Tidal Masters & MQA Thread! | Page 73 | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org

Ficcion2 · Jan 12, 2021 at 3:22 PM

For whatever its worth, Im enjoying MQA streams with my Matrix Element M.
A ton of jazz records got the MQA switch over and I personally like how older albums like Pat Metheny's ECM era sounds.

The PCM streams sound so flat for those particular recordings but they sound more "rounded" out now.

I remember trying out Quboz for the free trial and liking the sound over there even over some MQA streams.

Currently trying the Roon free trial and I really like it. Sounds better too (to me).

Might try out Quboz again.

gimmeheadroom · Jan 12, 2021 at 3:31 PM

MrWalkman said:
No.

When playing non-MQA, Dragonfly Cobalt will display Green for the 44.1 kHz sample rate, Blue for the 48 kHz sample rate, Amber for 88.2 kHz, and White for 96 kHz.

While playing MQA ("Passthrough" off only), the light will turn to Purple.

Ok, I get it now.

I didn't know that full MQA decoders are set up so they could also work when the "Passthrough" option in Tidal is off.

I didn't either. I found it by mistake when I was checking the actual bit depth of some MQA album bitstreams. I tried various combinations of settings and there it was.

It does not do anything further in this case as far as I know. I think it assumes that somebody upstream did something to the native MQA bitstream so he tells you that, but leaves it alone.

alekc · Jan 25, 2021 at 1:52 PM

BobSmith8901 said:
Melody Gardot Sunset In The Blue (2020) is a real treat in Tidal MQA.

After very careful and long listening sessions of this brilliant album I've decided that my favorite version is CD upsampled to either DSD 128 or PCM 96, not MQA. Silver disc spinning is still great experience with great transport and dac.

telecaster · Jan 28, 2021 at 10:39 AM

Meridian MQA through Meridian Explorer and Meridian 861 :gs1000smile:

I use a Brix mini pc as a player, connected to a Meridian Explorer usb asynchronous spdif out.
It feed my DAC Meridian 861. I use ROON and tidal MQA is recognized for the first unfold. It's a 44KHz 24bits unfolded to 88KHz.
I love it! Roon plus Tidal is the bomb!
I must say that I have another Brix mini pc as a ROCK via ethernet (mini roon server) with SSD and it is very fast and reliable that way. I tried with other configuration in the past and it was always a problem somewhere.

Now I want a ipad pro as a ROON remote!

battermoose11 · Jan 29, 2021 at 9:33 PM

I would like to chime in. I listen to Tidal most of the time, The main conclusion, IMHO, is that the music from the MQA versions seems to be less fatiguing over longer periods of time. My overall thought is what HEADFRY said in the second paragraph of the thread starter. My gear is an old dell with I5 processor, output via usb to aSchiit Modi2 to a Vali 2 and finally to my Hifiman 400i.

Telin · Jan 30, 2021 at 4:46 AM

Brava210 · Jan 30, 2021 at 6:02 AM

alekc said:
After very careful and long listening sessions of this brilliant album I've decided that my favorite version is CD upsampled to either DSD 128 or PCM 96, not MQA. Silver disc spinning is still great experience with great transport and dac.

I must say....what a very special voice.

Left Channel · Feb 5, 2021 at 12:59 PM

alekc said:
After very careful and long listening sessions of this brilliant album I've decided that my favorite version is CD upsampled to either DSD 128 or PCM 96, not MQA. Silver disc spinning is still great experience with great transport and dac.

Great CD player! I really like my NuPrime CDT-8 Pro, and I don't use half the features like the upsampling you were doing there. I pair it with a DAC-9.

alekc · Feb 5, 2021 at 3:49 PM

Left Channel said:
Great CD player! I really like my NuPrime CDT-8 Pro, and I don't use half the features like the upsampling you were doing there. I pair it with a DAC-9.

Can't agree more

I never heard it with Nuprime dac but I am sure it is great setup.

