Apart from the audio reproduction quality, from a Collector's Point of View, you would not want your collection to be dependent on a propriety technology. FLAC can be converted to other formats but MQA... well, that output is 'protected' and if the technology 'dead-ends' so does your collection.
Exactly. And they could not explain it. And with Silicon Valley Bank gone how long can you convince some investors to keep paying for something that has no purpose.
From what I understand, the main investor pulled the plug and it sent MQA Ltd into receivership. Probably going to see MQA licensing fizzle out as a result.
Or you could just go for WAV with that kind of storage since in my experience, WAV files aren't the gigantic size difference from FLAC they're made out to be.
@@bkkersey93 Though there's no reason to favour WAV over FLAC, both are lossless digital formats. Look at it this way: it's the same as folding a T-Shirt to put in a drawer compared to putting the T-Shirt away unfolded; both are exactly the same T-Shirt, the folded version is easier to store. FLAC also has better metadata options.
There is a very major surface level way they are different. Yes they are both data compression schemes for audio. MQA does it's work by attacking higher audio frequencies while still in the analog domain during the conversion to digital. Thus directly manipulating the sound to reduce the information it contains in order to reduce bandwidth needs during streaming. While FLAC has nothing to do with the actual audio. FLAC is a mathematical process performed after the analog has been converted into a digital file already that just reduces the digital file size. It is digital file compression/ expansion and not pre and post analog audio processing.
I have Luxman's flagship disc player, bought a couple MQA discs (my unit is enabled for optimizing them) - one being a Shostakovich recording by DG & the other being Zenyatta Mondatta (The Police). Neither one sounded the slightest bit superior to standard cd & the classical one may have been slightly worse (but unlike Zenyatta I couldn't compare it with the identical recording in another format/codec). Oh, and MQA is a 'proprietary format.' I'd long suspected MQA was simply hype. Well, my modest comparison did zero to change my POV on it.
In a Reddit Q&A last April 10, 2023, Tidal CEO, Jesse Dorogusker, revealed that the streaming platform will soon be supporting FLAC in their Hi-Res format for HiFi Plus subscribers, days after MQA files for Appointment of Administrator, which is equivalent to bankruptcy in the US.
what tidal really needs to fix is when you click on the lyrics to get to that part of the song and the audio of the song does rewind, but the visual lyrics keep going and don't follow from where you just clicked
I hope tidal will completely remove MQA and just replace it with flac for CD audio quality (hifi) and those hi-res format for hifi plus subs.... I don't care much for hi-res format but I want pure CD audio quality untouched. As paul said... I don't want someone messing with my stuff.
Thanks for educating! Let nobody critisize you for not liking something. We live in a free world. Everyone has the right to have their own opinion. I love your videos.
MQA is a format that was designed to replicate the studio sound experience with Time Smearing Correction up to 10M away from the speakers. Most people don't have a studio to listen to there music in, and don't have a set of hi-end studio monitors - so they can't hear the benefit of it. I have a studio system and MQA sounds amazing on it compared to FLAC which sounds flat and 2D like. th-cam.com/video/Cl5ULnX4viU/w-d-xo.html
Hi Paul. Thanks for the videos… I have a question. Carpet or no carpet? I have wooden floor. I am wondering if to place a carpet where I sit and listen to music, probably half the area between the sofa and speakers, not the whole floor. Would that help? Or is it better to place a long and narrow carpet underneath the speakers? Thanks again.
I prefer carpet, personally. Not sure about under the speakers, but certainly between you and the front of the speakers, a big throw rug can really help.
Completely agree. The argument against UHF centers around audible frequency range but has anyone been able to establish that waves outside of audible frequency range do not impact sonic quality?
This is good to know. I did cancel my Hifi Plus membership on tidal which had MQA and moved to "lower" and cheaper Hifi Flac..... So im not regretting after hearing this
The real issue with MQA is not whether it is good or not. It's how the very mention of the topic makes so many audiophiles apapleptic. Probably most people with a strong opinion about it have never heard it. Likewise, I would guess the overwhelming group of people screaming online about how great Hegel amps are, have never heard one. What is it about audio, that so many people, with so little actual experience, have such strong opinions.
@@TheDanEdwards OMG I just found out all music I listen to is proprietary, under copyright by the artist who did it! I'm switching to open source royalty-free MIDI files only now.
Musicians and a love of music seems to be mutually exclusive to having Critical Thinking skills. They always display emotionally based Ladder of Inference thinking. And when you think about it that makes sense. Because music is historically more of a social farming community thing than a Neanderthal hunter thing. The hunter also needs very good auditory spatial skill processing as well, whereas the farmer doesn't. The lack of Critical Thinking Skills can be seen in the high percentage of people involved in music who got the clot shot. Which was set as a test for Critical Thinking...
@@PartyMusic775that's a different issue. Not only is MQA proprietary, but the algorithm is also secret. MP3 is proprietary as well, and also not free (commercial encoders must pay royalties), but there will always be a free codec available as the algorithm is published. So you see the problem, right? Now that we discovered that MQA is a scam, that it's lossy despite the lies they were saying, now that everyone is abandoning it, new hardware won't support it (no need to pay royalties if not even the company who created it is using it anymore), software won't be updated, and you'll be stuck with a library encoded in an obsolete secret proprietary format. This will never ever happen with flac.
Never been a mqa fan either as a long time tidal premium subscriber. Now that mqa is dead, it should be interesting to see what tidal uses to replace it. I would be totally fine if they did what Apple is doing with their higher resolution content (just normal hi resolution and not the spacial audio stuff). Thanks paul!
Never had enough storage to make my portable library FLAC. Always had to settle for MP3. Hopefully as memory cards expand, I can change that, but it will mean re-ripping everything! Still, MQA seems to sit in an awkward middle ground. It doesn't reduce the bandwidth and storage requirements enough to compete with MP3, but it reduces the quality too much to compete with FLAC.
In the early 2000's I ripped all of my CD's to 320kbit mp3. And I'm Sooo glad I never parted from my original CD collection nor my vinyl's. Nowadays I mostly just stream from Amazon hd though. So far I haven't considered re-ripping my cd's to flac. My flac collection is growing however from buying files directly from artists.
Listen to classical movements that have moments of silence. Lossy codecs love to freak out during the transition from barely audible to silence and back.
I went with FLAC and have ripped my entire CD collection except for some SACD discs and BluRay audio discs. But I still have all of my original discs available to play, just easier at night to just stream my music. I can just lie back , turn on my receiver, use the remote and either stream from my own library or use Qobuz. Actually use my Qobuz subscription to listen to albums from artists, to see if it is worthwhile purchasing the album in CD format myself.
To function maximally, MQA requires support at all levels of the reproduction “stack”, from recording all the way through the playback DAC. This inflexibility is not sustainable since the licensing of this proprietary technology is a tax leveed at all levels of this stack. MQA design drives licensing revenue with, as Paul states, only subjective benefits in return. FLAC, on the other hand, is a free and open standard and, consequently, will always have strong support. FLAC’s place in the reproduction stack is compartmentalized and its scope is limited: FLAC is no concern in the recording process and, likewise, also not in the playback DAC. FLAC makes no decisions about what you can hear or how it will be played back.
One would argue it's like comparing WAV and MP3 of same size. One is 8bit/11kHz "lossless" wav, other is lossy 16bit/48kHz mp3. Both have same bitrate. Which is better?
There is no point in lossy compression of audio nowadays. I can stream 90 million songs in LOSSLESS FLAC in CD quality or up to 192kHz 24 bits from my Amazon Music HD account with each song available in a second costing me US9.99 per month. I’m not sure what more I can want in terms of media availability, audio fidelity or cost??? Besides, my internet connection is optical to my house with 1Gbps and I can stream 100s of audiophile streams in parallel if I had the need for it. MQA is history at this point.
@@StrangeBrewReviewsTechnically speaking, streaming services move your music data over the internet and can support much high resolving audio codecs than CD media. You can reliably stream a bit-perfect master version of your favorite music without any negative effect at all. Personally I use Amazon Music HD where FLAC is used to deliver completely lossless audio to my DAC in up to 192kHz 24 bits. The audio quality is excellent for the highest fidelity music. Of course your system needs to be with proper handling of the stream without introducing additional sample rate conversion or other lossy processing.
@@ThinkingBetter sure but they only carry a few popular albums from artists I like...I prefer cds and lps....most my collection is not on streaming services anyway.
@@ThinkingBetter Are you sure it's getting to your DAC in 24/192 lossless? Amazon sends it through the OS mixer so you're getting upsample/downsample artifacts on an order of magnitude more lossy than MQA. Hope they solve that issue soon.
@@PartyMusic775 I am running in exclusive mode bypassing any SRC. Yes I’m sure. In fact the Mac OS version of Amazon Music has an on/off switch for exclusive mode. It also means you can’t control volume in Mac OS as it maintains the original PCM sample values without level attenuation.
