NDX2 Tidal Studio Masters?
Posted by: GT1983 on 17 December 2018
i believe the NDX2 supports all of the codecs and bit rates needed for Tidal Studio Masters, beyond 16but FLAC, does anyone know when it will be supported? Is there any reason why it could not?
The NDX2 does support PCM hi-res files up to 24 bit, 192kHz and DSD files (not sure of the max sampling rate supported).
However, MQA is very different. It is a proprietary rather than an open source format. Naim would need to purchase an appropriate license from MQA in order to incorporate MQA unfolding capability in any of their streaming or DAC products. I think this is something that Naim has stated it will not do unless or when MQA becomes more accepted industry wide. If you know anything about the history of MQA you will be aware that there is some very fierce (almost evangelical) opposition to the format industry wide, so there is a good chance that this will never happen. For what it is worth, both Linn and Chord are much more anti MQA than Naim appears to be.
But if you use a Roon Core, you can make the 1st unfold, to 24/96 of the MQA Masters from Tidal. These certainly sound better than the regular 16/44.1 versions.
Above that requires a DAC profile and MQA licences.
However, it is amazing how many recordings are 24/44.1, 24/48, 24/88.2 & 24/96 and these in MQA sound good.
Simon
Using TIDAL Desktop APP or Roon can do 1st unfold for you to get 24/88.1 or 24/96 content, many TIDAL Masters albums actually don't need to do 2nd render.
But if the album is 24/192 or 24/384, then at least you need a MQA Renderer DAC to get it all, you can hear the difference of some 24/384 album from 2L with or without 2nd render. but they are quite few, most of TIDAL Masters albums are 24/88.1 or 24/96.
I have DACs can or can not support MQA to play with Roon, for me it is not a big deal to listen TIDAL Masters on DAC that don't support MQA. I just got SH Naim DAC recently and connect to Roon with Allo Digione, it still sounds VERY VERY good.