[Left Channel]

THanks. Well my Dac in my kenwood should be as good as my phone. http://www.kenwood.com/usa/car/excelon/dmx905s/

Nice! From the specs:

Frequency response
192k Sampling 20 - 88,000 Hz
96k Sampling 20 - 44,000 Hz
48k Sampling 20 - 22,000 Hz
44.1k Sampling 20 - 20,000 Hz

 

[IrishAudio]

Can folks point me to what DAPs support direct Tidal Masters MQA streaming? Portable players that stream via wifi as I am not interested in the V30 or Essential.

Would prefer a DAP which has a 2.5mm balanced output and can drive 300 ohms cans, the HD650s.

Thanks.

 

[nugget2013]

anyone know if its possible to see if you are getting any 192khz playback on mqa albums? i have ifi audio nano idsd black label, and only get max 96khz on the app that shows current sample rate, i have exclusive mode on, and i have the passthrough MQA option off. should it be enabled or disabled for my dac?

 

[Left Channel]

anyone know if its possible to see if you are getting any 192khz playback on mqa albums? i have ifi audio nano idsd black label, and only get max 96khz on the app that shows current sample rate, i have exclusive mode on, and i have the passthrough MQA option off. should it be enabled or disabled for my dac?

Edit: the nano iDSD BL is an MQA renderer, so MQA Passthrough should indeed be off (slider to the left) so that the first "unfold" is done in the Tidal app, after which your nano would take it to the final level.

Edit edit: Also, for MQA you need the 5.3 or 5.3C firmware.

There are more 96 kHz tracks than 192 kHz tracks out there, so even if everything is setup correctly it's not surprising you haven't encountered any of the latter yet.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

anyone know if its possible to see if you are getting any 192khz playback on mqa albums? i have ifi audio nano idsd black label, and only get max 96khz on the app that shows current sample rate, i have exclusive mode on, and i have the passthrough MQA option off. should it be enabled or disabled for my dac?

Yes. I have seen a few 192s. Many are 96 though and not all the MQAs are the same bit rate.

 

[NobbyChad]

For an appreciation thread, there is a lot of dissent here. Is it even possible to create a thread about MQA without the cynics, skeptics, and objectivists piling on?

I, for one, am happy with my TIDAL HiFi account. I do hear improvements when I listen to most Master files, especially in the upper frequencies. My only disappointment is the slowness of Master releases.

I use a MacBook and a Mojo for my TIDAL Masters listening. I feel most of the benefit of hi res files comes at 24/96, so having an MQA supported DAC is not meaningful to me.

I do wonder whether Audirvana users feel MQA files sound better than when using TIDAL's MQA software.

I use audit and and it makes a significant difference both on my main system, Vincent pre / power tube amps, audio physic speakers, if I bl (MQA) DAC , Mac book. And on my second system Naim Unitilite and Rega speakers via pnp. Also use meridian explorer2 when needing portability. Love your comment re appreciation, seems some people misunderstood the heading of the group. If you don't like MQA that's great I don't like BMWs but I don't go on the BMW owners page to tell them they are idiots with crap cars.

 

[Cooljazz669]

I am using ifi nano idsd silver.It can only render mqa max 96khz.

 

[Cooljazz669]

anyone know if its possible to see if you are getting any 192khz playback on mqa albums? i have ifi audio nano idsd black label, and only get max 96khz on the app that shows current sample rate, i have exclusive mode on, and i have the passthrough MQA option off. should it be enabled or disabled for my dac?

Many old classice rock or jazz album are 192khz.

 

[ShakyJake]

I got an early Chrismas present this morning. USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP, Android) just upgraded to version 5.0 and now has the capability to play Tidal MQA music after paying a $4 license to MQA. All I can say is WOW. The KZ ZSN all of a sudden jumped a level when playing some of the Masters tracks (these are the ones that MQA enabled). UAPP already takes advantage of the dedicated AKM DAC/AMP in my Axon 7.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I got an early Chrismas present this morning. USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP, Android) just upgraded to version 5.0 and now has the capability to play Tidal MQA music after paying a $4 license to MQA. All I can say is WOW. The KZ ZSN all of a sudden jumped a level when playing some of the Masters tracks (these are the ones that MQA enabled). UAPP already takes advantage of the dedicated AKM DAC/AMP in my Axon 7.

We're already paying for Tidal Hifi including MQA... why should we pay for MQA twice?

 

[Left Channel]

We're already paying for Tidal Hifi including MQA... why should we pay for MQA twice?

We're already paying extra for it on mobile, one way or another. The extra cost is baked into the LG V30 internal DAC and firmware, the Essential Phone add-on DAC and firmware (both of which play MQA from the official Tidal app and UAPP without this new option) and also into any other MQA-capable product. The developer of UAPP spent time and money working with MQA on this. For Android devices other than the V30 and the Essential, if you want a way around the problems the system throws in the way of sending a bit perfect MQA signal via USB, then adding this to UAPP is the ticket.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

We're already paying extra for it on mobile, one way or another. The extra cost is baked into the LG V30 internal DAC and firmware, the Essential Phone add-on DAC and firmware (both of which play MQA from the official Tidal app and UAPP without this new option) and also into any other MQA-capable product. The developer of UAPP spent time and money working with MQA on this. For Android devices other than the V30 and the Essential, if you want a way around the problems the system throws in the way of sending a bit perfect MQA signal via USB, then adding this to UAPP is the ticket.

I have no idea what you are trying to say. @ShakyJake said he had to pay $4 license to MQA. That seems totally different than "The developer of UAPP spent time and money working with MQA on this"

 

[Left Channel]

I have no idea what you are trying to say. @ShakyJake said he had to pay $4 license to MQA. That seems totally different than "The developer of UAPP spent time and money working with MQA on this"

OK, I understand. That $4 (or actually, $3.99 I think) is the cost to enable the MQA decoder option in UAPP, payable to UAPP.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

OK, I understand. That $4 (or actually, $3.99 I think) is the cost to enable the MQA decoder option in UAPP, payable to UAPP.

That would sure be a lot more reasonable than paying the MQA-tax multiple times

 

[nixternal]

MQA passthrough should be on, allowing the iDSD BL to do the decoding. Right now the decoding is being done in the Tidal app, which is a 1x unfold to no higher than 96 kHz.

Thanks for that tip! I am currently trying out Tidal & trying to get them to get my military discount issue figured out. If they do that, then I think I would gladly pay $12/mo for the top tier. Originally I didn't have that option set & thought every master album sounded like crap and it was at that point that I highly doubted every person who has said MQA was good OK, no longer processing it through the processor, going straight to DAC & it sounds so much better. Testing Steely Dan, Gaucho, Babylon Sisters against my SACD rip. It isn't to shabby, but at the same time not even close in quality. I will say this, when you don't enable this & have the app do the MQA decoding, every master sounded muddy as all heck. So much clearer now. Thanks again for that tip!