Never mind that MQA alters the sound to make it better, it costs 10 dollars more per month on Tidal to hear it. I'm with Tidal, and did have MQA but dropped the MQA and still have CD quality songs, and I'm still completely satisfied with Tidal, how it sounds. I'm thinking Spotify is stalling to up their quality of sound for the same reason. Very few of us are purists.
@@sermerlin1 FALSE. I live in an AirBNB and the random AB I do on even non-audiophile people, for curiosity, always comes up MQA as better, even on my fairly modest audiophile stack.
The MQA guys say how much better it sounds. They have all these graphs and wording to explain how it purifies the music that I try and understand what they are doing. At the end of the day I think Qobuz sounds better than Tidal. But others say other way around. I guess MQA was great for streaming where you want to keep Hi Res file sizes to a minimum.
I don't know. My DAC glows differently when playing MQA and it looks cool. So I'm not gonna delete my MQA just yet. (Also, I can't hear any difference.)
Uhm, I don't bother with flac or MQA, and instead use wav. I pretty much don't bother with compression anymore as storage is cheap enough you don't really need it.
@@bkkersey93 You won't hear a difference unless the source is mastered lossless without compression and then over to wav, and these days it's such niche' thing. Storage is so cheap it's almost illegal!.
Agreed 💯 with you. Had to actually search for a place to buy non mqa flac of simply red blue eyed soul, most places had only mqa for some reason, thank god for qobuz. Don't want anything to do with mqa.
Oh, by the way, all you comment artists, .. I don’t think Paul really cares if you agree with him or not; he is probably highly entertained by all the critiques to his comments. I would be.
I discarded MQA without trying it from the first day because I knew future available bandwith would allow for streaming Hi-Res FLAC at low enough birates. MQA is doing tricks, yeah, but it might prove its point saving bitrate to allow better quality than say 44.1/16 (~500-800 kbps FLAC or 1.41Mbps WAV). But today with Netflix 4k/HDR/DV at 17.98Mbps, it becomes irrelevant, we can have 96Khz/24 bits FLAC at 2789 kbps that is half regular youtube bitate, so MQA is no longer worth the hassle. I remember HDCD in 1995 was a similar ill-fate technology. Only a handful of CD were released and I didn't notice anything.
As I do not agree on many subjects or more on way you do it I fully agree about negative opinion on presenting something worse in a way to make it looking as precious gem insted
I'm sad about the demise of MQA the company. I think it sounds superb, I hope it endures in some shape or form with the new owners. Bob Stewart is a good guy, he was trying to make things better, it wasn't a conspiracy.
They lied. For years, they lied about it being lossless, they used ambiguous wording to suggest that it was lossless without actually saying it, and kept the algorithm secret. Once people were able to gradually discover some information, truth emerged. It was a scam and they lied to consumers, plus they were only seeking for profit. They created a format that was not needed by consumers, but allowed them to get royalties from the hardware that supported it, increasing the price of streamers and receivers as the manufacturer had to pay royalties to support the format. Now they are getting what they deserve...
They lied. For years, they lied about it being lossless, they used ambiguous wording to suggest that it was lossless without actually saying it, and kept the algorithm secret. Once people were able to gradually discover some information, truth emerged. It was a scam and they lied to consumers, plus they were only seeking for profit. They created a format that was not needed by consumers, but allowed them to get royalties from the hardware that supported it, increasing the price of streamers and receivers as the manufacturer had to pay royalties to support the format. Finally, one of their main targets with this format was to prevent piracy and enforce DRM, so for example an MQA file cannot be converted into a bitstream, it can only be streamed between MQA licensed devices. Basically, they control the whole chain that reproduces the file in a way that the file can never be altered and they lied on this as well, saying that it was for consumer's sake as they had the guarantee that the file was equivalent to the original master (yes... equivalent to a lossy compression of the master, but they forgot to specify this!), while the real purpose is to control the entire chain that manages the file, ensuring that every device would support MQA and DRM (and getting more royalties). A very clever scheme that luckily failed as their lies became evident. How can you believe they did it in good faith?
In the late pre-digital days, DBX put out equipment that decoded special records that were encoded before the masters were cut and the records pressed. Despite being an improvement, music-wise, the advent of digital recording doomed the technology, which probably would not have been all that popular in the long run. Lesson: beware of proprietary technology.
I'm sure DBX was doomed from the start, not only because of the special record pressings, but also the special and expensive DBX decoders that were required to to play them. But on the other hand some proprietary technology can be very successful, I'm thinking of Dolby B noise reduction for cassettes, that was supported by all manufacturers.
@Michael Turner beyond the proprietary records, they had some interesting products - expanders that helped restore some of the dynamic range that was used in the recording process to limit the loudest sounds to enable successfully cutting a record, and to amplify the softest sounds so that they would be above the noise floor of the tape machines that they used, first to capture the separate tracks, and then to produce the master tape that was fed into the cutter for the lacquer master disk. There were albums that were recorded digitally but pressed on vinyl before the standard for CD's was agreed upon; those still had compression but no background hiss from tape. You still had to deal with the noise artifacts from records - pops from dust and the wear and tear on the vinyl groove. Carver's autocorrellator sought to cancel out the record noise and was actually fairly effective. DBX probably would have thrived except for CD's killing the market for expanders.
Now this is a no brainer to agree with. Did some blind testing after an electrical engineer sent me a bunch of comparison files, and preferred the high-resolution files in 100% of the examples, which is saying something, because other than in comparisons to MP3, one rarely even gets 100% right in the first place. Having said that, I do like the Christian Eggen (Nielsen) and Radka Toneff albums, which to my knowledge were never high-resolution to begin with - there, I would say what one hears in the remastering is an artistic choice, and that makes sense to me.
Well, they both use Meridian compression tech. However, DVD-A uses the lossless MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing), which will basically sound the same as FLAC but with licensing costs.
Since flac is completely lossless that would simply be a waste of storage and streaming bandwidth. The quality is 100% the same so even though the waste is relatively small these days, it is still a waste. Why would you prefer WAV over FLAC?
@@TuanMinh-sv2gq The DAC has a lot less computation to do, and many feel that it sounds better because the processor has a much lighter workload. We have been playing WAV files for over 40 years. It's a well understood task.
@@gotham61 For streaming there are advantages to use FLAC, because it uses half the bandwidth. Also the DAC does not do the computation for unpacking the flac, the computer or the streamer (generally more powerful than a DAC) does. On top of that unpacking a FLAC is costing so little cpu resources that the sound difference compared to WAV can not be heard in blind listening tests anymore. Maybe 30 years ago when computers where much less powerful. Today this is a complete non issue.
You can compare the two directly, Tidal uses MQA, Amazon Music uses FLAC. With the same track on both services, both at 100% volume with a AQ Dragonfly, the most obvious difference is that Tidal is louder.
You confuse the meaning of lossless. All audio playback is always lossy, let's start there. There is storage, and in that case all digital files per se are lossless. Then there is compression and in this case only FLAC is a lossless compression method. MQA if used to compress a FLAC is what you might call "lossy" by deliberately throwing out inaudible frequencies. But the main point of MQA isn't to compress some other format that was lossy to start with (FLAC is hardcore lossy in the original A-to-D recording phase.) The main point of MQA is to fight the lossyness that happens during recording in the A-to-D. So here we have a comparison of apples to oranges. FLAC is lossless compression and transmission of a seriously LOSSY A-to-D recording, whereas MQA loses FAR LESS than WAV/FLAC in the A-to-D recording process. If MQA is used only for compression of a WAV/FLAC, it will lose some of the useless/garbage info created during the faulty A-to-D of the highly lossy WAV/FLAC recording process. So in that respect can't ever get better than FLAC. But in the respect of a Mic-to-Speaker complete start-to-finish recording, MQA is by far the least lossy of the two formats. Hope that explains it better.
Based on my ears, I prefer MQA. From the files to the MQA CD's. The audible difference to me is significant. Also, the MQA stands for MASTER QUALITY AUTHENTICAED, not "Assurance" which is, in my opinion, a jab at the format. That aside, the one important factor, often left out, when detractors of the format speak about it, is that in addition to being a compression method, MQA is also, a certification or validation, that what you're hearing from that file is taken from the studio master. A flac file can be created from any source, regardless of the quality, and could have been manipulated or changed several times before one hears it. The point being that, I can make a flac file of this video, which we know is compressed and altered, so just because it's supposedly "not altered" doesn't make it the better sounding music file.
Lots of factual errors in your statement. Please refer to why Neil Young took his music off Tidal. They converted his FLACs to MQA; he never gave them his masters to work with, so in no way whatsoever is MQA only ever taken from studio masters. It is, however, marketing and snake oil.
