MQA SQ and Albums

[briefremarks]

First, thanks Peter for all the work on MQA.  XXHE with Tidal is much easier to use than I had anticipated initially, and the added bonus of "unfolding" and playing MQA albums has been fantastic.

Almost all the MQA albums I have tried are better than the straight 16/44 CD versions.  Some MQA albums I have tried that sound really good.

Nick Drake (Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, Pink Moon)
Joni Mitchell (Blue, Court and Spark)
Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin, II, III, IV)
Eagles (Eagles, Hotel California)
Carlos Kleiber and Wiener Philharmoniker (Beethoven 5th and 7th)
Cassandra Wilson (New Moon Daughter)

I have not had to change settings specifically for MQA albums.

Happy New Year everyone, and looking forward to more music in our lives.

Thanks for all the work Peter!! It's been a great year.

[PeterSt]

Thank you, Ramesh.
Happy new year to you too !

Regards,
Peter

[hudesigns]

Peter,
This post is intended as a record of my latest observation of the SQ difference between MQA and redbook formats of same music tracks from Tidal using a MQA enabled DAC, in my case iFi iDAC2 (32/384) with firmware 5.3  Here is the setup:

Music tracks:
Black Sheep from Natalie Merchant / Natalie Merchant
https://tidal.com/album/28901976 (MQA)
https://tidal.com/album/68592840 (redbook)

MQA playback:
XXHE settings - volume 0.0, ArcPrediction OFF, Custom OFF, fx OFF, NO upsampling. DAC indicates MQA stream.

Redbook playback:
XXHE settings - volume 0.0, ArcPrediction ON, Custom OFF, fx ON, upsampling 384000 MHz. DAC indicates PCM 384000 MHz stream.

SQ observations:

MQA:
1. bass extended to lower register, softer, more natural and more articulate.
2. vocal has more character, sounds more human, more particular.
3. more natural timbre in high frequencies. You feel you can almost hear the spits when sax is blowing.

Redbook:
All the above 3 qualities become less distinctive. Bass is more boomy, singer's voice has less a sense of being generated by a particular vocal chord. The whole presentation seems more generalized.

Best,
Zheng

[PeterSt]

Hi Zheng - Thank you for sharing this.

Now, assumed your observations are most distinct, what about :

MQA Playback:
XXHE settings, volume to what you want, Arc Prediction On, Upsampling 384000MHz, Decode MQA = Yes.

Now you will be comparing the MQA filters in the MQA DAC (you already listened to that) with the filters in XXHE, both situations MQA decoded.
If you like of course ...

Best regards,
Peter

[hudesigns]

Peter,
I have to say that the distinctions I was talking about are very very subtle. I had to use a little stronger words in order to differentiate and describe what were in reality very tiny, fleeing differences. But nevertheless, the difference is there. For example, if you just play one track blindfolded, I may not be able to tell which is which. But if you play the two one immediately following the other, I probably would be able to tell.

Yes I will try your suggested settings tonight.

Best,
ZH

[hudesigns]

Peter,
Here is what I found out:

When I activate upsampling to 352 kHz, iFi DAD detects it as PCM, not MQA. But if I use Custom filter 352 Low, it sounds as good as, or as identical as native MQA stream!

So the following two scenarios are identical in SQ when playing Black Sheep in Merchant MQA album via MQA enabled iFi iDAC2:

1. Volume 0.0, ArcPrediction OFF, Custom OFF, No upsampling 88 -> 88
2. volume -1.5, ArcPrediction OFF, Custom 352k Low, upsamling to 352k

This is so interesting!

Best,
ZH

[PeterSt]

Hi Zheng,

I have to say that the distinctions I was talking about are very very subtle. I had to use a little stronger words in order to differentiate and describe what were in reality very tiny, fleeing differences.

Yes, this is fine (and honest). This is also when you try to A-B the lot which maybe is not the way to do it (well, I for instance can't). Rather play such albums of your liking as if you play and listen nicely to music, and watch yourself unconsciously just liking it, or get annoyed over it. You will see (later) that in either version it may happen. So, it may happen with MQA because you just don't like MQA or it may happen to normal Redbook because by then MQA "is" better (and I add carefully : to you). And don't A-B ... just play music.
Say that you won't be playing MQA all the time because not all is available in MQA of your liking and mood of the time, so you swich to Redbook automatically.

The only mere explicit comparison I made was with Heavy Metal, a faw months ago. Now, I don't like Heavy Metal so I was trying to find artists and albums that would sound OK and not overly compressed in the first place. In all cases MQA won that came (and I add again : to my ears).

Kind regards,
Peter