Tidal Masters & MQA Thread! | Page 59 | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org

iFi audio · Nov 25, 2020 at 6:00 PM

bfreedma said:
I have to disagree - Hans is a terrible source for information regarding any type of digital audio reproduction.

He clearly doesn’t understand the technology and simply parrots talking points from the manufacture’s marketing materials. Look elsewhere unless you’re looking for a Salesman masquerading as a technical expert.

Let me ask you whether he was factually incorrect in his MQA vids?

Bernard23 · Nov 25, 2020

iFi audio said:
Let me ask you whether he was factually incorrect in his MQA vids?

What is the ideal protocol, MQA decoding (if that's what it does) in the app, or in the DAC? I'm presuming the only benefit to mqa is file size, but since we're on the cusp of 5G and already into unlimited data provision then it seems a bit needlessly complicated?

Edit: just watched both videos posted earlier, so I get the protocol. I'm still confused as to why we need MQA, it's adding another processing layer of complication that's arguably got a shorter lifespan than betamax.

rkw · Nov 25, 2020

PortableMusic said:
if i have a performer or artist and i'd like to search all of his/her albums/tracks that are MQA, how would i do this please?

You can't. All you can do is look through the search results and see which ones are marked with the M or Masters icon.

iFi audio · Nov 26, 2020 at 5:02 AM

Bernard23 said:
I'm still confused as to why we need MQA,

You don't. It's an option you might want to try and find appealing enough to pursue, or not

As consumers we're not forced into anything. But the more options we have, the better

Bernard23 · Nov 26, 2020 at 5:14 AM

iFi audio said:
You don't. It's an option you might want to try and find appealing enough to pursue, or not

As consumers we're not forced into anything. But the more options we have, the better

Well of course, I guess more of a rhetorical question. Meridian must have their rationale for investing in it, I guess I'm missing something because I can't understand why they would do it, given how file size is rapidly going to be a non issue. Ironically I'm in an online workshop discussing digitalisation of the manufacturing sector, and size, speed and accuracy of data transmission is somewhat key in this journey. The challenge of streaming hi res audio files is tiny in comparison. The next 5-10 years will be step change transformational.

iFi audio · Nov 26, 2020 at 6:19 AM

Bernard23 said:
The challenge of streaming hi res audio files is tiny in comparison. The next 5-10 years will be step change transformational.

Let's thus make a note to continue this conversation in 2025-2030 or so

hmscott · Nov 26, 2020

rkw said:
You can't. All you can do is look through the search results and see which ones are marked with the M or Masters icon.

PortableMusic said:
i'm new to Tidal and streaming, but have enjoyed it for the past 3 weeks thus far.

one thing i can't figure out is this:

if i have a performer or artist and i'd like to search all of his/her albums/tracks that are MQA, how would i do this please?

i know that on the "Home" page, you can scroll lower and you'll get to an all MQA section. fine, i understand that. however, that is all the MQA albums but it is NOT sorted by artist at all, and furthermore, there is NO way to sort it!

so, back to square one. how would one find, say, all the MQA tracks and albums by, say, Dave Brubeck or anyone else?

thank you all in advance.

It seems all at once "obvious" and silly that such a search option doesn't exist, but there are ways to work through that missing feature.

The first time I got on Tidal it was the same, how do I find all the Tidal Masters, so I searched "Tidal Masters", got a bunch of stuff, but not everything. So I moved on to searching for artists and songs and adding "Masters" after the tokens I am searching for, and that kind of works, but it's not 100% effective.

So I brute force it. I search for the artist or song, and go to the artist's page and use the album view to visually search for "Masters" next to the recording - there's usually a non-Masters, and a Masters of many artists recordings - both explicit and cleaned up.

As I find Master recordings for my favorite artists I make a Playlist, and I put all the Masters versions in first, and follow up with my favorites that have no Masters version, and now I have used those Playlists to Download the songs to my FiiO M15 for offline use, very handy.

Until I read your question just now I hadn't thought of that missing option for searching on Masters only on Tidal for a long time, it doesn't bother me so much now that I've lived without that ability and still found all the Masters recordings for my favorite music - which is still ongoing, so much Music!

As for Dave, he has only one album on Tidal that is a "Masters" quality recording (the first one in this list, it's not always the first or last, you have to go through all of the Album list:

Searching for Dave Brubeck that MQA Master shows at the end of the search list drop-down:

Other artists have more Masters recordings, some newer ones have all Masters recordings along with the "Premium" FLAC 44.1 recordings listings.

Everyone has different tastes, here are a few Masters Playlists to share - All a work in Progress:

New Albums and tracks show up in my Home and I have learned how to quickly dig out what I am interested in keeping and listening to later and build lists from those searching times.

I've tried several album and artist names - adding Master or Masters afterward and I am getting lots of useful hits, you might try that.

I will continue to use just the song or artist name, go to the artist "page" and scroll through the tracks "All" and Albums "All to get the Masters first and then go back and fill in the rest.

That's not a hard and fast rule, as I found in the above Playlists some started with non-masters tracks.

iFi audio said:
Let's thus make a note to continue this conversation in 2025-2030 or so

And, by then we will all hopefully have had 5-10 years of blissful MQA listening enjoyment. And, on through whatever better process replaces MQA. MQA Ubiquitous?