When I bought Mytek I felt something has been missing from my setup and it turned out it was CD transport. If the CDT-8 would be first purchase I could end up pairing it with one of Nuprime DACs and headphone amps. In fact Mytek does not support all upsampling settings CDT-8 provides but I still love the pairing. Sorry for maybe a bit unfortunate wordplay but overall "CDT-8 sounds great with upsampling disabled" :wink:

Considering how happy I am with this purchase I may consider upgrade in form of CDT-10 one day, but honestly I don't see any reason to do it now. Simply CDT-8 provides everything I need and ever wanted with small exception of the awful remote.

I find it great add on to any streamer when you are tired of streaming music and want to play a bit oldschool spinning silver discs instead.

KaiFi · Feb 6, 2021 at 2:02 AM

I've been listening to MQA streams on Tidal with my Hip DAC. I like what I hear, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to be listening for. The problem is I listen to classical which can vary so much in quality from recording to recording and I find quality of the recording matters more than format. But I'm enjoying it, so whatever.

vanhalen26 · Feb 6, 2021 at 10:09 AM

Question on MQA unfolding. I’m looking at a portable player that does x8 unfolding. I see others that go x16 unfolding. Is there much content that actually uses x16? I’m still trying to get my head around MQA a little. Thanks

Dannemand · Feb 6, 2021

vanhalen26 said:
Question on MQA unfolding. I’m looking at a portable player that does x8 unfolding. I see others that go x16 unfolding. Is there much content that actually uses x16? I’m still trying to get my head around MQA a little. Thanks

I replied to this in the V30 Music Apps, Tips and Tricks thread. Suffice to say I am skeptical about those 16x claims. Even the 8x claims are a bit dubious, although we do have 8x MQA content.

Dannemand · Feb 6, 2021

KaiFi said:
I've been listening to MQA streams on Tidal with my Hip DAC. I like what I hear, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to be listening for. The problem is I listen to classical which can vary so much in quality from recording to recording and I find quality of the recording matters more than format. But I'm enjoying it, so whatever.

That is the problem in a nutshell: A lot of classical MQA releases are poor recordings in the first place. Particularly the many Warner releases (EMI etc) are 16/44 MQA with no additional samples to unfold. So there isn't much (or any) additional quality, even if the recording was a good one to begin with. Of course many of them are great historical performances, which accounts for something.

2L has released several high quality classical MQA albums and playlists on Tidal of which I linked a few below. Many tracks are also available for free download in several formats on the good old 2L Test Bench website. I tend to find 2L's mastering a tad hot (as if they never realized that the Loudness War is over). But their recording quality is indisputable.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/3f6a06c7-0dfc-4170-bac3-dce62aa6c42e
https://tidal.com/browse/album/2400318
https://tidal.com/browse/album/59883218

Another great catalog of classical MQA releases are the Everest Records Master Transfers from 3-track 35mm tapes. I am listing a selection below, but more can be found by googling site:tidal.com "everest records". (The abbreviated descriptions below are to keep each on one line in my Keep list).

Otherwise I tend to find that the best recordings are NOT available as MQA. Such as pretty much anything from Reference Recordings (Keith Johnson & Co) of which I listed some below. Not all are classical, but all are great test tracks.

Also, pretty much any releases produced or engineered by Steven Epstein tend to be excellent, such as the following. More can be found by filtering in Tidal on Steven Epstein as Producer, Engineer or Production Team. There are several MQA as well, although I don't have a list.

Maazel / Sibelius: Complete Orchestral works: https://listen.tidal.com/album/1788170

That's it for now.

SenorChang8 · Feb 6, 2021 at 7:41 PM

That’s a very extensive list, I will enjoy going through them. Thank you @Dannemand !

rkw · Feb 7, 2021 at 12:34 AM

vanhalen26 said:
Question on MQA unfolding. I’m looking at a portable player that does x8 unfolding. I see others that go x16 unfolding. Is there much content that actually uses x16?

I'm skeptical that anything beyond the first unfold (x2) produces meaningful results. The MQA source files streamed from Tidal are no higher than 24-bit/48kHz (many are only 16-bit/44.1kHz). x2 expands to a 24/96 lossy stream and x4 expands to a 24/192 lossy stream. At x8 it will be 24/384 and I'm incredulous about how much information could be "encoded" into the original 24/48 stream.

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