[Soundizer]

Are we sure to see other big MUSIC LABEL Companies in addition to Warner releasing MQA, like SONY Music?

 

[Stillhart]

   
If you mean that you expect them to make a press statement about something that doesn't have anything to do with them until the moment that they decide it will, then I don't imagine they'll do that. Otherwise you just have to follow Baldr's posts.
 

 After a bit of listening, my partner and co-founder Jason has pointed out many, if not all of the MQA processed recordings are obviously remastered, compared to the "normal" versions on Tidal, making it very difficult to determine whether any differences are due to the remastering or MQA itself.

 

 
This is what I've been saying, both about MQA and HDTracks.  It's good to see someone who obviously knows what they're doing agree with me.  There's no denying the Tidal tracks sound good, but I suspect most of that improvement is from the remaster just like on HDtracks.

 

[mike138]

   
This is what I've been saying, both about MQA and HDTracks.  It's good to see someone who obviously knows what they're doing agree with me.  There's no denying the Tidal tracks sound good, but I suspect most of that improvement is from the remaster just like on HDtracks.

This can't really be said often enough. I can listen to compressed, lossy mp3s of artists like David Byrne or Beck that sound better than hi-res versions of other artist's albums because those guys care about how their music is recorded and mastered. 

 

[cute]

 

   
This is what I've been saying, both about MQA and HDTracks.  It's good to see someone who obviously knows what they're doing agree with me.  There's no denying the Tidal tracks sound good, but I suspect most of that improvement is from the remaster just like on HDtracks.

This can't really be said often enough. I can listen to compressed, lossy mp3s of artists like David Byrne or Beck that sound better than hi-res versions of other artist's albums because those guys care about how their music is recorded and mastered. 

Agree, Beck is a true artist......Mark Knopfler hasn't made a poorly mastered album as well!  Most/many recordings are like "give me the money" and move on to the next album.

 

[ThurstonX]

Schiit would need to build a completely different dac to play mqa natively? MQA is 24 bit and as far as I know schiit doesn't make a 24 bit dac.

 
Didn't want to leave this one unaddressed.  Yes, pretty much, since any existing DAC would have to be modified/certified in order to support MQA, which would make it a "new" DAC (regardless of a name change or not).  It's moot, as I'll bet my house Schiit won't be doing this, at least under the current MQA regime.  Hard to imagine a regime under which they'd be interested.
 
As to 24-bit DACs, every Schiit DAC will do 24-bit 96KHz, and most will do every other sample rate up to 192 kHz with provided drivers, as needed.
 

---

 
re: new (re)masters, improved quality and MQA, AFAIC, until a good ol' Redbook CD of the same master used to produce the MQA files is identifiable and available for an ABX, it's all smoke and mirrors.  It may be very pleasant smoke with equally pleasing (mirrored) images, and that's fine, but what's the (extra) cost?  While it's easy to do an ABX with things like the Steven Wilson remixes (implies new mastering, I assume) of King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Yes, et al., where the MLP (ha!) 24-96 files on the DVD-A are easily ripped or played directly in foobar2000, and the same files were turned into CDs which come in the same package... I gather this isn't easily done, if at all possible without solid info, with the MQA stuff.
 
That said, I'm going to have to try Tidal's 60-day free trial to do a little ABXin' with at least Aqualung.  Makes me wonder if they used Wilson's remix as the source.  Will we ever know...

 

[pkcpga]

Didn't want to leave this one unaddressed.  Yes, pretty much, since any existing DAC would have to be modified/certified in order to support MQA, which would make it a "new" DAC (regardless of a name change or not).  It's moot, as I'll bet my house Schiit won't be doing this, at least under the current MQA regime.  Hard to imagine a regime under which they'd be interested.

As to 24-bit DACs, every Schiit DAC will do 24-bit 96KHz, and most will do every other sample rate up to 192 kHz with provided drivers, as needed.