Flac is decompression/ recompression algorithm and MQA ventures into the field of sound processing. MQA is odd and quite possibly a scam. They license this to manufacturers - it became a badge for a while that some bespoke streamers and amp making companies wanted on their hardware - but hard-line analysis shows that the original inventors claims were, at best, his personal preference which had most people fooled, for a while.
What do you mean fooled? Nobody was fooled. Everyone knew exactly what MQA is. A scam. First claim was that MQA is "lossless" format then after scientific test with test files specific to check for bit compression/decompression and turns out it is not only lossy as bits were lost in the process but also it just added noise and weird stuff to it. It messed with the file itself. So as soon as that was debunked.... They changed to "perceived lossless". Pure bullshit.
MQA sounds decent, but as you said, it's lossy. Some of the claims made by the MQA folks set of red flags for me too. FLAC is lossless, so it seems like a non-argument just from that perspective alone. MQA fans, to me, are sort of saying "I prefer the sound through my equalizer than I do without it." That's fair, and it's fine, but we have to acknowledge that MQA takes liberties, whereas an lossless CODEC, by its very definition, does not.
You confuse the meaning of lossless. All audio playback is always lossy, let's start there. There is storage, and in that case all digital files per se are lossless. Then there is compression and in this case only FLAC is a lossless compression method. MQA if used to compress a FLAC is what you might call "lossy" by deliberately throwing out inaudible frequencies. But the main point of MQA isn't to compress some other format that was lossy to start with (FLAC is hardcore lossy in the original A-to-D recording phase.) The main point of MQA is to fight the lossyness that happens during recording in the A-to-D. So here we have a comparison of apples to oranges. FLAC is lossless compression and transmission of a seriously LOSSY A-to-D recording, whereas MQA loses FAR LESS than WAV/FLAC in the A-to-D recording process. If MQA is used only for compression of a WAV/FLAC, it will lose some of the useless/garbage info created during the faulty A-to-D of the highly lossy WAV/FLAC recording process. So in that respect can't ever get better than FLAC. But in the respect of a Mic-to-Speaker complete start-to-finish recording, MQA is by far the least lossy of the two formats. Hope that explains it better.
@@PartyMusic775 No confusion. Lossless isn't an esoteric concept. Zeroes and ones go in and get compressed. If exactly the same zeroes and ones are reproduced without any changes at decompression, that is what is universally accepted as lossless. Perhaps a better term than lossless (and on this I will agree) would be "unchanged." MQA makes changes. People may like the changes it makes, so in a sense, perhaps that's not "losssy" in a subjective sense, and could in fact be "additive." But the point remains; MQA data is different after decompression as compared to prior compression. That's what is generally termed "lossy."
MQA seems like an unhappy medium. What 'audiophile' wants a lossy format? What normal user wants to figure out what MQA is, find a device that decodes it, find a service that offers MQA files, and then hope that it doesnt get killed off?
@0:57 "...MQA is a lossy scheme." The bits that are tossed are beyond any human's hearing. They toss those bits in order to save streaming bandwidth. The savings are substantial. MQA does not touch any frequencies below 20,000 Hz. MQA allows the customer to hear both the high resolution version of the song (i.e. 176.4 kHz) or the CD version of the song (44.1 kHz) from the same file -- depending on whichever version your DAC supports. From where do they source their content remains a mystery. I have never seen any official statement from where they obtain/source their music files. Years ago, a youtuber explained in a video that the MQA process uses their own mixing and mastering process -- implying that they have access to the initial capture tapes. But I never saw confirmation on the above. If it is true that they have access to the initial capture tapes, then it is possible for them to make their own masters, and do so correctly. Alas, who knows?
Some sources state that MQA is sourced from the original master tape for whatever album is available in the MQA format. Some sources state that a 24-bit Wav file was used as the master source from which the MQA file was made. I don’t know which one is correct, but I assume that the 24-bit WAV files sound better than the analog masters due to the latter’s deterioration over time. I also read that the MQA process corrects electrical issues with the analog gear used to record and master the album. As far as the mastering gear is concerned, the electrical issues are evident on the SACD layer of Hybrid SACDs created at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.
@@caleguillory5451 "Some sources state that MQA is sourced from the original master tape for whatever album is available in the MQA format." If they are using the master tape, then it kind of defeats the "better sound quality" effort. The master tape is created from lord-knows how much destructive mixing was done. To achieve the best possible sound quality, you have to get your hands on the initial capture tapes (the raw recordings heard by the microphones). You then use those tapes to mix and master a new master tape. "I also read that the MQA process corrects electrical issues with the analog gear used to record and master the album." I forgot about that. The digital equipment used in the studios, to convert the analog sound into digital files, is flawed. Not necessarily terribly so. But like any digital gear, it does not do a perfect job in lining up the digital bits. Supposedly, the MQA process knows which piece of analog-to-digital gear was used, knows that gear's flaws, and corrects the bits to undo the flaws.
@@spandel100 well, whoever has the pockets to run a business, and is not “smart” enough to run that business, they deserve to go under.. I’ve signed on with employers I never should have, and that was on me. Paying for our stupidity is actually a good thing for growth.
There are different forms of compression. Flac is lossless compression (a bit like a ZIP file), MQA is lossy compression. In other words a decompressed FLAC is identical to the original WAV. MQA is not because it throws away data during compression. Paul explained this clearly in his video.
@@andymill8552 sure thing. I’m not challenging what Paul is saying. I guess my point is Paul didn’t mention wav, which he has mentioned in previous videos. I think he mentioned decompressing a track requires processing which may create electrical noise. I’m no expert in any of this and not suggesting I am here. I’m simply mentioning wav is an alternative
@@mintchocchap Oh, I am sorry I misunderstood. I thought you where claiming that, compared to WAV, FLAC and MQA are both inferior because of compression. Sorry for the confusion.
There is no reason to use lossy compression if all you are doing is storing the files. Audio is tiny and disks are huge now. A CD was only .6 gbytes. You can buy a 16 terabyte disk for a couple of hundred dollars, thats 32000 uncompressed CDs. Use a lossless compression algorithm and you can store 60000 CDs. The only place where lossy compression is still used is streaming and Satellite. Satellites have limited bandwidth and they would rather cram more channels into it then to have good sound. Streaming services could use lossless if they wanted to but it costs them more money so most use lossy compressors.
Lossy compression has a purpose for portable music. At home you can have unlimited storage and bandwidth. It's unlikely you will have more than 1TB of storage when out and about, and as network quality varies hugely, you might have no data coverage at all in some places.
Well...the fact that MQA is now facing bankruptcy & Tidal has dumped it completely should be a pretty big clue what the majority of audiophiles think of that snake oil "Magic Origami" format. Just no such substitute for a large file-size true hi-res FLAC file.
@@caleguillory5451 The existing Tidal MQA's are probably still there. If Tidal will add new MQA's is highly doubtful, since they have announced they are going all in for lossless hi-res FLAC files. Also, as far as I know, Tidal was the only provider of MQA files. For now you are still good with MQA, For the future not so much. Maybe you don't like to hear that, but don't shoot the messenger.
@@caleguillory5451 Yes, why not? Unpacked they are bit for bit equal compared to the original (PCM/WAV) recording provided by the record company. You can't get any closer to the original, because it is exactly the same as the original. Further more FLAC is completely open source and license/royalty free. I don't see any disadvantages here.
@@andymill8552 So in this case is “original” a reference to what the microphone heard in the studio or does “original” refer to what was heard on playback after the recording was completed?
I'm not a fan of MQA as I was subscribed to it as well as Qobuz. There was something missing in the SQ of MQA. I canceled my MQA subscription within a month after the comparison.
You cannot use MQA yourself anyway so it's an irrelevant question and answer, MQA is (or was) a just a streaming format and was not intended for consumer home use.
When are we going to get over compression? Loss is loss and a scheme is a scheme .. get over it and just pay for the damn bandwidth and storage space lol I do some streaming around the house, but I BUY & OWN music if I like it enough. Seems to me there’s a lot of people that want to store all the world’s music in the palm of their hand and walk around listening with little IEM’s. That is the antithesis of audio purism. I would call that budget audio enthusiasm at best. Another Caveat: You can get run over if you don’t pay attention out there.
@@davidfromamerica1871 🤣 You know what , I never really thought of it that way, but you’ve got a very good point there.. I don’t know though if I think about it bc most of the people that you see doing that stuff aren’t really senior citizens, they are younger, but that was a funny comment. And there always does seem to be forces at work manipulating the masses, and quite successfully.😉
@@shipsahoy1793 I am 73 years old. Lived through the ups and downs of hardware and music artist. I take a simple approach. Whatever floats one’s boat. There are those that have cylinder music players, Gramophone players, old 78 collections, old tube floor standing radios, V-Disc and V-Disc players, out of print albums, concerts that are out of print, they uploaded on their TH-cam channels I listen to all that. The history of music and its hardware from the past. I can listen to the famous radio DJ’s from the past around the Country on TH-cam. If I took music Audiophile technology too seriously, I would be missing out on entertainment of the past I get from TH-cam.
