[Hansotek]

Interesting post above Currawong - I'm just listening to the 24/96 versions of the tracks and there seems to be a decent improvement, particularly in the drums. I'm interested to hear what the file would sound like fully "unfolded".

 

[raypin]

No. This will be the third time I've posted this within this very thread:

If you use the TIDAL app, it will "unfold" MQA files to 88.2 or 96 / 24-bit and play as such to ANY DAC. These files sound really good, from what I've experienced so far.

If you have an MQA-enabled DAC, and select PASS-THRU, it will pass the unmodified file through to the DAC and the DAC will "unfold" to its original resolution (which can be as high as 384 kHz, if I recall correctly).

Finally, popular players will be incorporating the SOFTWARE DECODER into their playback software to operate as the native TIDAL app does, today.

Mm..best and simplest explanation yet of MQA mechanics. Thanks.

 

[Arnav Agharwal]

I saw that several artists now have two versions of albums, but they both play only at Hi-Fi levels. Seems like TIDAL is setting those up for Master releases. Anyone else notice that?

 

[Currawong]

Interesting post above @Currawong - I'm just listening to the 24/96 versions of the tracks and there seems to be a decent improvement, particularly in the drums. I'm interested to hear what the file would sound like fully "unfolded".

Agreed. A few I'm familiar with, such as The Doors' albums sound great, but then I know those albums were well-made to begin with. At some point I'm thinking of level-matching, then A/B'ing my CD rips or HDTracks masters (depending what I have) versus the TIDAL Master versions with their decoding. Also, since a lot of people seem to be very confused by MQA, I might make a video about it, including my opinions.

 

[wormsdriver]

Nice! just found some Iron Maiden Master versions! 

  \m/ 

 

[pdickerson]

Any word from Schiit about offering product upgrades on the dacs? They were very vocal about not supporting not long ago.

 

[Sort]

I am not aiming to stir anyone's pot, but the level of wanting some scienctific data to verify your ears seems counter to the experience. Shouldn't you just listen and judge on sonic enjoyment? It's not seismic shift here, but I am enjoying it.

To speak to one headphone that has benefited the most would be LCD 2.2. I have them posted for sale, but my greatest gripe as been for focused listening they don't hold water, but the more natural sounding MQA have dissipated those concerns and the sound sig appeals far more with the MQA.

 

[canthearyou]

Now I'm seeing lots of duplicates and both are HiFi

I saw that several artists now have two versions of albums, but they both play only at Hi-Fi levels. Seems like TIDAL is setting those up for Master releases. Anyone else notice that?

Yes, quite bothersome. But I'll give them time to figure it out.

 

[erich6]

  Nice! just found some Iron Maiden Master versions! 

  \m/ 

​Yeah!!
 
They are copies of the newest (2015) remaster done under supervision of Steve Harris.  Some are a definite improvement like Dance of Death (the original release of this one was awful).  Most, however, are more compressed in their dynamic range than original masters.  That said, they sound better than the previous HIFI versions on Tidal.

 

[erich6]

I am not aiming to stir anyone's pot, but the level of wanting some scienctific data to verify your ears seems counter to the experience. Shouldn't you just listen and judge on sonic enjoyment? It's not seismic shift here, but I am enjoying it.

 
I most definitely agree with this!
 
I find it amusing when people state they are enjoying the new Tidal Masters but then quickly start overanalyzing the situation ("oh, that's probably not the MQA encoding it's the fact they have better masters to start with...I have to run this through an analyzer and compare to my FLACs from the same masters!"). 
 
But, to each his own.  There is some geeky fun to be had in evaluating all the bits and frequencies and see how data is being manipulated.  We need that kind of engineering perspective also.
 
While I find the engineering interesting, I much prefer to just enjoy good music with better sound.

 

[canthearyou]

I'm just enjoying it! Makes it more worth the $20/month.

 

[peterinvan]

MQA! TIdal, Roon needs new MetaData.

Please, please add the history of the recording, the source of the "master" , what resolution was the master, and what is the resulting output resolution after decoding with an MQA Capable DAC. I would love to see how the latest MQA file was produced when I read the Album history in Roon.

 

[Stillhart]

  Nice! just found some Iron Maiden Master versions! 

  \m/ 

 
Nice!  Which ones?
 

Any word from Schiit about offering product upgrades on the dacs? They were very vocal about not supporting not long ago.

 
Schiit has always been against "unicorn formats" and I don't see that changing anytime soon.  Besides, paying to license MQA would increase the costs of the DAC's and that goes counter to their whole low-price thing.
 

   
I most definitely agree with this!
 
I find it amusing when people state they are enjoying the new Tidal Masters but then quickly start overanalyzing the situation ("oh, that's probably not the MQA encoding it's the fact they have better masters to start with...I have to run this through an analyzer and compare to my FLACs from the same masters!"). 
 
But, to each his own.  There is some geeky fun to be had in evaluating all the bits and frequencies and see how data is being manipulated.  We need that kind of engineering perspective also.
 
While I find the engineering interesting, I much prefer to just enjoy good music with better sound.

 
I am with you to a point.  Listening to the new masters and enjoying them is great.  I'll tell you why I'm interested in "overanalyzing" this:  it's because I got duped by HDTracks.  Without getting into a debate here, I'll just say that there's a very very big thread in the Sound Science forum about the "24 bit myth" and whether hi-res is actually audible or not.  What I discovered based on my own testing is that the sonic differences I was hearing were almost always attributed to the remastering that HDTracks does rather than the resolution of the file.  
 
Again, I'm not looking to get into a debate here, just reporting what I've found and why I am curious about what makes the new Masters sound good.  On the plus side, it's no more expensive than regular Tidal (for now) so there's no reason not to just listen to the better music and be happy about it.  I just want to know if I should be looking into an MQA-capable DAC in the future or if I'm being "tricked" by the remaster.  I'd think this would be of interest to everyone else in this thread too.  Should we be clamoring for more MQA hardware and software solutions, or should we be clamoring for more awesome remasters?

 

[Andrew Rieger]

No word from Schiit. They did know that MQA was coming to Tidal but they still said no and I am going to assume that they meant it. Too bad but paying Meridian to "bless"your DAC is a pretty sneaky thing and I totally understand why a smaller company would say F this. 24/96 will have to do for most of us. I'm not a big fan of Delta/Sigma so I've pretty much give up hope on any MQA certified R2R DACs. 

 

[Krutsch]

 
No word from Schiit. They did know that MQA was coming to Tidal but they still said no and I am going to assume that they meant it. Too bad but paying Meridian to "bless"your DAC is a pretty sneaky thing and I totally understand why a smaller company would say F this. 24/96 will have to do for most of us. I'm not a big fan of Delta/Sigma so I've pretty much give up hope on any MQA certified R2R DACs. 

 
Same from Bryston. Not only no, but F' no.
 
To be honest, I'm not sure I care. A) I'm not buying a new DAC anytime soon and B) if I can software decode to 96/24, I'm all set.