[gimmeheadroom]

That's hardly a compliment when analog is distinctly lower fidelity. But then, MQA is lossy, like analog recordings/media.

That's delusion, srsly. Music is analog. Digital "music" is an approximation of music; it is not music.

 

[GoldenSound]

FYI, Amazon Music plays all tracks at 192 kHz on my high-res capable Android DAPs, upsampling lower bitrate tracks.

Also, Apple Music plays lossless and high-res bit-perfect with no issues, again on capable (recent) Android DAPs.

On android currently afaik the only app that is bitperfect stock is actually TIDAL (though that has the MQA instead of lossless issue).

However using USB Audio Player Pro you can use local files or Qobuz bitperfect

I'm not actually sure about apple music, particularly with 44.1khz stuff (which has historically been the challenge on android due to it requiring 48khz output or higher).
But on windows you definitely can't even stream the lossless files at all

 

[GoldenSound]

Dear All:

i've been enjoying Tidal MQA and my full hardware unfolding audio equipment for around 2 years now, and overall, i'm happy that i went with Tidal.

thinking about this recently, it seems to me that with bandwidth no longer really an issue for the vast majority of us, if not all of us, when will the need for MQA no longer exist?

if the need for MQA no longer exists, will Tidal still be around to compete with, say, Spotify?

if and when that time comes, would most Tidal folks migrate over to Spotify? or...?

look forward to hearing your thoughts. thank you.

MQA was never about saving space.
It was about collecting license revenue.

So long as people continue to demand/buy MQA-enabled products, it'll likely stick around.
That is, as long as they don't continue to lose several million pounds per year and go bankrupt, which is looking more the case currently

 

[rlw6534]

On android currently afaik the only app that is bitperfect stock is actually TIDAL (though that has the MQA instead of lossless issue).

However using USB Audio Player Pro you can use local files or Qobuz bitperfect

I'm not actually sure about apple music, particularly with 44.1khz stuff (which has historically been the challenge on android due to it requiring 48khz output or higher).
But on windows you definitely can't even stream the lossless files at all

Tidal, Qobuz and Apple Music apps all play bitperfect on my recent FiiO, Hiby and Shanling DAPs (Android) at the correct sample rates. The only one that doesn't is my older FiiO X7ii. This is without UAPP. Again Amazon Music always plays at 192 kHz regardless of source sample rate. My observations are based on the sample rate display of the DAPs (status bar) which I have have no reason to doubt. Of course these DAPS all have forced Android SRC bypass and MQA capabilities. This wasn't true a couple of years ago, but it seems the apps have finally caught up with the DAP's audio technology. Sony Android DAPS only play at 32/192 (high res streaming "on") but UAPP fixes this for Tidal and Qobuz. I'm also pretty sure recent iBasso DAPs play bitperfect with these apps as well (I don't own any so not first hand).

 

[GoldenSound]

Tidal, Qobuz and Apple Music apps all play bitperfect on my recent FiiO, Hiby and Shanling DAPs (Android) at the correct sample rates. The only one that doesn't is my older FiiO X7ii. This is without UAPP. Again Amazon Music always plays at 192 kHz regardless of source sample rate. My observations are based on the sample rate display of the DAPs (status bar) which I have have no reason to doubt. Of course these DAPS all have forced Android SRC bypass and MQA capabilities. This wasn't true a couple of years ago, but it seems the apps have finally caught up with the DAP's audio technology. Sony Android DAPS only play at 32/192 (high res streaming "on") but UAPP fixes this for Tidal and Qobuz. I'm also pretty sure recent iBasso DAPs play bitperfect with these apps as well (I don't own any so not first hand).

DAPs are a bit of a different scenario cause some manufacturers modify the audio stack in different ways.
Some of them afaik have gotten it so that everything is bitperfect. Some are bitperfect but only with their own player app, and some are bitperfect but only for 48khz and above (44.1khz content gets resampled to 48khz)

 

[rlw6534]

DAPs are a bit of a different scenario cause some manufacturers modify the audio stack in different ways.
Some of them afaik have gotten it so that everything is bitperfect. Some are bitperfect but only with their own player app, and some are bitperfect but only for 48khz and above (44.1khz content gets resampled to 48khz)

Yes, Android has traditionally been a bit of a mess with respect to audio. Later Android versions (9 and up) are much better in this area with OS level high-resolution support (up to 192 kHz). Also agree that recent DAPS with SRC bypass (and capable DACs) have helped as well.

