Tidal Masters.
Posted by: Idris Roberts on 28 September 2017
i currently use mconnectHD app to connect to my Tidal account which enables their 'Master' hi-res music to be played on my Naim nd5xs streamer. 24bit 48k music.
There is a big improvement in sq in most of the albums I have listened to. Classic albums, (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bowie to name a few are more detailed, dare I say it, less digital!) A Patsy Cline release with music from the early 60's sounds so natural.
i would love to think 'Naim' are working on bringing this facility into their products.
anybody else tried this?
What is mconnectHD? And how does it work?
Mconnect HD for I pad or mconnect player for I phone. Is a media player app for network attached sources. Play from any source to any device. Plays, Tidal, Qobuz to DLNA compatible devices. Plays media from PC's, NAS units. Streams to Apple AirPlay compatible devices.
compatible with DLNA/UPnp servers and playback devices.
I connect through the app to my Tidal account and play 'Master' hi-res music to my Naim ndx5s streamer (UPnp) input. I have found if you open the Tidal app on a PC there is a seperate list for Master albums. I save as necessary an album I want to listen to as a favourite and then use the Mconnect app to play it back through my Naim system. The sound quality is markedly better than the standard CD quality from Tidal. It can play your media files stored on any storage you have connected to your network, in my case an Asset nas unit. Only downside is that the Mconnect app will not control the volume on my Naim system, as the Naim app does, but that is minor. You will need to purchase the full app £5.99 to player 'Master's as the 'lite' free version does not have this ability. All in all, worth paying for a better sounding (To my ears!) experience.
Once you've identified a Masters album on the Tidal app, you can play it straight from the Naim app. Are you saying it sounds better than this via the Mconnect app?
The master album will only play at the higher quality by using the Mconnect app, it shows as a 24 bit 48k on the display of my ndx5s. Play the same master album using the Naim app and it is only at cd quality 16 bit 44.1k. On various albums I have listened to, there is a noticeable improvement in sound quality, listen to the new Imelda May album in particular and the difference is remarkable!
Depends on the recording of course but most of the masters are better than the standards from what I have heard. You need a proper MQA dac or certified software, such as Audirvana, though to get the best from them. Personally I have been impressed so far by MQA even if I don't understand how it works
Idris Roberts posted:The master album will only play at the higher quality by using the Mconnect app, it shows as a 24 bit 48k on the display of my ndx5s. Play the same master album using the Naim app and it is only at cd quality 16 bit 44.1k. On various albums I have listened to, there is a noticeable improvement in sound quality, listen to the new Imelda May album in particular and the difference is remarkable!
If it shows as 24 bit 48 khz, then I think it is not truly MQA.
imperialline posted:If it shows as 24 bit 48 khz, then I think it is not truly MQA.
See this thread re Tidal master (MQA) tracks played on devices not natively supporting MQA - MQA can be played on devices that don't support MQA. In this case the device (like my Atom for instance) shows 24 bit/48 kHz (as that's what the metadata at the beginning of the stream says), but it actually can only use 13 bit, which I think is even less than 16/44.1. I'd even doubt the mentioned connect app is able to play MQA. It might pass the stream as is to the NDX5s, which doesn't understand MQA either. As mentioned above, it plays the MQA stream with 13 bit.
In order to play an MQA track at expected resolution, the player must support MQA. For instance, the native Tidal app (on macOS) can understand MQA and translate it to the resolution supported by the available output (Airplay 16/44.1 in my case). If the platform understands aptX HD (as it is for instance supported by the new Uniti platform), it would be possible to play MQA via Bluetooth.