[Ichos]

Dear friends here is my opinion on the M15 for anyone interested.

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/qu...ss-headphone-amp-with-dac.25804/review/29635/

Most musical sounding ESS dongle till now.

 

[is2us]

Any help will be appreciated.
I used my Questyle M15 with Pixel 2 phone and Tidal without any problem, each MQA album will turn the led purple and sound wonderful.

Now with my new Samsung A53 phone, Tidal Master tracks are just green or red. I'm getting no MQA rendering.
I upgraded the Firmware to the latest one V9399 to no avail.
Anyone have this problem?

 

[povidlo]

Any help will be appreciated.
I used my Questyle M15 with Pixel 2 phone and Tidal without any problem, each MQA album will turn the led purple and sound wonderful.

Now with my new Samsung A53 phone, Tidal Master tracks are just green or red. I'm getting no MQA rendering.
I upgraded the Firmware to the latest one V9399 to no avail.
Anyone have this problem?

Have you tried Tidal through UAPP?

Since M15 doesn't have volume buttons, on my Samsung Flip 3 I'm using UAPP instead of Tidal app because UAPP allows for much more granular volume control (100 steps, and up to 250  steps if desired).

Although for some reason UAPP doesn't see M15 as MQA renderer, M15 correctly shows magenta led when Tidal MQA tracked is played back through UAPP.

 

[Questyle]

@is2us We haven't heard of this specific issue before actually.

@povidlo 's suggestion is certainly worth testing.

Additionally, from what I understand, when you first connected the M15 to your Samsung it should have asked to "Allow TIDAL access," do you remember selecting "Ok" to that prompt? If you didn't, there should be correct that in your settings.

Perhaps send some screenshots of your TIDAL settings and also Android system settings? That would help in diagnosing more.

 

[is2us]

Have you tried Tidal through UAPP?

Yes, only after I paid for USB Audio Player Pro with the MQA plugin, I was able to play MQA on the M15 with MQA rendering.
I managed to play a few MQA files I have (which didn't work with Poweramp) and Tidal through USB APP works.

 

[Tman007]

Will it be possible to connect the M15 to a streamer that accepts USB input such as the bluesound n130?

I did try connecting via USB and then a 3.5mm to RCA cable to speakers but it didn't seem to work?

Wonder if anyone can advise?

 

[is2us]

@is2us We haven't heard of this specific issue before actually.

@povidlo 's suggestion is certainly worth testing.

Additionally, from what I understand, when you first connected the M15 to your Samsung it should have asked to "Allow TIDAL access," do you remember selecting "Ok" to that prompt? If you didn't, there should be correct that in your settings.

Perhaps send some screenshots of your TIDAL settings and also Android system settings? That would help in diagnosing more.

You can see on my post above, using USBAPP did allow me to render MQA.
With Tidal or Poweramp I can hear the music, but it's only playing 44.1Khz 16bit (Green light) or HiRes (Red Light) not rendering the MQA (Purple light)

Here are screens from Tidal settings. Which screens do you want me to share from Android System settings?

 

[Mather]

Any help will be appreciated.
I used my Questyle M15 with Pixel 2 phone and Tidal without any problem, each MQA album will turn the led purple and sound wonderful.

Now with my new Samsung A53 phone, Tidal Master tracks are just green or red. I'm getting no MQA rendering.
I upgraded the Firmware to the latest one V9399 to no avail.
Anyone have this problem?

Tidal broke their android app with their last update on Nov 18th. As a result bit perfect audio stream and MQA is down on some if not all Android phones. It has apparently been fixed and will be corrected when the next update drops on Dec 6th.

Also just wanted to add Samsung Flip 4 to the list of phones that have intermittent 4 and 5G audio hash through the M15. I highly doubt there is anything that can be done about this without a phone redesign. I tested my phone with about 15 different DACs and they all exhibited the same noise that could be completely eliminated if I went into airplane mode or turned off data. Pretty certain this is phone side not DAC side.

@Questyle

 

[povidlo]

Tidal broke their android app with their last update on Nov 18th. As a result bit perfect audio stream and MQA is down on some if not all Android phones. It has apparently been fixed and will be corrected when the next update drops on Dec 6th.

Also just wanted to add Samsung Flip 4 to the list of phones that have intermittent 4 and 5G audio hash through the M15. I highly doubt there is anything that can be done about this without a phone redesign. I tested my phone with about 15 different DACs and they all exhibited the same noise that could be completely eliminated if I went into airplane mode or turned off data. Pretty certain this is phone side not DAC side.

Good to know about known Tidal bug, thanks for sharing.

To your point regarding mobile data interference through USB, I use dongles when on wifi connection only. When on data, I use Bluetooth enabled DACs.

 

[is2us]

Tidal broke their android app with their last update on Nov 18th. As a result bit perfect audio stream and MQA is down on some if not all Android phones. It has apparently been fixed and will be corrected when the next update drops on Dec 6th.

Thanks for sharing @Mather

 

[Mather]

Good to know about known Tidal bug, thanks for sharing.