[rule]
re: new (re)masters, improved quality and MQA, AFAIC, until a good ol' Redbook CD of the same master used to produce the MQA files is identifiable and available for an ABX, it's all smoke and mirrors.  It may be very pleasant smoke with equally pleasing (mirrored) images, and that's fine, but what's the (extra) cost?  While it's easy to do an ABX with things like the Steven Wilson remixes (implies new mastering, I assume) of King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Yes, et al., where the MLP (ha!) 24-96 files on the DVD-A are easily ripped or played directly in foobar2000, and the same files were turned into CDs which come in the same package... I gather this isn't easily done, if at all possible without solid info, with the MQA stuff.

That said, I'm going to have to try Tidal's 60-day free trial to do a little ABXin' with at least Aqualung.  Makes me wonder if they used Wilson's remix as the source.  Will we ever know...

Thanks for clearing up the schiit, only thought that because I demod their top end Yggdrasil a while ago and schiit informed me some of my music would not play on their dac because the Yggdrasil is 21 bit dac and others wouldn't play because there was no dsd capability so my demo was short. Schiit claimed on their site they eat their hat if your recording was actually 24 bit but unfortunately wether it is or not it's written that way so it wouldn't play and schiit told me that certain track this may happen but it's rare, dvda and sacd transferred tracks. Also claimed there are only a few dsd tracks, I own hundreds of albums so obliviously plenty more than a few tracks. Not sure if it's changed since back when the Yggdrasil came out, but schiit seemed to only be interested in playing cd quality better than many other DACs but not any other format, with that philosophy I doubt they consider any other format.

 

[Kristof Boone]

I presume that there's no way to have the MQA-mode on the Pioneer XDP-300R or the Onkyo DP-X1?
Those players are MQA-compatible, but they are using the Tidal Android app and not the desktop app...

 

[iguanajm]

  Tidal itself is decoding 48kHz stream. If you have Mac OS try it out for yourself:
 
sudo dtrace -n 'pid3514::*get_sample_rate:return { printf("%d", arg1); }'
dtrace: description 'pid3514::*get_sample_rate:return ' matched 2 probes
CPU     ID                    FUNCTION:NAME
  0  10521 FLAC__stream_decoder_get_sample_rate:return 48000

Just replace 3514 with the PID of TidalPlayer process. dtrace is a utility that lets you inspect the internals of a running process. Mac OS has kernel hooks for that so no special version of an application is needed. You inspect what any application is really doing (it slows down your system a lot!).

Meanwhile my Dragonfly Black has the pink icon indicating 96 kHz.
 
Also, there appears to be no MQA decoding going on. Here's a simple probe that lists any functions that have mqa in their name:
 
sudo dtrace -ln 'pid3514::*mqa*:entry'
   ID   PROVIDER            MODULE                          FUNCTION NAME
 3760    pid3740       TIDALPlayer mqaDeviceInExclusive(PlaybackDevice const&, PlaybackDeviceOptions const&) entry
 3761    pid3740       TIDALPlayer _GLOBAL__sub_I_mqa_device_handler.cpp entry
 3762    pid3740       TIDALPlayer _GLOBAL__sub_I_mqa_audio_output_reader.cpp entry
 3763    pid3740       TIDALPlayer _GLOBAL__sub_I_mqa_decode_listener.cpp entry
 3764    pid3740       TIDALPlayer    _GLOBAL__sub_I_mqa_decoder.cpp entry
 3765    pid3740       TIDALPlayer _GLOBAL__sub_I_mqa_decoder_builder.cpp entry

But when I try to trace whether or not any of those functions is actually called when I play a track, nothing shows up!

Now this is great info!  What is the audio midi utility saying?  Since there is no "auto" mode in the utility, I am wondering does the mac upsample to what this is set at?  Or is this more of a "max allowable" setting?  I assume your dragonfly changes colors between normal/hifi/master?
 

Open up Audio Midi and take a look.
 

Thats more of a hardcoded setting.  I want to know what the stream is set at which the above answer seems to be better, but I also want to know what the midi tool is doing to the stream if anything.

 

[Hansotek]

 
That said, I'm going to have to try Tidal's 60-day free trial to do a little ABXin' with at least Aqualung.  Makes me wonder if they used Wilson's remix as the source.  Will we ever know...

 

 
Given that it says, "Mixed and Mastered by Steve Wilson" 13 times on the screen (not to mention at least 2 more times off screen), I think we can be fairly certain. 

