Tidal masters

I haven't found any way to do that. Tidal do say that Masters is only available using their desktop app. I'm currently trying to find some way of playing the Tidal desktop app on my MacBook Pro (which I don't use as a server) into either an input on my ND5 XS streamer or alternatively my NAC 282 preamp.

Thanks for reply! Yeah does not appear to be a way to do it. 

I've connected the MacBook by plugging a FiiO portable DAC into a USB socket and connecting that to the CD input on the NAC 282 with a 3.5mm jack to DIN connector. Tidal Masters sound great. I would like to utilise the ND5 XS onboard DAC but there doesn't seem anyway that I can do this with my existing equipment.

Hopefully there will be a firmware update that will incorporate Tidal Masters in the not too distant future.

Graeme, I'm not familiar with the FiiO DAC but does this mean that you are decoding MQA correctly or are simply listening to a CD-resolution version of the Tidal Masters stream?  I agree that inclusion of MQA decoding on the Naim streamers would be a nice addition...

I am just playing the Tidal app on my windows laptop connected via Bluetooth to my Superuniti.

The Smiths sounded absolutely horrid but Crosby Stills and Nash is a bit better.

If the best album in the world ever doesn't sound good there must be a better way of doing this.

Big Bird posted:

Graeme, I'm not familiar with the FiiO DAC but does this mean that you are decoding MQA correctly or are simply listening to a CD-resolution version of the Tidal Masters stream?  I agree that inclusion of MQA decoding on the Naim streamers would be a nice addition...

Hi Big Bird. No, the FiiO will decode files up to 24bit 96kHz via USB (MQA definition) or 24bit 192kHz via co-ax. I think it's a better DAC than the onboard MacBook one. Of course there's still lots of fiddling about and comparisons to do!

ZippyBungleJeffreyArcher posted:

I am just playing the Tidal app on my windows laptop connected via Bluetooth to my Superuniti.

The Smiths sounded absolutely horrid but Crosby Stills and Nash is a bit better.

If the best album in the world ever doesn't sound good there must be a better way of doing this.

 

 

My curiosity piqued I have been reading a few articles about MQA mastering - and it appears more a subjective art rather than a science from the MQA mastering engineer - one has to set a balance for a given recording on how the encoding is to take place whilst preserving as much temporal and high frequency information whilst not introducing too many aliasing  errors which apparently one has to guard against with MQA - although there is a school of thought that suggests that such MQA errors could actually sound attractive and 'enhance' the recording - therefore I imaging there will be good and bad MQA 'masters' - and your post is perhaps evidence of my suspicions on this.

In some respects this looks similar to the subjective mastering judgements made by the engineer with HDCD.

S

ZippyBungleJeffreyArcher posted:

I am just playing the Tidal app on my windows laptop connected via Bluetooth to my Superuniti.

The Smiths sounded absolutely horrid but Crosby Stills and Nash is a bit better.

If the best album in the world ever doesn't sound good there must be a better way of doing this. 

This confuses me -- what can be proven by using a laptop's dac, then pushing the signal through a bluetooth connection??  Such is so far from "hi fi" that I submit that what it sounds like on your SU system is irrelevant to what is going on at the mastering/encoding level of things. It's irrelevant to anything meaningful to what such mastering and encoding might do, good bad or otherwise, for "real hi fi."  

And I'm not even feeling like taking the obvious swipe at your The Smiths comment!!

Bart posted:

ZippyBungleJeffreyArcher posted:

I am just playing the Tidal app on my windows laptop connected via Bluetooth to my Superuniti.

The Smiths sounded absolutely horrid but Crosby Stills and Nash is a bit better.

If the best album in the world ever doesn't sound good there must be a better way of doing this. 

This confuses me -- what can be proven by using a laptop's dac, then pushing the signal through a bluetooth connection??  Such is so far from "hi fi" that I submit that what it sounds like on your SU system is irrelevant to what is going on at the mastering/encoding level of things. It's irrelevant to anything meaningful to what such mastering and encoding might do, good bad or otherwise, for "real hi fi."  

And I'm not even feeling like taking the obvious swipe at your The Smiths comment!!

 

I had until now resisted the temptation, but I just can't help myself.

ZBJA,

If you can find a system on which this album sounds "Good", let me know - I'll have one. 

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

 

. . . although there is a school of thought that suggests that such MQA errors could actually sound attractive and 'enhance' the recording . . .

 

This is one thing that "worries" me about all of this.  We've all heard 'stuff' that at first sounds 'better' but over time is fatiguing, artificial, etc etc.  

Dare I say . . . Maybe its just a new type of "flat earth" discussion?  Can post-processing make a recording sound "truer to the original" than the original itself???  

I'd like to remind that with the introduction of MP3/AAC the sales pitch was 'no audible loss, but smaller files thanks to science'.

I feel with MQA that argument is being rehashed. Undoubtedly, it is better and science has progressed.

Mastering and recording is an art. It will always be: you cannot fit the acoustics of a full orchestra playing in a hall in the box of a living room otherwise. If MQA is a progression or degression in the art remains to be seen. I'm overly suspicious about anything sounding 'as good by taking away sound' or adding partial information (remember Q sound? Ugh... )

Bart posted:

ZippyBungleJeffreyArcher posted:

I am just playing the Tidal app on my windows laptop connected via Bluetooth to my Superuniti.

The Smiths sounded absolutely horrid but Crosby Stills and Nash is a bit better.

If the best album in the world ever doesn't sound good there must be a better way of doing this. 

This confuses me -- what can be proven by using a laptop's dac, then pushing the signal through a bluetooth connection??  Such is so far from "hi fi" that I submit that what it sounds like on your SU system is irrelevant to what is going on at the mastering/encoding level of things. It's irrelevant to anything meaningful to what such mastering and encoding might do, good bad or otherwise, for "real hi fi."  

