[wood1030]

  For those that have Tidal Hifi - There was an update today that lets you stream a good selections of albums in Master quality.  Dac shows either 88 or 96khz at 24bits.  I could immediately tell there is much more detail in the signal listening to Led Zeppelin.  

+1

 

[wgb113]

That's interesting - my understanding was that for full quality the DAC would need to support MQA.  I've emailed Oppo about this and am awaiting a response.  I like the HA-1 as both a DAC and amp but the Tidal/MQA deal could have me shopping for a new one.

 

[AudioMan2013]

  That's interesting - my understanding was that for full quality the DAC would need to support MQA.  I've emailed Oppo about this and am awaiting a response.  I like the HA-1 as both a DAC and amp but the Tidal/MQA deal could have me shopping for a new one.

I think the MQA audio codec is over hyped by Meridian audio.  It just just a compression scheme to compress digital audio into another digital audio format and can be done completely in software for the purposes of streaming.  As long as there is a decompressor in your player of choice (whether software or hardware) it will work.  The HA-1 is not a player so it doesn't care.  As far as I know, dac chips are only able to handle pcm and dsd data directly.  Any hardware that claims they support MQA just has software running on a processor and won't sound any better/worse than software running on a pc.  
 
My future prediction is that MQA is going to go the way of the dinosaur before it catches on.  I think this because there are too many restrictions on the format and codecs that flourish are free and open source where any commercial company that wishes to use MQA has to pay a royalty.  For example Tidal has to pay it and also Onkyo for their DP-X1 that can play MQA files directly.  Also there isn't enough content released in higher resolution so the recording companies are still a major bottleneck.  It will do worse than SACD because at least with it, one has a physical disk associated with it and DSD is a native format accepted as input into dac chips themselves.  DSD has advantages to PCM whereas MQA is just compressed PCM.  If you are looking for the best audio quality, stay with wav/flac, dsd, and vinyl.  In this day and age with 10TB drives and 1Gbps internet connections, who the hell pays for an audio compression codec?  LOL

 

[wgb113]

1. Love your avatar - you running a bug-eye?
2. That's kind of what I thought until the proliferation of DACs that support MQA and the fact that some companies are touting their DACs as being "upgradeable" to support it.
3. The timing of the announcement with Tidal wasn't a mistake IMO.  While it's nowhere near everything at this point, they are offering the entire Warner catalog in high-rez and that includes some very popular titles.  As they add more, it will make a nice compliment to my CD and vinyl collection.
4. All of this of course assumes it sounds noticeably better than CD quality.  I have yet to actually hear the technology but I'm hopeful.

 

[AudioMan2013]

  1. Love your avatar - you running a bug-eye?
2. That's kind of what I thought until the proliferation of DACs that support MQA and the fact that some companies are touting their DACs as being "upgradeable" to support it.
3. The timing of the announcement with Tidal wasn't a mistake IMO.  While it's nowhere near everything at this point, they are offering the entire Warner catalog in high-rez and that includes some very popular titles.  As they add more, it will make a nice compliment to my CD and vinyl collection.
4. All of this of course assumes it sounds noticeably better than CD quality.  I have yet to actually hear the technology but I'm hopeful.

Thank you - not a bug-eye but a '12 STI.  I love them all though!  
 
I wouldn't be too concerned about whether a dac supported MQA or not but whether a player supports it.  Spend the money on a good dac that you will enjoy for many years.  I haven't compared Tidal's MQA to cd because I haven't had a chance to do critical listening tests but I have with their HiFi quality (flac) to wav files ripped from cds.  The wav files win by a margin to me on my equipment. My first impression is that Master sounds better than their HiFi stream but a well mastered cd would be better.  With all this processing going on I can tell there are things get lost or make it sound unnatural. As you get to splitting hairs it really goes back to how well the original music was recorded and mastered!  For example, U2 vinyl sounds phenomenal but their CDs that were mastered from analog sources sound dull.  I have compared the few samples of MQA files that I downloaded and compared them to DSD playing on my Onkyo DP-X1.  DSD wins hand and foot.  
 
