Tidal Masters & MQA Thread!

[BobSmith8901]

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!

Hi nixternal-I have the iDSD Nano BL. If you also have the Nano (wasn't sure if you had that one or one of the other BL's) and you want the full MQA rendering, you should have Passthrough MQA set to OFF in the Tidal desktop app.

The Nano BL needs the software in the Tidal desktop app to do the first unfold of the MQA stream and the Nano will do the second unfold and render the full MQA stream. Assuming you have the 5.3 or 5.3C firmware installed on your Nano BL, you'll get the magenta light when it's fully rendering the MQA stream. That's not to say that you may not be getting better sound quality just giving the Nano the full undecoded MQA stream without the first unfold, as everyone's systems and ears are different!

 

[Left Channel]

Hi nixternal-I have the iDSD Nano BL. If you also have the Nano (wasn't sure if you had that one or one of the other BL's) and you want the full MQA rendering, you should have Passthrough MQA set to OFF in the Tidal desktop app.

The Nano BL needs the software in the Tidal desktop app to do the first unfold of the MQA stream and the Nano will do the second unfold and render the full MQA stream. Assuming you have the 5.3 or 5.3C firmware installed on your Nano BL, you'll get the magenta light when it's fully rendering the MQA stream. That's not to say that you may not be getting better sound quality just giving the Nano the full undecoded MQA stream without the first unfold, as everyone's systems and ears are different!

Wait, are you saying the nano BL is a renderer not a full decoder? The iFi folks sure hide that information on their website and user manual. They make it look like a full decoder. I just did further research (Google took me to the CA and Roon forums) and found it may well be a renderer only.

You have a nano iDSD BL and I don't, so you should know of course. In that case @nixternal and @nugget2013 should leave Passthrough off. But after turning it on they should be hearing unpleasant digital noise in the signal, yet nixternal says it sounds better. So now I have no idea what to say.

 

[nixternal]

I do not have an iFi, using a Schiit Modi 2 Uber. Definitely isn't MQA, but when the passthrough was off, everything sounded muddy, awful sounding. I enabled it & everything was much clearer sounding.

OK, I just disabled it while Babylon Sisters was playing, and didn't hear a difference. Restarted & it still sounds the same. Wondering if I just came across a bug with the initial configuration. It was seriously awful sounding. Like wearing Beats listening to a low res MP3 on an iPoop Nano, bad. Yeah, it is playing fine now with it disabled. Diana Krall sounds like Diana Krall now & not like...oh hell I don't know, she doesn't sound like a bass in an A Capella group. I wouldn't doubt it was a bug, have a friend who is dev at Tidal & told me it is some of the worst coding he has seen in a long time, though that was a year or 2 ago.

EDIT: OK, so on Tidal, if it is a Master recording, it is MQA for sure? When I toggle MQA passthrough while a song is playing, I don't hear a change at all. And having it enabled does not mess with the sound. When I disable it while a song is playing, I hear nothing. When I enable while a song is playing, I can hear a brief pause & the song continues playing just fine.

 

[Left Channel]

OK @nixternal I have a Modi 2U too, and for that one you should have Use Exclusive Mode on, Force Volume on, but Passthrough MQA off. You were replying to advice for another DAC that has some MQA features built-in, but Schiit Audio has publicly announced they will not support MQA at this time.

To answer your question, if Tidal calls it a Master then it is MQA. Their definition of "master", small "m", may or may not match yours, and I find the quality of MQA albums to be quite varied. Everyone's ears are different, of course. But I can't understand why you're hearing an improvement when you toggle Passthrough MQA on.

The Tidal devs appear to have improved Passthrough MQA, so that if your DAC is not compatible you will no longer hear nasty digital noise in the signal when that option is on. That's nice. But maybe you can ask your dev friend if at that point it disables MQA completely and if so what exactly is it doing. I suspect you are now getting an undecoded stream in a 24/48 envelope instead of it "unfolding" to a higher resolution (if a higher res is available, as some MQA and other Hi-Res tracks are natively 24/44.1 or 24/48).

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I do not have an iFi, using a Schiit Modi 2 Uber. Definitely isn't MQA, but when the passthrough was off, everything sounded muddy, awful sounding. I enabled it & everything was much clearer sounding.