@@davidfromamerica1871 well, you’ve got the right attitude / you take from it what you like / it is almost strange how many people out here don’t know the difference between opinion and fact /sometimes they’re very passionate in their ignorance / hence, it’s a mind boggling scenario when you think about it, but you’ve got the right idea / those things are around for enjoyment / nobody should be running around saying we are going to do this and only this because this is deemed perfect by the powers that be. I don’t agree with certain modes of operation, but I know that’s only my opinion and I’m not a purist by any means, so those kinds of things always surprise me. I don’t mind if somebody wants to have an MP3 player in their pocket and cheap IEM’s in their ears, just don’t be rude about it around others. Same with those goddamn smart phones.😉
@@shipsahoy1793 Smart phone’s LOL. I see couple’s sitting in restaurants, each with a phone, their head buried in their phones. They don’t even talk to each other..😀 They are talking to someone else on social media. 😀 I don’t ever remember phone number today.😀 it’s all in my contacts. If I ever lost my contacts on my phone. I would be screwed 😀 I was watching Google I/O 2023 conference yesterday on TH-cam. It’s mostly about Google’s AI algorithms technologies. 😳 My brain was in WTF mode watching it.. 😀
Paul completely misunderstood the meaning of MQA. He doesn't even know how abbreviation "A" is spelled ("Authenticated"). MQA doesn't throw away anything from the file. It "burns" the ultrasonics above the audible range and expands that back when a decoder is implemented. While FLAC's main function is to compress file, MQA's goal is to deliver the analog sound in the best way, no matter what are the numbers. So, folding-unfolding staff is a bonus feature for streaming services and to reduce carbon emissions. The main staff are implemented filters which remove pre- and post-ringing.
MQA's goal is to control the reproduction chain, ensure that every device pays royalties to them (and thus costs more to consumers) and enforce DRM. No one needed this format, it has no advantage to consumers (or very little, in terms of file size) with a lot of disadvantages.
Hardcore CD/DVD/BLU-RAY user here. No interest in streaming music at all. I will be a hardcore silver disc fan until the format or I dies, whichever comes first. Yes I know DVDs use a lossy codec.
I do not want to open this can of worms any further, but we shall compare the compression schemes as the question was interpreted. There I agree, a lossless compression I always prefer over one that is lossy. There we should end the discussion because MQA is not just a compressor. First, it is lossy only for frequencies beyond hearing. So if you are having a DAC which is only licensed as that, you will not hear any difference, as many of the commenters attest to. It is different to HiRes files though. The reconstruction of the higher frequencies, or unfolding in MQA terms, using the full MQA DAC, does not create any time smearing, and this you very well can hear, especially on good piano recordings. For me, this is valuable. An equal listening joy I only experience with DSD files, for that matter. But we are talking about streaming here. There, MQA is superior to any other HiRes file. Audibly.
@@hanspetscher5770 I don't use Tidal myself, but I did look at their website today. And seems to be mainly about streaming in lossless FLAC, with no mention of MQA. So I'm guessing Tidal's MQA distributions are now ceased. Of course FLAC is free and open source, while MQA was proprietary and restricted, and meant them paying $$$ to MQA Ltd in licensing fees. And watching to this video, it sounds like PS Audio no longer supports MQA in their products.
I have spent thousands of dollars on music and cd's over the years and none of it sounds as good as what I now get free over the Internet. I spending no more money on music in the future.
I think you don't understand what FLAC is/does, it's a completely lossless compression algorithm that when uncompressed is bit perfect to the original so nothing like MP3 which throws away data when it compresses.
Codec (e.g. COmpressionDECompression) schemes have long been a staple in information technology for compressing data on secondary storage to save space (e.g. ZIP, GZIP, etc.) and, hence, on the cost of hardware . The end results is a bit-perfect representation of the original that's critical in computation.
MQA is the author's confirmation of engineering *MASTER* studio original musical material. On hi end hardware, the difference between fake Flac and MQA is very noticeable. You can change Paul's voice to female. This will be dummy Flac material, not master MQA.
If you have cats and dogs that are sensitive to lossless compression above 20k then go with FLAC. Again you are misrepresenting the facts here Paul you can't hear the compression in MQA and totally missing the point MQA"s main reason for being is distortion reduction in all it's form and it sounds fantastic. You are simply running it down because you can't clip the ticket and that's the real snake oil.
You ignore that PS Audio is still in business while MQA (rights holder) has filed for bankruptcy. Furthermore, you claim "you can't hear the compression in MQA" is well disputed by people who really specialize in headphone listening.
![[MPD직캠] 베이비몬스터 직캠 8K 'LIKE THAT' (BABYMONSTER FanCam) | @MCOUNTDOWN_2024.6.13](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8qa-nm9bCLs/mqdefault.jpg)
Apart from the audio reproduction quality, from a Collector's Point of View, you would not want your collection to be dependent on a propriety technology.
FLAC can be converted to other formats but MQA... well, that output is 'protected' and if the technology 'dead-ends' so does your collection.
MQA has always been a solution in search of a problem.
Exactly. And they could not explain it. And with Silicon Valley Bank gone how long can you convince some investors to keep paying for something that has no purpose.
Goodbye MQA. That was Snake Oil.
Lossy compression is a no-no for audiophiles…
does that mean that Tidal Hifi Plus is worth it now?
My understanding is MQA is most likely dying.... In some type of financial pickle...
From what I understand, the main investor pulled the plug and it sent MQA Ltd into receivership. Probably going to see MQA licensing fizzle out as a result.
If that’s MQA’s behavior, does that give me permission to stick to CD?
MQA will be dead
They refuse to say how it works in any meaningful way, using stupid terms like “neuroscience”
Good news! The less snake oil salesmen in this world, the better.
I have about 16 TB of local storage just for music. FLAC is the way to go. With the miniscule cost of storage these days, it's a no-brainer.
Or you could just go for WAV with that kind of storage since in my experience, WAV files aren't the gigantic size difference from FLAC they're made out to be.
@@bkkersey93 In my experience FLAC is around half the size of WAV. That is proven easily: just convert one of your WAV files to FLAC.
FLAC files can store more metadata than WAV, making FLAC more convenient when searching file collections based on metadata.
@@bkkersey93 Though there's no reason to favour WAV over FLAC, both are lossless digital formats. Look at it this way: it's the same as folding a T-Shirt to put in a drawer compared to putting the T-Shirt away unfolded; both are exactly the same T-Shirt, the folded version is easier to store. FLAC also has better metadata options.
I wish I live in a country where "storage is cheap".
Excellent. Absolutely agree. Just from a logic view you don't want to lose anything.
There is a very major surface level way they are different. Yes they are both data compression schemes for audio. MQA does it's work by attacking higher audio frequencies while still in the analog domain during the conversion to digital. Thus directly manipulating the sound to reduce the information it contains in order to reduce bandwidth needs during streaming.
While FLAC has nothing to do with the actual audio. FLAC is a mathematical process performed after the analog has been converted into a digital file already that just reduces the digital file size. It is digital file compression/ expansion and not pre and post analog audio processing.
Basically... MQA is just shit.
I have Luxman's flagship disc player, bought a couple MQA discs (my unit is enabled for optimizing them) - one being a Shostakovich recording by DG & the other being Zenyatta Mondatta (The Police). Neither one sounded the slightest bit superior to standard cd & the classical one may have been slightly worse (but unlike Zenyatta I couldn't compare it with the identical recording in another format/codec). Oh, and MQA is a 'proprietary format.' I'd long suspected MQA was simply hype. Well, my modest comparison did zero to change my POV on it.
In a Reddit Q&A last April 10, 2023, Tidal CEO, Jesse Dorogusker, revealed that the streaming platform will soon be supporting FLAC in their Hi-Res format for HiFi Plus subscribers, days after MQA files for Appointment of Administrator, which is equivalent to bankruptcy in the US.
Hasn't happened yet...
@@spandel100 yes, he left open if its weeks or months
what tidal really needs to fix is when you click on the lyrics to get to that part of the song and the audio of the song does rewind, but the visual lyrics keep going and don't follow from where you just clicked
I hope tidal will completely remove MQA and just replace it with flac for CD audio quality (hifi) and those hi-res format for hifi plus subs.... I don't care much for hi-res format but I want pure CD audio quality untouched.
As paul said... I don't want someone messing with my stuff.
@@sermerlin1 100% agree,I find red book or cd quality sounds amazing,and it always will.
Thanks for educating! Let nobody critisize you for not liking something. We live in a free world. Everyone has the right to have their own opinion. I love your videos.
To quote the late and great George Carlin: "Oh yeah? Well I have a right to my opinion, and my opinion is that you have no right to your opinion!"
@@edfort5704 Yes... I capitulate.
Well said!!!