 

[Hansotek]

  I presume that there's no way to have the MQA-mode on the Pioneer XDP-300R or the Onkyo DP-X1?
Those players are MQA-compatible, but they are using the Tidal Android app and not the desktop app...

 
I think you're going to have to wait for mobile support.

 

[erich6]

  re: new (re)masters, improved quality and MQA, AFAIC, until a good ol' Redbook CD of the same master used to produce the MQA files is identifiable and available for an ABX, it's all smoke and mirrors.  It may be very pleasant smoke with equally pleasing (mirrored) images, and that's fine, but what's the (extra) cost?  While it's easy to do an ABX with things like the Steven Wilson remixes (implies new mastering, I assume) of King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Yes, et al., where the MLP (ha!) 24-96 files on the DVD-A are easily ripped or played directly in foobar2000, and the same files were turned into CDs which come in the same package... I gather this isn't easily done, if at all possible without solid info, with the MQA stuff.
 
That said, I'm going to have to try Tidal's 60-day free trial to do a little ABXin' with at least Aqualung.  Makes me wonder if they used Wilson's remix as the source.  Will we ever know...

 
All the Jethro Tull Tidal Masters are based on Steven Wilson's remasters.  The Yes Tidal Masters don't appear to be the Steven Wilson remasters.
 
One thing I found a bit difficult to control in doing any kind of A/B test like you suggest is the difference in the transport between the Tidal software, Foobar, and Roon.  I know Roon does something different because when I listen Tidal HIFI from the Tidal software it generally doesn't sound as good as it does from the Roon software (and I'm using exclusive ASIO drivers on both)--interestingly though, the Tidal Masters play better in the Tidal software than the respective HIFI versions even in Roon.
 
Anyway, look forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

[Kristof Boone]

   
I think you're going to have to wait for mobile support.

I really don't get it how you guys are testing the MQA's?

You do have all a laptop with a SP/DIF out and connect to an amplifier that supports MQA?
Because only the desktop version is supporting MQA, so I don't see how you could get 'out' of your PC...

Very disappointing, because they've introduiced a new format, but we aren't able to play it...
 

 

[Hansotek]

I really don't get it how you guys are testing the MQA's?


You do have all a laptop with a SP/DIF out and connect to an amplifier that supports MQA?

Because only the desktop version is supporting MQA, so I don't see how you could get 'out' of your PC...


Very disappointing, because they've introduiced a new format, but we aren't able to play it...

 

As stated a couple of pages ago, I've just been enjoying the "partially unfolded" 24/96 remasters - not the full MQA format. Using the desktop app and sending them out to the Mojo - no MQA support from that, but the "Master" light on the player is lit up and the Mojo is indicating 24/96 as the bit rate.

 

[erich6]

 

I really don't get it how you guys are testing the MQA's?

You do have all a laptop with a SP/DIF out and connect to an amplifier that supports MQA?
Because only the desktop version is supporting MQA, so I don't see how you could get 'out' of your PC...

Very disappointing, because they've introduiced a new format, but we aren't able to play it...
 

​You can play and enjoy the new masters (MQA) if you have a PC (laptop or desktop) with the Tidal app.  No need to take it to an external DAC or amplifier.  Just plug your headphones in and you are set.   The Tidal app is "unfolding" the MQA masters up to 24bit/96kHz resolution.
 
A lot of people here have better Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs) and they can plug them in to their computer via USB.  They can play the MQA files with those DACs and see if they can get better results.  If the external DAC has an MQA decoder then it should be able to unfold the MQA files to even higher resolutions depending on how good the DAC is.

 

[Stillhart]

 

I really don't get it how you guys are testing the MQA's?

You do have all a laptop with a SP/DIF out and connect to an amplifier that supports MQA?
Because only the desktop version is supporting MQA, so I don't see how you could get 'out' of your PC...

Very disappointing, because they've introduiced a new format, but we aren't able to play it...
 

 
MQA is an encoding format.  It can decoded by software or hardware.  Hardware decoding will let you decode ("unfold") to higher bitrates.  Software decoding using Tidal's new built-in decoder will give you 24/96.