Tidal Masters & playback from the Naim App

Also interested in this topic - will Naim provide MQA support natively?  There is a growing list of high end manufacturers who do such as PS Audio, Lumin, Mark Levinson, Carey Audio, Berkeley Labs, Bel Canto....

Having just purchased a Nova to replace my beloved SuperUniti, the only thing really missing is full MQA support in my opinion.

There are competing streamers/DACs/and all in ones that support both Roon Ready and MQA and many at attractive prices.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Naim sound, but are we missing something?  I don’t really know unfortunately but so far are trusting Naim to get it right ultimately for their customers.

Has Naim a statement of direction on MQA?

Naim did say, some time ago, that they would consider MQA support if it gained sufficient traction in the market. At the moment, I would guess that it has not yet done so, given that it is something of a rarity outside of Tidal, and that opinions of it are not all positive.

I would guess that the old DACs in the 'legacy' streamers will probably never get so-called hardware decoding, but maybe the new platform will?

But outside of native MQA support for 1st, 2nd or 3rd unfold, why isn't the Tidal support in the Naim app, playing the Tidal Master version at 24/48, but only 16/44.1?

Simon.

I think when you play through the Naim app (vs. through Roon) Naim is the streamer and the DAC - so no unfolding beyond the stream from Tidal.  When in Roon, your Roon server would be doing the software bit on the unfolding and sending to Naim but you have a squeezebox in between  I'm not familiar with the Squeezebox but if you have the classic, then it would be 24/48 which is what you are seeing I think?

But the unfolded stream of an MQA encoded file should be 24/48 and not 16/44.1

With Roon, at present, there is no software decoding of the MQA stream.

Playback of Roon is either through a UPnP Bridge product, which runs on a Sonore device, in my case a SonicorbiterSE, which presents as a Roon Endpoint to the Roon Core, and then to NDS on the UPnP server input (in fact the NDS auto selects that input when you initiate playback). This uses the Squeezebox support in Roon and technology developed for the Squeezebox community. It supports up to 24/192 and DSD64 (probably high too, just this is far as I need it to go).

Or I can use the USB output of the Sonore device, through a convertor and in a digital input, but I have no indication of the incoming resolution of that digital stream. Plus on the NDS you have to select the input!

My question is still why is the Naim app playing the Tidal Masters at 16/44.1 and not 24/48?

Simon

The Naim app does not play tidal it only select tracks. The stream from tidal goes directly to the Naim units and the DACs in all streamers do not support tidal masters.

Hi Simon,

naim app still playing master tracks (like Killing Me Softly by Roberta Flack) at 24/48. Just a bit tricky to select the right version in naim app. Add the master track to your favourites in Tidal app, then select it from favourites in naim app.

Alternatively, got to the 16/44.1 album in naim app, go to similar albums tab and select the master version from that list. This should play the master track at 24/48. Not sure if there is a difference though between the new Unitis (my Atom) and the black boxes (your NDS).

Although I have to admin I don't hear a difference between the 16/44.1 and 24/48 versions on my system, I only save the 16/44.1 versions, not the masters, as favourites.

Small addition (re [@mention:1566878603923229] above): see this previous thread what our devices (and the app) display and what gets played - while they display 24/48, they actually play 13/48 (the part of the MQA data that can be decoded without MQA (unfold) capabilities).

Yes, I have ensured that the Albums selected in my Tidal 'Favorites' are the Master versions - I also have that Roberta Flack, and Pink Floyd's Divisional Bell, as I listen to these through the Tidal app, but I have the FLAC HiRes versions already so need for the Tidal streaming version, at home.

However, I have just confirmed that the NDS only playing the 44.1kHz versions of these too. The signal path through Roon, to the UPnP Bridge is also confirmed at 48kHz playback.

So the Naim app is definitely not directing playback of the Master (MQA encoded) versions to the NDS, as MQA playback without any decoding, the 'no decode' option in the following article (with Bob Stuart Q&A)

https://www.audiostream.com/co...a-decoding-explained

Thanks, Simon.

Are Naim going to response on i) Tidal Master playback and ii) any insight into their stance on MQA support?

simes_pep posted:

Are Naim going to response on i) Tidal Master playback and ii) any insight into their stance on MQA support?

Why don’t you ask them?

Morning Gents, 

For MQA material to be accessible on a native Tidal playback solution (as implemented in Naims streaming products) the manufacturers Tidal partner account must be enabled to support MQA.      As we currently do not support MQA, if a Tidal album ID is passed in that was originally resolving to a MQA encoded album, the Tidal servers resolve it to the CD variant and provides that stream instead. 

When using Roon they allow browsing of the MQA content, as one of their connected devices could be an MQA enabled DAC or Roon RAAT player somewhere on the network.   If using Roon native RAAT support on Atom, Star or Nova we will receive the folded stream from Roon.   Decide between yourselves if they sound better or worse than the CD variant. 

As for supporting MQA, we have been in discussions with MQA Ltd. but there are a few commercial hurdles which are still in the way.   As it's a very expensive hobby to add features like this to a product range, we need to have confidence that there is a critical mass of main stream acceptance in a format and its financially viability in the long term.

Best regards

Steve Harris

Group Software Director    

Naim have significantly bigger items on the to-do list than adding in MQA support, or (heaven forfend) engineering an upgrade board for legacy hardware.

Hi Steve, Many thanks for your response, and makes sense now.

So, is there a zero-rated commercial model that supports the undecoded version only? So no unfolding? This means so software decoding, nor any DAC profiles.

I am waiting to see if Roon can complete the licensing to conduct the 1st unfold in the Roon Core for their members.

Thanks, Simon

Thank you Steve!  Got my Nova on Wednesday, sounds great had a fun DJ night using Tidal direct on the Naim with by brother who was visiting for Thanksgiving holiday here in the USA.  Zero drop outs and he was blown away by the SQ : - )

I am thankful for Naim!

so if I understand well, one can only play Tidal Master MQA tracks by:

- installing the Tidal app on a pc/Mac, playtime MQA from there and send the digital output to a DAC or Streamer with an opt-in

or

- play the MQA file on a mobile device and stream it wireless via AirPlay to a Naim streamer that supports AirPlay (i.e. Nova)

Airplay is limitted to 44 bit 16 kHz, so no way to getthe higher bitstreams to the dac that way. And even if it was possible, if you used cromecast, the Dac needs to be mqa authenticated. Unless somethings has changed. The more people write about mqa the more confused you get.

Claus