MQA is the audiophile's (me included) Budweiser. 😅
MQA is a format that was designed to replicate the studio sound experience with Time Smearing Correction up to 10M away from the speakers. Most people don't have a studio to listen to there music in, and don't have a set of hi-end studio monitors - so they can't hear the benefit of it. I have a studio system and MQA sounds amazing on it compared to FLAC which sounds flat and 2D like. th-cam.com/video/Cl5ULnX4viU/w-d-xo.html
"Lossy scheme" is a good description.
Hi Paul. Thanks for the videos… I have a question. Carpet or no carpet? I have wooden floor. I am wondering if to place a carpet where I sit and listen to music, probably half the area between the sofa and speakers, not the whole floor. Would that help? Or is it better to place a long and narrow carpet underneath the speakers? Thanks again.
I prefer carpet, personally. Not sure about under the speakers, but certainly between you and the front of the speakers, a big throw rug can really help.
Completely agree. The argument against UHF centers around audible frequency range but has anyone been able to establish that waves outside of audible frequency range do not impact sonic quality?
This is good to know. I did cancel my Hifi Plus membership on tidal which had MQA and moved to "lower" and cheaper Hifi Flac..... So im not regretting after hearing this
Same here. Plus, I've started just buying straight up FLAC files. So I won't be using Tidal much anymore anyways.
@@bkkersey93 how expensive does it get like this>
?
You still will listen to the downgraded version of MQA because the HiFi tier also has tons of Master.
*Master Quality Authenticated - not Assured
Thanks Paul, I never knew MQA was lossy. I'll stick with the WAV's and FLAC
The real issue with MQA is not whether it is good or not. It's how the very mention of the topic makes so many audiophiles apapleptic. Probably most people with a strong opinion about it have never heard it. Likewise, I would guess the overwhelming group of people screaming online about how great Hegel amps are, have never heard one. What is it about audio, that so many people, with so little actual experience, have such strong opinions.
You are totally ignoring that MQA is a proprietary format. And now the MQA rights holder has filed for bankruptcy protection.
Totally agree, now let’s talk about cables shall we? What are the best cables for transporting MQA? Silver copper fiber or other? 😅
@@TheDanEdwards OMG I just found out all music I listen to is proprietary, under copyright by the artist who did it! I'm switching to open source royalty-free MIDI files only now.
Musicians and a love of music seems to be mutually exclusive to having Critical Thinking skills. They always display emotionally based Ladder of Inference thinking. And when you think about it that makes sense. Because music is historically more of a social farming community thing than a Neanderthal hunter thing. The hunter also needs very good auditory spatial skill processing as well, whereas the farmer doesn't.
The lack of Critical Thinking Skills can be seen in the high percentage of people involved in music who got the clot shot. Which was set as a test for Critical Thinking...
@@PartyMusic775that's a different issue. Not only is MQA proprietary, but the algorithm is also secret. MP3 is proprietary as well, and also not free (commercial encoders must pay royalties), but there will always be a free codec available as the algorithm is published. So you see the problem, right? Now that we discovered that MQA is a scam, that it's lossy despite the lies they were saying, now that everyone is abandoning it, new hardware won't support it (no need to pay royalties if not even the company who created it is using it anymore), software won't be updated, and you'll be stuck with a library encoded in an obsolete secret proprietary format. This will never ever happen with flac.
Never been a mqa fan either as a long time tidal premium subscriber. Now that mqa is dead, it should be interesting to see what tidal uses to replace it. I would be totally fine if they did what Apple is doing with their higher resolution content (just normal hi resolution and not the spacial audio stuff). Thanks paul!
Never had enough storage to make my portable library FLAC. Always had to settle for MP3. Hopefully as memory cards expand, I can change that, but it will mean re-ripping everything! Still, MQA seems to sit in an awkward middle ground. It doesn't reduce the bandwidth and storage requirements enough to compete with MP3, but it reduces the quality too much to compete with FLAC.
In the early 2000's I ripped all of my CD's to 320kbit mp3. And I'm Sooo glad I never parted from my original CD collection nor my vinyl's.
Nowadays I mostly just stream from Amazon hd though. So far I haven't considered re-ripping my cd's to flac. My flac collection is growing however from buying files directly from artists.
Listen to classical movements that have moments of silence. Lossy codecs love to freak out during the transition from barely audible to silence and back.
Freak out? What do you mean?
Yeah, that's when you start to hear that weird water x electricity sound.
Ah. Thanks for clarifying.
Does VBR help?
I'd never heard of this MQA until quite recently. And with the bankruptcy, I'll likely never here of it again. All my musics are in FLAC and WAV
Read about MQA going into administration so it may soon become history
I went with FLAC and have ripped my entire CD collection except for some SACD discs and BluRay audio discs. But I still have all of my original discs available to play, just easier at night to just stream my music. I can just lie back , turn on my receiver, use the remote and either stream from my own library or use Qobuz. Actually use my Qobuz subscription to listen to albums from artists, to see if it is worthwhile purchasing the album in CD format myself.
To function maximally, MQA requires support at all levels of the reproduction “stack”, from recording all the way through the playback DAC. This inflexibility is not sustainable since the licensing of this proprietary technology is a tax leveed at all levels of this stack. MQA design drives licensing revenue with, as Paul states, only subjective benefits in return. FLAC, on the other hand, is a free and open standard and, consequently, will always have strong support. FLAC’s place in the reproduction stack is compartmentalized and its scope is limited: FLAC is no concern in the recording process and, likewise, also not in the playback DAC. FLAC makes no decisions about what you can hear or how it will be played back.
Is Qobuz in Flac, and so, better than Tidal?
I've heard that MQA is on the way out. Is this true? (As a Qobuz subscriber it makes no difference to me but for those using Tidal... .)
I love MQA.
One would argue it's like comparing WAV and MP3 of same size. One is 8bit/11kHz "lossless" wav, other is lossy 16bit/48kHz mp3. Both have same bitrate. Which is better?
Wav 8bit = bit lossy (not lossless)
There is no point in lossy compression of audio nowadays. I can stream 90 million songs in LOSSLESS FLAC in CD quality or up to 192kHz 24 bits from my Amazon Music HD account with each song available in a second costing me US9.99 per month. I’m not sure what more I can want in terms of media availability, audio fidelity or cost???
Besides, my internet connection is optical to my house with 1Gbps and I can stream 100s of audiophile streams in parallel if I had the need for it.
MQA is history at this point.
Streaming services have terrible variety unless you only listen to popular music. But for most it's OK.
@@StrangeBrewReviewsTechnically speaking, streaming services move your music data over the internet and can support much high resolving audio codecs than CD media. You can reliably stream a bit-perfect master version of your favorite music without any negative effect at all. Personally I use Amazon Music HD where FLAC is used to deliver completely lossless audio to my DAC in up to 192kHz 24 bits. The audio quality is excellent for the highest fidelity music. Of course your system needs to be with proper handling of the stream without introducing additional sample rate conversion or other lossy processing.
@@ThinkingBetter sure but they only carry a few popular albums from artists I like...I prefer cds and lps....most my collection is not on streaming services anyway.
@@ThinkingBetter Are you sure it's getting to your DAC in 24/192 lossless? Amazon sends it through the OS mixer so you're getting upsample/downsample artifacts on an order of magnitude more lossy than MQA. Hope they solve that issue soon.
@@PartyMusic775 I am running in exclusive mode bypassing any SRC. Yes I’m sure. In fact the Mac OS version of Amazon Music has an on/off switch for exclusive mode. It also means you can’t control volume in Mac OS as it maintains the original PCM sample values without level attenuation.
Never mind that MQA alters the sound to make it better, it costs 10 dollars more per month on Tidal to hear it. I'm with Tidal, and did have MQA but dropped the MQA and still have CD quality songs, and I'm still completely satisfied with Tidal, how it sounds. I'm thinking Spotify is stalling to up their quality of sound for the same reason. Very few of us are purists.
MQA never altered the sound to make it better. It made it worse, always.
@@sermerlin1 FALSE. I live in an AirBNB and the random AB I do on even non-audiophile people, for curiosity, always comes up MQA as better, even on my fairly modest audiophile stack.
@@PartyMusic775 compared to what? 160kbps?
Never listened to an MQA file. Seems i never will😅
MQA was just somebody’s wet dream; doomed from the start .
After several months i canceled Tidal because the MQA was fatiguing to me. I thought Amazon and Apple lossless sounded better.
MQA HAS GONE IT ADMINISTRATION / BANKRUPTCY
The MQA guys say how much better it sounds. They have all these graphs and wording to explain how it purifies the music that I try and understand what they are doing. At the end of the day I think Qobuz sounds better than Tidal. But others say other way around. I guess MQA was great for streaming where you want to keep Hi Res file sizes to a minimum.
FLAC ALWAYS WILL BE FIRST CHOICE.
Goldensound's channel tested MQA. MQA will be going the way of the dodo.
