Looking for good MQA and DSD recordings

Discussion in 'Music and Recordings' started by Claud, Oct 16, 2019.

  1. Claud

    Claud Living the ORFAS dream

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    Thought I would try at least one MQA and what members consider a great DSD recording . I like rock, pop, jazz country and some classical. I want to give my new Matrix DAC a work out.
    Thanks,
    Claud
     
  2. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    If you want an apples to apples (i.e. same master, just one put through the MQA's Tidal batch-processor-in-the-sky) MQA/PCM comparison, you can try Bob James' "The New Cool". Of course, any truly native DSD recording will have to be sampled into PCM first before being encoded into MQA, so there really is no such thing as an apples to apples MQA/DSD comparison.

    I like this recording musically, and it reveals (to me at least) that MQA is a pretty transparent SuperMP3...if only we (i.e. consumers, the market, etc.) needed such thing.

    Tidal has the MQA and the 16/44 version of this recording, and Qobuz has the "Hi Res" 24/48 from which the MQA is derived...
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  3. Metro

    Metro Friend

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    You can compare different formats with these free tracks from the 2L music label: http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html
    2L specializes in classical and their recordings are very high quality for both sound and performance.

    As far as MQA goes, do you have a Tidal subscription? Actually purchasing an MQA encoded recording is pointless when a hi-res version is available, and in any case MQA recordings for purchase are very rare. The biggest benefit I get from MQA albums on Tidal is that (in my experience) they do not have the UMG audible watermark which is sometimes very audible in the non-MQA version. However, playing the MQA track directly even without decoding will give you the benefit of no watermark.
     

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