ku1185 t1_jd08l4l wrote on March 20, 2023 at 10:00 PM

Reply to comment by mmry404 in I blind tested Qobuz (HiRes bit perfect) vs Deezer (CD) by mmry404

After trying Tidal and seeing there are sometimes multiple copies of the same album (apparently, different masters, according to internet strangers), I no longer know if it's something with the service or if some of them are simply using different masters. Sometimes the different versions on Tidal sound different, sometimes they don't (at least, nothing that I could discern).

FWIW, I think Qobuz generally tended to sound better than Amazon or Tidal (though that album version thing throws a wrench into the whole thing).

mmry404 OP t1_jd099lq wrote on March 20, 2023 at 10:05 PM

Pretty much all the tracks I used come from modern albums that likely don't have many different masters. There was a track from Depeche Mode's Black Celebration in my playlist that had a different intro and was louder on one of the services, so I didn't use it. The usage of different masters cannot be accounted for, so it the tracks don't obviously sound different, I would assume same masters and just roll with it

And I also didn't want to try Tidal because of its crazy pricing and the MQA controversy

ku1185 t1_jd0d5yi wrote on March 20, 2023 at 10:32 PM

I don't think modern albums are exempt from this. Taylor Swift's Lover album was one I distinctly remember there being 3 different versions, with one of them sounding quite different. FWIW, I tested this on a non-MQA DAC.

mmry404 OP t1_jd0dwnw wrote on March 20, 2023 at 10:37 PM

That's kinda odd. I mean, being an artist, why would you put out several masters of your new album? Why is Tidal the only one to carry several masters? Is there a way to check that there are several different masters of a particular recording if I don't have Tidal?

Yeah, it never crossed my mind that having a non-MQA DAC eliminates the MQA issue, lol :)

ku1185 t1_jd0fjem wrote on March 20, 2023 at 10:49 PM

>That's kinda odd. I mean, being an artist, why would you put out several masters of your new album? Why is Tidal the only one to carry several masters? Is there a way to check that there are several different masters of a particular recording if I don't have Tidal?

No idea. Kind of just gave up on trying to figure out what was going on lol.

As for MQA, don't know if an MQA DAC would've made any difference. I never got around to testing it when I had MQA DACs.

mmry404 OP t1_jd0ijvv wrote on March 20, 2023 at 11:10 PM

There's a video by Golden Sound, proving that MQA is actually lossy, so an MQA dac sould probably just sound worse. Although it seems like more and more dacs are supporting it now... which in itself is a worrying observation that hardware manufacturers may be prioritizing marketing claims and fancy labels over performance. Ideally everything should be checked in a blind test, but these are cumbersome to carry out correctly. I'm just dipping toes into it..

ku1185 t1_jd0lsk1 wrote on March 20, 2023 at 11:33 PM

Yeah I'm aware of the video. My understanding of the tech (or at least, what is claimed) is that it stores information under the noise floor or something, and MQA hardware can "unfold" that information to generate a more complete reconstruction. Whether there's any audible benefit, I have no clue. Given all of the different masters on Tidal, it makes it difficult to determine whether the codec is actually making any difference or if its the master itself. So I just gave up trying to see if there's any real sound quality differences for MQA itself.

I think the biggest issue with MQA is false marketing claims and the proprietary nature of the tech. If they made more accurate claims that were verifiable and improved the listening experience, I wouldn't mind it.

mmry404 OP t1_jd0mynl wrote on March 20, 2023 at 11:42 PM

Indeed. The thing with marketing claims is that people need a deep technical understanding of the subject to be able to discern false marketing from real marketing, and it is just not feasible, since said marketing is addressed to the masses. And even with that level of understanding there is still a chance that something could be dodgy under the hood where we can't see. With enough critical thinking/paranoia it gets impossible to consume and be happy about it, so maybe it's the case that "the less I know, the better". Simulacra and simulation, all that..