I don't know. My DAC glows differently when playing MQA and it looks cool. So I'm not gonna delete my MQA just yet. (Also, I can't hear any difference.)
Uhm, I don't bother with flac or MQA, and instead use wav. I pretty much don't bother with compression anymore as storage is cheap enough you don't really need it.
Even though you can't hear any audible difference between FLAC and WAV, but I agree with going with WAV if storage is of no issue.
@@bkkersey93 You won't hear a difference unless the source is mastered lossless without compression and then over to wav, and these days it's such niche' thing. Storage is so cheap it's almost illegal!.
Agreed 💯 with you. Had to actually search for a place to buy non mqa flac of simply red blue eyed soul, most places had only mqa for some reason, thank god for qobuz. Don't want anything to do with mqa.
Only place I see any meaning with MQA is for "radio/TV" where they can give as much as possible with as little data as possible.
@@zakkazz1201 I meant the sound for regular TV and radio broadcast.
Oh, how I wish I had ripped more of my cd's, in FLAC, instead of just a few.
Maybe the liquidators or administrators of MQA Ltd, the former UK company that licensed this technology will open source it?
Totally agree with Paul, MQA is trash.
I love the sound of MQA.
I love sound of 96 kbps mp3. It seams to be deviant love, but still love...
Oh, by the way,
all you comment artists, .. I don’t think Paul really cares if you agree with him or not; he is probably highly entertained by all the critiques to his comments.
I would be.
FLAC FTW!
I discarded MQA without trying it from the first day because I knew future available bandwith would allow for streaming Hi-Res FLAC at low enough birates. MQA is doing tricks, yeah, but it might prove its point saving bitrate to allow better quality than say 44.1/16 (~500-800 kbps FLAC or 1.41Mbps WAV). But today with Netflix 4k/HDR/DV at 17.98Mbps, it becomes irrelevant, we can have 96Khz/24 bits FLAC at 2789 kbps that is half regular youtube bitate, so MQA is no longer worth the hassle. I remember HDCD in 1995 was a similar ill-fate technology. Only a handful of CD were released and I didn't notice anything.
As I do not agree on many subjects or more on way you do it I fully agree about negative opinion on presenting something worse in a way to make it looking as precious gem insted
I'm sad about the demise of MQA the company. I think it sounds superb, I hope it endures in some shape or form with the new owners. Bob Stewart is a good guy, he was trying to make things better, it wasn't a conspiracy.
They lied. For years, they lied about it being lossless, they used ambiguous wording to suggest that it was lossless without actually saying it, and kept the algorithm secret. Once people were able to gradually discover some information, truth emerged. It was a scam and they lied to consumers, plus they were only seeking for profit. They created a format that was not needed by consumers, but allowed them to get royalties from the hardware that supported it, increasing the price of streamers and receivers as the manufacturer had to pay royalties to support the format. Now they are getting what they deserve...
They lied. For years, they lied about it being lossless, they used ambiguous wording to suggest that it was lossless without actually saying it, and kept the algorithm secret. Once people were able to gradually discover some information, truth emerged. It was a scam and they lied to consumers, plus they were only seeking for profit. They created a format that was not needed by consumers, but allowed them to get royalties from the hardware that supported it, increasing the price of streamers and receivers as the manufacturer had to pay royalties to support the format. Finally, one of their main targets with this format was to prevent piracy and enforce DRM, so for example an MQA file cannot be converted into a bitstream, it can only be streamed between MQA licensed devices. Basically, they control the whole chain that reproduces the file in a way that the file can never be altered and they lied on this as well, saying that it was for consumer's sake as they had the guarantee that the file was equivalent to the original master (yes... equivalent to a lossy compression of the master, but they forgot to specify this!), while the real purpose is to control the entire chain that manages the file, ensuring that every device would support MQA and DRM (and getting more royalties). A very clever scheme that luckily failed as their lies became evident. How can you believe they did it in good faith?
A lot of people were lied to, Inc Me. We bought MQA DACs and subscriptions because of the lies.
In the late pre-digital days, DBX put out equipment that decoded special records that were encoded before the masters were cut and the records pressed. Despite being an improvement, music-wise, the advent of digital recording doomed the technology, which probably would not have been all that popular in the long run. Lesson: beware of proprietary technology.
I'm sure DBX was doomed from the start, not only because of the special record pressings, but also the special and expensive DBX decoders that were required to to play them. But on the other hand some proprietary technology can be very successful, I'm thinking of Dolby B noise reduction for cassettes, that was supported by all manufacturers.
@Michael Turner beyond the proprietary records, they had some interesting products - expanders that helped restore some of the dynamic range that was used in the recording process to limit the loudest sounds to enable successfully cutting a record, and to amplify the softest sounds so that they would be above the noise floor of the tape machines that they used, first to capture the separate tracks, and then to produce the master tape that was fed into the cutter for the lacquer master disk.
There were albums that were recorded digitally but pressed on vinyl before the standard for CD's was agreed upon; those still had compression but no background hiss from tape. You still had to deal with the noise artifacts from records - pops from dust and the wear and tear on the vinyl groove. Carver's autocorrellator sought to cancel out the record noise and was actually fairly effective.
DBX probably would have thrived except for CD's killing the market for expanders.
I agree Paul, 100% true MQA is a lossy format I also don't like it . Didn't like since the das one .
Now this is a no brainer to agree with. Did some blind testing after an electrical engineer sent me a bunch of comparison files, and preferred the high-resolution files in 100% of the examples, which is saying something, because other than in comparisons to MP3, one rarely even gets 100% right in the first place. Having said that, I do like the Christian Eggen (Nielsen) and Radka Toneff albums, which to my knowledge were never high-resolution to begin with - there, I would say what one hears in the remastering is an artistic choice, and that makes sense to me.
Pistol grip preamp in his system at all times. You can be messing with other audiophiles' stuff, but you can't be messing with Paul's!
EVEN TIDAL HAVE PLANS TO QUIT MQA.
CD is better than all of them!
CD = Flac.
Maybe MQA is similar like DVD-A, will disappear not so far.
Well, they both use Meridian compression tech. However, DVD-A uses the lossless MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing), which will basically sound the same as FLAC but with licensing costs.
With storage costing just pennies per gigabyte, there’s no longer any good reason to compress files at all. Just store them as uncompressed WAV files.
Since flac is completely lossless that would simply be a waste of storage and streaming bandwidth. The quality is 100% the same so even though the waste is relatively small these days, it is still a waste. Why would you prefer WAV over FLAC?
@@TuanMinh-sv2gq The DAC has a lot less computation to do, and many feel that it sounds better because the processor has a much lighter workload.
We have been playing WAV files for over 40 years. It's a well understood task.
@@gotham61 For streaming there are advantages to use FLAC, because it uses half the bandwidth. Also the DAC does not do the computation for unpacking the flac, the computer or the streamer (generally more powerful than a DAC) does. On top of that unpacking a FLAC is costing so little cpu resources that the sound difference compared to WAV can not be heard in blind listening tests anymore. Maybe 30 years ago when computers where much less powerful. Today this is a complete non issue.
@@gotham61 thanks for your explanation. I'm going to have to go with Andy here though.
If you really want the file copied straight off CDs, it is better to use AIFF files in sted, it has superior metadata capabilities.
You can compare the two directly, Tidal uses MQA, Amazon Music uses FLAC. With the same track on both services, both at 100% volume with a AQ Dragonfly, the most obvious difference is that Tidal is louder.
Turn off normalisation in Tidal,it messes with the sound quality.Thats also why its loud.
iTunes is even louder
@@shangrilaladeda yeah for sure. I hate when switching to apple iTunes and tidal. I get blasted in my car when switching.
@@boostedmaniac sorry to hear that, I have to find a way to get jriver to work off of my wifi so I could use my library on the go just like iTunes
You confuse the meaning of lossless. All audio playback is always lossy, let's start there. There is storage, and in that case all digital files per se are lossless. Then there is compression and in this case only FLAC is a lossless compression method. MQA if used to compress a FLAC is what you might call "lossy" by deliberately throwing out inaudible frequencies. But the main point of MQA isn't to compress some other format that was lossy to start with (FLAC is hardcore lossy in the original A-to-D recording phase.) The main point of MQA is to fight the lossyness that happens during recording in the A-to-D. So here we have a comparison of apples to oranges. FLAC is lossless compression and transmission of a seriously LOSSY A-to-D recording, whereas MQA loses FAR LESS than WAV/FLAC in the A-to-D recording process. If MQA is used only for compression of a WAV/FLAC, it will lose some of the useless/garbage info created during the faulty A-to-D of the highly lossy WAV/FLAC recording process. So in that respect can't ever get better than FLAC. But in the respect of a Mic-to-Speaker complete start-to-finish recording, MQA is by far the least lossy of the two formats. Hope that explains it better.
