Tidal MQA

As long as you are using Tidal through a Mac or a PC, when you access albums you will see  a label marked Masters. These are the MQA recordings. No idea about Qobuz.

I don't use my computer - Tidal is installed on the NDS. Any ideas?

Naim do not support MQA as yet.  It’s an emerging format,  involves licence agreements & its not clear what it’s future will be.

Mike-B posted:

Naim do not support MQA as yet.  It’s an emerging format,  involves licence agreements & its not clear what it’s future will be.

Mike's right! There are two aspects to MQA, the initial 'wrapping'' for data transfer and 'unwrapping' by the hardware at the receiving end. Naim do not do the unwrapping. 

As ever from the Naim forum users, this is very useful - it has saved me a lot of time

If you use a NAS to store rips, downloads etc., you can install Bubbleupnp server on it and that can transmit Qobuz to your NDS (using an app such as Linn’s Kazoo) at whatever quality you subscribe to. That’s what I and several others do.

Sadly that means it doesn’t integrate with the Naim app like Tidal does and it looks like the (now) legacy streamers will never support Qobuz natively.

Resurrection posted:

Mike-B posted:

Naim do not support MQA as yet.  It’s an emerging format,  involves licence agreements & its not clear what it’s future will be.

Mike's right! There are two aspects to MQA, the initial 'wrapping'' for data transfer and 'unwrapping' by the hardware at the receiving end. Naim do not do the unwrapping. 

In fact IIUC two layers of unwrapping: one can be done in the renderer, but the second stage requires inbuilding into the DAC. So if a renderer-only decode solution is used - e.g. as is possible with the likes of Audirvana - the unpacking is incomplete and so not fully "restored" to original master quality.

Actually, as MQA is a lossy process I gather that the restoration is not bitperfect even with the MQA-capable DAC included, so never quite perfectly restored.

Despite these limitations, some people apparently quite like the effect on sound that results.

you require an MQA DAC too. the meridian explorer 2 is ok, and cheap, but its a bit "nice"

I subscribe ti Tidal HiFi and stream with my 272 and hence can't stream in MQA. However in the settings-streaming section of Tidal I have a choice between Hi-Fi("lossless audio") and Master("the best audio experience") in addition to Sound Output choices. Given that I can't utilize MQA/Masters with my Naim set-up should I leave it on Hi-Fi or use Masters ? will using Masters degrade the sound if not MQA capable?

So I have a uniti star, can I play mqa via tidal built in to the star?

Thomasbhartwell posted:

So I have a uniti star, can I play mqa via tidal built in to the star?

MQA tracks will play, but if, subjectively, there is any improvement to sound quality, you will not get the full benefit of it, as that requires an MQA enabled DAC. 

ChrisSU posted:

Thomasbhartwell posted:

So I have a uniti star, can I play mqa via tidal built in to the star?

MQA tracks will play, but if, subjectively, there is any improvement to sound quality, you will not get the full benefit of it, as that requires an MQA enabled DAC. 

Chris is of course correct. If you would like to give your own ears a subjective tria and you have Tidal then you can select an album that has been MQA'd and one that hasn't' and decide for yourself.  With your system there will be no MQA unfolding but you can still play the tracks. 

MQA encoded material played back on non MQA hardware has a nasty zingy EHF caused by the fold down on the upper material. Can do unpleasant things to string sound.

ChrisSU posted:

Thomasbhartwell posted:

So I have a uniti star, can I play mqa via tidal built in to the star?

MQA tracks will play, but if, subjectively, there is any improvement to sound quality, you will not get the full benefit of it, as that requires an MQA enabled DAC. 

MQA can help with the replay with some things but do remember it adds quite a lot of impurity to the signal as well. The assumption is that we are not so sensitive to these impurities.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Thomasbhartwell posted:

So I have a uniti star, can I play mqa via tidal built in to the star?

MQA tracks will play, but if, subjectively, there is any improvement to sound quality, you will not get the full benefit of it, as that requires an MQA enabled DAC. 

MQA can help with the replay with some things but do remember it adds quite a lot of impurity to the signal as well. The assumption is that we are not so sensitive to these impurities.

I'm sure there's an appropriate quote about assumptions...

The same was said about MP3 too of course - that it only discards the suff that we can't hear and isn't relevant to the final sound.

