Well, if those generating the MQA *had* "sourced a better version" then it prompts the questions:
1) Is that version available to us so we can bypass the added cost of MQA and any risk of MQA being poorer than that input? if so, how do we determine which version is is, so can choose it? (And use it to assess MQA.)
2) if it isn't - how did the people generating the MQA version get it, and why would the music company agree to let them have a profit from when the music company could gain a profit without such a 'cut' by offerring it direct?
It also simply puts another facet on: You can't assess MQA fully *unless you also have access to what went into MQA*. Otherwise you may be assessing some other cause of a 'difference' that has zip to do with MQA. And for all we know, what was fed *into* the MQA encoder might have been preferred by listeners to both of those 'compared'.
Bottom line: No provenance => useless outcome that can mislead.
If 'God' can help us with this, then he can speak up... Maybe he'll issue an MQA version. 8-]
Jim>
You’ve scrutinised to death MQA statements about their claims, so you already know the answers, all you’re doing is generating more “leading” questions.
Quite obviously, this has been one of those occasions where they’ve revisited their source material whilst applying the MQA encoding.
Also obvious is that original material being available for other use.
the question about whether it can be re-released in non-mqa format is simply irrelevant to this discussion as it’s not their responsibility to action. If you want the better FLAC version, then go ask for it, instead of wasting your time on here.
The point here is that the MQA end to end process has triggered the remaster, which I can’t believe that even you would deny is a benefit to listeners?