Pros and Cons of MQA

[witchdoctor]

15 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

The real issue here is the general public was actively looking for an alternative to portable tape formats in the early eighties. Eight tracks and cassettes weren't reliable enough. The general pubic is not looking for new formats in 2017.

You might want to consider who is the pirate today. If you are an artist you get $1,000 for every 83,333 plays of your music on Tidal. More to the point, MQA on TIDAL was announced early in January of 2017. Gene Simmons of Kiss said shortly afterward it didn't make economic sense to record another album. Goldman Sachs the investment banker has suggested bypassing the labels. And in the current copyright rate hearings Apple is supposedly promoting higher payments to songwriters which will hurt their competitors. Don't get me started on what Google is up to. I all looks like piracy to me when royalties to artists are computed in thousands of a cent in many cases.

I don't disagree. But an artist in 1983 had to score a deal with a label or they were SOL. Kid Rock sold his own CD's out of the trunk of his car before being signed. You don't need more than a mic, a laptop and protools to record today so potentially we have more choices via soundcloud, internet radio, etc.
I don't know how that solves economics for artists but for consumers we should still have plenty of choices.

[Ralf11]

Despite the interests of the general public, there is a market for high SQ musc.  IF the costs to deliver that can meet the world-wide market, then it's a go, if not, then no.

 

And for software, the costs per unit are very low if there are enough units...  it's the ultimate in mass production.

[Rt66indierock]

13 hours ago, witchdoctor said:

I don't disagree. But an artist in 1983 had to score a deal with a label or they were SOL. Kid Rock sold his own CD's out of the trunk of his car before being signed. You don't need more than a mic, a laptop and protools to record today so potentially we have more choices via soundcloud, internet radio, etc.
I don't know how that solves economics for artists but for consumers we should still have plenty of choices.

Kid Rock was on his second record contract when he was selling CDs out of his trunk. He signed his first record contract at 17. The industry has changed.

 

If you want to make a good recording use a Sony D 100 digital recorder.

[witchdoctor]

MQA Throwdown Undercard

 

So I am comparing the Bluesound Node to the Parasound ZDac on both HIFI and MQA tracks (no CD's yet).

With HIFI tracks it is no contest. I have the spdif from the Node connected to the ZDac and the RCA out from the Node connected to the preamp. I can switch instantly from each source using my remote. The RCA out on the Node sounds compressed compared to the ZDac. The ZDac pretty much wipes the floor with the Node. The ZDac is a VERY good dac so that;s fine.

Now the next contest. MQA via the Node vs the ZDac. The ZDac only does the first unfold where the Node does a full unfold. The ZDac sounded good but MQA via the Node is the best digital I have ever heard in my system, bar none. Very natural and organic. So this prelim was done on my desktop system. I will do another throwdown in the big rig using CD later.

If I had to describe the improvement of MQA vs HIFI geting the MQA full unfold via the Node I would say MQA has more "slam". 

[witchdoctor]

I am listening to James Taylor via MQA streaming from the Node and it occurs to me why there is so much pushback on MQA from audio manufacturers and vendors. Why would anyone ever buy a non MQA streamer or a DAC that costs over $500 if digital is THIS good fron a $500 streamer/DAC via MQA? Once the floodgates of MQA content available opens up all of those so called "hi-end" Dacs are going to be either on EBAY or a garage sale for pennies on the dollar. I am not saying that MQA can't be bettered but the expense just isn't worth the investment. 

The malcontents are either to cheap or to dumb to compare for themselves. Who wants to admit they spent $$$$ on a boat anchor? Non MQA DACS are going the way of non HDMI HT processors.

 

Pro- An excellent MQA streamer is less than $500.

Con- You don't want to listen to much else.