[discape]

Yet we can't choose HiFi anymore, if the album is in Masters, you have to listen to it in Masters. Suspicious, no? Why not give option to choose?

 

[canthearyou]

You have to go to settings and change the playback setting.... File > Settings > Quality : HiFi / Master.    THEN   you must go to sound output, select your DAC  and click on two settings: Force Volume...  and ... Passthrough MQA..     Without checking Passthrough MQA, Tidal will decode the format prior to feeding your DAC....  

Hope this helps!

Unless you have a MQA DAC you DO NOT want to check the "pass through" option.

 

[discape]

Unless you have a MQA DAC you DO NOT want to check the "pass through" option.

Why not? Doesn't checking pass through jus remove Master setting?

 

[raypin]

Unless you are using a player with a software decoder. Today, that means the TIDAL native app, which will decode to 96/24 or 88.2/24 (I've seen this reflected in my DAC, as of this morning).

Audirvana, Roon, et al. are all promising inclusion of the software decoder (A+ is saying by end of January).

With an MQA -enabled DAC, you are able to get the full resolution (upwards of 384 kHz) via their unfolding (origami) technique.

Mm...so with the MQA-enabled Tidap app, you get better than CD quality or better than Tidal hifi but not hi-res? For hi-res, you need MQA-enabled software and MQA-enabled DAC, DAP or other hardware????

 

[wgb113]

How hard is it for DAC makers to implement support for MQA on an existing product?

 

[lantian]

  How hard is it for DAC makers to implement support for MQA on an existing product?

It's not up to them but Meridian Audio, they have to give each dac a so called fingerprint for it to work

 

[SeraphicWings]

Noob question: How is MQA different from JAS's Hi-Res Audio?

 

[canthearyou]

Why not? Doesn't checking pass through jus remove Master setting?

As I understand it with pass-through disabled it uses Tidal software to do the decoding. If you enable it, it passes the full stream to the DAC. If your DAC doesn't support MQA it will decode only standard 16/44.1.

 

[discape]

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

Master much quieter
 
 
 

Master has higher cut off freqs

 

[erich6]

So much confusion on this thread.  Read my previous post and that will answer most of your questions: http://www.head-fi.org/t/831291/ces-2017-mqa-announces-tidal-masters-and-more/45#post_13145353

 

[erich6]

   
Will this work on my Schiit Fulla 2, or is it only for people with expensive gear? I am thinking of paying for TIDAL now just to check it out.  Cheers, please let me know someone ^^

​The new Tidal desktop app will decode MQA and stream a higher quality version of the song through your Fulla 2.  The software decoder in Tidal can "unwrap" MQA up to 24bit/96kHz and the Fulla 2 will convert to analog at that rate.  This will be better than standard CD quality and Tidal Hifi.
 
If you want to hear higher resolution MQA encoded music you will need an MQA-enabled DAC.

 

[erich6]

  So I listened to Tigerlily as well, and A/B'd the first 5 tracks between HIFI and MASTER. Very noticeable difference. This must be a different master.With the track "River" the bass drum in the intro is almost inaudible, whereas its quite loud on the HIFI version. No way MQA can change the level of a bass drum! Also comparing "May I know the word", the level of background hiss is much higher on the MASTER. Sounds like a HF roll-off was added for the HIFI version, and removed for the MASTER.
 
Very curious indeed. I think I prefer the MASTER version, but it does seem like a different version of the album entirely.

 
I doubt MQA is changing the level of the bass drum.  They probably went back to the original master and encoded it.  The HIFI version was probably a digital distribution master that probably had its dynamic range compressed.

 

[erich6]

  So I'm confused. According to this page, Tidal MQA can only be played with the PC/MAC Desktop App: http://tidal.com/us/download

So does that mean that any external device that acts as a Tidal streamer (like the Bluesound Node 2) cannot currently play MQA files through Tidal? This is seriously confusing.

No, it does not mean that.
 
What they mean is that you can only get MQA quality from the desktop app if you don't have an MQA decoder.  They are assuming most people don't have one and therefore state it that way (I agree this could have been clearer). 
 
If you have an external device that decodes MQA then select "Passthrough MQA" option and Tidal will just pass on the MQA-encoded stream and let your device do the work.

 

[erich6]

  I did some poking around the app and I can see it downloads encrypted FLAC files when playing albums from the Masters section. Then it calls out to libFLAC (you can see it with dtrace on Mac OS). I don't get it. Where does MQA come in?

​The MQA encoding is embedded in the FLAC file.  If you don't have an decoder the file will play like a normal 24bit/44kHz file.  The new Tidal app can decode the MQA information and stream up to 24bit/96kHz.

 

[erich6]

   
Ditto for MicroRendu streaming Tidal. Do the MQA files go through like normal and let the dac do the decoding?

​Yes.  You have to select the "Passthrough MQA" option.  Also, make sure Tidal is using your DAC in "Exclusive Mode."