How many of you believe in MQA?


I have recently purchased a Bluesound Node 2i.  The dealer suggested I connect the Bluesound by way of digital coax to a Pro-Ject S2 DAC by way of RCA anologue to my ARCAM AVR550.  However, I found out I will not be able to control my Bluesound with an iPhone, iPad or PC notebook.  The only way to hear MQA completely unfolded is to plug in a computer USB.  This would mean I would have to get up from where I am sitting, go to the computer to change songs and albums.  I believe the Pro-Ject RS2 DAC would work, but not sure what the sales price is or if this is a good option.

The dealer asked me why I wanted to even bother listening to MQA completely unfolded when the DAC sounded better than the DAC inside the Bluesound.  He thinks MQA is way over rated and it may not be around a year from now.  If I hook things up with the Pro-Ject S2 DAC I will be able to hear one unfold which would be at 24 bit/88.2 kHz.  If I do this, I will be giving up the opportunity to hear MQA recordings recorded at 24 bit/96 kHz or 24 bit/192 kHz.  

How many of you are enbracing MQA?  
128x128larry5729

Showing 1 response by jnehma1

My experience with MQA was through a PS Audio DirectStream Jr and was entirely positive. Some tracks I am very familiar with over decades sounded better than I had ever heard them, and I noticed the improvement without knowing they were MQA tracks and actually I didn't even know what MQA was at that point. I just noticed they sounded amazing with my (then) new Tidal subscription and started digging further to figure out why.

What I can tell you after thoroughly educating myself about MQA and digital audio in general is that nearly everything I see people write online is wrong. Most people have no concept of time resolution at all and harp on and on about frequency response, which is basically a non-issue in modern audio (modern including the last several decades) and something the human ear is far less sensitive to than time. You can take all the measurements you want but that doesn't tell you how the human ear perceives sound, just like anyone can show you a 1985 CD player measures better in every way than a record player, but lots of people think it sounds a lot worse. Alas, this MQA thing has gotten totally out of hand and people spew so much vitriol that it's become the right wing versus left wing argument of the audio world. Everyone could do well to take a deep breath and actually learn a little about what Bob Stuart has done for audio reproduction over the past 30 years before slandering everything involving the letters M, Q, and A.

That said, the simple answer to your question is you just have to listen to it. Audio is like food - there is no best and no one can tell you if what they like better is something you will like better. Try just using the BlueSound as a DAC for MQA and compare the same tracks with non-MQA versions. If you like MQA better, great, go for it. If not, don't. I'm not going to tell you vanilla ice cream is horrible and a scam because I like chocolate better. I wish people could see different file formats that way and stop telling everyone else what's good for them.