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MQA according to new Stereophile "loudness button" and "tweaking EQ in presence region"

Stereophile’s May 2017 review of the Mytek Brooklyn DAC (Herb Reichert) states that "in every comparison, MQA made the original recording sound more dynamic and transparent, but only sometimes more temporaly precise."

Seems positive, right? But the next sentence reads....

"After a while the MQA versions began to remind me of those old Loudness Contour buttons on 1960’s receivers, which used equalization to compensate for loss of treble and bass at low listening levels."

Now for the bombshell.....


"Consistently, MQA sounded as though it was tweaking the EQ in the presence region."

"I also noticed that most of the MQA versions sounded rounded off and smoother than the originals."

My opinion is that we gullible audiophiles have been fooled in the past by supposed new technologies, similar to what supposedly early mobile fidelity pressings did with EQ to make listeners think they were hearing an improvement.

In my mind, an alteration of the source is distortion.

Just as TV’S in stores set to torch mode are often preferred on first glance, and speakers that at first grab you with some spectacular aspect can become tiresome over time, as accuracy and neutrality become preferred as one's ear becomes more refined.

The frightening thing is that 2 major music entities have signed on, seemingly to make MQA the defacto standard of how music will made available.


While I haven’t been able to do this comparison myself, reading a highly regarded golden ear admit this in print is warning enough for me.


Just like the sugary drink that tastes so good on first experience, our advanced society knows that consuming it regularly leads to diabetes, heart disease and worse.

Does this revelation reveal MQA to be the parlor trick that it appears to be?
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Showing 3 responses by melm

melm
1,057 posts
 
Reichert wrote:

"Back in the 1960s, I bought every Dylan record . . but all his records sound opaque, annoyingly hard, and overly compressed. Every time I listen to Dylan, I ask myself, Why must they sound like this? I felt this way until I heard Zimmy in MQA via the Mytek Brooklyn: The clarity, suppleness, and transparency were so unbelievable . . "

Distortion, pure and simple. MQA is the 21st Century’s answer to Dynagroove! As RCA said at the time, "adding brilliance and clarity, realistic presence, full-bodied tone , yadda yadda . . ."

Stereo Review loved it then; Stereophile loves it now.
melm
1,057 posts
 
The editor of Stereophile sent a recording he had made to MQA to be MQAd. When he got it back he couldn’t readily distinguish this recording, very familiar to him, from the MQA version. He tried, under very carefully controlled conditions.

Many MQA recordings are being compared

It’s a hoax IMO, one that is all about $$$ and not about audio--with very limited exceptions. And most of the leading DAC manufacturers are staying away.

Hey, a lot of people, in the day, raved about Dynagroove.
melm
1,057 posts
 
And some heavy hitters are not (yet?) offering MQA:  Ayre Acoustics, Benchmark Media Systems, Boulder Amplifiers, Bryston, Chord Electronics, dCS, EMM Labs, Hegel Music Systems, Marantz, Meitner, PS Audio, Schiit Audio, Simaudio, and Soulution, for example.

In fact, many, if not most, DAC manufacturers on the MQA partner list do not YET offer MQA in their devices. That includes the heavier hitters among them.  My guess is that they have signed on, but have their fingers to the wind before they commit to hardware.

IMO MQA may have some limited positive application where the deficiencies of an original recording ADC are known and can be compensated for.  But general application across the board is a crap shoot.  What MQA does is take the original digital file, changes it, and charges a royalty, .That cannot generally be good.

When comparing MQA files to a non-MQA file, it must first be known that the original files were identical.  Often, what has happened is that the MQA file has been prepared from a high res file and is being compared to red book.  Also MQA compression is not lossless, though it does, of course speed up downloads.  That's why Tidal loves it.
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