Tidal Masters & MQA Thread!

[boxster233]

has there been any confirmed response bck from ifi regarding removal of mqa decoding on the new firmware,are they going to pay the license?it's not a issue if you only use roon as it does the mqa decoding but for people who bought it for tidal connect and dnla then thats a big problem,before with tidal connect via spidf I would get 24/96 but now I only get 24/48 because theve removed mqa,extremely pissed theve done this,thats what I bought the device for and its definitely false marketing

Where did ifi remove MQA? As far as I know, they offer firmwares that do both MQA or non-MQA.

Copying in @Sebastien Chiu @iFi audio for awareness.

 

[hash70]

Its on the zen stream with latest firmware they. Removed mqa decoding because they didn't pay the license

 

[jlemaster1957]

Hello guys, So, I order 2 Zen Dacs V2, I loaded one for my work PC and One for my gaming pc, I also used their news driver 5.1.2 and I also try their 3.2.0.

so this is the problem, I have when I select the pass to unload MQA to the DAC, it only reports 44100 or 4800. now when I played the same song and album on my Fiio M15
I can see 96k 24bit etc.

this happens with either driver, and all the other settings to master and the 3 options selected. Is this an IFI issue?

What is your source- if you are using an iOS device, are you sending the signal via an Apple Lightning to USG OTG camera connector? IFi recommends that BUT there is a problem for MQA files - i have never been able to get any DAC to unfold MQA from an iPhone even using the OTG connector. If you are using Android it should work. It does work from MacOS. You need to set the quality inside Tidal settings for streaming (wifi and cellular) and download to Masters.

 

[hash70]

The issue is ifi have removed mqa decoding when using tidal connect and dnla,before I would get the 24 /96 to my non mqa dac but now I only get 24/48 because theve removed decoding,not a problem for roon users as roon will decode but people who specifically spend $400 on the zen stream which is advertising 100%. Mqa compatible to use it with tidal connect is misleading and false marketing,myself and most others on roon forums are really angry ifi have done this and most are now unable to return theres for a refund,ifi need to confirm what's happened here to stop all the confusion,are they going to pay the license or what

 

[MrWalkman]

has there been any confirmed response bck from ifi regarding removal of mqa decoding on the new firmware,are they going to pay the license?it's not a issue if you only use roon as it does the mqa decoding but for people who bought it for tidal connect and dnla then thats a big problem,before with tidal connect via spidf I would get 24/96 but now I only get 24/48 because theve removed mqa,extremely pissed theve done this,thats what I bought the device for and its definitely false marketing

From what I understand from the thread, they didn't meant to add MQA support for this device in the first place. Basically, they didn't pay a license fee so this device can have MQA support, so now they're only rectifying this with a firmware update.

There was a small bug in previous firmware that had a side effect of performing some unintended MQA action, now this bug (among others) has been fixed.

The issue is ifi have removed mqa decoding when using tidal connect and dnla,before I would get the 24 /96 to my non mqa dac but now I only get 24/48 because theve removed decoding,not a problem for roon users as roon will decode but people who specifically spend $400 on the zen stream which is advertising 100%. Mqa compatible to use it with tidal connect is misleading and false marketing,myself and most others on roon forums are really angry ifi have done this and most are now unable to return theres for a refund,ifi need to confirm what's happened here to stop all the confusion,are they going to pay the license or what

If you'd use Tidal directly (with MQA Passthrough off), then Tidal itself would do the first unfold, and that's basically the same as what the ZEN Stream did (does?) before the mentioned (upcoming?) firmware update.

 

[rlw6534]

What is your source- if you are using an iOS device, are you sending the signal via an Apple Lightning to USG OTG camera connector? IFi recommends that BUT there is a problem for MQA files - i have never been able to get any DAC to unfold MQA from an iPhone even using the OTG connector. If you are using Android it should work. It does work from MacOS. You need to set the quality inside Tidal settings for streaming (wifi and cellular) and download to Masters.

I have been getting MQA from both my iPhone and iPad via lightning to USB with no issues. I have used the CCK as well as lightning to USB OTG cables.

 

[hash70]

it's not working with tidal connect,its only passing 24/48 instead of 24/96,before they removed it the zen worked the same as my node 2 where it would decode to 24/96 via optical/coax,alot of people bought into this specifically for this and who are now unable to return it,so you can understand why some people are angry

 

[MrWalkman]

it's not working with tidal connect,its only passing 24/48 instead of 24/96,before they removed it the zen worked the same as my node 2 where it would decode to 24/96 via optical/coax,alot of people bought into this specifically for this and who are now unable to return it,so you can understand why some people are angry

Tidal itself does the first unfold if you don't have "Passthrough MQA" enabled, if the song was actually at 96 kHz or more before being packed into MQA.

Something like Roon, for example, may not have MQA unfolding capabilities, so if you'd use Roon, the first unfold would not be done by Roon.

 

[rlw6534]

Tidal itself does the first unfold if you don't have "Passthrough MQA" enabled, if the song was actually at 96 kHz or more before being packed into MQA.



Something like Roon, for example, may not have MQA unfolding capabilities, so if you'd use Roon, the first unfold would not be done by Roon.

Tidal connect on the Zen was doing the first unfold until iFi removed that capability with the latest firmware. We aren't talking about the Tidal app on a phone via USB but Tidal Connect for streaming via network. The player is actually running on the Zen and controlled remotely.

Also, Roon definitely does the first MQA unfold at the core unless you have specifically disabled it in the settings.

 

[MrWalkman]

Tidal connect on the Zen was doing the first unfold until iFi removed that capability with the latest firmware. We aren't talking about the Tidal app on a phone via USB but Tidal Connect for streaming via network.

Also, Roon definitely does the first MQA unfold at the core unless you have specifically disabled it in the settings.

Got it, I am not entirely familiar with the ZEN Stream. It seems it's not the same thing as the Tidal app on Windows, for example.

 

[rlw6534]

Got it, I am not entirely familiar with the ZEN Stream. It seems it's not the same thing as the Tidal app on Windows, for example.

Yeah, Tidal Connect is basically a Tidal player on the Zen without a UI, that you can control from another device. It's very similar to Spotify Connect in that the stream is sent directly to the Zen, not through the controlling device...

 

[ozz007]

What is your source- if you are using an iOS device, are you sending the signal via an Apple Lightning to USG OTG camera connector? IFi recommends that BUT there is a problem for MQA files - i have never been able to get any DAC to unfold MQA from an iPhone even using the OTG connector. If you are using Android it should work. It does work from MacOS. You need to set the quality inside Tidal settings for streaming (wifi and cellular) and download to Masters

PC computers

 

[hash70]

I've jst opened a ticket to ifi support asking them to confirm why they did this and more importantly if there going to pay for a mqa licence and restore the decoding on the zen,as I pointed out alot of people bought it for this purpose and are not unable to return for a refund and told them they should change there website about the zen being 100% mqa compatible as that is now clearly a lie

 

[ozz007]

it's not working with tidal connect,its only passing 24/48 instead of 24/96,before they removed it the zen worked the same as my node 2 where it would decode to 24/96 via optical/coax,alot of people bought into this specifically for this and who are now unable to return it,so you can understand why some people are angry

I agree, non of my ifi products are working rigt now with tidal. Which is the main reason I bought them.

 

[hash70]

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