I am happy to hear that they will add more high resolution titles to Tidal. If they had increased the monthly fee for MQA then I would not upgrade or keep the membership.  Tidal for me is not for audiophile listening but having access to a huge music library that sounds somewhat decent and their ability for offline playing (when I'm driving).  I agree it is a nice complement to discs / vinyl but no where a replacement for critical listening of a person's favorite music.  With all these fancy formats and dacs, I still enjoy popping in a physical cd into a player.  It just sounds different (not necessarily better or worse) but it does sound good!

 

[AudioMan2013]

Tidal released many more albums in Master audio today to roughly 400 albums. I don't know how to correctly say this but when listening to Muse, or Fleetwood Mac it seems that the vocals are artificially encoded to have a little more micro dithered "sssssss" or treble to make it sound it is has more resolution.  I don't have my headphones currently and I am not in a proper listening environment right now.    

 

[AudioMan2013]

Here is my conclusion about MQA:  It is just a "marketing machine" for high end audio manufacturers and I seriously question its usefulness.  One doesn't need a new MQA enabled dac or pay royalty fees when a music service could stream 24 bit flac or even dsd to their customers if they chose to do so.  A good way to put it is that I won't pay for MQA but I will pay for lossless 24bit flac @88.2k or higher.  

 

[Hifiaddict]

I can`t bluetooth pair my Galaxy s5 and s7 with my OPPO HA-1, and when paired with an iphone the sound is stuttering.
 

Does anyone else have this problem?? In the manuel it says in can pair with any bluetooth mobile, ipad or pc device. Is there a easy fix for this?

 

 

 

[dubharmonic]

  I can`t bluetooth pair my Galaxy s5 and s7 with my OPPO HA-1, and when paired with an iphone the sound is stuttering.
 

Does anyone else have this problem?? In the manuel it says in can pair with any bluetooth mobile, ipad or pc device. Is there a easy fix for this?

 

 

Sounds like there's some electromagnetic interference. Do you have any other BT receivers you could try in the same vicinity? 

 

[MRC001]

My HA-1 BT syncs with my galaxy note 2 and note 8 just fine. BT isn't reference quality audio, but it is reliable and smooth.

 

[Hifiaddict]

I have tried in my local store with 2 different new Oppo ha-1 but still same problem can not connect with either my galaxy s5 or s7 only iphones. I find this very strange that two players have the same problems! If there is a bluetooth inteference then the iphones shouldent work either. There has to be a easy fix for this i hope.

 

[tngiloy]

New to this thread and pretty new to the headphone world. The wife just retired and I plan to retire soon, but we don't share the same musical tastes/listening levels/etc., so I figured headphones might be the best way to go.
I have am Oppo HA-1 in the mail and an pair of AKG 701 headphones hanging in my mancave that I plan to use (for a while at least), but I have some questions about the balanced part of the HA-1.
My planned setup for the HA-1 is: Ayre CX-5 and Ayre QB-9 (both balanced out) to BSG QOL balanced in. QOL balanced out to HA-1 balanced in. So, so far its balanced up to the headphone connectors on the HA-1's front panel. My question is, at this point does it make any difference if I use the 1/4'' out or the balanced headphone connection??
I realize the 701's don't offer a balanced option, but when I do upgrade should I look for balanced headphones? Or is it moot after the front panel connections?
 
Tom

 

[Whitigir]

Noticeable improvements from balanced vs unbalanced

 

[tngiloy]

Noticeable difference with balanced connection  for the headphone cable, or just into the HA-1??

 

[Whitigir]

Noticeable difference with balanced connection  for the headphone cable, or just into the HA-1??

I don't get your question, but balanced out is an improvement over SE out on Ha1