DSD vs. PCM vs. MQA - Group listening experiment


Hi everyone,

So I just re-discovered the 2L website which has free samples of high resolution music.

I thought it would be worthwhile to ask the fans about the tracks here, specifically if there are any you feel are really good exemplars of why encoding scheme X is better or different than Y.

I just downloaded a bunch of Vivaldi and will share my own observations (and lack thereof) here.

As for me, file size matters so I'm going to try to stick to relatively similar file sizes when possible.

Best,


Erik
erik_squires
@georgelofi

Yep, I wrote a similar point several weeks ago on an earlier Stereophile posting, before they had any real explanations.

Bandwidth and disk space is much cheaper than it was. I could see it having a benefit to the service providers though. Being able to keep smaller files, and pay less for their ISP to stream out thousands of files at a time is a good thing.

But the reality is my current DAC is damn good without MQA. So was my previous DAC. :-) MQA is going to have to be really great to be meaningful.

I was chagrined at PS Audio’s blog about it. Seems like Meridian didn’t put together a very convincing, or good looking, presentation for them.

Best,

Erik
However, though I hear no difference, the MQA recording makes my ears hot, and
uncomfortable. More on this later.



???
@jon2020

It was really odd.  I mean my ear lobes literally felt hot.  Like they'd been exposed to too much sun. :)  I've not tried to reproduce it, it may have had more to do with the recording than MQA.

Best,

Erik
Very interesting.....

If you didn’t sound so serious, I would have thought you were punking us. :)
But it does sound real and at the same time, surreal.......