Phil

There is supposedly more to MQA than just the folding.  “Bob Stuart (of Meridian) and Peter Craven’s audio encapsulation system not only folds hi-res content down to 24bit/48kHz source files, making them streaming ready, but also applies a filter to the original file as created by an ADC and to the DAC during playback, promising to remove the “time-smearing” effects of pre-ringing from both. In short, MQA provides: 1) hi-res audio origami; 2) ADC correction; 3) DAC correction.” - from an article on Digital Audio Review.  DAR says MQA sounds better: http://www.digitalaudioreview....h-mqa-sounds-better/

I am hopeful that Naim will offer MQA if it is indeed valuable for customers.

The second part - the filter - is what I have referred to as the second stage unfolding, which can only be done in the DAC. Whether that is something that can be achieved through firmware in some DACs, or otherwise require something in hardware. This will make a difference to whether the second stage - and thus full unfolding to get to the claimed original master quality - is even achievable by a firmware upgrade.

And any firmware upgrade of course would only be possible if the streamer has sufficient processing power, and that applies to even just the first stage unfolding. Also, ignoring the question of the true sound quality of even the fully unpacked file as a result of the lossy process, the only first stage process may be so compromised in sound quality that Naim might not want to put its Naim to it - but that is only conjecture.

There's been a lot of debate here and elsewhere about whether MQA improves the sound or not, given that it isn't entirely lossless, and adds what Simon describes as impurity to the signal.   Although many people have made up their own minds, collectively the jury still seems to be out.

For me, the most interesting thing about MQA is not the encoding/decoding but the claim that the recordings were remastered into MQA with the intention of the original artist/engineer in mind, and getting rid of compromises.  Think about all those horrible compressed recordings - like on compilation CDs.  I'm sure it is one reason LPs often sound better than CDs.   I think different quality of recordings makes more difference than the differences between redbook and hi-def and MQA.   If we hear an improvement when listening to an MQA recording, I suspect it will be more down to the remastering done than to the MQA encoding - and for that reason I think that listening to the MQA masters, even with the encoded impurity that Simon mentions, is sometimes still worthwhile.  

The issue is the apodizing filter. Does this sound better than a normal filter? Well, it measures better (but you can prove most anything with the right measurement)

ITS DEAD in the water. dac manufacturers are just including for sales advantage  . maybe ok for the limited portable player market. the biggest bonus today is good value cds . all  phil collns 9 cds for £11 

MartinCA posted:

   If we hear an improvement when listening to an MQA recording, I suspect it will be more down to the remastering done than to the MQA encoding - and for that reason I think that listening to the MQA masters, even with the encoded impurity that Simon mentions, is sometimes still worthwhile.  

That looks to me like an argument for good quality (re)mastering rather than a benefit of MQA. 

audio1946 posted:

.........

 all  phil collns 9 cds for £11 

ChrisSU posted:

MartinCA posted:

   If we hear an improvement when listening to an MQA recording, I suspect it will be more down to the remastering done than to the MQA encoding - and for that reason I think that listening to the MQA masters, even with the encoded impurity that Simon mentions, is sometimes still worthwhile.  

That looks to me like an argument for good quality (re)mastering rather than a benefit of MQA. 

It is.  Very much so.  (But if Tidal Masters gives us that, I'm grateful, and won't get hung up about the benefits or otherwise of MQA encoding).

jon honeyball posted:

The issue is the apodizing filter. Does this sound better than a normal filter? Well, it measures better (but you can prove most anything with the right measurement)

I must admit (in my opinion) this is a bit of marketing smoke and mirrors.. nearly all digital filters are so called ‘apodizing’ filters...  the only thing that is different with Merdian is they change the response behaviour around the source nyquist frequency prior to the filter knee, but at the expense of increased phase distortion and high frequency smearing.... so it depends what you are measuring... frequency characteristics very close to the Nyquist frequency will behave better with Merdian, but most other frequencies (which are not a  simple fundamental, ie real music) will behave worse.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

jon honeyball posted:

The issue is the apodizing filter. Does this sound better than a normal filter? Well, it measures better (but you can prove most anything with the right measurement)

I must admit (in my opinion) this is a bit of marketing smoke and mirrors.. nearly all digital filters are so called ‘apodizing’ filters...  the only thing that is different with Merdian is they change the response behaviour around the source nyquist frequency prior to the filter knee, but at the expense of increased phase distortion and high frequency smearing.... so it depends what you are measuring... frequency characteristics very close to the Nyquist frequency will behave better with Merdian, but most other frequencies (which are not a  simple fundamental, ie real music) will behave worse.

As I said, you can prove most anything with the right measurement. l-)

The problem here is that measurement techniques and capabilities are so crap.