 2, 2017 that it was vaporware if there weren’t enough albums available on January 1, 2017 in the United States. It will be interesting to watch and see if I shaped the debate about MQA the way I intended.

 

There is one more definition of vaporware and I will address it with whose side are you on?

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Thanks for your definition of vaporware. I find it a very strange definition that I would never use nor admit to using, but I appreciate your willingness to share. We have different opinions about the definition. Not that big of a deal when we can explain our comments further.

 

The fact that no downloads exist is pointless to me with respect to vaporware. Netflix in-house productions aren't available for purchased download, only streaming. Should these be considered vaporware? I can stream thousands of tracks right now from the most mainstream artists in many genres. Not vaporware to me.

 

The fact that one Meridian dealer didn't have an Ultra DAC or Explorer2 for MQA decoding is inconsequential. I know dealers who have several of each, in towns with more and less people and with higher and lower incomes. None of this matters with respect to vaporware.

 

My bet is you won't have to wait long for your Sony and Universal records. But, something tells me you won't be satisfied and that won't meet your definition.

 

 

With respect to your comment, "My original post had a specific purpose and was telegraphed in June of 2016 at T.H.E. Show. I told the MQA representatives that I was going to say on January 2, 2017 that it was vaporware if there weren’t enough albums available on January 1, 2017 in the United States. It will be interesting to watch and see if I shaped the debate about MQA the way I intended."

 

I'm willing to bet the MQA representative has no recollection of the conversation and that at the time s/he didn't really care that one guy who attended the show was going to declare the product vaporware on a future date. Thus, I don't think you've shaped any debate in that context. I'm willing to reconsider the effect you had on any debate, but I'll need a scintilla of evidence.

 

P.S. I mean no disrespect with my comments.

 

Chris,

 

I guess we start with I remember 5 ¼” floppy disks do you? Two Microsoft engineers declared a shipping product vaporware in 1982. So I’m comfortable that a product can be shipping in small quantities and be considered vaporware. And I’m okay with you disagreeing with me.

 

Point two it does matter if I can’t get downloads because MQA said they would be available to download on their website. Sorry you don’t get to change the terms.

 

Point three I went to the MQA website to find a Meridian dealer with an MQA DAC and couldn’t find one in my town. I’ll know more this Saturday and let you know.

 

As far as your bet goes on Sony and Universal remember I already placed that bet. We’ll see how it comes out. The number of hi-res albums currently available is squishy but the consensus is it is less than 20,000. So I don’t think MQA can get to my number of albums stated earlier 10,001 to not be vaporware without Sony and Universal albums.

 

As far as the shaping the debate, go back to the first time an MQA representative or audio journalist stated they sometimes would use a CD as a master and let me know the date.

 

I’m willing to buy a Dragonfly Red when the MQA update is available because there are more than 15 MQA albums available in Germany I want. But I can’t buy them so they are not freely available as said in my response to Norton.

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Bob Ludwig on his Gateway Mastering Studios Facebook page says there are 6,000 MQA songs on TIDAL January 24, 2017.

 

Pal Bratlund (former TIDAL as of September 2016) posts there are 6,000 albums on TIDAL. “But TIDAL may not share the view that you need to see the sample rate as long as it’s the original and that it sounds great.”

 

My question would be does this mean the albums they don’t share the sample rate are not hi-res?

 

When Bob’s post was copied to the MQA Facebook page Alex Gorouvein shared his list.

 

I would like to thank Alex for posting a list of the 1,262 albums MQA available on Tidal January 25, 2017. Roon gets my thanks too for its export capability to create his spreadsheet.

 

As of January 25, 2017 I believe Alex is correct and TIDAL needs to add only 8,739 more albums to get over my vaporware number of 10,000 albums.

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At a scientific conference on GMO's a couple of years ago, inside there was debate over GMO's merits/dangers. In the market, GMO's continued to find their place. Outside the conference a guy had a poster saying it should be GAO (Genetically ALTERED Organisms) instead of GMO. Neither the market, nor the scientists inside the conference, cared.

 

S a good teachable moment, I’m not changing the name of MQA I’m saying that until 0.25% of the albums on TIDAL are MQA that the format is vaporware as I defined it in the original post. If you don’t like it I’m fine with that.

 

To your point in the United States 86% of the corn, 93% of the soybean and 90% of the cotton are genetically modified. These are real markets not some audio format with less than 1,500 albums available in a streaming service with a market share of 1% of the paying subscribers. MQA is not finding a place in the market as GMO’s have since I can’t buy MQA downloads in the United States and only TIDAL has it to stream. If it was finding a market wouldn’t all nine of my reference albums be available in MQA? The poorest seller of them is JJ Cale’s Naturally; it had four hits, one by Cale, one by Eric Clapton, one by Lynyrd Skynyrd and one by Waylon Jennings.