And I'm not even feeling like taking the obvious swipe at your The Smiths comment!!

 

I wasn't testing or trying to prove anything. I just wanted to hear some hi-res albums from Tidal. What is a better way of doing this? We are limited to a Windows or Mac app at the moment.

The World Won't Listen then...

You can listen to a fully MQA decoded streaming (96/24) on the Tidal desktop app by selecting the gear icon next to the output device (in the Settings/Streaming) and turning off "Passthrough MQA", turning on exclusive mode, and optionally Force Volume

musicfan51 posted:

I see Tidal has MQA. I know the Naim streamers don't decode it. But I had read it still sounds better even if not decoded by your streaming DAC. Can you actually access the MQA recordings with the Naim app in anyway? 

Use the Tidal desktop app to mark anything you want to listen to as 'favourite'. It will then appear in "My Music' in the Naim app. This doesn't help with the lack of an appropriate decoder, but you can at least select and play your selections.

The appropriate software decoder is embedded within the Tidal desktop app, just turning off the "Passthrough MQA" option in the streaming settings.

Nothing wrong with having a listen, just that a listen through that hardware doesn't tell you much.

Peter Dinh posted:

You can listen to a fully MQA decoded streaming (96/24) on the Tidal desktop app by selecting the gear icon next to the output device (in the Settings/Streaming) and turning off "Passthrough MQA", turning on exclusive mode, and optionally Force Volume

Thank you. I hadn't seen that. I'll try it a bit later (when the rest of the house is awake). It seems like the way to go if I'm using a portable DAC. When you say "turning off "Passthrough MQA"" you presumably mean selecting it.

I'm possibly not understanding how Tidal Masters works. When outputting my MacBook Pro to an external DAC via USB (so bypassing the MAC's internal DAC) the Tidal Masters output is being picked up as 48k 16bit, whether Passthrough MQA is selected or not. I was under the impression that the Master recordings were 96k 24bit. Of course, there's always the chance that something's not working properly! There is a difference in quality, on "Riding With The King", for example, with the MQA files coming to life more; but certainly not in the same way as 96/24 files that I've bought from HD Tracks.

Graeme, you are right to query what 'MQA Passthrough' actually means. The last thing you want to do is send a MQA file raw to a DAC that can't decode MQA as all the HF ('hidef') encodings will appear as noise on the least significant bits of the samples... i.e. You will be decoding a digitally noisy file.... it might sound ok on lesser equipment, but higher end it will almost certainly sound hissy or quantising error like in places.. will probably sound less natural or more digital sounding than normal.

Graeme MacArthur posted:

I'm possibly not understanding how Tidal Masters works. When outputting my MacBook Pro to an external DAC via USB (so bypassing the MAC's internal DAC) the Tidal Masters output is being picked up as 48k 16bit, whether Passthrough MQA is selected or not. I was under the impression that the Master recordings were 96k 24bit. Of course, there's always the chance that something's not working properly! There is a difference in quality, on "Riding With The King", for example, with the MQA files coming to life more; but certainly not in the same way as 96/24 files that I've bought from HD Tracks.

You need to turn on "Exclusive Mode" and turn off "Pass through MQA" in order for the Tidal desktop to output 96/24.

Graeme MacArthur posted:

Peter Dinh posted:

You can listen to a fully MQA decoded streaming (96/24) on the Tidal desktop app by selecting the gear icon next to the output device (in the Settings/Streaming) and turning off "Passthrough MQA", turning on exclusive mode, and optionally Force Volume

Thank you. I hadn't seen that. I'll try it a bit later (when the rest of the house is awake). It seems like the way to go if I'm using a portable DAC. When you say "turning off "Passthrough MQA"" you presumably mean selecting it.

I mean deselecting it. Btw, you need to update the Tidal desktop app to the latest version.

Peter Dinh posted:

Graeme MacArthur posted:

Peter Dinh posted:

You can listen to a fully MQA decoded streaming (96/24) on the Tidal desktop app by selecting the gear icon next to the output device (in the Settings/Streaming) and turning off "Passthrough MQA", turning on exclusive mode, and optionally Force Volume

Thank you. I hadn't seen that. I'll try it a bit later (when the rest of the house is awake). It seems like the way to go if I'm using a portable DAC. When you say "turning off "Passthrough MQA"" you presumably mean selecting it.

I mean deselecting it. Btw, you need to update the Tidal desktop app to the latest version.

I think I'm getting there! On my MacBook it seems it's important to select the DAC in Tidal/Settings/Streaming/ Sound Output rather than relying on System Default. Selecting the gear icon next to the DAC and then checking "Exclusive Mode" is also vital. Now I'm getting 96k 24bit output. "Passthrough MQA" seems to make no difference how I have things at the moment (MacBook Pro/ FiiO E17 DAC/ HD650s) so I'm leaving it unchecked. Now I can try plugging into my preamp.

A point of confusion was that selecting "Passthrough MQA" disables it. So, when you say "deselecting" it, do you mean checking the box, and thus disabling Passthrough, or leaving the box unchecked and therefore not disabling it?!! Aaargh!

No, I  mean unchecking the box, unless you want to send un-decoded MQA 48/24 streaming to your DAC.

Peter Dinh posted:

No, I  mean unchecking the box, unless you want to send un-decoded MQA 48/24 streaming to your DAC.

Thanks. That's how I have it. That's what it defaults to anyway.

Why is tidal only giving masters through the desktop only? Apparently they will be doing the masters through their mobile apps at a later date so surely the naim  app can be modified to work the same