[canthearyou]

I get this; as I did the previous two times you mentioned it

Can you answer me this though; is there a way to avoid glitches/noise when switching between tracks at 88.2 & 96? Mojo gets round this by having a second or so silence at the start of a track. I'm using an AK70 as USB DAC at the moment.

My Gustard X12 is silent when switching between different rates.

 

[pkcpga]

Sorry, that's not accurate. You need to re-read my earlier posts and focus on SOFTWARE DECODER.

Point is you can't downsample from 44/24 to 88 or 96 that's upsampling. Purchase a MQA song it's a 44/24 file, I own a bunch now. And have A/B the meridian dac to the chord Dave dac and playing MQA songs is the only time the meridian dac sounds better. There currently is no tidal app that plays MQA, tidal states they have plans for one in the future but none yet and no estimated date as of yet for a mobile app.

 

[Krutsch]

Point is you can't downsample from 44/24 to 88 or 96 that's upsampling. Purchase a MQA song it's a 44/24 file, I own a bunch now. And have A/B the meridian dac to the chord Dave dac and playing MQA songs is the only time the meridian dac sounds better. There currently is no tidal app that plays MQA, tidal states they have plans for one in the future but none yet and no estimated date as of yet for a mobile app.

 
I don't think you understand how MQA works. Go to their web-site and read about their "folding" or "origami" technique.

 

[abrxx]

   
No. SOFTWARE decoding is actually DOWNSAMPLING from a higher-res format for playback outside of an MQA-enable DAC.
 
[snip]

Hold on. Its only "down sampling" if the original master was higher than 96 Khz. Otherwise there is no downsampling at all. Also I'm not sure the term down sampling is entirely accurate. In some ways the entire MQA process is "downsampling", albeit in a way that is almost completely reversible.

 

[leaky74]

   
You can get a better DAC 

 
My Bel Canto is seamless in this regard.

It's intermittent to be honest; but having explored its capability as a USB DAC, the AK70's not great to be honest. SQ is good but there's a fair few random artefacts and drop outs/stutters. Shame; I like it as a DAP but part of the purchase decision was around its functionally to be both DAP & DAC.

 

[canthearyou]

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

 

[Currawong]

  So do these Master Quality files sound better than Hi-Res music (24/96 & 24/192) or just better than the regular CD FLAC versions of the same albums? 

 
The important thing here is the process of compensating for the original ADC to fix issues with the timing of transients in the music caused during encoding. They then take the master file and this compensation data and squish it using some clever tech into what appears to be a slightly noisier than usual CD quality file. The musical data above 22.050 kHz is compressed into the highest frequencies as noise.
 

  so with a quick wiki, I found that the mqa codec is actually lossy.... it can be put under the a flac container though I guess. I dunu but I'd rather stream normal content encoded as a flac if I were to use tidal

 
3 bits of the 24 are noise. It probably doesn't matter in the ultimate scheme of things, but they have indeed avoided this fact in their marketing.
 

  I compared Tidal's HIFI setting vs Master for the same track, interesting results.....
 

Master much quieter
 
 
 

Master has higher cut off freqs

 
Very interesting.
 

I've used MQA outside of Tidal for about 6 months now through bluesound and sample 300 songs from meridian for meridian dac. I've spoken with meridian on why it's important to use a MQA dac verse not using one that is not like my Dave and it's not the same. Companies don't spend money and time to create something than give it away.

 
Correct, but fixing the timing issues caused by an ADC doesn't need a fancy new format. Obviously they have encoded it in a way that requires a license to decode, and they have been, until the big Q&A on Computer Audiophile, been somewhat vague about the fine details of the technology.
 

 

Sorry, that's not accurate. You need to re-read my earlier posts and focus on SOFTWARE DECODER.

Point is you can't downsample from 44/24 to 88 or 96 that's upsampling. Purchase a MQA song it's a 44/24 file, I own a bunch now. And have A/B the meridian dac to the chord Dave dac and playing MQA songs is the only time the meridian dac sounds better. There currently is no tidal app that plays MQA, tidal states they have plans for one in the future but none yet and no estimated date as of yet for a mobile app.

 
As has been stated, the TIDAL app will PARTLY unfold MQA, as far as 24/96 (which is enough, IMO). Want to see a pic?

 

[goldendarko]

 
TIDAL has stated that SOFTWARE DECODING is coming in the mobile apps, in a future release. Today, it only exists (publicly) in the desktop, native TIDAL app.
 