OK, I just disabled it while Babylon Sisters was playing, and didn't hear a difference. Restarted & it still sounds the same. Wondering if I just came across a bug with the initial configuration. It was seriously awful sounding. Like wearing Beats listening to a low res MP3 on an iPoop Nano, bad. Yeah, it is playing fine now with it disabled. Diana Krall sounds like Diana Krall now & not like...oh hell I don't know, she doesn't sound like a bass in an A Capella group. I wouldn't doubt it was a bug, have a friend who is dev at Tidal & told me it is some of the worst coding he has seen in a long time, though that was a year or 2 ago.

EDIT: OK, so on Tidal, if it is a Master recording, it is MQA for sure? When I toggle MQA passthrough while a song is playing, I don't hear a change at all. And having it enabled does not mess with the sound. When I disable it while a song is playing, I hear nothing. When I enable while a song is playing, I can hear a brief pause & the song continues playing just fine.

I believe the audio settings are not applied until the next song plays. I don't think there is a way to test this in the middle of a song, based on the messages I get when I change certain playback settings.

 

[Left Channel]

I believe the audio settings are not applied until the next song plays. I don't think there is a way to test this in the middle of a song, based on the messages I get when I change certain playback settings.

I have skipped to the next track, switched albums, and even restarted the app, and am not hearing the digital noise I used to get on a non-MQA DAC when Passthrough was enabled. I also am not hearing much difference when I have it off, though that will require some critical listening. When I first toggle it on I do hear the music drop out for a moment, but that's about it. I could further test this with an MQA-compatible DAC, but I suspect the software will behave differently that one

 

[BobSmith8901]

Wait, are you saying the nano BL is a renderer not a full decoder? The iFi folks sure hide that information on their website and user manual. They make it look like a full decoder. I just did further research (Google took me to the CA and Roon forums) and found it may well be a renderer only.

You have a nano iDSD BL and I don't, so you should know of course. In that case @nixternal and @nugget2013 should leave Passthrough off. But after turning it on they should be hearing unpleasant digital noise in the signal, yet nixternal says it sounds better. So now I have no idea what to say.

Yes it is a renderer not a full decoder like the Meridian Explorer2. I have both DACs. The tell is that the magenta light will be lit on the Nano if one has the 5.3 or 5.3C firmware installed and you're streaming a masters track on Tidal. Yeah, sound-wise, that is anyone's call I guess.

iFi posted a youtube video showing how to set up the Tidal app for the Nano w/ the 5.3 firmware to get MQA to play properly and I have read the same in various places but there is some confusion (and confusion as to the Nano's status of renderer or full decoder, but a deeper dig, as you did, you find out that it's renderer only) as, semantically, it starts getting muddled. The concept of "disabling passthrough" regarding the the little toggle on the Passthrough MQA button can be perceived as turning the toggle on (to the right), which actually enables passthrough. When iFi says it regarding the Tidal app, it means leave the little toggle switch off (over to the left) and do not engage as you do not want to passthrough, or let, the raw (unmodified by the software decoder of the Tidal app) MQA stream through to a DAC, unless it has full hardware decoding capabilities (like the ME2).

Not telling you anything you don't already know! Just in case someone is new to the Nano and setting up the Tidal desktop app, this might clear things up a bit.

 

[IrishAudio]

Yes it is a renderer not a full decoder like the Meridian Explorer2. I have both DACs. The tell is that the magenta light will be lit on the Nano if one has the 5.3 or 5.3C firmware installed and you're streaming a masters track on Tidal. Yeah, sound-wise, that is anyone's call I guess.

iFi posted a youtube video showing how to set up the Tidal app for the Nano w/ the 5.3 firmware to get MQA to play properly and I have read the same in various places but there is some confusion (and confusion as to the Nano's status of renderer or full decoder, but a deeper dig, as you did, you find out that it's renderer only) as, semantically, it starts getting muddled. The concept of "disabling passthrough" regarding the the little toggle on the Passthrough MQA button can be perceived as turning the toggle on (to the right). When iFi says it regarding the Tidal app, it means leave the little toggle switch off (over to the left) and do not engage as you do not want to passthrough, or let, the signal through to a DAC, unless it has full decoding capabilities (like the ME2).