 

[PortableMusic]

MQA was never about saving space.
It was about collecting license revenue.

So long as people continue to demand/buy MQA-enabled products, it'll likely stick around.
That is, as long as they don't continue to lose several million pounds per year and go bankrupt, which is looking more the case currently

@GoldenOne: considering that Dorsey bought Tidal not long ago, one would think he's ready to either make improvements or changes so that it is a meaningful ongoing concern, right?

he wouldn't have bought it only to let it go bankrupt in a year or two!

 

[hash70]

Why did ifi promote a 2 month roon trial when myself and others fail to get any reply bck from ifi?filled the stupid forum in 3 times last week and still no reply bck from ifi,obviously I checked my spam,typical support that we've All came to expect

 

[GoldenSound]

@GoldenOne: considering that Dorsey bought Tidal not long ago, one would think he's ready to either make improvements or changes so that it is a meaningful ongoing concern, right?

he wouldn't have bought it only to let it go bankrupt in a year or two!

I was referring to MQA not Tidal.
Tidal afaik is doing fine financially.

MQA not so much.
Financial filings are public record and can be viewed on companies house.

Their most recent filing shows a £4.4 million loss for the year.

 

[hash70]

Only reason I use tidal instead of quboz is I only pay £1 a morth for tidal with a vpn,if it wasn't for that I'd be using quboz,mqa is total **** up,one minute it's working then a fw update breaks it,don't have any problems like that with flac,mqa might have been a good idea 20y ago but not now,Internet speeds are more than fast enough plus it's been proven to have loads of digital noise

 

[MrWalkman]

mqa is total **** up,one minute it's working then a fw update breaks it

Sounds like a firmware issue, not a MQA issue per se.

 

[old tech]

That's delusion, srsly. Music is analog. Digital "music" is an approximation of music; it is not music.

No music is acoustic not analogue. Anyway that's a misinformed understanding of digital information. We are talking about an electrical signal not a live event and it is trivially easy to prove that analogue equipment however sophisticated, can never match the fidelity of any DAC. Omg, what were they thinking by closing down analogue telephony or television broadcasting and replacing it with an approximation of voice or picture?

NASA, the medical industry to name just two must have been mad to replace their analogue equipment with digital equipment over half a century ago. But acurately reproducing an electrical signal when it comes to music must be a lot more complex than finding gravity waves millions of light years away in space, right? I suppose then that all those audio purists in the classical genre were misguided fools to drive the development of digital audio and never looking back once CDs were released?

 

[rlw6534]

No music is acoustic not analogue. Anyway that's a misinformed understanding of digital information. We are talking about an electrical signal not a live event and it is trivially easy to prove that analogue equipment however sophisticated, can never match the fidelity of any DAC. Omg, what were they thinking by closing down analogue telephony or television broadcasting and replacing it with an approximation of voice or picture?

NASA, the medical industry to name just two must have been mad to replace their analogue equipment with digital equipment over half a century ago. But acurately reproducing an electrical signal when it comes to music must be a lot more complex than finding gravity waves millions of light years away in space, right? I suppose then that all those audio purists in the classical genre were misguided fools to drive the development of digital audio and never looking back once CDs were released?

The first time I heard a CD (Flim and the BBs-Tricycle - DDD) I was completely blown away with the dynamics and lack of noise. Totally amazing compared to LPs and cassettes (or older 8 Tracks). This was, no doubt, the biggest leap of improvement in my lifetime with respect to audio.

 

[old tech]

The first time I heard a CD (Flim and the BBs-Tricycle - DDD) I was completely blown away with the dynamics and lack of noise. Totally amazing compared to LPs and cassettes (or older 8 Tracks). This was, no doubt, the biggest leap of improvement in my lifetime with respect to audio.

Same here. That's not to say that every CD or digital file sounds great because a lot can get screwed up by humans between AD to DA music production, like the loudness wars or poor mixing/mastering or even a poor recording to begin with which is more obvious with digital transparency. But when some music is described as 'analog sounding' it either mistakenly describes a good production or correctly a preference for less fidelity.

 

[peterinvan]

TIDAL ASKING FOR ACCESS TO MY CAMERA!
I am running Tidal 2.30.1.505 under the latest Windows 11.

For the first time, today, I got a warning from Norton that Tidal is asking for permisssion to access my camera. I denied access.

Anyone have this experience?
Why would Tidal want access to my PC camera?