 

And as long as Bob Stuart is showing up to the Montreal Audio Engineering Society and discussing Hi-Res Audio I don’t think the format is going anywhere. That is the kind of thing you do if you don’t have better options to promote MQA.

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  • 1 month later...
And the final answer for this thread?

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

 

I plan to update this thread until the number of MQA albums is over 10,000. At that point the discussion will move on to whether MQA is commercially viable. The March update will focus on the Brit centric marketing of MQA. The May update will review where MQA is compared to the original post just in time for the LA Audio Show.

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https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2017/03/16/mqa-to-be-released-on-cd/

 

Will it be an niche/oddity like SCAD/DVD-A/etc. or will it be the way all/most CD's are released 5 years from now?

 

Japanese culture is still based on Cd's. Tower Records all nine stories of it is still going strong in Tokyo last time I checked.

 

Did you notice the authentication comment? A lot of the rights holders to music in US are family partnerships. They have tax advisers and lawyers who know enough to demand something extra for the right to make new formats of the music. They write the agreements narrowly so record companies have to keep coming back for the right to make hi-res versions.

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1 hour ago, Bullwinkle said:

Back in 1996 I built my first computer, for my wife, and went on to build many more both for her and for my research lab at the U.

I don't remember exactly when I started noticing those 5x2 clusters of pins sticking out of motherboards but I do remember seeing them for years before I saw anything that actually plugged into them. And I remember wondering whether this thing called "Universal Serial Bus" was like, oh I don't know, 8-track or Betamax or somesuch foolishness... 

USB solved a lot problems in my field accounting. How are things on the Dixie Highway in Coral Gables?

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The Vaporware Trails March 2017

 

Starting with will high resolution ever make it into the mainstream at SXSW it should be becoming clear to the supporters of hi-res that it is niche market only. If all the panelists can come up with is we need a star like Neil Young to promote it even when they were reminded about Pono then hi-res doesn’t stand a chance in the mainstream.

 

So where does this leave MQA? As of March 25th there are 2,689 entries in the spreadsheet tracking MQA music. They have created videos to help their promotional efforts but in my opinion they are too Brit centric to matter in America. In America the promotional effort seems to be audio shows and audio societies. I don’t see any how this approach will make MQA anything but a niche product among audiophiles in America.

 

The things that matter to me about MQA are the following. I still can’t download MQA files of the music I listen to. I haven’t found any bands in the genres I mentioned January 2, 2017 interested in making MQA recordings. One of my nine reference albums is now converted to MQA. AudioQuest hasn’t released the update for MQA. I think it is fair to say it is late. And finally I’ve heard nothing about MQA on Roon

.

Personally I’m gratified people have taken the time to track the MQA conversion process, track the providence of recordings and where they are available. It’s great to know that a lot of the music is converted from 16/44.1 because it seems that there is an effort to sell audiophiles that MQA is gathering momentum when it isn’t.

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6 hours ago, pdickerson said:

I know we would all love to see every album converted to MQA yesterday and Roon developers provide every wish we desire, but is that fair?  

 

 

 

Fair? I said in my original post that I won’t test MQA until eight of my nine reference albums are available in MQA because they are all mainstream classic rock for two reasons. One is consistency. I’ve tested with the same music since the mid-seventies with the one addition in 1982 The Nightfly. I’m not changing testing methods for a format. And two if these albums aren’t in the format there is a strong probability the format is niche market with no mainstream appeal. I reported one is now converted to MQA nothing more.

 

Roon is ready to go with MQA decoding except for a technical issue with Tidal. All I’m reporting is the issue still hasn’t been resolved.  

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5 hours ago, mansr said:

 

Is that a hungry tiger stalking us? Let's wait and see what he does. Maybe he just wants a cuddle.

Mansr,

I always forget if you aren’t an American you may not know our recording industry is still operating under a Consent Decree that has been in place since 1941. Last year the terms were tightened. Your tiger has been in the crosshairs of a .375 Holland & Holland a long time. Because of this it is in every Americans DNA to distrust record companies.

 

There is a reason I called MQA vaporware. Until there are 10,000 albums the format does not matter. At that point other discussions take place until 1% of say Tidal tracks are MQA. This is a number higher than all the current hi-res albums by a factor of three. Then we can have discussion about whether MQA can reach critical mass. I’m defining critical mass as the minimum amount of albums needed to have a viable streaming service that will allow providers to charge more than CD quality. We are about a quarter of the way from even starting a conversation about commercial viability.

