Tidal Master/MQA

[TEK]

Today I started up Tidal for a usual evening listening session before dragging my self into bed.
And there it was...



First impression is that songs in master quality has a significant "softer" sound. Silk



Details here...

http://pitchfork.com/news/70703-tidal-becomes-first-service-to-offer-master-quality-streaming/

[twochannel]

It is indeed very good, limited selection as yet but no doubt that will change with time. According to my DAC we are getting 192K

[BobEllis]

So it sounds like the web interface converts MQA to hi res bitstream? Not that I'm interested in buying a DAC that accepts MQA but I suppose that the reason it's only available on the web is that other devices can't transcode to PCM.

I wonder if We will see any MQA capable DAC reviews anytime soon.

[wkhanna]

LINK to John Atkinson's MQA article in Stereophile

other interesting reading:

LINK to an interview with with Spencer Chrislu, MQA's director of content services

LINK MQA: Questions and Answers

[TEK]

It is indeed very good, limited selection as yet but no doubt that will change with time. According to my DAC we are getting 192K

Hmm, that was strange. Is that on all albumes?
The article states "96 kHz/24 bit"
My Marants AV8801 show 96khz (I think it states khz), getting input from my PC wich has the Marantz as a soundcard/output.
Is your 192K referring to 192khz or is it a different number?

[JonMarsh]

I'm not a fan. I'm a curmudgeon. For a very complete and reasoned (to me) take on this, see the Boys with all kinds of Schiit...

https://accusrc.com/uploads/images/img6722.jpg

Must be something about who you like as DAC vendors, because most of the vendors I'm into feel pretty much the same way.

[BobEllis]

Interesting reads, Bill.

Atkinson's assertion that the frequency domain content is the same as the original doesn't seem borne out by the spectral graph (figure 2). I see up to 5 dB of boost from 150 Hz on down and almost as much roll off in the top octave. A single example doesn't prove MQA has a euphonic house curve, but it sure makes me suspicious. Especially when so many reviewers say that the act of MQA encoding makes the file sound better, even with a standard DAC. Jon works response in his speaker designs to 1-2 dB and a 5 dB difference is "identical?" Are we going to be stuck with A house curve applied to recordings?

[wkhanna]

from Schiit's site:



WHY WE WON'T BE SUPPORTING MQA
05/26/2016

Schiit Clarifies Position on a Proposed Audio Format

May 26th, 2016, Valencia, CA. Today, Schiit Audio announced that they would not be supporting MQA, a proprietary audio format claiming “studio quality sound you can stream or download.” Schiit Audio feels that it is important to support its customers—and potential customers—by clarifying the company’s position on MQA, so that they may choose another DAC provider that backs the format, if they feel it is important to them.

“Although there are still many questions to be answered about MQA, we feel we know enough to make a decision,” said Jason Stoddard, Schiit’s Co-Founder.

Stoddard outlined the primary reasons:

1. We believe that supporting MQA means handing over the entire recording industry to an external standards organization. MQA wants:
Licensing fees from the recording studios
Licensing fees from the digital audio product manufacturers
Hardware or software access/insight into the DAC or player
Subscription fees from every listener via Tidal, and/or royalties from purchases of re-releases by the recording industry

2. Our experience with standards-driven industries is sub-par. Consider the surround market. Companies making surround processors now have to support a dizzying array of different standards, none of which is a market differentiator, and the exclusion of any single standard can mean commercial failure. The result is a market in which competition is stifled and consumers are confused.

3. We don’t believe MQA is a differentiator for high-end DACs if it is available on phones. Consider SRS, the Sound Retrieval System, as an instructive example. Before being acquired by DTS, it claimed to be on “over a billion devices.” However, there is little evidence any consumers considered SRS a must-have, differentiating technology.

4. We consider MQA to be yet another “format distraction” that makes high-end audio more confusing and insular. This is a reflection of our position in the market—nearly 1/3 of our revenue is from $99 and under products, and we have one of the youngest customer bases in the industry. It is our experience that when someone starts getting into great audio, they just want a product that will make their current music sound better, rather than one that requires additional investment in streaming subscriptions or new releases.

5. We feel that, even from a market perspective, many questions need to be answered. When will we see MQA on Tidal? At what cost? What percentage of the library will be MQA? How many releases should we expect to see from Warner in the next 12 months? What will be the cost? Again, a historic example may be cautionary. Consider Sony and DSD. DSD is a Sony technology that they promoted, and yet they released very few recordings in DSD.

Mike Moffat concurred, saying, “In addition to the market questions outlined by my partner,there are many performance questions (about MQA) that cause great concern. Actual decode d bit depth for both MQA and non-MQA DACs, claims of ‘lossless,’ the need for MQA to tweak their decode algorithm for a specific DAC (and their ability to perform this optimization on-schedule for a DAC manufacturer who might be, well, a little smaller than HTC,) the impact on the DAC manufacturer’s own proprietary technology and product development, and the impact on the DAC manufacturer’s own competitiveness.”

Moffat further opined that Schiit Audio considers the further development of in support of the primary 16/44.1 PCM format to be of the most value to its customers, citing extremely strong sales of Schiit Audio’s multibit DAC products, and the positive reception to its “DACs for the music you have, not the music you have to buy,” message.

Asked if there was any chance Schiit Audio might support MQA if it became the dominant format in the market, Moffat answered, “If it becomes the dominant audio technology, or even a very popular second-place format, we would have to evaluate it in the same way we evaluate other lossy compression standards, such as home theater surround formats, Bluetooth codecs, and MP3 variants.”

[Hdale85]

Hmm interesting stuff. I noticed the update to Tidal and had a listen and it sounded pretty good granted my headphones aren't really audiophile quality.

I'd have to agree with the guys from Schiit though it seems like another way to suck money from the looks of it.

[Ovation]

Since the only dedicated outboard DAC I own is a Schiit (entry level at that--does the job for me), I'm with them.