Today MQA Audio

This seems very strange to me - we've been striving for for perfect rendition of lossless files, with no alteration (bit-perfect has been the mantra) and now along comes MQA which claims to improve sound quality by changing the bits to suit the DAC used, or the software?? I'm confused and very sceptical - will take extensive user feedback to make me even consider trying a single album. Am I alone in this view?

At least vinyl is a fixed standard once pressed!

That article is a good intro, but much of it is not specific to MQA, it equally applies to some of the design principles Rob Watts and other designers use high temporal accuracy DAC reconstruction... and of course that equally applies to traditional Red Book.

Just listening to Dr. John, Gris Gris MQA, certainly is sounding better than earlier today, non - MQA but it may be simply down to a different master. 

I'm open to this being an improvement and certainly seeing as I have Tidal already a bit of a no brainer. 

But not night and day stuff, redbook sounds broken etc. But then I never heard that with hi-res anyway. 

Exciting times. 

SJB. 

Note the press release states that Master support is *only* through the Tidal desktop app. Their emphasis.

Exciting thing (for me, a CD quality already rocks kind of guy) is to see a major outlet like Tidal offering the MQA option and at the same price point as the existing CD service. 

Agree there are opportunities for Naim to add MQA decode / playback capability via firmware update but ...

... such a step also requires Tidal to adjust and enable MQA streams through non-desktop applications. Not available yet, but who knows when and if?!

Interesting that Roon seems to fit as a desktop application for this purpose, if I'm understanding some comments here correctly. A Roon endpoint on Naim would serve an equivalent purpose (albeit at the cost of another curation service subscription)  

Regards, alan

ps - apropos "lossy" vs "lossless", I understood that the MQA process did not cover the full equivalent bitrate and bit depth space (ie lossy in this domain) but does cover the Redbook space losslessly, adding "select" ie lossy encoded signal from outside that envelope chosen to contain the known important transient information that is outside Redbook. When compressed again, resulting file sizes are smaller and suitable for internet transmission, then perfectly decoded by the inverse algorithm. I've not been comfortable with the way people use single descriptors "lossless" and "lossy" with this type of scheme - since it might best be thought of as "better than CD" and simultaneously "not as good as 24/96 (or whatever)"... and even some of that might be down to improved "conventional" remastering and so on, a key part of the Meridian story and one reason why the catalog depth is taking a while to establish. Big day to go live on Tidal, though. 

Surprised that the MQA is getting more attention than Chord's Hugo 2 or Poly, or the crazy CD Blu player....

Why do I not see the 'Masters' option next to 'Top 20' in the app? I have the hifi subscription.

Thanks,

G

GraemeH posted:

Why do I not see the 'Masters' option next to 'Top 20' in the app? I have the hifi subscription.

Thanks,

G

You can only access it through the Tidal desktop app.

ChrisSU posted:

GraemeH posted:

Why do I not see the 'Masters' option next to 'Top 20' in the app? I have the hifi subscription.

Thanks,

G

You can only access it through the Tidal desktop app.

Thanks - I am opening the Tidal app on my iPad - Not through the naim app.

G

GraemeH posted:

ChrisSU posted:

GraemeH posted:

Why do I not see the 'Masters' option next to 'Top 20' in the app? I have the hifi subscription.

Thanks,

G

You can only access it through the Tidal desktop app.

Thanks - I am opening the Tidal app on my iPad - Not through the naim app.

G

By desktop, I mean Mac OSX or (presumably) Windows, not iOS. There is a recent app update that's also required.

Many thanks.

G

Yes, Chris is right Graemeh,the I-pad is the same as an I-phone,which is considered a mobile device I believe.I also have an I-pad and a N 272...and am trying to figure out a way to try this new feature,let us know if you find one.

One thing I might try,is to install the Tidal app on the desktop of my laptop,enable MQA in Tidal,then use USB out from my laptop to my Hugo,then go from the Hugo to the 272 analog inputs...I am not sure what signal this will give me,worth a try though.

Absolutely - but there are a lot of variables in that chain - not sure how much will be relevant to MQA.....

GregW posted:

[@mention:1566878603995136] The theory is that even without an MQA DAC, MQA has the potential to sound better. Only time will tell on this. Very few people have actually been able to do proper comparisons.  

Heard that too! 