 

Finally Steve Miller’s rant was the sugar coated version of what the recording is. Anyone believes anything else is gullible or in the industry.

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2 hours ago, Jud said:

 

I agree.  With few exceptions, people who can negotiate with large companies in groups come up with deals that are better than folks who have to represent themselves individually.

 

There is the alternative, as you say, to go it alone.  In the music space, Prince, the Grateful Dead, and even the Beatles tried this unsuccessfully.  There's an entire distribution and marketing infrastructure you're not tied into if you go that route.  I don't know how many people are making even a reasonable living through Bandcamp and playing live, but I would guess it isn't a large number.  So yes, you have that choice, but the economic incentives are skewed the other way.

 

Jud, how can you say the Grateful Dead were unsuccessful? They had one of the best business models for a band ever. The Dead are a case study in business schools to this day because they succeeded. And Jerry Garcia’s estate was valued at $9.9 million. Unsuccessful people don’t pass away with that kind of money.

 

There are two topics in this thread I won’t discuss, your post touched on one and the issue that lead to the Michael Lavorgna bashing is the other.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The MQA Vaporware Trails April Update

 

As of April 26, 2017 there are 2,770 albums on Tidal. The pace of new MQA versions on Tidal is slowing as the number reaches January press numbers of 30,000 tracks or 3,000 albums from Warner Music Group.

Xuanqian Wang of AURALiC  basically said no to MQA and his comments about his DSP software seem to imply that part of the difference audio journalists report hearing with MQA may be  digital sound processing in a conventional sense. It would square the not necessarily better but different comments.

 

Vinnie Rossi decided not to implement MQA in an upcoming DAC module.

 

 AudioQuest will eventually release desktop software for the DragonFly to decode MQA but when is anybody’s  guess.

 

I’m not seeing movement to introduce new DACs with MQA at this time nor would I expect to. Too many things are causing manufacturers to pause. One is the Dolby audio patents expiring allowing royalty free use of their sound processing and compression. Two filtering is getting additional attention since there more opportunities to improve the sound of their DACs this way than many realized. Three with little music available in the United States MQA is not a must have feature.

 

Summing up what I found most interesting this month was the comparison of MQA to DSP. People are increasingly seeing DSP as part of the MQA process. It’s as if the MQA conversion process creates a slightly different sound when a recording is processed instead of using DSP as a logical way to solve room and speaker interaction with the room issues.

 

Finally I must thank Kal Rubinson of Stereophile. He is apparently the driving force behind multichannel MQA. Imagine Joe Six Pack springing for three DACs to make this work. And for this quote from Music in the Round #84 talking about the improvement MQA made to multi-channel recordings (and some stereo) “However, the differences weren't blatant; I couldn't hear them without paying close attention. A visiting colleague said similar things, and although we agreed that MQA's improvements were of the same order that we experience from applying good speaker and room correction, we also agreed that they were a different sort of difference.

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6 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I believe some MQA Announcements will be made at the Munich show in May.  

Chris,

On January 12, 2017 Robert Harley wrote about the many MQA DACs about to come to market. Three months later it wasn’t happened.  So in less than three weeks there will be some announcements. Well there were supposed to be announcements at T.H.E. Show last year in Irvine, RMAF 2016 and CES 2017 and nothing much happened. So when I write my May update please tell me how many MQA DACs I can have delivered to my office two days after I order one.

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5 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I am not sure I follow your comments regarding MQA and DSP, especially not after reading Kal's comments.  The two clearly do different, non-overlapping things.  The only big, unsolved problem so far is their lack of inter-operability. Ideally, we could do both simultaneously.  So far, that has not happened.

 

I have now also heard MQA for myself, though in stereo, not Mch, via an Aurender A10.  The MQA and non-MQA versions were compared via Tidal. My views are very much in line with Kal's, and they were shared unanimously by two other listeners in the same session.  One, our host, is a reviewer who will publish his views in a month or so.  I think MQA offers a potential sonic improvement of worthwhile significance.  

 

Let me help you then. Xuanqian Wang of AURALiC  comments on John Darko’s site are consistent with other people’s findings that there is processing of the sound in the conversion of a file to MQA. Kal is saying he couldn’t hear differences in between MQA and non MQA files unless he listened closely. And that the magnitude of the difference when he listened closely was similar to difference between applying good speaker and room correction and not applying it. I don’t think I’m putting words in Kal’s  mouth to say that is a very small difference. Otherwise he would have said he could hear the difference listening casually.

 

So if you agree with Kal you can’t hear a difference listening casually. I must ask how MQA offers a potential sonic improvement of worthwhile significance.

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