No one’s debating music streaming vs. Owning.
The issue for me is that MQA Maybe doing something other than just providing hires music in a smaller file and correcting d/a Flaws, but playing a sonic trick on us by basterdizing the master files, not being a better delivery system.
Anyone can goose the bass and treble of a file and have people prefer it over the original. That’s not the objective for me. I prefer raw food to junk food and my palette has adapted to crave that. I often like the sound of unmastered (uncompressed) recordings, rough mixes, etc because I find they sound better than the homogenized version. But that’s just my taste.
Personally the idea of a ubiquitous file delivery system that changes the sound and could be the only way every one eventually gets their music digitally (because that the only way it’s being offered) to be abhorrent and the very antithesis of the audiophile experience.
And it seems indeed like the audiophile press is responsible for the adoption of this new format before it went mainstream, by giving mqa it’s blessing.
If Stereophile noticed right away and wrote that MQA wasn’t the master it was proported to be, but a fructose enhanced version of it, i think things might have played out differently.
MQA has waffled back and forth saying it can be unpackeed outside the dac, then no it can’t, then yes It can but only partially, etc.
It may have well indeed been public outcry in forums like these, that forced their hand to have a more open architecture.
So you can imagine why I'm skeptical of the powers behind this new format and their motivations for the future of music.
The issue for me is that MQA Maybe doing something other than just providing hires music in a smaller file and correcting d/a Flaws, but playing a sonic trick on us by basterdizing the master files, not being a better delivery system.
Anyone can goose the bass and treble of a file and have people prefer it over the original. That’s not the objective for me. I prefer raw food to junk food and my palette has adapted to crave that. I often like the sound of unmastered (uncompressed) recordings, rough mixes, etc because I find they sound better than the homogenized version. But that’s just my taste.
Personally the idea of a ubiquitous file delivery system that changes the sound and could be the only way every one eventually gets their music digitally (because that the only way it’s being offered) to be abhorrent and the very antithesis of the audiophile experience.
And it seems indeed like the audiophile press is responsible for the adoption of this new format before it went mainstream, by giving mqa it’s blessing.
If Stereophile noticed right away and wrote that MQA wasn’t the master it was proported to be, but a fructose enhanced version of it, i think things might have played out differently.
MQA has waffled back and forth saying it can be unpackeed outside the dac, then no it can’t, then yes It can but only partially, etc.
It may have well indeed been public outcry in forums like these, that forced their hand to have a more open architecture.
So you can imagine why I'm skeptical of the powers behind this new format and their motivations for the future of music.