Boy, DRM sure can get confusing. Well, at least MQA is solving a problem that FLAC couldn’t.

 

[Left Channel]

Boy, DRM sure can get confusing. Well, at least MQA is solving a problem that FLAC couldn’t.

Per an article by Cory Doctorow recently posted to the EFF website, "MQA does not (at the moment) contain DRM": https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/closed-proprietary-felonious-toxic-rainbow-locked-technology But MQA is at minimum confusing; I resemble that remark.

This thread is supposed to be about appreciating the sound of Tidal Masters, so maybe we shouldn't dive into discussion of what problem MQA is actually solving. I think the OP has given up on us at this point though.

 

[nixternal]

OK @nixternal I have a Modi 2U too, and for that one you should have Use Exclusive Mode on, Force Volume on, but Passthrough MQA off. You were replying to advice for another DAC that has some MQA features built-in, but Schiit Audio has publicly announced they will not support MQA at this time.

To answer your question, if Tidal calls it a Master then it is MQA. Their definition of "master", small "m", may or may not match yours, and I find the quality of MQA albums to be quite varied. Everyone's ears are different, of course. But I can't understand why you're hearing an improvement when you toggle Passthrough MQA on.

The Tidal devs appear to have improved Passthrough MQA, so that if your DAC is not compatible you will no longer hear nasty digital noise in the signal when that option is on. That's nice. But maybe you can ask your dev friend if at that point it disables MQA completely and if so what exactly is it doing. I suspect you are now getting an undecoded stream in a 24/48 envelope instead of it "unfolding" to a higher resolution (if a higher res is available, as some MQA and other Hi-Res tracks are natively 24/44.1 or 24/48).

Oh, I know it wasn't meant for my DAC, but I hadn't even seen that little bitty link to the area where that stuff was, and just messing in that area fixed the crappiness I was hearing. Right now messing with a Brooklyn trying to see how much of a difference it is. 2 things I have noticed: 1) Not so much of a difference that I would even care honestly, and 2) I think I might buy this Brooklyn Man does this thing sound lovely compared to a Modi 2U

 

[Left Channel]

Oh, I know it wasn't meant for my DAC, but I hadn't even seen that little bitty link to the area where that stuff was, and just messing in that area fixed the crappiness I was hearing. Right now messing with a Brooklyn trying to see how much of a difference it is. 2 things I have noticed: 1) Not so much of a difference that I would even care honestly, and 2) I think I might buy this Brooklyn Man does this thing sound lovely compared to a Modi 2U

Go for it! Brooklyn is definitely a step up from the Modi, as long as you prefer that type of sound signature. Brooklyn is a more resolving, neutral design based on an ESS DAC chip, while the Modi is designed around the "velvet sound" of an AKM chip. Whether you can hear a difference between 44.1 and MQA or regular Hi-Res doesn't matter as long as the results sound good to you overall!

 

[revand]

What a nice Christmas present!

UAPP version 5 now able to make MQA core decoding!
"Only" $3.99 in app purchase...


My Xiaomi MI8 medium SQ phone is now able to deliver fantastic SQ with an AQ DRF Red connected with a Nonda USB adapter with OTG function!
UAPP makes the first unfold to core level, and AQ DRF makes the second unfold.
A new milestone in digital music revolution!

 

[iFi audio]

Folks, this might be interesting for you. This MQA + Pro iDSD setup guide in Tidal is actually valid for all MQA decoding DACs. Enjoy!

 

[civciv]

Today I've got an update to the Android app. Now it supports master quality.

 

[Left Channel]

Today I've got an update to the Android app. Now it supports master quality.

Thanks for the heads-up! I just got that too, and it does indeed seem to be doing 1x MQA software decoding. There seems to be no way to select raw bit perfect passthrough for full 4x MQA decoding via USB however, and I doubt MQA renderer DACs would work either. For the USB path we still need to use a third-party app like UAPP.

The Verge: Tidal will make ‘Master’ quality recordings available to Android users