Based on my ears, I prefer MQA. From the files to the MQA CD's. The audible difference to me is significant. Also, the MQA stands for MASTER QUALITY AUTHENTICAED, not "Assurance" which is, in my opinion, a jab at the format. That aside, the one important factor, often left out, when detractors of the format speak about it, is that in addition to being a compression method, MQA is also, a certification or validation, that what you're hearing from that file is taken from the studio master. A flac file can be created from any source, regardless of the quality, and could have been manipulated or changed several times before one hears it. The point being that, I can make a flac file of this video, which we know is compressed and altered, so just because it's supposedly "not altered" doesn't make it the better sounding music file.
This was an insightful comment that I really appreciate.
MQA authenticated nothing other than an unknown source ( often a standard CD ) had passed through a lossy codec & been marked up to a higher price.
Lots of factual errors in your statement. Please refer to why Neil Young took his music off Tidal. They converted his FLACs to MQA; he never gave them his masters to work with, so in no way whatsoever is MQA only ever taken from studio masters. It is, however, marketing and snake oil.
@@zakkazz1201 Good to know; thanks for the heads-up! 🙏
Due to being whatever # comment I am, I win free PS Audio, free delivery. YAAAAAYYY!!!
MQA or FLAC? 🤔 I’m going with WAV. 😉
Why? It's identical in terms of quality but bigger. What's the upside?
@@TuanMinh-sv2gq Because I want to and it’s one letter shorter.
@@andygilbert1877 alright, well, can't argue with that :p
As long as you don't claim it's "superiority" then have at it lol.
Flac is decompression/ recompression algorithm and MQA ventures into the field of sound processing. MQA is odd and quite possibly a scam. They license this to manufacturers - it became a badge for a while that some bespoke streamers and amp making companies wanted on their hardware - but hard-line analysis shows that the original inventors claims were, at best, his personal preference which had most people fooled, for a while.
Yeah, I would simply say that MQA stinks of fraud.
What do you mean fooled? Nobody was fooled. Everyone knew exactly what MQA is. A scam.
First claim was that MQA is "lossless" format then after scientific test with test files specific to check for bit compression/decompression and turns out it is not only lossy as bits were lost in the process but also it just added noise and weird stuff to it. It messed with the file itself.
So as soon as that was debunked.... They changed to "perceived lossless". Pure bullshit.
MQA sounds decent, but as you said, it's lossy. Some of the claims made by the MQA folks set of red flags for me too. FLAC is lossless, so it seems like a non-argument just from that perspective alone. MQA fans, to me, are sort of saying "I prefer the sound through my equalizer than I do without it." That's fair, and it's fine, but we have to acknowledge that MQA takes liberties, whereas an lossless CODEC, by its very definition, does not.
You confuse the meaning of lossless. All audio playback is always lossy, let's start there. There is storage, and in that case all digital files per se are lossless. Then there is compression and in this case only FLAC is a lossless compression method. MQA if used to compress a FLAC is what you might call "lossy" by deliberately throwing out inaudible frequencies. But the main point of MQA isn't to compress some other format that was lossy to start with (FLAC is hardcore lossy in the original A-to-D recording phase.) The main point of MQA is to fight the lossyness that happens during recording in the A-to-D. So here we have a comparison of apples to oranges. FLAC is lossless compression and transmission of a seriously LOSSY A-to-D recording, whereas MQA loses FAR LESS than WAV/FLAC in the A-to-D recording process. If MQA is used only for compression of a WAV/FLAC, it will lose some of the useless/garbage info created during the faulty A-to-D of the highly lossy WAV/FLAC recording process. So in that respect can't ever get better than FLAC. But in the respect of a Mic-to-Speaker complete start-to-finish recording, MQA is by far the least lossy of the two formats. Hope that explains it better.
@@PartyMusic775 No confusion. Lossless isn't an esoteric concept. Zeroes and ones go in and get compressed. If exactly the same zeroes and ones are reproduced without any changes at decompression, that is what is universally accepted as lossless. Perhaps a better term than lossless (and on this I will agree) would be "unchanged." MQA makes changes. People may like the changes it makes, so in a sense, perhaps that's not "losssy" in a subjective sense, and could in fact be "additive." But the point remains; MQA data is different after decompression as compared to prior compression. That's what is generally termed "lossy."
MQA seems like an unhappy medium. What 'audiophile' wants a lossy format? What normal user wants to figure out what MQA is, find a device that decodes it, find a service that offers MQA files, and then hope that it doesnt get killed off?
@0:57 "...MQA is a lossy scheme."
The bits that are tossed are beyond any human's hearing.
They toss those bits in order to save streaming bandwidth. The savings are substantial.
MQA does not touch any frequencies below 20,000 Hz.
MQA allows the customer to hear both the high resolution version of the song (i.e. 176.4 kHz) or the CD version of the song (44.1 kHz) from the same file -- depending on whichever version your DAC supports.
From where do they source their content remains a mystery. I have never seen any official statement from where they obtain/source their music files.
Years ago, a youtuber explained in a video that the MQA process uses their own mixing and mastering process -- implying that they have access to the initial capture tapes.
But I never saw confirmation on the above.
If it is true that they have access to the initial capture tapes, then it is possible for them to make their own masters, and do so correctly. Alas, who knows?
Some sources state that MQA is sourced from the original master tape for whatever album is available in the MQA format. Some sources state that a 24-bit Wav file was used as the master source from which the MQA file was made. I don’t know which one is correct, but I assume that the 24-bit WAV files sound better than the analog masters due to the latter’s deterioration over time. I also read that the MQA process corrects electrical issues with the analog gear used to record and master the album. As far as the mastering gear is concerned, the electrical issues are evident on the SACD layer of Hybrid SACDs created at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab.
@@caleguillory5451 "Some sources state that MQA is sourced from the original master tape for whatever album is available in the MQA format."
If they are using the master tape, then it kind of defeats the "better sound quality" effort.
The master tape is created from lord-knows how much destructive mixing was done.
To achieve the best possible sound quality, you have to get your hands on the initial capture tapes (the raw recordings heard by the microphones). You then use those tapes to mix and master a new master tape.
"I also read that the MQA process corrects electrical issues with the analog gear used to record and master the album."
I forgot about that.
The digital equipment used in the studios, to convert the analog sound into digital files, is flawed. Not necessarily terribly so. But like any digital gear, it does not do a perfect job in lining up the digital bits.
Supposedly, the MQA process knows which piece of analog-to-digital gear was used, knows that gear's flaws, and corrects the bits to undo the flaws.
@@NoEgg4u So the initial capture tapes are would have been the multitrack masters, right?
@@caleguillory5451 That is my understanding.
One format is filing bankruptcy, the other isn’t 😂
Hey Paul, apparently Tidal doesn't like MQA either.
They are losing customers to Qobuz because of MQA...they need to trash it to stay in business.
@@spandel100 well, whoever has the pockets to run a business, and is not “smart” enough to run that business, they deserve to go under.. I’ve signed on with employers I never should have, and that was on me. Paying for our stupidity is actually a good thing for growth.
If you use uncompressed files, then you dont need to worry about this stuff
Wav is great
It’s not compressed like flac or mqa formats are.
There are different forms of compression. Flac is lossless compression (a bit like a ZIP file), MQA is lossy compression. In other words a decompressed FLAC is identical to the original WAV. MQA is not because it throws away data during compression. Paul explained this clearly in his video.
@@andymill8552 sure thing. I’m not challenging what Paul is saying. I guess my point is Paul didn’t mention wav, which he has mentioned in previous videos. I think he mentioned decompressing a track requires processing which may create electrical noise. I’m no expert in any of this and not suggesting I am here. I’m simply mentioning wav is an alternative
@@mintchocchap Oh, I am sorry I misunderstood. I thought you where claiming that, compared to WAV, FLAC and MQA are both inferior because of compression. Sorry for the confusion.
@@zakkazz1201 🤣
There is no reason to use lossy compression if all you are doing is storing the files. Audio is tiny and disks are huge now. A CD was only .6 gbytes. You can buy a 16 terabyte disk for a couple of hundred dollars, thats 32000 uncompressed CDs. Use a lossless compression algorithm and you can store 60000 CDs. The only place where lossy compression is still used is streaming and Satellite. Satellites have limited bandwidth and they would rather cram more channels into it then to have good sound. Streaming services could use lossless if they wanted to but it costs them more money so most use lossy compressors.
Lossy compression has a purpose for portable music. At home you can have unlimited storage and bandwidth. It's unlikely you will have more than 1TB of storage when out and about, and as network quality varies hugely, you might have no data coverage at all in some places.
Well...the fact that MQA is now facing bankruptcy & Tidal has dumped it completely should be a pretty big clue what the majority of audiophiles think of that snake oil "Magic Origami" format. Just no such substitute for a large file-size true hi-res FLAC file.
If Tidal completely dumped MQA, then why are current Tidal users like me still able to find MQA files and play them?