WFH today so Just had a quick listen to TIDAL Master on my MACPRO via Chord MOJO (which isn't not MQA enabled) into GENLEC 8030active monitors and I can clearly hear the difference between .... TIDAL at CD & Master and also via iTunes where I had these two CD stored Coldplay Parachutes & Jethro Tull Aqualung

iTunes rarely gets fired up these days, and yet I used to use it everyday...

Listening to Coldplay MQA encoded albums on the tidal desktop app for Mac.

I must say it is a subtle difference between the hi-fi version and the master version, but the MQA encoding seems to what I dislike about digital, and sounds little more open and airy, colour me impressed.

I must say a Chord Hugo does it much better, but MQA works ok too....

My knowledge of MQA is limited, and experience zero, but if I understand correctly it is a way of compressing 96k/24bit music into a 48k/24bit stream, and that it is lossy compression, though allegedly not adversely affecting sound quality when uncompressed. Any sound quality comparisons should therefore be with (identically mastered) 96/24 files, not with red book. 

It semms to be a way of reducing bandwidth for online streaming of high res files, which presumably is why Tidal has adopted it, but is of questionable relevance to home-stored music. But I gather that it has to be coded differently from the start, so for standard 96/24, being how many current recordings start life and can be released as hi res, and MQA to exist side by side, dual digital coding streams would have to be generated from scratch. If my understanding of this is correct then it is very possible that some music will only be encoded and released in one format or the other and not both, save for conversions between formats which might well result in degraded quality. That is of concern, and might be more of a reason for the likes of Naim to consider a solution rather than specifically for online streaming.

I wonder if you can cast decoded MQA stuff to chromecast audio from the Tidal desktop app? If not I suppose I will have to buy a USB lead for the NDS to have a play.

On reflection I don't think either will be possible - me being dozy again!

Auralic have just announced that they will also be providing an MQA decoder for their products as per Audirvana,  interesting developments, both with the off dac decoding and Tidal provision, and makes sense if MQA is ever going to catch hold

analogmusic posted:

just compared Coldplay "a head full of dreams" Master version vs Hi-fi version 

Coldplay's stuff is notoriously poorly mastered.  This is damning with faint praise.  

Oh well after listening for a few hours I think it is nice for the non-audiophile masses, but anyone with an NDAC, NDX, NDS, Linn KDS or Chord Hugo isn't going to sell theirs because of MQA. 

The bottleneck is still the hardware that plays the MQA file even with software decoding. Yes there is a clarity and lack of digital sound signature, but there is more to music enjoyment than just this. 

But nice that the music industry is finally moving in the right direction.

I think the final solution to this will be the Chord Davina ADC, which will provide ADC properly for everyone and no MQA decoding involved.

analogmusic posted:

 

I think the final solution to this will be the Chord Davina ADC, which will provide ADC properly for everyone and no MQA decoding involved.

?

The Chord ADC will be able to reduce a 768/24 file to 44.1/16 file without apparently very little loss of musical and transient timing. Let's see. Interesting times.

Please remember, that unless you have a MQA certified DAC that unfolds the Hi-Res content and plays the full resolution, and playing the Tidal MQA enabled stream directed through this DAC, you are not listening to the full MQA content.

At present, there is no software decoding of the MQA content nor digital out via USB of the MQA decoded stream, therefore the playback route without a certified DAC, will only see the content at best in a 24/48 bucket - please check out my earlier posting re. the 24/192 Roberta Flack track, that Roon is only playing at 24/48 and the Naim app is only at 16/44.1

I think confusion comes from the fact that the list of MASTER recording on Tidal, can only be viewed in the Desktop App, this hasn't been pushed to any of the Tidal integrations nor the Browser based versions.
So what you have to do, is in the Desktop app, tag the MASTER recordings you want as Favorites, so they then appear in either Roon or the Naim integration.

Many of the Roon forum are experiencing full MQA playback with a series of certified MQA DACs - if you care to visit https://community.roonlabs.com

If it is worth anything - I conducted a A/B comparison between the following:

1. Buena Vista Social club MQA album - on my NDS/555DR fronted system, in the non-MQA decode mode of 24/48 vs the DVD-A rip version at 24/96 - DVD-A version won.

2. Same tracks from Buena Vista Social club MQA album in my local dealer, on a Bluesound node thas MQA decoding (Devialet bi-amps, B&W 803d3 speakers etc.) and the MQA won over both the non-MQA decoded version at 24/48 and the DVD-A rip. There was significant difference once there was MQA decoding in place.

Simon.