In the near future, your DragonFly will benefit from a firmware update that will include native MQA support, which should work with the iOS TIDAL app in pass-thru mode for full sound quality.

ah i see now, thank you sir, doing the lords work you are!

 

[432789]

Subscribed

I'm impressed with the Master update, sound quality wise, but albums selection left me wanting.
tidal needs to grow up and learn their crowd, most people using tidal master don't want to listen to the lame songs you are promoting tidal! no one here needs to listens to young thug etc foolish evil mainstream on high res.
Thank you very much.

 

[cute]

Subscribed

I'm impressed with the Master update, sound quality wise, but albums selection left me wanting.
tidal needs to grow up and learn their crowd, most people using tidal master don't want to listen to the lame songs you are promoting tidal! no one here needs to listens to young thug etc foolish evil mainstream on high res.
Thank you very much.

They will only list albums that are available in high rez

 

[432789]

They will only list albums that are available in high rez

They will only list albums that are available in high rez

There is definately a bias, from the what's new page, to the playlists they create, even what comes up first on search, but that's what to expect when it's mainstream artists who own the thing

 

[erich6]

 
"The Original Master". That deserves a topic in it's own right. Many assume that the dynamic range compression is part of a specific CD mastering process. Sometimes it is like this but more often than not, it is actually "The Original Master" that has the DRC applied. How can we know this? Some titles have both a CD and a Hi-Res download. Sometimes the Hi-Res download has no better dynamic range than the CD yet is specifically sold as "The Original Master". It's actually the vinyl record that often takes a totally different path through the chain, and the mastering is different and the dynamic range is also different (quite often better). You will rarely hear what was recorded on the original analogue tapes for example. Those are the real masters. What is sold as the Studio Master, is a post production set of decisions that modify what was on those tapes or recorded digitally etc. There will be instances where the MQA version comes from a master that does have better dynamic range, and you will also find a bunch that still have loudness wars DRC on them, by intention and decision....even if we don't like it or regard it as audiophile.
 
When SACD came out, with a corresponding CD layer, people articulated how much better the SACD sounded, only then to find out it was a different mastering and they were not comparing like for like. MQA has some definite positives, but it will always be hard to ascertain what is a mastering change, and what is an MQA benefit.

​You are absolutely right. I should have used quotes in reference to "original master" as it really is whatever studio master they chose to encode with MQA.  If MQA does nothing more than encourage studios to release better masters then it will be a huge success in my book.  So far, I'm very pleased with the MQA masters in Tidal...most appear to be an improvement over previous CD releases, HIFI versions, or even high-resolution FLAC downloads.

 

[erich6]

  Some listening impressions...
 
I'm running the software decoding in Tidal via Roon. Win10-->Yggdrasil -->Bottlehead S.Ex.--> Nighthawks.
 
In general, the records I've heard sound less compressed - wide open - and it seems the noise floor has dropped outside of reach. Very relaxed and natural feel. I'm enjoying it a lot. 
Ellington's Afro-Bossa records sounds just beautiful, for example. More air between instruments, it seems. It's varied from record to record, of course. And, I haven't done tight comparisons of 44/16 vs MQA in Tidal but with one exception - Brad Mehldau's Blue and Ballads - I couldn't tell the difference between those two last night. 
 
Again, so far I'm really enjoying the more natural presentation on these records. Our playback chain will of course, affect the results. 
 
Not ready to buy new hardware (though I expect (depending on implementation) results would improve with hardware vs software decoding?) any time soon, but I'll enjoy the new content in the meantime.
 
 

​Roon is not decoding MQA in software.  You are getting the 16/44 version of the audio that can still be played without the MQA decoding.  MQA decoding in Roon is supposed to be a feature "soon."
 
If you have an MQA-enabled DAC, then you can use Roon to stream the MQA files to it and get the full benefit of MQA.

 

[TheTrace]

I can't wait to see the proof of sound quality difference (or lack thereof) between MQA and a regular 44.1/16 bit FLAC and the differences between a MQA DAC and a regular one.

 

[dmhenley]

 
​Roon is not decoding MQA in software.  You are getting the 16/44 version of the audio that can still be played without the MQA decoding.  MQA decoding in Roon is supposed to be a feature "soon."
 
If you have an MQA-enabled DAC, then you can use Roon to stream the MQA files to it and get the full benefit of MQA.

Yes, I believe that is what my post says. Sorry if I wasn't clear.  Tidal is decoding the MQA.