@@caleguillory5451 The existing Tidal MQA's are probably still there. If Tidal will add new MQA's is highly doubtful, since they have announced they are going all in for lossless hi-res FLAC files. Also, as far as I know, Tidal was the only provider of MQA files. For now you are still good with MQA, For the future not so much. Maybe you don't like to hear that, but don't shoot the messenger.
@@andymill8552 Well, then, are 24-bit FLAC files the easiest way to listen to music exactly as the artist originally recorded it?
@@caleguillory5451 Yes, why not? Unpacked they are bit for bit equal compared to the original (PCM/WAV) recording provided by the record company. You can't get any closer to the original, because it is exactly the same as the original. Further more FLAC is completely open source and license/royalty free. I don't see any disadvantages here.
@@andymill8552 So in this case is “original” a reference to what the microphone heard in the studio or does “original” refer to what was heard on playback after the recording was completed?
MQA is worse... just like running your audio signal through an equilizer..... altering the original file....
I'm not a fan of MQA as I was subscribed to it as well as Qobuz. There was something missing in the SQ of MQA. I canceled my MQA subscription within a month after the comparison.
Lossless --- or forget it.
You cannot use MQA yourself anyway so it's an irrelevant question and answer, MQA is (or was) a just a streaming format and was not intended for consumer home use.
Of course, mqa isa another lossy format like Mp3, no offence, it is nothing extraordinary. I would also choose FLAC or DSD, they are superb!
Funny he doesn't talk about sound quality.
But it sounds better… than Flac. DSP DSD PCM all change the signal… Paul you left out the science of MQA, beyond the DRM issues
No it does not sound better.
An altered lossy (MQA) which alters the original sounds better than the unaltered lossless (FLAC) original? Please explain and try to keep it factual.
@@bkkersey93 lol yes it does, are you here for the 30 sec argument or the one minute argument?
MQA is not cool enough now that the company has folded and people suddenly feel free to be critical about it.
MQA is "unfolded."
FLAC is uncompressed.
Please stop saying that a compressed file is unfolded.
Yes, it's a pet peeve. :D
When are we going to get over compression? Loss is loss and a scheme is a scheme ..
get over it and just pay for the damn bandwidth and storage space lol
I do some streaming around the house, but I BUY & OWN music if I like it enough. Seems to me there’s a lot of people that want to store all the world’s music in the palm of their hand and walk around listening with little IEM’s. That is the antithesis of audio purism. I would call that budget audio enthusiasm at best.
Another Caveat:
You can get run over if you don’t pay attention out there.
They have been trained that way dating back to the first battery pocket AM radio 😀👍😎
@@davidfromamerica1871 🤣
You know what , I never really thought of it that way, but you’ve got a very good point there.. I don’t know though if I think about it bc most of the people that you see doing that stuff aren’t really senior citizens, they are younger, but that was a funny comment. And there always does seem to be forces at work manipulating the masses, and quite successfully.😉
@@shipsahoy1793
I am 73 years old. Lived through the ups and downs of hardware and music artist.
I take a simple approach.
Whatever floats one’s boat.
There are those that have cylinder music players, Gramophone players, old 78 collections, old tube floor standing radios, V-Disc and V-Disc players, out of print albums, concerts that are out of print, they uploaded on their TH-cam channels I listen to all that. The history of music and its hardware from the past.
I can listen to the famous radio DJ’s from the past around the Country on TH-cam. If I took music Audiophile technology too seriously, I would be missing out on entertainment of the past I get from TH-cam.
@@davidfromamerica1871 well, you’ve got the right attitude / you take from it what you like / it is almost strange how many people out here don’t know the difference between opinion and fact /sometimes they’re very passionate in their ignorance / hence, it’s a mind boggling scenario when you think about it, but you’ve got the right idea / those things are around for enjoyment / nobody should be running around saying we are going to do this and only this because this is deemed perfect by the powers that be. I don’t agree with certain modes of operation, but I know that’s only my opinion and I’m not a purist by any means, so those kinds of things always surprise me. I don’t mind if somebody wants to have an MP3 player in their pocket and cheap IEM’s in their ears, just don’t be rude about it around others. Same with those goddamn smart phones.😉
@@shipsahoy1793
Smart phone’s LOL.
I see couple’s sitting in restaurants, each with a phone, their head buried in their phones. They don’t even talk to each other..😀
They are talking to someone else on social media. 😀
I don’t ever remember phone number today.😀 it’s all in my contacts. If I ever lost my contacts on my phone. I would be screwed 😀
I was watching Google I/O 2023 conference yesterday on TH-cam. It’s mostly about Google’s AI algorithms technologies. 😳 My brain was in WTF mode watching it.. 😀
Paul completely misunderstood the meaning of MQA. He doesn't even know how abbreviation "A" is spelled ("Authenticated").
MQA doesn't throw away anything from the file. It "burns" the ultrasonics above the audible range and expands that back when a decoder is implemented.
While FLAC's main function is to compress file, MQA's goal is to deliver the analog sound in the best way, no matter what are the numbers. So, folding-unfolding staff is a bonus feature for streaming services and to reduce carbon emissions. The main staff are implemented filters which remove pre- and post-ringing.
MQA's goal is to control the reproduction chain, ensure that every device pays royalties to them (and thus costs more to consumers) and enforce DRM. No one needed this format, it has no advantage to consumers (or very little, in terms of file size) with a lot of disadvantages.
How dare you talk down at the format i'm hearing about for the very first time here?!..
Alac and flac, is my go to. MQA is plain stupid
Still that discussion ??? 😅
MQA is not the choice.
Undisclosed, hidden fonctionnement, useless in term of storage space.
MQA is dead....
If you do not like MQA, don't use it.
Hardcore CD/DVD/BLU-RAY user here. No interest in streaming music at all. I will be a hardcore silver disc fan until the format or I dies, whichever comes first.
Yes I know DVDs use a lossy codec.
I do not want to open this can of worms any further, but we shall compare the compression schemes as the question was interpreted. There I agree, a lossless compression I always prefer over one that is lossy. There we should end the discussion because MQA is not just a compressor. First, it is lossy only for frequencies beyond hearing. So if you are having a DAC which is only licensed as that, you will not hear any difference, as many of the commenters attest to. It is different to HiRes files though. The reconstruction of the higher frequencies, or unfolding in MQA terms, using the full MQA DAC, does not create any time smearing, and this you very well can hear, especially on good piano recordings. For me, this is valuable. An equal listening joy I only experience with DSD files, for that matter. But we are talking about streaming here. There, MQA is superior to any other HiRes file. Audibly.
Seems to be that any debates about proprietary MQA are rather irrelevant now, given that the MQA Ltd. is bankrupt.
@@michaelturner4457 That may be so. For the time being, Tidal is still distributing MQA streaming files. For some to enjoy.
@@zakkazz1201 Granted. No begging required. For everybody else, something to think about.
@@hanspetscher5770 I don't use Tidal myself, but I did look at their website today. And seems to be mainly about streaming in lossless FLAC, with no mention of MQA. So I'm guessing Tidal's MQA distributions are now ceased. Of course FLAC is free and open source, while MQA was proprietary and restricted, and meant them paying $$$ to MQA Ltd in licensing fees.
And watching to this video, it sounds like PS Audio no longer supports MQA in their products.
By definition lossy compression CANNOT sound better than lossless, as you're literally throwing out information. It's gone.
I have spent thousands of dollars on music and cd's over the years and none of it sounds as good as what I now get free over the Internet. I spending no more money on music in the future.
you don't need to pay for a subscription?
I have no experience with MQA and FLAC, but compression will reduce the stereo effect like MP-3.
I think you don't understand what FLAC is/does, it's a completely lossless compression algorithm that when uncompressed is bit perfect to the original so nothing like MP3 which throws away data when it compresses.
@@narfit1966 Exactly, FLAC and ALAC do for music what ZIP does for documents.
Codec (e.g. COmpressionDECompression) schemes have long been a staple in information technology for compressing data on secondary storage to save space (e.g. ZIP, GZIP, etc.) and, hence, on the cost of hardware . The end results is a bit-perfect representation of the original that's critical in computation.
I wish i was 1st here
MQA is the author's confirmation of engineering *MASTER* studio original musical material. On hi end hardware, the difference between fake Flac and MQA is very noticeable. You can change Paul's voice to female. This will be dummy Flac material, not master MQA.
MQA is out of the game forever
If you have cats and dogs that are sensitive to lossless compression above 20k then go with FLAC.
Again you are misrepresenting the facts here Paul you can't hear the compression in MQA and totally missing the point MQA"s main reason for being is distortion reduction in all it's form and it sounds fantastic.
You are simply running it down because you can't clip the ticket and that's the real snake oil.
You ignore that PS Audio is still in business while MQA (rights holder) has filed for bankruptcy. Furthermore, you claim "you can't hear the compression in MQA" is well disputed by people who really specialize in headphone listening.
mqa is dead