To your point regarding mobile data interference through USB, I use dongles when on wifi connection only. When on data, I use Bluetooth enabled DACs.

Yeah I only use wired because I want the high res that Bluetooth isn't capable of. But that's interesting that it avoids the interference.

 

[povidlo]

Yeah I only use wired because I want the high res that Bluetooth isn't capable of. But that's interesting that it avoids the interference.

Depending on codec, BT is technically hi-res capable. LDAC can transmit up to 990 kbps at 24 bit/96 kHz.

Anyway, I agree USB connection is generally better than BT when it comes to pure sound. But BT is more convenient and avoids mobile data interference. There are use cases for both options.

 

[Mather]

Depending on codec, BT is technically hi-res capable. LDAC can transmit up to 990 kbps at 24 bit/96 kHz.

Anyway, I agree USB connection is generally better than BT when it comes to pure sound. But BT is more convenient and avoids mobile data interference. There are use cases for both options.

Yeah I mean I've officially gone down the wired high res rabbit hole. It is increasingly likely that by this time next year I will be walking around like this guy.

 

[Questyle]

@Mather @is2us I did a bit of digging as well, and yep, it seems that on Tidal version 2.72 for Android (released in November this year) a lot of Android users are reporting that the app isn't recognizing external DACs or MQA renderers. One post (on Reddit, so take it with a grain of salt) said that the new release only allows "Exclusive mode," which is required for DACs to render MQA, only for the desktop app version, no longer the mobile version. I'm hoping they will update this in the coming months, but it's still unclear. Read more here: https://www.reddit.com/r/TIdaL/comm...ndroidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

@Mather Also thank you for the update about the 4/5G noise on the Samsung Flip 4. I'll add that phone to the list of phones with issues. The engineers are still working with ESS to see if there's a way around this problem, we're still working hard on this but no final solution just yet. I'll also let them know what you said about testing it with 15 other DACs, all exhibiting similar noise issues.

@Tman007 If you're specifically trying to connect to the Bluesound N130, there's no way to connect the M15 to the USB input of the N130 as the M15 only has analog outputs. What you could try though is running a double-ended 3.5mm audio cable between the 3.5mm output of the M15 and the 3.5mm "optical in/analog in" of the N130.
For your other issue of "3.5mm to RCA cable to speakers" not working — could you send a video or picture of your setup to my email? (zach.bielak@questyle.com) This is a setup that should indeed work, something I use on a daily basis actually. Getting more context about the system might help us solve that problem.

 

[Mather]

@Mather @is2us I did a bit of digging as well, and yep, it seems that on Tidal version 2.72 for Android (released in November this year) a lot of Android users are reporting that the app isn't recognizing external DACs or MQA renderers. One post (on Reddit, so take it with a grain of salt) said that the new release only allows "Exclusive mode," which is required for DACs to render MQA, only for the desktop app version, no longer the mobile version. I'm hoping they will update this in the coming months, but it's still unclear. Read more here: https://www.reddit.com/r/TIdaL/comm...ndroidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

@Mather Also thank you for the update about the 4/5G noise on the Samsung Flip 4. I'll add that phone to the list of phones with issues. The engineers are still working with ESS to see if there's a way around this problem, we're still working hard on this but no final solution just yet. I'll also let them know what you said about testing it with 15 other DACs, all exhibiting similar noise issues.

@Tman007 If you're specifically trying to connect to the Bluesound N130, there's no way to connect the M15 to the USB input of the N130 as the M15 only has analog outputs. What you could try though is running a double-ended 3.5mm audio cable between the 3.5mm output of the M15 and the 3.5mm "optical in/analog in" of the N130.
For your other issue of "3.5mm to RCA cable to speakers" not working — could you send a video or picture of your setup to my email? (zach.bielak@questyle.com) This is a setup that should indeed work, something I use on a daily basis actually. Getting more context about the system might help us solve that problem.

I mean who knows when it comes to music rights stuff, but I would be absolutely stunned if Tidal voluntarily discontinued MQA unfolds and bit perfect via Android. It's pretty much their selling point, I suppose if they were forced to end it due to some sort of rights issue then I guess it is what it is. But until there's a bit more info released I think this may be much ado about nothing. I contacted Tidal this week regarding MQA and Bit Perfect going down on Android and this was the question/response:

Me: The most recent Android app update broke the MQA and DAC functionality of your app. It can no longer recognize DACs and will no longer play bit perfect or allow for a MQA stream.

Tidal Support: We apologize for the inconveniences with MQA. We wanted to let you know that this issue has been resolved and that it will be included in our next release, version 2.73, which will be available on December 6, 2022. Please keep an eye out for the release date and check the Play Store for TIDAL version 2.73.

So that's the next scheduled Android update. That response definitely seems to indicate to me that the Android MQA/Bit Perfect issues will be fixed with that firmware update. And I mean it's not like Tidal doesn't have a bit of a history of borking their own app functionality with their updates. It's happened before. Anything is possible but I suspect this will be fixed with the next app update.