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MQA sucks

Y

yuckyamson

pfm Member
It's been about 2 months now that I've been living with KEF LS60 Wireless. I have a lot to say on them, overall very positive, but as much as I never thought I'd care, MQA blows.

I've been using nearly exclusively TIDAL connect via the KEF app (which works for the most part very well and is easy to navigate). I get a 16/44.1 file, boogie. Sounds good. Only issue is trying to avoid annoying remasters, which is often either hard or impossible, but none-the-less, good ole redbook sounds "fine". 24 bit sounds better. 24/96 sounds really good. 24/192 sounds excellent. MQA sounds freaking WEIRD. Unfortunately it almost always dovetails with a remaster and so often I cannot tell what I'm listening to, but I've come to realize almost invariably that MQA tracks just sound like something is off.

Curse them for foisting this on us.

On a side note, I really should just switch to Qobuz but my Tidal acct is currently free on a friend's family plan and I've become rather cheap in my middle years.....
 
MQA is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. The best solution is to just not use it.

The MQA proprietors didn't do them self's any favours when they locked out people who tried to objectively verify its claims of improved performance and tried to understand how it works. Any technology that hides its function and operational characteristics should be viewed with a great deal of suspicion.

LPSpinner.
 
There are several issues here. I found MQA an abomination, which is why I use Qobuz. But even without MQA, Qobuz still has only the latest remixes of rock / pop music, so it’s hit and miss how well they compare with the original mixes.

But also your KEF LS60 Wireless use Bluetooth. Can they be connected with cables?
 
ToTo Man said:
@yuckyamson I thought you were a Tannoy man??
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I absolutely love Tannoys, but having moved into our new home, we simply don't have the space for it. After we rented out the basement apartment(s) I was left with either my office for a listening room, which isn't really conducive either in terms of layout or acoustics, or, the main large living room/dining room. The Missus made it clear; speakers can go at *this* end, but can we, uh, do it without any wires, please? Granted nothing is truly wireless, but I decided given everything I knew and heard (including LS50's and LSX's) that I quite like the latest gen Uni-Q and was impressed with the tech going into the new single-magnet, dual motor bass drivers. The LS60's became the choice.

Haven't regretted. Much.
 
Darren said:
Really? £4500 cheap?
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Perhaps I should've written "Frugal". I'm not shy of plunking down money on a purchase well-considered (and, on that note, I'm currently figuring out my next TT moves and the I'm keeping one eye on a Supatrac--Richard, are we taking reservations yet?? 🤣 ) but monthly payments are a cancer to society. I would posit that household consumer debt is the major issue facing societal economics, but a second might be ongoing non-essential obligations. I find them excoriating.

That being said I might throw in the towel.

Side note (and to thicken the plot) I also had the Dutch & Dutch 8c's in here for a listen. They were every bit as good as I was told, clearly better than the KEF's, but I couldn't justify the extra expense (even for an acquisition) as much as I really liked them a lot. That being said when they were here we demo'd using only Qobuz and I found it quite a good app; snappy, easy to navigate, and the sound quality was excellent, but I've no way of knowing what the long term Tidal vs. Qobuz results (both in terms of sound quailty and user appreciation) might be.

First world problems.
 
Slagging off MQA is so 5 years ago. Sounds great on Meridian kit. They're not a happy bunch now the naysayers killed it. Not sure there's much left on Tidal via Roon.
 
Could never understand MQA. Seemingly it tries to guess what bits there might have been at the expense of even more bits. Just get Qobuz and listen to the original 24/96 or whatever without any flim-flam.
 
LPSpinner said:
MQA is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. The best solution is to just not use it.

The MQA proprietors didn't do them self's any favours when they locked out people who tried to objectively verify its claims of improved performance and tried to understand how it works. Any technology that hides its function and operational characteristics should be viewed with a great deal of suspicion.

LPSpinner.
Click to expand...
The only way to do that, is to not use Tidal. Because Tidal doesn't give you the option as to what is used. They will serve an MQA file rather than an uncompressed FLAC, if an MQA version is available, and there is no way for you to stop it happening.


 
Tidal Portugal has just notified me that as of mid-April, there will be a single subscription cost, allowing access to Hi Res FLAC and Atmos etc for €7.49 per month.
 
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