I can never understand how some people waste time arguing over MQA; so much good MQA listening time lost, for no useful result.

Listen to MQA or not - it's up to our personal preference. Does MQA sound better to you? Then that is all that matters. Whatever brings joy to your ears and happiness to our hearts.

Bernard23 · Nov 26, 2020 at 7:01 AM

I have no truck with it, but I've no need for it. I'd rather stream in native hi res without any encoding, but I'm lucky to have a high speed Internet connection so file size is not an issue.

hmscott · Nov 26, 2020

Bernard23 said:
I have no truck with it, but I've no need for it. I'd rather stream in native hi res without any encoding, but I'm lucky to have a high speed Internet connection so file size is not an issue.

You do know that MQA is a UK company, a native son so to speak, does that help?

Meet The Team | About Us | MQA
Meet some of the people responsible for bringing this award-winning British technology to market.

Homepage | Experience the best sound with MQA | MQA

Taz777 · Nov 26, 2020 at 7:20 AM

The TIDAL interface is actually very, very good. Sure, it could do with better searching and more search filters, particularly filters on a list of search results. Try comparing it to the Qobuz UI and it's markedly better IMO.

hmscott · Nov 26, 2020

Taz777 said:
The TIDAL interface is actually very, very good. Sure, it could do with better searching and more search filters, particularly filters on a list of search results. Try comparing it to the Qobuz UI and it's markedly better IMO.

Yup, I tried the same "Dave Brubeck" search in the Amazon Music HD Windows app and had less success when searching for UltraHD - the equivalent of the best quality there.

I've gotten past the initial Tidal App interface issues and don't mind it. It's not like I curse it - ever - I know how to work around and through it enough to get done what I am trying to do.

On Android I use UAPP on my FiiO M15 and Android phones, and stream Tidal through UAPP as it does full unfolding before the Android Tidal App and my FiiO M15 did full unfolding - now they all work great.

UAPP has some useful MQA Masters focus while streaming Tidal through it, if UAPP saved local copies I'd stay in UAPP. The Android Tidal app allows local copy saves for offline use.

IDK why the Windows Tidal App doesn't allow local saves - the Windows Amazon Music HD app allows local saves - that is a feature I wish Tidal would add to the Windows Tidal App.

After so many years of UI's, it doesn't take long to figure one out and get to work.

Bernard23 · Nov 26, 2020

hmscott said:
You do know that MQA is a UK company, a native son so to speak, does that help?

Meet The Team | About Us | MQA
Meet some of the people responsible for bringing this award-winning British technology to market.

Homepage | Experience the best sound with MQA | MQA

Yes I'm aware of that, but then I've always considered myself as a European, but that's for another day on another forum....
Either way, I don't think being a native manufacturer is a reason to buy something you don't need.

Left Channel · Nov 26, 2020

PortableMusic said:
if i have a performer or artist and i'd like to search all of his/her albums/tracks that are MQA, how would i do this please?

There is a third-party list of MQA albums you can sort by artist and album. It is regularly updated, and in fact I see yesterday's date in there now. Click the link for "MQA_List.csv" in this post: https://www.meridianunplugged.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=268318

MQA search seems like something Tidal could easily add, as you can go into "Explore" and click the "TIDAL Masters" tag to list MQA albums by category. But of course, what seems easy to us may be for the developers a horrible Gordian Knot of code to rewrite.

boxster233 · Nov 26, 2020 at 11:30 AM

Bernard23 said:
What is the ideal protocol, MQA decoding (if that's what it does) in the app, or in the DAC? I'm presuming the only benefit to mqa is file size, but since we're on the cusp of 5G and already into unlimited data provision then it seems a bit needlessly complicated?

Edit: just watched both videos posted earlier, so I get the protocol. I'm still confused as to why we need MQA, it's adding another processing layer of complication that's arguably got a shorter lifespan than betamax.

Mqa filters sound nice to some. I like the

Bernard23 said:
Well of course, I guess more of a rhetorical question. Meridian must have their rationale for investing in it, I guess I'm missing something because I can't understand why they would do it, given how file size is rapidly going to be a non issue. Ironically I'm in an online workshop discussing digitalisation of the manufacturing sector, and size, speed and accuracy of data transmission is somewhat key in this journey. The challenge of streaming hi res audio files is tiny in comparison. The next 5-10 years will be step change transformational.

Change always happens slower than those online workshops promise and particularly in manufacturing. A lot of the solutions aren’t baked yet and people act like they exist.

5g will make data size a non issue, but it will take a few years or more for everyone to upgrade and for it to exist and roll out in all major cities, particularly across the globe.

hmscott · Nov 26, 2020

Bernard23 said:
Yes I'm aware of that, but then I've always considered myself as a European, but that's for another day on another forum....
Either way, I don't think being a native manufacturer is a reason to buy something you don't need.

If you have no personal interest nor need for Tidal Masters or MQA, what are you doing here?

Perhaps after a time you'll come back around to an understanding that brings you back here and then we can help you, or you can help us.

Have you tried streaming Tidal MQA Masters and compared it to other streaming services?

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