I published music on Tidal to test MQA - MQA Review

GoldenSound1 HN recommenders · 2021–2023
610K views · explainer · evergreen · Uploaded 2021-04-15

GoldenSound publishes music on Tidal to test MQA, a deep dive into the format's claims and problems including its leaky filter. Testing begins around the 5:45 mark.

Cited in audio-streaming threads as a critical breakdown showing MQA is neither lossless nor transparent.

Watch on YouTube

3 comments from Hacker News

@throw_nbvc12342021 · in “Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio”

Just to add to this comment, the video breakdowns I've watched on MQA are interesting listens even as someone who doesn't use Tidal. [VIDEO] -- Critque of MQA [LINK] -- in defense of MQA At the end of the day, people should listen to what they think sounds good (is this an opinion?). If a placebo makes someone enjoy something more, is it really a placebo? If someone can't tell the difference between low quality recordings and high quality recordings, why should they go through the trouble of sourcing the high quality stuff. It's so easy to lose track of the subjective nature of audio in all of the objective details.

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@PaulDavisThe1st2022 · in “Is old music killing new music?”

> a Tidal subscription (which has masters at supposedly higher quality than CDs) Alas, this is BS. [VIDEO] [LINK] [LINK]

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@LeoPanthera2023 · in “Spotify is first music streaming service to surpass 200M paid subscribers”

I can't forgive Tidal for their promotion of MQA, nothing more than a scam to fleece audiophiles who don't know better out of their money. MQA isn't lossless and distorts audio: [VIDEO] Tidal HiFi isn't lossless either: [LINK] I don't think any of the streaming services are particularly friendly to artists either, but Apple Music pays more to the artist than Spotify does, and includes (real) lossless audio at no extra cost. For now, they've got my dollar.

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