Re: MQA is it possible?
rdfornasero wrote:ramses wrote:My decision is already set, I regarded it only as "funny" to refer to a huge thread where you can be sure that SNR is low
A very smart member at AS reverse engineered MQA and debunked all of MQA's claims. MQA is a lossy codec. It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. It's simply marketing BS.
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/ … ions-r701/
Why anyone would pay $20.00 / month for Tidal MQA when they can get real lossless CD and Hi-res FLAC for $15.00 / month from qobuz is hard to understand.
Edit: Added link to MQA A Review of Controversies Concerns and Cautions
This is exactly the kind of confused anti-MQA arguments I'm talking about. Look, regardless of what you feel about MQA's business model, AN MQA FILE CONTAINS MORE SONIC INFORMATION THAN A CD EQUIVALENT. It's lossless up to and slightly beyond CD-quality. Only the high res component is lossy, which is harmless. There is very, very little energy in that range, most of it being high frequency noise and meaningless. In other words, in the very least it is superior to CD-quality. Whether or not it's superior to standard high res PCM will come down to whether or not you believe MQA's claims about better time domain performance.
And no, Archimago didn't "reverse engineer it". He's writting about it. He's thought about it. But ultimately MQA is a closed-source platform and his measurements are indirect. Yes, it's too bad that MQA is so secretive. It would be nice if we had proper end-to-end test files and great details about how it works.
But while we must speculate on how it works, WE DON'T have to speculate on whether or not it's better or worse. If you have the time and inclination, you can set up a proper ABX. It's amazing to me how strong people's opinions on MQA are, despite so few actually trying it a rigorous way. There is nothing scientific about ignoring experience, especially when we have the ability to record it in a rigorous and controlled fashion.
Try it. You might be surprised at the result. Or you won't be. Either way, you'll have learned something.
I didn't say that Archimago reverse engineered it. The person who did is mentioned in the Acknowledgements.