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Which we know because of Bob Stuart's/MQA's claims that you are so faithfully parroting?

Posted by bjh on October 30, 2016 at 08:26:36:
I have to wonder based upon the admittedly scant critical analysis (cough-cough) I've seen.

Let's take Atkinson's blind testings as example.

Just to clarify, I scored 4 our of 7 correct in this blind test (see link below). But as I later explained, 2 out of the 3 I got wrong were the same track, Steely Dan's "Babylon Sisters," where I misidentified it as what I thought was the better-sounding MQA version. Specifically, I preferred the quality of the bass on what turned out to the original hi-rez file.

Hmmmm...? While not 16/44.1 v. MQA 16/44.1 is it not reasonable to ask if perhaps the MQA encoding was responsible for the preferred bass of the hi-rez original? And if that were the case who's to say the same wouldn't be true for MQA encoded 16/44.1?

Let's look at the Atkinson's subsequent thoughts ...

If you eliminate those 2 failures, I got 4 out of 5 correct in blind comparisons on the other tracks, which, while still not statistically significant, is relevant information, I feel.

So rather than wondering if MQA encoding somehow messed with the bass, instead he suggests the samples should be tossed, yielding a better result from his testing in favor of MQA identification!

___

I think that speaks for itself and I suggest, given Stereophile has gone all-in for MQA, reasonable folk should expect more Ra-Ra-Ra, not critical analysis, from said esteemed publication on this topic.